27 réponses à ce sujet

[PsychoBlonde]

Because everyone TOTALLY cares about MY opinion, because I am the God(ess) of this Forum.  *cough cough cough*

 

ANYWAY.

 

Overall, I thought it was pretty fab.  I think most of my issues boil down to just one factor:

 

The Power/Influence system just did NOT do it for me.

 

I get that the general idea behind it was that ya'll were attempting to come up with a way to tie all the RPG side questing into an overall system so that it would feel like you were always working toward a goal.  It was an interesting idea, but I don't think it worked.  Like, at all.  In fact, I think it might have actually accomplished the OPPOSITE of the intention, particularly where it came to the optional content.  I actually did a couple of playthroughs where I genuinely tried to do EVERYTHING (and it pissed me off about the bugged mosaic tiles in the Hinterlands, btw, why put in a scavenger hunt if you CAN'T FINISH THE DANG THING, ANYWAY) and the more EVERYTHING I did, the less reason I could come up with to keep doing it.  I wasn't finding anything interesting!  Nothing was happening!  I was just putting off the story missions BECAUSE I COULD.  On two of the four playthroughs where I tried to do this, I got so bored around level 17 (when I'd finished all the story missions except the Arbor Wilds and the End Fight) that I just gave up and didn't bother finishing the game.  Heck, I think I only managed to make it through that many times because I'm totally crushing on Cullen (SHUT UP) and I wanted to do the romance again.

 

I had just boatloads of Power and nothing to DO with it.

 

That's the underlying issue, but it interacts in a non-good way with numerous other design choices, IMO.  For instance . . . I never felt particularly motivated to explore new areas.  Take the Fallow Mire.  Yeah, okay, Inquisition soldiers got kidnapped, but the delivery of this was SO unconvincing because it just SHOWED UP on the war table.  Nobody ever MENTIONED it.  It didn't seem like a pressing problem or that we needed those soldiers back.  It was less "OMG KIDNAPPING" and more "EH, if you're bored".  I'm saving the world here, I don't want my sole motivation to go to an area to be "IF YOU'RE BORED."  If it had just had a genuine mission briefing with some actual voice acting and emoting and shown up at a designated time, like after I did a specific quest or triggered a specific event, that would have been SO SO SO much better.  As it was, I felt like the game was just expecting me to play along, like a 4-year-old playing pretend, instead of actually doing its best to suck me into the premise.  The entire time I was just "so, why are we in the undead-filled swamp again?"  "Just go with it!"

 

I still have YET to figure out why I ever bothered, EVER, to go to the Hissing Wastes.  Most boring, empty, pointless part of the game, and the only real justification for it was "The Venatori are up to something shifty here, maybe".  "Is it something we CARE about?!"  "It COULD be!"  "Um. Yeah. Okay. Whatever."  "JUST GO WITH IT!!!!!"

 

Corypheus felt like the dumbest, laziest, most laid-back villain in the history of ever (and that's even WITH the Setback, which, IMO, is the best part of the game).  I mean, the Archdemon was more interesting and the only line it ever had was "RAWR!!!"  Once you do Here Lies the Abyss and Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts the plot is basically over.  Corypheus done lost, all that's left is to sidequest for however long you can tolerate it and then to go mop his dopey ass up.  And he just WAITS for you.  What the heck is he transporting down to the Arbor Wilds that it takes that friggin long to march his army down there?  The only reason we knew that was where he was going was BECAUSE he decided to march his entire dang army down there, and they were entirely pointless because our ENTIRE FORCE didn't succeed in stopping him from getting into the temple!  (Possibly because, you know, HE CAN FLY.)  He would have been better off to send his entire army off somewhere ELSE and just quietly zip off to the temple on dragonback, possibly with Samson as his carry-on luggage.  This entire scenario is literally so dumb it is ON THE EVIL OVERLORD LIST.  Cory started out so cool with the deep voice and the dragon and everything and then just . . . fizzled.

 

There was some really ham-fisted delivery in places that led to almost painful eye-rolling from me, as well.  I did the mages. (I tried doing the templars, but compared with "scary time travel plot of awesomeness" the whole envy demon thing just felt like an afterthought, like they wrote Redcliffe and then were like, ****, we were gonna have a branch here, how do we shoehorn all the same info into a different plotline, ****, um, THE ENVY DEMON HAS A HATEGRUDGE AGAINST CELENE'S STATUE YO.) ANYWAY, when you get to Skyhold after the setback, Cullen tells you "I figured out where the Red Templars came from, Therinfall Redoubt" . . . uh, I wasn't aware that was even a question.  Therinfall Redoubt has been on the friggin war table with a green glowy thing over it for, like, EIGHT HOURS now.  I don't see how it was possible for you NOT to know that was where the Templars went.  I knew it and I wasn't even paying attention.  Is your Lyrium problem causing short-term memory loss or something?  Poor Cullen.  He needs a hug.  Or maybe that was some kind of virtual war table version only visible to the Herald of Andraste?  I dunno.  Anyway, it's not working for me and it's making Cullen look like an idiot.  Heck, that entire conversation (edited to a less-idiotic version) would have been much better AFTER HLtA and WEWH, because if you're doing stuff roughly by order of level the area where you go to in order to START that quest is HIGHER LEVEL than those two MAIN PLOT areas--and you FINISH it by going to an EVEN HIGHER LEVEL area.  Bwah.  The timing.  It was bad.

 

WEWH was another awful section to me.  From a game mechanic standpoint the whole "court approval" thing felt forced and awkward.  Add to that the fact that Celene, Gaspard, and Briala had transformed from fascinating characters in The Masked Empire into dull twits with nothing interesting to say and it became outright dreadful.  If I hadn't read Masked Empire I would have been sitting there the entire time going "who are these people and WHY ON EARTH DO I EVEN CARE if they ALL get assassinated?!  Oh it'll throw the empire into 'chaos'?  I already went out and single-handedly cleared up the ENTIRE WAR THEATER.  Ain't nobody doin' any more of this civil war **** on my watch.  Screw em.  Throw in a jar of wasps and slam the door."  It was all very "wow, THAT came out of nowhere.  And went back there, too.  Bleh."

 

If there had been more urgency/pacing/development/delivery with the areas, little stuff like this likely wouldn't have bothered me.  But since the pacing was borked and the power/influence "system" was completely pointless instead of serving to unify the game, it all felt just really fractured and stupid and pointless for the most part.  That's not to say that large parts of it weren't extremely cool.  The scenery was beautiful.  The set-pieces main story areas were, for the most part, really poignant and scary and tense and well-done.  It's just that everything that went in BETWEEN them was just . . . WHY am I DOING this.  I'm having fun doing it, but that's not the same as feeling like I have a REASON to be doing it.

 

That, and for the most part the side activities were just that: activities.  Like a coloring book.  They weren't interesting in their own right, with complex character interactions and oddball unexpected things going on.  I think the only area that even approached CLOSE to that was Crestwood.

 

So, there's what I thought.

TL;DR: Game had no "push" to it, villain as a threat fizzled, kept running out of reasons to do stuff long before I ran out of stuff to do.  Felt like there was far too much game for the amount of story.

[PsychoBlonde]

Also there were no Ogres or Abominations or Harvesters or Profane or numerous other iconic scary critters to be found anywhere in the game.  Boo.  BRING THOSE BACK.  And take those Terror Demons and Giants and stuff them into a deep dark pit and never mention them again, EVER.

[AlanC9]

The Power/Influence system just did NOT do it for me.
 
I get that the general idea behind it was that ya'll were attempting to come up with a way to tie all the RPG side questing into an overall system so that it would feel like you were always working toward a goal.  It was an interesting idea, but I don't think it worked.  Like, at all.  In fact, I think it might have actually accomplished the OPPOSITE of the intention, particularly where it came to the optional content.  I actually did a couple of playthroughs where I genuinely tried to do EVERYTHING (and it pissed me off about the bugged mosaic tiles in the Hinterlands, btw, why put in a scavenger hunt if you CAN'T FINISH THE DANG THING, ANYWAY) and the more EVERYTHING I did, the less reason I could come up with to keep doing it.  I wasn't finding anything interesting!  Nothing was happening!  

Yeah, I agree that Power doesn't work, and actually gives you incentives to play the game in an unfun style. It's interesting to compare this to ME3's War Asset system, which is trying to do the same thing. The difference is that all of the miscellaneous things you do in ME3 just for the WA points don't add up to more than an hour or so of the playing time (or two hours if you weren't going to walk around the Citadel much anyway).

[SwobyJ]

"I had just boatloads of Power and nothing to DO with it."

 

Yeah that's a big problem.

 

AT LEAST (omg I hope Bioware doesn't take this as permission to be lazy about it, but here it is) let us spend Power to get all the Inquisition Perks if we try enough.

 

Maybe there's some changes that would have to be done with that, due to spammable requisitions possibly making the whole perk system (if this change goes though) redundant, but still, would be nice.

 

 

I miss other Darkspawn (sorta - not as primary enemies, personally). And Desire Demons.

[Regan_Cousland]

Also there were no Ogres or Abominations or Harvesters or Profane or numerous other iconic scary critters to be found anywhere in the game.  Boo.  BRING THOSE BACK.  And take those Terror Demons and Giants and stuff them into a deep dark pit and never mention them again, EVER.

 

Where the heck were the abominations?!

This was a war. Circumstances don't get any more stressful than that. With all of those scared/vulnerable/desperate/ill-trained/confused/foolish mage-lings running around, there should have been abominations all over the place. 

[luism]

Great read thanks

[PsychoBlonde]

"I had just boatloads of Power and nothing to DO with it."

 

Yeah that's a big problem.

 

AT LEAST (omg I hope Bioware doesn't take this as permission to be lazy about it, but here it is) let us spend Power to get all the Inquisition Perks if we try enough.

 

 

Yeah, that would have been nice.  Heck, they could have dropped the "influence" thing altogether and just let you use Power directly to purchase Inquisition perks, possibly limited by things like "must have 2 agents" or "must have 1 keep" or similar--which would have made capturing keeps and gaining agents more of a valuable priority.  Also, I disliked the requisitions for the most part--I wish they didn't repeat randomly and basically forever.  That Requisition officer needed a 3rd conversation option that basically just read "**** off".  Just let me do 2-4 requisitions per area and then be done.  I also wish there were more war table missions that required Power to do . . . instead of SEVENTEEN PLUS HOURS OF WAITING AROUND.  The war table had some neat aspects, but it never really developed into anything particularly cool.  I wish there were more "puzzle" type missions like the Five Belles of Hunter Fell.  I also wish they'd let you queue missions or abandon missions, and maybe even had missions that were only available for so long, so you actually had to make significant choices like "do I have Leliana abandon that mission so she can go save the life of {NPC I ran into briefly and liked} or do I try to get Cullen to do this mission even though I think his idea is sub-par?"  Stuff like that.  Not just "go do the dishes and clean the house to run out the timer."

 

Also, for future reference, once a mission is done, CLEAR THAT SUCKER OFF THE TABLE.  I HATED not being able to tell at a glance which missions were pending and which were completed.

 

Also, I've been bitching about how stupid and arbitrary the Virmire choice was (somebody has to die here, you pick who!) since Mass Effect came out, and they repeated it TWICE--once in Iron Bull's personal mission and once in Here Lies The Abyss.  BOOOOOOOOOOOO.  Technically three times if you count the Templars or Mages as being pretty much similar.  I can't TELL you how much I would have preferred to be able to do BOTH of those, but in a horrible way that possibly resulted in tons of both groups getting gacked and even gave Corypheus an advantage that would force you to go through some nasty hardcore side questing/power grinding.  SOMETHING.

 

It surprises me how boring I found Iron Bull.  I actually thought Krem was a more interesting character.  Vivienne was also painfully dull to me, and her personal plot depended wholly on another ham-fisted bait-and-switch.  Blackwall, unfortunately, shot his load with that one surprise, which was great for playthrough numero uno but not so much for repeat visits.  I did like Cassandra, Varric, Sera, Dorian, and Solas quite a lot.  Cole was interesting to talk to but I never, not even ONCE, took him along in my party.

 

Also picking the next Divine should have been more "Landsmeet" and less "single war table mission".  Bleh. 

[SwobyJ]

Agreed with everything I think, lol

[sandalisthemaker]

Yeah, the main plot just felt like it was lacking to me. The mage/templar war, the civil war, the Eluvian network, the Orlesian Ball, the Grey Wardens.... There was so much build up in DA2 and the books, and for it to be glossed over so quickly was disappointing. 

 

The open world is beautiful but it is just too large for the story. I play Skyrim for the exploration, not the story.  I play DA for the story, not for exploration. 

 

That being said, I love the companions. They really save things for me and keep me coming back to this game. 

[tesla21]

It felt to me like the storyline was only finished up to sky hold, after that there are next to no cinematic events and the main quest feels rushed

[sandalisthemaker]

It felt to me like the storyline was only finished up to sky hold, after that there are next to no cinematic events and the main quest feels rushed

 

The lack of cinematics and cutscenes was also very disappointing.   Especially after DA2, where practically every conversation that was tied to a quest or with companions had cutscenes.  There were cutscenes during quests. There were multi-part side quests tied together with cutscenes. All of which are sorely lacking in DAI.  I really miss those and hope they come back in the next game.

 

Yeah. Companions... and the general lore I'll say. But now my interest in DA hangs on just those two threads. Not cool.

 

Yes, I agree. The lore is great too. I love it. 

[PsychoBlonde]

It felt to me like the storyline was only finished up to sky hold, after that there are next to no cinematic events and the main quest feels rushed

 

Yeah, there were some cinematic goodies in advertising materials that appeared to have been cut from the game.  A shame, if so.

[tesla21]

One example is the first val royeaux visit which was just a bit of cinematic events and led to meeting Sera and Fiona, that quest reminds me of DAO and DA2 so much more than the rest of the game, venturing into a new place and meet some of it's characters, be presented with some intrigue.

Then you compare it with winter palace which is meant to be an important event, sure it was kinda good but it felt rather incomplete if you ask me, we don't see briala/gaspard be judged, there wasn't enough interaction with the people at the dance outside the main quest, also people kinda just are like" Sure I believe you" when you present proof instead of trying to argue a little, I was expecting something closer to a landsmeet. "The game" was nothing more but disguised fetch quests with a bit of variation.

[DanteYoda]

I agree pretty much, I only go to hissing wastes for the Dwarf Armor then leave, its quite a sad sorry area to be honest.

 

Sad too because it had so much Dwarven stuff there but the running through empty areas gets old fast..

[DragonKingReborn]

Yeah, that would have been nice.  Heck, they could have dropped the "influence" thing altogether and just let you use Power directly to purchase Inquisition perks, possibly limited by things like "must have 2 agents" or "must have 1 keep" or similar--which would have made capturing keeps and gaining agents more of a valuable priority.

 

*snip*

 

Yeah - Power overall didn't work for me, either.  Dropping influence is an interesting idea.  I would also have dropped the ability to earn Power from the quest lines that cost power in order to access.  It wasn't a deal breaker for me at all - and it needed to be easy to get power for those that wanted to avoid the optional content - but I can't help but feel the "middle ground" for that issue was somewhere..wa--aaa--ay over there.

[Lilithor]

@OP I completely disagree with you BUT I really don't like the way you make fun of people (including yourself it seems) that post their opinion here as if it was something important. IT IS. There will always be people who share your opinion and it is important for people to know they have support. Seriously. So as much as I hate the game and you seem to not hate, I ask you to always voice your opinion, post. Even if 99% of the post was heard before (ehich as I said it is good to know people who agree with you) the 1% new is also a contribution for the community to discuss. Even with nothing is new the combination of likes and dislikes can be unique so, again, post.

[Uhh.. Jonah]

@OP I completely disagree with you BUT I really don't like the way you make fun of people (including yourself it seems) that post their opinion here as if it was something important. IT IS. There will always be people who share your opinion and it is important for people to know they have support. Seriously. So as much as I hate the game and you seem to not hate, I ask you to always voice your opinion, post. Even if 99% of the post was heard before (ehich as I said it is good to know people who agree with you) the 1% new is also a contribution for the community to discuss. Even with nothing is new the combination of likes and dislikes can be unique so, again, post.

Um, what?

Anyway, marvelous post OP. Took the words out of my mouth.

[shazza53]

I agree with much of PsychoBlonde's review, except I quite like the Hissing Wastes. Perhaps because you get some good crafting materials from the area and your fights. Also, the rewards for finding the tombs are decent - unlike rewards for most quests.

I have done multiple playthroughs, but only finished the game a few times. I clean out the Tombs, Capture Suledin Keep, and Craft good Tier 3 armor and weapons so I can kill the dragons. At that point ,the game loses me because the rest is boring when you know what will happen and there is no combat challenge. That doesn't mean I don't love the game - I enjoy taking different character builds through Nightmare mode, and also playing all the NPC party combinations.

[C0uncil0rTev0s]

@OP I completely disagree with you BUT I really don't like the way you make fun of people (including yourself it seems) that post their opinion here as if it was something important. IT IS. There will always be people who share your opinion and it is important for people to know they have support. Seriously. So as much as I hate the game and you seem to not hate, I ask you to always voice your opinion, post. Even if 99% of the post was heard before (ehich as I said it is good to know people who agree with you) the 1% new is also a contribution for the community to discuss. Even with nothing is new the combination of likes and dislikes can be unique so, again, post.

lol'd

Developer team wipes butts with prints of this forum I think. Why do I think so?

Because:
1. Community said Tactical Camera sucks. Developer team releases a video that claims the Tactical camera is great.
2. Community said Main Plot sucks. Developer team releases a video that claims the main Plot is awesome. It's players who can't grasp the whole thing complaining.

3. Community said PC Controls suck in general. Developer team releases 4 patches over 100 days after release and none has controls patch. Ah, and the was a video claiming that DA:I is a "game made by PC gamers for PC gamers".

So your kissassing doesn't have any point I can call valid.

Be gone.

[SwobyJ]

lol'd

Developer team wipes butts with prints of this forum I think. Why do I think so?

Because:
1. Community said Tactical Camera sucks. Developer team releases a video that claims the Tactical camera is great.
2. Community said Main Plot sucks. Developer team releases a video that claims the main Plot is awesome. It's players who can't grasp the whole thing complaining.

3. Community said PC Controls suck in general. Developer team releases 4 patches over 100 days after release and none has controls patch. Ah, and the was a video claiming that DA:I is a "game made by PC gamers for PC gamers".

So your kissassing doesn't have any point I can call valid.

Be gone.

 

Ha, that's interesting to think about. And sad.

[PsychoBlonde]

lol'd

Developer team wipes butts with prints of this forum I think. Why do I think so?

Because:
1. Community said Tactical Camera sucks. Developer team releases a video that claims the Tactical camera is great.
2. Community said Main Plot sucks. Developer team releases a video that claims the main Plot is awesome. It's players who can't grasp the whole thing complaining.

3. Community said PC Controls suck in general. Developer team releases 4 patches over 100 days after release and none has controls patch. Ah, and the was a video claiming that DA:I is a "game made by PC gamers for PC gamers".

So your kissassing doesn't have any point I can call valid.

Be gone.

 

 

Oddly enough, almost everything I've actually complained about, they have fixed.  I suppose it must feel nasty if they're not fixing the stuff that you find particularly important, but it's been a running gag for me since before DA2 came out that I'm the "Number One Fan" because of the number of things that I've suggested that have made it into the games in some form or another.  Kinda hard for me to be mad at people who keep giving me what I asked for, y'know?  Not that I imagine they did it BECAUSE I suggested it (or even noticed that I did).

 

But, literally, when they asked about what to fix in the PC controls, I wrote a post about, predominately, how much I hated the tac cam because I kept hitting it accidentally by scrolling out the mouse wheel and also I couldn't zoom out enough, and lookie there, they added options to change BOTH of those things.  So they certainly aren't wiping their butts with the forum unless they're also then using their butts to make game updates.

 

Okay, that just went to a weird place.  But you get what I meant.

[PsychoBlonde]

@OP I completely disagree with you BUT I really don't like the way you make fun of people (including yourself it seems) that post their opinion here as if it was something important. IT IS. There will always be people who share your opinion and it is important for people to know they have support. Seriously. So as much as I hate the game and you seem to not hate, I ask you to always voice your opinion, post. Even if 99% of the post was heard before (ehich as I said it is good to know people who agree with you) the 1% new is also a contribution for the community to discuss. Even with nothing is new the combination of likes and dislikes can be unique so, again, post.

 

 

This is the funniest thing I have ever read on this forum.  Just to be clear, I am totes not self-deprecating, nor do I give one single poop about anybody else's self-esteem issues or narcissism or whatever.  I just have a crazy, over-the-top personality and I love to let my dork flag fly, thankyouverymuch.  If you can't dork out over your beloved video games, what CAN you dork out over?  And anybody who doesn't enjoy some fun-making doesn't get to be on my potential LI list.  SO THERE.

 

Also, I'm not OP.  I'm PB.  P is one more than O.  Is better.

[PsychoBlonde]

Yeah - Power overall didn't work for me, either.  Dropping influence is an interesting idea.  I would also have dropped the ability to earn Power from the quest lines that cost power in order to access.  It wasn't a deal breaker for me at all - and it needed to be easy to get power for those that wanted to avoid the optional content - but I can't help but feel the "middle ground" for that issue was somewhere..wa--aaa--ay over there.

 

I wonder about these people who want to avoid the optional content.  To me, this is like going to a five-star restaurant and taking the caviar and pate and whatever the hell it is they serve at those places and slathering it on some Wonderbread then wolfing it down.  It PAINS me to feel like I don't want to be bothered to do some of the content because there's just no reason to do it.  I mean, there's optional as in "you don't HAVE to do it, but, cmon, it's AWESOME DELICIOUS ICE CREAM" and then there's optional in the sense of "here are 50 extra bowls of partially-dried-out crusty oatmeal".  Sadly, in this case I think it was much more of the latter.