I’m a longtime fan of Bioware games and the Dragon Age series. I was excited to learn that special care was being taken in the development of Dragon Age: Inquisition for PC; The controls in Origins and Dragon Age II already felt quite good to me.
I’ve now played Inquisition thoroughly with both the keyboard and gamepad and am well into a nightmare difficulty playthrough. I would prefer to use keyboard & mouse because they were gifts and are very nice, while my gamepad is a cheaply made piece of crap that has a creaky LT (left trigger). I believe there are steps that could be taken to make playing with keyboard & mouse more enjoyable. I’m not going to talk about what I think the mechanics in this game could or should be, but rather look exclusively at keyboard & mouse in comparison to gamepad controls as they are now.
- Locking the camera onto a specific enemy. With the gamepad an enemy can be locked-on to by pressing RS (right stick). With keyboard & mouse, an enemy can be locked-on to also, but the camera does not focus on the enemy. The camera focus is useful for charging past an enemy and going for flanking damage or fade stepping through a target while keeping an eye on the action. I would appreciate it if I had the option to activate and deactivate this feature at will with the keyboard & mouse. It’s also aesthetically pleasing. I like to lock-on to high dragons when they are strafing the party. I miss that cinematic quality when I’m trying to play keyboard & mouse.
- “Snapping” to targets in Tactics mode. In Tactics mode, with the gamepad, the right stick can be depressed to focus over the nearest enemy. Further presses cycle through the enemies. Keyboard & mouse users have to manually scroll to the desired enemy. This can become problematic when the player is on a rampart or other elevated structure because the cursor in tactics mode gets stuck on terrain. Gamepad users can just press RS to snap to that rage demon below them. I know of no way to simulate this with keyboard & mouse. Could the tab key be altered to perform this function?
- Using abilities on enemies without changing the main target. In Tactics mode, with the gamepad, the big yellow reticule at the center of the screen can be used to highlight enemies and use abilities against them. They can have the reticule manually dragged over them or “snap” to them using the RS technique I mentioned above. I frequently use this on the gamepad because it doesn’t switch the character’s main target; e.g., Varric’s main target features his portrait above it and “attack”. I find this method excellent for crowd control. For example, Cole is attacking a Venatori mage and draws aggro from a nearby archer. With the gamepad I can move the Tactics Mode cursor over the archer and cast knockout powder, taking the archer out of the fight. Once the action is complete, Cole will resume attacking the Venatori mage, his target.To simulate this with keyboard & mouse, I have to switch Cole’s target by right clicking on the archer and using knockout powder. Then I have to briefly resume the game until Cole casts knockout powder, pause again, and reselect the Venatori mage, or else Cole will inadvertently wake up the archer he just put to sleep by attacking him. The gameplay feels unwieldy to me when it is necessary to monitor all four characters in this fashion. As it stands now with the keyboard & mouse controls, the targeting reticule in Tactics Mode feels like a console holdover with no discernable use other than to point out where the center of my monitor is, or the exact edge of terrain the camera is stuck on if you're being generous. If I try to use it as I do with the gamepad, disaster ensues. Let’s say Solas is focus firing with the rest of the party on a pride demon, but he draws the aggro of a rage demon. I go into Tactics Mode and move the targeting reticule over the rage demon to cast winter’s grasp. Instead of freezing the rage demon, it is cast on the pride demon, who, as all rift hunters know, is immune to freezing. The targeting reticule in Tactics Mode doesn’t function at all like the one with the gamepad. Could the targeting reticule please be given the same functionality as the one with gamepad controls?
- Escape abilities and keyboard & mouse. Warriors, mages, and rogues all have escape abilities. Warrior’s combat roll, mages Fade Step, and rogue’s Evade. They are different names for what is in essence the same thing: the ability to avoid attacks or quickly flank enemies. I enjoy using them with the gamepad but encounter some difficulties with the keyboard & mouse. For an example, I’ll use the ol’ Iron Bull and bears scenario. Iron Bull can block and slash every attack from bears except one where the bear stands on its hind legs and smashes with its forelegs. When I see a bear start to do this, I just tilt the movement stick and use “combat roll,” which I have mapped to the right bumper, and avoid the damage. On keyboard & mouse, I use W-A-S-D and the numbers 1 – 9. Now, I only put combat roll and other escape abilities on numbers 1 - 4 because forget trying to hold S and tap 7 in time when you see the dragon’s “swipe” animation start. Even with this precaution, it still feels awkward to me. One workaround I found just today is to pause the game, and hold down the desired direction from the W-A-S-D keys before activating “combat roll.” What I have been doing is going to Tactics Mode and activating the ability, because it lets you set the direction of the ability with the mouse.I would like it if abilities like combat roll and evade were treated the same as AOE abilities like barrier are (outside of Tactics Mode). For instance, if I press 5 to activate Solas’ “barrier” spell outside of tactics mode, the game will pause until I set the barrier with the mouse, at which point time will immediately resume. Could the game please pause when combat roll and similar abilities are activated so I can choose the direction with the mouse rather than the W-A-S-D keys? Using W-A-S-D simultaneously with the numbers feels so unnatural and difficult to me.
Sorry for the long post. I love Dragon Age and wanted to put my concerns into words rather than just saying something unproductive like “the controls suck”.
Retour en haut
