Hi,
I am not entirely through the game yet, but I have played all DA games (not all DLC though) and wanted to get some stuff off my chest on what I think Dragon Age Inquisition did particular wrong, conceptually.
There are a dozen threads about combat, so I won't go into the extremely bad UI for PC or the 8 slot limit, nor the lack of readability in combat.
I can live with that, when I focus on the story, and see the combat as a secondary feature.
What's destroying the game-flow for me:
1)
High uncertainty about what your choice in a dialogue is going to impact. You added some game-play relevant info for starting or breaking a romance. That is good. However, I cannot count the amout of times I am spamming the ESC key to get out of a dialogue, re-load the game, just to chose an answer that actually does what I think it does.
If it is somehow meant to be like a novel you play, it is not. It is a trial and error game, with artificial outcomes, where you are negatively surprised more than once, why you just said, what you said, making one of the party members disapprove. It does not feel like a natural consequence like "If I chose answer B, of course Blackwall will hate it". No, it is more like: I have no clue what each of those options is going to _really say_ and I ll just quicks save before, to get it right. And thus the game-flow goes down the drain.
How about you devs just add those out-of-character game-play info (like "This starts a romance with Cassandra") to all options?
If some people hate it, they should be able to turn it off. Or maybe have it start OFF as default, and you can switch it on.
The reason Dragon Age Origins did not have this problem to that degree is simple: THE WHOLE SENTENCE of what I was going to say, was shown. Of course you still didn't know what the precise outcome was, but it was less about guessing the real intent of the message. It was about guessing what the NPC character's motives are, and how your answers fit to their attitude. With the introduction of the Mass-Effect dialogue-wheel, and the shortening of the sentences you added a 2nd layer of interpretation. One to much, I have to say. Cause after figuring out what my NPC dialogue partner's profile is, to address him properly, I additionally have to find out what my answers will actually translate to.
Save, Load, Load, Load, Load... Ah... now I have an idea... Last Load: Do it properly... Continue with the game.
2)
The dialogue flow feels artificial and broken up, due to the player's characters voice being inconsistent and his intonation changing, depending on answer. An answer, that might have been in your head as a calm saracasm, turn out to be a burst of anger. An answer that you thought would be intellectual analytic, turns out to be a funny sarcasm. etc. I cannot count the times I thought to myself: Well, this dialogue scene was nice, until my character starts messing it up with his totally not fitting intonation in his replies.
In the older games, where your character had no voice, the scene felt more like a theatre. The player was the observer. He was looking at a staging, like sitting in a theatre. My feeling in Dragon Age Origins was: "Once I click the button for the chosen reply, my character has already said it" And of course the dialogue continues with the staged play, without me interfering. I am still the observer.
With the voice acting, however, I get the feeling of redundancy. I chose the answer, and then it is repeated by my character, in a way that never matches how the answer played out in my head. This makes the players character feel like a robot.
If I could see the whole answer in action, that break with the staging of the scene would maybe disappear.
So my proposal would be: Drop the voice over. Since I know this will never happen, as it is falsely but widely perceived as "production value" for your "AAA product" I will do a more realistic suggestion: If you keep the voice over for the protagonist, put as much info into the text reply as possible and let the player PREVIEW this particular reaction.
This could be done by "foresight" feature, maybe with some blur on the screen, some echo / hall effect in the voice. Maybe picture in picture. Something that clearly shows the player: This is a preview of how you would respond if you gave that particular answer.
It means, I can check out all the different emotional aspects of the replies (which you devs will never get right in text / icon form, impossible task) before actually commiting to that reply.
3)
Dialogue Wheel structure.
While it has improved from when it was introduced in Mass-Effect, it has taken some steps back, I find.
Yes, it shows nice icons, but they are interpretable. It is a guessing game. Sometimes question marks (=dig deeper for info) change the answers available after returning from that branch, sometimes it does not. The whole wheel structure is not 100% consistent.
My suggestion would be to just have 2 dialogue wheels or dialogue icons / structure. One that CLEARLY advanced the dialogue to the next scene, CLEARLY telling you that you cannot go back, that this step is gone, and that the other answers are forfeit.
And another structure, that CLEARLY shows that you are not advancing the dialogue by chosing them, but merely stay at the current step and exchange information on a non-decisive level.
Lacking that clear distinction also made me reload quite some times.
4)
If you devs do not change anything and stick to that frustrating system, then AT LEAST let me load right in the dialogue.
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