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My General Feedback, After First Full Run


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NerdWithBigStick

NerdWithBigStick
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Note: General spoilers in this post.

Also, this is the PC version I am referring to.

 

Hello Bioware, 

 
I just finished the game.  First of all, I want to say, I think it's fantastic. You truly did a great job, and the attention to detail is apparent in nearly every aspect of the game.  I plan to immediately do a second play through with a new character.
 
I spent about 150 hours on this, my first play-through.  I did every quest I could find, and all of the available war table missions.  I killed all 10 dragons, found every single shard and opened the Solasan temple.  I found every landmark and every region.  I am pretty sure I unlocked every locked door, too.  I did not find all the mosaic pieces.
 
I played through on normal challenge with a male qunari warrior with the default world state.
 
So, in no particular order, here's my feedback.
 
 
Wicked Eyes Wicked Hearts
I found most of the main story enjoyable, but this mission had two issues that I feel can be improved upon.
 
First - remove the loss of favor / timer mechanics during exploration sequences.  I know that, realistically, it makes sense for the Inquisitor not to be away from the ball for too long, but the palace is a big place with lots of little secrets, and that mechanic is aggravating to people like me who want to explore every nook and cranny.  
 
Second ... for the fight sequences, particularly the final two battles, automatically remove the formal attire, and re-equip the same combat gear that was being worn previously.  I failed to notice that none of my combat gear was re-equipped, and, as such, got to the final battle and had one heck of a time, in fact, since the quick save happens after the gates locked, and I was already in combat, I could not change my equipment!
 
 
Characters
 
Loved Cassandra.  Great job writing her.  Voice actor was also excellent.
Varric.  I guess I just have a soft spot for dwarves.  Hairy chested, muscled dwarves with red hair ...
Iron Bull.  As a qunari, this was my romance.  It was really interesting - and hilarious, at times.  Another good writing job.
Vivienne, Dorian, and Blackwall, all very well written.  
 
I liked how the tarot cards changed based on mood or plot - although I wasn't quite sure what the cause was.
 
BUG: Dorian's personal quest wouldn't trigger for me beyond killing the Venatori.  Unfortunately, Mother Giselle never appeared to offer me his next quest.  Perhaps I missed it, was too high of a level, or had progressed to far before I realized I had missed it.  In any case, there should be some mechanism in place to prevent players from missing his quest.  A quick search online showed many other people in this same scenario where Mother Giselle never appeared in the great hall with the quest.
 
 
Skyhold
 
Skyhold was huge.  I loved it.  It was unclear to me how I was supposed to obtain new furnishings, though.  I ended up purchasing from the vendor in Val Royeaux at the end of the game.  Some things dropped - maybe it would be a good idea to increase drops off mobs.
 
General suggestion:  I tended only returned to Skyhold in between exploration of new land, or after a main quest, so there was a lot of dialog piled up with my party.  I got three cutscenes in a row from Cassandra toward the end of the game, two from Iron Bull, three from Sera.  My suggestion is that Josephine, or some secondary NPC, should act as the "pulse" i.e. the Kelly Chambers / Samantha Traynor of Dragon Age.  When there's a new cutscene, or something important to discuss with a party member, they let you know.  That way, I don't miss important cutscenes, and I also don't have to run around talking to every single person every few hours just to find out if they *might* have something new to say.  Perhaps this exists already and I simply missed it, but if not, it would be a good addition.
 
 
Mission System & War Table
 
Personally, I would prefer the war table to be instant unlock with a power cost for everything, and that the timer mechanic be removed.  I really didn't see what point the timer mechanic served.  Since Power is relatively easy to earn, even if you aren't exploring every nook of the world, it would seem to me to be better if all the small missions had zero cost (if very trivial) or 1 point cost (if more substantial) and were instant unlocks.
 
Requisitions - these should be removed from the journal after being completed the first time - and then kept in a  separate part of the codex, like where dragon counter, collections, etc. are kept.  That way they are not cluttering up my active quest journal if I've already completed them once.
 
 
Map
 
BUG - sometimes "Lock" icons on the map did not go away after the door was unlocked.
 
 
Tactical Camera
 
If there is a single area where I think an improvement could make the game more enjoyable, it would be in the combat UI, and in particular the tactical camera.
 
I really prefer tactical camera because I am not a console-style gamer, generally, I don't like constantly pressing and holding my mouse button to swing my sword, and I like to plan my attacks out rather than hack-and-slash.  It's not that I don't like up-close and personal - I do, at times, like that sort of flash and action, but I also really enjoy turn-based combat strategy.
 
First, add auto-pause conditions that the player can select.  This at a bare minimum, to give more sense of turn-based combat.
 
Second, remove the restrictive field of view enforced by the tactical camera when zooming in.  I like to see across the battle field and look down at an angle, simultaneously.  I found that the field of view with the tactical camera was so restricted in this regard that I was either right up on top of my character in the battle, barely able to see out, or I was directly looking down.  The only alternative to this was to detach the camera and constantly pan it across/over the battlefield, parallel to the horizontal plane, which at times was indeed useful and did have some nice moments (like in large open flat spaces, with dragon battles) but still did not give me the isometric field of view that I desired, and was cumbersome when hitting rocks and other obstacles that would stop the camera.  Also, the "leash" on the tactical camera was highly annoying during battles that had teleporting enemies and height changes.  I should be able to pan the camera across the battefield as far as any currently engaged enemy.  
 
My thought is that, if you allowed the perspective such as when zoomed out in normal camera mode (i.e. zoom out max when not in tactical view you get a much higher point of view) but for tactical use, that would be perfect.  That would be a much better field of vision and more natural operation.  Rather than forcing it to go down at a strange angle the way it currently does when you zoom in tactical view.
 
 
Walking
Please allow me to toggle walk instead of run.  The run is highly annoying in tight spaces, camps, stairs, caves, shops, and generally anywhere other than large open spaces.  I also like to walk slowly when I enter new areas, to give my eyes a chance to take in details and make note of anything important.  On a more practical note, sometimes I get nauseated while running around in small spaces -- not only in this game but in many games -- and a walk option has proven highly useful in this regard.
 
 
Search and Loot
Add an auto-loot / loot-all feature.
Add an auto-go-to loot point, or, increase the distance at which loot can be picked up.  I constantly found myself taking "baby steps" to pick things up, since, if I ran, I would more than likely overshoot it, or end up right on top of it.
 
 
General UI
Allow first person view / remove PC from view - for screenshots, if nothing else.
Allow full hiding of the entire UI - also for screenshot purposes, although it could be desirable at other times, too.
 
 
Crashes
I had consistent crashing happening, either without error, or with a rendering error.  Something about "malformed instruction sent to the video card" - but often times the crash would simply close the game immediately, with no error.  This happened in cut scenes, exclusively.  Particularly after creating a new character and importing a custom world state from the Keep, but also on my first play through, during several key endgame cutscenes.  
 
 
Romances / Relationships
Great romance options - at least, I chose Bull and he was great -- all that innuendo, yeah! -- but the flirt dialog was good across the board, and well done by the voice actors.
 
I personally would have appreciated having Cullen as a same sex romance option, but that's more of a statement than a request.
 
Relationship "machine" - for lack of a better term - was well done.  The relationships seem much more involved in DAI, even than they are in Mass Effect 3.  There are a lot more contingencies, and I like that sometimes the objectives aren't crystal clear.
 
Banter is really well done in this game.  Loved the dynamics.
 
 
Conversation Wheel
 
Having war table options unlock via conversations makes me feel a little bit better about going through all the branches.  Same for XP, and the perks to increase XP gained from dialogs.
 
BUG?  Although I opted to hide all emoticons from the wheel, many options still showed (happy, sad, confused, aggressive, crown, etc.)
 
Suggestion: consider adding a checkbox option in the UI settings that would randomize the placement of responses appearing on the wheel, so that if I hide the emoticons and randomize, I really might respond more genuinely, because I won't necessarily know which is the paragon, renegade, neutral.  As it is right now, I know the top choice is the paragon choice, middle is coy/humor/neutral, and bottom is agressive/direct/blunt.  Randomizing the placement of responses on the wheel would likely force me to choose a more genuine response, which could be really interesting.
 
 
Areas
 
Any chance of getting the Arbor Wilds as its own explorable zone?  Was beautiful but so brief in What Pride Had Wrought.
 
No. More. Deserts. Ever.  Please.  No more deserts.  I appreciated the Western Approach, but after the Forbidden Oasis and the gigantic Hissing Wastes, I'm really over the desert motif.
 
Emprise du Lion was beautiful.
 
In general every area was astoundingly beautiful.  Good job!
 
 
Animations
 
Compared to the first two games, and even the Mass Effect games, DAI has really improved on animations.  Clearly an excellent engine, and it shows in the interactions, particularly the romantic ones.  There's much less a feeling of mashing two plastic dolls together.
 
 
---
 
That's all I can think of.  Like I said - no particular order.
 
Really looking forward to my second playthrough - already made my human mage - and whatever DLC you have in store -- hmm, what could it possibly be, given that post-credit sequence epilogue?   ;)
 
 
Thanks for making such a great game.