55 réponses à ce sujet

[JumboWheat01]

Oh right, forgot about that.  I rarely use Conjuration and almost never have a follower.  They keep getting in the way and I end up killing them on accident.  Even with the "Essential Housecarl" mod, still never bring them along out of habit.

[Nefla]

Thankfully my expectations were much lower than they would have been because of DA2 and ME3 so I wasn't utterly crushed when DA:I didn't wow me. However I remember seeing that Crestwood demo in summer 2013: a side quest with cutscenes, choices, companion input, the whole mission just looked awesome and it was a side quest. I was expecting some side quests to be like this, and most of the rest to be like what we'd always had in previous games: a few fetch quests (corpse galls, torn pantaloons) but mostly quests like with Camen and Gheyna, Ruck, Feynriel, etc...the side quests we got instead...in my opinion they couldn't have made them any more awful and overabundant. They say you don't know what you've got until it's gone and this is definitely true for me. I took things like interesting and engaging sidequests with companion input, dialogue choice, and multiple resolutions for granted. Then you had statements flying around before the game came out like "if you're a Qunari, this one quest with the Qunari will be next to impossible" or "if you're an elf, other elves will be much more trusting of you than they would anyone else" I thought stuff like this would actually be in the game but I was wrong. Well, that's enough rambling on my part, time for a more structured point by point list of criticisms and changes I would wish for. In the past I'd do a "good points" list as well since there is plenty of good along with the bad but BioWare doesn't read these forums any more so I'll just vent on the bad points for my own catharsis.

 

-Aesthetics (hair): The hairstyles were poorly modeled and looked "last gen" in addition to the styles being horrible choices. Nearly every style had sideburns and/or a receding hairline and since the hair was "unisex" (obviously so they could get away with making less than half the hairstyles of previous games) you ended up with your female characters being restricted to very few more feminine looking styles. Also the choice to put hairstyles such as the Miley Cyrus, the Elderly Grandmother (the one with the weird, too short bangs that has been in every DA), the ones with the random shaved patches and odd hairlines, the 15 variations of bald/buzzcut, etc...was baffling. The Qunari had it 100x worse with just 3 hairstyles that looked like they were ripped straight out of a 10 year old game and with the styles being weird, deformed "corn rows," tiny schoolmarm but, and baby's bath-time mohawk. Somehow the hair seems to get worse from game to game. Then you have the beards and eyebrows, the beards seem to be modeled even worse than the hair and I would never use any of them. They often float away from the face and leave huge gaps between beard and face. How did they miss this? 90% of the eyebrows are giant bushy caterpillars that would only look good on the freakish, intentionally hideous joke characters people make and possibly a very stylized male dwarf. I can see a few options like this but why is this the majority of eyebrows?

_________________________

 

Aesthetics (armor and clothing): Where do I start? That Skyhold outfit is just awful. Not only does it double as the inquisitor's underwear and pajamas, but the fact that we can never change it out makes me want to scream. The head to toe beige is flattering on no one, it looks odd and out of place, especially when other warriors such as Cullen and Cassandra wear armor, most of the other companions wear comfortable and functional clothing, and Josephine and Vivienne wear fancier clothing. It's not a uniform, no one else wears it, but it's not fancy like noble clothing. It's straight up frumpy pajamas and I hate it.

 

The ball outfit isn't quite as bad because at least it looks decent on male characters which brings me to my issue with the ball outfit: it's a men's outfit. It's cut to flatter a man's body with shoulder widening flaps, waist thickening padding, big thick gloves that make out hands look bigger and our arms more meaty. I know some women don't want to wear "girly" clothing ever, but I wish they'd either made the ball outfit actually gender neutral, or given us a choice: maybe either existing men's outfit OR a dress like the other noble ladies. If we even had the choice to just wear our normal armor to the ball, that would have been a huge improvement. Now onto my problem with the armor: there are so few styles and designs! The different tiered schematics look nearly identical except for a different shoulder pad here or a piece of metal on the chest there. Poor Qunari are restricted from nearly every armor in the game, and don't have a single unique racial armor. Plus I know some people really wanted mage pants (not me) but why isn't there any option to have old school mage robes? There are NPCs in the game that have them (like Fiona) why can't I have some too? Imagine it in ring velvet or royal sea silk

____________________________

 

Sidequests: This is something I rant about aaaall the time, to the point where I'm getting sick of thinking about it but I hated the side quests in DA:I. Aside from the companion quests, none of them were fun for me and I didn't want to do a single one. There were no interesting characters to talk to, no hard puzzles to do, no cool cutscenes to see, no unique hidden bosses to fight (unless you could dragons I guess?), no choices to make, no companion interaction (aside from the occasional throwaway line to a potential agent to get them to join the inquisition), and no good rewards from any of them. I play games for characters first, then story. Almost none of the side quest NPCs are what I would even consider an actual character and none of them are what I would consider a good or interesting character. Heck, most of the quest givers don't even have names, they're things like "farmer" "widow" etc...and you can't even talk to anyone out in the world aside from quest givers. This leaves me with big, beautiful maps...with nothing worth finding and nobody to talk to. Add the banter "bug" which caused me to get maybe 10 party banters in a 60 hour playthrough, the lack of companion interaction with even the main plot and you end up with a game that feels extremely empty and lonely to me.

____________________________

 

Main storyline (balance): Many people complained that DA2 had Hawke (and ME3 Shepard) failing all the time, losing at every turn and almost never succeeding. I felt this way too but instead of finding a balance between tragedy and triumph, wins and losses, BioWare swung the pendulum all the way in the other direction and made the Inquisitor infallible. The one single moment where you're beaten down is the battle at Haven, yet instead of it being an actual setback, it turns into a huge boon for you as over the course of one cutscene you get a promotion, way more influence, more recruits, and a way better stronghold and Corypheus never tries to attack you. You aren't left trying to pick up the pieces and struggle back into the fray, it doesn't feel like a blow at all. You just run around the entire game foiling Corypheus' harebrained schemes one after the other and he doesn't do anything about it. There are also no real tragic parts, no one we know or care about dies, there are no darker themes explored and the darker parts of the lore seem to have been left behind (broodmothers, desire demons, slavery, blood magic, etc...) the sole exception to this I found was the tranquil skulls in Redcliffe. That had so much potential, I wish there had been a side quest (with cutscenes, dialogue options, characters to get to know, and multiple outcomes like in previous games) about it rather than just the comments of whoever goes into the shack with you.

 

____________________________

 

Companion-story interaction: Remember back in the day when companions would comment on what you were doing? Morrigan complaining about ending village squabbles or saying she wants to vomit when you help two young elves fall in love, Fenris squeezing the hearts of slavers and bad guys to make them give up information, Varric making up stories such as Feynriel being the viscount's love child with an elf mistress, or mage Hawke being "first enchanter Hawke" from other circle, Isabela coming back with the tome of Koslun if you were friends, etc... I LOVED that stuff! DA:I had a tiny bit of that, but it lacked the same punch. The companions didn't give you any advice or input about what you were doing like they did in the past and their responses were so detached (ex: Varric's "someone's a tool" or Blackwall's "I do not fear the joining"). Not to mention the fact that the NPCs you were talking to didn't seem to notice your companions existence at all. I'm also sad that none of the companions were relevant to the plot at all. I understand that many companions were optional, but even Cassandra and Solas had no plot involvement after the intro. After getting to Skyhold, Cassandra doesn't even get to come into the war room anymore wtf. This ties into the side quests thing too, if there had been fleshed out side quests that companions could interact with then them not being relevant to the main story wouldn't have been such a big deal.

 

____________________________

 

The main plot: This is actually something I can overlook if the above elements are there (role playing ability, heavy companion interaction, deeper and involved side quests, etc...) but since they're lacking, it sticks out at me more. I don't want to be a special snowflake "chosen one" especially since I don't feel like I worked my way up into a position of power, it was just handed to me first as the herald of Andraste and then as Inquisitor. I also feel like the quests in the main plot didn't fit together into one cohesive story very well and the results of our actions and choices are not shown in game which is something essential to me. I would rather have the game either be about the mage-templar war (and have it be an actual war and explored in depth, rather than two enemy nameless trash mobs in the hinterlands ) OR the grey wardens secretly being controlled by Corypheus weakening the countries of southern Thedas and taking over in an insidious way. I like the idea of corypheus sending waves of darkspawn at countries in a false blight and then sending in his controlled grey wardens to "save the day" and weasel their way in, taking power in some kind of "it's a state of emergency" scenario.

 

____________________________

 

Combat: The least important thing to me, but combat in DA:I is a chore in my eyes. The companion AI is so dumb and half the time doesn't even listen to your commands, I miss the detailed tactics.

 

____________________________

 

Music: There should have been constant background music in most places as well as in combat. That "30 second blurb once an hour" thing REALLY doesn't do it for me. As if the silent companions and lack of NPCs to talk to didn't make the game lonely enough, I also get to be alone with the sound of my footsteps...ugh. I've never put on Pandora while playing a single player game before, but DA:I's silence had my elf's milkshake bringing all the boys to the yard.

[Gamer(1)]

Agree, with most of what Nefla is saying (Except the part about liking characters more than the story, prefer a better story). Just want to added one extra bit that was annoying me, which was the character voices. You only get two choices, deep voice and mouse voice (Sounds squeaky). What happened to Aggressive voice (Cranky)? Or Funny voice (Lighthearted) ?Or Wise voice (Thoughtful)? 

[Eelectrica]

Ah where to begin.

Firstly, I've put in a quite a few hours I suppose - around 300 or so. Hard to put an exact figure on it, as a lot of the time I left the game running and was doing something else, but they must have done something right.

 

For all the space in the game, there is just little to do. The static nature of most of side quests doesn't help.

I'm going to give credit where it's due, Emerald graves wasn't too bad in this regard. At least compared with some areas. We had a decision to make after gathering the bits and pieces, and it was glorious! The haunted chateau was fun to explore. Hell there's even an area wide puzzle with that treasure map thing.

So I guess more areas like the emerald graves would be welcome. More decision in making in some of the side quests would also be welcome.

 

On the other side there's the storm coast which looks spectacular, no doubt, but is also kind of the problem with the game. We have a decision to make, do we craft the amulet and fight just the leader and get some allies, or do we fight the whole damn lot? It sure is a puzzler! The quests in that area are all more of the follow the quest marker and find object on the ground.

 

I'm playing Witcher 2 at the moment, and when not slaying monsters, the game asks us questions. We have investigations to do, what do we do with the evidence we've gathered, the game is constantly challenging us to make a decision. Even little things like the Troll bridge quest.

So yeah for all the world we get to wander around in, it just doesn't ask enough questions, making it feel like it's a tech demo. There's just very few hidden surprises.

 

Combat - Oh wait I thought you was serious about the non healing thing.

For all the bluster before the game about how it was attrition based and we'd have to manage our resources etc, we seem to somehow have more healing options than ever.

Heal on kill, heal on hit, regen potions, healing mist potions, click a camp and get more free healing potions for all. And of the course the Knight Enchanter, who definitely needs help with surviving (LOL) ended up with the healing focus ability and  I feel like I'm forgetting one or 2 other methods of healing. Story missions, take 10 steps, and oh look another crate of healing potions!

I think this is also why the start of the game is harder, and gets easier, at the start we don't have all those things.

 

I thought the game was going to be tactical too. Some instances it is, especially the haven fight, but at some point the game devolves into activate an ability, hold down the mouse button until every things dead.

This could be addressed in a DLC I guess with a few more well designed, scripted combat sequences. Not every battle has to be an epic fight. I mean we have a bad ass group of party members, so we should be stomping rag tag bandits.

I'd really like to see an area where we actually have to manage our resources. Where we can't just stock up on potions when we want.

 

Epic villain.

The villain of the story had so much potential, but what happened? He just rolls over. At least Loghain and his right hand man Rendon Howe tried, by putting a bounty on the wardens head where we'd run into people trying to collect. Like so much in the game, our big bad is just too static a villain. Rendon Howe, is possibly the best villain in the series so far, and the most dangerous, he actually puts up a damn good fight.

Spoiler

Calpernia was actually one of the most interesting characters in the game and seems more then one dimensional, more Calpernia in the next game please

 

That's it for now.

[ShinsFortress]

I was expecting something with less bugs.  I do not understand how so much can get past a decent QA system.

[Pip96]

I was expecting better character customization.  I've spent hours making a face that I'm not horrified with only to find 40+ hours into the game that my dragon age keep didn't import correctly.  Now I am stuck trying to recreate the face with very little luck.  I'm so frustrated I can't even play the game.

 

I was expecting more fun enjoyable companions that I could connect with in many ways.  Instead I have a party of brooding, serious, self righteous idiots who all just make the game a huge downer.  The conversations and cut scenes are very blah and uninteresting. Their traveling conversations are only slightly more interesting but still overly serious.  Origins still has the best companion comentary of all the games (some of the best ones between Morrigan and Alistair).

 

I expected to feel a greater investment into the game right from the beginning.  Instead 40+hours into the game and I still feel lost.  I don't feel invested in the game, the story or any of the characters.  I have almost all the companions in my party and I think only one of them I find even slightly interesting.  I also don't feel much apart of the story.  Its as if the story could just continue without me.  I don't feel connected at all.

 

The game play also feels very blah.  It's not smooth or enjoyable.  I at least enjoyed the game play in the first two dragon age games.  While it wasn't super dynamic, it was still enjoyable.  In Inquisition the game play feels like it drags a lot.

 

I can't even describe how much I'm disappointed in this game, I raved for months with excitement only to have this huge letdown.