My first quizzy reached level 24 and I'm getting into the game with my second one, so it's probably time that I post some feedback opinions. I slowly wrote up these notes throughout the playthroughs so many of these points are very specific. The good news is... I thought it was a good game overall! There were definitely things to get used to, but I'm glad I bought it.
(spoilers alert! boilerplate disclaimer about these being all opinions blah blah)
Camera/UI/etc.
I'm sure you've gotten an earful on the pc UI, controls, and tac cam so I won't say much on them - something I haven't seen on the boards is how we're missing the ability to go directly from the character screen to the equipment screen or vice versa, etc. for the other screens (except map to journal ofc). This stuff isn't as bad as some posts say (I've gotten used to it overall) but little things add up, like being unable to use a button to tell only a single character to hold position, or to use the mouse to select a group of chars. Having some feedback on when ordering an active ability will require the char to move in closer would be nice (there's feedback for AoEs but not single-target skills). I do greatly appreciate the tac cam's inclusion though - I simply wouldn't play the game in action mode.
Story + characters
-Broad feedback: I think the main storyline was building up well, but started weakening and then fizzled. The last quest plot felt like a JRPG: it's abrupt, the boss disappears while you fight the henchman (dragon) and there's even a floating castle lol. Overall the story was good, but it was too short and the ending needed more. In a way, the plot reminds me of the Belgariad, which also treated its hero to a string of victories culminating in an inevitable triumph. Apart from the end, I generally liked what was there.
-The other point of broad-level feedback I'd give here is that some of the regions needed each to have more plot arcs in them (I'd prefer a mix to having them all that way tho). Saying "Crestwood" (or whichever) should bring to mind a specific narrative arc that sweeps the region, besides all the side stories. Plus, sometimes what was there needed more fleshing out. Mother Giselle for instance needed more backstory - it seems like she trusts you out of the blue, her being "a reasonable sort" was an unsatisfying explanation. Like, you could have given her a connection to Cassandra or Leliana so she'd trust their judgment of the Herald.
-Thank you for giving us race and gender selection.
-My general feedback on conversations is that (1) they're sometimes very choppy and (2) sometimes the line summary is too vague or is outright misleading (though to be sure, there are a lot of good dialogs in the game!).
(1) is really prevalent. One example: Worried Scout asks you about Ritts, and then you respond by asking about what he said earlier, he tells you what's wrong, and you merely say, I'll talk to you later. Also, sometimes convos feel disjoint b/c you oftentimes are just interrogating the person rather than discussing things. And sometimes a subsequent comment you can give doesn't tie naturally into the remarks that just happened.
With (2), there were a bunch of examples, but just two would be that "What about Leliana?" != Leliana is preferable to Cassandra, and "I suspected it" != I knew it wasn't Andraste all along. There are a lot of other cases.
Broadly, I want more interesting discussions, more like that entertaining discussion in DAO with Flemeth, Morrigan and Alistair right after you wake up in Flemeth's hut (the humor there really shined, though it had interrogation elements too - room for improvement). The closest case in DAI I can think of off the top of my head was the one where Cassandra is furious with Varric for not revealing Hawke earlier. The game needs more multifaceted, sustained discussions like that.
-Convos that take place outside cutscenes need work. The Hinterland Healer and the dragon scholar in the Western Approach will each walk away from you while they're talking, prematurely ending the convo.
-There are a couple of realtime dialog events that pop up when you're walking, and they're annoying. If you take them out, I wouldn't miss them, but if they stay it might be better if we could also click the keyboard numbers to select a response option (like for normal convos), and also maybe see about having the dialog that leads up to them last longer so the convo wheel that gives us a heads up we're going to have to respond is there longer.
-The explanatory texts that sometimes pops up over the dialog wheel is really helpful when it's there - more of it, please!
-The Codex adds a lot of value to the game, thanks for the reading material.
-The Bull's Chargers -- great moral dilemma, guys. Whether I think about it strictly as a strategic choice (keeping land forces or giving them up for a naval and intelligence boost) or a personal-values choice, or whether to trust the foreign Qunari, etc. etc., it cuts right to how we conceive our characters. The Blackwall decision was another great one. Thanks.
-I don't want the story to dictate my character's motivation for exploring, but there should be a story-based explanation for why I have the time to go traipsing about. It's bothered me since BG1 that you guys have the main storyline always say, "oh, this is urgent!" when buying into that story point would prevent my playing most of the content.
-The card-game scene with the companions was really special, it had a lot of warmth and I thought it was funny to boot. There's no denying the laughing queue was awkward, but still, this type of thing is great.
-I don't want timed quests, even if it makes sense. (Like, in Wicked Eyes, Wicked Hearts, if you really want to make it make sense you'd control Leliana slipping out of the party and nobody would notice she's gone - I'd have preferred that to timing the Inquisitor's departures).
-I liked having the judgments, but they rarely had the response I wanted. For instance, the obvious response to the Chasind was to make him clean up that section of wall and otherwise not care about his antics.
Combat
-The general goal to make the harder difficulties more tactical and the easier ones more action-oriented is a great idea. I might not be the most representative player since I'm a hardcore BG2+SCS+Ascension player, but my overall feedback is: moaarrrr. I like the skill/spell trees you have (I love they're less linear than DAO and DA2 trees), but the game is long and there are some long battles, so it felt like the trees needed more foliage and there should have been an extra tree or two per class. That might be one way to give the tactical players more (much-wanted!) depth without annoying the action-oriented players, as well as keeping some of the battles from feeling a bit repetitive.
- I also like the general idea of ability slots that require strategic consideration (I'm a big fan of BG2 casters that way, but not of the Vancian system itself), but to make it seem less a console limitation, it might help to earn more slots through leveling up like casters did in the IE games (or maybe through special events -people like feeling special!). Having more slot-scarcity through the game might add that strategic feeling. And ofc, it'd be better to have eventually more than 8. Otoh, if you removed the cap altogether, I'd be fine with that too.
- This opinion might not be popular, but I'm a huge fan of having less healing, and I self-imposed a rule not to use potions during combat with friendly-fire on. On my second playthrough I've upped the difficulty to Nightmare and it's been working out really well (except the prologue's final battle - having reloaded multiple times, I still haven't gotten through it w/o giving Cassandra at least one healing potion). I wouldn't be overly eager to see healing spells return.
- It'd be better if we could queue combat commands (including pathing commands) for individual characters, at least while in the tac cam (your pathfinding algorithms are really, truly bad). On that note, getting knocked over or w/e shouldn't clear their last command; there should be a separate button to say "cancel orders" or the like. They're knocked down - if I wanted to change their orders I have time to pause and issue the new command anyway, there's no need to make me reissue an order I just issued before the knockdown.
-The Lady Shayna battle was really not designed for tac cam
Visuals
-Overall it's a really nice surprise my oldish system can run the game at such good settings and still get decent performance. Your art and graphics depts did a great job, and you gave it great optimization.
-It's the best chargen I've tried, thanks guys. It needs more hair and skin options; I'd like curly hair from Greek-statue loose locks to tight curls. As for skin - it really bugs me we can't vary wrinkles and nasolabial folds independently of jowls and independently of complexion. (I want a char that looks like a Native-American version of the Andraste in the altarpiece in the Cloister lol - oh, that reminds me, we need truly black hair and more skin colors all throughout the spectrum, w/ warm and cool tones throughout.) The huge issue though in chargen is that we need to be able to save head morphs to use and tweak for other playthroughs. A Mirror of Transformation-type feature would also be welcome.
-The "tarot" cards are beautiful, and add a really distinctive, thoughtful touch. It's something special when games take the time to add great 2D art elements as well as getting the 3D art right.
-Some of the spell effects are fun to see - Energy Barrage is my favorite, especially since the spell-circle that shows changes by element. That was unexpected and cool. I like the arcane circles you added for several of the spell effects.
-It'd have been really fun to be able to change crafted armor/weapon appearance indepently of the materials, and I'm not talking (just) color. Some of the high-tier schematics had the ugliest designs - is there an item in the game uglier than the Seer Staff? But mechanically it was useful. I wanted to swap its appearance out, and for some of the other items too. It's odd this wasn't already an option in the game! The craft armor/weapon UI would seem to lend itself to having this as another customization option.
-The game has a lot of great architecture and ruins and relics. The Still Ruins and Val Royeaux were outstanding. My only negative feedback is on the elven ruins (obsessive nitpicking lol). Let's start with those owl and wolf statues - see how angular they are? If you recolored them and dwarves had wolves and owls, they wouldn't feel that out of place in dwarf ruins. Similarly, their building have harsh lines while other elf artwork, like some of the rock painting, looks less structured. True, there's supposed to be a connection b/w dwarves and elves in the past, but think how different and random all the elf art elements are: the euro-pagan altars, the harsh lines of the stonework's relief tracery, the angular statues, the LOTR-like white tracery on some of the doors, the unstructured rock paintings, the gothic-like towers in some locations...
At first I really loved it - I thought it was a visual allusion to how the Dales' elves had immigrated from all over Thedas, giving them a variety of artistic influences. But then the Temple of Mythal etc. had those same art assets; how did the Dalish recover that artistic tradition at all, and why is it such a jumble? (Especially when they haven't recovered anything else from that time.) It makes no sense - it's like it didn't receive much attention, or you ran out of time and needed to recycle the assets. Just imo, next time, any Arlathan-era ruins need their own visual identity, closer to the sphere-tree relic that evoked the sphere trees in the Crossroads. Think of the artistic prompts they'd have had (the Fade and nature); their lines should be fluid like that sphere tree (I loved that haha). Make it more like what Solas described it as looking like.
-The other points are nitpicky: I'm not the biggest fan of the tacky 90s leather coats for light armor. And the barefoot elf thing is nonsensical and gross - that really should go, and if it does stay then at least make a lore point their skin can't get dirty or something, anything, to get rid of the disgustingness factor. I want goofy scenes and a goofy sidekick or two, not goofy worldbuilding. Final visual nitpick - the UI looks kind of... overly modernist? Sci-fi? Look at TW2's UI; in some screens, like inventory, the layout is very similar, but they manage to achieve a look that feels more in keeping with the game while avoiding anything overtly skeuomorphic or "medieval".
Miscellaneous
-I hate, hate, hate that we can't name our saves lol
-I didn't expect I'd enjoy all the exploring as much as I did, but all the landscapes, the castles, villas, chateaux, tombs etc. were very fun and I appreciated the world size a lot. Also, it is so much fun to cast barrier and then leap from a high cliff, it's like bungee jumping without the hassle, haha. It actually gives you a bit of that knot in your stomach. DA4 should have some great cliffs - or Tevinter wizard towers, etc.
-Sometimes the "so-and-so approves/disapproves" flashes by too quickly to read, especially when there are several of them (at least on my system?)
-The mounts don't seem to go any faster than you do on foot? Is that a bug? Also - I want a halla mount, dangnabit.
-Party members are really bad at following you up and down ladders or over things that require jumping - Valammar for instance was really bad (the chains of ladders down from the entrance bridge to the left)
-As someone who isn't a fan of pathway puzzles, I'd like them to be more avoidable than they are. Players who like that should have the shard-type stuff in there for them, and the rest of us shouldn't have much difficulty in navigating the landscape, as can sometimes happen in DAI even if you do avoid the shards (though paths shouldn't be overtly linear necessarily). Another thought - it should be particularly easy to navigate the intentionally ugly areas like some Exalted Plains areas. Not finding a path isn't so bad when the landscape's pretty.
-I loved the Astrarium puzzles, but the problem was they *all* have the same trick; they're basically the same puzzle. I appreciated the codex entry that tried to give them more of a lore background though - having puzzles that feel like a integrated/"natural" part of the world is a big one for me.
-The War Table quests that I've read but not assigned anyone to would lose that yellow dot that new quests had, making them blend in with the quests that were complete.
-Final thought on DAI: there were many lovely touches scattered throughout and despite the game's shortcomings, the hard work shined through. Things like the lovely little cloister where Leliana receives Justinia's gift, or the thoughtfully crafted letters from the Dowager you get at the War Table (I'm a big fan of baroque-period music), and so many other things were really nice to see.
Some random thoughts for DA4:
-It'd be awesome if Minrathous put all the Assassin's Creed cities to shame (it's Minrathous! it's Rome and Constantinople in one!), but I realize you're a smaller studio so if you have to go the Val Royeaux route again, maybe make the backdrops more evocative of a bustling, enormous city. The VR one only gave a hint of a city nestled in the mountains (when you look past the waterway).
-I was thinking about how an open world could look like next game w/o getting repetitive, and a Mediterranean-style climate might be one idea (for Tevinter locations if we go there and not just the Anderfels), but it'd also be neat to see something weirder/more exotic. The magisters have experimented for millenia, so maybe they've scarred the landscape or grown mushroom and crystal forests or something. Just something different...
-Edit: I forgot to plea for my favorite voice actress, Flemeth/Kate Mulgrew. I think she's been doing a wonderful job, and she's by far my fav voice actor/actress you have (and you have great ones), so whatever's happened b/w her and Solas, if you could find a way to keep Kate Mulgrew in the games, you'd have one very relieved fan. Her voice just brings so much drama and it's quite fun, plus the character has always had a good sense of humor. Don't get rid of her, agh.
-anyway, I could go on (and on..) but I'm looking forward to the DLC and DA4. Thanks again Bioware!
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