The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[treave]

A good prologue would give you just enough information to get intrigued, not more, although maybe the adhd console crowd would indeed need a full explanatory intro (strictly using simple words and very short sentences of course). As your game series expands, providing a good intro will probably become more and more difficult, since you want to sell your game to veteran and new players. This is especially true if your game is heavy on "story".

I think it can still be done without lengthy explanations and remain memorable. Just tie in the loredumps in with some characters and quests.

Mage/templar conflict? A choice where you decide the occupation of a childhood friend, and you get a bit of exposition from that perspective, perhaps an introductory quest regarding dialogue options and their effects when you step in the midst of an argument. A few throwaway lines about the nature of the Fade and why mages can't be trusted, while referencing DA2 events, will also serve to lore dump religion and magic.

Nobility and their schemes? Have a smug-ass young noble as your rival to introduce you into that aspect through a series of biting dialogue options bickering over the Orlais and Ferelden courts, perhaps with a duel against him/her for a tutorial battle. Bonus points if they're turned into the focal point for the anti-Inquisition later on as a dark parallel.

Then you just need to add in a few minor consequences depending on the outcomes of the encounters, and an option to skip it all if you want, and you have a somewhat replayable prologue that isn't too top heavy for newbies and still linear enough for Bioware. Veterans will appreciate the cameos and ability to begin forming their character's opinions about recent and current events.

Given that the Conclave is supposed to be where all these big names are gathering, it's essentially the best place to get a lore-dump to be honest. It's also a great place to determine what happened in the previous games through in-game dialogue options, but then I suppose Dragon Age Keep would be redundant.

 

[eremita]

But somehow EA felt obligated to spend a lot of time and money on DA:I. They could have just churned out another DA2 for another quick cash in if they wanted to, but they didn't.

Biowares actually believes they managed to make a top-tier game. Whether they did or not, well..

I need to figure out the tactical mode if I want to get some kind of enjoyment from this game.

Yeah, that's currently my biggest problem with the game- or at least, the one that's the easiest to fix so i am really hoping a fix is coming.

The action combat mechanic is just terrible with melee having to use the constant pausing just to lock-on and switch target midway or risk swinging at air.
Also, these explorations are meaningless challenges. Let's put it this way: there's no reason not to spam potions. Potions are free and you can always return or quick travel to camps to replenish your stock of Red Bulls. It's just funny how much emphasis was put into limited consumables after the 99x Elfroot experience we get in DAO but then rendered meaningless with infinite restocks and easy escapes from open world encounter (stealth > walk away).

Well, restocking potions means rewalking to a camp/etc, and this is an interesting mechanic by itself. It's basically the equivalent to a DnD "adcenturing day".

I don't dislike that.

You're both playing on PC, right? Can't you just edit the .ini or something to expand the zoom?

 

[Ezrite]

Best game ever or what! We got big bulls we can take a ride on into battle. Short haired dykes! Ugly mishapen elves we get to babysit. Poorly made clones of Freddy Mercury! Michonne from the Walking Dead as a wizard and the Lore has no meaning so we can make our own up on the spot! Bioware done it again! Innovative mainstream and casual RPG with a hint of something that tries to be tactical! 3 out of 12 Gaider goats!

 

[bussinrounds]

I liked Origins for it's long quests and I think it's the most fun I've had with an RPG until D:OS

New to the genre ?

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Pre-ramble - I'm not joining in either the auto-hate or the auto-love at this point. From what I've seen so far (two Let's Plays from two completely different people) the game has value for certain mindsets, but what value I deem to be an appropriate buy-price I've yet to decide.

The reason for my post - earlier in this thread, probably about 20 pages ago now, I asked if the game permitted us an inventory this time around. No-one responded. So I've been watching the Let's Plays now to get some idea of itemisation. And this game has virtually no itemisation, something that's very important for me and the kind of thing I enjoy in RPGs, something I find to be in my top 10 of must-haves.

You're itemisation inventory consists of Armour and Helmet and Weapon. That's it, as far as I can tell, and most people are clicking the box to not display the Helmet animation (because it's so ugly and because people are loving the Barbie-Doll aspect).

That is exactly the same level of itemisation you might find in a game like this:



This a side-scroller released in 1991 for a 16-bit console system.

And from both the Let's Plays I still haven't seen anyone sell anything. Nothing, nadda, zip. One of them bought some items, from all the loose gold bags littered around, but no-one's actually sold anything. And when they do, it's just going to be Armour, Weapons, Helmets and... Toy Soldiers? (Assuming these Toy Soldiers aren't part of a "my son has lost his Toy Soldiers his great great great grandfather gave him, please look for them for a happy-point).

The only depth to itemisation seems to be crafting, but neither Let's Player has engaged this yet, at all, because, like all crafting mechanics, they HAVE to be optional, and so, inevitably, not required. It might be fun, it might be just a lot of WORK for virtually no dramatically noticeable improvement, who knows, no-one I've seen has gotten into it yet.

And this is making looting extremely boring, because what exactly are the players hoping for when they loot stuff? One of only three things - Armour, Weapon, Helmet. Each of which has level restrictions. Finding a better item is not exciting even when it does happen, because it's just an obvious switch based on DPS numbers or Armour rating, the details below this headline stat are irrelevant.

There will be no agonising dilemmas between wielding a Mace of Disruption +1 or plain Mace +3, it's just DPS 45 or DPS 65, well, that was... interesting...? No gloves of accuracy, no boots of speed, no belt of Agility, no rings or amulets of anything, really... REALLY.

So it's another strip-out. Another reason for me to pay less, even if other things are cool. It seems the more people spend on making the game, the less RPG I'm getting. Itemisation has been sacrificed in exchange for more realistic cut-scenes... who ever asked for more cut-scenes... They should have just jumped the shark completely and made a purely story RPG like Unrest or Late To The Party, at least then it would have had the *Unique* tag.

 

[Arkeus]

You're both playing on PC, right? Can't you just edit the .ini or something to expand the zoom?

I don't think so- the issue with the zoom isn't the size of the zoom itself, it's that there is a bug where if there is any texture whatosever above the zoom it's 'blocked'.

So while we actually have a supposedly decent-height zoom, we in practice never ever see it. We also tend to have a lot of trees that hideour characters, which only makes things worse.

And from both the Let's Plays I still haven't seen anyone sell anything. Nothing, nadda, zip. One of them bought some items, from all the loose gold bags littered around, but no-one's actually sold anything. And when they do, it's just going to be Armour, Weapons, Helmets and... Toy Soldiers? (Assuming these Toy Soldiers aren't part of a "my son has lost his Toy Soldiers his great great great grandfather gave him, please look for them for a happy-point).

The only depth to itemisation seems to be crafting, but neither Let's Player has engaged this yet, at all, because, like all crafting mechanics, they HAVE to be optional, and so, inevitably, not required. It might be fun, it might be just a lot of WORK for virtually no dramatically noticeable improvement, who knows, no-one I've seen has gotten into it yet.

And this is making looting extremely boring, because what exactly are the players hoping for when they loot stuff? One of only three things - Armour, Weapon, Helmet. Each of which has level restrictions. Finding a better item is not exciting even when it does happen, because it's just an obvious switch based on DPS numbers or Armour rating, the details below this headline stat are irrelevant.

There will be no agonising dilemmas between wielding a Mace of Disruption +1 or plain Mace +3, it's just DPS 45 or DPS 65, well, that was... interesting...? No gloves of accuracy, no boots of speed, no belt of Agility, no rings or amulets of anything, really... REALLY.

So it's another strip-out. Another reason for me to pay less, even if other things are cool. It seems the more people spend on making the game, the less RPG I'm getting. Itemisation has been sacrificed in exchange for more realistic cut-scenes... who ever asked for more cut-scenes... They should have just jumped the shark completely and made a purely story RPG like Unrest or Late To The Party, at least then it would have had the *Unique* tag.

That's because you are looking at LP's of people who don't want to make the effort of either buying gear or crafting it.

This stuff exists- you have a lot of +%resist to element gear, a lot of dispel gear, a lot of 'resurrect'/make a shield on low life, a lot of '+crit', '+accuracy',''+heal", a lot of 'guard/shield breaking', etc.

It's just that the LP you are looking at decided they didn't want to play it at high difficulty or try to see if a high-crit or a high-dodge or a high-mana char is worth it.

There is also a lot of interactions between spells and abilities (basically you get things like 'the lower your mana is the more damage you make, the more basic attacks you make the faster the cooldowns of your spells come back, when you shield break you freeze enemies around you, when you stun/freeze/etc an enemy you can use certain spell to do detonations, etc).

But, well, so far most of the LP don't bother either because the tactic camera sucks, or because they decided that the game didn't have those things (and so didn't look for them).

 

[mastroego]

Yeah, paragrphs is only thing you are able to disscuss about... hehe, see ya.

Yes, when your posts are unreadable shit, that's all we can discuss. Learn to paragraph.

Alternatively, find a job at BioWare, I hear they like to publish unreadable shit.

I took it he already has one.

 

[Angthoron]

Yes, when your posts are unreadable shit, that's all we can discuss. Learn to paragraph.

Alternatively, find a job at BioWare, I hear they like to publish unreadable shit.

I took it he already has one.

What, like Biff the Understudy?

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

That's because you are looking at LP's of people who don't want to make the effort of either buying gear or crafting it.

This stuff exists- you have a lot of +%resist to element gear, a lot of dispel gear, a lot of 'resurrect'/make a shield on low life, a lot of '+crit', '+accuracy',''+heal", a lot of 'guard/shield breaking', etc.

It's just that the LP you are looking at decided they didn't want to play it at high difficulty or try to see if a high-crit or a high-dodge or a high-mana char is worth it.

There is also a lot of interactions between spells and abilities (basically you get things like 'the lower your mana is the more damage you make, the more basic attacks you make the faster the cooldowns of your spells come back, when you shield break you freeze enemies around you, when you stun/freeze/etc an enemy you can use certain spell to do detonations, etc).

But, well, so far most of the LP don't bother either because the tactic camera sucks, or because they decided that the game didn't have those things (and so didn't look for them).

Firstly, learn to read. One LPer did buy stuff. Secondly, having lots of things to, potentially, do with much fewer itemisation slots does NOT make for more or even equal itemisation. Thirdly, having to craft a weapon of fire resistance instead of either buying it or finding it does NOT make for more itemisation, it simply adds time-padding to acquiring the item. Fourth, if neither LPer is engaging in it yet, that doesn't mean they wont in the future, there was no assertation made by me or the LPers that it was crap should it happen, if you say it's worth it, that's fine by me, I'll look forward to someone engaging with it and see for myself.

But if two completely separate and random people are going to choose to not engage it, or for whatever reason find it an uninteresting endeavour, then that's not an issue of loot itemisation, that's a result of bait and switching the itemisation mechanic from one thing to something else, a something else that could well be too boring for a lot of people, the word boring being more important than the word unwilling.

 

[SophosTheWise]

I liked Origins for it's long quests and I think it's the most fun I've had with an RPG until D:OS

New to the genre ?

Nah

 

[set]

It shouldn't be a surprise the tactical camera sucks or that the itemizaiton is non-existent - these were the same problems in DA2. These problems arise because the development focus isn't PC like BioWare has flat out said it was (lying through clenched teeth to anyone with any sensibilities). We know from developer interviews that all of the developers design around xbox controllers and we know most certainly at this point that none of them have any gumption to try and steer the product away from what the suits decry it to be.

The game is trash and nothing more - a legitimate sucecssor to DA2 which takes all of its propositions and pushes them to their next logical end. Potion focused combat, actiony click fest combat, no itemization, no class specialization, no real tactical view, no ai, no enemy variety or challenge, et cetera.

What you have here is an unquantifiable mess? And you know what, I'm sure it will sell just as well as DA2 - 2 to 2.5 million copies approximately. Of course, "selling as well as da2" isn't much of a goal, in fact I'm sure EA will cite it as stagnation and one more reason to let BioWare go; but the reason why it will sell as well as DA2 is obvious.

I can sit down at work at any time and ask any random co-worker - people whom I think are intelligent from time to time - and ask them what they liked about Skyrim or Mass Effect 3 or World of Warcraft -- they won't be able to articulate it, but they'll say they like these games. If I try to point out their flaws I get grudging acceptance and a, "Yeah, but that game was great!!"

I've played enough games that I crave an experience which is more challenging and stimulating. Most people have not reached this point. BioWare's games are just enough to satiate enough people to be profitable, even in their current state. As time wears on, I'm sure it will only get worse too. Phone games are lowering people's expectations and what they're exposed to, after all. We're regressing in most ways.

 

[Bliblablubb]

What did they even spend their money on?

Licensing fees probably. Considering that we are talking about EA and Bioware saying that the engine took a lot of work to make it even suitable for an RPG, I wouldn't be surprised if EA forced that engine on them because they found some clever way of saving taxes by that. At least my tinfoil hat says so and who am I to doubt it?

 

[Turok]

So, been playing a couple of hours now. My impression is: singel-player game trapped in a mmo-world.

It starts out rather good, some combat, with plenty of dialogue options, the way I like my Bioware games. I'm not expecting high class drama or anything but just
interruptions, to give meaning to the stuff you do. But oh well, after the tutorial area, and some other introduction parts you get sent off to your first "quest-island".

I was expecting something like Skyrim, Gothic, Risen etc one big world. No, it has quest-areas. They are pretty big, but they are also designed the way quest areas in mmos are designed.
Just a big area filled with random creatures, buildings and dungeons. With no effort at all making it realistic. The quests are designed the very same way. Sure, most of the quests is leading up to something
that are part of the narrative, but the quests are so fucking boring. Go there, kill these guys, collect this... after a while you just look at the map, and run from objective to objective with no real interest in what is going
on. And you do these quests... because.. reasons, and you need influence.

All this is taking such a looooong time, just the running, the brain-dead filler combat. I never thought I would say this, but I miss Skyrim. For every second I'm playing Dragon Age, my lust for a crazy-modded Skyrim
experience is increasing. DAI has the elements of an open-world, but everything is static, lifeless, dead and dull. No random people wandering around and those that are wandering around all want to murder your ass.
It just feels so dead and unrealistic. It's like they took inspiration from Kingdom of Amalur for making their own world, instead of looking over the pond (Piranha bytes). Disappointment, but after paying 45 euros for this I have to
play mooooooreeee to justify my purchase...

It´s simple, Dragon age Inquisition is a introduction for a "cow" MMO they are going to release next.

 

[Alienman]

Ugh, this healing without any healing spells is getting on my nerves now. The potions is not enough, not on hard anyway. For some reason my mage, and my range guy has a tendency to close in on
targets and get caught up in aoe damage constantly. I don't understand how you are supposed to tank in this game, well bosses at least. My tank has to drink potions every 3 seconds to stay alive, leaving nothing
for the others in the team. And since my main guy is a warrior with a two-hander.. he is basically fucked. I mostly just stand behind and watch, because I can't risk him taking damage as well. It's a cluster-fuck beyond anything I have
experience before in a rpg.

And with this system, will there be any lengthy dungeon-crawls? How will that work?

 

[set]

I don't think BioWare will be given the choice to make another MMO, not after SWTOR.

 

[set]

Ugh, this healing without any healing spells is getting on my nerves now. The potions is not enough, not on hard anyway. For some reason my mage, and my range guy has a tendency to close in on
targets and get caught up in aoe damage constantly. I don't understand how you are supposed to tank in this game, well bosses at least. My tank has to drink potions every 3 seconds to stay alive, leaving nothing
for the others in the team. And since my main guy is a warrior with a two-hander.. he is basically fucked. I mostly just stand behind and watch, because I can't risk him taking damage as well. It's a cluster-fuck beyond anything I have
experience before in a rpg.

And with this system, will there be any lengthy dungeon-crawls? How will that work?

I think you need to grind, that's all. The monsters do respawn.

 

[Infinitron]

What did they even spend their money on?

Licensing fees probably.

FYI, the Frostbite engine is property of EA.

I don't think BioWare will be given the choice to make another MMO, not after SWTOR.

Actually, I've seen talk of Bioware being repurposed as EA's MMO studio after the closure of Mythic.

 

[Kaspar Hauser]

God those cutscenes are slow. Can you skip single lines of dialogue or does it skip the whole thing?

 

[Grunker]

I don't think BioWare will be given the choice to make another MMO, not after SWTOR.

Are we even sure SWTOR didn't turn a profit? It didn't become a WoW-killer, no, but it sold pretty well at the start-up. Big companies like EA are very good at discerning risk, and projects like SWTOR are way less risky than people think. They easily make back almost all of their investment. Anything from there is just juice n' icing.

 

[set]

I don't think BioWare will be given the choice to make another MMO, not after SWTOR.

Are we even sure SWTOR didn't turn a profit? It didn't become a WoW-killer, no, but it sold pretty well at the start-up. Big companies like EA are very good at discerning risk, and projects like SWTOR are way less risky than people think. They easily make back almost all of their investment. Anything from there is just juice n' icing.

I disagree - EA is a big corp so they know if they invest 300m in something they can get it to turn a profit. The dividens SWTOR is making is nothing to justify its 300m expense - for 300m you could make 3 AAA games easy and have 15m copies under your belt or more. Right now SWTOR is treading water with its F2P model. It's hard to say, since its engine is so bad it's difficult to discern if anyone is even playing it, but I think even with all the initial purchases (2-5 million I think it was? At its peak SWTOR only had 2 million active users so optistmistically 4-5 million copies sold).

 

[Bliblablubb]

What did they even spend their money on?

Licensing fees probably.

FYI, the Frostbite engine is property of EA.

Yeah, but I remember reading an article exposing tax tricks of companies. It pretty much involved charging their subsidiaries with outragious licensing fees, resulting in them making low profit our or even a net loss. A loss that could be deducted from tax. The licensing fees however were taxed by the parent company in a country with much better conditions.
I am no expert on those things, but Bioware being in Canadistan and EA in the US... well, we ARE talking about coporate 'murica here, where a presidental candidate cannot understand why people are hating him for clever tax saving instead of hailing them as their rolemodel.

 

[Garryydde]

This needs posting.

 

[Cyberarmy]

I can't decide which was worse in that video , animations, armor/clothing or character "art".

 

[Bliblablubb]

Borrowing the term 'privateering'.

Doesn't privateering require the permission of your queen? So, who IS the queen of Codexistan anyway? Crooked Bee? Kaiserin? Or would it be upon the hivemind to hand out permissions by secret unuttered Kritical Kodex Konsensus?

 

[dryan]

This needs posting.

Man that nasheed is so sweet, does anyone have a link for the music alone, without all "Allahu Akhbar" screams or shot sounds?