Dragon Age: Inquisition Status: Playable, Start to Finish

[babinro]

I wasn't actively interested in any games released in 2013 but in 2014 I've got Dragon Age: Inquisition and Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls!

Note: I'm interested in The Walking Dead Season 2 but I don't consider that to be a 2013 title since only 1/5th of the game is available in that year which makes it more of a glorified demo at that stage than a full game.

 

[Sidmen]

What?! You Seriously thought that that lackluster snoozefest of a combat engine was better than the thoughtfull, tactical combat of Origins? Are you kidding me? Sure, Origins combat might be a bit boring to people with an attention span of a few nanoseconds, but DA 2 was just so much worse. Respawning enemies, button mashing, no tactic whatsoever. That's not fun, that's a needlessly complicated Quicktime event that drags on too long.

Yeah, anyway, not buying this one, Bioware. Fool me once, shame on you ...

Both had pretty crap combat engines. The first, I couldn't play as anything except a Mage because positioning and attack animations were junk, and you couldn't do any tactics because the game couldn't be paused and the characters issued orders. So if you swap to another character to tell him to do something other than his totally ineffective tactic, or to run away from the massive beastie currently killing him, then your main character almost certainly dies horribly. I understand its different on PC, and that I'm a filthy console-playing scrub, but I can't bring myself to care about PC games I haven't played.

I have to say, though, that DA1 was at least playable. DA2 made me actually quit shortly after the first story lurch (when you go from being nothing to a Lord with nothing in between). The randomly spawning enemies who rush out from behind a cart after you've passed them kept killing me. It wasn't even challenging - it was just stupid. Don't know what happened to Hawke, and I don't particularly care.

 

[Yoshi4102]

Dragon Age: Origins has very good RPG elements, but like ME, has pretty terrible combat (balancing more than anything). Dragon Age 2 has better combat, at the cost of RPG. Noticing a trend here?

What?! You Seriously thought that that lackluster snoozefest of a combat engine was better than the thoughtfull, tactical combat of Origins? Are you kidding me? Sure, Origins combat might be a bit boring to people with an attention span of a few nanoseconds, but DA 2 was just so much worse. Respawning enemies, button mashing, no tactic whatsoever. That's not fun, that's a needlessly complicated Quicktime event that drags on too long.

Yeah, anyway, not buying this one, Bioware. Fool me once, shame on you ...

Sadly Bioware will fool me with this one. Dragon Age: Origins is one of my favorite games so I have to get this. I'm not expecting too much though...

 

[Amaror]

Both had pretty crap combat engines. The first, I couldn't play as anything except a Mage because positioning and attack animations were junk, and you couldn't do any tactics because the game couldn't be paused and the characters issued orders. So if you swap to another character to tell him to do something other than his totally ineffective tactic, or to run away from the massive beastie currently killing him, then your main character almost certainly dies horribly. I understand its different on PC, and that I'm a filthy console-playing scrub, but I can't bring myself to care about PC games I haven't played.

I have to say, though, that DA1 was at least playable. DA2 made me actually quit shortly after the first story lurch (when you go from being nothing to a Lord with nothing in between). The randomly spawning enemies who rush out from behind a cart after you've passed them kept killing me. It wasn't even challenging - it was just stupid. Don't know what happened to Hawke, and I don't particularly care.

Ok, i didn't know that the combat was worse in the console version. It worked fantastically on pc. You could zoom out really far and basically have an rts view on the combat which made things way easier, you could pause the game anytime, which of course is a huge benefit in a tactical game.
Can you manage the tactics on the console? On the pc you can tell your comrades basic tactics in the stile of: When that is true, then do that. So basically, when your low on health drink a potion. When there's 3 enemies near each other, use the fireball on them. Etc.
Was pretty handy.

 

[Sidmen]

Ok, i didn't know that the combat was worse in the console version. It worked fantastically on pc. You could zoom out really far and basically have an rts view on the combat which made things way easier, you could pause the game anytime, which of course is a huge benefit in a tactical game.
Can you manage the tactics on the console? On the pc you can tell your comrades basic tactics in the stile of: When that is true, then do that. So basically, when your low on health drink a potion. When there's 3 enemies near each other, use the fireball on them. Etc.
Was pretty handy.

It wasn't so bad when I was playing a Mage. On console you could never, ever, trust your mage allies to use any AOE spells, because they will ALWAYS hit you in the back with Cone of Cold (I'm looking at you morrigan). But yes, you could set the macros in the console - it was practically the only way to manage your allies.

You could pause the game, but you had to hold your finger on one of the trigger buttons the whole time (I think I eventually found an option to make it a toggle - its been a while), and issue a command from the radial menu. But you couldn't zoom out very far, and the second you stop controlling one character they would forget what you told them to do and go back into their macro routines.

 

[cerebus23]

Dragon Age: Origins has very good RPG elements, but like ME, has pretty terrible combat (balancing more than anything). Dragon Age 2 has better combat, at the cost of RPG. Noticing a trend here?

What?! You Seriously thought that that lackluster snoozefest of a combat engine was better than the thoughtfull, tactical combat of Origins? Are you kidding me? Sure, Origins combat might be a bit boring to people with an attention span of a few nanoseconds, but DA 2 was just so much worse. Respawning enemies, button mashing, no tactic whatsoever. That's not fun, that's a needlessly complicated Quicktime event that drags on too long.

Yeah, anyway, not buying this one, Bioware. Fool me once, shame on you ...

As someone that liked da2, the combat compared to origins was garbage. But to be fair they said origions problem was balance, not that fact that it tried, and did it rather well, to marry old school isometric turn based combat mechanics into a full 3d real time game.

The clown car spawns and the spawn points however were idiotic ruined immersion and could just be insta fail when the game decided to spawn waves of mobs right on top or behind you.

 

[littlewisp]

I feel bad for the developers. HI YOU'VE BEEN WORKING ON THIS UNTIL YOU'RE READY TO PUKE DRAGONS AND BLEED OUT YOUR EYEBALLS GUESS WHAT GUYS YOU GET TO PLAY IT OVER THE HOLIDAYS YAYYYYY.

playtesting something really just doesn't seem that fun to me. Especially when, y'know, I'm trying to be on vacation. Or maybe I'm missing something here. Either way, bugs just aren't my cup of tea. So, cheers to all the poor fools who are trying (and hopefully succeeding) to making the game desirable.

 

[Vargras]

Dragon Age: Origins has very good RPG elements, but like ME, has pretty terrible combat (balancing more than anything). Dragon Age 2 has better combat, at the cost of RPG. Noticing a trend here?

What?! You Seriously thought that that lackluster snoozefest of a combat engine was better than the thoughtfull, tactical combat of Origins? Are you kidding me? Sure, Origins combat might be a bit boring to people with an attention span of a few nanoseconds, but DA 2 was just so much worse. Respawning enemies, button mashing, no tactic whatsoever. That's not fun, that's a needlessly complicated Quicktime event that drags on too long.

As I said, Origins' biggest problem was the complete and total lack of balance. Mages as a whole were horrendously overpowered compared to other classes, and some of the sub-classes were no better. The ability to combine sub-classes exacerbated the problem further, as Arcane Warrior + Blood Mage basically made you a god who could murder anything and anything without any real thought at all.

At least DA2 gave Warriors and Rogues a fighting chance.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Sounds good to me. Sounds like BioWare is taking their time with this one and making sure it doesn't become a rush job. So far this is the only game on the horizon that I am interested in, and it's nice to hear that it's going along smoothly.

 

[bug_of_war]

If you're keeping silent, you're an ass because you're not "communicating with the fans". If you don't you're an ass because you're teasing or, you're supposedly gleeing in the fact that they can play it already and you don't (that's a stupid accusation if there ever was one). If you delay a game because it's not ready yet, you're blamed because it's supposed to be out already, if you release anyway, you're blamed because you didn't took the time to finish it.

Gamers are stupid.

Nah not stupid, just hypocritical. I just wish I could read a thread about an upcoming game by a publisher such as EA or Ubisoft that the developers themselves are trying to communicate it's progression to us without people jumping on them. It's like they're guilty before they're innocent.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

My theory is BW wants to tell us it is still alive and working on a "highly anticipated" game. With Witcher 3 on the horizon along with kick starter projects like Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity BW feels threatened. Since they have a serious competition in the field, they cannot be as lazy as they used to be

Sounds about right, too bad for them their name has been near irredeemably blackened already.

But on the positive side Wasteland 2 will be out next year as well.

If you're keeping silent, you're an ass because you're not "communicating with the fans". If you don't you're an ass because you're teasing or, you're supposedly gleeing in the fact that they can play it already and you don't (that's a stupid accusation if there ever was one). If you delay a game because it's not ready yet, you're blamed because it's supposed to be out already, if you release anyway, you're blamed because you didn't took the time to finish it.

Gamers are stupid.

If that blog was a Kickstarter update people would be complaining about the lack of info as well, apart form the screenshots there is very little hard information apart from 'a build is complete and you can run through the game'.

Nothing on a general timeline for release, gameplay mechanics, teasers about the story and lore, character bios, this is a 3/10.

Just saying the game is complete isn't communication, its a statement and a pretty short one.