Dragon Age Inquisition

[Spellbound]

I have been on EA forums. There are a few threads about this issue already and the one I'm following has 78 pages of complaints as of right now. A few new pages gets added every day.

Bioware tweeted that they were looking into a solution for this, but said dual cores were pretty much not supported at all, which is a damn farce since the problem clearly is not core-related as some people with dual cores are playing the game. It's been almost a week since release and Bioware's done jack all to fix this.

I'm not over reacting. If I pay 70USD for a product, I expect it to work. Minimum specs be damned, this thing should at least run slowly. This said, I did not expect to play the whole game on this rig, so I'm at most really annoyed by this situation. However, a game should at least work even if on low specs. This one doesn't, which is what I think is the issue you're all failing to see.

Also booo India, shame on you.

 

[AIagremm]

The game seems sort of disappointing. Too bad, my flatmate loves it.

 

[Razosh]

Alright so I just finished the main story after playing the game for over 56 hours in 4 days. And here are my thoughts summarized without spoilers. I have a Intel Dual Core i5 CPU and a Nvidia Geforce 560 graphics card and the game runs fine on high settings. (I just had to turn of SSA as it swallows an f-load of power and doesn't really add much.)

The game works absolutely fine there tends to be some random lag spikes here and there and I've yet to find out the source as it appears at random points regardless of the quantity of graphical demands. All in all that is very rare and only once has it affected me in combat so it's not too bothersome. The game also randomly shuts down about every 28th hour but as the game auto saves every two minutes so I'd hardly say it's a major problem.

So lets talk about the bad things. You're allowed to tell your companions to walk to a set location but only when the camera is zoomed out and you can't move a character manually while zoomed out so as a result you end up having to zoom in and out repeatedly this all seem like it could have been avoided. The AI on top of things seems really useless, a tank will unless you manually tell it have the main focus of dealing damage and it's not changeable to holding agro on everyone which seems like something tanks should be able to do. I many times would be disappointed in origins because I constantly needed to babysit the AI and Bioware has done absolutely nothing to improve the AI.

Now on to the good things. The game reminds a lot of Skyrim on it's scale, the game is huge and it does pretty much everything so much better than Skyrim. For one the character creation screen is absolutely awesome. The world is also tremendously huge and whether it's bigger or smaller than Skyrim doesn't really matter as it has much more content than Skyrim has. There are so many optional quests to do I couldn't even manage to complete them all and if you want to complete the ones just in the starting zone you'll have work to do for about 20 hours or so.

To the main story, the main story in this game plays a very grand part and your choices always matters and your actions do have consequences which adds a big amount of re-playability to the game. But the most interesting part about the game however is your companions and getting to know them and their interaction is just amazing.

All in all this is one of the best games of the year and if you're a fan of Origins or RPG games in general there is no reason for you not to buy this game. It's absolutely marvelous. I myself just finished my first playthrough on casual and have just restarted the game on nightmare.

 

[Gilles]

My friend let my DL and try it on his account. Between what I tried, and what he's relayed to me...

Pros: Looks amazing. Huge awesome world. Smooth fun combat. Your character talks. Good character creation. You can walk and shoot. Lots of things were done right.

Cons: Melee aoe just owns your own team. Mages do shitty damage and are for utility. NO HEALS. THIS IS SO DUMB. So they replace heals with barrier and that block stuff for melee. So essentially they just renamed heals, and gave it to everyone. Still pissed about this.

Oh and the AI as Razosh said. DA:O had amazing programmable AI. It was super well made and really fun to use. Now it's awful. Seriously... Bioware, how do you take something you did so well, then fuck it up so bad. Oh, I know, consoles. Damn console games ruining bioware.

Oh and controls are terribly designed. Not that you cant't get used to it, but the tactical camera is super awful to use, and when you open your map everything inverts. Who the hell played the game and was like... yeah that felt right. That's exactly how I would expect the controls to be.

Lots of things were done wrong.

Still, good game. Bioware is so good at taking a good game and improving on the areas that were lacking, but fucking up a lot of what made the game good. They basically just make a whole different kind of game with every sequel. DA:O was super tactical and definitely a computer game. DA:2 was shite compared. It was just a console hack'n slash. This seems like a balance of both, but still doesn't seem as good as the first one. Mass Effect 1 was an awesome space rpg. Then ME 2 made combat and skills a lot better, but just gutted all of the awesome gear and rpg elements (other than talking), and ME 3 took a shit all over the story and was generally a let down in the single player, but they added a really fun multiplayer.

Rant over.

Can't wait to play through it. Here's hoping there's a sale before Christmas at some point. Maybe Black Friday?!

 

[Razosh]

A mages damage depends a lot on the spec you choose, my dalish mage I ended up giving the winter spec and it did as you said deal shity damage, it seemed to be a very cc based tree. But if you play with the electricity spec I think you'll find that it has some great abilities. As for heals I definitely liked the Origins system better and I think it's sad they changed it.

 

[A Void]

Rant over.

Can't wait to play through it. Here's hoping there's a sale before Christmas at some point. Maybe Black Friday?!

There is more, interface looks nothing compared to Dragon Age Origins. The voiced dialogue is also not my preferred thing.

I hope they will fix all of those problems before Christmas and release a patch/update.

 

[Razosh]

There is more, interface looks nothing compared to Dragon Age Origins. The voiced dialogue is also not my preferred thing.

I hope they will fix all of those problems before Christmas and release a patch/update.

What's wrong with the dialogue?

 

[AIagremm]

Sort of ruins the immersion.

 

[Razosh]

That wasn't really any more specific. What's wrong are the voice actors bad, do you not like the way it works? The only problem I have with the dialogue is that companions talk with each other at random sets of time and not at certain points of the map so some are done in combat or when an automated cinematic is about to start.

 

[A Void]

That wasn't really any more specific. What's wrong are the voice actors bad, do you not like the way it works? The only problem I have with the dialogue is that companions talk with each other at random sets of time and not at certain points of the map so some are done in combat or when an automated cinematic is about to start.

I liked when your character talked without voice, so you could imagine your own voice instead. I don't really like the dialogue wheel, I think more choices were better in Origins.

 

[AIagremm]

Yea, again, it destroys the immersion. That's the advantage of voiceless and silent protagonists. When you play Half-Life, you're not playing Gordon Freeman, you ARE Gordon Freeman.

 

[Razosh]

I can agree with you and I would definitely have preferred that system if we had only ever played as the hero of Ferelden/The Warden. But as the game does follow different protagonist that we wouldn't see the Inquisitor or Hawke in future games.

Spoiler: What characters we wont see in Inquisition.

Spoiler

I am a little disappointed that we didn't get to see any DA2 companions aside from Varric. No doubt they'll have a Kirkwall DLC where we'll meet them all.

 

[Gilles]

Oh man, I disagree with you guys so hard. I love having a voice for my character. I find it less immersive when my character is a mute. Or maybe I just find it odd when my character never speaks, not so much to do with immersion, just preference.

 

[Spellbound]

Oh man, I disagree with you guys so hard. I love having a voice for my character. I find it less immersive when my character is a mute. Or maybe I just find it odd when my character never speaks, not so much to do with immersion, just preference.

Same. I'd much rather have a voiced character over a silent protagonist.

 

[Razosh]

Fight for your values and fight for your friends! Fight through this blight find the light at the end! Through the age of the dragon through chaos and hate!

Fudge, it's such a good song.

Gameplay footage

 

[Deathcom3s]

Figured I would post some of my impressions of the game here, after being able to spend a bit more time with it now that I'm done with my final exams.

I wouldn't exactly say that DA:I is better than Origins.

Yes, I am loving my time spent with DA:I. I haven't been able to play it much due to final exams and whatnot (yes, yes, trying to be responsible and all that jazz). However, the time that I have spent with it has been very enjoyable.

There are many aspects where DA:I does better than DA:O, and there are many things that DA:O does better than DA:I.

Essentially, this is what DA:I has going for it ahead of DA:O.
Better graphics - Yes, this one is a no-brainer. DA:O already looked a bit dated when it was released in '09. DA:I looks and feels like a top-notch game graphically.

Voice-acted Protagonist - DA:I took the DA2/Mass Effect route and added complete voice-acting for your Protagonist.

Open World - This one is pretty self-explanatory. DA:I's explorable regions are massive, and a joy to explore.

However, all of that said, I felt that DA:O did much better as far as combat is concerned. The tactical view in DA:O is miles ahead of DA:I. It's sad that they fell so far in this department, but it's true.

The combat in DA:O was better overall. It required more skill and planning. I must say, removing heals/potions doesn't work for DA:I. I wanted it to work, I really did, and I was hopeful that they could make it work, but it simply does not. Either the fights are too easy, or they're too hard and you find that all of your companions have died due to horrible AI, and you're out of potions, and you're just running around cheesing/glitching enemies in order to win. Or you just run away.

(I have nothing against hard fights, and I'm happy when I run into encounters that challenge me. But in this case, I found myself fighting the game mechanics rather than the enemies/encounters themselves).

All said and done, I feel that DA:O is the more solid game all-around. Now, that being said, do I think DA:I is terrible? Far from it. It's a great deal of fun, and I can see myself returning to it and replaying it for years to come. But, I still feel that DA:O is the better game.

 

[A Void]

Figured I would post some of my impressions of the game here, after being able to spend a bit more time with it now that I'm done with my final exams.

I wouldn't exactly say that DA:I is better than Origins.

Yes, I am loving my time spent with DA:I. I haven't been able to play it much due to final exams and whatnot (yes, yes, trying to be responsible and all that jazz). However, the time that I have spent with it has been very enjoyable.

There are many aspects where DA:I does better than DA:O, and there are many things that DA:O does better than DA:I.

Essentially, this is what DA:I has going for it ahead of DA:O.
Better graphics - Yes, this one is a no-brainer. DA:O already looked a bit dated when it was released in '09. DA:I looks and feels like a top-notch game graphically.

Voice-acted Protagonist - DA:I took the DA2/Mass Effect route and added complete voice-acting for your Protagonist.

Open World - This one is pretty self-explanatory. DA:I's explorable regions are massive, and a joy to explore.

However, all of that said, I felt that DA:O did much better as far as combat is concerned. The tactical view in DA:O is miles ahead of DA:I. It's sad that they fell so far in this department, but it's true.

The combat in DA:O was better overall. It required more skill and planning. I must say, removing heals/potions doesn't work for DA:I. I wanted it to work, I really did, and I was hopeful that they could make it work, but it simply does not. Either the fights are too easy, or they're too hard and you find that all of your companions have died due to horrible AI, and you're out of potions, and you're just running around cheesing/glitching enemies in order to win. Or you just run away.

(I have nothing against hard fights, and I'm happy when I run into encounters that challenge me. But in this case, I found myself fighting the game mechanics rather than the enemies/encounters themselves).

All said and done, I feel that DA:O is the more solid game all-around. Now, that being said, do I think DA:I is terrible? Far from it. It's a great deal of fun, and I can see myself returning to it and replaying it for years to come. But, I still feel that DA:O is the better game.

Don't worry they will patch it. Healing magic could be added back via modding, I hope we - modders will find out how to mod the game just as we did with Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age 2. Dragon Age 2 did not even have a tool-set and it has more than 60 mods.

I would love to create a better interface GUI for DA I..

 

[Dr Super Good]

If the game was built to require modern instruction sets then it will not work on older dual and quad core processors. This would typically be the case for a game designed for the Xbox One or PS4 since both use very recent AMD processors. Further more if you are using an older intel processor (like Core2) then chances are that since it was designed to target modern AMD processors it might have major compatibility problems. That would explain fatal errors and things.

Was it really designed for consoles and ported to the PC? The fact people say it performs so well on quad cores generally points to that (as the consoles use quad cores). PC targeting games are generally designed to be scalable from anywhere between dual core (low end systems) and hex core (extreme systems).

There is also a chance that the PC port of the game has some major synchronization issues due to the differences between PC and Console synchronization behaviour. As long as the execution order is correct it will work however in the case of non-quad cores and systems with unusual schedules (background programs etc) then it could cause a fatal synchronization error to occur. This is a common sort of error with synchronization as a whole and has affected many games (especially older ones which never considered 2 execution units to be possible).

 

[Razosh]

If the game was built to require modern instruction sets then it will not work on older dual and quad core processors. This would typically be the case for a game designed for the Xbox One or PS4 since both use very recent AMD processors. Further more if you are using an older intel processor (like Core2) then chances are that since it was designed to target modern AMD processors it might have major compatibility problems. That would explain fatal errors and things.

I'm running with a Dual Core i5 processor and I can play perfectly on high graphics quality. I'm not seeing a drop in FPS until I set it to Ultra. But then again I run on 30 FPS and not 60.

Was it really designed for consoles and ported to the PC? The fact people say it performs so well on quad cores generally points to that (as the consoles use quad cores). PC targeting games are generally designed to be scalable from anywhere between dual core (low end systems) and hex core (extreme systems).

The gameplay and especially the tactical camera was designed for consoles that much is undeniable. Graphics however as far as I've heard doesn't seem to be having any trouble. Me and 3 of my friends use dual cores of varying quality and none has to run on lower than medium-high hybrid. My suggestion is turn of Multisample Antialising as it doesn't improve much and requires a lot of power from your GPU.

 

[Deathcom3s]

Dropping down to SSAO from HBAO will also really improve performance, in addition to reducing MSAA quality.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I'm running with a Dual Core i5 processor and I can play perfectly on high graphics quality. I'm not seeing a drop in FPS until I set it to Ultra. But then again I run on 30 FPS and not 60.

That would be expected seeing how an i5 processor is part of Intel's most recent processor ranges.

Me and 3 of my friends use dual cores of varying quality and none has to run on lower than medium-high hybrid.

As one would expect since the number of cores should make little difference to the stability of properly written software, only the performance of it should change with optimum being the number of available execution units matching the number of heavy threads. I was posting more for the people who said it was crashing/unstable on dual core processors.

 

[Spellbound]

So DA:I runs flawlessly on my new computer (aside from a weird freeze it had that one time when I was talking to Josephine which required me to terminate the game via Task manager).

I must say... I'm not quite enjoying the game. The combat feels strange. It's like it doesn't quite know what it wants to be, and hangs in this weird limbo between Origins' and DA2's combat. I mean, say what you want about DA2, its combat was great (putting aside the endless waves of enemies). I think the assessment of it being either too easy or too hard is true because of the abysmal AI, but because the enemies tend to become a bit bullet-spongey on hard, I'm tempted to just lower the difficulty to see if they die quicker on normal. Also I don't want to have to deal with that farce of a tactical camera.

DA:I suffers from significant consolitis imo, and it's not just the tactical camera. The UI is blatant in that regard, with the larger graphical elements (like, they couldn't have shrunk the text an icons to display more than four/five items at a time? >_> ) and the crafting 'wheel'. I find myself generally avoiding delving too far into my inventory or even bothering with crafting because the UI is just so bad at conveying information effectively. This could be a case of me not paying attention to details, but the UI is setup in a way that makes navigation annoying. I'm quite disappointed with what I am presented with.

So far, not entirely convinced by this game. Which is ironic because I had wanted to play it SO BADLY. Instead I've been spending time modding my Skyrim and have already sunk several hours into it... and speaking of modding, DA:I's unfriendliness to modding makes it even less interesting. Hopefully Bioware will release modding tools soon because this game could use a mod or ten.

PS: does the movement responsiveness in that game feels a bit sluggish to anybody? Whenever I'm moving around I get the feeling Bioware was tempted to turn DA:I into some sort of... ersatz spectacle fighter and changed their minds midway. It's a strange sensation. (It could also be me having trouble adjusting to the fact that you can JUMP in a dragon age game, so take that last point with a grain of salt)

 

[A Void]

So DA:I runs flawlessly on my new computer (aside from a weird freeze it had that one time when I was talking to Josephine which required me to terminate the game via Task manager).

I must say... I'm not quite enjoying the game. The combat feels strange. It's like it doesn't quite know what it wants to be, and hangs in this weird limbo between Origins' and DA2's combat. I mean, say what you want about DA2, its combat was great (putting aside the endless waves of enemies). I think the assessment of it being either too easy or too hard is true because of the abysmal AI, but because the enemies tend to become a bit bullet-spongey on hard, I'm tempted to just lower the difficulty to see if they die quicker on normal. Also I don't want to have to deal with that farce of a tactical camera.

DA:I suffers from significant consolitis imo, and it's not just the tactical camera. The UI is blatant in that regard, with the larger graphical elements (like, they couldn't have shrunk the text an icons to display more than four/five items at a time? >_> ) and the crafting 'wheel'. I find myself generally avoiding delving too far into my inventory or even bothering with crafting because the UI is just so bad at conveying information effectively. This could be a case of me not paying attention to details, but the UI is setup in a way that makes navigation annoying. I'm quite disappointed with what I am presented with.

So far, not entirely convinced by this game. Which is ironic because I had wanted to play it SO BADLY. Instead I've been spending time modding my Skyrim and have already sunk several hours into it... and speaking of modding, DA:I's unfriendliness to modding makes it even less interesting. Hopefully Bioware will release modding tools soon because this game could use a mod or ten.

PS: does the movement responsiveness in that game feels a bit sluggish to anybody? Whenever I'm moving around I get the feeling Bioware was tempted to turn DA:I into some sort of... ersatz spectacle fighter and changed their minds midway. It's a strange sensation. (It could also be me having trouble adjusting to the fact that you can JUMP in a dragon age game, so take that last point with a grain of salt)

I pray that they release a modding tool. The PC UI is truly terrible. A Question: Can you pause the combat in Inquisition? Just like in the Origins, DA2?

 

[Razosh]

Yes you can though it's bound to Ctrl and not space.

 

[Spellbound]

This took some getting used to. I was always hitting space to pause the game but that would just make my character jump. Pausing the game helps in combat, especially when you have a damn tree in the way and all you can see are leaves.

 

[A Void]

This took some getting used to. I was always hitting space to pause the game but that would just make my character jump. Pausing the game helps in combat, especially when you have a damn tree in the way and all you can see are leaves.

You can always change the key to space-bar. Put jump action as alt or ctrl. Since pause action is more useful and vital.

 

[Spellbound]

You can always change the key to space-bar. Put jump action as alt or ctrl. Since pause action is more useful and vital.

No can do. I already have muscle memory of pressing space to jump from so many other games, like holding shift to sprint/run. I play more games with a jump than with a pause feature, so imo i'll just have to make myself used to pausing with ctrl instead of space. I'm already starting to get the hang of it tbh.

I'm starting to get used to the fighting a bit more, but is it me, or are you excessively squishy in that game? Even my tanks are dying like crazy if they don't have a bajillion amount of armor/guard or whatever the hell the metal things on their health bar are. It makes fighting extremely annoying tbh. Im not sure I like it, especially since the health pots are restricted to 8. I know it's part of the new mechanic of 'play carefully', but I just find it annoying.

 

[Razosh]

You should have gear that is up to date with your level, one OP as shit level 11 staff you get from an operation after finding most of the landmarks in the Hinterlands. There are many gear pieces hidden throughout the game so exploring always helps. I've completed the game on Nightmare and as long as your gear is up to date you wont have a problem. You especially need a good shield for you tank as that makes all the difference.

 

[Spellbound]

Well that's kind of my point. Unless my tank has a shield, he/she is useless. I'm just not fond of the glass cannon nature of the combat. Enemies being bullet-spongey and dishing out a ton of damage is also pretty bull. If melee enemies are going to have a lot of health, they shouldn't be able to off you in 3-4 hits. At least ranged units are easy to kill... dat damage doe @_@

Got the staff btw. Didn't seem to help much against the [spoilers]Red Templar[/spoilers] even though its almost twice as powerful as my previous staff, which makes me wonder how the hell do you do this with a weaker staff? I mean, sure, it's still winnable, but, eh, like said, annoying.

I'm not sure why I can't get into the combat for this game. I've been toying around with the tactical camaera a bit and it seems in this mode the way combat works is a bit more like origins, not requiring you to hold on to the attack button to attack stuff. Will have to play with it some more. Seems to be the superior way to play tbh.

 

[A Void]

Well that's kind of my point. Unless my tank has a shield, he/she is useless. I'm just not fond of the glass cannon nature of the combat. Enemies being bullet-spongey and dishing out a ton of damage is also pretty bull. If melee enemies are going to have a lot of health, they shouldn't be able to off you in 3-4 hits. At least ranged units are easy to kill... dat damage doe @_@

Got the staff btw. Didn't seem to help much against the [spoilers]Red Templar[/spoilers] even though its almost twice as powerful as my previous staff, which makes me wonder how the hell do you do this with a weaker staff? I mean, sure, it's still winnable, but, eh, like said, annoying.

I'm not sure why I can't get into the combat for this game. I've been toying around with the tactical camaera a bit and it seems in this mode the way combat works is a bit more like origins, not requiring you to hold on to the attack button to attack stuff. Will have to play with it some more. Seems to be the superior way to play tbh.

The combat is much more realistic in DA Inquisition. The weapon damage and vulnerability is also been improved. Thus it is gonna be harder if you are used to Origins. A Question: How big are the areas? Zones?

 

[Razosh]

@Spellbound: To be honest the combat for PC is pretty bad mechanically. From a difficulty stand point I don't have much complaint other than that you need to have an f-load of manual control over melee DPS's to make them usefull as every second enemy has AOE attacks.

@A Void: Many people use the Hinterlands as an example I think that's a very bad idea as it's the games biggest zone. On average I would say the zones are a little more than half that size. They are pretty big though so there's no shortage of content. You will probably spend about 5-10 hours in each zone depending on difficulty and how much you want to complete.

 

[A Void]

@Spellbound: To be honest the combat for PC is pretty bad mechanically. From a difficulty stand point I don't have much complaint other than that you need to have an f-load of manual control over melee DPS's to make them usefull as every second enemy has AOE attacks.

@A Void: Many people use the Hinterlands as an example I think that's a very bad idea as it's the games biggest zone. On average I would say the zones are a little more than half that size. They are pretty big though so there's no shortage of content. You will probably spend about 5-10 hours in each zone depending on difficulty and how much you want to complete.

Is there any shortcut to the game end? I mean do you really have to go trough all (important) quests, can you not skip to the final quest in the most fastest way? I heard that this was possible in Origins & Da II.

 

[Razosh]

Not completely skip everything but you can shorten the game significantly, I managed to complete the game in less than 17 hours in a first attempt at a speed run while doing all the companion interaction and side quests. My general tip is go for rifts and completely avoid side quests unless you know they reward a great amount of experience or good gear. Rifts reward both power and experience they are therefor to be preferred. If you play on casual you can even close level 8 rifts at level 4 as I did which rewards a huge amount of XP percentage.

 

[Deathcom3s]

I'm not sure why you would ever want to skip straight to the end in this game as quickly as possible. You paid good money for the game, why miss out on the majority of what they've given you?

 

[Razosh]

Because I've already experienced it twice. I will probably experience it again too just not now.

 

[A Void]

I'm not sure why you would ever want to skip straight to the end in this game as quickly as possible. You paid good money for the game, why miss out on the majority of what they've given you?

Those who played the game more than twice. They can play like they want to, it's up to the player.

Edit: Ok, I am finally downloading it. It was ordered on Christmas. I will make a short review once I have finished at-least four quests.

 

[Deathcom3s]

Those who played the game more than twice. They can play like they want to, it's up to the player.

Edit: Ok, I am finally downloading it. It was ordered on Christmas. I will make a short review once I have finished at-least four quests.

Ah, I thought you meant as a first-time playthrough. If it's a second, third or even fourth playthrough, more power to you. I just wouldn't want to rush my first playthrough like that.

 

[A Void]

Ok things were unexpected, I got a massive lag in the main menu. The lag was very small in character creation menu. Then there were some random no-error crashes to desktop. The cut-scenes were very laggy. I don't understand this, the frame-drop is just terrible!

I do meet all the requirements. Any Help?

 

[Deathcom3s]

Ok things were unexpected, I got a massive lag in the main menu. The lag was very small in character creation menu. Then there were some random no-error crashes to desktop. The cut-scenes were very laggy. I don't understand this, the frame-drop is just terrible!

I do meet all the requirements. Any Help?

Has anything changed recently? New patches, drivers of some sort?

 

[A Void]

Has anything changed recently? New patches, drivers of some sort?

I figured it out, I have a dual core. The minimum requirement is quad core. The game is unstable without meeting the requirements, I tried bypassing the "requirement" but it just did not work. Looks like I will be getting a new core.

 

[Deathcom3s]

Awesome news guys: Apparently, modding in Dragon Age: Inquisition is a go!

http://www.pcgamer.com/dragon-age-inquisition-mods-are-actually-a-thing/

 

[Spellbound]

It's been a thing for a little while now but progress is very slow. After my first playthrough I think I will wait for there to be some mods that improve gameplay (it's taking me forever to finish that game, there is SO MUCH STUFF TO DO).

One thing I'd like is to be able to pick up herb/ores without having to stop. No animation. Just snatch em like in Skyrim and voila. Also faster horses, and horses for your party members so you don't miss out on party interaction. Also an interface overhaul. You get the point. Annoyance-remover mod.

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I've been playing with some other classes a bit, and it seems as though the warrior has had all the impact given to it. Mage and Rogues don't feel powerful, but warriors have this thing where you can feel their attacks connect. Playing as the Knight Enchanter does give some of this impact back, but it doesn't quite feel the same.

I don't really mean this as a bad thing, don't get me wrong. I think this can be easily changed by slightly lowering attack animation and increase damage output. But that's just a hypothesis.

I do feel like the game is more enjoyable now that my characters are stronger. Early game was just a pain to do anything.

 

[Spellbound]

Hope you don't mind the double-post, it's been a while.

Finished my first playthrough a few days ago, and holy crap, that ending. I wanna do another playthrough and this time side with the Templars, and make a Knight Enchanter instead of a Rift Mage, but... going through that MMO grind all over again is just putting me off. I actually made a list of stuff I feel I would need to make the game playable again, but from the look of things modding is not really going to happen any time soon. Any significant mod, anyway. Retextures are not that important.

Can we talk about that, by the way? Modding has been a significant part of both Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2, and suddenly DA:I doesn't support that anymore? I blame multiplayer. Mass Effect 3 did it right, but from the look of things, DA:I's multiplayer seems to be pointless (I haven't played it yet bcz i have terrible internet). You can tell the multiplayer changed the game with that new potion mechanic, and so it seems like the presence of multiplayer made Bioware unwilling to make mod tools because they didn't want modding to interfere with the MP? Idk, someone with technical knowledge of that should probably comment on this. I'm just peeved that the game is kind of a let down on that end.

 

[Gilles]

So my impressions:

Mutiplayer: Awful.

Over half of the characters you can get are ugly. HOW? How do you mess that up? They even gave them cool looking character cards, but most of them look nothing like their cards. So there's that huge blunder. I just can't fathom who made these characters and was like, "yeah I want to play this stupid looking hat lady (necromancer)."

Getting characters and gear is slow. Really slow. Most of what you get is garbage that you will salvage into one random ingredient to craft armor sets. There are two different sets for most of the characters, while some have only one. WHY? Why isn't there just regular armor to collect and put on your people? Why use class specific sets and only have 2 tiers (there are color variations). Weapons are decent, but you will suck until you get lucky and get a high level weapon. Once you get that weapon, even your lvl 1 character will be able to put out awesome damage.

There are three levels and three types of enemies. This is ok in ME3 because of the type of game it is. This is not ok in DA. It gets reallllly repetitive really fast.

Rolling. Unless you host, rolling is going to be brutal. You will lag back to where you started your roll often.

Anyhow, the multiplayer is a huge let down. When are they just going to make the whole game multiplayer? Please stop adding mutiplayer to your games that are primed to be co-op. Go play Divinity: Original Sin and learn.

Single player:

I'm enjoying the game. It's definitely head and shoulders better than 2 imo. Not as good as 1, but still good.

I like the combat for the most part, but... I hate barrier. It's the worst. Why they thought it was better than healing is beyond me. So they don't want you to have to take a healer. Fair enough. So we made barrier, and you need it.... ummmm... you see the irony, right? Barrier also makes health useless. There's no reason to improve a characters health since you want them barriered 24/7.

Tactics are awful. They had awesome tactics in previous games, so how they fucked this up is beyond me. And they fucked it up good. You have no control on when or how they use skills. Telling them who to target is awful. SO SO AWFUL. You have to turn off a lot of abilities because they are too retarded to use them well, so you have to do it yourself.

I love the quest and overall map design. The war room is a great idea, the quest system is very good. The collectables are well done. Basically outside of some combat issues (mostly no heals) and the awful tactics, this is a great game. Bioware has a habit of making huge improvements on their games (ME 1 - 2) but they wind up gutting a lot of what made the older games good (ME 1-2).

Rant over.

 

[Spellbound]

To me it looks like the reason there are no healers is because of that potion mechanic, limiting the number you can carry so that you don't just pop a heal whenever. This sounds like a mechanic you would have in a multiplayer game, because let's be honest, it does not work in SP unless you're in a dungeon or something. And yeah, as you said, health is pointless because you want your party to have barriers/guard 24/7, or else they just die in 3 hits.

I wouldn't say it's a bad thing, but I can't say if it's good either. I guess it's just different that what we're used to? It just feels like a needless change. DA: I feels like it really got shafted with the introduction of multiplayer. I could understand it for ME3, but DA:I plays differently, and the entire game feels like it suffered for it because mechanics had to change.

I still maintain modding took a hit because of multiplayer. And the AI probably got dumbed down because console games need to be actiony and gamers can't be bother to setup conditions. I mean, who needs specific conditions to when Dorian casts Horrify? Let's just let him create panic when I'm trying to get my Fire Mine to detonate, and hitting only 1 person with 1800% weapon damage instead of 4 >_>

How do you fuck up a PC port? Wasn't the game MADE on a PC???

PS: WHY ONLY 8 SKILL SLOTS????? IF YOU WANT TO LIMIT YOURSELF WITH A CONTROLLER, THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM. I HAVE AN ENTIRE KEYBOARD I CAN USE!

 

[Gilles]

I agree that console is killing Bioware. They keep changing their games to be more in line with console rpgs.

I completely disagree with multiplayer taking anything away from the game though. I haven't looked it up, but I assume, like ME 3, the mutiplayer was made by a separate division completely. Bioware Montreal made the ME 3 mutiplayer and they didn't waste a single minute on the single player experience (the main office is in Edmonton).

 

[Spellbound]

Well it wasn't so much development time I'm talking about, but the fact that to make the gameplay work online, some mechanics had to change, like getting rid of healing for that potion mechanic. I see no reason for it in a SP game. That's what it looks like, anyway. I mean, with the success of ME3's multiplayer, it would make sense that DA:I's development happened with MP in mind from the get-go.

 

[Gilles]

That doesn't make sense to me. You could have included healing in multiplayer.

 

[Deathcom3s]

I doubt it was because of multiplayer. It was probably due to some grand overriding design idea they had ala Dark Souls, and it just doesn't work for this game. Who knows, really, but I really don't like it. I really wanted the potions system to work, but in it's current state it just isn't a good substitute for healing.

 

[Spellbound]

Well either it's MP, or it's some sort of way to make potions 'more actioney' by giving them strategic importance, you could say... importance that's kinda redudant since barriers/guards are so important for survival rather than health. The reason why I blame multiplayer is because of how it worked in Mass Effect 3, and in that way, potions kinda feel a bit like Medigel? I mean, you have a limited amount and it's important to use it only in the most dire situations. It appears that Bioware wanted to mimic ME3's MP, but in doing so kind of applied the same coat of paint on a different material.