101 réponses à ce sujet

[cindercatz]

 

The attribute thing, while it feels like you had more freedom to customize your character in previous games, you would ultimately still allocate points in a pre-determined way based on your class and subclass. Mages would always invest in magic and willpower. Warriors in constitution and strength. Rogues in dexterity and cunning. Always. The freedom manually allocating your own points gave you was superficial at best, and meaningless at worst. Unless every class acted like Blood Mage, which compelled mages to dump points in constitution to yield more benefits, then this argument may have some weight. Personally the stats just felt like a way to gate equipment. 

 

Not at all true.

 

In DA:O, I heavily invested in agility regardless of class, and underspent in constitution, along with passives, sustained abilities, and gear that improved defense above all until each character's active defense rating was as close to 100 as possible or better, along with gear that granted percentage to dodge/avoid damage, reason being that I abhor the whole notion of classes being a fancy version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. In my games, since characters would actively dodge and parry if they passed a skill check, I built all of them to be as self sufficient as I could, along with their unique skills. I always focussed on  agility, cunning, and strength, supplemented by willpower, except the mage was magic and willpower instead of strength. My mage had as many points in constitution as my warriors as my rogues. There were no hp tanks, because I believe if you take a few flush hits with a weapon, it should kill you. And likewise your enemies. To survive, avoid being hit. Kill your enemies quickly. Don't stand there and be a pincushion. No matter the class. Taunt skills were the absolute last things on my warriors' list of priorities. My teams were meant to move, defend, and kill efficiently at range and in close combat, not to emulate MMO builds. And if they missed a few defense checks, they fell and I had to adapt. Programmable tactics were a huge part of that. That was what was fantastic about DA:O's system. I could build a system that played my own ideal way, that had more life. The whole flow of combat was customizable, and for that reason it never gets old to me. I hated when they locked everybody into the same basic roles in DA2, and in some ways they've upped the ante here. Combined with the loss of aa and tactics, it turns what I thought was going to be one of the best aspects of the game into a question mark or a negative. Question mark because the level design and encounters look so much improved, along with tac cam and field orders (defend this spot' etc.), which are major pluses. But they shot themselves in the foot with the mp inspired choices and 'streamlining'.

 

@Cantina

Thank you very much for giving us your impressions and the helpful tip, which I definitely intend to check out.

[Varus Praetor]

There's no unwritten rule saying we have to agree with everything someone says in somebody's review.

 

When a fellow fan takes some of their free time (unpaid) to write up a review of the early access we missed out on in order to be helpful and share their thoughts in what is obviously not meant to be a bash post, there's no unwritten rule that people have to respond like they're 12 either.

 

The "I stopped reading as soon as you said ____" and "You only didn't like _____ because you suck.  If you were a better player, you'd have enjoyed that aspect." posts demean the poster more than the reviewer.  But since we all have to suffer their presence, it's worth pointing it out.

 

Why is it so hard to disagree with a modicum of respect?  For example, I also thought that the grading of leveling up was overly harsh and I do not miss the removal of attribute points very much as I've been acclimatized to this by several games at this point.  BW is simply catering to a more casual audience as they would have to add either an attribute respec feature (more work), or listen to the endless whining of the uninformed masses who ended up with a non-optimal build.  Instead they offer all the same customization of the old system but folded into the extremely detailed crafting system (is my understanding).  Where you can select what traits and resistances go onto your weapons/armor.  This way if you totally screw the pooch the first time, just scrap those items and start over.  Now all you lose is time and BW didn't have to add another respec feature.

[J4JOKER]

As for the companions, yes each one of them have a side quest. You hear it through party banders from one of your companions when they start opening up to you. 

[Varus Praetor]

How exactly? I'd like to draw your attention to Diablo 3. All our stats are automatically distributed upon level up, that doesn't mean the game isn't riddled with all kinds of different builds. DA:I seems to be very gear and skill dependent in terms of building your character, and we already know at this point there's a crafting system. I see no issue with this whatesover. People seem so stuck in the days of choosing your attributes. Did it really add THAT much more complexity to your character's build? 

 

 

People RAGED against the removal of attribute selection on level up in D3 when that was first announced too.  Hell, there were articles about Diablo 3 being "dumbed down."  Just because that game is old enough that nobody cares anymore doesn't mean that it wasn't a big deal when it happened.  It was the exact same issue, the previous two games had this feature and then it was removed.

 

Frankly you couldn't have picked a worse game for your analogy and either you didn't play at launch or have simply forgotten.

[Muspade]

I disagree.

 

I played Neverwinter Nights were there was a approval meter. Then when Mask of the Betrayer was released they removed the bar. Needless to say it cause a large up roar on the forums among other things. I am the type of person who believes if your going to do something or implement something go all the way or not at all. Being "forced" to stumble around in the dark, drives me bonkers.

 

However there is a middle ground with this. The developers could have added an option to turn off or on the approval meter.

I disagree with your disagreement, and that's about as far as I think we'll get.

Whatever uproar happened In Neverwinter Nights has not happened here, as this has been known for quite awhile. 

[Ihatebadgames]

Thanks for taking the time and posting the review. Thank your husband for us also for giving up his time.

[nightwolf667]

I disagree.

 

I played Neverwinter Nights were there was a approval meter. Then when Mask of the Betrayer was released they removed the bar. Needless to say it cause a large up roar on the forums among other things. I am the type of person who believes if your going to do something or implement something go all the way or not at all. Being "forced" to stumble around in the dark, drives me bonkers.

 

However there is a middle ground with this. The developers could have added an option to turn off or on the approval meter.

 

Honestly, I think it's the sort of option most people don't realize they'll miss until it's gone. Yours is probably the best solution, let the people who want it play with it and those who don't want it for their role playing experience do without. The new system just looks really frustrating, where they don't even tell you how much influence you're gaining or losing. I love Neverwinter Nights 2, but playing it without a way to track my influence is really aggravating and a main reason why I don't play it very often. Sometimes, I just skip straight to MotB where there is a bar and I feel a lot more comfortable.

 

I understand Bioware's logic, it's actually the same logic Obsidian used for getting rid of the bars. They think it'll add the roleplaying experience or it's "more natural" or whatever and in reality, especially when the game has moments that feel like it's punishing you for lack of influence (character betrayals, leaving the party, turning against you at a certain point in the story, etc) may be natural to the narrative but it does so by sacrificing the needs of the player. Whether the game wants to admit it or not, the characters in the game are a resource just like your armor and your weapons. The player needs them or feels like they do. When the game threatens to take that resource away, it is punishing the player for not taking certain actions. The end result is the player being forced to cater to the characters and focus on them more, instead of actually being able to manage them as a game resource and also roleplay.

 

It's just an unnecessary level of aggravation. Even if it's not intended to feel like a punishment, I guarantee that it will for a lot of people.

[Bekkael]

Yeah, but they could have done that with visual (IE facial expressions) or simply in the conversation. It seems weird to have something pop up "Cassie approves" only for it to mean nothing. Who cares if Cassie approves? It doesn't mean anything and it doesn't serve to make the characters feel more real. The first two things do though...it seems like an odd choice.

 

It does matter though, which is why you still get some reactivity. Companions will still love you/hate you/leave based on their approval levels, so you very much need to pay attention to it, just as before. Probably even more so, since we no longer have visual evidence of how much they love or hate us based on our choices.

[Cantina]

Hmm so you played 6 hours on your account than another 6 hours on husband's account. Wow that definitely sounds selfish   So I am assuming your husband didn't play his 6 hours of Dragon Age Inquisition
 
Well at least one of you had fun. Hopefully your husband can play the game when it comes out

My husband rarely plays video games, he is more of a pen and paper gamer. He made a One account to use some of the Apps. I doubt he will even bother playing DAI. He prefers watching me play then actually playing himself.

[Muspade]

 Whether the game wants to admit it or not, the characters in the game are a resource just like your armor and your weapons. The player needs them or feels like they do. When the game threatens to take that resource away, it is punishing the player for not taking certain actions. The end result is the player being forced to cater to the characters and focus on them more, instead of actually being able to manage them as a game resource and also roleplay.

That sounds horrible In so many ways.

[Cantina]

I'm glad you gave your thoughts, but I'm honestly not liking how you scored the game. 5 A+, 1 B+, 1 B, 1 B-, and one C-. I'm not an expert at math, but that actually should be averaging out to a B+ or an A-. Not a B-. As for your actual critiques, I'm not saying there weren't points to consider, but a lot of them did come off as nitpicky, and honestly I thought you were unnecessarily harsh on the leveling system.

 

You say you've been playing games for a long time and this is the first RPG you played where you couldn't increase your attributes. I have no doubt you've been playing games for a long time, but it seems to me that you really haven't played a lot. There are plenty of "Sword n' Board" games out there where you can't allocate your stats upon level up, the biggest example would be the Final Fantasy series. Diablo 3 is another such example. I understand this bothers you, but I think the amount of people who are gonna be so bothered by this that they'll almost score it a D, will be very few. Most either won't care, or will get over it pretty quickly.

 

Again ty for your opinions, I just don't agree with some of them.

 

 

 

I was being too critical? Your doing the same about my math and gaming. Pot calling the kettle black. I did say that my review was honest. Furthermore if my opinions are my opinions then I see no need for you to nitpick them apart.

 

(Sighs)

 

Actually D3 was was suppose to have an attribute system but they opted out of it. Anyways....I've played several games that had no attribute system. Why? Because those games were designed not to have them. I was OK with that. Its not like I expect every single game to have an attribute system.
 

I don't go around and buy any old game no matter how popular or lame it is. I play what I feel is something I will enjoy. Every one of my friends is playing "Destiny" right now. Am I? Nope. I have no interest in it. Does not mean I should follow the group over a cliff.

 

I think people are overlooking my point on the Attribute system. So let me make this abundantly clear: I enjoyed putting my points into Attributes in the previous two DA games. Some people have expressed they did not like it and that is fine. What bothers me is the system is still there but you can no longer participate in how you choose to allocate your stats.

 

Will I tolerate it for the game? Sure. But that does not mean my feelings of how the attributes system works in this game from the previous games will simply go away.

 

 

Again I appreciate everyone's comments negative or positive.

 

 

Cheers!

[ashwind]

The Bad: In the previous two games, you were able to see a bar of what your friendship/rivalry was with each companion. While playing I was unable to find it. Maybe I am blind? Not only that I found it rather confusing when your companion (slightly) approves/disapproves. Is it ten points of approval/disapproval? What about the slightly part? Is that one point? Five points?

 

 

Awww... I wont really classify that as a "Bad". It is actually better for immersion imho. In the previous 2 games, I am kinda a slave to the friendship/rivalry bar. So many "To ****** off or not to ****** off.."moment. 

[DiscoGhost]

the last time so many "why" questions had me locked in was Lost. it worked... 

[The Grinning Shark]

Well I DID put this in the Spoiler section.

 

So, did you happen to get any "tone" from Cullen? (Like, does he seem interested immediately, get nervous like Alistair, or cold like Cass?) I completely understand if you don't have an answer for it. After all, it was only six hours. Six precious hours… Ah, Tuesday, why are you so far? 

[RShara]

Awww... I wont really classify that as a "Bad". It is actually better for immersion imho. In the previous 2 games, I am kinda a slave to the friendship/rivalry bar. So many "To ****** off or not to ****** off.."moment. 

The problem is, the approval is still there, and still affects what your companions will do, you just can't see it any more.

[Cantina]

So, did you happen to get any "tone" from Cullen? (Like, does he seem interested immediately, get nervous like Alistair, or cold like Cass?) I completely understand if you don't have an answer for it. After all, it was only six hours. Six precious hours… Ah, Tuesday, why are you so far?

All I can say is this: If you played a female human Mage (in the tower) in DAO and speak to Cullen you see how he reacts with romance, which is similar to how he acts in DAI, well aside from the running away part. I am sure you can find it on YouTube. LOL!


I know right. Tuesday needs to come faster!

[naughty99]

Yes, this is going to be long because I want to convey my opinions as best I can. You've been warned.

 

 

Last night I hunkered down in my living and played DAI for six hours. Then another six hours with my husband’s account. I played the previous games so my expectations were high.

 

I am going to do this in sections to make things easier.

 

 

 

Thanks so much for posting your impressions on the game! I have a couple of questions for you - 

 

Can you comment on how the scaling works for main quest? Cameron Lee mentioned that the encounters in the main quest are scaled to some extent to fit the Inquisitor's level.

 

I'm interested to know if this means you can really ignore the main quest and explore the open world areas like you can in a more sandbox game, or whether every stage of the main quest is balanced for Inquisitors that are say level 12-14, similar to the more linear DA2, where the developers knew at each part of the MQ the player would be within a very limited level range. 

 

If you ignore the main quest for a long time do you become way overleveled for the next part of MQ?

 

Also does it feel like you can really just blow off the main quest and roam the open world areas indefinitely? Do you get to a point where these areas eventually stop spawning random events and enemies, or all the enemy encounters suddenly become too easy / no longer drop loot, etc?

[dantares83]

that is a very good unbiased review! thank u for that!

[andy6915]

All I can say is this: If you played a female human Mage (in the tower) in DAO and speak to Cullen you see how he reacts with romance, which is similar to how he acts in DAI, well aside from the running away part. I am sure you can find it on YouTube. LOL!


I know right. Tuesday needs to come faster!

 

So he's still a big dork who has a large bashful side and turns into a nervous wreck when a pretty girl flirts with him, even though he's so much more handsome and confident overall now than he used to be.

[smoke and mirrors]

As others have said  thanks for posting your review Cantina , i enjoyed reading it

[witchknights]

All I can say is this: If you played a female human Mage (in the tower) in DAO and speak to Cullen you see how he reacts with romance, which is similar to how he acts in DAI, well aside from the running away part. I am sure you can find it on YouTube. LOL!


I know right. Tuesday needs to come faster!

 

*delighted gurgling*

 

i'm so going to romance him with my female mage lavellan just to see his crush on my canon surana come full circle.

[Mathias]

I was being too critical? Your doing the same about my math and gaming. Pot calling the kettle black. I did say that my review was honest. Furthermore if my opinions are my opinions then I see no need for you to nitpick them apart.

 

 

 

No this is not a case of hypocrisy. Your critiques on DA:I were made based on your opinion, and I thought your opinions were too critical. I just disagree with them. Your math however, was objectively wrong. Unless your overall score has nothing to do with averaging out your scores, then I guess the joke's on me. Not trying to be a jerk here, but you called me out on being a hypocrite, so I responded.

 

(Sighs)

 

Actually D3 was was suppose to have an attribute system but they opted out of it. Anyways....I've played several games that had no attribute system. Why? Because those games were designed not to have them. I was OK with that. Its not like I expect every single game to have an attribute system.

 

 

Doesn't matter, because the end result is that D3 didn't have an attribute system, and the game is fine. But now I'm confused because here you're saying you've played several games that had no attribute system. I assume by "Sword n' Board" you mean a RPG. Unless that term of yours means something else. 

[fizzypop]

It does matter though, which is why you still get some reactivity. Companions will still love you/hate you/leave based on their approval levels, so you very much need to pay attention to it, just as before. Probably even more so, since we no longer have visual evidence of how much they love or hate us based on our choices.

If that is true then it is even more of an issue. You can't really do both make it be used against you and not allow you to see it or keep track of it. That's like not being able to see your health bar, but you can see the numbers that pop up. Yes, I could do the math myself and keep track of it, but why should I have to do that? It is a useless idea and only causes annoyance to the player so that'd be a very stupid thing to do. It doesn't add more depth as it will still feel like a mechanic. If anyone wants to claim "REAL LIFE" in real life I don't get a health bar either yet I doubt many of us would be thrilled to hear that is gone. So yeah doesn't work.

So either bioware is dumb or dumber. Not sure what makes me feel better...but at least the former is dumb in a non-threatening or that's weird/silly way instead of frustratingly dumb way.

[Mathias]

When a fellow fan takes some of their free time (unpaid) to write up a review of the early access we missed out on in order to be helpful and share their thoughts in what is obviously not meant to be a bash post, there's no unwritten rule that people have to respond like they're 12 either.

 

The "I stopped reading as soon as you said ____" and "You only didn't like _____ because you suck.  If you were a better player, you'd have enjoyed that aspect." posts demean the poster more than the reviewer.  But since we all have to suffer their presence, it's worth pointing it out.

 

Why is it so hard to disagree with a modicum of respect?  For example, I also thought that the grading of leveling up was overly harsh and I do not miss the removal of attribute points very much as I've been acclimatized to this by several games at this point.  BW is simply catering to a more casual audience as they would have to add either an attribute respec feature (more work), or listen to the endless whining of the uninformed masses who ended up with a non-optimal build.  Instead they offer all the same customization of the old system but folded into the extremely detailed crafting system (is my understanding).  Where you can select what traits and resistances go onto your weapons/armor.  This way if you totally screw the pooch the first time, just scrap those items and start over.  Now all you lose is time and BW didn't have to add another respec feature.

 

I agree with being respectful about disagreeing with the OP, but I haven't really seen a lot of immaturity in this thread.

 

 

People RAGED against the removal of attribute selection on level up in D3 when that was first announced too.  Hell, there were articles about Diablo 3 being "dumbed down."  Just because that game is old enough that nobody cares anymore doesn't mean that it wasn't a big deal when it happened.  It was the exact same issue, the previous two games had this feature and then it was removed.

 

Frankly you couldn't have picked a worse game for your analogy and either you didn't play at launch or have simply forgotten.

 

I actually did play at launch and remember it well. There were A LOT of issues with Vanilla D3, but it wasn't in part of the attribute system. It was the loot system, and it has since been fixed. It took awhile for the devs to work out the kinks, but right now Diablo 3 is an incredible game with tons of builds.