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The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

Delterius

Arcane
Joined
Dec 12, 2012
Messages
15,956
Location
Entre a serra e o mar.
I'm surprised Drog can still type after holding R to auto attack for 60 hours.
 

set

Cipher
Joined
Oct 21, 2013
Messages
940
How long would you need to hold R to beat the game on nightmare?
 

PhantasmaNL

Arcane
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Nov 20, 2012
Messages
1,653
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So having a few days off during the holidays I got back to the damn game and finished it. One thing is clear - in most respects DAI is the worst of the trilogy. You heard right - overall I "enjoyed" DA2 more.
True this game is bursting at seams with content, problem is majority of it is shit content. And I'm not even talking about gathering herbs and knocking out various dumb side quests because at least crafting is worth it in this game and sidequests give you XP and perks (which truly matters only on Nightmare but whatever). What I'm talking about is the War Table. Whaat the fuck? This whole system is breathlessly pointless. So you send one of your dudes to derp around some area for a few hours and for that you get either a few herbs, aroud 150 gp, or 30-60 influence. In a game where your can haul thousands of gp in ten minutes of questing and hundreds of influence in the same time span. Or you get some weapon or upgrade you could've used five levels ago. The only worthwhile activity is opening up new regions or new areas within already unlocked regions - which is stupid anyway because you have to travel back to Skyhold and then again back to the newly open area. Game design!

There are of course problems specific to Beware games, mostly related to "relaishuns" with your characters and I don't wanna get bogged down in those. Let's just say the relative openness of the game doesn't mesh well with building up tight relaishuns so ultimately you don't give a shit about the histories and fates of your teammates. Not to mention that as a straight male you get only one viable romance option - Josephine - since Cassandra is full of testosterone and the romance affair with the only lady my dwarf inquisitor really "cared" about - scout Harding - is either bugged or content-cut or whatever, either way it doesn't go anywhere. So I didn't get to see dat sweet dwarf-on-dwarf sex. On the other hand if I was a gay I would be like a kid in a chocolate factory.

Setting aside Beware specific "relationshiping", DAI is yet another RPG that doesn't get loot mechanics right, like, at all. Which is not that surprising considering even most loot-based games fuck up in this department but Bioware is notoriously bad with itemization. Here it's better than everything they've done since Kotor but that's not saying much. Fundamental problem is majority of the content is tailored to a party between levels 12 and 16, roughly. The result is once you cross this threshold you spend about half of the game finding loot far below your needs. Plus there are oceans and oceans of useless "grey" trash loot. Why? The fuck? Plus crafting is always superior even to most unique items you will ever find.

That covers most of the big problems with this game. There are others - like why the world isn't seamless but stupidly cut up in zones? Why are the main mission quests taking place in corridors again? What the fuck is up with the hair? Plus music is barely average (definitely worse than Skyrim) and voiceacting is a standard Bioware fare, with some truly appaling exceptions. Only the sound design is outstanding, especially various roars and growls of the dragons.

But there's one reason I stuck with it to the end - on PC on Ultra settings the game looks simply incredible. I just needed to explore every corner of this otherwise humdrum MMOish world. The lush forests of Emerald Graves, the "Scottish" landscape of Crestwood, the atmospheric nighttime desert of Hissing Wastes...oftentimes I just stopped and looked around in amazement. Sure the effect is to a large degree achieved through jazzed up contrast and overdone colour saturation but still...the artists responsible for textures, landscaping and architecture design truly deserve GOTY, not the derpy writing brigade lead by Gaider. I literally can't wait what they'll do with the engine and with the same team for the next Mass Effect, especially it it's next-gen only.

EDIT: Did I say that covers most big problems? I lied. The combat is abyssmal and the PC UI atrocious. Now it covers it all.

My dwarven warrior got nowhere with scout Harding, not for lack of trying though. I read that BW considers dwarven sex a line they will not cross. So no inclusiveness for dwarves.

I also dont get the wartable. Ok, some sidequest wartable operations have you actually travel to a location but these are rare. As it stands my dwarf got to do the shitty jobs of gathering shit and delivering shit, while my consultants got the interesting assignments. The descriptions are sometimes actually intriguing, but no luck, you have to deliver a lost ring asap instead.
 

1451

Seeker
In My Safe Space
Joined
Jan 1, 2011
Messages
1,369
Cool quests are harder to design so they left them in text form leaving the player to hone his skills in wow.
 
Joined
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Messages
6,174
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My dwarven warrior got nowhere with scout Harding, not for lack of trying though. I read that BW considers dwarven sex a line they will not cross. So no inclusiveness for dwarves.

I also dont get the wartable. Ok, some sidequest wartable operations have you actually travel to a location but these are rare. As it stands my dwarf got to do the shitty jobs of gathering shit and delivering shit, while my consultants got the interesting assignments. The descriptions are sometimes actually intriguing, but no luck, you have to deliver a lost ring asap instead.

It's role-playing dude. Do you want to solve the problem using blunt force, subterfuge, or diplomacy? And you keep even get treasures and unlock entire areas doing it! And it's gathered in one spot so you don't have to waste all your time roaming around in the game's big open world talking to NPCs (not unless you want to play some constellation puzzles).

Of course:

It's the same outcome no matter method you use.
The treasures are useless and the areas are boring
The entire point of an open world -- seeing what you can find -- is subverted because every area contains mostly the same things: demon portals, constellation puzzles, and broken shards of glass
 

eremita

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
797
You are wrong good sir, they arent thinking of a dream game, they dont enjoy gaming at all. They get here to say dragon age is shit , wich means free and easy brofist and then to feel like the coolest kid on the block . Its for the ego and morale boost.Its like group therapy.
Unfortunately, this is not true in case of new Dragon Age game. 90% of the game consists of fetch quests and combat. While the first one is bad by itself, there's of course nothing wrong with combat oriented games. Unless the combat sucks. Which it does...
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
5,116
Oh god, that completely unnecessary cliffhanger at the end. For what possible purpose? :retarded:
 

Dreaad

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2013
Messages
5,604
Location
Deep in your subconscious mind spreading lies.
Totally agree, I don't think they enjoy gaming and having fun. They'll never be satisfied and they'll hate those who just want to have a good time (and they do).

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:whatho:
You can pick up literally almost any single player RPG from the last 20 years and have a better time than playing Inquisition. It's that bad. An MMO made for people who can't communicate with real humans. 100 hours of shutting your brain down helping you accept your fate as a vegetable.

I think the saddest part is that it isn't even good on a technical level. Shitty lazy graphics, glitchy path finding, no AI improvements, lazy invisible fences and in effect it has an even shittier version of random battles every 10 steps than most decades old jrpg's. Truly the pinnacle product of a bloated disorganized company ridding on name alone.
 

Havoc

Cheerful Magician
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Poland
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Personally, I fucking gave up after couple of hours with this combat and started using cheats. Fuck this AI. Fuck this bloated HP. I don't want to waste minutes on trash mobs, it's insane. I'm still not ready to fight against dragons. Need to get me some good gear and levels.
 

Old Hans

Arcane
Joined
Oct 10, 2011
Messages
1,476
so I haven't played this yet, but can anyone confirm/deny if there's any quest that takes place in an old crypt/cave involving skeletons?
 

1451

Seeker
In My Safe Space
Joined
Jan 1, 2011
Messages
1,369
Fights are easy on normal difficulty if you have an archer(if you made your inquisitor an archer or went with the superior choice and recruited Sera:M).
Dragons however are on a completely different scale. I am fifty hours in game, I have beaten Corypheus ( and was surprised I could not convince him through dialogue to surrender:M), closed all the rifts I think and I still can't kill the dragons in the snowy area(one with the red lyrium mine).
 

Glaurung

Liberal's alt
Shitposter
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
186
The story in this game is something straight out of a carebear movie. An ugly evil wizard wants to open a portal to a magical city and become god?

Yeah... exciting...
 

cvv

Arcane
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Kingdom of Bohemia
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The story in this game is something straight out of a carebear movie. An ugly evil wizard wants to open a portal to a magical city and become god?

Yeah... exciting...

Yeah the main story of this game is truly retarded beyond belief. Origins is dumb too in this regard but at least it's got pretty rich tapestry of lore and worldbuilding to spice it up. DA2 is terrible gameplay wise but the story and setting is interesting and unique. DAI has none of that. Lore dumps feel like I'm playing dragonage.wiki.com and the main plot is really as idiotic and cliched as an evil wizard trying to take over the world. BAAAA I'LL CRUSH YOU BOW BEFORE MEEEE! Jesus fuck.

And then we get this super adult aspect of building serious high-class relaishuns and talking grownup stuff on top of that. It's like marrying a Pedro Almodovar movie with Teletubbies.
 

Glaurung

Liberal's alt
Shitposter
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
186
Yeah the main story of this game is truly retarded beyond belief. Origins is dumb too in this regard but at least it's got pretty rich tapestry of lore and worldbuilding to spice it up. DA2 is terrible gameplay wise but the story and setting is interesting and unique. DAI has none of that. Lore dumps feel like I'm playing dragonage.wiki.com and the main plot is really as idiotic and cliched as an evil wizard trying to take over the world. BAAAA I'LL CRUSH YOU BOW BEFORE MEEEE! Jesus fuck.

And then we get this super adult aspect of building serious high-class relaishuns and talking grownup stuff on top of that. It's like marrying a Pedro Almodovar movie with Teletubbies.
At least Origins had a subplot about Loghain betraying Cailan and becoming a tyrant, forcing you to save Arl Eamon and call a Landsmeet to despose Loghain. That was really the only interesting part, and offered plenty of choices & consequences along the way. You could dispense with the darkspawn invasion nonsense and still have a solid plotline, in fact, expanding the fate of Ferelden plotline to include possible manipulations from the empress of Orlais (which are strongly alluded to in dialogue/backstory but make no difference in the plot) would only make this game better.

In DAI there's the collapse of the Chantry debacle, but its ramifications are so disjointed, the Inquisition starts to feel like an order of glorified janitors, cleaning up everyone's shit after themselves. To make the player feel powerful and important, every other faction is turned into a bunch of mewling morons. Surviving Cardinals of the Chantry do nothing but squabble among themselves and call for the blood of the only person capable of sealing the tear in the hymen. The leader of rebel mages sells herself and her followers into servitude to a Tevinter magister... what? Leader of loyalist mages parties day and night at a random chateau having nothing to do other than joining the Inquisition. Templars become completely unhinged and start casually punching Chantry clerics in the middle of a crowded street... lol. I haven't gotten to the part where you have to save the empress of Orlais, but I'm sure she'll be suitably moronic and helpless.

Cleaning up after a bunch of morons: the game. Exciting.
 

cvv

Arcane
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I haven't gotten to the part where you have to save the empress of Orlais, but I'm sure she'll be suitably moronic and helpless.

Actually the part taking place in Winter Palace is one of the few truly interesting parts of DAI. I felt I have only scratched the surface of the C&C stuff with just one playthrough. Felt like shit could've flown all sorts of ways over there.

But yeah overall I think it's Gaider who became completely unhinged. Up until now Bioware games had all sorts of stupid flaws but they somehow always felt smarter and more grownup than most of the AAA production. In DAI Bioware completed its descend to Blizzard level of infantilism, aiming at the lowest common denominator and armies of twitchy teenages with split-second attention spans.
 

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