The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[DragoFireheart]

Don't they know their rather good setup for mages in this world is the series' biggest asset?

I'm sure they do know, but thinking and politics won't sell to their furry/gay/tranny audience.

RIDE DA BULL

 

[Nael]

DA:I currently has an 87 "journalism" score with a 5.7 user score....

D:OS has an 87 "journalism" score with an 8.8 user score....

Endless Legend has an 81 "journalism" score with 8.3 user score....



Why do I even?

(My favorite rub in these reviews so far is the fucktard from the Escapist that gave DA:I a 5/5 is the same dicknose that gave DA2 a 5/5... You just have to laugh at shit like that or you will cry.)

 

[imweasel]

As far as the ambiance and general gameplay and story so far though... it is worlds better than da2. As such, any and all people here saying this is worse than da2, either have terrible TERRIBLE taste, or are flat out lying. I assume the latter is true, I assume most people don't have taste that bad to actually prefer da2 to this.

I've played DA:I, even pre-ordered it.

Although the combat is bad in DA2, it is not totally and utterly fucked up in contrast to the combat in DA:I. The combat wouldn't be as annoying in DA:I if BW fixed the camera and controls, but the combat would stay crap, because the abilites are designed for button mashing.

The exploration in DA:I sucks too, nothing worse than exploring a huge world only to grind and find mundane bullshit. They might as well have just named the game Dragon Age: Oblivion.

 

[Malpercio]

I didn't play it and don't intend to but this is what Luibl (4players.de) critizises - and I quote only the stuff I deem important:
- nonexistant evil path
- no direct way to increase character attributes, party covers all skills early on and skill checks are a joke - hence you can do everything everywhere without giving a single thought about your chars and their builds (this is a huge letdown imo)
... and you can respec in the middle of the game? Really?
- story and NPC actions/reactions contradict each other too often, NPCs feel lifeless (daily routines and interaction between them is much worse than in Skyrim and the Gothics)
- too few towns/settlements, not much live in them (he compared it to all the stories/NPC banter unfolding in front of your eyes when visiting a Skyrim settlement)
- tactical battles cumbersome because of the low maximum zoom level, but there are no tactics except for some combo abilities anyway (like: one char freezes an opponent, the other hits him for huge damage bonus)
- nearly no planning involved in fights, the most you can expect are fights where you have to kill some conjurer first before you can handle the summoned demon, nearly everything else is mindless button mashing and levelgrinding. (dunno what difficulty lvl he was playing at)
- party member deaths are not a problem at all as long as at least one party member survives, they just play dead, you know, after all this is an RPG *larpedylarp*
- strategic map nearly without meaningful decisions, just another huge grind
- the wilderness/rural areas are full of MMO fetch quests and retarded treasure hunts (press button to follow marker or sth like that), side quests in general are subpar (he didn't mention the stronghold and companion quests, maybe they are an exception?)
- lore is presented in a very unimmersive way through sterile codex menus (I remember that being a problem in DA:O too)
- game doesn't reward exploration because you just have to get near something interesting to get codex entries and quest triggers fired, after a while you just ignore the noise
- side content dialogues are often badly written (sometimes too silly or just uninteresting)

Also he writes that even the main story is nothing to write home about (disappointing intro with lots of missed opportunities and the rest is worn out standard fantasy fare) so in résumé for him this is a disappointing main story wrapped in an incompetently crafted open world.

Since I don't care that much about lore and great stories in open world games, and more about if the mechanics are satisfying this sounds beyond atricious to me.

Yeah, it's pretty much a good summary.

The oasis made me hope the other areas would be at least better... but nope, giant spaces filled whit fetch quest, almost no NPC interactions and yada yada.

 

[DragoFireheart]

They might as well have just named the game Dragon Age: Oblivion.

Don't you close gates in the game as well? That name is more appropriate than one might think.

 

[Lhynn]

My main complaint is what everyone complains about, the tactical camera on the pc needs serious work. More zoom is needed, and simple tweaks like being able to scroll around by the mouse touching the edge of the screen.

Yeah, but nothing can fix the utter banality of the combat, it is literally the worst thing ive ever experienced in an RPG.

As far as the ambiance and general gameplay and story so far though... it is worlds better than da2. As such, any and all people here saying this is worse than da2, either have terrible TERRIBLE taste, or are flat out lying. I assume the latter is true, I assume most people don't have taste that bad to actually prefer da2 to this. The lying part seems to have more to do with the general hate everything bioware that pervades here, people having not played a damn thing taking snippets of dialogue and asserting writing is terrible, or that writing is terrible because X writer is associated with it. And of course, like most insecure people looking to fit in, those who enjoy latching onto the opinions of others rather than making their own parrot the same view. The last time I saw an example of this was with an insecure little girl going along with whatever her gaggle of "friends" said. I recall reacting with internal disgust at the willful disregard for her OWN critical faculties and views to better try to blend in with the hive.

Bullshit, basic plot ideas in DA2 werent bad, you were a dude trying to get his family a new home, and how that dude grew in power and relevance, wish they had attempted this approach again. Writing in DA2 for the most part was bad, but it had potential. It went to the shitter in the last chapter tho, more especifically in the last few hours, there it reached epic levels of retardation. Dialogues were bad, but the lines and voice acting in inquisition have reached a whole new level of stupidity, it is impossible to defend this.
In DA:I you are the chosen one, youve got special powers in your hand because of reasons and people seem to be aware that you can close rifts because of "i guess its related, so lets risk our lives to try and see what happens". It is the laziest thing ive seen since the darkspawns.
The final boss fight in the tutorial is so fucking akward on a pc, even in the action camera, its unbeliable they let actually released the game in this state
Yes, i played the game a little farther than that before giving up in disgust.

To sum up:

Writing: laughable. They should kill themselves to save face. Not only do you have terrible taste for hinting at liking it, you are a bad person too. MAYBE it gets better 15 hours in, but i have no idea who would want to suffer for 15 hours to gamble it.
Combat: a fucking joke. On both modes its utter shit.
Exploration: has potential, but the camera issues make moving around a chore, and the constant fighting to get to places makes completely breaks the pace.
Character system: Its their worse one yet.
Itemization: Worse than D:OS.
Characterization: i wish i could hate them, im just indiference, like i cant give a shit about them, they are not believable and/or interesting in any way. One note stereotypes.
Graphixxx: some of it looks nice, characters look like shit for the most part tho.
Art style: uninspired, generic shit, you wont care about what youve got in front of you.
Questing: follow the arrow and kill the bunch of dudes, there is NOTHING more to it.

Do not buy this piece of shit, spend your hard earned shekels on a better game.

 

[Nael]

My main complaint is what everyone complains about, the tactical camera on the pc needs serious work. More zoom is needed, and simple tweaks like being able to scroll around by the mouse touching the edge of the screen.

Yeah, but nothing can fix the utter banality of the combat, it is literally the worst thing ive ever experienced in an RPG.

As far as the ambiance and general gameplay and story so far though... it is worlds better than da2. As such, any and all people here saying this is worse than da2, either have terrible TERRIBLE taste, or are flat out lying. I assume the latter is true, I assume most people don't have taste that bad to actually prefer da2 to this. The lying part seems to have more to do with the general hate everything bioware that pervades here, people having not played a damn thing taking snippets of dialogue and asserting writing is terrible, or that writing is terrible because X writer is associated with it. And of course, like most insecure people looking to fit in, those who enjoy latching onto the opinions of others rather than making their own parrot the same view. The last time I saw an example of this was with an insecure little girl going along with whatever her gaggle of "friends" said. I recall reacting with internal disgust at the willful disregard for her OWN critical faculties and views to better try to blend in with the hive.

Bullshit, basic plot ideas in DA2 werent bad, you were a dude trying to get his family a new home, and how that dude grew in power and relevance, wish they had attempted this approach again. Writing in DA2 for the most part was bad, but it had potential. It went to the shitter in the last chapter tho, more especifically in the last few hours, there it reached epic levels of retardation. Dialogues were bad, but the lines and voice acting in inquisition have reached a whole new level of stupidity, it is impossible to defend this.
In DA:I you are the chosen one, youve got special powers in your hand because of reasons and people seem to be aware that you can close rifts because of "i guess its related, so lets risk our lives to try and see what happens". It is the laziest thing ive seen since the darkspawns.
The final boss fight in the tutorial is so fucking akward on a pc, even in the action camera, its unbeliable they let actually released the game in this state
Yes, i played the game a little farther than that before giving up in disgust.

To sum up:

Writing: laughable. They should kill themselves to save face. Not only do you have terrible taste for hinting at liking it, you are a bad person too. MAYBE it gets better 15 hours in, but i have no idea who would want to suffer for 15 hours to gamble it.
Combat: a fucking joke. On both modes its utter shit.
Exploration: has potential, but the camera issues make moving around a chore, and the constant fighting to get to places makes completely breaks the pace.
Character system: Its their worse one yet.
Itemization: Worse than D:OS.
Characterization: i wish i could hate them, im just indiference, like i cant give a shit about them, they are not believable and/or interesting in any way. One note stereotypes.
Graphixxx: some of it looks nice, characters look like shit for the most part tho.
Art style: uninspired, generic shit, you wont care about what youve got in front of you.
Questing: follow the arrow and kill the bunch of dudes, there is NOTHING more to it.

Do not buy this piece of shit, spend your hard earned shekels on a better game.

Why do you people do this to yourselves? WHY?!?!



If you need help let us know. That is what we're here for.

 

[hell bovine]

Dear EA plant,
when said snippets sound like this:

"My father never understood. Living a lie... it festers like poison."
*kisses loving and understanding man*

..you can be fucking sure I don't need further analysis.
Call it "confidence in my critical skills", but I don't think that's even needed.

As opposed to the greatness that was Aerie giving birth and stuffing the kid into a backpack? And yet I don't recall hordes of fans complaining about delusional writing, maybe because it came together (bad pun intended) with an underaged blonde?
I don't doubt that Inqusition is mediocre at best (but that would be enough, I have low standards :D), but Bioware delivering 50 shades of questionable romances is nothing new. There is no decline or incline here, save for pixel porn.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Why do you people do this to yourselves? WHY?!?!



If you need help let us know. That is what we're here for.

Some must make the sacrifice so they can warn others.

We will not forget their sacrifice:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...play-a-shitty-game-fallout-3-completed.34530/

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...vion-the-adventures-of-snails-1-finito.34071/

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ect-2-bullshit-19-everyones-an-asshole.56921/

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/dragon-age-inquisition-no-refund-edition.95416/

 

[dryan]

- nonexistant evil path

This made me think: what would be the evil path in DA:O?
You let that little town fall to the undead? That just seems like prioritizing to me.
You let the templars invoke the right of annulment? The mage vs. templar conflict is far from clearcut good vs. evil.
You barter with the demon possessing the Arl's son? OK that seems like the first actually evil act you can do. But it doesn't influence the main quest's bottom line.
Bhelen vs. Harrowmont? You're forced to pick the least worst ruler for the dwarves, not really much you can do there. One seems corrupt, the other ruthless.
Elves vs. werewolves? Again, no clearcut good vs. evil situation.

Point being that DA:O also lacked an evil path. What you had at most was a "pragmatist with douchey or snippy dialogue options, but still a hero" path. What I would like to see as an evil path would be something like "Fuck it, I will join the Archdemon's side, sell my soul in exchange for power and fight all these factions that the good Warden would normally enlist".

 

[Shadenuat]

Character system: Its their worse one yet.

Why? Didn't they make it less class dependant as you can choose from multiple skill trees? Granted 8 active skills hurts but then some games have lot less but still can be fine.
Do races matter?
What about attributes or non-combat skills?

So far from what I gathered from RK's LP it's just your mediocre RPG troubled by usual sandbox problems of pick every item and not very interesting loot and other filler content.
Characters don't seem annoying except Varrick and his running joke about chest hair.
Plot is what Bio at least knows how to do, choseonesavetheworld, while DA2 was what they didn't know how to do + retarded casual design and awful world building.

What I want to know if they actually delivered content based on choices in DA:O or not, it seems they did.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Good news, guys! You can respec!

http://www.gamersheroes.com/game-guides/respec-dragon-age-inquisition/

Now you need to include the ability to respec in AoD. I was very sad when I entered the abyss with my sekrit knowledge only to find that my feet hurt and I had sand in my toga and I wanted to go home because of my stats.

 

[Lhynn]

Why? Didn't they make it less class dependant as you can choose from multiple skill trees? Granted 8 active skills hurts but then some games have lot less but still can be fine.

True, but its just a rehash of DA2 with less interesting options, at least as a mage, havent played the others.

Do races matter?

You get a minor bonus, humans a skill point, dwarves a resistance to elements (magic), quanris a resistance to phy damage, and elves a resistance against ranged attacks. Other than that, you can play a qunari mage and no one will question it.
Most interesting part of the dragon age universe and people do not give a fuck, GREAT.

What about attributes

You get them by picking skills, each skill has an attribute boost attached, also from gear, but

or non-combat skills?

So far from what I gathered from RK's LP it's just your mediocre RPG troubled by usual sandbox problems of pick every item and not very interesting loot and other filler content.

Had more fun playing kingdoms of amalur. Better story and a more interesting world.

Characters don't seem annoying except Varrick and his running joke about chest hair.

Varrick is still kind of likeable because hes not an asshole. The rest can go fuck themselves for all i care. I didnt unlock everyone tho, and im not planning on playing this game again, unless excidium himself comes down from rpg heaven, touches my forehead and calls it the promised game.

Plot is what Bio at least knows how to do, choseonesavetheworld, while DA2 was what they didn't know how to do + retarded casual design and awful world building.

Exactly, so go play an older bio game, they are all better. DA2 may be a worse game, but at least it was a cashgrab that tried something new.

What I want to know if they actually delivered content based on choices in DA:O or not, it seems they did.

Yup, they did. From what ive seen and heard a lot of interesting stuff happens in that front, only reason i gave the game a chance really, but it can go and fuck itself, im done.

 

[Grunker]

Character system: Its their worse one yet.

Why? Didn't they make it less class dependant as you can choose from multiple skill trees? Granted 8 active skills hurts but then some games have lot less but still can be fine.
Do races matter?
What about attributes or non-combat skills?

So far from what I gathered from RK's LP it's just your mediocre RPG troubled by usual sandbox problems of pick every item and not very interesting loot and other filler content.
Characters don't seem annoying except Varrick and his running joke about chest hair.
Plot is what Bio at least knows how to do, choseonesavetheworld, while DA2 was what they didn't know how to do + retarded casual design and awful world building.

What I want to know if they actually delivered content based on choices in DA:O or not, it seems they did.

Would brofist this post if not for the comment on DA2 and plot. Firstly, BioWare mostly does plot pretty badly (BG/BG2 main plot are an exception, KotOR's plot is gripping in the cheap-crime-novel way but not really beyond that), and secondly, DA2's sole redeeming factor was a decent plot in places.

Jumping large time spans in a small location that you familiarize yourself with in different ways throughout the jumps was pretty interesting both thematically and game-wise. Sad fact that EA interpreted DA2's failing as "people apparantly hated the interesting plot device but loved the god-awful everything else."

 

[Space Satan]

- nonexistant evil path

This made me think: what would be the evil path in DA:O?
You let that little town fall to the undead? That just seems like prioritizing to me.
You let the templars invoke the right of annulment? The mage vs. templar conflict is far from clearcut good vs. evil.
You barter with the demon possessing the Arl's son? OK that seems like the first actually evil act you can do. But it doesn't influence the main quest's bottom line.
Bhelen vs. Harrowmont? You're forced to pick the least worst ruler for the dwarves, not really much you can do there. One seems corrupt, the other ruthless.
Elves vs. werewolves? Again, no clearcut good vs. evil situation.

Point being that DA:O also lacked an evil path. What you had at most was a "pragmatist with douchey or snippy dialogue options, but still a hero" path. What I would like to see as an evil path would be something like "Fuck it, I will join the Archdemon's side, sell my soul in exchange for power and fight all these factions that the good Warden would normally enlist".

Please, don't start it again. This topic is a quagmire that will derail the tread and waste our precious time that could be well spent bashing and mocking biowhores.

 

[Volourn]

"Never seen anyone more deserving of a dumbfuck tag in my time on this site."

OH golly. Because he disagrees with you. What a fucknutz.

 

[dryan]

- nonexistant evil path

This made me think: what would be the evil path in DA:O?
You let that little town fall to the undead? That just seems like prioritizing to me.
You let the templars invoke the right of annulment? The mage vs. templar conflict is far from clearcut good vs. evil.
You barter with the demon possessing the Arl's son? OK that seems like the first actually evil act you can do. But it doesn't influence the main quest's bottom line.
Bhelen vs. Harrowmont? You're forced to pick the least worst ruler for the dwarves, not really much you can do there. One seems corrupt, the other ruthless.
Elves vs. werewolves? Again, no clearcut good vs. evil situation.

Point being that DA:O also lacked an evil path. What you had at most was a "pragmatist with douchey or snippy dialogue options, but still a hero" path. What I would like to see as an evil path would be something like "Fuck it, I will join the Archdemon's side, sell my soul in exchange for power and fight all these factions that the good Warden would normally enlist".

Please, don't start it again. This topic is a quagmire that will derail the tread and waste our precious time that could be well spent bashing and mocking biowhores.

Sorry, I didn't know this was already discussed.

 

[Sammael7]

Sammael7 you seem upset. Why are you bothered by others' peoples' opinions.

I get irritated when I see too many flawed/bad statements go unchallenged. It drives me to want to respond, even though here it may be like a man trying to sweep the sand from the desert.

 

[Sammael7]

As far as the ambiance and general gameplay and story so far though... it is worlds better than da2. As such, any and all people here saying this is worse than da2, either have terrible TERRIBLE taste, or are flat out lying. I assume the latter is true, I assume most people don't have taste that bad to actually prefer da2 to this.

I've played DA:I, even pre-ordered it.

Although the combat is bad in DA2, it is not totally and utterly fucked up in contrast to the combat in DA:I. The combat wouldn't be as annoying in DA:I if BW fixed the camera and controls, but the combat would stay crap, because the abilites are designed for button mashing.

The exploration in DA:I sucks too, nothing worse than exploring a huge world only to grind and find mundane bullshit. They might as well have just named the game Dragon Age: Oblivion.

Combat in da2 was far worse from my perspective as a mage player character because the power drop off from dragon age 1 and bg2 was like falling into the abyss. Every single attack the mage had hit like a wet noodle, the only way to do ANY damage was through cross class combos. Not combos that provided different effects, just damage multipliers. I HATED that system, it's ok to have combos in the game, but to have that be the ONLY way a mage can hit hard is FORCING me to play a very specific way. That was garbage, some of the spells had great concepts but were so ineffective in practice that the entire combat experience was a nightmare. DA:I is NOT that. Once...IF they fix the tactical camera mode, this will be leagues better than da2, better than origins? probably not, but I'll see how it plays out.

 

[Shadenuat]

DA2's sole redeeming factor was a decent plot in places.

Jumping large time spans in a small location that you familiarize yourself with in different ways throughout the jumps was pretty interesting both thematically and game-wise.

DA2 didn't have any redeeming factors except actress who played Merrill it didn't have any

A bunch of poorly textured boxes you ran in over and over again wasn't anything to familiarize with. Neither were characters who had stories and something to say but time didn't do much about it, the same companion quests could have been done with regular Bio "approval" system, and nothing would have changed.
The plot device you call interesting came out due to restrictions they suffered in development, it's not like they wanted or delivered an actual living, changing urban setting.

Combat in da2 was far worse from my perspective as a mage player character because the power drop off from dragon age 1 and bg2 was like falling into the abyss

TBH spellcasters in both of these games were too powerful, but BG was somewhat balanced out because of items and HLAs and multi classes, and it didn't have just one caster class. DA:O however, full magic, alchemy crafting, lyrium gulping cone of colding party stomped everything even on highest difficulty.

 

[Sammael7]

Bullshit, basic plot ideas in DA2 werent bad, you were a dude trying to get his family a new home, and how that dude grew in power and relevance, wish they had attempted this approach again. Writing in DA2 for the most part was bad, but it had potential. It went to the shitter in the last chapter tho, more especifically in the last few hours, there it reached epic levels of retardation. Dialogues were bad, but the lines and voice acting in inquisition have reached a whole new level of stupidity, it is impossible to defend this.
In DA:I you are the chosen one, youve got special powers in your hand because of reasons and people seem to be aware that you can close rifts because of "i guess its related, so lets risk our lives to try and see what happens". It is the laziest thing ive seen since the darkspawns.
The final boss fight in the tutorial is so fucking akward on a pc, even in the action camera, its unbeliable they let actually released the game in this state
Yes, i played the game a little farther than that before giving up in disgust.

I could not disagree with you more. DA 2 was a boring mess of a game when it came to plot. 90% of the entire game world was centered on a single city location, as such the style of the story arcs functioned more like days of our lives in kirkwall. There was no sprawling sense of adventure and exploration. Whether a game is "on the rails" or not, different locales give that better than a smaller story set mostly in a city. That's what bg2 had, athkatla was just one of many locations, you literally went all over the place and it gave you a sense of spanning a living world. DA:O had that, kotor I/II had that, Divinity:Original Sin had that, when I played that game I thought that with their limited budget and environments, they created a more varied and interesting and epic rpg than da2 PRECISELY because of the limited location and scope of that game.

Some of you will say, "not everything needs to be an epic to be good"

no sh*t, but that's kind of what I and many others LIKE. We know it's not an original premise, but the point is not that someone creates something TOTALLY unique and original after THOUSANDS of years of literature and thought from civilization (ridiculous expectation btw), the point is that it is done well.

The most telling moment of how much I despised the "story" in da2 was when I came across 2 grey wardens that said they had a special mission they had to get to. I wanted to jump OUT of da2 and go play THAT game.

 

[Grunker]

The plot device you call interesting came out due to restrictions they suffered in development

Some of the best stuff we have came out because of restrictions. Just look at all the old devs saying they only made the great games they did because they couldn't live out their sucky vision and had to deal with "restrictions" like turn-based. Or Lucas who says the original Star Wars was a product of his hands being tied, while the prequels were the product of him having creative freedom.

Anyway, DA2 sucks major dong, my point was its only mildly interesting thing was its plot device and scope.

 

[dryan]

The plot device you call interesting came out due to restrictions they suffered in development

Some of the best stuff we have came out because of restrictions. Just look at all the old devs saying they only made the great games they did because they couldn't live out their sucky vision and had to deal with "restrictions" like turn-based. Or Lucas who says the original Star Wars was a product of his hands being tied, while the prequels were the product of him having creative freedom.

Anyway, DA2 sucks major dong, my point was its only mildly interesting thing was its plot device and scope.

Thank you, I was about to post just that. The fact that Bioware failed at implementing it doesn't mean the concept was bad. It had much more promise than generic evil dragon with generic evil urukhai army want to fuck shit up because they're just assholes.

 

[hell bovine]

TBH spellcasters in both of these games were too powerful, but BG was somewhat balanced out because of items and HLAs and multi classes, and it didn't have just one caster class. DA:O however, full magic, alchemy crafting, lyrium gulping cone of colding party stomped everything even on highest difficulty.

BG2 was a lot of fun to play with an evil sorceress, but that arcane system was broken. When you have a game, where combat is divided into turns (or was it rounds?), and then one class gains the ability to do several actions in a round, where all the other classes get one, there is no balance. BG2 mages were much more overpowered than Origin's. You didn't even need a party, a single high level mage could anihilate everything.

 

[Shadenuat]

Thank you, I was about to post just that. The fact that Bioware failed at implementing it doesn't mean the concept was bad. It had much more promise than generic evil dragon with generic evil urukhai army want to fuck shit up because they're just assholes.

It doesn't matter how good or bad concept is, if it never gets executed well. I don't judge games by what they did not deliver or by what they actually are not.
DA:O had banal LoTR plot and evil dragon as final boss, it still was more interesting because of what characters did there, and the mini-plots inside local hubs with C&C and all that.

Grunker said

Some of the best stuff we have came out because of restrictions. Just look at all the old devs saying they only made the great games they did because they couldn't live out their sucky vision and had to deal with "restrictions" like turn-based

I hope this sentence is at least half irony.

BG2 mages were much more overpowered than Origin's. You didn't even need a party, a single high level mage could anihilate everything.

They were, I don't think DA:O would have been as easy to solo as BG. But it has more to do with AI and encounters. They were powerful but I think other classes were still useful, like for times when you meet an adamantine golem or something. In DA:O though everyone can be killed by anything right from level 1 with shit like Winter Grasp. Mages don't have a power curve they just kill stuff right away from beginning to the end.