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[Rod]

Hello fellow Bioware Employees,

 

maybe thats not the exactly right places but since there are a lot of discussions going on regarding DA:I i also wanted to express my experience with DA:I.

 

First of all, as a contradiction of the ongoing DA:I/Bioware bashing i want to make it clear, that i absolutely love Dragon Age Inquisition and all the hard work you all must have put in this game. That said, I love it for being a great game which absolutely does, what I would expect from a great game, namely it entertains me in a fantastic way. That is at least my general reception.

I played the game for 80 hours now and just arrived in Skyhold which should make clear, that I took my sweet time to venture out in the beautiful areas you created and searched for every nook and cranny before proceeding with the main story. Since it now feels, like i did the first third of the game, I wanted to go a bit more into detail what I enjoyed this far and what was more or less unpleasant. Or unbearable. 

 

World/Setting

As I wrote earlier, I really loved to just venture through the 4 first Areas (Hinterlands, Swamp, Stormcoast and Oasis) and suck up the beauty of the Landscape. Setting my first steps on the ground of the Hinterlands was fantastic, because of the feeling that I would now have the chance to really explore the lands of Thedas and immerse in it. Truly the designers and the Frostbite Engine have done outstandingly and created something great here. It send shivers p and down my spine as I stood on a cliff at the Storm coast and saw the waves of the wake sea come crushing to the shores. And as I took my way further down to the coast I could almost taste the salt of surge. Combined with the sound effects that was the most immense feeling I ever felt through a virtual environment. As for the Swamps… like probably most people I am not a big fan of swamps but I think it did well in creating this swampy atmosphere although it had not this “whoa” effects. What I am a great Fan of are Deserts… I don`t know why, but I think it is like with the sea or the oceans I am fascinated by pure wideness. Thus I was a bit sad, that I couldn`t venture out in the Desert and find some almost lost and sand buried graves but be relatively stationary in this one particular oasis. But then again, you did well to give the oasis some different “layers” and caves so you have to spend some time there and walk your ways up and down.

So plainly it really was awesome to come in touch with those places and just forget the real world for the time being there. And that brings up the things I really cannot come to understand.

If you take so much time and effort to create these places why would you not give the players the possibility to walk through these places? I couldn`t believe my eyes when I saw that there was no option for turning walk on. I mean, how do you go on vacation with some fellow mates or your family? Is it like “Oh honey, just look at this beautiful scenery! Let us stay here for 10 seconds and if you are done with the beauty just let us run the next 100 meters and then we stop again, and run and stop and run…” 

To a lesser degree I think it also would be nice to zoom in into ego perspective but that’s not a game breaker for me. Since most rpg games just feel… ankward for me if i go into ego.

Furthermore it isn`t quite self-explanatory to me, why you decided to not have day and night transition or a change of weather. Since I spend a significant time of my overall gametime exploring the same area it would have been nice to see how the storm coast would change when the sun is shining and the waves may calm down a bit, or even how it would be in the night. When the moon would light up the sea and it all turn a bit of silvery. Or imagine the oasis at night. I think the frostbite engine should be able to do that, or not? But maybe that is something for the next Dragon Age!

 

Character|creation/NPCs

What in the name of the lord have u thought shipping these haircuts? ^^ I can`t otherwise than believe that this is not working as intended and will be addressed with a future patch or even dlc. Seriously, it’s the year 2014 guys… u simply can´t be honest! XD

 

Aside from the hair-thing it’s a powerful customization tool you build there which should fit the needs of all people who really want to freak out with their character creation. Personaly I don´t think it’s a biggy that you didn`t bring an option to modulate body shape and such things because most of the (male) gamers would normally come up with a tall, slim, rich chested, long red haired, pale, green eyed beauty. … aehm… at least that’s what I did. Sure, I would also have made a fat dwarf for my “rude” playthrough but I can be rude without being fat! ;P So.. Thumbs up here.

 

In Germany the most criticized Topic –aside the controls – is the felt shallowness of the group members and the inner circle. I however can´t really tune in there. I think you did a good job here since some of them really appeal to me (Sera – there is no way to not love her - Varic, Dorian, Cole, Solas, Leliana) and there is even one I don`t like a bit, in terms of attitude and behavior (Vivienne). Which is good because it would be a shame if you don`t feel anything for the Characters. Iron Bull, Josephine, Casandra, Blackwall, Cullen are okay but nothing special. But I think in the past - since many of the Critics claimed, that all was better back in the days with BG2 and DA:O - there were also some outstanding characters and some who were, in comparison to the outstanding ones, a bit more … normal. The German Critics claim, that there are too many characters which are just replaceable in DA:I. But to be honest, I would like to know how they make that claim referring to DA:O. Since I don`t see that much differences. 

 

Controls/Menus 

To take some pressure of that topic right away I must say, I am more than capable to play DA:I with the given controls. Holding the right mouse button to navigate while using wasd or in my case even qwes to walk isn`t a big deal for _me_. That said, it of course would be much better, if you could move through pressing left and right mouse button simultaneously and that’s how, as far as I can tell, most games with ego or third person perspective work nowadays. But then again, it is not a gamebreaker for me. 

That said I come to a thing that is really unpleasant and you have to face the fact that some people are rightfully upset. You said, this game would have a tac cam which delivers all you have come to know from DA:O. That Sir, is a great joke! I play on Hard and never made excessive use of the tac cam for most of the normal fights. And I was fine with it since I din`t need it. I thought if I want to play it more tactically I could play it on the hardest difficulty. But then I made a bad decision. As I said, I played 80 hours now and just reached Skyhold. That means, I also just got the focus ability and the specialization for my class. I am now lvl 14. When I first saw the impressive ferelden frostback in the hinterlands I decided that I want to have a dance with her as soon as possible. That was lvl 13 for me and I din`t had the focus ability and the specialization for that occasion too. Further I play as a melee rogue which must be one of the worst choices in terms of game balance I could have made – but more on that later. I battled this monster –and that is no lie and no exaggeration - for 1 hour and 53 minutes straight. You can pretty much assume that I grew to hate the tac cam and the so called AI of my group members while battling the FF. Not only you couldn´t zoom out as far as it would be needed to look down on the battlefield and have an overview over the positioning, but sometimes the game would break pause if you switch characters or you just get a cramp in your wrist while trying to hover over the battlefield to get some information. Plus I think my Desk has some deep bitemarks now because Solas, Serra and Cassandra don`t get the meaning of the Order “Hold Position”. Can someone tell me, why they always have to stick to me if I switch back in no tac cam mode and run around? I mean in most cases it would have made pretty much sense when I wanted to let them stay where they stood and not wanted them to run into fireballs, ground fire, firebreath or tailsweeps. So yes, this is one mayor thing and I must say it that harshly but you pretty much messed up with the tac cam. I mean, why isn`t it possible to drag two group members together and give orders to them? Why do I have to order them one by one or all of them? Where is the “hold left mouse button, draw a frame and whoever is in that frame is chosen and gets the same move or attack orders”? That is a thing I thought would be status quo since… I don´t know… Baldurs Gate1? 

To a lesser degree I also think you made a bad decision with the menus. I know… for our fellow console gamers we must live with some ankward Menus… that’s fine to some point. Bad design is bad design regardless of the purpose it should serve. Its “form follows function” not the other way around. What function should your Inventory have? I think it is there to give you a quick overview of all the stuff you own and let you make decisions whether or not to change your equipment through the given informations. Does this Menu Design meet these criteria? Nope, definitely not. First, you have to scroll through every single item where you just could have displayed them as items in a bag, since same item types all share the same icon layout anyways. And to top that, if you compare Items at the bottom of the scroll line, the popup frames hide the changes which are displayed in the Stat Change Frame at the bottom of the menu. And I don´t play on 800x600… C’mon guys… that’s.. I don`t know… you are not new to making such things, are you? And if you outsource such things make at least sure to check what you get for your bucks. Since this is obviously nonfunctional, from my perspective, the form is messed up too.

Another thing I would like to exemplify is one simple function that is missing - and was never missing in any of the games with menus I played until now:  If I am on the World Map and I press the C (DA:I it is P) key. I want to go to the Character screen. Its not that I want to close the World map and then go to the Character screen no, that should work automatically. Same with the Inventory. Or almost anything that could be opened by pressing a key. If I press a key with a function for opening something, that something should open regardless of what I look at in that moment. 

 

Combat/Skills/Balancing

 

As I said, I play as a Rogue. Despite the fact that my overall dmg Performance would be a lot better if I would play a range Class, I have a lot of fun with my Rogue. It’s a fast paced play stile with a lot of ways to control the battlefield and the enemy. At least that is true for most of the normal fights. Since I didn`t got my eyes on the specializations as of now, there might be something I missed out here but: The Fight with the Ferelden Frostback showed me why it would for these fights always be better to play a range class. At least in hard or nightmare. You can`t stand in front of the Dragon because of swipe and Fireballs. You can´t stand at the flank because of his attacks with the legs, you can’t stand at his back because of the tailsweep. IF you manage to stay at his flank for a while, which still is the best choice of all the three bad choices, then it will more than once happen, that you can`t land your activated talents because the hitbox of the legs is so small, that you can´t hit them if he just moves or attacks with his legs. And boy does this Dragon move! So you have to take a long walk back to that little hitboxes, make yourself invisible, try to land a twin fang and …fail, because he moved. I am I no way a game designer or something but we have a huge discrepancy here between melee and range characters. Sure, if I can stand with my enemy I can deliver some nasty hits. But overall that is much less through all the positioning I have to care about if I don`t want to get rofelstomped by some area dmg enemys. Since I love to play rogues and tend to play them in most games: why isn`t there something like a skill which insanely increases my dodge chance for a given amount of time so I could do some dmg or even fill up my resources while taking lower to non dmg? All I found is a 5% passive chance to not get hit (o.O) and the active skill Parade. Latter is a single target riposte and while it is “active” I can`t use auto attacks. And it doesn`t work with melee AE dmg. 

 

Aside of that I really like the skills a lot and have a lot of fun in normal fights. I also like this little slowmo if you deal some nasty dmg or activate a synergy. And I don`t think there are to less skills. 8 active skills are more than enough taking into account that you have 32 if you make full use of all party members.

 

Story

As far as I can tell now, I like the Story and I am eager to see how it all will work out. Sure it’s the not near to new supervillianthreatenstheworldandherosavesit thing but you did a great job in presenting and altering it through the use of the Inqusition. I really like the war table and the way you choose to granting access to story milestones and new zones. Thumbs up here!

 

Skyhold

Just arrived but I fell in love the moment I set foot in it. Dunno if it’s a bug or something but if not I would not understand why I can`t sit on my throne just for the sake of sitting there. But that’s no important thing. I love Skyhold! Best base you ever designed. And I don`t care, that there is now chest where one could put his stuff. Never needed it. I just sell the things I don`t need. But then again it’s a bit weird to have a whole Castle but no place where you can put your treasure. 

 

Would I have to rate the game I would give it 88%. It’s beautiful, it’s rich in so many ways, it seems to be packed to the brim with things you can do, has a exciting Story, well written characters and generally is the best Dragon Age for me. In DA:O within 80 hours of play I always had some phases where I wasn`t motivated to play, in DA:I that never happened till now and I can`t wait to get back in the game. I think if you would have put more effort in the controls, tac cam and menu design, you would have risked to suffocate through all that maniacally hugging of your hardcore fans. I would have rated it with 95% then.

 

Sorry for wall of text and maybe bad english. 

 

Oh and i think most people are enjoying the game silently and don`t write that they like it all the time so don`t let it get you down if you feel that there is more destructive than constructive criticism!