Guest_Act of Velour_*
Does anyone else not like this whole idea of characters in pre-determined positions of power? With Cullen apparently being a chief military advisor, and with talk of Cassandra being an obligatory second-in-command, it's irking me a little bit.
Isn't this supposed to be our Inquisition, run the way we want it to be? If so, then why are external characters being placed in positions of power whether we approve or not? Will they be bossing us around through the game?
You'll be spending more time giving them orders than the other way around. A strong backing from characters, however, grants legitimacy to the Inquisition. To start the game you're less known. By the end of the game, that's less of a concern.
I suppose we could allow you to boot them from their positions. I'm a big fan of fail cases, but I've learned a lot of people aren't really big fans. Having people stop following you and whatnot in response and having the Inquisition fail (especially if you did it early) because you lose your ability to make people listen to you probably wouldn't be as well received (especially at the opportunity cost of creating that content at the expense of other content).
Advisers. They don't boss the boss around, they advice. Basically, implementing minor tasks easier without having to interrupt flow too much.
Example: Send ten of these soldiers over here, and send another ten over here Cullen. Cullen which would then reply yes sir/ma'am and then get the troops moved, now if there is a tactical situation happening with enemies, he refers. Hmmm.... We were soldiers movie. Cullen is the Sergeant Major in that movie working beside Mel Brooks lead as Colonel in that movie. Inquisitor is the Colonel and Cullen is the Sergeant Major. Same type of situation in away.
To control every single piece of information, tactical position of each squad in a platoon of a company or each and every piece of equipment is extremely too much for one person. Advisers fill this roll to help make menial tasks go away. They suggest course of actions or suggest information and such.
I actually like NPCs in positions of power, as long as they act competent and thereby give me a believable feeling that they earned said position.
I'll happily lead the inquisition, but I'm no fan of being in charge of every detail. When you head a huge organisation, you can't do all the bean-counting in person.
You'll be spending more time giving them orders than the other way around. A strong backing from characters, however, grants legitimacy to the Inquisition. To start the game you're less known. By the end of the game, that's less of a concern.
I suppose we could allow you to boot them from their positions. I'm a big fan of fail cases, but I've learned a lot of people aren't really big fans. Having people stop following you and whatnot in response and having the Inquisition fail (especially if you did it early) because you lose your ability to make people listen to you probably wouldn't be as well received (especially at the opportunity cost of creating that content at the expense of other content).
That's too bad. I always advocate failure to be an option. I mean a leader of an organization is supposed to manage and make sound decisions. If we can beat the game doing whatever then it diminishes the importance of listening to advise and being calculating. It's pretty much the reason that I don't like playing good characters. I don't feel that special when I save all the kittens without any ramifications ;p
I think awakening had potential. You don't manage well, the people revolt and you are forced to put them down, or you lose Amaranthine/keep. The finale wasn't tied to this though so it didn't hinder your ability to beat the game but the scale was small as well. DAI seems to have a larger scale. I'd like to see a scenario where if I don't manage well I can't beat the game. I have a lot of ideas for a management simulation but I don't know how the game will be so no point in discussing it. 
You'll be spending more time giving them orders than the other way around. A strong backing from characters, however, grants legitimacy to the Inquisition. To start the game you're less known. By the end of the game, that's less of a concern.
Hey Allan (hope you don't mind me calling you that),
wouldn't it be more prudent (it is too late now to change that, is it?), if we had several candidates for each position and it being up to us to decide who would fill which spot on our "council" (it is like the small council on "A song of Ice and Fire")?
Would have been nice (note: of course all the people available for the spots should have some kind of experience with such a position - making this a fail option does not sound all that great to me ^^) to decide for yourself who leads your armies, who manages your ressources (that whould be what "scribbles" does, wouldn't it?), leads your spies (not that the position doesn't fit Leliana like a well made glove) etc.
I myself think that for example Cullen is not Ideal to lead an army - why?
He was - only - a Knight Commander in charge of the Templars of Kirkwall before (after Hawke takes out Meredith), he has no experience in siege warfare, doesn't know much about integrating mages into an army (templars don't normally fight alongside mages, firstly because they are afraid of them (some even hate and demonize them) and secondly because their abilities interfere with mages, too), nor does he know how to command in the field and live in the field (war-camp) etc.
A chevalier or somebody similar would have been far more logical (!) - or even a dwarf...like the Lord who becomes an Outcast if you don't make him King in DA:O (!)
greetings LAX
ps: It seems too chantry heavy to me, too (there are certain people who would probably listen to us more easily if we didn't drag so many chantry people (Cassandra, Cullen, Leliana, Vivienne (more or less)) along with us (!), like the mages or the elven people (after all, the templars hunt down their keepers and their firsts without proper cause - like it's a game!))
Does anyone else not like this whole idea of characters in pre-determined positions of power? With Cullen apparently being a chief military advisor, and with talk of Cassandra being an obligatory second-in-command, it's irking me a little bit.
I agree with this. Then again, we didn't get to choose the Normandy crew either. At least in the previous DA games we could ditch people, hopefully we can in DAI as well.
A strong backing from characters, however, grants legitimacy to the Inquisition.
"Backing from characters" isn't a problem (at least for me), backing from specific characters is - i.e. we can't choose our staff.
I agree with this. Then again, we didn't get to choose the Normandy crew either. At least in the previous DA games we could ditch people, hopefully we can in DAI as well.
"Backing from characters" isn't a problem (at least for me), backing from specific characters is - i.e. we can't choose our staff.
I figure that the choice to have static advisers that have a unique personality and arc was weighed against having player appointed advisers with a less developed narrative arc and Bioware opted for No.1. I suppose you could make a case for all twelve people to be a companion option, then appoint your advisers in the game, but I'm also going to assume that would be three parts nightmarishly volatile to one part payoff, in terms of making the content across all twelve options.
That's too bad. I always advocate failure to be an option. I mean a leader of an organization is supposed to manage and make sound decisions. If we can beat the game doing whatever then it diminishes the importance of listening to advise and being calculating. It's pretty much the reason that I don't like playing good characters. I don't feel that special when I save all the kittens without any ramifications ;p
I think awakening had potential. You don't manage well, the people revolt and you are forced to put them down, or you lose Amaranthine/keep. The finale wasn't tied to this though so it didn't hinder your ability to beat the game but the scale was small as well. DAI seems to have a larger scale. I'd like to see a scenario where if I don't manage well I can't beat the game. I have a lot of ideas for a management simulation but I don't know how the game will be so no point in discussing it.
I wouldn't say our game is "do anything and you succeed" especially if it depends on what you mean by "succeed." I think, for the most part, the idea of "you can do anything and get to the end of the game" is interesting (if expensive), and it's up to the player to decide if the consequences of the decisions the "anything" that they were doing was satisfactory.
But even back in the late 90s people were not happy with Fallout's timer, though it made perfect sense to me, and it was eventually patched out. So I think it's trickier than it may seem to find a good balance.
I figure that the choice to have static advisers that have a unique personality and arc was weighed against having player appointed advisers with a less developed narrative arc and Bioware opted for No.1. I suppose you could make a case for all twelve people to be a companion option, then appoint your advisers in the game, but I'm also going to assume that would be three parts nightmarishly volatile to one part payoff, in terms of making the content across all twelve options.
Pretty much this. Our advisors have a good chunk of content associated with them. If we were to allow the player to decide whom to place in these positions, it'd mean focusing more on breadth rather than depth, in the case of the advisors. Breadth can sometimes be sufficient, but sometimes it means simply having loads of characters that ultimately are not that interesting. If your game prizes characters, I don't think this is a good thing.
hm...
fallouts timer (the one with the water chip) was patched out? - Wow ^^ (never used patches back then...my internet was controlled by my father and it was a by the minute connection (surving constantly was expensive and downloading was rather slow ^^))
as for depth:
Depth is good - if you like were it is going...if you don't then it's irritating (like say you are an avid chantry hater and you have to drag all those convinced chantry followers along (who'd rather not think independently (!) at least that is how I see it...religion is contrary to independent thought-processes)...as long as you can't convince them otherwise of course (but I don't think you can convince all three (Cullen, Cassy and Leliana) that the chantry needs to be done away with (or at least that the chantry should renounce political power, armies, spies etc.), can you?))
greetings LAX
But what if I want someone else than Sandal to enchant my weapons?
I figure that the choice to have static advisers that have a unique personality and arc was weighed against having player appointed advisers with a less developed narrative arc and Bioware opted for No.1.
Pretty much this. Our advisors have a good chunk of content associated with them. If we were to allow the player to decide whom to place in these positions, it'd mean focusing more on breadth rather than depth, in the case of the advisors. Breadth can sometimes be sufficient, but sometimes it means simply having loads of characters that ultimately are not that interesting. If your game prizes characters, I don't think this is a good thing.
Thank you both - no, I really appreciate this.
It means it is as I suspected - I can't pick my squad. 
So you want Varric in charge of the military, Cullen in charge of the treasury, Oghren to be the political liason, and Merrill in recruitment? No. I'm sure its much less rigid than that anyway.
I'm sure you wouldn't have to tell Blackwall to supervise troop training. He would just wake up one day and head to the barracks. I'm sure if some merchant wants to set up shop in your keep, Varric will be there before you know what's going on. Starkhaven sends a delegate to negotiate trade agreements? Vivienne will tell you they are lying through their teeth.
This is all utter conjecture, so we have about the same legitimacy to our claims/concerns (actually, my claims are probably less credible since they are quite literally guesses). But I reject the notion that these 'positions' should, if they even can, be reassigned. I mean Iron Bull already comes with his own merc group. You don't automatically get control of his followers just 'cuz. I think it will come together nicely the way they are doing it, its easy to run off on a tangent with such little information. I know I very well may have just done it myself.
Modifié par Pistolized, 05 juillet 2014 - 10:27 .
But what if I want someone else than Sandal to enchant my weapons?
Then you're just silly! Didn't you know that Sandal is the Maker, returned to Thedas in dwarf form? 
It means it is as I suspected - I can't pick my squad.
You can't pick the advisors.
And yeah, if this is a deal breaker type of event for you, I'd rather you know now then buy the game and feel jaded because of it.
Choosing advisors would still have to be restricted to fit properly, you couldn't just expect Vivienne to be plopped down in front of the spy/intellegence branch of the inquisition as i'm sure she wouldn't have a clue since she is a mage. The only plausable way would be to increase cunning or dexterity with skill points and probably a fair few of them, this might not work out so well since again, she's A MAGE and might need some points for MAGIC!!!!! lol
You can't pick the advisors.
Hah! The N+1 BSNers would love to know this. 
And yeah, if this is a deal breaker type of event for you, I'd rather you know now then buy the game and feel jaded because of it.
That said - I would prefer to pick my NPCs.
Can we refuse to have them (not that I would want to loose out on the content)?
Isn't this supposed to be our Inquisition, run the way we want it to be? If so, then why are external characters being placed in positions of power whether we approve or not? Will they be bossing us around through the game?
Well technically we are joining the Inquisition after these other people, so it makes sense that they would pick their jobs? I'm basing this on the info we have so far, which I admit is not much. I got the impression that Cassandra recruited the PC to be inquisitor because of his/her special power.
Can we refuse to have them (not that I would want to loose out on the content)?
I'll preface this without knowing all the details/branches/decisions of our story, particularly beyond the earlier parts of the game. I won't definitively state that the advisors will ALWAYS be there no matter what, because I don't know if that is true.
I wouldn't bank on turning them away when the Inquisition is just formed though.
i imagine its a trade off... cause that way they can write deeper more developed characters
its like in ME where Tali is an engineer and thane is an assassin ...etc I imagine every party member is DA:I should have some area of expertise
But what if I want someone else than Sandal to enchant my weapons?
Blasphemy
- You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family advisors
A classic adage brought to Dragon Age
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