The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[Morality Games]

Well, they were right about Expeditions: Conquistador.

 

[Zewp]

I don't think I've ever played an RPG where money was more useless. Take the most "money is useless!" RPG you have ever played and multiply that by a thousand. That's how useless money is in this game.

Money seems to only be useful if you want to buy crafting materials instead of go looking for them. That's all I ever used it for and it was also just one time.

 

[Zewp]

Also, I finished it and fuck Bioware. I've been waiting for the pay-off of the old god baby since Origins, yet they never properly explore it or its implications. Fuck that shit.

 

[Morality Games]

Yeah, "fuck this game" is pretty much the conclusion I'm winding toward despite my sustained attempt at optimism. It's plays okay as long as you don't get baited off the critical path. I'll take a break from this MMO nonsense and then make a headlong rush for the end.

 

[DalekFlay]

Also, I finished it and fuck Bioware. I've been waiting for the pay-off of the old god baby since Origins, yet they never properly explore it or its implications. Fuck that shit.

They could never follow that up well because you could decide not to do it and your saves carry forward.

 

[dryan]

Also, I finished it and fuck Bioware. I've been waiting for the pay-off of the old god baby since Origins, yet they never properly explore it or its implications. Fuck that shit.

They could never follow that up well because you could decide not to do it and your saves carry forward.

That wasn't an obstacle for Bioware on other subjects, e.g. Leliana's death.

 

[RK47]

Also, I finished it and fuck Bioware. I've been waiting for the pay-off of the old god baby since Origins, yet they never properly explore it or its implications. Fuck that shit.

They could never follow that up well because you could decide not to do it and your saves carry forward.

That wasn't an obstacle for Bioware on other subjects, e.g. Leliana's death.

Look, the canon didn't even have Demon baby.
If you didn't import any saves, DAO will have a female Dalish Elf warden who sacrificed herself to stop the Archdemon.
Alistair will be king with Anora.
So yeah, no way no how.

 

[Crevice tab]

The whole game is kind of an "in theory this would be great" and then the execution sucks. In theory making the locations massive for more exploration than Origins and DA2 had is a good idea. In theory leveling up your cult as well as yourself is a good idea. In theory the war room stuff is a great idea to add strategy depth to the role-playing. In theory in theory in theory.

Execution-wise it's an MMO busywork simulator.

This applies to every Bioware game ever especially after EA got their grubby hands on them. The reasons why that happens are simple: proper execution means trial and error, testing and retesting, measuring twice and cutting once and being able to look at yourself critically and throw badly done things out. Instead Bioware's devs pick the first and dumbest ideas and run with them.

 

[Morality Games]

Also, I finished it and fuck Bioware. I've been waiting for the pay-off of the old god baby since Origins, yet they never properly explore it or its implications. Fuck that shit.

Eh, the setting of Thedas is partially evolving beyond the Darkspawn in the sense that apparently the Darkspawn are only one manifestation of various arcane threats the Blight poses. The point is that the baby is just another attraction in a world that's going full Marvel ... what, you're the Norse God of Thunder? Pfttt. I'm a guardian of the Galaxy who touched the cosmic source and lived...what, you're the old god baby? Pfftt. I'm a magister who saw the seat of blah blah blah. It's not a bad thing for the most part, as it will allow them to begin reeling in the unmanageable gravity the narrative has thus far divested into the choices of the Dragon Age universe.

Going back to the thin list of positives, I did like how the world state reacted to the choice between Templars and Mages. The open world mostly sucks, but at least they utilized it to support the sense the choice had a visible influence on the environs of Thedas.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

76 hit at 300% weapon damage? Hello? Wake the fuck up.

Wait, Steve! Dagger has higher DPS and therefore is more rewarding than bows!
WRONG LAH!
Absolutely WRONG.



Your DPS means dick if you had to reposition every few seconds to land regular attacks. You also had to contend being squished by Dragons or other big bad's AOE. Not to mention knockdowns and shit mean you had to worry about when to go in and when to go out.

And your active skills barely scratch the mobs on the region of 1000+ DMG that Longshots can do. That doesn't even include Full Draw dealing 1600% Damage as opener. If that Full Draw crits, it's 3000 damage. It's instakill on non-heavy armor mobs.

First of all, the game must be pretty good, otherwise you wouldn't sperg so much about different builds.
Secondly, regarding daggers: your assessment is largely true, but not entirely accurate. Twin Fangs from stealth deals like 3K for me currently and is an auto-crit. This will kill most mobs and if they're not dead yet, the follow up with death blow will kill them. Death Mark can deal large amounts of damage too, literally tens of thousands if combined with other hard hitters, like certain forus abilities. Stamina is a problem, which makes me think I need to respec, get rid of shadow strike and pick up the passive skill in the poison tree that regens stamina on each crit instead. Another major annoyance is that melee range is too small. There's a reason melee range is 4m in SWTOR for instance, here you have to be in, like, 1m range to hit a target.

Btw, it's not like the other DA games were balanced. You could kill the Arishok in like 15s with an assassin/shadow rogue without losing a single hit point, but with a warrior you had to kite around the pillars for half an hour.

 

[bussinrounds]

The whole game is kind of an "in theory this would be great" and then the execution sucks.

Sounds like the Elder Turds.

 

[RK47]

your assessment is largely true, but not entirely accurate

First of all, number 9.
Secondly, Flask of Fire - Thousand Cuts.
Thirdly, 32 seconds later - Thousand Cuts again.

 

[Franny Frogpill]

...

First of all, the game must be pretty good, otherwise you wouldn't sperg so much about different builds.

See, RK47? Told you so... Less and less acid in your video comments... The turd's growing on you.
Then again, maybe it's just some sort of survial mechanism kicking in to make you endure the pain. Dunno.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

your assessment is largely true, but not entirely accurate

First of all, number 9.
Secondly, Flask of Fire - Thousand Cuts.
Thirdly, 32 seconds later - Thousand Cuts again.

First of all, you cannot just file everything under 9).
Secondly, using focus abilities repeatedly under Flask of Fire is a bug and will get patched out but Mark of Death deeps also very stronk, ja?

 

[RK47]

Then I better finish this game before they fix that shit. Fuck.

 

[DalekFlay]

Late main story spoilers...

Spoiler

I love how you can promise not to use the elven well the whole fucking mission, repeat over and over you don't trust it and don't want it, tell Morrigan "no" and she defies your orders and runs off after it... and then in the end you MUST choose to either use it yourself or let Morrigan use it. I get that you can only have so many fucking choices in a game but don't let me act out "won't use it" and then force me to fucking use it! That's so fucking annoying and Bioware do this shit ALL THE TIME. "I am staunchly opposed to blood magic" in DA2 and then the elf chick uses blood magic and all you can do is say "that's naughty but okay." If you let me play a role LET ME PLAY THE ROLE FFS.

Non-spoiler version: Bioware are terrible at letting you act one way for hours and then forcing you to act a completely different way to serve their stupid soap opera plot.

 

[RK47]

...

First of all, the game must be pretty good, otherwise you wouldn't sperg so much about different builds.

See, RK47? Told you so... Less and less acid in your video comments... The turd's growing on you.
Then again, maybe it's just some sort of survial mechanism kicking in to make you endure the pain. Dunno.

Look I just ran out of shit to complain about.
Don't worry, we're going to the Orlesian ball tonight, the game will get even better.
You won't see me bitch a lot in there.
I promise.

I'm running out of time to finish it too. Cuz...

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

Non-spoiler version: Bioware are terrible at letting you act one way for hours and then forcing you to act a completely different way to serve their stupid soap opera plot.

*gasp!*

 

[Delterius]

While reading through a review of DAI I found an official quote from Matt Rhodes, lead artist on DAI, on why 'the characters are ugly':

"For those who are interested, we have been very calculated when it comes to engineering our characters imperfections. The development process has a built in erosion mechanism: many stakeholders in many review meetings tend to trim away a characters humanizing flaws and oddities, leaving little more than "pretty" and "safe" . Strip and shave most game characters today and you'd be hard pressed to tell most of them apart. We've worked very hard on Inquisition to safeguard our characters from this erosion process. We want to give them more identity than just their clothes, hairstyle and makeup. It's our hope that after you've spent some time with them, our character's will be as inseparable from their quirks, flaws and oddities as your own friends and family are from theirs"

Trans.: we went for 'realism.'

Tracing the source, however, I found that the statement was made by Rhodes in a thread on Morrigan being ugly in DAI.

...What? And here I thought Morrigan was one of the best looking female characters in DAI when put beside their other offerings.

She was, at some point, rather 'ugly' or 'realistic' in the earliest trailers. A lot of people even made fun of that fact in these forums. My best guess is that enough people whined in the BSN to get her prettified.

 

[Akratus]

So socially just.

 

[Franny Frogpill]

Look I just ran out of shit to complain about.

Whut?! Has this game taught you nothing?! You should tediously repeat your comments! I wouldn't mind. Each "Fuck this game" gives me a warm fuzzy feeling!
If you want to be more subtle, just turn on the plastic hair again. Should make the stilted conversations really shine. ~cackle

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

Trans.: we went for 'realism.'

Ah. So that's why everyone and their poodle wears a metric shitton of makeup, 1-hour hair and gay-designer clothes in this game.
I dread to think what those evil stakeholders would've done to realism if Bioware hadn't fought the good fight with their voice.

 

[Turjan]

She was, at some point, rather 'ugly' or 'realistic' in the earliest trailers. A lot of people even made fun of that fact in these forums. My best guess is that enough people whined in the BSN to get her prettified.

Yup, she looked like a horse of indeterminate sex in the first published pic. A small touch-up seems to have done the trick.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Don't worry, we're going to the Orlesian ball tonight, the game will get even better.

Here's hoping you manage to find all 31/31 secrets and the 10/10 halla statues while delving into the intriguing politics of Orlais.

 

[RK47]