-Weak ending (I have not played Trespasser, so i'm referring to the standard game ending).
-Too many collectibles.
-Poor pacing. More plot progress would have been welcome.
-The opening zone: The Hinterlands, is a slog.
Despite these things, I enjoyed Inquisition.
I think the side quests are the worst part. They are boring and monotonous. Plus no cinematic conversations during side quests make them even worse. Every once in a while there might be an ok one. Usually side quests are things I love about RPGs.
Other things I didn't like were the limited healing potions and lack of healing magic. If I want to spam healing potions, let me. People who don't want to do that are free not to. It really bothers me when they try to make you play the way they like to play. Not everyone plays games the same. Or if they had tied it to difficulty level that would've been fine too.
Overall I actually liked the game quite a bit, but it isn't perfect.
EDIT: Forgot to mention lack of cities.
Practical things for me, mostly:
1. Only 8 quick slots, and no access to skills that are not in those quick slots. Too few. Does not add to the game. I understand that the intention was to make people switch out skills/spells between battles and thus bring in some pre-battle strategy, but who actually does that? I'd be willing to bet that 99% of players keep the same set of useful spells/skills and simply tolerate the fact that they have skills/spells they never get to use. A failed concept, I think. Hope they will not repeat it in future games.
2. No ability to set up companion tactics in detail, like in the earlier games. If I had my way, the tactics options would have been EXPANDED and improved, not cut down. If the worry is that people will get confused with so many options, then have the tactics as they are now, but add an "advanced" button, behind which you could find the more detailed tactics options. That way you could cater to both the casual player who can't be bothered, and the more invested, interested player who wants more control.
3. The hold command. It should work as a toggle, not as an order which gets canceled every time you do pretty much anything. "Hold" should never be canceled until I specifically take action to intentionally cancel it. You know, like it worked in the previous games. You forgot the #1 rule: Don't fix what ain't broken.
4. Cloaked companions don't follow. Now I get the idea here: if you are controlling a cloaked character, you might want to sneak up to enemies without having your party at your heals to alert them - so it's useful for the uncloaked party not to follow the cloaked party member. But it SHOULDN'T work the other way around - if the controlled character is uncloaked, any cloaked characters should follow normally. As it is now, cloaked characters that you don't control are always out of position, lagging far behind, when battle begins.
And I have to mention the most annoying bug that's been introduced in a patch along the way: companions freezing in place in combat, frequently. Fix it please!
The lack of blood magic. It's heretical.
No if>then Tactics system. I want to be able to customise the AI so I can trust my companions to manage themselves in most battles and just control my main character like I did in the first two games
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^This so much^.
I really got into that aspect of the game in DA2, I went into so much detail about what they could do and when, so I pretty much never had to control my companions ever, unless I needed Anders to go into Panacea mode and heal for example. So it was horrible to see it gone this time around, and now I feel as if I'm babysitting them constantly.
Also, not being able to move with the mouse was terribly frustrating, as I used that for movement, combined with limited keyboard and mouse clicks for combat.
Honourable mentions also go to not being able to loot like you did in DA2, the lack of quick slots and AI not using abilities not in the ones we have, and not being able to properly gauge your affection level with npcs.
For the most part, I loved everything about DA:I. It is, for me, a near-perfect blend between open world exploration while still having enough guide posts and structure to keep me from getting too lost or bored. The environments are gorgeous, and the shards are a decent way to guide you through a zone and then give you a reward at the end. But I grew up on platformers and I've accepted the fact that I friggin' love collectibles.
Likewise, I'm not bothered by the "fetch quests" or "filler," as people are calling them, because I know that their presence doesn't mean that resources were taken away from being able to create more large quests or main story quests. Without them, we would have the same amount of big quests and zero small ones. Cinematic artists and the main writers can only do so much. Assistant writers and other entry-level or mid-level positions get to work on the smaller things, and I believe it is better to have these small quests than nothing.
I'm also not going to complain about bugs or lack of hair styles, etc., because these are things they surely know about.
Game mechanic-wise, I agree that the hold command needs to be a toggle. If you're going to have puzzles based on it, this is necessary. I would also like to see the return of being able to access abilities outside of the 8 that can be mapped. Rather than making me think more tactically, it encouraged me to set one tried-and-true tactic and stick to it, or just bulldoze my way through enemies, limiting tactical experimentation and flexibility. Also, I agree with needing a more detailed tactics system. I, too, like to be able to customize my companion AI and trust they'll do what they need to and only control my PC directly.
Spoiler tagging this bit - spoilers for the main story line (no DLCs):
Sorry, long post. But really, I'm not sure I would even say "didn't like" about any of this, just "I can think of a reasonable way this specific thing can be better."
The main story felt sort of disjoint, most of the game felt like it was only tangentially related to the main quest line. You would do a main plot quest, then few hours of unrelated things, the another quest.
The main story felt sort of disjoint, most of the game felt like it was only tangentially related to the main quest line. You would do a main plot quest, then few hours of unrelated things, the another quest.
It would indeed have been better I think, if all the areas you visited had a more direct link to the main questline - ok, sure, place X has an infestation of walking dead, and people need help, but I'm kinda busy here with the end of the world-stuff.
Of course, as a completionist by nature, I'm not likely to skip content, but story-wise, all the wondering about putting out smaller fires between "urgent" mainline quests is hard to justify. I guess the gaining power to advance the main storyline mechanic was there to kinda try to do that - you need to grow the inquisition to take on the main threat - but it didn't quite work. The power was so very easy to come by, that you could have still skipped 90% of the side content, and gone on to focus on the main threat.
And still there are people who complained about the power system slowing them down - so it didn't really work for those who just would just rush through the game anyway. Those people would have needed a more tightly main-story related reason to explore the side content.
It's not easy to do, of course, given the amount of side content, and many of the sidequests were tied to the main enemy's forces and efforts, but you really did not have to go after those side-efforts, and if you didn't, it didn't make the main threat any more threatening.
Perhaps the main line quests should have reflected the presence of more enemy power and influence somehow, if you hadn't cut them down to size before advancing the main quests?
Combat, protagonist, choices. Well, the two come together.
I love the game, but for me I think all my criticisms basically boil down to side characters not feeling fleshed out enough. The companions and advisers are all great but every NPC you encounter outside of the main story line just feels very flat compared to NPCs in previous games. Even the more fleshed out NPCs like Sutherland, the Mayor of Crestwood and Fairbanks feel like they are missing something.
I think that's related to a few things: we almost never get a close-up of any of these character's faces due to the lack of dialogue cutscenes in side quests; we don't get much dialogue with these NPCs compared to previous games; and the fact that few NPCs are associated with particularly compelling, choice-heavy side quests. Even the best side quests like the Crestwood one don't really feature more than a couple of pretty minor choices (although Judgments make up for this a bit, even if they are too short).
I'm OK with things like the non-cinematic conversations, but I don't think they should ever be used for interactions with characters who are part of a side quest unless maybe it's a simple fetch quest. Even in old RPGs where the camera wouldn't zoom you'd still usually get a card popping up with a picture of the person you were talking to. But in Inquisition I can barely remember what any of the NPCs look like outside of the main story and companions.
Its very glitchy. Of the three games so far in the series, i find its the worst for glitches. In Origins i had Uldred respawn in the circle tower after being killed earlier on and in dragon age 2, the romance with merrill got very weird after it glitched. With inquisition i've had more moments of characters freezing up. From the inquisitor freezing up while running. To finding that during combat my party is reduced to three members as a fourth member is frozen to the spot.
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