Well, for starters they've got this wonderful cast of characters that don't get nearly enough screentime, for a game the size of DAI it could've done with the companion and advisor interaction/content doubled. The Skyhold as it stands is pretty much a glorified dolls house, I was under the impression that we'd be able to take part in activities in there, like they said in a few of the articles... I was hoping we'd be able to play card games in the tavern, or at least order a drink, I wanna be able to go into it's Chantry and pray if I'm so inclined, or go out into the courtyard to train on the dummies, or do some archery, maybe ride my horse around a track like you can at Redcliffe Farm, I'd also like to be able to upgrade it more than just it's garden, courtyard and tower. Game could do with more main quests as well, or at least side quests that tie into the main quests. Oh, and the final goodbyes and empowering speech before the final battle, I miss those.
ddman12, Arl Raylen, FiveThreeTen et 3 autres aiment ceci
-To not have to travel back to Skyhold to do missions on the wartable (Leliana has those crows , I should be able to send them a note to go do some missions)
Also why on earth do I have to wait for a mission for 10+ hours to be finished? I planned playing the game not waiting for a timer.
So much this. I've gone back to Skyhold a million times in the midst of exploring just because I had to assign new operations. The rewards bit could be only redeemable once returned to Skyhold (I don't see a crow carrying an axe), but assignments should be far more painless than they are now.
A good story, a good villain, a good romance with depth, more puzzles, less grinding more dialogue, I mean you have some great supporting cast in Varric, Leilana, Morrigan, Hawke and i feel they just didnt took it all the way. They where really trying to make us feel like we where heroes though kudos for that but it still come away somewhat empty the whole experince.
Its missing choices, good and bad. Give me the option of finding the great spider weakness and not sacrificing ANYONE, give me the option to help Corypheus, let me run 10 feet down a hill and take on the Vents going after the Chargers..stop railroading me into the same story over and over.
I see this comment a lot, and I feel like I'm missing something. It feels like armors have no variety. I've been wearing the same enchanter robe (or a better version of it) since the start of the game and I'm level 16. I've seen warden/orlesian battlemage armor, but those don't come with upgradeable parts. It really feels like I'm missing something because the crafting system seems really barebones. :x
Honestly I was finding better schematics and materials all through the game. It isn't just the schematics, a new material can give you better benefits or just more armour.
BioWare tried to emulate the open world style of Skyrim but failed to realize that even among the vast wilderness, Skyrim also had towns and NPCs that alternated their routines on a schedule instead of standing around doing nothing when you find them half an hour later.
What I found missing was that the world felt lifeless. Each map felt abandoned as if an apocalypse had swept through the area and you're a survivor finding these notes left behind.
I actually find it a chore to force myself to talk to everyone because of the third person camera and how impersonal it feels. Contrast that with Origins when I'd just talk to Leliana nonstop even if she kept repeating the same stories over again. I feel like this is partly because the cast is too large, and instead of having a more meaningful experience with a few characters it becomes a lackluster experience stretched too thin among more characters. Less is more in this case.
Arl Raylen, SicSemper T Rex et JustGiveItUp aiment ceci
Honestly I was finding better schematics and materials all through the game. It isn't just the schematics, a new material can give you better benefits or just more armour.
I thought it worked really well.
This!
Once I got into crafting, I used heavily for everything I could. I found my own armor was a billion times better than what I found. Right from very early on I had great armor from drakestone that looked good and gave some nice bonuses and my weapons were drakestone too. Schematics weren't anything special at that point as I didn't unlock the great stuff with Cullen yet, but given what I had with lots of drakestone right around one of the camps it was so easy to suit up myself, blackwall and cass with some great armor from haven which is very early in the game. It only improved later.
BioWare tried to emulate the open world style of Skyrim but failed to realize that even among the vast wilderness, Skyrim also had towns and NPCs that alternated their routines on a schedule instead of standing around doing nothing when you find them half an hour later.
What I found missing was that the world felt lifeless. Each map felt abandoned as if an apocalypse had swept through the area and you're a survivor finding these notes left behind.
I actually find it a chore to force myself to talk to everyone because of the third person camera and how impersonal it feels. Contrast that with Origins when I'd just talk to Leliana nonstop even if she kept repeating the same stories over again. I feel like this is partly because the cast is too large, and instead of having a more meaningful experience with a few characters it becomes a lackluster experience stretched too thin among more characters. Less is more in this case.
Agreed.
I think this was the maps really were lame. I actually love hinterlands because if feels like a functional part of thedas. Most of the other maps (not all but most) feel like something they threw together as someone said to cover a feel like 'okay we have a desert at night and at day, we have a normal place and now we have a creepy night place. What else are we missing?' That's how it feels to me and so it was like a box check toward something but in the end these maps seem to leave enough people with a sense of feeling like it was a waste with BW doing it just to do it and say 'oh we have all these maps' but anyone who knows how to make maps can make them easily enough. Hell, I've seen maps 50x better in the skyrim mods. I kid you not. I've had so many maps that are outright rivals to what skryim had as part of my game that while I'm not saying the creators of those mod maps had an easy job, clearly it is something that is not some super challenging task if modders can build towns, cities, and entire questlines with multiple maps. BW, in my opinion falls very short because of this. It's hard to not be critical when you have seen countless maps made by players that are better than the ones you see in a professionally made game.
I didn't bother talking with people either. Most of the time you would just get nothing anyway.
I absolutely agree there wasn't enough variety in the armors visually. As a human rogue I was wearing either a jacket or coat with my lockpicks on my belt. The only exception was the Armor of the Dragon. Woulda loved to have worn the harlequin outfit, or even the generic inquisition uniform (though the silly rolled up cloth going behind everyone's necks was silly).
Compared to the amount of dialogue your companions attributed during quests in Dragon Age 2 or even Origins, even each others loyalty quests, this game is almost baren. You can get some if you bring some specific companions on very specific quests. Bring Dorian on IB's mission. Bing Blackwall to meet the Warden. Bring Cole, Dorian and/or Vivienne to the fade and that is almost it.
Varric doesn't add anything while Hawke is present. Vivienne has nothing special to add when you bing her to the ball, her home field. In Dragon Age 2 your companions would almost argue about something in every second encounter.
Okay, maybe not make them argue all the time, but at least more interaction would have been nice. Bioware, companions are what you do best, but it doesn't matter if they don't feel like part of a group.
Compared to Dragon Age 2, even though half of them hated the others, this game feels more like "the bunch of random individuals traveling around together"
More romance interactions with Josephine. Her romance is good overall. It builds up well, there's passion, but then it becomes a bit dry. The "variety" of that romance (the number of different interactions with her once the romance is established) is ultimately rather underwhelming in my book.
Also, would have liked to get a walking toggle at least limited to Heaven/Skyhold, and "emotes", allowing us to lean against a wall or to sit down on specific chairs or benches (again, would have been limited to within Heaven and Skyhold). I would really like to role-play a bit in Skyhold's tavern but I can't even sit at the bar, meh. And always jugging around in Skyhold looks a bit silly (there's fast travel within anyway, walking wouldn't exactly make my journey any longer, if I'm speaking to Cullen and feel like going to my quarters but don't want to jug or walk my way there I can just open up the map and fast travel next to my throne).
Also, similarly to Mass Effect, would have liked to have different outfits to wear in Skyhold (such as the ones we could choose in the Normandy from our cabin).
I absolutely agree there wasn't enough variety in the armors visually. As a human rogue I was wearing either a jacket or coat with my lockpicks on my belt. The only exception was the Armor of the Dragon. Woulda loved to have worn the harlequin outfit, or even the generic inquisition uniform (though the silly rolled up cloth going behind everyone's necks was silly).
This but I liked the cloth around the neck especially the inquisition warrior armor on my female dwarf and the inquisition battle mage armor on my female dailish elf in fact those are the only armours I've equiped them with "sigh" but to each their own.
I'm not feeling my companions, man. And it depresses me immensely. Now, as a caveat, the furthest I've gotten is doing the Grey Warden main quest so maybe it picks up later in the game, I dunno. But compared to DA2 I don't feel like I know my companions as well. Their quests are extremely quick and often feel superficial. I wanted more talks with Bull about how he feels about his Tal-Vasothness now, there are some unexplored depths there I wanna prey into. It's especially disappointing since they have so much meat on their bones at Haven but it doesn't (or hasn't so far) carried through. I dunno. The banter-bug (that may or may not be a bug) might also be playing a role here. I'm hoping there's a Citadel themed DLC somewhere in the future since I'm missing the connection I used to feel.
I've been playing some old BIoware games like Jade Empire and Kotor, and the main thing missing for me besides constant cinematic dialogue and real choices was the towns. Jade Empire doesn't have much in the way of an open world, but it's got neat little towns full of interesting NPCs who you can help and or torture depending on your style. Speaking of JE (since practically nobody does), it's got such a wonderful combat system, with smooth active dodge and interesting mechanics. Such an underrated game.
I adore The Elder Scrolls. I have over 400 hours in Skyrim over three characters and have yet to download any quest mods. However, Dragon Age isn't The Elder Scrolls and it shouldn't try to be.
Open World: The open world in Dragon Age is... Crap, really. I wasn't impressed. The quests were just there and didn't really affect anything. Whilst the scenery was beautiful there's more to a game than pretty trees and Red Templars.
Main Quest: Short. Really short. If we didn't have to collect all that damn power it would be over in a couple hours. It's disappointing. I think the reason the Elder Scrolls gets away with short main quests is because there is so much to do in the world. Level up skills, join guilds, etc.
After the Game: Is there any real reason to continue playing after the end of the main quest? You can't talk to companions, you're missing one of the mages - as far as I know all you do is go out and do side quests? Please, no.
The Controls: They got better as I got used to them, but still... Clicking on something in the distance and the character not running to it? It threw me off for a bit. It doesn't feel like I'm playing a Dragon Age game. I almost feel like It's an MMO.
Combat: It felt like Hawke had put on a few kilograms and was finding it hard to turn. Seriously, I have no idea why they felt the need to slow the characters down in combat but it's damn annoying and the reaction times of the characters is way too slow. It feels like I'm playing HD Dragon Age: Origins. It's awful and I hope the next game goes back to Dragon Age 2 style of combat.
Skyhold: Wasn't much to do in Skyhold. It was there, you collected some things and then that was it. I really wanted it to be like... Garrisons in WoW (for lack of a better example) which I have heard is a lot like something in SWOTR. You got the base outline and then chose what you wanted to build - an apothecary or an inn or whatever you wanted. Wasted potential IMO (also, does it ever get fully repaired?)
Healing: I wasn't opposed to them removing healing, but were barriers the best solution they could come up with? You just get an extra health bar instead of having your health rejuvenated. I don't know, it just seems like a bad solution to something that wasn't even a problem.
Dialogue Wheel: Gotta say, I do prefer the dialogue wheel. I mean, it's pretty much the same as DA2 but... I think it would have been easier if they had assigned three personalities to the Inquisitor. Just my opinion, I know a lot of people hated the Dialogue Wheel (happy that the love heart thing stayed though - saved me ninjamancing someone (Morrigan >_>)).
Dragon Age: Inquisition is a good game. I might even consider it a great game. There are, however, a lot of things I dislike about it. It's not as long as Dragon Age: Origins and it's not as short as Dragon Age 2. You would think that it would be perfect length then, but unfortunately not. Does Dragon Age 2 have a longer main quest? I almost feel like it does but I could be wrong (I probably am).
dwarf zone is not dynamic enough. DAO's deep road seems 10x bigger than DAI or simply, there's not much content in the deep road.
other than harding, dagna and varric, there is only an illusion of verbal thaig but no where to be found in game.
there is no circle tower. the mage and Templar fights only happens in hinterland and "words of mouth". people speaks of it but in world scale, there's more desert sand than mage clashes with Templar. in DAO, I get to see a tower at the lake. but I just cant seem to see any tower.
there is no physical Templar HQ.
val royal is just too small, making me feel I am playing DA2 all over again.
I cant help but feel the dev put lots of effort in the beginning zone to create an illusion of a large game world only to slowly bottleneck into tiny areas as the game progress. basically in end game, everything is small, the fade, arbor wilds, the well of sorrow, etc are all tiny maps with final fantasy linear maps
sera talk in extreme British ascent with shyite here and there which makes feel so out of place because it reminds me of England when the game world is not England. it breaks immersion really.
loot mechanic is far from desirable. the only rewarding moment is killing dragon but the irony is I found 10 daggers 0 bows from 10 dragon playing as an archer.
there is no incentive to complete lion pavilion puzzle because I know that the loot I gonna get is another grey dagger most probably.
What really is missing, most of what is talked about here, basically:
The open locations feel so empty and static because they are, but that wasn't the original plan...
This is the game I wanted, characters large and detailed, what we got are dolls on the screen that you simply control, i hate it, otherwise i can deal with everything else
It's missing an epic conclusion, a big fight with all costs at stake. By the time you roll up and face Cory you already feel you won and theres no stress or tension, no final epic speech, no involvement of other characters in the final fight like Mass Effect 2 or DAO.
Also, I feel like the background conflicts like the orlesian civil war and the Templar-Mage war weren't fleshed out.
Tactical behaviour is practically non-existent, DA2 was more tactical lmao, also once you rank up high enough use of the horrible tactical cam is no longer needed because if you know what abilities to spec you can easily kill level 20 pride demons on hard/nightmare difficulty. For me I made my inquisitor as a reaver and fights were too easy.
Strangely, I miss the plot coupons. Each area having it's own quest hub with a select set of smaller stories tying into the larger plot that you're investigating so you can finally accumulate enough to face the big bad. KOTOR had it's star maps. Jade Empire had it's spirit monk jewel thingies. Origins had it's treaties. They all made it at least feel like I was working toward some larger objective and would have provided a good place for exposition into the main villain's motives. I'd probably have felt more like a... well, an inquisitor. Plot coupons were replaced with power and it just left the main quest feeling emptier.
For someone who was called "Inquisitor", I didn't feel very inquisitorial. I didn't investigate, didn't ferret out heresy, didn't really do much beyond the occasional judgement. I wandered like a good adventurer, but the best stuff I did was on the war table. Why wasn't figuring out Corypheus' true name and history an actual mission? Protecting Alistair or Anora from Venatori assassins sounds like fun, can I actually do that? No? Why not? Finding some farmer's missing druffalo or crazy intelligent ram isn't beneath me but saving the leader of Fereldan from magical assassination is best left to someone else?
I'm essentially annexing parts of Orlais and Fereldan throughout the game and apparently no one has a problem with that. In fact, they welcome it. So, can't I just conquer Thedas? If that was the plot coupons on the way to the main quest of stopping Corypheus by way of a race to the gates of the Black City and the seat of the Maker, I think it might have felt more coherent. I need all these mystical, magical artifacts/political power/hidden behind foreign armies in order to crack open the Fade before Corypheus but am stuck a step behind the whole way. He knows what he's looking for and what he needs, I don't. I need to figure out his plan. Turned out, he didn't really have one. As it was, Corypheus felt defeated by the time I got to Wicked Minds, Wicked Hearts. He just didn't know it yet. The Inquisitor was just too powerful, won too often, and there wasn't anything to hold it together. As a villain, he felt more powerful, more threatening, and much more interesting when he'd just woken up in Legacy. Even his boss battle was better!
Better lead up for the Ancient Elves. They were interesting, but I really don't invest in the expanded universe material. When I pick up a game, I really expect all the basic information I need to understand what's going on to be present in the exposition. This is a game meant for people who played the previous games, read the novels, played the facebook games, and bought the comics. I really didn't care about the drama surrounding Celene, Gaspard, and Briala. I wasn't even sure why Briala was a choice. Sure, she had the elves but why do they matter? I exhausted her dialogue options, but the part where she was Celene's ex-lover made it seem like she was more relevant on that front than any other. Not enough time spent on Orlesian politics. While I knew Morrigan, I felt bad for anyone who met her without experiencing the first game. She's not explained at all, really, especially not in context of why she should matter to this game's player character. I tangentially remembered the eluvians, but there just wasn't enough plot time or investigation into the ancient elves to really warrant the sudden plot switcheroo late game. If the Ancient Elves were really that advanced, why don't we know more about them? It hasn't actually been that long.
I wish we'd actually wrapped up the arc with Tevinter magisters/intelligent darkspawn and given a genuine explanation for what happened. Why did the Wardens lock Corypheus away instead of killing him? He wasn't the only one who broke into the Black City, where are the other Magisters? The Architect was probably one, but where are the others? He's supposedly a great manipulator, why doesn't he ever try to manipulate the player character? He's planning on enslaving some of his followers, why isn't he attempting the same with the Inquisitor? Is it just a lack of access? The Inquisitor's still got the anchor. It works. They can clearly walk in the Fade and take others in with them. He could still use them. The Tevinter magisters been central to the mythology and lore of the game setting for the past two games but any plot regarding Corypheus was sacrificed for that cool thing over there with the super powerful ancient elves. All that build up ended in a lame attempt at a gotcha.
Why wasn't more time spent on what the anchor actually did and what it opened? The Inquisitor can close holes in reality, but they can also rip them open. They can go on walkabout in the Fade. It's a neat power all on it's own, but the consequences and fullness of it's potential are never really delved into. If I were an ancient god or just a powerful mage, I certainly wouldn't want to leave this power in the hands of anyone.
Ultimately, the game lacks ambition in it's storytelling. Maybe if I'd never assaulted the Wall of the Faithless to steal back my soul in Mask of the Betrayer, climbed through Oblivion gates to deal with Mehrunes Dagon, became Sheogorath, or cut through Cold Harbor and used the amulet of kings to get the necessary power up to get the power of a god burn through walls and kick Molag Bal in the balls out of Tamriel (again) for my soul, took on Zinyak in powered armor to the tune of "You've Got the Touch", fought my way to the Archdemon, I'd feel better about this ending. The entire plot kinda felt like a poor man's version of Jade Empire but missing the part in the Spirit World after the betrayal, which is ironic given that Cole mentions it in one of his random asides. Ultimately, this game left me thinking of other games and of what might have been. I was inclined to fire up DA 2 and fight Cory there to get better closure. Or face off with Orsino and Meredith again.
Given the reception of DA2, I can't blame them for playing it safe but... it just feels too safe.
If anyone thinks I'm kidding about the wall thing, shots below. Spoilers obviously.
Spoiler
Why beat up fake gods when you can beat up real ones, am I right? Speaking of, my favorite lead up shot from a different quest.
Hi...
Arl Raylen, segurissima, FiveThreeTen et 1 autre aiment ceci
I had Alistair as a Warden in my world state. I let him stay in the Fade at the end of Here Lies The Abyss. It was really, really sad.
But I did that quest after I did Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts. And not once, not even once, did I find any interaction between Morrigan and Alistair, when both were at Skyhold before the Siege of Adamant. And you know what? No interaction per se is fine. I'd love it, yes, but I don't need it. I just need something to indicate to me that the two acknowledge each other's existence during the events of Inquisition. Alistair has a great line about Morrigan when in the Fade, yes, but it references the events of Origins.
And when he died, there was nothing from Morrigan. Not a single word. Leliana had one sentence about him, and while it felt a bit impersonal, at least it was there. But c'mon, Morrigan-Alistair is one of the most iconic duo's in a BioWare game, and their banter between each other is among some of the best. Why, for the love of Corypheus, is there nothing to be found in Inquisition that continues that?
Now, I understand one can besiege Adamant before attending Celene's Grand Ball, I do. And in such a context it makes perfect sense. But as someone who devoured The Masked Empire and is a sucker for political intrigue in stories such as these, I couldn't wait to attend the Ball, so I only went to look for Alistair after doing that. Which led to this... disappointment. And yes, I also understand that Alistair doesn't have to be the Warden, and that makes any fleshed-out development of Warden-Alistair much less important if looking at the financial- and resource-budgets for his character, but still.
Please, someone tell me I'm an idiot, or something went wrong (my game bugged out, I don't know), and there is an interaction to be found between them. For I am confused as to why I got nothing at all.
Please, someone tell me I'm an idiot, or something went wrong (my game bugged out, I don't know), and there is an interaction to be found between them. For I am confused as to why I got nothing at all.
Nah, it's not you. It wasn't in the game for some reason... at least, from what I've seen.
Just missing the epic feeling, connection, sense of urgency in dao and eventually the sense of impressive accomplishment at the end. Im only 12 or so hrs into dai but still dont have THAT feeling.
But maybe its because i was too busy wrestling with the pc controls and babysitting my companions and dealing with crashes that really dampened my experience. I even played casual. Maybe i'll enjoy it more on my next playthrough when im less dense.
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