The game would have benefited heavily from cutting out one or two of the open exploration areas and adding more plot missions.
Zero Punctuation: Dragon Age: Inquisition - Fantasy Commander Shepard
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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The game can take as long as you want it to, the main story quests are easy to access and they you really don't have to do any grinding if you don't want to. This game gives people plenty of options for avoiding fighting, enemies show up on the map and you can run around them if you don't want to fight. On normal difficult you can just mow through people without having to work very hard but on the harder difficulties they can literally one shot you if your not careful.Keith Fraser said:
The war table missions, outside of the main quests are mostly for increasing influence, additional side stories, lore, facilitating companion quests and getting additional resources like gear or ore. Its not absolutely necessary outside of opening up new lands but it does have a meta game aspect to it if you want to really understand it, like recruiting agents or working toward certain perks.
The biggest problems people have with this game is that they get bogged down in side quests instead of focusing on the main story, sure some of the story quests have requirements to meet but they aren't hard to get to. You could probably finish this game in like 15-20 hours if you just focus on the main quests and nothing else.
short version: its better than previous dragon age games but it is still bad and still made by EA so just go play skyrim for the billionth time instead
I've played a couple hours my opinion so is while it is good I have to qualify that with a BUT at the end. It still a good game but it is still saddled with many of the same issues as past Bioware titles. And right from the start I felt like I was just Commander Shepard taking taking time off to be in a fantasy LARP. Swear to god I half expected my character to suddenly ask "What can you tell me about the reapers?" during the many long dialog scenes. XD
It's funny because the description of Fantasy Commander Shepherd pretty much sold me right there, but then he starts talking about the gameplay and, even when you wipe off the usual ZP bile, it sounds mediocre. That won't stop me from playing because I bloody enjoyed the first two and I'll take this as well, but yeah, interesting description. I never liked the "faff quota" mechanic and I doubt I will here either, but if I'm enjoying playing and interested in the story then I don't see myself giving up.
And besides, what doesn't look like shit these days? Guess that's why I'm opting for PC on this one.
And besides, what doesn't look like shit these days? Guess that's why I'm opting for PC on this one.
That is a giant problem with nearly every Bioware game: the repetitive, padded fighting. It's why I played the KOTOR games on the lowest difficulty setting because while there was a lot of fun things in them, the combat was not one of them. And it doesn't help that every Bioware game (and nearly every Western RPG for that matter) has tended to have their climaxes consist of nothing but long, ultimately boring fights that you want to plow through. Not a good thing to do when such a huge chunk of the game is battling.Keith Fraser said:
Problems aside, DA:I is a massive step in the right direction for Bioware's intellectual property. Instead of going the easy route by making a game appeal to non-fans by dumbing down it's story line, the game actually takes a chance and rewards the fans who have stuck with the series up to this point. One area where this is readily obvious is the choice of villain for the game.
This sort of direction is comforting because even though the big bad doesn't appear in the main body of the previous games, BioWare doesn't jerk around it's players by saying it wasn't important. It's nice to see that BioWare is committed to the story they're telling at the expense of alienating new comers. If you ever played the Mass Effect games, "Plot Abandoning" was all too common.
You discover that the Elder One is Corypheus, the last boss in Dragon Age II's "Legacy" DLC. Yeah, the big bad in this triple A game was a one-shot boss from a DLC.
This sort of direction is comforting because even though the big bad doesn't appear in the main body of the previous games, BioWare doesn't jerk around it's players by saying it wasn't important. It's nice to see that BioWare is committed to the story they're telling at the expense of alienating new comers. If you ever played the Mass Effect games, "Plot Abandoning" was all too common.
This is a case where PC Master Race has a huge advantage (if you have the $$$ to burn up front). With SSD, loading times are just a couple seconds. That's hours saved when you see them so often.
Though... they have those three tabs of flavor text on the loading screen that you can page and scroll through, but just as soon as I think something looks interesting... oop, we're loaded, back to the game! Sorry, you don't get to read that. So there is a downside.
Though... they have those three tabs of flavor text on the loading screen that you can page and scroll through, but just as soon as I think something looks interesting... oop, we're loaded, back to the game! Sorry, you don't get to read that. So there is a downside.
Shit's gorgeous on Ultra.The operative criticism of 'big world' is 'lack of focus'. Some people enjoy that, a lot of people also don't. With Bioware being a brand that has been synonymous with linear story driven RPGs, with plenty of focus, even if they have had their faults, the change is similar to if Skyrim's sequel was a corridor RPG with a fixed path you couldn't deviate from, small maps and a very focused story with good dialogue. Its the antithesis of what the series is known for, and that's probably why a lot of people have problems with it.hentropy said:
Additionally, its a special type of optional crap. In Bioware RPGs, that optional crap has a habit of actually being core story, but you don't HAVE to do it. Companion missions, half the companion recruitment missions [Especially in Origins], missions to gain favour from some faction, 'hardening' some of your companions, rediscovering lost fortresses - there's usually plenty of stuff in Bioware side stories.
Side stories in Inquisition were... Not much usually. Even Companion side stories were a bit of a let down. "Destroy these red rocks that you find all over the place". "Kill some generic enemies for me". "Kill more generic enemies for me". "Find generic items for me". "DRAGON SLAYING". They all had some small plot to them, but in Origins, for example, a side quest could take several hours to do, filled with story, dialogue, and gameplay. In Inquisition its playing Super Mario Brothers; 3D with shit jump to try and get to all the shitty collectables they've purposefully placed in places you can't get to without playing Mario Brothers.
As a result, most Bioware players are trained to do these side missions, as they're generally as enjoyable as the main mission, and even the smaller ones that were just within a main mission weren't exactly offensive, however when we try to do so with Inquisition... You see the problems that come up. Part of the issue is some of the things we kind of want to do - build watch towers to protect the Hinterlands for example. It makes you feel engaged with the world, and as if you're helping the people there. However when they muck that up with Mario jumping, and MMO fetch quests for the majority of the non-core gameplay... The game gets old, fast.
As for your "That goes for any game really", Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age Origins and even Dragon Age II which I hated, I did that and enjoyed myself. Go for ALL the side quests before doing a major quest, just in case one locks out. Even the grindy collection ones. It was never as much a drag as Inquisition made it.
You know, Dragon Age II was actually closer to DA:O, and I never thought I'd say that.
Big things among it were the lack of auto attack and auto loot, that made normal gameplay a button mashing pain, the fact that if you attacked a character, your character wouldn't walk over to them - he'd just stand there swinging his sword at thin air - and if you want to use an ability on something, you have to attack them normally first; simply targeting them just causes the ability to target the person you last attacked, even if the targeting marker is over your new target, and you're facing them, you'll do an instant 180 and target your old enemy, which gets really old.
Additionally, the tactical view is useless where it was near essential for Origins. All I ever use it for in Inquisition is to give potions to people - AoEs are a pain to cast with it as you can't cast beyond your cast range, and if you try it won't cause the character to walk there then cast, they'll just sit there and go 'can't cast'. Same goes for most orders I gave in tac view, they just weren't followed, let alone the inability to zoom out and actually see everything.
These are even just the control differences with it, without getting into the mechanical side of how things work, no more sustained modes [I think I found one, for sword and shield warrior], locked class styles, the differences in healing and types of health and a whole lot else.
As for the MMO side of things, it references a few things really.
1. Most of your stats come from gear, the rest come from abilities. Previously you had stat points to assign, now that's gone in favour of gear and abilities that alter your stats instead of letting you do it. Some MMOs even let you do that actually, but the major ones don't.
2. The quest styling. As said, in Origins side quests were these big things that you went and did, and could take several hours, or were things that were found inside of a main quest that you could do if you wanted. In MMOs, quests resemble those in Inquisition a lot more: "Hey, I need 10 wolf pelts. Go kill 10 wolves and bring me their pelts". "Hey I need this item, go through this cave of enemies and get me this item". "Hey, I need this item delivered to some guy in the next town. Go to the next zone since you're finally level 10 and give him it for me". Not much story, its all just fetch quests. Same is largely true in DA:I, but you don't have to return the loot to them. It even comes with your 'Raid' dungeons where you and a small party go into a small, enclosed, semi-linear zone that is a higher challenge than normal and fight your way through to the boss at the end of it. Sadly in Inquisition these are generally only 2 or 3 rooms, whereas in MMOs they can be quite large.
3. The world styling. In Origins, EVERY, SINGLE, THING was put there for a purpose. Nothing was randomly spawned [Ok, there was the random wolf encounters on the road, and semi-random loot in chests], and everything was planned from the beginning. No magically respawning enemies, no endless grind or random interruptions as you travel the plains. If you cleared out a cave of bears, there'd be no more bears there to ruin your day the next time you came through. There was a limited population of things in each area, which makes sense. Things don't appear out of thin air. Inquisition does this only in some of its zones, like the Hinterlands, and then only with some enemies. Most of the time I'll walk down a path looking for a collectible doodad, and in will spawn random wolf pack #33,304,932,984,298 that I've fought that day, in a predictable spot. This is also similar to MMOs, where there are enemy spawn locations, where you can just sit and wait for the enemy to respawn, and they will, so you can farm them for stuff.
There's also the whole disjointed open world thing, where you have a few large maps, tied together by loading screens, like most MMOs have, and a ton of other similarities I could state, but that seems to be the most of it. The main emphasis most people talk about is the side quests though. They are way too MMO like, and its just boring grind.
And this is where our opinions completely part.
Origins had plenty of exploration. It was all completed in one playthrough, sure, but I'll never forget the moment I first set foot in Orzammar, or wandered around the Korcari wilds following Chasind hunter tracks. I'll never forget capturing the Warden's Keep, exploring Lothering and the surrounding area, setting foot in Denerim, or entering the fade.
DA:I has a lot more land, sure, but its exploration is relatively meaningless in comparison. Too many fetch quests that distract from the story of the actual area.
Origins also had far more connectivity than Inquisition in my mind, and II even more so. I honestly don't get how you can say they don't. As someone else has said in this very thread, in Inquisition I can go, start conquering a Citadel, then go "Oh, my inventory is full, better fast travel back to Skyhold, sell everything, then go explore some lost ruins instead". That's not connectivity. That's disjointed as it gets. In Origins, this didn't happen. If you were deep in the deep roads, you'd have to trek back, and then activate your 'fast travel' once you got to the edge of the map, and watch your party plot a course through them, and then finally arrive in Orzammar - not Lothering - to trade. And then you'd go back into the Deep Roads, as you were kind of in the middle of something here and needed to continue it. Half the quests even locked you into the zones to force this continuity. In DA:II, continuity was big because it was one city. Everywhere you went, you were within the one city. You walked its streets, and went to the connecting streets, then went to this area just slightly outside town - no lacking continuity, just a lot of copy pasted environments.
In Inquisition, nothing is connected. You have these big, completely isolated zones. You get no sense of travelling to the zones, or from them, just some loading screens. You don't come to understand how these zones are at all connected, unless you read the Codex. Did you know the ONLY route from Ferelden to Orlais is through Redcliff? Unless you want to scale shear mountains of course. So, every time you were on the Storm Coast, or the Fallow Mire, or anywhere on the Ferelden side of the board, you ALWAYS went through Redcliff to get to Orlais, or even Skyhold. Its written in some obscure codex piece somewhere. The way the game presents it, you'd just hike from the Storm coast, up shear mountain cliffs, and into Skyhold before going anywhere. Inquisition has very little connectivity in all reality.
And, again, I found it very easy to tell how large a place was. The Fade is seemingly infinite. The Deep Roads are huge - that's a known fact from the fact that they stretch under most of Thedas, but also from the fact they have their own goddamn fast travel map. I get the sense that Denerim is a big city for the same reason. I enter a fort and start to conquer it, its size is fairly similar to what it appeared from the outside. The Mage tower is this huge spire, so of course its going to be big.
If we're talking specifically how big a certain zone is, I have the same problem in Inquisition. I run into invisible walls that block me at some points, telling me I can't go any further, even though I can see off for ages. I go into this big, fancy temple in the side of a Mountain that looks like it'll be a big trip, and it has 2 rooms. No, you don't have perfect knowledge of how big the map is in any game outside of RTS most of the time. However you can get a sense of scale in most games [ironically except RTS as they try to allow everything to fit into a small map - even huge things that should be half the size of the map].
Additionally, what you didn't like about The Deep Roads, or the Fade, are what plenty of people loved. THEY ACTUALLY HAD CONTENT.
In Inquisition, we have these big large areas, and a lot of collectible quests, but beyond that, fairly sparse content. Anything that does contain content, is over and done with in a few minutes at best. I went to this lost temple thing. Completed it in about half an hour. I found this deep roads settlement. Finished in 20 minutes. I know, I'm going to go assault the breach, and defend Haven. Done in another half hour ish, and even then mostly because of cutscenes. There isn't much gameplay in Inquisition. It tries to do a lot, and get it all over and done with fast. Having just done Halamshiral, I enjoyed that it took me about an hour as I tried to completionist it. Next playthrough, it'll probably take me about 20-30 minutes, as I know that most things do nothing, and exactly where to go for everything - whereas most of the game for me in Halamshiral was finding out what was actually locked and what wasn't. Hell, even doing the Mage quest line, that took me one hour, max. For this big, major piece of the game. Its disappointing. My Origin story in Origins took longer than it did.
The Deep Roads had a lot of history to it, and whilst gameplay wise it was mostly room of Darkspawn after Room of Darkspawn, things happened there. You found the Legion of the Dead and Carridens Cross, Bownammar, and the place they made Golems. You found people's lost relatives who had contracted the Darkspawn taint, or found pieces of history for the Shaperate that re-wrote some of Dwarven history, made the Legion nobles, re-instated some noble houses and incriminated others. There was story there.
In the fade, there was even varied gameplay. You had to try to persuade your party that they were in the fade. Sadly consequences weren't really worked out for that, and it all ended the same way. Then yes, you had to fight a few demons, however for the most part you swapped between 4 different memories of the Tower in the fade, and gained new abilities, transforming to get places and solving puzzles. At the end of it all was an interesting boss fight too.
They were long, yes, but they were involved, and interesting too, with ACTUAL story to them, not "Mages and templars are fighting here, and there's a note that says the mages and templars are fighting. That must mean this is a mage/templar warzone", but finding and conversing with people and learning more. There's a quest in the Hinterlands where a brother challenges another, and it doesn't really go anywhere. All it is is a 'go here, kill some generic templars' quest. You don't even know who his brother was, you don't get to talk to him, you don't get to interrupt the confrontation. Its just a generic 'go kill some enemies' quest, which gives most of the areas no soul, and makes them boring and repetitive.
Even in the main story missions I've done so far, there isn't a lot of actual talking about what's happening. There's a few, short, conversations that come up, but nothing groundbreaking, and most of the plot in an area consists of 'these guys are bad, kill them'. Even in Halamshiral, that's what it mostly comes down to. The only time there's really a lot of discussion is right at the end where you choose who to incriminate.
Well, yes, because it was a certain style of game many people liked. These new games aren't "Better" than it, unless you count mass appeal like CoD has as better in which case CoD is the best game ever made. They're different. They do some things better for some people, but they also overcompensate for any shortcomings of previous games, and that ends up removing a lot of the good stuff from them. Yes, people complained about the Deep Roads and Fade being too long. I don't think they meant they wanted 30 minute to an hour 90% combat main missions though. They wanted the story and the depth, without the grind - which I can respect. Content, without repetitiveness. Same as when people complained about the small and repetitive areas in DA2, they didn't mean make it an open world game, they meant make the areas bigger [Ironically, like the Deep Roads was], and not just copy pasting the same dungeon. Bioware has a habit of overcompensating, and it really bothers me, among other people.
A lot of the reason Bioware struggle when listening to Feedback is because they overcompensate EVERY time.Coreless said:
Lets go feedback from Mass Effect 1: "Mako is annoying to drive", "The planets are just empty and plain, don't need that exploration", "Inventory is a pain to manage" being some of the main ones.
So, next game, all vehicles are gone, all planetary exploration is gone, only scanning minigame to find sidequests, and inventory is entirely removed.
They didn't improve everything. If something wasn't perfect, they removed it.
ME3 followed largely the same guidelines, but re-introduced weapon modding that people said they missed, and apparently the next Mass Effect is re-introducing vehicle and planet exploration too, but making it good.
Dragon Age Origins criticisms: "Deep Roads and Fade too long", "Combat too slow", "Too much gear" -> Dragon Age II: Small areas, everything is short, combat is, quote, "Push button something awesome happens", now only Hawke has gear, everyone else has 'upgrades'.
Dragon Age II criticisms, which people took to be a result of short development time but now I'm not too sure: "Copy pasted areas". "Areas too small". "Limited party customisation", "Combat too actiony" - ironically the opposite of what was compained about in Origins. So, go to Inquisition and all the dungeons and main quests are still pretty short, but now void of depth too so far as I've found, however the areas themselves are huge open world. The tac cam has been re-added, but that's about it to make the combat more tactical. All areas are, thankfully, varied, and we've finally hit a happy medium with party customisation - except Varric who is stuck with Bianca, which I cannot help but feel is shit when even with upgrades it does less DPS with less bonuses than even randomly dropped bows for people like Sera.
On the materials for crafting, as a side, I find the main problem with that is you need so damn many, and any that are actually useful you can't find until you no longer need them, which is the main problem. My potions cost 1 elfroot each. If I need to spend 30 Embrium and 5 of a really rare herb that I can't get till end game, for the second upgrade that gives barely any benefit... That's too much. Additionally, everything that dropped in the Hinterlands was better than what I could craft with the shitty tier 1 materials I could get from there. Now, I can get tier II materials from the zones I'm at a level to actually explore. That would have been great in the Hinterlands, but now I only use it to craft pieces that I haven't had good drops for, as again, the crafting is obsolete whilst I still have these shit materials for my level. End game I'll get great materials [Dragon], and be able to craft things better than drops. But until then? I'm stuck with materials that are 1 tier lower than whatever gear I find, and thus crafting is mostly useless.
For runes, the drops are also a pain. Need 6 spider glands for a Dragon Slaying rune. Kill 50 spiders. 2 spider glands. Fuck this game.
Bioware need to not go for overcompensation each time. People complain about the opposite to what they complained about last time, as Bioware take it to an extreme and go too far. When we said we wanted bigger areas, we didn't mean massive open world spaces with plenty of fetch quests and collectables. We meant we wanted areas like, say, the Warden's Keep in DA:O. Nicely sized. Not a long stint, but not a short one, and perfect for a sidequest - as opposed to DA:II where that would have been 1 copy pasted 10 minute cave walkthrough.
There is a happy medium, and Bioware need to find that, rather than overcompensating with everything.
The problem with Inquisition is the same that Kingdoms of Amalur had - it's blatantly designed as an MMO, and somewhere in the development process someone decided that would be a bad idea and retooled it as a single-player game.
This is why I dislike it being called an open world sandbox game - it's not. Not really. It's just a really big MMO-style map. It lacks the vitality of an open world sandbox, the feel that the world is moving around you and without you (even if that feeling is an illusion). Look at Skyrim - it feels like an actual chunk of a world, with people living in it and going about their business. Look at Just Cause 2 - it feels like a tropical island with a civil war going on. Look at Prototype - it feels like a city in the middle of a massive panic due to a growing number of zombies, mutants and zombie mutants (also, mutant zombies). Now look at Inquisition - it feels static, like most of the stuff is placed in its location to serve the player. This is endemic of MMO design and is often a necessary evil in building such games (though let's not get into details there). Also, your options for interacting with the game world are very limited and predetermined. There's little room for emergent gameplay (which is integral to open world sandboxes).
Basically, Really Big Zones =/= Open World Sandbox
Other than that, seems Yahtzee liked it, huge zones and filler content aside.
This is why I dislike it being called an open world sandbox game - it's not. Not really. It's just a really big MMO-style map. It lacks the vitality of an open world sandbox, the feel that the world is moving around you and without you (even if that feeling is an illusion). Look at Skyrim - it feels like an actual chunk of a world, with people living in it and going about their business. Look at Just Cause 2 - it feels like a tropical island with a civil war going on. Look at Prototype - it feels like a city in the middle of a massive panic due to a growing number of zombies, mutants and zombie mutants (also, mutant zombies). Now look at Inquisition - it feels static, like most of the stuff is placed in its location to serve the player. This is endemic of MMO design and is often a necessary evil in building such games (though let's not get into details there). Also, your options for interacting with the game world are very limited and predetermined. There's little room for emergent gameplay (which is integral to open world sandboxes).
Basically, Really Big Zones =/= Open World Sandbox
Other than that, seems Yahtzee liked it, huge zones and filler content aside.
It's a shame you didn't get into the crafting system.
Fade-Touched Crap can make a character quite interesting. I was barely into the game before I found 2 Fade-Touched Blue Vitriol (10% change to cast Chain Lightning on hit) and put it on some AoE Daggers, which paired with Spinning Blades was proccing several times every fight.
Later on, the same combo with guard generation materials also proved useful.
Fade-Touched Crap can make a character quite interesting. I was barely into the game before I found 2 Fade-Touched Blue Vitriol (10% change to cast Chain Lightning on hit) and put it on some AoE Daggers, which paired with Spinning Blades was proccing several times every fight.
Later on, the same combo with guard generation materials also proved useful.
My issue with the plot of this game compared to the first one is that there's no possibility for anything to go wrong; no matter what you do, the shitty, one-dimensional threat is defeated without any casualties and everybody is fine. The worst thing that can happen is some of your buddies deciding they don't like you and taking their toys and going home. Compare this to the first game, where you can arguably leave things in a worse condition than they started in with half your team members dead, or the second game where you can end up having to tearfully execute your entire party; see, while the threat is more obvious in Inquisition in the most literal way, the only thing that tethers you to the story, that is your connection to your party members, is never threatened.
The fact that the bad guy is front and center for this game is also not really a positive in my book. Bioware have a bad habit of writing simplistic villains into they're otherwise very nuanced stories, but one of the things that curiously made Origins work WAS the fact that the Darkspawn were not particularly relevant to the plot, since they would have made the central conflict of the story very simplistic. The archdemon was treated more like a natural disaster than a character, and this allowed the narrative to focus on it's more nuanced aspects. The real threat in Origins was the hubris of Loghain, an infinitely more complex antagonist than the one from this game.
Bioware sort of threw the baby out with the bath water with this one; DA: II had lots of problems, but it's alternate approach to plot was a good idea, one that Bioware badly needed. They didn't need to regress back to the mono myth.
The fact that the bad guy is front and center for this game is also not really a positive in my book. Bioware have a bad habit of writing simplistic villains into they're otherwise very nuanced stories, but one of the things that curiously made Origins work WAS the fact that the Darkspawn were not particularly relevant to the plot, since they would have made the central conflict of the story very simplistic. The archdemon was treated more like a natural disaster than a character, and this allowed the narrative to focus on it's more nuanced aspects. The real threat in Origins was the hubris of Loghain, an infinitely more complex antagonist than the one from this game.
Bioware sort of threw the baby out with the bath water with this one; DA: II had lots of problems, but it's alternate approach to plot was a good idea, one that Bioware badly needed. They didn't need to regress back to the mono myth.
Honestly, I kept thinking "Oh, I must be just touching the surface of the game, it'll definitely get better!" when in fact it didn't, which was bitterly disappointing.
I didn't realise the vast majority of the side quests were optional; I've been paying no attention to any news items or articles so nothing gets spoiled. Hell, I didn't even realise I needed to use Dragon Age Keep and click a button to export my DA:O choices to DA:I. I don't think I can muster the strength to do another playthrough.
From the hype, which I ended up getting caught up in, and all of the reviews (which I skipped and simply read the conclusions), it seemed like the game would be a mix of DA:O, DA2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 and it ended up being a worse overall experience than DA2, which is surprising.
The game for me is a mix of Skyrim, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, an MMO and Battlefield 4. Skyrim for the exploration, collecting, music and just moseying around - and bunny hopping up hills and mountains for fucking DAYS ^_^; Dragon Age 2 for the aesthetic (UI/graphical style - darkspawn still look worse than DA:O), the lack of any detailed armour customisation for companions for the most part, the conversation system, story (though not as wayward); Mass Effect 3 for the crafting/customisation of armour and weapons, MMO's for collection and kill/find/accrue x amount of y quests and enemy copy and pasting; Battlefield 4 for being buggy as hell. I think I had more CTD's than all of my Skyrim-modded playthroughs put together (at like, 400 hours or something silly).
There were a number of problems I had with the game that stand out:
First of all, the gear from loot was pretty bad. I was finding tons of stuff that was worthless, and I ended up having to rely on crafting my own weapons for anything decent. I'd pick up what looked like an excellent rare weapon only to find it was slightly worse off than one myself or my companions had currently, and had to delete a lot of stuff from the limited inventory, which leads me to my second problem.
There are a few quests, two in particular that come to mind, that require you to take items out of chests to complete. At the time, I did not know this - I would open these chests only to find what I regarded as rubbish and didn't bother looting them because of the inventory restrictions, even when they were maxed. I had to find a YouTube video to see how to complete one quest where I was running around looking for someone for 40 minutes, only to realise that instead of doing what I was told in the quest, looking for something/someone, I had to take items from a chest that I had seen 20 times in those 40 minutes.
In conclusion, it was a decent enough experience I suppose. It kept me busy and gave me something to do, there were a few great, memorable moments but quite shallow in depth. I was expecting a great many returning characters from DA:O and DA2 and was gutted. I also found myself disappointed at the lack of my beloved Mabari hound and interesting situations involving desire demons from the previous games.
It simply doesn't best my experiences with Origins, though I am no doubt looking through it via rose-tinted glasses, particularly the sodding fade part of the game (luckily you have the "Skip the fade" mod though!).
I didn't realise the vast majority of the side quests were optional; I've been paying no attention to any news items or articles so nothing gets spoiled. Hell, I didn't even realise I needed to use Dragon Age Keep and click a button to export my DA:O choices to DA:I. I don't think I can muster the strength to do another playthrough.
From the hype, which I ended up getting caught up in, and all of the reviews (which I skipped and simply read the conclusions), it seemed like the game would be a mix of DA:O, DA2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 and it ended up being a worse overall experience than DA2, which is surprising.
The game for me is a mix of Skyrim, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, an MMO and Battlefield 4. Skyrim for the exploration, collecting, music and just moseying around - and bunny hopping up hills and mountains for fucking DAYS ^_^; Dragon Age 2 for the aesthetic (UI/graphical style - darkspawn still look worse than DA:O), the lack of any detailed armour customisation for companions for the most part, the conversation system, story (though not as wayward); Mass Effect 3 for the crafting/customisation of armour and weapons, MMO's for collection and kill/find/accrue x amount of y quests and enemy copy and pasting; Battlefield 4 for being buggy as hell. I think I had more CTD's than all of my Skyrim-modded playthroughs put together (at like, 400 hours or something silly).
There were a number of problems I had with the game that stand out:
First of all, the gear from loot was pretty bad. I was finding tons of stuff that was worthless, and I ended up having to rely on crafting my own weapons for anything decent. I'd pick up what looked like an excellent rare weapon only to find it was slightly worse off than one myself or my companions had currently, and had to delete a lot of stuff from the limited inventory, which leads me to my second problem.
There are a few quests, two in particular that come to mind, that require you to take items out of chests to complete. At the time, I did not know this - I would open these chests only to find what I regarded as rubbish and didn't bother looting them because of the inventory restrictions, even when they were maxed. I had to find a YouTube video to see how to complete one quest where I was running around looking for someone for 40 minutes, only to realise that instead of doing what I was told in the quest, looking for something/someone, I had to take items from a chest that I had seen 20 times in those 40 minutes.
In conclusion, it was a decent enough experience I suppose. It kept me busy and gave me something to do, there were a few great, memorable moments but quite shallow in depth. I was expecting a great many returning characters from DA:O and DA2 and was gutted. I also found myself disappointed at the lack of my beloved Mabari hound and interesting situations involving desire demons from the previous games.
It simply doesn't best my experiences with Origins, though I am no doubt looking through it via rose-tinted glasses, particularly the sodding fade part of the game (luckily you have the "Skip the fade" mod though!).
The problem with Inquisition is the same that Kingdoms of Amalur had - it's blatantly designed as an MMO, and somewhere in the development process someone decided that would be a bad idea and retooled it as a single-player game.
Xenoblade and FF12 were also blatantly designed to be offline MMOs. That didn't stop them frmo being great single player games.
Besides, Amalur main problem wasn't the MMO inspiration: it was the fact that your character was maxed at around 70% of the game, that the mage specialization was even more overpowered than in Dragon Age, and finally that no matter your class, using your character special attacks meant pressing the I Win Suckers button.
Xenoblade and FF12 were also blatantly designed to be offline MMOs. That didn't stop them frmo being great single player games.
Besides, Amalur main problem wasn't the MMO inspiration: it was the fact that your character was maxed at around 70% of the game, that the mage specialization was even more overpowered than in Dragon Age, and finally that no matter your class, using your character special attacks meant pressing the I Win Suckers button.
Um.....Saviordd1 said:
You can't defeat Cory without defeating his dragon. I didn't have my inquisitor go into the pool, morrigan became a dragon. Still had to fight that Cory's dragon.