That they can disapprove is not in dispute.- I said as much. But I also pointed out that this counts for *nothing*. It doesn't affect anything! And if you saw someone about to make a choice that you thought was a disastrous mistake, saying you disapprove after the decision is taken, is pretty weak don't you think? Would you be happy knowing that the people in your government would allow the Prime Minister to drive the economy (or whatever) actually over the cliff before they said anything? Your actions and words to others can completely blacken the Inquisition's name and reputation (particularly if you are militantly anti-Chantry), yet they never so much as bat an eyelash.
And the Judgements. Thanks for bringing that up, seeing as how the whole idea of giving someone with no legal training such authority is... unwise.Your advisors should be I don't know... advising in the Judgements. Instead they just leave it up to you! A judgement on people of influence and forgeign nationals would carry a great deal of weight in how it was perceived by others. Even if the people in charge have officially named you as having the right of judgement, the actual decisions you take would be noted by parties far and wide. Your advisors should all be intimately involved in this process, not just dump it on you. This person is guilty of this crimes - what;s your decision? Well? WELL?!!! Wouldn't it be a good idea to at least take some time to mull it over, take the temperature of interested parties, discuss what the potential consequences would be, how it reflects on the Inquisition if you are seen to spare a certain person or execute another? But no, just an on the spot decision made in a manner of minutes!
And you say the characters have words with you, yet the characters never comment on these things. The advisors get the odd comment during Main Quest missions, but they are frequently contradictory. Cassandra and Leliana recomend that you recruit the Mages, yet bemoan the fact that having them on board lowers your reputation afterwards, whilst they counsel against recruiting the Templars, then heap praise on the decision afterwards as if they always knew it was the best course. They argue that you *must* attend the Orlesian ball because you *must* stop the events that are motion, only to then come up to you at the eleventh hour and say the exact opposite! There is no consistency. You can be the worst Chantry hating malcontent to ever stalk the hills of Thedas, yet Mother Giselle will still heap praise on you, you can be tyrannical in your oppression of mages and opinions about them and your party mages will still think be fine with you. An approval loss here and there doesn't alter their conversations, and is almost always made up for with approval gains elsewhere, even when they aren';t present!
Along with their decision to promote a complete amateur (at all the various role you are handed), It gives the Inquisition the feel of a band of utter fools, who couldn't organise the proverbial ****** up in a brewery. Cassandra cares enough to create the Inquisition and push it through all the red tape, then dumps it all on you and goes off to whack dummies all day in the courtyard. She doesn't even bother showing up to the War Room from Act 2 onwards. Pushback from characters would be them saying you couldn't do something, or would be stupid to do so. But no, we can't have that. Because every time characters do take legitmate concern over stupid decisions that Bioware force on you, people blame those characters for daring to challenge you (Ashley/Kaiden in Mass Effect 2 for example). Its all part of the Rule of Cool direction that Bioware have been going in. You get to be the best person ever who is always right about everything, and nobody gets to tell you No, even when you're making utterly ridiculous decisions. Because you're amazing and can do everything.
It didn't use to be like this. Mass Effect 1 for example had stats that governed whether a particular character (including Shepard) was any good with computers, decryptions, electronics etc. If you didn't have it, then you couldn't intereact with certain objects, locks, hack certain computers etc. And yet by the time of Mass Effect 2, those stats have gone. Now in all the missions, Shepard is hacking computers like the world's greatest tech nerd, despite still occasionally professing ignorance of such things in dlalogue. Even when you have people who *are* qualifie to do all this stuff, they don't do it, because you have be the one in the spotlight who saves the day. And in ME3 they occasionally do the exact opposite - where you can be an Engineer, but because fixing a console or some such isn't nearly as dynamic or heroic as fighting off hordes of Geth, you get your team members to do the tech stuff - despite the fact you can be easily the best qualified, and they might be people who know *nothing* about such things. Yet they still get the job done just as quickly as the tech savvy members.
All in service of pampering the player's ego. Which is what Dragon Age Inqusition is doing. I really don't see how this can be argued against. Your character has carte blanche to act in all matters, despite not having earned that right, and not being in any way qualified to do so. And not only that - you succeed. All the time. Because you're just that amazing. Isn't that rather undermining people who practice these things as their profession. Lawyers, judges, dancers, strategists, diplomats etc.
If you took all the various origins and backstories of the available character classes and races and crushed them together in giant transmutotronic genomorphic psychoneuro splicing chamber, and gave it a jolt of lightning on a dark and stormy Geheimnisnacht night, you might be able to create this remarkable specimen that you are, who is proficient at all of these things. Having the military know-how and survival skills of the Quanari merc, the educated courtly nous of the Noble, the arcane smarts of the Circle Mage etc. But without doing that, your character is simply drawing on vast reserves of knowledge and talent that they would have no realistic chance of possessing. Being a Renaissance man is one thing, but even they had their limits! And how would your advisots even know this?
'Oh actually, you pretty good at everything, so we'll leave all the big decisions to you and not gainsay you. If you do anything particularly stupid or immoral, we might glare at you a bit for a few seconds.'
Its like that SNES version of Sim City, where you could build airports all around a guy's house, or have the local park be in the middle of the coal factory district, put the football stadium on a island off the coast, and the main street be enclosed and not lead anywhere. All whllst taxing the people with about 500% tax rates, and supplying no power to the businesses and residental areas. Yet even though public opinion was through the floor, they would never replace you or have another election. They bore their (enitrely justified) rage and bewilderment at your anarchic policies with dignity and stoicisim! Which seems to be what the Inquistion are doing with you.
Especially since their own reputations suffer as a result of your actions - the chances of your various companions winning that election are entirely based on *your* actions and opinions, not theirs! All the modifiers that determine who wins are based on things you say and do. If they only knew, eh? Maybe then they'd actually speak up and try to stop you, instead of scowling behind closed doors and wondering why they let you get away with all this.
And don't blame every game for having unlikely narratives,as some kind of excuse. It doesn't justify bad writing, nor is it as bad even in Bioware's own games, without slapping everyone else's games with a blanket statement like that. This game's narrative does not hold up to scrutiny. Its just an opinion obviously, but I think its fairly clear how strongly I feel about it. Because being a fan of this series and Bioware in general is not the same as being an apologist for bad work and a Yes Man when they are going wrong. And IMO they are going very wrong these days. Pretending otherwise will not help things.
You claim you genuinely feel differently, and we detractors have no choice but to take you at your word. But to once again quote the OP (with slight paraphrasing) 'We just don't get it'. Because this game's narrative is poorly written, badly developed, and terribly inconsistent. The narrative does not support the way the gameplay functions, has no credibility, chronically misuses previous characters (that smile of delighted familiaty in Wicked Hearts... what on earth?!) and has systems make no sense at all. Power is meaningless as supporters of the game have admitted on this thread, and Influence does not do what it purports to do, instead being of relevance only to Perks. They could have fixed all that by simply axing the Influence stat, giving you Power for completing War Table missions and tying Perks into that instead. Then make Power into a spendable stat, which which you could actually purchase upgrades, trade agreements, troops etc for the Inquistion, as well as being something you use to offer Alpha Protocol style mission specific benefits and targeted support from allies etc.
But instead we had a system where none of the stats really mean anything. You have hundreds of Power points that mean nothing, Influence that does nothing, and Perks which give such tiny incremental passive buffs, that feel wholly unworthy of the time and effort expended to get them (not to mention that they feel like the wrong kind of reward to get from the stat in the first place - its like you're skimming benefits for yourself).
If you like this mess of a game, then good for you. But plenty of us don't, and we're no less fans of the series than you, because we say what we think about it. This was a terribly put together game, and it represents a dangerous direction for Bioware to be going in. Narrative and character interaction particularly are what they have going for them usually, but not in this game. Without that, they have nothing in the face of rising stars like From Software and (to play Devil's advocate) CDProjeckt.
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