hentropy said:
I'm not really sure what you mean by 'focus'. I never felt focused in the previous Bioware games. If that is supposed to be the emphasis, then I've never really seen it. DAO and ME1 were both very unfocused, story-wise. Hey, the darkspawn are ravaging the south, killing countless innocents and blighting the very ground they walk on. But no pressure, go on and run around an entire country (the size of England? Who knows?) doing completely unrelated quests like killing deserters or doing... you know, petty fetch quests where you kill generic enemies. Same with ME1, I believe there was a quest called "Race Against Time" because you were trying to stop Saren, but apparently you could go to about 12 different systems and do unrelated quests.
This is a basic feature of many RPGs, and something we're used to whether it be DAO or Skyrim. I feel like DAI has plenty of focus, it just has a different focus. The things you do all contribute to the main storyline: your job is to gain power for the Inquisition through securing areas, closing rifts, and helping people. The mechanics blend well with the story, and it's well-focused, if not perfect.
Well, as an example, I get to the Exalted Plains. My goal, upon reaching the Exalted Plains, is to deal with the undead and Freemen of the Plains. Instead I spend a few hours dillying about helping some elves, searching for Veridium I can craft with, defiling some temples, setting up all my camps, clearing out a few rifts, building a bridge and opening a cave, hunting some wolves - ect. I ended up actually ending my main mission by accident when I stumbled across a fortress and killed the final boss. I didn't even know who he was until I started finding these letters lying around that told me. There was no focus to my activities. In a semi-linear game like Origins, I would have gone and cleared out the forts first, with pacing that led me to discover who the final boss was before I'd killed him. At the safe zone at the start, or mid way through, I would have met people like the Elves, who would have given me their quests. These quests would have been along the way, and part of my adventure to solve this undead problem. It would have turned into a short narrative with focus and pacing. As is, whilst yes I was technically helping the Inquisition with my actions, all it was was just dicking around in the countryside, and by luck solving the problems of the area.
As you've noted, having other things to do and places to explore is a staple of RPGs. Generally each of these areas at the very least has some focus. You follow the story line, and do these other things on the way. Inquisition, like most open world games, has a habit of turning the focus from 'Lets finish the story' to 'lets go see what that big thing over there is'. Whilst only completely linear games are fully focused [If well written], games like Inquisition end up as unfocused as you get. Yes, you may be gaining power for the Inquisition. I had enough power to conquer the world before I even tried to seal the breach. That's an issue of pacing that arises, as it gives you too many things to distract you from your main goal. And that's what they're there as. Distractions and padding to justify the 'open world'. No meaningful content, just random stuff for you to go and do to distract yourself.
Its the same problem many complain about for Skyrim. "Oh no, Alduin is ending the world. Lets spend 99.99% of my game time doing something totally unrelated 'cause fuck that shit". Inquisition IS more focused than that, but it still suffers the problems of open world gaming.
What? It's hard for me to even dignify this. It's just willful misremembering. Very little I did in DAO outside from the actual main story- which was rather meaty- affected the main story at all. And I did everything there was to do in that game. In certain cases it may have affected the "world" that resulted at the end. Most side quests were still short and repetitive. Go to this area, kill a bunch of Loghain soldiers, then go to this downed caravan and kill darkspawn.
Ignoring Sten's side quest, as that was a side quest - it wasn't core story to recruit him. You have Shale. You have the hardening of Leliana and Alistair which, whilst not necessarily long quests, had some dialogue that would change their attitude, and the outcomes of some choices. You had recruiting Zevran. Warden's Keep. Return to Ostagar. Saving people throughout the game, whereby they'd all come and join you in the final fight. The same went for Redcliff, and getting everyone together to defend the town, resulting in more people being in that fight. The quest chain related to Flemeth. Then there were the puzzles to solve in some of the major quests, like the one that summoned that demon in the Circle Tower. Not exactly a long quest, but something different from the norm. This is without going into the Standalones, like Lelianas song or Golems of Amgarrak, as they are more expansions than extra content. There was Isabella at the Pearl, and the game of cards with her - again, not intensive, but something different. That's what I think Inquisition is missing most, is something different. Instead it drowns you in fetch quests, and short 5-10 minute dungeon stints. Were sidequests in Origins as long as their main ones? No, but the side quests in Origins have, generally, been equal in length to the main quests in Inquisition.
I also did acknowledge there were a few small, mini things that you could do - though most of them were interwoven with some main quest, like all the Orzammar side quests, conveniently tying in with my focus point above. There were a handful of pointless fetch quests, a number of short quests interwoven with a main quests, which gave you some interesting dialogue, and a handful of involved side quests with some actual content. Those involved side quests are what is missing from Inquisition mostly, IMO, as it just disperses all its content as generic enemies throughout its normal maps. We need to hunt down these tomes from the Circle of Magi. Of course, they're just lying around on the ground randomly in the strangest places, rather than having me need to go to a black market to find them, and either intimidate the merchant or just purchase them, or raid a venatori fortress where they're hidden. Same goes for Red Lyrium, same goes for Venatori agents, same goes for dangerous criminals - its all just randomly located in these larger maps. Becoming a champion, I duelled for Heraldry. Who did I duel? 3 random people I found walking around the countryside. I didn't enter a tournament, I didn't go to a town and challenge the Lord's champion. I just fought 3 randoms I happened to find in random places. The side quests have no substance to them in Inquisition, and all of them are basically just random fetch or kill quests in environments filled with more random fetch and kill quests, at least so far.
I'm a little hesitant to go into side quests because it doesn't sound like you've finished the game or have gone to every area or really done all that much outside of The Hinterlands, but there have been some genuinely interesting quests in places like The Hissing Wastes and the Fallow Mire. Really I can name a variety of major side quests which aren't just "go here kill these come back".
I've been through the Hinterlands, Fallow Mire, Storm Coast, Exalted Plains, Forbidden Oasis and utterly finished them [At least as far as you can finish them without doing the 'And here the Abyss' or whatever quest, don't know if more unlocks after]. Done some Emprise du Lion and Hissing Wastes, planning a trek into the Emerald Graves and Western Approach soon too. I certainly haven't done everything, but I've done a fair bit still, and not much of interest has appeared yet. Maybe its there, buried in a sea of collectables, but that's a lot of the problem - the sea of collectables and fetch quests. If there truly is better content buried somewhere, they would have done well to showcase that more, and put the collectibles as a small side thing - like Mass Effect 1 - rather than making collectibles the focus of the game [And yes, not just the shards, but fade rifts, landmarks, 'Go kill X of Y' quests, 'Go find me Z' quests and the shear volume of quests without any soul].
I got exited when a quest with Sera took me to a loading screen, meaning somewhere unique [Or so I thought] where it might have an actual side quest. It was then kill 3 people, recruit random ass. SO much more could have been done with that.
You took over a grand total of one fortress in DAO, which you did not use even a little. In DAI, there are many fortresses that you can actually conquer, raise your flag above, with new quests as a result and new merchants and people. Even Varric's thing about Red Lyrium ends up revealing something quite interesting about the nature of lyrium in general. The companion quests could be better in the beginning, but it makes sense that you have to earn their trust before the real companion quests kick in.
Whilst you didn't use it, that Fortress had its own story and soul [And I think an item storage box, don't remember fully, in which case it was used sometimes, as well as when you wanted to forge the star sword]. You met Avernus there and discovered about the blood power given by the Blight, you had a Moral choice to make with the Demon inhabiting Dryden's body, and learning the history of how the Grey Wardens originally lost trust in Ferelden, thanks to her using her forces as a political army, rather than a world saving one. Apparently there will be keeps to capture in the future, however from what the game has shown me so far, all that'll consist of is stumbling across one, murdering everything nearby that moves, then right clicking a flag icon. No story to the keep. No atmosphere. No soul.
If PROPER companion quests become available later that'd of course be nice, but I don't think it should take until 90 hours in before you get them. Even then, its hardly even 'earning their trust' thus far. From my experience, and what I've read online, its similar to DAII, where its just main story based as to when they'll bother giving you new dialogue or missions. God knows, all the "Greatly Approves" in the world and I still can't get more than one or two conversation options per character, which I've already exhausted. I guess Cassandra has had more, but I get the feeling that's because I'm romancing her more than anything else.
It's a matter of volume. There's so much to do in DAI compared to those games, so it makes sense. The only thing I can compare it to is ME1 where it was somewhat of a tedious drag to try and do everything before moving on, especially on multiple play-throughs. When one area has 5-10 hours worth of sidequests and there's 8 areas, then yeah, trying to do it all will be dull, no matter what you're playing. Doing the animal and bandit killing quests in Lothering before moving on doesn't really compare.
Well then here we have the answer that it's not a problem with all games.
Yes, all games with bad design will be unenjoyable thanks to that bad game design. That's pointing out the obvious there. Not all games have the issue though. Not all games are designed around a thousand fetch quests. Most actually try and keep some deep, interesting quests, spread throughout so the player doesn't get bored, as well as sizing their areas to what they need for gameplay, rather than making them massive for the sake of it. The exception being TES, but you get these complaints of TES as well.
I'm playing the PC version and all I have to do is hold down R and W for melee attacks. I'm not sure why they saw that as necessary but it's not that hard to get used to. People who criticize it for having to click a lot didn't pay attention at all to the tutorial pop-ups in the very first area. I'm not sure how it works on consoles. It wouldn't be surprising if they just brought back auto-attack at some point. Still, it doesn't change the mechanic of the game that much.
W is for a melee attack?
R maybe is a keyboard instead of mouse shortcut, but W? W is move forward.
I use W and left click, and if I spam press them, then I'll step forward one step and attack, and repeat that until I finally reach my enemy, but if I press and hold I just attack thin air as the attack command overrides the move command. You technically can click and hold to continue to auto attack, but if your enemy moves a centimetre, you need to release, move, re-initiate attack, and the things it does to the camera when you do that are ungodly. If the enemy is to the left of you, and you click and hold, your camera jumps as click and hold is camera control, and you've clicked and held to the left so you must want to centre your view there [Stupidest thing. Should centre mouse rather than centre camera on the mouse. Its a pain in the ass trying to get my mouse dead centre before I try and look around, as otherwise I end up having my camera jump all over the place].
The PC controls are absolutely horrid. They're not unplayable bad, but they are 'would rather gouge my eyes out with a spoon' bad, thanks to all stupid things they've done with it.
I played on the higher difficulty levels regularly with different classes and I barely ever used the tactical view in DAO. It made it HARDER to do most battles for me because it only made the enemies smaller and harder to tell between them. I was never really sure why people put so much emphasis on it. Is it the circles around your character? Because that's the only thing that's terribly different in Origins. You realize you can move the camera around in the normal camera, right? It doesn't point in one direction? In DAI I almost never used it either but it has more usefulness, as you can see each enemy's resistances and weaknesses, which is particularly helpful for a mage. I can see how people might not like the tactical camera if you're relying on it, but I simply don't see why someone would need it to play the game, and yet some people seem willing to throw it in the trash bin over it. If you just want isometric play so much, there's Divinity: Original Sin.
One of the main things is being able to issue orders effectively to your whole party in a short time. Never had the issue of not being able to see individual characters, though I guess that's the advantage of a high res screen, and going into tactical view gave me a good overlook of the whole battle in an instant, convenient for when you wanted to actually issue those orders, and target certain things, rather than constantly scrolling around the battlefield to do things.
In Inquisition, you struggle to issue orders to characters. Not the least of which because its jumping to the view of other characters is inconsistent, or you can't move your view anywhere where there's impassable terrain, or there are a ton of trees/rocks/shit in the way preventing you from seeing your party and what's going on, or the the issues with party commands in general where they simply won't follow some orders you give them. "Hold position here" I said. Next minute, they're halfway across the map because "I can attack a thing!". FFS.
Honestly I feel the need it to play the game comes partially from the fact it went hand in hand with a functioning paused, tactical control interface for your party, which Inquisition also lacks thanks to aforementioned issues. The two kind of blend together when you used it all the time.
That's fair, though in Origins the default attributes were really bad for companions. Sten and Alistair died so often because their default Constitution was set at 13 and you had to wait some time to level up and pull those up. The stats-through-equipment does allow the game to stay balanced at all portions in the game. With a lot of Bioware RPGs and other older RPGs, the start of the game was by far the hardest part because there wasn't even an attempt to properly adhere to a standard difficulty curve.
Yeah, Origins wasn't the best balanced, and I've been through it with other people where assigning stats in Origins generally came down to a really obvious choice between 'Am I a mage, warrior or rogue', however the ability to actually customise your character more would be nice. Being able to choose his looks and abilities is one thing, his innate focus and equipment choices [Not sword and board or two hander, but the ability to dual wield or be an archer too, like in Origins] would be appreciated, though I will concede both choices have their upsides for that.
As for difficulty... Varric. Never keep him in your party, 'cause he's useless. Bianca is a POS. Even with crafted upgrades, far less DPS with less bonuses than normal bows, which he can't equip. Played with him most of the game, 'cause he's Varric and I dislike Sera with a passion. Eventually conceded and put Sera in my party instead. Dear god do enemies just drop like flies now.
The problem's still there. Its more isolated, but nothing can truly cover for a properly balanced game.
Again, I think you're misremembering, willfully or no. I played both previous games in their totality before the release of DAI, and I can't think of a single DAO side quest that took more than a half hour or so to complete (unless you're doing the same area over and over), and that includes the DLC areas. Return to Ostagar was the longest of those and it was maybe 45 minutes to an hour (only because it had "long hallway" padding full of darkspawn). Pretty much all of the side quests found on the Chantry Boards, Mage's Guild, Blackstone Irregulars, etc. were all very simple, short quests with simple components. Kill these guys or collect these things or talk to these people and then come back. Just like DAI.
Eh, I tend to take my time with dialogue each playthrough, and talk through everything, so the more dialogue heavy quests like Shale's recruitment, or Warden's keep, took me a while. In saying that, 45 minutes was what it took you for return to Ostagar, a side quest, in Dragon Age Origins. I think that's the longest I've spent in a main quest in Inquisition, with most taking far less. The Val Royeaux one took maybe 5 minutes. Halamshiral took the longest due to trying to maximise court approval, as I thought it might actually mean something, but fighting for Haven was another 20 minute one, cutscenes included, the intro sequence took maybe half an hour as I was figuring out how to play the game, and the mage questline around 45 minutes, maybe up to an hour if you include the pre-ambush part too. I've heard the next quest is the longest, and by god I'm hoping its a 2-3 hour stint, or else I'm going to be thoroughly disappointed with Inquisition's main quests.
If you want to criticize the game for simply having too much little side stuff to do, that's at least a fair criticism I can understand. But don't play make-believe and say that DAO had these long, intricate side quests that were all unique and interesting. They weren't. The meat is story missions, most of which were stuffed full of padding.
Not all the side quests were long or intricate, most were some level of interesting, and only a few were generic fetch quests. Maybe if you cut it all down to purely gameplay, sure, but what makes these games is intertwining the story and lore, something that thus far Origins did far better than Inquisition has.
As for too much little side stuff to do... Its not even that. Its that thus far there hasn't been one bit of meaty content outside the main quest line. In Origins, I had Shale. I had Warden's Keep. I had the Return to Ostagar. I had, whilst not long, the Flemeth side of things. I had finding people's relatives and returning them to their families.
In Inquisition, anything that starts to get even remotely long doesn't feel like any of them, it just feels like what people complained about the Deep Roads for - pointless grind. I mean, there's the bandits thing in the Hinterlands, but there's never really any confrontation, never any story to it beyond 'Some dwarves are mining stuff. They've hired mercenaries to deflect people. Kill all of them'. In Origins, someone would put me onto that, their relative would have been kidnapped by the bandits. I'd get to the fort, and I might be able to persuade, intimidate or bribe the guards into letting me in. I'd be able to talk to the Carta leader, and either look the other way, or fight him, and here his reasons for doing things, and what his offer for letting him continue is. And I'd find the lost relative somewhere in the castle, and get to release them. At the VERY least, there'd be a cutscene. In Inquisition? Nope, just generic enemies, go kill them all.
Origins was a static world where Inquisition is dynamic. I prefer dynamic worlds that resemble the real world where they can, but I can see the appeal in a static one, because you know when you've killed everything you possibly can. But forests don't tend to run out of wolves and bears and real life, so I have no problem with them spawning (not to mention the bear pelts are valuable for crafting early in the game, whereas crafting was almost nonexistent in Origins and loot was only used for gold).
I like the dynamic side of the world, I don't like the grindy, repetitive and annoying side of the world. What is the point of spawning literally 400 wolves for me to kill in the Exalted plains? They give next to no XP, so it doesn't help me level up. They're not fun or interesting to fight, they don't add to the atmosphere or make the place feel alive when I have butchered 400 and every 3 steps I run into another pack... It takes it to a whole other level.
I like the world adapting to what I've done, that dynamic side of things. In the Hinterlands, I like that now I don't come across any Templars, Mages or Wolves, or Demons, and only a few Red Templars and Bears. Because I cleared out the major threats, and now the place feels safe and normal. The exhaulted plains? Yeah, cool, demons keep popping through. I don't mind that too much, as I don't run into those demons that often, and it makes a lot of sense for a fade-thinned warzone. Running into a pack of wolves literally every 10 steps, even after I have performed wolf genocide and culled half their species from the planet? That's inane. Forests don't tend to run out of wolves and bears, as we generally protect them to some extent if its their natural habitat. If you let hunters go wild and take them down, then yes, they do run out, and the species goes extinct if only present there. See Tasmanian Tiger.
Even if they don't utterly disappear, performing an extermination effort on islands with farms to try and clear out foxes greatly reduces the number and frequency of fox problems. Killing a lot of wild animals has an effect, and I'd love it if the game wouldn't just spawn them every 10 steps. Every 10 minutes is fine.
Again, it's because of volume, not the actual content or mechanics of the quest. There was just less in Origins so it didn't feel as grindy.
FAR less of the 'no convo, go kill' type. What made the rest in Origin's not grindy, was in the actual content, whereby I'd at the very least get to talk to people, and it would feel important for something, rather than literally having 2 lines for the quest: "Oh no, we need wolf pelts or else people will freeze". "Wow, thanks, you got us some wolf pelts. This'll stop people from freezing".
Adding story and atmosphere to the quests would have gone a long way to making them feel not-grindy.
It depends on how you define exploration I guess. Sure, going places you haven't been before can be exploration. I loved Origin's locales, but they were confined and not great, just a bunch of merchants crammed into an area with just enough space to put in other quest markers.
I do have major gripes with Inquisition, and one of them is the lack of a big city to truly explore. Val Royeaux would have been a great place to really flesh out beyond a market area. Denerim was supposed to be this major city with lots of people and yet there was never really a chance to explore it, to talk to people whether or not they're related to a quest. To simply being able to explore the place at will- that's what I'm talking about, ultimately.
Personally, I'd call that more free roaming than exploration. It is nice in moderation, but if you go too far it has the 'lack of focus' effect and can negatively effect gameplay. If you had to walk through streets filled with pretty, but pointless, housing for the Val Royeaux population for an hour before you got to the shops, it'd get old, fast.
Honestly, if you're going to have a large, sprawling city, I think you need the content to fill it, rather than just having it as padding. And I don't mean pointless collectibles, I mean actual quests and content, like in Orzammar. It wasn't that large a place to explore, but it was filled with things to do. Markets, nobles and casteless looking for help with something, fights breaking out - ect. Even Denerim had a reasonable amount of stuff to do in it, it was just all separated by the blood drip map to try and convey that it was a large city.
There is a happy medium to be reached, with enough room and randoms for you to talk to so that the city feels alive, but also so there's enough content that it doesn't feel like padding, with just a long walk to anything you would actually want to do.
Skyrim had a good amount of exploration but I can't honestly say it's terribly different, each region has its own feature and Skyrim is mostly tundra with a swamp and some really cold areas. Inquisition has a lot of varied regions, and it's really quite beautiful.
It is the comment I always make; Inquisition is Skyrim, but better. The game feels more like Skyrim than it does Dragon Age. It does it well enough, but any problems you found with Skyrim, I probably still find with Inquisition, even if to a lesser extent most of the time.
That never really happened to me, but mainly because previous Bioware RPGs taught me to keep a track of how much I'm carrying. If you start conquering something and you're near your limit, that's sort of your fault, not the game's. Even when I did forget to sell off my excess before setting on a bit area or fortress, I would just keep going with it anyway.
Even when I had emptied out my inventory, the shear number of spawned in enemies in some places just filled it back up again in no time. I would finish what I was doing if it would just respawn if I left before I'd finished, but otherwise it was just more convenient to empty out my bag all at once, rather than spend ages trying to find the least valuable items to get rid of every few minutes for however long it'd take me to finish what I was doing.
When I talk about connectivity I think about one area flowing into another within a place. In Origins, a loading screen separated me and The Pearl, along with every other destination in Denerim. Sure, I got to see blood droplets walking there, but it's not really the same thing. In ME1 they accomplished this well with the elevators- you actually got the sense of how the Citadel was organized, even if the elevators themselves weren't too popular. I got the sense that Redcliffe wasn't just a small town, but a part of a larger region. I like that, I just wish they would have applied it to large cities and towns. In Fallout/Skyrim they did this, but the cities were universally small and very sparsely populated. DA2 was of course one big city which was rather refreshing to me at least, but it still felt like there was so much you weren't seeing. Hightown and Lowtown look so different, it doesn't feel like one is really right next to the other. Is there really nothing of note going on in that part of town?
The elevators in Mass Effect were nice, but they were still just glorified loading screens. Its the equivalent of the blood trails in Origins. Both give you an idea of where you are going, and the layout of the area, and both are there to show your motion whilst hiding your actual motion and the loading process.
I think a large part of peoples' complaints with the elevators were that they had slow computers, and thus it took them a minute or so to travel through the elevators, whilst for me I hop in, have one line said by someone, and before they finish I'm done.
Hightown and Lowtown don't necessarily need anything between them. Slums aren't always separated from the decent part of the city by some middle class. In fantasy like this, its often just a wall. Its what happens when the rich exploit the poor, and isn't too different from real life in some regards. In most cities, if you take a wrong turn, you can turn into the slums. In my home city, its right next to the centre of police enforcement, as well as some of the more high class streets, and I've been to other cities where things are similar whilst travelling. Its something that happens.
Then tell me: what is the square mileage of Ferelden? Of just Denerim? How many people live in Orzammar? The point here being that it's hard to tell the scope when it's just a few small areas connected only by loading screens. If the Hinterlands is meant to represent the entire Hinterlands described on the map, then it gives me a good sense of how big the world is, or at least lets me visualize it more.
Without Googling, what is the Square Mileage of your home country, and what is the population of the last city you went on vacation to.
Either you've researched this before, and know, or you're researching it now to find out. They're stupid questions, as they're asking very specific information, which you really can't judge from looks.
Nothing about that changes with DA:I.
What's the population of the Mage Rebellion/Templar Order? From Codex statements telling you about it, you might get some idea, but from the game itself where you meet maybe 10 representatives?
You can't tell.
After Inquisition, what's the Square Mileage of Orlais? Again, you won't have any idea.
What you CAN tell, is that the Deep Roads are big and vast. You can tell Orzammar is a large place that is well populated [100,000 ish dwarves from memory]. You can tell that Ferelden is a country, rather than a small state. Whilst what we see of it is segmented, you can tell that Denerim is a large city, and Ostagar a huge fortress.
You get a sense of scale, often a better one in non-open world games [Redcliffe in Origins felt like a fairly mid sized, bustling town. In Inquisition it feels like this tiny hovel that apparently manages to house 200 people in 5 houses] as you aren't limited by what you have time to build. Want to show its a big city? Put in a Skybox, and some scenery at the edge of the map. In an open world game, you've got to build it all up, which takes time and resources, so often you just downsize everything so you can get it done.
One person's content is another person's padding. They are synonyms, really. The Deep Roads was room after room of enemies to fight, you could have easily cut half of it out and it still would have been a nice long dungeon with plenty of unique content. It was as long as it was for one reason and one reason only: to pad the game length. Unlike Inquisition, it was required, not an optional side quest or a lot of optional sidequests. Not to mention that whole plot line was frustrating in story as well. Oh, you already won the proving AND killed the city's crime leader, but that's not enough to flip one vote in the Assembly? The Anvil of the Void was interesting story-wise, it's just unfortunate it takes so long to get to it.
As I said, yes, you could cut out a fair bit of the grind in the Deep Roads, but even doing that it would have been a fairly long quest, dredging through these underground tunnels and finding out the secrets of the Dwarven Empire. Thus far, nothing in Inquisition has compared.
To be fair, I don't think beating some champions and outsing a crime lord in Cuba or Mexico would have you be able to influence their next elections. What that did was likely get some people to like you, and get the attention of the nobles you wanted to support, but being an outsider [Or casteless by virtue of going to the surface] I'd be very surprised if the Assembly let you influence them. They wanted a Paragon, and whilst its a bit painful, that's politics, whilst also letting you decide whether you wanted the Golems or the Dwarves - a choice which became a bit less relevant after Shale got introduced.
I disagree. That's spoken like someone who is building their opinion based solely on the Hinterlands or Storm Coast. Even the Shards, which is the main thing people are complaining about with collectibles, has an interesting payoff. There's plenty of interesting areas to explore and thing to do, even beyond little side quests and collectibles.
Eh, I find the Shards temple to be kind of lame TBH. Its just padding in the collectible quest to prevent you from progressing and killing 3 more generic enemies. It feels more like its there as a half hearted attempt to justify the shards, rather than the shards being there to add content to it. You could easily have accomplished the same, but better, if each zone had 1 shard, and each door took 1, 2 then 3 shards to unlock. As is, 90% of that is pointless padding.
I've been through the areas I've explored, and thus far I'm not hugely impressed. Its starting to feel more and more like Skyrim - oh look, a big cool thing. I'm sure that'll take me 10 minutes to do, and be only skin deep padding, adding nothing to my experience. That's not a good thing. Dragon fights are at least fun.
The real difference is where they chose to distribute their content. Origins chose to do a relatively small amount of simple, short, "while-I'm-here" side quests and put most of the padding in the mandatory story missions. Inquisition makes the padding those simple, short side-quests and made them optional. They're both content, and they're both padding in ways, as neither truly fills the world with entirely unique and uniquely interesting content. Personally I'd trade the long hallway filled with Darkspawn for the Astrariums (which I love for reasons I can't fully explain), and a mountain of sidequests in interesting locales.
The major difference for me, is that Origins put all these short, simple, side quests in, and gave them character. Inquisition is very much "Look, a thing. You want to do the thing right?".
The shards, as an example. In Origins you would have met someone who was researching them, who would tell you about them and point you to the temple after you'd gathered enough. There would have been conversation with the person, and those shards would have just been found during normal gameplay, rather than as a distraction off to the side with Super Mario Brothers gameplay to get them.
It would have made them more personal, interesting, and less of a grind to get them. No, not every quest in Origins was like that. There were maybe 4 or 5 Chantry board quests per major town [Denerim, Lothering, Redcliff are all I'm pretty sure], and a couple of on the side things like finding the soldiers on some battleground or W/E from the civil war. Most of the smaller quests, however, had some personality to them - Dagna, the guy wanting to found a Chantry in Orzammar, the Shaperate, finding the elf woman's werewolf husband, the Blood Mages in Denerim, Isabella - plenty of stuff that had story to it, rather than a note "BROTHER, I CHALLENGE THEE TO THE DEATH". Go to place. Kill Templar. Done. For every side quest around.
No dialogue, no real story or explanation to it, just a small note that basically sums up to 'Some guy is being bad', then going and killing him.
My main problem with the Fade was how it made you literally retread every other area to complete it. It may have been an interesting puzzle the first time I played it, but on play-throughs it was just... the most tedious thing I have ever been forced to do in a game. There's a reason why "Skip the Fade" is one of the most popular DAO mods, it's NOT because that part was universally popular.
Whilst it could definitely do with improving, at least there was something to do. In Halamshiral, defending Haven, Assaulting the breach, getting the mages - everything I've done so far, its been a short 20 minute stint of walk down very linear corridor, kill a small number of enemies, use an item, kill boss, done. I would greatly appreciate something more than just that, plus a cutscene, for most of my gameplay. At the least give me something new, and cool to see and explore. Thus far its been ruins, town I've been in for the whole game, dungeon, palace interior. The palace interior has been the best of the lot, but even it is let down by the fact that I really have no idea what Halamshiral looks like. I didn't get to see it, itself, and I only got to see a small amount of its interior as looking around was discouraged by the game.
There's not much in DAI which goes for mass appeal, really. Just trying to be grumpy and say it's like CoD doesn't really lend much to your argument, just makes you look like "popular = bad" type.
TBH, yeah, it does a lot for Mass Appeal. Fancy cutscenes and short, actiony gameplay to pull in the masses, having turned the whole series into Action RPG instead of the more Old School RPG for Mass Appeal when DA2 came out. They've taken it a step further in this with pumping out the actiony stuff. Open world simply to follow Skyrim's template 'cause it sold well, not because they could properly fill the areas with meaningful content. Further Simplified RPG mechanics so you can focus on just killing things. Distinct lack of persuade, intimidate, and conversation options for methods to get through missions - its all just 'kill' as talking is too boring.
I'm also not saying its like CoD, I simply misjudged your position. Generally the "People just want Origins 2" comment is followed up by "Even though Inquisition is the better game", which it really isn't, using the fact that more people like it as their evidence. I was simply countering that before it arose, though it seems I misjudged your opinion on this one.
I loved DAO (though I thought Awakenings was better put together despite being shorter). I didn't hate DA2 as much as most, but it certainly had its major problems. I have a lot of problems with DAI, and I think Yahtzee was spot-on with many of his criticisms, and I could add more to it, having already put quite a bit of time into the game. I might even disagree with Yahtzee and say that DAO/A is still my favorite game.
I'll agree with you on Awakening. It did cheapen specialisations, by just making them books, however it did what DA2 really should have done - it had you focused on a small town/city/fort, and going on adventures in the nearby area. It also did what Skyhold should do, though I hear it doesn't, whereby your upgrades affect the outcome of the game. It felt contained, personal, focused, and well made. It fixed the things that were problematic in Origins, but kept the same core gameplay at its heart. The sequels should have followed its example, rather than trying for "Push button, something awesome happens" [What was that about not going for mass appeal?] gameplay.
There's just no doubt that DAI is getting a lot of shit from people who are still boiling over with rage because of Ghost Child/DA2 Ending/Jennifer Hepler and are flinging quite a bit of undeserved shit at a pretty good game because they are so emotionally invested in that hatred.
Well, I'm not one of those people. DA2 was a letdown, and ME3 a major disappointment, but that's just led me to not expect anything of Bioware.
In regards to Inquisition, I'm actually impressed. Bioware have done well, and made a great game. It doesn't feel like a Dragon Age game, and I'll stick to my statement that its more Skyrim, but better, than Dragon Age, but its still a good game. It does have its flaws though, and I'm not at all shy in pointing them out. There's a lot of improvement to be done, but the fact that I'm actually playing it rather than just giving up - as I did after my first playthrough of ME3 - shows that I'm actually enjoying myself. Its a little disappointing, and the more I play it the more I'm feeling that, but its by no means bad, and is definitely the best game Bioware have made in about half a decade. Its the Mass Effect 2 of the Dragon Age series - drastic change in direction from the first game in favour of more mass appeal actiony content, but still a great game that is well worth playing.