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The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
I have to ask, i really have to ask, are there people in this world that actually slogged through this borefest?

Give the men a medal people, they deserve it...

I actually did finish it but I saluted you anyway because this game's the biggest nonsense grind-fest bore-a-thon I've probably ever installed on my PC.
 

Paul_cz

Arcane
Joined
Jan 26, 2014
Messages
1,996
I have to ask, i really have to ask, are there people in this world that actually slogged through this borefest?

Give the men a medal people, they deserve it...

I managed it. I started playing it in 2014 when it came out and gave up after 2 hours.

Then in 2016, I lasted 4 hours.

Now this year, I finally said "ok, time to get this shit off my list for good". It helped that I didn't have anything else much to play at the moment.
And I managed to get through it, including all DLCs. It is super flawed, there is insane amount of unnecessary boring combat and MMO fetchquest bullshit, but at least the environments and character interaction made it quite fun (though hit and miss too).
In the end, I would give it 6/10.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
The environments are definitely pretty and nice to walk around in a bit, I give it that. It lacks any real interactivity though. You go to a cool looking thing, plant a flag, walk away. Woo-hoo.

So many developers shoot for Bethesda style exploration but completely miss what hooks people in those games.
 

typical user

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 30, 2015
Messages
957
I remember it. It was May 2015. I was struggling because DA:I is a single player MMO which consists only of fedex errands. Then I played it. Witcher 3, not the game I wanted but one I needed.

I still don't know how I finished it. But damn, that memory is the only thing that makes me remember I played it.

10/10.
 

Zewp

Arcane
Joined
Sep 30, 2012
Messages
3,566
Codex 2013
I gave it another try recently and I don't understand how it didn't get ripped apart for its awful combat in reviews. The combat is just a massive chore because it hinges entirely on Mages keeping your party shielded while both your party chips away at the enemies' massive HP pools. Most encounters rely on enemies luring your characters away so that it's harder for the mage to cast shield on everyone, because that's the only way it can be challenging. Sometimes when your party does wipe, you get to watch as your armored tank just slowly nicks away at the HP of enemies who simply cannot damage him. No matter how many enemies he's facing, he cannot possibly die so you just have to wait until he finally manages to kill everything in sight.

I guess it got a free pass because Bioware and EA, but fucking hell. I'm pretty sure even DA2 combat wasn't this bad.
 

Kabas

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Feb 10, 2018
Messages
1,258
I have to ask, i really have to ask, are there people in this world that actually slogged through this borefest?

Give the men a medal people, they deserve it...
Pretty sure my sister finished it at least two times.
I dropped it shortly after reaching that mountain fortress.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
I gave it another try recently and I don't understand how it didn't get ripped apart for its awful combat in reviews. The combat is just a massive chore because it hinges entirely on Mages keeping your party shielded while both your party chips away at the enemies' massive HP pools. Most encounters rely on enemies luring your characters away so that it's harder for the mage to cast shield on everyone, because that's the only way it can be challenging. Sometimes when your party does wipe, you get to watch as your armored tank just slowly nicks away at the HP of enemies who simply cannot damage him. No matter how many enemies he's facing, he cannot possibly die so you just have to wait until he finally manages to kill everything in sight.

I guess it got a free pass because Bioware and EA, but fucking hell. I'm pretty sure even DA2 combat wasn't this bad.
Maybe the character build you are using is not ideal? With some crowd control or AOE damage you would require less healing. It also sounds like you built a tank that can't die... or hold threat.

In short, I played it on hard and didn't experience what you are describing outside of a couple dragon encounters.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
I gave it another try recently and I don't understand how it didn't get ripped apart for its awful combat in reviews. The combat is just a massive chore because it hinges entirely on Mages keeping your party shielded while both your party chips away at the enemies' massive HP pools. Most encounters rely on enemies luring your characters away so that it's harder for the mage to cast shield on everyone, because that's the only way it can be challenging. Sometimes when your party does wipe, you get to watch as your armored tank just slowly nicks away at the HP of enemies who simply cannot damage him. No matter how many enemies he's facing, he cannot possibly die so you just have to wait until he finally manages to kill everything in sight.

I guess it got a free pass because Bioware and EA, but fucking hell. I'm pretty sure even DA2 combat wasn't this bad.
Maybe the character build you are using is not ideal? With some crowd control or AOE damage you would require less healing. It also sounds like you built a tank that can't die... or hold threat.

In short, I played it on hard and didn't experience what you are describing outside of a couple dragon encounters.
dragons were the worst part of the game because it highlighted just how awful the AI is. I didn't enjoy having to babysit my party members and play 'keep out of the fire'
 

Dedicated_Dark

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 21, 2015
Messages
957
Location
Beyond the Grave
dragons were the worst part of the game because it highlighted just how awful the AI is. I didn't enjoy having to babysit my party members and play 'keep out of the fire'
Dragons were literally one of the few enemies where the tactical camera get's used. And even then most of it can be circumvented by getting a support mage and making him spam barrier.
 

Xeon

Augur
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
1,858
I finally finished the game after trying so many times. Story is kinda cheesy and I tend to dislike world ending stuff so I wasn't all that invested in the story.

Gameplay is kinda of a mix, I played it on Nightmare with almost all trials except for the health restore one but every fight took a long time to do and it felt like a real drag to do so I turned off trials. Really dislike the hotbar/ability bar or whatever being only 8 abilities, that sucks so bad, Origins had several bars you can scroll through and you can extend and shorten it, DA2 had a long bar as well, this one is just straight up shit. Tried to look up a mod to add proper hot bars but any time someone asks if there is a mod, some dipshit pops up and says "play it with controller, 8 abilities is perfect and you don't need any more than that", wtf is that all about. Camera sucks, a lot of quests feels radiant like MMO's. A lot of the decisions in the past games don't seem to matter overall, that kinda sucks man, I understand that they can't make outcome for everything but do some proper ones at least for the major decisions, a lot of times just flavor, instead of some random guy, someone you know will show up instead and everything plays the same.

Kinda enjoyed the companions interaction for the most part tho.

I skipped all DLCs except Trespasser I think and next game will also be another bigger world ending disaster or some shit, what the hell man, Origin was big scale but was about one country iirc, DA2 is a personal story but started all this shit with the last arc. At least it will be in Tevinter I think so Blood Magic or other ancient magics maybe would have some proper showing or something in the next game.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
So I borrowed this off a mate some years back and played it for around 15 hours before losing the will to live. However, I've been housitting this past week and the folk there have a copy, so I thought I'd give it another blast.

This time I've sunk way more hours into it in the hope that there's more to it (around 70).

xm-Hvn.gif


I'm gobsmacked at how utterly, mind-numbingly dull it is ALL the way through. Nothing happens. Even the story sections are dull as fuckeroony. It's like a really bland soap opera, with little comedy and SJW colours absolutely drenching you throughout.

I'm going to finish it coz I've just looked at the walkthrough and there's only 1 main quest left to do, but fuck me what a load of absolute shit.

Possibly the worst designed game of all time too. Locking story missions so you're forced to grind through shit areas is the worst game design choice I've ever known.
 

Frozen

Arcane
Joined
Jan 1, 2014
Messages
8,303
You should have skipped the main story an game in all and just watched the ending on YouTube. Even the ending has nothing to it besides 1 after credits scene.

If you are interested in lore, story progression and world repercussions you just have to play Trespasser DLC that has some important stuff in general and for the future of the franchise (if there is a future). Base game is redundant. Other DLC (cant remember name) is important only if you are interested in the origins of Lyrium.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
You should have skipped the main story an game in all and just watched the ending on YouTube. Even the ending has nothing to it besides 1 after credits scene.

If you are interested in lore, story progression and world repercussions you just have to play Trespasser DLC that has some important stuff in general and for the future of the franchise (if there is a future). Base game is redundant. Other DLC (cant remember name) is important only if you are interested in the origins of Lyrium.

Tbh I'm not interested in it, I just thought I'd give it another go seeing as there was so much hype over it and it was there.

I really, really hated DA:2, but it's a toss up of which game is worse between this & that one. Whereas I thought DA:O was brilliant.

Amazing how such a decline can be so steep with just a few key design choices. The dialogue wheel renders almost every conversation aboslutely pointless. May as well be a straight out cut-scene.

Incredibly woeful. If I were to review it I think it'd get a :1/5: at best.
 
Last edited:

Prime Junta

Guest
I recently for reasons not entirely clear even to myself played through the entire DA trilogy, first time I managed to finish any of them. And I don't entirely agree with all the haet.

DA:O -- tries to sit on way too many chairs and falls between them. Is it an epic Monty Haul romp where you end up killing a dragon? A grimdark blood-soaked revenge fantasy? A party-based tactical RPG? An aRPG? Nobody knows and it ends up kind of a mess. Mechanics are pure cargo cult totally-not-D&D with none of the richness and complexity that makes D&D fun. Companions are one-note caricatures. Great C&C though, some pretty cool encounters, a serviceable story, and a big sprawling playground to play in. Also, hard; stupidly hard in places -- like, some of the early-game random encounters while traveling are ridiculous, the dragons were easy-peasy compared to a few of them.

DA2 -- everybody hates it but I didn't. Main issue with it is that it was marketed as a sequel rather than a standalone expansion -- it's obviously made on a super tight budget and schedule. However the companions are better, I really dig the idea of setting it in a single location over several years, and the story arc overall is much better than in DA:O. Moment-to-moment combat is much more enjoyable too, this one decided that fuck it, it's an aRPG and rolls with it, and is much better for it. Crying shame about the masses of repetitive trash mob encounters with more mooks paratrooping in. Also, easy. Very, very easy.

DA:I -- yeah well. Mechanics have gone full MMO retard and it tries to fucking drown you in pointless fetch-me-ten-of-this generated sidequests. Moment to moment gameplay is about as good/bad as in DA2, but better than DA:O. The leveled loot and crafting system is putrid, yet more pointless grind; there's also rampant stupidity there like the typically American liberal approach to race, i.e. completely randomise racial features and pretend it doesn't exist, then throw in a fucking hilariously Orientalist stand-in for Arabs (rigid, expansionist, scary religious fanatics who will at the same time fuck any warm hole).

However if you have the intestinal fortitude to simply ignore the grind and focus on the main quest and better sidequests, there's a decent game underneath there somewhere. The companion writing is actually good in places: characters are more complex, they have their own agendas, and it's possible to build relationships with them that go beyond the usual BioWare harem anime. It's also big and lush and fun to explore, and the main story arc ties up all the random questing rather nicely really.

Overall I was left feeling better about the franchise than I did before. It's not one of my favourites and likely never will be, and it really exemplifies the decline of RPGs from the very start, but it's not irredeemably bad. No, not even DA2. I rate it 3 good-for-what-it-is-es out of 5.
 

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