Sniper Team 4 said:
So...we're not supposed to list Inquisition's flaws, but you want us to explain why it under-preformed in our opinion? Um...I don't think I can do that, so here we go.
As so many people have been saying, the game felt extremely padded. I'm playing through it again on Nightmare, and this time I'm just doing the minimum of the areas, because I just want to be done. I want my platinum. Why do I want to be done? Well, the padding isn't helping. A lot of these side quests feel half-finished. It's like BioWare went, "Okay, that's good enough. They got the exp. What else do they need?" Like the woman who jumped off the cliff. It's easy enough to tell that a demon convinced her to do that, but when you complete the quest, no one says anything. The mages don't explain what happened, the other characters don't react to the truth. Heck, even your character just reads the journal and moves on like nothing happened. That's...really underwhelming compared to past BioWare games.
But I think the biggest problem that BioWare ran in to is that they shifted gears in the story in the last ten minutes or so (I'm exaggerating a bit, but that's what it feels like). Throughout the vast majority of the story, we are told that Corifie-spit is the main threat. The characters harp on and on about him, and if you played Legacy, you understand. This guy is bad news. He is a threat that the world has never faced, and he is messing with forces that humans, elves, dwarves, and all the other races should not touch.
And then, on the second to last mission, the game makes a hard right. Cory becomes secondary as all this elven lore gets stuffed into your face. It raises so many questions and throws a wrench so hard and deep into the main story that the main villain, and his boss fight, feel like an afterthought at the end. It's like BioWare suddenly decided they wanted to tell another story, and it doing so, the sucked the 'feel' of the Dragon Age games right out of Inquisition.
Now, why did they do this? I think that's what you're looking for, right? I think it's because BioWare's eyes got a little too big for their stomachs. Ever since Dragon Age: Origins, I've always suspected that we're missing something. The Maker vanishing, the elven gods vanishing, the Fade, the Darkspawn, Flemeth, and many other things. BioWare has slowly been revealing little clues about all of these things, and I've suspected that they're all related since the first game. Something major happened that has been wiped from history, and BioWare is trying to clue us in with their lore.
But with this game, they tried too hard. I think they thought this would be the game where they can finally turn everything on its head and get fans really talking, but it wasn't. They wanted to drop as many hints as they could--I mean, have you seen that after-credits scene?--but they got carried away. They were like little kids in a candy shop, and instead of savoring each piece, they stuffed it all in their mouths at once.
I get it. The elf lore that we've been lead to believe is wrong. Terribly wrong. And they were much more involved in everything than we've been lead to believe (again, something I've long suspected), but this all comes so fast, and so close to the end of the game (probably because BioWare suddenly realized, 'Crap! We're out of time! Uh...screw it, let's do this!'), that it suddenly feels like you are playing a completely different game for the last hour or so. And because of that, the entire game deflates for me, and that's why I think it under-preformed.
I agree.
And to build on this, they also expanded an expansion for DA2. Which is where I think the "padded feeling" comes from in DA3.
Personally, I didn't find it all that padded, but disjointed.
Padding is when there is a great length of nothing between "story packets". A good example of padded would be FFXII. You get a boss, then *could* head over to the next part in the story... but you'll be so severely underleveled that you'll need to grind for hours to level up to the appropriate level for that story chunk.
While disjointed is when the story just sort of happens with only threadbare ties to the overall plot... if at all.
Take what is the obvious holdover from the DA2 expansion: Exalted March.
We can deduce from basically what are the least disjointed parts of DA3 what is likely to have been included.
Templar v Mages, Corypheus, and possibly the Wardens.
Corypheus is center stage to all these conflicts, and given the axed expansion's title, it's obvious that the Templar v Mage war would be the focal.
However, the game would be over FAR too soon with just those areas and events... so they added ideas that were on the table for DA3 (eg the game after the expansion for DA2 that was merged with the expansion to give us Inquisition).
The Empress, Imshael, The Well of Sorrows, etc all hold the most slightest of tangential of obscure relations to Corypheus.
And that's why I believe the game feels "padded" to people... because those conflicts are not ultimately relevant to the game's desired main conflict: The Ancient Darkspawn Magister Lord who wants to be a god/is crying about his god being dead. (Throughout the game he's all "I'mma be a god!" but then at the end he's all "wha wha wha Dumat, Y U no talk no mo!?"...)
Not to mention that Corypheus was a terrible fight.... I mean... I have 0 desire to play the Witcher 3, so I can't compare to the final boss there... but... as final bosses go... Corypheus was pathetic. (I blame the multiplayer's BS tainting the game.... guard, barriers, no heals, etc...)
He was 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000x harder in DA2's Legacy... because he was a real mage, and not this gimped MP mage BS.
Or just compared to Meredith, a fairly easy fight, but one that is infinitely harder than Corypheus in DA3...
He couldn't even finish his taunt VO because Bull killed him too fast so he zoomed to the next area. Something Meredith was allowed to finish... even after all the OP items and extra levels from all the DLCs.
He is probably the worst designed fight in the entire franchise.
And personally, I blame the shit mechanics demanded for MP shenanigans for a large reason. (his dragon was 10000000x harder than him, just because he is a generic mage.)
And while the Archdemon from Origins isn't something that I would consider difficult, there was a flow to the battle that made it fun and a challenge. (Again, the same with Meredith)
However, even with all these faults, DA3 is still better than an unmodded DA2. (I say unmodded because with certain mods, DFA being a large one, you can get DA2 to be basically a poorer Origins.)
So it's not bad... it's just not very good.
It's faults are rather large but it's story is pretty good and the characters are nice. (I didn't hate any of them, but I loved all but the one companion in DA2 I hated, Fenris, and the one I was disappoint in, Anders. And you can hug Varric here.... so kill off Hawkes!)
But the ME/MP bleed of gameplay adjustments sort of compound (or even generate) many of the technical issues with the game. (And yes, plot is a technical issue.)
EDIT: Also! WTFH was with them axing the ONLY good things that came out of DA2!?!? Unique companion trees, friendship/rivalry and bonus (though I AM glad they went back to the approve/disapprove because gaining friendship points was SUPER immersion breaking), and why in the world did they get rid of the ability to actually level??? (Oh yeah, cause that wouldn't be balanceable in MP and people liked no level ups in Skyrim... 9_9)