The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[evdk]

Who said anything about full price? There are... channels.

 

[RK47]

 

[Lhynn]

The only question is: is it better than DA2?

Pick your poison:
one is a shameless cashgrab with a few good ideas in the writing department, would have been pretty sweet if they got rid of all the filler and at least a third of the actual content, making it a decently sized dlc.
The other reeks of desperation, they played it safe in every possible way and still managed to fuck up every single area. It tries so hard to please the player it ends up being a banal shit boring experience.

Id say skip it, there are so many games worth replaying for the seventh time that will give you a lot more enjoyment than this crap.

 

[Infinitron]

"DOS is great!" 200 pages

"Dragon Age In before Retardo, is shit" 500 pages.

Divinity Thread 1 - 195 pages - started May 2012: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...nal-sin-dont-talk-about-the-alpha-here.72670/
Divinity Thread 2 - 83 pages - started December 2013: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ead-game-released-go-to-the-new-thread.88591/
Divinity Thread 3 - 280 pages - started June 2014: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/divinity-original-sin-released.92612/

This thread - 440 pages - started August 2012.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The only question is: is it better than DA2?

Pick your poison:
one is a shameless cashgrab with a few good ideas in the writing department, would have been pretty sweet if they got rid of all the filler and at least a third of the actual content, making it a decently sized dlc.
The other reeks of desperation, they played it safe in every possible way and still managed to fuck up every single area. It tries so hard to please the player it ends up being a banal shit boring experience.

Id say skip it, there are so many games worth replaying for the seventh time that will give you a lot more enjoyment than this crap.

I think DAI is better than DA2, because you have big locations to explore, for the sightseeing if not for the quests (definetly not for the quests), and you can turn down the difficulty so the random encounters cause as little bother as possible. Other than exploring and taking screenshots, I really can't find much else in DAI that deserves praise. But then again, I really played through DA2 with disgust, just to get to the ending. Tough to explain why I did even that.

 

[aleph]

Inquisition sounds actually quite similar to Kingdoms of Amalur, which I liked more or less. So, is it really similar to Amalur and would I like it?

 

[Malpercio]

The only question is: is it better than DA2?

Eeeh, don't know what to say. I'm kinda on the fence.

If you do only the main story and ignore most of the fetch quests (If you have OCD like it's going to be a problem) it is. Questing in DAI is really that shitty.

Finished the Empress Celene questline.

Although the concept is good, and there is a lot of political intrigues in there, the execution I feel is lacking (even so, for Bioware standards is a nice change of pace)

The "popularity" mechanic in this quest is badly handled, having almost no use for it. The only place where this mechanic is played is during the dance sequence, where you can loose a lot of points depending on your answer, but that's it, it's a game over mechanic, it has no effect on the investigation (it would be nice to have this mechanic attached to the clues you can gather).

Then, the dungeon crawling parts are a waste of everybody's time, as usual, but I expected some fight that doesn't feel like one of the random enemies groups that spawn in the big areas (this is something extremely common on this game. DAO wasn't preciselly good at encounter design, but Inquisition is even worse). The investigation bits weren't great either, with a lot of radar use to uncover useless secrets, and spying conversations the dullest way possible (go to this place, press X, done)

Also, despite the political nature of this quest, the main story keeps making it as uninteresting as possible, making another "main quest villain" extremely boring without any more motivation than "rule the world with Corifeus".


A lot of wasted potential. Still, it wasn't bad, just pretty straightforward when is detrimental to the type of quest they're trying to pull of.

It's pretty neat that there are various different outcomes for that

Spoiler

You can have Celene murdered and install Gaspard as your puppet govern, have Gaspard win, Save Celene, have Gaspard get executed/exiled, reunite the 2 lesbos, you can confront the turbo-cunt before she tries her shit with enough approval from the court and even have all of them work together with enough clues,

Alas, the execution is lacking, should have been an heavily dialogues based story mission instead of having me looking for statues spamming R3 while I explore the zones.

 

[RK47]

 

[Lhynn]

Inquisition sounds actually quite similar to Kingdoms of Amalur, which I liked more or less. So, is it really similar to Amalur and would I like it?

Combat is many times worse (tortuous id say), areas feel more empty, it has a bigger focus on narrative (which makes it more entertaining to play if you are a story fag), writing definitely worse in DAI tho.

 

[RK47]

Inquisition combat is a brand of its own in terms of shit tier of quality.
In KoA you can actually swap weapons, be creative. Open up with a strong range attack, get in with a heavy hammer, chain stun everything in close range, took some damage? Swap back to Chakras, pull out and range.
There's a rhythm. In Inquisition...either you pause constantly or wonder why there's active dodge/parry/block ability when you can hardly tell wtf is going on half the time without pausing the game.

 

[Bleed the Man]

I'm sorry, but for all that DAI has improved over DA2 due to a lot longer develpoment cycle and budget, it's made irrelevant by some of the worst design decisions I've ever seen.
Things that would made for some cool mechanics, like the war table or the stronghold, are just cosmetic fluff. That's my biggest grip with the game, all is designed to appear big, but in reality, they have no ties with the mechanics of the game. Trials that amount to nothing, war table quests with that only give you small resources (crafting, items, influence), an upgrade system for the stronghold that holds absolutely no signifficance gameplaywise, almost all side quests replaced by fetch quests and "formulaic quests" (the rifts)...
Main quest is the only decent stuff found in Inquisition, and even then is poluted by a waste of a storyline (they pulled a Bethesda, having a civil war story as backround to make place to the EPIC save the world crap, agravated by the fact that Bioware actually wants to tell a good story) and terrible gameplay.

In terms of design, DAI is absolute garbage, irredeemable. DA2 at least had the excuse of being a cashgrab made in two days for five dollars, DAI is just plain incompetence.
Both shit, but with DAI they have no excuse for being that shitty.

 

[Immortal]

I found that sarcastic hawke was a much better character than the inquisitor, also most of the cast in DA2 was more fun, especially Varic.

DA:I, if i had to label it, would be as "soulless".

I'm sorry, but for all that DAI has improved over DA2 due to a lot longer develpoment cycle and budget, it's made irrelevant by some of the worst design decisions I've ever seen.
Things that would made for some cool mechanics, like the war table or the stronghold, are just cosmetic fluff. That's my biggest grip with the game, all is designed to appear big, but in reality, they have no ties with the mechanics of the game. Trials that amount to nothing, war table quests with that only give you small resources (crafting, items, influence), an upgrade system for the stronghold that holds absolutely no signifficance gameplaywise, almost all side quests replaced by fetch quests and "formulaic quests" (the rifts)...
Main quest is the only decent stuff found in Inquisition, and even then is poluted by a waste of a storyline (they pulled a Bethesda, having a civil war story as backround to make place to the EPIC save the world crap, agravated by the fact that Bioware actually wants to tell a good story) and terrible gameplay.

In terms of design, DAI is absolute garbage, irredimabile. DA2 at least had the excuse of being a cashgrab made in two days for five dollars, DAI is just plain incompetence.
Both shit, but with DAI they have no excuse for being that shitty.

It feels like they spent half their development time twiddling their thumbs or fucking around with the engine.

DA:I is just a promise of what could have been amazing. The locations and areas are all there and really polished but are void of any soul or depth. Even the story line feels unfinished and unpolished. The war room and decisions all feel meaningless or grindy.

Power starts as an interesting mechanic until you realize that Power is just a time gate.

Basically the story line is the only decently narrated / voice acted / indepth quest in the game. So you do a part of the main quest. Then Leliana runs up to you and says "Okay we need X, Y and Z to continue our assault" and you immediately realize.. Oh FUCK.. I need to go do fetch quests for an hour to keep playing the game.

This mechanic COULD have been great. They could have made power a optional resource that dictates how successful you will be. Instead it was a way to extend the game because the game is probably unfinished.

 

[Akratus]

Dragon Age Origins seems like it was trying to be a weak knock-off of lotr/warhammer fantasy.

This game seems like it's Bioware's weak effort in aping game of thrones, from what little I've seen.

Not that they'd ever adjust the formula of course, because, as DA2 showed, that results in mere retardation.

 

[Lhynn]

DA:I is just a promise of what could have been amazing

Which makes me hate it even more, so much wasted potential is a fucking crime.

 

[aleph]

Inquisition combat is a brand of its own in terms of shit tier of quality.
In KoA you can actually swap weapons, be creative. Open up with a strong range attack, get in with a heavy hammer, chain stun everything in close range, took some damage? Swap back to Chakras, pull out and range.
There's a rhythm. In Inquisition...either you pause constantly or wonder why there's active dodge/parry/block ability when you can hardly tell wtf is going on half the time without pausing the game.

that sounds awful, I thought if they do the whole offline MMO thing they at least copied it from the one game that did it somewhat right

 

[RK47]

 

[kris]

Dragon Age Origins seems like it was trying to be a weak knock-off of lotr/warhammer fantasy.

This game seems like it's Bioware's weak effort in aping game of thrones, from what little I've seen.

Not that they'd ever adjust the formula of course, because, as DA2 showed, that results in mere retardation.

Origins was the GoT aping. Wardens were nightwatch that fought the "undead" army. Political intrigue in the same vein.

DA3 is just the normal stop the evil one and you are the chosen one. Story and elements have little to do with GoT.

Both have taken a lot of the aesthetics from LOTR movies.

 

[Bleed the Man]

Dragon Age Origins seems like it was trying to be a weak knock-off of lotr/warhammer fantasy.

This game seems like it's Bioware's weak effort in aping game of thrones, from what little I've seen.

Not that they'd ever adjust the formula of course, because, as DA2 showed, that results in mere retardation.

Origins was the GoT aping. Wardens were nightwatch that fought the "undead" army. Political intrigue in the same vein.

DA3 is just the normal stop the evil one and you are the chosen one. Story and elements have little to do with GoT.

Both have taken a lot of the aesthetics from LOTR movies.

Both DAO and DAI use the same plot structure. A great evil that threatens to destroy the world in a full scale war, while the world is inmerse in political intrigues that makes more difficult to unite people against the common enemy.
It tries to be Lord of the Rings with Game of Thrones vibes in the backround in both games

 

[Thane Solus]

"DOS is great!" 200 pages

"Dragon Age In before Retardo, is shit" 500 pages.

Divinity Thread 1 - 195 pages - started May 2012: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...nal-sin-dont-talk-about-the-alpha-here.72670/
Divinity Thread 2 - 83 pages - started December 2013: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ead-game-released-go-to-the-new-thread.88591/
Divinity Thread 3 - 280 pages - started June 2014: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/divinity-original-sin-released.92612/

This thread - 440 pages - started August 2012.

just giving a rough example, i could find a better example but i am "le tired"

 

[Crevice tab]

that sounds awful, I thought if they do the whole offline MMO thing they at least copied it from the one game that did it somewhat right

I'm not sure why someone sane would build an offline MMO in the first place but DAI is bad for more reasons than simply being an offline MMO.

The dialogue gets ever more riveting. I do have to wonder what sort of subhuman creatures serve as Bioware's writing team because monkeys with typewriters would do a much better job.

 

[Prime Junta]

aleph RK47 that's overstating the case.

The combat is shit but not in that way. It's shit as in simple, flashy, one-dimensional, and somewhat poorly balanced, not shit as in hard to control or requiring constant pausing.

"How To Win Fights In DA:I:"

1. Have a sword-and-board fighter with Taunt skills, ranged rogue (or two) with Far Shot (Full Draw optional but nice) and wizard (or two), with Barrier, Dispel, and Fade Step, other spells optional.
2. Pick weakest target.
3. Tap on the "Y" key, between the "T" and "U" keys on the keyboard.
4. Observe as the target goes down.
5. Was it the last target?
Y -> Congrats, you won!
N -> GOTO 2.

You might occasionally need to switch to a particular toon to get your rogue(s) and wizard(s) out of trouble (stealth/backflip for the former, Fade Step for the latter), or click on a potion bottle to keep them from dying, but that's about it rilly. If you want to maximize the mayhem, control the ranged rogue, run away as far as you can and line up Far Shots and Full Draws.

If you have friendly fire on, play exactly as above except (1) start with Hold Position, drop a few Fire or Ice traps between you and them, plink them to get them to close, and buff your fighter against the kind of elemental damage you want to deal, have him slug a Regeneration Potion if it's a tougher fight, and make sure his Barrier stays up. He'll soak up some FF but he'll live, usually.

Of course, since there's no level scaling you might occasionally stumble into something that'll one-shot your tank or rogue (at range) in which case it's probably not worth the trouble just then, and you can make it even easier by playing with suitable elemental damage and counters depending on where you are, but that's about all there's to it.

 

[aleph]

Prime Junta sounds like the last MMO I played had more involved combat

The dialogue gets ever more riveting. I do have to wonder what sort of subhuman creatures serve as Bioware's writing team because monkeys with typewriters would do a much better job.

I am already annoyed by that elf chick just by watching some of the chinquisition videos, did they go out of the way to make her unlikable?

 

[Bleed the Man]

Of course, since there's no level scaling you might occasionally stumble into something that'll one-shot your tank or rogue (at range) in which case it's probably not worth the trouble just then, and you can make it even easier by playing with suitable elemental damage and counters depending on where you are, but that's about all there's to it.

"there's no level scaling"

"there's no level scaling"

"there's no level scaling"

 

[Crevice tab]

The dialogue gets ever more riveting. I do have to wonder what sort of subhuman creatures serve as Bioware's writing team because monkeys with typewriters would do a much better job.

I am already annoyed by that elf chick just by watching some of the chinquisition videos, did they go out of the way to make her unlikable?

I'm not even a third through this (I think- after all the boring combat and forgettable dialogue things tend to blur together) but this seems standard Bioware writing to me. Sure some characters are more annoying and other more bland but in the end they're all walking clichés spouting either trivial tripe or more rarely utter bullshit. The rare moments of good writing are so short and so buried amongst the garbage that you'll miss them if you don't pay attention.

 

[Akratus]

The dialogue gets ever more riveting. I do have to wonder what sort of subhuman creatures serve as Bioware's writing team because monkeys with typewriters would do a much better job.

I think the problem is that nobody called them out on their shit. You know, in KotoR, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Jade Empire, all of that shit, it's all about the hero and the big evil force and what have you, and the fantasy setting's gotta have dwarves and elves and shit. And everybody laps it up, so now triple a rpg writing is topsy turvy in their head. The bioware offices are now part of the bizarro zone, good is bad and bad is good, dogs and cats living together! Madness!