The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[set]

Save yourself 5 minutes, only quote you need from that video: "Best game in the series so far imo" - Yathzee "Refuses to review Wasteland 2/Divinity: Original Sin, bashes Might&Magic X and dislikes Planescape: Torment" Croshaw
Edit: "There's a lot to like". Also you're boring/some one's dad if you actually want to manage your equipment&party in a RPG.

Read about Yahtzee loving DAI, came in here to post about it. :D

Bioware did it. They finally made a RPG for people who hate RPGs.

Unrelated, but I also had a good laugh when I saw that DAI removed attack rolls altogether. Someone shoulda mentioned that to me sooner.

No attack rolls? Explain!

 

[set]

Somebody send Patricia a copy of Rance then

Whatsherface kind of has the same face as Patricia?

 

[RK47]

They patched the game again. So many changes.

 

[crawlkill]

Mechanics and story should harmonize, ideally... It just means the story is stupid or your programmers aren't given enough time to account for everything in the story.

... or simply Bioware just don't care.

They have never seen gameplay as the "true" representation for the story, but as an "abstraction" of what's really happening. So, in DA2, when you're fighting against a bunch of dudes in front of a templar, while Hawke is a mage, you never performed, or your companions, any magic according to the story.

They narrate their stories from a purely cinematic perspective, which is not ideal in any case, but especially harmfull for RPGs (and I'm not much of a "simulationist" guy myself)

the way mages all wear funny hats and carry giant staves really makes the "the PC and his friends exist as apostates" thing in the second game in particular drive me up the fucking wall. presumably if it's illegal to be an unCircled mage you'd find a way to hide your damn wand inside a sword or whatever.

when D&D has subtler player characters than you (I'm thinkin Dark Sun mages), you've gone off the path somewhere.

not that it wasn't weirdly hilarious teaching Wynne blood magic, etc. but it's Skyrim hilarious. the kind where you snort and then wish it had been better instead.

 

[Jick Magger]

I'm just kinda sad at this point at how much potential they had with the game and how none of it is realized. I mean, think about it, you're basically playing a character who's being hailed by the common man as the messiah, tasked with leading an organization born from ancient pseudo-christian tradition during a time of intense political, social, and religious turmoil. You could maintain the Inquisition as a solely peace-keeping/humanitarian force, you could use it to reform the archaic and draconian systems of the Chantry and the Circle, or you could use it to wage your personal jihad against everyone you don't like. This comes right down to the dialogue options the Inquisitor has when faced with the question on whether or not they actually believe they're the herald of andraste: are you a true believer who does believe it? Are you just some guy who doesn't believe any of it? Or more importantly; do you go along with it anyway simply because it gives the people hope, or because it gives you that much more influence over them to get what you want?

I mean, there was one war-room scenario that actually kind of interested me, dealing with the king of a nearby region who's being controlled by a Tevinter plant. Cullen's solution basically amounted to storming the country's capital and capturing the plant while the king is away, while Leliana's was a much more discreet assassination. Me, being the idealistic idiot that I am, actually thought about it for a fair while. Cullen's option, while direct, could earn the king's admiration and support, but could just as equally lead to criticism from him and other kingdoms who are now concerned that the Inquisition will happily invade their countries if they feel they are worth suspicion, while Leliana's was more discreet, but also had the potential to blow up in our face if it failed and our role in it was brought to light.

I tried them both, they both had essentially the same outcome.

I guess it's my fault for giving my hopes up for believing that the Ultra-PC Bioware would try something like that.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I guess the different outcomes are getting ++ approval from either Cullen or Leliana.

So there's that.

*stares off into the distance*

 

[Bleed the Man]

I guess the different outcomes are getting ++ approval from either Cullen or Leliana.

So there's that.

*stares off into the distance*

Your counselors don't have an aproval rating, only your companions does.

And probably the outcome was the same, 60+ influence. I'm making a gess, obviously, I don't remeber that exact operation, but for how he describe it, seems very likely.

 

[Jick Magger]

I guess the different outcomes are getting ++ approval from either Cullen or Leliana.

So there's that.

*stares off into the distance*

Your counselors don't have an aproval rating, only your companions does.

And probably the outcome was the same, 60+ influence. I'm making a gess, obviously, I don't remeber that exact operation, but for how he describe it, seems very likely.

Nah, it was a staff they pilfered from the agent's collection or something.

 

[crawlkill]

it was some totally useless staff, yeah. I can't remember what I did. we ended up chasing the Tevintir out and the king came out of his trance, one way or the other.

you know what's not interesting? fucking mind control. if your antagonists are only antagonists because they're mind controlled, their motivations don't have to make any sense, and indeed are basically destined not to. this is as true of ME indoctrination as it is of Corypheus mind control as it is most totally and completely of the hivemind of the dharkhsphahwhn. even the non-mind controlled Red Templar leader's excuse was ultimately just "nobody respeeected me." poor guy! I thought you were some sort of holy order or some shit? like, serving selflessly because you believe a skybeard demands it? claiming power of life and death over psychics because of the skybeard's mandate? that's real relatable, fucker.

the only Bioware antagonist I've liked in recent memory was Loghain. that his entirely reasonable political fear of the king's inviting the Orlesian army he'd only expelled himself a few decades before back into Ferelden came clear as the plot progressed if you were paying attention. sometimes I think maybe Dragon Age was originally -just- that story, Loghain's betraying his king because he thought the king was going to kill his own country, and that there was some big marketing meeting at some point where they said "but where are the orcs? nah, we need no-personality monster mashes to cut down by the thousand. nobody likes fantasy politics."

the fact that the public scarfed up the watered-down adaptations of A Song of Ice and Fire a few years later probably still stings whoever demanded that there be orc zombie mans.

 

[Jick Magger]

It's funny, because the descriptions of the ops come off as way more interesting than the MMO quests you actually have to do. I get a sneaking suspicion that a majority of them were intended to be quests, but for whatever reason Bioware wasn't able to implement them. Call me paranoid, but I get the feeling that a disproportionate amount of the 4-year dev cycle this game had was spent scrapping and re-doing it for various reasons. It's just that this game simply has way too many design compromises and not enough enough content or polish for me to seriously believe it had any more than two years dedicated to it.

 

[crawlkill]

It's funny, because the descriptions of the ops come off as way more interesting than the MMO quests you actually have to do.

well--that depends on if you consider the writers to be writing to a budget in the first place or not. I wouldn't be surprised if the writers had more interesting ops -because- they knew that there would be no resource cost to them. if you write an adventure that involves subtle conversation and a world-renowned palace garden and a vale famed for being home to the only glacier in Orlais (or whatever), that costs nothing. once you have to send it to the art department, it costs a staggering amount. they knew their ambitions had to be low in "played" missions, but that they could go crazy with offscreen content.

apparently in film, particularly TV, one of the producer's big jobs is to say 'we can't do that, it's too hard/expensive.' the producer is to video what the fixer is to crime fiction. I'm not sure who has the dream-culling role in vidya game production, but I'm sure there's someone there who tells the writers "this is how far you may go and no further. these are the environments and assets you get and no more."

I mean, for fuck's sake, there isn't a unique enemy model but Corypheus' in the -entire game.- every single other one is recycled a hundred times (oh, sorry, eleven times, for the dragons). the ferocious culling of unique art assets from today's big-budget games may be the single craziest thing about them. -if Soul Reaver could have enemies and boss models unique to each area, why the fuck can't you today?- you're putting Simon Templeman to better use than Kain, and that takes work! come the fuck on!

If people feel Vivienne being pro-Templar hits too close a vein to real world events, I can't imagine what a black Isabella would have resulted in.

oh, it's not "too close" for me at all. it could've been interesting if it were handled with more nuance. but it wasn't.

I'm just deeply surprised to see it happen. mostly, I think it was a coincidence. it's just a coincidence that, given the time of the game's release, seems like it should be screaming in everyone's faces, and that I haven't seen anyone talk about.

literature -should- make us uncomfortable. it just needs to sell itself on that discomfort. Vivienne doesn't even make me uncomfortable--she just makes me a little itchy. but she doesn't sell herself, even on the itch.

although internally interesting for me is that I anticipated loving her -just because- she seemed to be an empowered and independent black chick in all the preview material, which I freely admit is a big faggy "reverse discrimination" thing on my part, which I agree is in bad taste. but then she turned out to be this conservative who didn't give no fucks about police brutality. it would've made me dislike her even if it didn't have a really contemporary political parallel; that it did just kind of baffled me.

 

[Jick Magger]

apparently in film, particularly TV, one of the producer's big jobs is to say 'we can't do that, it's too hard/expensive.' the producer is to video what the fixer is to crime fiction. I'm not sure who has the dream-culling role in vidya game production, but I'm sure there's someone there who tells the writers "this is how far you may go and no further. these are the environments and assets you get and no more."

Most of the more grandiose ones, probably. But some of them I've seen are mundane/doable enough to make me question it. There are several that are set in the wide-open areas you explore, and their inclusion would only necessitate getting the assets together to make maybe one or two unique models and a voice actor to do their lines. I'm not saying it wouldn't cost anything, but I have a hard time believing it'd cripple them as well. For instance, one which basically just amounts to you getting tipped off by a boy in the hinterlands of a venatori camp, and you deciding whether or not you should recruit him to the Inquisition.

The only other thing I can think of is EA pushed the wide-open environments so hard during the development cycle to try and get the 'Skyrim Audience', that they just did not have the budget to actually put anything in it. That's also perfectly feasible.

 

[crawlkill]

apparently in film, particularly TV, one of the producer's big jobs is to say 'we can't do that, it's too hard/expensive.' the producer is to video what the fixer is to crime fiction. I'm not sure who has the dream-culling role in vidya game production, but I'm sure there's someone there who tells the writers "this is how far you may go and no further. these are the environments and assets you get and no more."

Most of the more grandiose ones, probably. But some of them I've seen are mundane/doable enough to make me question it. There are several that are set in the wide-open areas you explore, and their inclusion would only necessitate getting the assets together to make maybe one or two unique models and a voice actor to do their lines. I'm not saying it wouldn't cost anything, but I have a hard time believing it'd cripple them as well. For instance, one which basically just amounts to you getting tipped off by a boy in the hinterlands of a venatori camp, and you deciding whether or not you should recruit him to the Inquisition.

The only other thing I can think of is EA pushed the wide-open environments so hard during the development cycle to try and get the 'Skyrim Audience', that they just did not have the budget to actually put anything in it. That's also perfectly feasible.

I was trying to edit a quote from you down to a "get off their assets" joke but the internet betrayed me more times than I have patience for, so.

your second paragraph is 100% how I imagine development on this game worked. a bunch of shareholders post-DAO said "make something quick and cheap with the same property!" and Bioware attempted to invoke the important-but-personal story of BG2 and failed utterly. voiced dialogue meant that the writers didn't have free reign to make the story as involved as they were willing to put in the hours with the map editor.

then Skyrim was released a few months later as a buggy illiterate piece of shit whose narrative was targeted at people who'd never seen a Saturday morning cartoon much less read a book and it sold like gangbusters and EA's investors said "why don't you make onea those sky-y rimmies?" not understanding that TES games are a mindvirus in the lowest common denominator of system owners.

this is basically an indictment of capitalism, not for egalitarian reasons, but for aesthetic reasons. give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. give a man a stake in a company and he'll think he has a fucking clue.

 

[PhantasmaNL]

A lot of development time may have been sunk in making the engine capable of doing RPG stuff ( not questioning if DAI is actually an RPG). The fact that you develop for multiple platforms (well consoles first, and a crappy PC port too) probably dictates that you use an of the shelf engine as a basis, if you want to keep costs in check (and for EA this is probably the only priority). Maybe they underestimated the amount of tweaking needed to get the engine up to where they wanted it to be. Maybe all kinds of stuff was scrapped because it didnt fit in the engine, even if heavily modified.

Thats why i love small studios like Larian who focus on one platform, dont compromise on engine and built one themselves specifically suited for their vision. Actual gamers determined to create the best user experience possible vs accountants profit maxing.

As an aside note, after the latest patch my game runs smoother AND looks better, no settings changed. Plus another restart, melee warrior this time, since i read that this class is near unplayable on pc. Sofar though i have no problems, maybe the rogue suffers more due to positioning issues.

 

[LESS T_T]

In the meantime...

Known for combining deep gameplay with rich worldbuilding and complex narrative, the Dragon Age series has become a high-water mark for interactive storytelling.

Creative director Mike Laidlaw, lead writer David Gaider, and actor Freddie Prinze Jr. will discuss the BioWare creative process, share stories about making the game, and highlight their favorite details from the world of Dragon Age.

Disclaimer: I didn't watched this...thing.

 

[DalekFlay]

As an aside note, after the latest patch my game runs smoother AND looks better, no settings changed. Plus another restart, melee warrior this time, since i read that this class is near unplayable on pc. Sofar though i have no problems, maybe the rogue suffers more due to positioning issues.

Melee just feels like it needs a controller to me. Also with the rogue you have to try and backstab all the time, and with enemies running around a lot it means a lot of missing. Can't tell you how many backstab abilities while stealthed ended up missing and doing jack shit.

That said, with magic and archery you're kind of just standing there holding LMB 90% of the time, so pick your poison.

 

[PhantasmaNL]

As an aside note, after the latest patch my game runs smoother AND looks better, no settings changed. Plus another restart, melee warrior this time, since i read that this class is near unplayable on pc. Sofar though i have no problems, maybe the rogue suffers more due to positioning issues.

Melee just feels like it needs a controller to me. Also with the rogue you have to try and backstab all the time, and with enemies running around a lot it means a lot of missing. Can't tell you how many backstab abilities while stealthed ended up missing and doing jack shit.

That said, with magic and archery you're kind of just standing there holding LMB 90% of the time, so pick your poison.

Yes i played mage and rogue archer for quite a bit and it got kinda boring. That was another reason for a restart (plus i usually do more restarts than finishing). The combat is a bit more involved, and my warrior doesnt suffer from squishiness or critical positioning of the dw rogue.

 

[DalekFlay]

Yes i played mage and rogue archer for quite a bit and it got kinda boring. That was another reason for a restart (plus i usually do more restarts than finishing). The combat is a bit more involved, and my warrior doesnt suffer from squishiness or critical positioning of the dw rogue.

I still think I would pick a DW Rogue if you want melee though. At least then there are some "tactical" aspects to the battle, and stealth is always an added layer, which is normally why I play rogues. My DW Rogue at the end of the game could pretty much constantly stealth thanks to abilities that lowered or removed its cooldown, plus daggers get swapped out for dual-bladed swords eventually that do AoE damage, and you get some ranged abilities that really kick ass. That plus crafting each weapon to have a 10% chance of tons of bonus damage meant that I was a fucking death machine by the end. Even on hard mode I barely had time to do anything before shit was dead.

With a tank or 2H warrior I imagine I would just run into the crowd and mash buttons. Meh.

 

[Abu Antar]

I know this has probably discussed to death but what in the actual fuck? There are timed quests? This is mobile crap on a whole new level. Wait one hour for the quest to resolve itself. Alrighty, then.

 

[Jick Magger]

I know this has probably discussed to death but what in the actual fuck? There are timed quests? This is mobile crap on a whole new level. Wait one hour for the quest to resolve itself. Alrighty, then.

Oh ho ho, one hour? That's early-game stuff. I've been running into events that go for 4-6 hours, even one that went for twenty. Thank god you can work around it by changing your system clock.

 

[Roguey]

No attack rolls? Explain!

In DA:O, everyone "rolled" (technically it uses floating point numbers) to attack except when it came to magic and special enemy attacks. In DA2 they changed this so that all your special abilities autohit, special (and regular melee) enemy attacks could be manually dodged, and they replaced your misses with glancing blows that would instead do a fraction of damage, while enemies could still miss your characters with regular attacks. DAI does away with misses and glances entirely; there's no longer any defense score, just barrier/guard, armor-based damage threshold, and melee/ranged/magic/elemental percentage-based resistance.

 

[RK47]

 

[eremita]

No attack rolls? Explain!

In DA:O, everyone "rolled" (technically it uses floating point numbers) to attack except when it came to magic and special enemy attacks. In DA2 they changed this so that all your special abilities autohit, special (and regular melee) enemy attacks could be manually dodged, and they replaced your misses with glancing blows that would instead do a fraction of damage, while enemies could still miss your characters with regular attacks. DAI does away with misses and glances entirely; there's no longer any defense score, just barrier/guard, armor-based damage threshold, and melee/ranged/magic/elemental percentage-based resistance.

Yep. But that actually makes sense for this kind of game.

 

[Slow James]

A lot of development time may have been sunk in making the engine capable of doing RPG stuff ( not questioning if DAI is actually an RPG). The fact that you develop for multiple platforms (well consoles first, and a crappy PC port too) probably dictates that you use an of the shelf engine as a basis, if you want to keep costs in check (and for EA this is probably the only priority). Maybe they underestimated the amount of tweaking needed to get the engine up to where they wanted it to be. Maybe all kinds of stuff was scrapped because it didnt fit in the engine, even if heavily modified.

This is DEFINITELY worth mentioning. DICE didn't have a conversation editor tool before DA.

An engine being used to create a story RPG. With no conversation editor.

The systems they had already made from games like Battlefield, such as animations, environments and jumping, all came through really well. The things they had to create from scratch are really very surprising they were able to get off the ground at all.

Thats why i love small studios like Larian who focus on one platform, dont compromise on engine and built one themselves specifically suited for their vision. Actual gamers determined to create the best user experience possible vs accountants profit maxing.

Well... Frostbite is going to be the new engine of every EA game in the entire company. Bioware was just the first non-DICE early adapter.

For sure there is something to say about single platform indie developing - the product will be more polished and seamless 9 times out of 10. But everything Larian develops and makes advancements on will only be able to be used by Larian and even then, the carry-over might not be easy. They are the only ones working on their Divinity engine, so anything made to be used for their games will have to be made from scratch. Compare that to Unity, where multiple developers are all using the engine for vastly different purposes and occasionally collaborating online across developers. Or with Unreal, where a single owner of the engine is helping many other major developers and share some of the same best practices and ideas from one developer to another.

The way EA is handling FB is better than all of the above approaches. They own the engine, so every cent spent on development is all on their own books. They get dozens of their own developers working on the engine to do vastly different things, so the engine gets to have it paces run regularly and in different directions. They have an entire division at DICE devoted to do nothing but make the engine better and to make it able to address all of the needs of the developer using it - which is to say, every developer in EA. Since there is a single repository of all work done on the engine collected in one team, the wheel does not need to be re-invented between fixing common problems and time can be spent making existing solutions better.

Now... some of the issues in DA:I can be directly attributed to them switching to Frostbite and also trying to develop for five platforms, no doubt. Things that were thought of as features got cut due to headaches created from this, and things that were included did not get the proper testing or polish to work right, which is a large source of the complaints still today.

Granted, their design decisions were also very poor to make the RPG many people thought they were selling, but that's almost ancillary to this point. What EA is doing with FB could possibly be the most ambitious publisher project we've ever seen and the results to both EA and all of its developers may be so vast that it may change the publisher-developer dynamic across the industry in a decade or two.

As an aside note, after the latest patch my game runs smoother AND looks better, no settings changed. Plus another restart, melee warrior this time, since i read that this class is near unplayable on pc. Sofar though i have no problems, maybe the rogue suffers more due to positioning issues.

I have heard positioning issues are endemic more to the rogue, although I'm not sure why. Maybe the sword-and-board build has better abilities that help orient the player more often than the rogue. Regardless, player aim should not have any place in a party-based RPG and is one inky biggest turn offs to even pick this gam up, even when it hits the bargain bin.

 

[Slow James]

Oh ho ho, one hour? That's early-game stuff. I've been running into events that go for 4-6 hours, even one that went for twenty. Thank god you can work around it by changing your system clock.

Yeah, I just really and seriously can't even begin to understand the point of this mechanic.