46 réponses à ce sujet

[TeraBat]

First off, I'm a giant superfan for Dragon Age. I didn't buy Origins until several friends promised me I'd love this game. I started with a female City Elf rogue... and an hour into the game, running through the arl's manor in a bloody wedding dress, I completely and utterly fell in love with this game. I loved every single part of the game, bought all the DLC and pre-ordered 2. I even had fun playing Dragon Age 2! I romanced Anders, and loved where his story went, and the effect it had on me; both my character and as a player. 

 

Several years later, I'm playing Skyrim and wishing so hard that this was a DA game. Lo and behold, Inquisition gives me basically all of that. 

 

I can forgive a lot in games, so the bugs and glitches didn't bother me. I play a Dragon Age game for the story first, combat second. So if Krem wants to stand on a chair, more power to him! The tactical screen was less than optimal, but I adapted. I didn't mind that, because I got so many wonderful and lush maps to explore! 

 

Crafting and gathering were also fun - much less tedious than in Skyrim, and I didn't have to worry about if my crafting stat was high enough to make something decent. 

 

I absolutely loved In Hushed Whispers, I loved getting Skyhold. I loved meeting all my companions (and guessing correctly who was lying to me and who was hiding things from me almost immediately after meeting them!). 

 

I adored Here Lies the Abyss, and I respect BioWare for setting it up for me to make probably one of the heart-wrenching choices I've ever had to make in a game. So many props. That was amazing.

 

I also really liked the choices I had to make in Wicked Eyes, Wicked Hearts; and in What Pride Hath Wrought. 

 

When it came time for the final fight - I leveled to 21, got the best possible armor and weapons for my companions I possibly could, spent some time adventuring just to level up the Inquisition so I could unlock a combat perk I really thought I'd need, and hunted dragons as a training exercise. In Your Heart Shall Burn and Here Lies The Abyss were brutal, brutal fights and I only expected more from the end - especially after my experience with Origins and DA2. I also looked forward with anticipation as to what heartbreaking choice the game would ask of me. Would someone have to go through the Joining just so they could take out the Elder One? Would my Inquisitor have to sacrifice her life in order to use the anchor's magic? Would the person I'd abandoned in Here Lies the Abyss return? The game certainly seemed to hint at that! What sacrifice would be asked of me, and what would it reveal about the world? I couldn't wait to find out! 

 

And I was so incredibly disappointed. 

 

After the multi-stage combat in the Siege of Denerim, after having to make the choice regarding Morrigan's Dark ritual; after having to sentence my lover and kill another friend in DA2, after having to take out both Orsino and Meredith... the end battle was disappointing. The combat was over too quickly, and there was no subtlety to it.

 

But more importantly, there was no emotional choice to be made. That, more than the combat, was the most disappointing element of the game for me. Likely made even more disappointing because of just how deep my fandom runs. I play BioWare games for the story and setting, and for the characters - friends, rivals and villains. And for the emotional experience of getting invested into these characters and into this setting, and having to make profound choices and sacrifices. 

 

That's the sole point of feedback I have. I still love this franchise, but I do hope that the next game will feature a more complicated end game battle, more like Origins on both a tactical and story level. 

 

Thank you for reading this. 

[Meredydd]

Yeah. The ending ran hollow for me as well. I think Bioware was trying to play it safe after ME3's ending. But I agree with you that the DA:I ending should have been something similar to the Siege of Denerim in DA:O. When you called all your companions and allies to battle along side you...it was just the best feeling. I felt epic and incredibly satisfied after that, but in Inquisition the ending was just underwhelming. I was at least expecting Skyhold to be attacked.

[Kevorka]

I am hoping that it will be a DLC. Dark spawn should have tried to break down the walls with an Ogre. But Solas was a big surprise I did not see that coming. I hope we can get DLC to hunt him down.

[Thane4Ever]

I can't help but wonder if they are planning on doing a "real" ending with a DLC involving Solas.  I too was disappointed with all the things you listed, and was hoping for a multi stage battle using all of my companions, because otherwise why did I work so hard to keep them?  Or at least see anyone not in my party directly involved and actually helping and doing important stuff.

[Dakota Strider]

The problem was the main villain.  He was evil, he was a darkspawn, he was monstrous, he was an ancient Tevinter magister...all things that are supposed to be bad.  Yeah, he blew up the Enclave at the Temple of Sacred Ashes...but that happened before we actually started the game, and there was no real connection between our character, and his crime.  Yeah, he destroyed Haven, after we got to know the people there.  But nobody we really knew was killed, and from Haven we moved to SkyHolde...Upgrade!  So, the villain really has not taken anything away from us.

 

I kept waiting for an attack aimed specifically at my companions, especially my LI.  Anything that would make this fight personal.  Nothing.  I cared more about Morrigan's involvement in the story, than I did for my Inquisitor.  And that was because of how much I liked my Warden from DAO, and his connection to Morrigan.  

 

Or perhaps the reason why the ending was lackluster, our commitment to the Inquisitor was just not as satisfactory as it was for either the Warden (best) or Hawke (distant second).  We got to customize the Inquisitor's looks, far better than the past, but besides that, it felt more like Bioware's character, not my own.  Very limited class choices, very narrow class skill trees, allocating ability scores taken away from us.  Two voices to choose from, (neither satisfactory for me).  And choices during the game really didn't make a difference for the most part.  Perhaps a different dialogue line, but the response then ended up the same.  So how can we feel like the villain has made things personal, when we cannot really feel like our character is personal? 

 

Granted, the end battle was nothing special.  So we got to fight on floating ruins.  It was pretty, but had no affect on the battle.  If we actually had to fight the dragon and Carpface at the same time, it may have been interesting.  But...it was just a fight.  Didn't feel any different defeating him, than I did a Pride Demon. 

[TeraBat]

I am hoping that it will be a DLC. Dark spawn should have tried to break down the walls with an Ogre. But Solas was a big surprise I did not see that coming. I hope we can get DLC to hunt him down.

 

I'm not bagging on the concept of DLC in general. On a financial level, I understand that DLC is something that game companies need to utilize in order to stay solvent, and I'd rather have DLC than microtransactions. I loved the DLC for Origins where you play as a Hurlock Alpha General, under the premise that Duncan failed to recruit anyone, and get to kill all your Origins companions. I also really liked Leiliana's Song, where you got to play a character's prequel story. 

 

But you didn't need those pieces of DLC to have a satisfying and enjoyable experience playing Origins. Origins did great as a self-contained game - and if you want to explore the setting some more, if you want more connections to Duncan and more history of the Wardens, here are some ways you can do that. Inquisition should be the same way. The story of the main game needs to be self-contained, and accessible on it's own. 

 

So I hope that the devs aren't planning on Solas, etc, being DLC - it's too big. The story that Solas is wrapped up in should be a huge focus of DA4, not an optional piece of content. 

[TeraBat]

It also feels a little weird that my feedback basically boils down to, "I am disappointed your story did not break my heart at the end!" 

[Thane4Ever]

People keep saying they held back because of the ME3 backlash - that was a bit different because it was presented as the finale in the trilogy so people's hopes were sky high for an ending that culminated in all of their choices from the first two games.  The DA games are connected but you're playing as different groups of people with different threats at different times, so they have more leeway to get crazy with the endings.   They dropped the ball here for sure.  Unfortunately nowadays you can no longer get a completely satisfying game without DLC's.  I want to see this group in the Inquisition deal with Solas, not another group a few years from now in a separate game.

[Thane4Ever]

There was also a lot of talk about Skyhold being ancient and magical, so they gotta have something planned for that. 

[Thane4Ever]

 Yeah, he destroyed Haven, after we got to know the people there.  But nobody we really knew was killed, and from Haven we moved to SkyHolde...Upgrade!  So, the villain really has not taken anything away from us.

There's even a dialogue choice for your Inquisitor that says something to that effect when she's talking to Vivienne.

[Kresa]

ME3 ending was great in my opinion, it felt epic just as it should for bioware game... Dont know why people whined so hard about it honestly...and i got pissed even more when bioware listened to them... Its like a book writer adding 10 pages to a book and sends it to all his readers so they will stop crying.
Anyhow DA:I indeed was very weak, i did everything in the game got to level 24 and then came for a silly easy fight with no more emotions then fighting some common demon. I glad i kept this ending for the end because if i did it earlier i would probebly stop playing and miss some of the pretty zones. This game still needs alot of work to be a worthy successor for DA:O but its very possible so bioware please dont give up!

[Squeeze the Fish]

For some reason, I got really broken up during the siege of Haven- more so than any other part of the game (besides romance scenes with my Cully-Wully).

Haven felt like the birthplace to our fledgling Inquisition that was forcefully ripped away before we were ready to stand on our own two feet. At least, for me. Also, one of the only times in the game where the music was SPOT. ON. and really got me excited in the moment.

[TeraBat]

I actually did not mind the Haven storyline.

 

After all, it's pure dumb luck that my character became Inquisitor - not even catching the eye of someone already recruitment-minded (Origins) or starting from nothing and working my way up (DA2). My Inquisitor didn't have time to get emotionally invested in much of anything by the time Haven happened. I do really feel like the payoff there happened a bit sooner, in the quest you undertake when you choose either Mages or Templars; and also in the moment where you basically volunteer to sacrifice your life so the rest of the town can live. That was enough for me. 

 

And don't get me wrong - I'm not really asking for there to have been an ME3 style ending to Inquisition. Just some kind of difficult choice, on par with Morrigan's Dark Ritual or deciding what to do with Anders (and possibly having to kill Fenris) at the end of DA2. Those weren't necessarily world-shaking choices, but they were choices I was emotionally invested in. My female Warden was in love with Alistair, and now she has to face the possibility of one of them dying... or she has to ask him to sleep with someone he can't stand. My female Hawke was in love with Anders, but shocked at what he had done.. and I didn't have Fenris' approval high enough to talk him down.

 

Those endings really affected me, and after the choices I had to make in What Pride Hath Wrought and Wicked Eyes and especially Here Lies the Abyss...I really anticipated a similar sort of choice, and not getting that was really the biggest let-down of the whole game. 

[Taura-Tierno]

I think there'll be an expansion or a DLC. It obviously doesn't feel very finished. A bit like how Baldur's Gate 2 really needed Throne of Bhaal.

[Arbiter156]

My review sums my thoughts about it up:

http://forum.bioware...s/?fromsearch=1

[Aulis Vaara]

@TeraBat : You really thought the choice in Here Lies The Abyss is well done? To me it felt forced for the sake of trying to make you feel something, like there's a big flashing neon sign above "Feel something! Feel something!" There are so many better ways to set up a sadistic choice. Just take a look at Mass Effect 1's Virmire (even though that's not perfect either).

That said, the ending was disappointing, but not through lack of some trope like having a hard choice to make or something, but rather because of execution. Let us, the player, figure out for ourselves in the story how to take on Corypheus, rather than just pulling a Voldemort out of your ass. Once you've worked toward that end goal, the goal will be satisfying regardless of how specifically it is executed.

How I would personally do it (the 'you' below is the inquisitor):

After the Well of Sorrows, Corypheus is pissed off, but he's got a plan. He's coming after you directly and he's going to make you let him into the black city. He's going to round up whatever forces he has left and then come after you. You know he's coming, and you know he's immortal. You need a solution for that, and soon. So you set whoever you've got to work with to work. That's either  Fiona and Morrigan or the Templars and Morrigan.

At the same time, you're off to fight a delaying action:

 

Step 1: Getting Mythal's dragon. Depending on the choice you made, this may take one of your researchers out of the running, which might lead to problems.

 

Step 2: Your forts. The more of them you have, the more you can delay Corypheus. Some of these battles you fight yourself. The first you take on Corypheus' forces, the second Corypheus tries to pre-empt you by attacking you himself. If you win this fight Corypheus just reincarnates again, if you lose you are allowed to flee to regroup. Corypheus needs you alive yet.

Step 3: Preparing Skyhold. The more upgrades you have, the better.

After all that, you'll notice when Corypheus arrives by the sky tearing open once again. Skyhold is far too defensible, so Cory sends his dragon to harass your troops while he gets soldiers up to the gates.

Boss 1: Taking down that dragon with the help of your own.

Once you are done with that fight, Fiona or whoever is responsible for the research runs up to you and shares their results. If you have given them enough time to research by having had enough delaying actions you get the best results. For the mages, this means that they have figured out a cure for the taint, for the templars it means they have figured out a solution to the body hopping problem which they can now interrupt. If you don't have all keeps, but you do have Morrigan, your researchers learn enough in order to send him into a Red lyrium prison instead upon reincarnation. Without Morrigan, the research takes a different route and the plan is to Tranquil Corypheus and then imprison him, under a permanent watch of Templars or Mages, until a solution to his immortality can be found.

If you don't have enough keeps, all your researchers have time to find is that the Taint reincarnation does not work across the Veil. So you have no choice but to give Corypheus what he wants and let him into the Fade, into the Black City, and then kill him there. However, because the Breach needs to be closed before the reincarnation is prevented, you have to close the door behind you. Big bada boom, you manage to kill Corypheus in the Black City. Consequences of this? Well, it could either be ambiguous and the game switches to a memorial at Skyhold held by the survivors, or it could show you corrupted but sitting upon the throne of the Maker/Elven gods in the Black Halls. I like both ideas.

 

Boom, satisfying ending based on the things you have achieved in this game. You can add some tweaks here and there for choices made in past games, but I'd only use those for flavor. Better to have this be the efforts you have put in as Inquisitor mostly.

 

EDIT: Oh, obviously Corypheus is boss 2. He needs to be distracted or weakened or killed before you can enact whatever solution you have come up with.

[Nerevar-as]

It also feels a little weird that my feedback basically boils down to, "I am disappointed your story did not break my heart at the end!" 

ME1 didn´t break my heart at the end and was EPIC. From what you say this was just lackluster.

[Spectre Impersonator]

The endings of Dragon Age have been crap since Origins. Too bad they've decided to continue this trend.

[cindercatz]

I liked the actual boss fight well enough, moreso watching the dragons fight on the way up. Like the OP, though, I really wanted more of a story hook with some choice or previous choice involved. I did think the Skyhold bit and Morrigan's epilogue were excellent afterward. I thought generally what main story we had (including the romance) was great in this game, particularly the battle of Haven and the romance, and the well of sorrows. The game did a fantastic job of reminding me what great characters Morrigan and Leliana are, reeeally made me wish the Warden was there, and at least included a previous protag, which I hope to be done more and better in the (near) future. It brought back racial selection and companion customization. It did a lot of good things.

 

Unfortunately, like DA2, it began and somewhat ended with a flop, and it was filled with way too much superflous, stale side content. So I agree with OP about wanting more impact and choice and consequence out of the endgame, but even moreso the early game. I want origins back more than ever, along with all the dialogue cues that help differentiate our characters throughout the game. Hopefully this is the last time it'll take so long to get really invested in our characters and where they come from, and what's happening around them. The whole moment of crisis opening thing doesn't really work, not with a new character, and those sort of things don't really carry weight into the ending either. The ending needs its own dramatic setup to clearly carry through. (edit: like DA:O, KoTOR, Mass Effect 1&3 before Harbinger, and Jade Empire all had..)

[Rolhir]

Personally, I found the game to be excellent, but it also vastly missed the mark in some areas that DAO and DAII nailed. The ending of DAO was suitably epic and well done with the choice of doing the Dark Ritual or not (especially if you had to make Alistair do it). DAII's ending was actually pretty good (minus the fact that Orsino fights you regardless without any explanation); you were potentially fighting some of your companions, watching both sides get slaughtered, and very much summed up the feeling that Hawke was the plaything of destiny and couldn't stop what happened (which some people don't like, but I loved).

 

DAI I thought had THE best main quests. They were just all around awesome and the choices they did have actually made me stop and debate really hard about what to do. However, the ending was very disappointing, and I agree with many of the above points. The main issue is, as someone else pointed out, there was pretty much zero connection to the villain. Everything we knew about him, we knew beyond any contact with him. DAO basically had a mindless beast as a villain, but the battle was pretty epic and the emotional impact was there from the choice with the Dark Ritual. The Elder One hadn't done anything to directly hurt us or our friends, he failed at every turn, and then we fight him alone in a pretty location that makes no sense other than "Hey, let's make a flying castle!" As there's no context either for the fight, it felt like they decided "Ok, it's time for the end now I guess." The Breach reopening was pretty lame too as we already knew we could close it.

 

Suggetions for things that could have been done:

-Have your forces and companions be fighting demons coming through the breach.

-Have the Elder One actually be in the process of succeeding and going to the Black City and you stop him just before he gets there to give a sense of actual urgency.

-Fight the dragon at the same time.

-Include some player choice anywhere; maybe letting him live but imprisoned, even if it's a bad idea?

-Make sure he scaled up with the player so he's never a pushover just due to leveling.

-Give him a more mechanically interesting fight. He wants to claim he's a god; give him better abilities to show it off than blasting red lyrium at you. Heck Corypheus from DAII felt more powerful than this.

 

While I hope that the stuff with Solas will carry on the story to a better ending, I gotta say that Bioware really dropped the ball as far as the ending goes. I give it the same review I gave ME3: utterly fantastic game until the last 5 minutes. ME3 did at least have emotional impact even if the choices were very simplistic; people were mad about the choices because they cared about the ending. People really don't seem to care about the end to DAI at all. The journey was super fun, but the destination was rather meh.

[Thane4Ever]

Yes, not to stir up the ME3 debate again, but I loved that game even if the ending was kind of abrupt.  I still get a chill when I think about Shepherd running up to the beacon and the fact that if you had high enough readiness you could get the "good" ending.  It didn't retroactively ruin the series for me, just like this lackluster ending won't ruin the Dragon Age series.  Even though it's not ideal, let's all hope for an expansion that gives us a more satisfying conclusion. 

[Thane4Ever]

Man, now I'm getting pissed thinking about KoTOR, your choices actually mattered there too!  Why didn't they in this game?  Ugh!

[rafoquinha]

I have to agree, as I also loved the whole game (co-op included), but the ending I didn like it so much. Lacked drama, epicness, emotions...

[Megakoresh]

I think BioWare can be officially marked (no pun unintended) as the "Bad ending company". I would say that "First ME3", but to be honest if you think about it, the last good ending they did was ME2. DA2 was not an ending, it was an obvious cliffhanger going into Inquisition, as that was the main point of DA2 - Origins was so conclusive, EA was afraid people'd loose interest in the franchise, so they rushed DA2 and the ending was made a complete cliffhanger so Inquisition would have more development time.

 

Speculation aside though, we have seen a lot of really bad endings in the last two years. To be honest the only one I remember to find satisfying was Transistor. Of all the games I played from 2013-2014, that was the only one when I had actually felt that my experience at the end was complete, and credits didn't roll too quickly or I wasn't screwed over somehow, or there wasn't some giant loophole, or it wasn't a bloody prequel...

 

Seriously, is this a new trend? I don't like it.

[Rolhir]

I think BioWare can be officially marked (no pun unintended) as the "Bad ending company". I would say that "First ME3", but to be honest if you think about it, the last good ending they did was ME2. DA2 was not an ending, it was an obvious cliffhanger going into Inquisition, as that was the main point of DA2 - Origins was so conclusive, EA was afraid people'd loose interest in the franchise, so they rushed DA2 and the ending was made a complete cliffhanger so Inquisition would have more development time.

You're kidding about ME2, right? Mass Effect 2: The Holding Pattern. Literally NOTHING changed from ME1 to ME3 in the big picture. We knew the Reapers were coming, this was just the filler while we waited for them to get here. Granted, the end mission was the entire point of the game, but it was a straight up cliffhanger. DA2 was just as bad as a sequel hook.

Being a cliffhanger doesn't make it bad though. ME2 was awesome, but without resolution. DA2 definitely felt like the end of the Champion's story but without resolving the story. DAI's problem was that the resolution was kinda boring; the sequel/dlc hook at the end was more interesting and wasn't the problem.