Questa discussione ha avuto 108 risposte

[ThatsCk]

Hey Ho

 

I just wanted to post my thoughts on Dragon Age Inquisition. Maybe a year to late but .... better late than never. Let me know what you think about it. I just finished it for the 3rd time. 

 

 

First of all, I really enjoyed all 3 main Dragon Age Games. I played them several times. Everything i‘m going to say is only MY Opinion.

 

Dragon Age Inquisition was a good game. It looked awesome and the gameplay and story were good. It took me about 100 Hours per Playthrough. But there are a few things that just f*cked me off.

 

First the good:

 

- Combat was better than in DA2 but not as good as in DA:O

(I really enjoyed the options in DA:O to tell your partymembers what to do when certain conditions were met. e.g. if Teammte is surrounded by 3 Enemies → use Spell XYZ on him; So you could play one Char and wasnt forced to pause the game every 10 Seconds to tell the others what to do)

- Crafting was Awesome. Collecting new Materials to craft new or better Weapons was fun.

- Dialouges …. better than ever.

- Story was good

- Varric, obviously.

 

It felt like one of the best RPGs i‘ve played, but ….

 

 

The bad

 

- I miss Anders :,(

 

- the War Table. This whole „wait for XX Minutes to get ingame bonuses “ is a bad idea. It felt like i was playing a f*cking browsergame. My Suggestion: remove the waiting and replace it with using Ressources. So instead of waiting XX Minutes you would need XX Ressources A, YY Ressources B, ... and then the Mission is completed instantly.

 

- Too many Dragons. In most Games Dragons are super strong Bosses, that will drop super special loot. But in DA:I you had way to many Dragons. 10 if i remember correct. In DA:O you only had 3 +1 in Awakening, and all of them were super strong; DA2 had one Dragon … i guess … still strong but easier than in DA:O. And than DA:I with it‘s 10 Dragons. After tle 5th it was more a „noooo not another Dragon, but i have to do this because i want to complete all the sidemissions“ than a „A Dragon?! I will fight that Evil Creature for Fortune and Glory!!“. And most of them were easy as f*ck.

 

 

The ugly, or as you may know it: The Ending

 

- You simply skipped a build up to the Endboss battle. It‘s an unwritten Video Game Law: „The Bad guy wont challenge you. You are the hero who opposes him. So you first have to fight through minions / solve puzzles or whatever to meet him. And even if he comes to you, he will first send his Minions to weaken you and wont attack you instantly.“

I know you can do way better. Look at DA:O and DA2 and ME and ME2. And Even ME3 had a proper build up.

The Last Battle was too …. how should i say it …. too unexpected / early? If you know what i mean.

 

- The Epilogue was not even close to being good. DA:O‘s text-only epilougue was more satisfying than that. DA2‘s Epilouge told by Varric was great (because i Love Varric, who doesn‘t?). But this Slideshow was … meh. Too many unanswered Questions about your Partymembers and the Inquisition itself. It felt … incomplete.

 

Dear Bioware:

 

- And the worst of all: the after Epilouge Solas Cutscene. The Cutscene itself wasnt that bad. It would have been an awesome Cliffhanger if you planned to explain it in Dragon Age 4. But no, you had to make a DLC out of it ln which you only told us a tiny bit and instead you raise even more Questions … for 15 Bucks.

SRSLY YOU WHAT.

Yeah, i admit, it gave us a way more solid Ending than the original one, but why wouldn‘t you simply include it in the first place? It was like the ME „From Ashes“ DLC which should have been in the game. Or if you really needed the extra time for it, at least make it a free patch. It really felt like you gave us a shitty Ending, just to make us pay for the real Ending. Why?

 

As an owner of the Digital Deluxe Edition (PC) it would cost me about 55 € to get all the DLC separately, or 40 € for the whole Game of the year Edition. ….. why dont you release a Season Pass like Upgrade Pack for lets say 25 Bucks which includes all DLC? Because it feels strange if its way cheaper to buy the GOTY Edition with all DLCs than buying ONLY the DLCs.

 

 

 

I hope you or EA or whoever is responsible for this DLC-sh*t was fired. I was a big Dragon Age fan and still am a big Mass Effect fan. But if you continue this DLC sh*t instead of either releasing a finished Game or giving us the additional Content for free as patches, you will lose me (and probably many other fans). And dont tell me you cant afford releasing the Patches for free. There are enough examples of small and big Developers who release everything (after you bought the main game) for free (e.g. Terraria [ReLogic], Overwatch [Blizzard])

 

I enjoyed the ME and DA Serieses so please dont make me hate them because of your marketing.

 

 

Thanks for reading

ThatsCk

 

PS: I'm german. so i just know the prices in €

PPS: Varrics german voice is even better than his english one. :DD Varric

PPPS: please excuse misspellings

[GoldenGail3]

The bad

 

- Meh meh meh Fetch Quests!

 

= Boring in general

 

- Didn't have the same feeling as DAO did, where your actions actually mattered...

 

- Hate the hair in game

 

-Cory was a horrible and unsatisfying villain  

 

The Good

 

- I like the characters

 

- Good plot twist at the end 

[Taki17]

I have to disagree with you on some of these points.

 

Combat was better than in DA2 but not as good as in DA:O

I don't think so. DA2 combat was quite close to DAO combat in many ways (albeit a lot more faster paced), but it had the same general principles. At least it still had the full ability bar with 9 hotkeys instead of the limited number of abilities you can have mapped in DAI. Also, I highly dislike the the manual attacking and the lack of any meaningful combat tactics options. The thing I really liked about DAO is that the enemies worked and behaved by the same rules as the player characters - they had the same classes, same skills, abilites and their attacks etc. were calculated by using the same formulas. This is gone in DAI, as every type of enemy seems to be his own class with its own rules. Also, tac cam has to take the stairs.

 

Dialouges …. better than ever.

Dialogue scenes (all 10 of them) were quite alright, otherwise the lack of "mini cutscenes" with changing camera angles from previous games is just plain horrible and scream laziness and/or MMO-legacy.

 

Story was good

Nah, it was the worst BW story so far. No real motivation for the main villain, he just went mwhahaha and he was evil and we had to stop him. If not for Solas, this game would've sorely lacked an interesting villain character. Also, the game and the story could've benefitted so much from more Corypheus-Calpernia/Samson (especially Calpernia) scenes like the Loghain-Howe scenes in DAO.

 

Trespasser remedies most of the problems with storytelling and pacing of the game, I wish the whole game could've been like that.

[thats1evildude]

The bad

 

- I miss Anders :,(

 

I know. I wish he'd come back in DAI ... so I could kill him again.

[Serza]

Duly noted...

[ButtHurtPunk]

The bad

 

- Meh meh meh Fetch Quests!

 

= Boring in general

 

- Didn't have the same feeling as DAO did, where your actions actually mattered...

 

- Hate the hair in game

 

-Cory was a horrible and unsatisfying villain  

 

The Good

 

- I like the characters

 

- Good plot twist at the end 

 

This is basically how I felt about the game. I mean, I probably enjoyed the companions in DAI more than the companions in any other Bioware game (outside of maybe Awakening), but everything else seemed to either have terrible writing or take its core mechanics from vanilla WoW. If not for Trespasser I would have written Inquisition as a whole off as a bad game, but unfortunately Trespasser was great... but then again, they most likely will go with the boneheaded move of making a new PC for DA4 instead of continuing with the one they only just made interesting.   

[Lazarillo]

The good:
-The side missions were...extensive, but a lot of the "supplemental" storylines associated with the various areas (the war, and bandits, etc, in the Hinterlands, the flood in Crestwood, etc) were honestly pretty strong. Some of the stuff was pointless, but generally I enjoyed the expansive feeling. On the same note, exploration in general was a lot of fun. Finding little secret spots and other out-of-the-way places kept me entertained.
-Companion cast is great. Well, except for Vivienne, anyway. Their portrayal is entertaining and feels natural.

The neutral:
-Corfishystix was the first time we've really had an antagonist-driven story in the series, and for a first try, it wasn't too bad. Admittedly, the rivalry with him could've been a little more active, but on the other hand I actually liked that he was actually on even ground with the Inquisiton, rather than this big, insurmountable force. On the mechanics side, a lot of people don't seem to like the final fight with him, but I thought it did okay, and was certainly better than the buggy, exploitative mess that was the Corfishystix fight in Legacy.
-The War Table was a neat idea in concept, but lacked in execution. I think it would've been better as said in the first post: spend Power for instant completion, since there's so much extra Power to go around anyway.
-Crafting also was a big step up from the previous two entries in the series. It still needed work, though. I didn't like how appearance and stats were tied together.
-Wicked Hearts and Wicked Eyes gets a special mention, because it was fun as all get out, but didn't really fit well in the story.

-The bad:
-The ending needed work. Something I could say about every DA game, admittedly. Again, the first post explained the problem really well. As soon as you really get to be the great organization the Inquisition is supposed to be, you have one battle and then it's basically over. Needed a little more time riding that climax, taking a victory lap if nothing else, or really putting the sway we'd built to use.
-Too much hype, too little delivery. The game really should've stood on its own better. But unfortunately, Bioware seemed to take a page from the MCU book of doing business which is that content doesn't matter too much if you can make people think you'll offer something really big "next time". Loose plot threads only do so much, though, when it's five years between games, though, so it really ends up detracting from the story more than anything. Doubly so when those loose threads are rather trite and too focused on ancient grudges and such, rather than about dealing with the present and moving into the future.

[Inkvisiittori]

I loved the War Table and that there was more than 2 or 3 dragons. Fighting them was so much fun. I enjoyed the combat very much in general (more than 8 abilities would have been good though and 2H Warrior was too slow - much better in DA2).

 

The Bad:

 

- too many ugly hairstyles, same hairstyles for both genders, too many ugly/silly eyebrows, very ugly beards.

- companions have unique hairstyles yet the player character not? I hate we have to share them with NPC's. 

- Temple of Mythal bugs. Like how the dalish Inquisitor doesn't even know who Mythal is. That was the worst thing in the entire game.

- I wish we could hear banter more often. Waiting 12-15 minutes feels like too long time.

- Not enough evil options. I would have loved to play neutral evil Inquisitor.

- bad sidequests. There was no depth. I felt like most sidequests didn't even matter except for XP. They were just filler.

 

The Good:

 

Everything else! I loved the story, Inquisitor, companions, combat, dragons, crafting, Skyhold, judgements, War Table, multiple player races, tarot cards,  mounts, exploration, dialogue options, romances, reactivity to your class/race/specialization, how big the game was, all the DLC's, et cetera, et cetera! 

[Marshal Moriarty]

This topic always makes me feel like a real heel, because when I say 'This game did nothing well and shouldn't do anything it does here ever again', it sounds so over the top and trollish. And I'm a practical sober kind of guy, who isn't given to 'Th1s gamE suxxx!' nonsense. But in this case, it was my honest opinion that in every single regard, the game failed to surpass, or even equal previous BW games (except maybe Jade Empire, but JE at least had some genuinely hilarious characters and I kind of like the 1943 style vertical shooter bits )

 

Don't get me wrong - I'm a HUGE Dragon age fan, but this game had an awful and frankly ridiculous premise with you being the Inquisitor, that they consistently fumbled just to make the player feel powerful and awesome etc. The story was the worst kind of bland 'An ancient evil returns' rubbish, that was poorly written, incredibly badly paced (the enemy starts strong, then gets progressively worse, and your characters start out engaged and motivated, but look indolent and detached up in Skyhold etc etc). The party was unremarkable, with no truly standout characters for me, and it wasn't helped by the dreadful new dialogue system that felt so awkward watching your static characters have conversations that amounted to 'insert 50 cents to hear some facts about X'.

 

Returning characters were either completely underutilized and/or felt completely out of place, the area zones were boring, filled with utterly mindless fetch and gather trivia and no side quests that had any real substance or depth to them. Important plot events like the Mage Templar war were handled terribly (and then quickly forgotten), the combat system was uninspired button bashing (I finished the game on Nightmare by simply having 2 sword and shield tanks, a mage and whoever else I felt like bringing along, never did any crafting and that was good enough to complete the game...)

 

I could go on, but I've said all this before. I can only reiterate that despite how it sounds, I am not some trolling crackpot. I care about this series, and BW but they have really gone off the rails in recent times IMO. I really wanted to like this game, and I feel like with 3 playthroughs, I've given it ample time to impress me. My love of the series in general meant I couldn't just drop the game like I wanted to. Even now I hope the series returns to form, but I am done with this game and can only restate that no BW game must be made like this one ever again. It did everything wrong, which is actually quite an impressive feat.

[Tidus]

I won't get started because I don't know where to start. I will say DA:O and DA:I  had way to many WTH moments and DA:O had two story line contradictions. Still DA:O and DA:I is in my favorite top 5 RPGs.

 

I don't know about DA:2 because I can't stay interested in it.

[PapaCharlie9]

I have to say, of the many community and fandom reviews I've read about DAI, yours is the first to put the high dragons in the "bad" category.

I agree with your Ugly stuff, though. Trespasser DLC was a cash-for-closure kind of money-grab. That said, they did deliver value. I wish they hadn't tied new game mechanics in the main game to a DLC that you can't play in the context of the main game, but Trespasser was the build-up to a final boss that we were cheated out of in the main game.

[ESTAQ99]

I did 10 DAO playthrough and maybe 7 or more DA2. I had to force myself to finish one DAI playthrough and never went back to the game. By mid game, I was so bored and disappointed with it, that I wish I had purchased a physical copy so I'd got the chance to crush it on the floor or burn it. I went for the more peaceful road and deleted it from my pc (first Bioware game ever I have deleted from my pc). I don't care if EA decided to finish the game via DLC. By the time Trespasser came, I didn't want to do anything with DAI (well, except criticize it.....bitterly).

 

The bad,

 

The entire game was plagued by the most tedious fetch questing.

Main story had a ridiculous start (a green glowing hand that makes you an instant super hero, revered by the whole world); horrible and disconnected pace throughout the whole game and the main game ending was rushed, uninspiring and boring.

Main game's main villain was a "cartoonish Muahahahaha!!!! evil guy" who, by the end of the game, was just a bad joke.

The most horrible looking hair and a collection of the worst possible hair styles in video game industry.

The game was ported to pc in the most shameful and laziest way. Disgraceful.

The game was delivered buggy and glitchy as hell.

Returning characters were certainly underutilized.

On top of it and when I though that DAI was just a sad reflection of how the industry of AAA video games had become, few months later comes an amazing, superbly executed game, made by a much smaller company that made DAI look even worse. 

 

The good,

 

Very nice scenery. 

[dragonagenewbie]

Main story had a ridiculous start (a green glowing hand that makes you an instant super hero, revered by the whole world); horrible and disconnected pace throughout the whole game and the main game ending was rushed, uninspiring and boring

 

Yah that "chosen one" theme must be a recurring thing in BW games, as well as many others i've played in recent years.  Its actually to the point now where i'm sick and tired of seeing it in whatever game i played.  It's actually worse when games prop you up to god-like status but they still have you doing quests that is basically scut work.  Star Trek Online for example, which for the past few years had you as an Admiral and then a Fleet Admiral.  But you were still beaming down to planets engaging in firefights and taking soil and water samples.  Anyways, i like lots of things about DAI but that transition from your character being a suspect to a hero was way too fast.  I think it would be nice for a change to just play a game and not have every NPC kowtow to me. 

[fdrty]

Collecting new Materials to craft new or better Weapons was fun.

 

Had to read this 3 times, just to make sure I wasn't seeing things. You liked the resource collecting? I thought it was the most tedious and unnecessary aspect of the game.

 

- the War Table. This whole „wait for XX Minutes to get ingame bonuses “ is a bad idea. It felt like i was playing a f*cking browsergame. My Suggestion: remove the waiting and replace it with using Ressources. So instead of waiting XX Minutes you would need XX Ressources A, YY Ressources B, ... and then the Mission is completed instantly.

 

This. By the end of the game I had so much 'power' (which is itself a terrible resource, because its an abstract, not a concrete, material thing) that it may as well have not existed. If I could have spent some of that in some way it would have been better.

 

- Too many Dragons.

 

Well, it is DRAGON Age. Dragons are to be expected. I'm just surprised that they never really feature into the main plot, given the title.

 

 

- And the worst of all: the after Epilouge Solas Cutscene. The Cutscene itself wasnt that bad. It would have been an awesome Cliffhanger if you planned to explain it in Dragon Age 4. But no, you had to make a DLC out of it ln which you only told us a tiny bit and instead you raise even more Questions … for 15 Bucks.

 

I really feel like Bioware are in a no-win situation here. If they make a DLC which features important plot points, people complain that they have to buy it to find out what happens (duh!) and feel like its existence somehow diminishes the story of the main game (it doesn't). But if the DLC has no important plot points, then those who buy it feel cheated, as nothing that happened mattered. There is no point in releasing DLC and making it completely skip-able.

 

And Trespasser was good. It had puzzles, choices, diverse and never before seen environments, and interesting and tense story and important plot and lore developments.

 

Inquisition didn't have a cliffhanger ending, it had an ending and then a post-credits sting, like, say, Marvel movies. It set up the DLC and next game well. Corypheus, the big threat, is killed, the breach is sealed, a new Divine is elected. That is, to me, a good resolution - not every dangling thread needs to be tied up.

 

I think you could have avoided Trespasser and not be completely lost when DA4 comes around. It's important, and good, but not absolutely vital to understanding what happens.

[thats1evildude]

I really feel like Bioware are in a no-win situation here. If they make a DLC which features important plot points, people complain that they have to buy it to find out what happens (duh!) and feel like its existence somehow diminishes the story of the main game (it doesn't). But if the DLC has no important plot points, then those who buy it feel cheated, as nothing that happened mattered. There is no point in releasing DLC and making it completely skip-able.

And Trespasser was good. It had puzzles, choices, diverse and never before seen environments, and interesting and tense story and important plot and lore developments.

Inquisition didn't have a cliffhanger ending, it had an ending and then a post-credits sting, like, say, Marvel movies. It set up the DLC and next game well. Corypheus, the big threat, is killed, the breach is sealed, a new Divine is elected. That is, to me, a good resolution - not every dangling thread needs to be tied up.

I think you could have avoided Trespasser and not be completely lost when DA4 comes around. It's important, and good, but not absolutely vital to understanding what happens.

That's exactly the situation. When Jaws of Hakkon came out, fans complained that it was "just another area" and didn't impact the main story or resolve hanging plot threads.

After the release of Trespasser, fans complained they had to pay extra to see the "real ending" to Dragon Age: Inquisition.

[dragonagenewbie]

The bad

- the War Table. This whole „wait for XX Minutes to get ingame bonuses “ is a bad idea. It felt like i was playing a f*cking browsergame. My Suggestion: remove the waiting and replace it with using Ressources. So instead of waiting XX Minutes you would need XX Ressources A, YY Ressources B, ... and then the Mission is completed instantly.

 

 

What is the theme of most of the war table missions? politics, spycraft and military planning.  I don't think it makes sense that it takes 30 elfroot and 30 iron (unless you meant some other kind of resources which isnt in game yet) to complete a mission where your advisors mediate peace talks between two factions, or that you have to scout or assassinate somebody or that you have to send troops to march through a town.  Those war tables missions are supposed to signify your people traveling to a faraway location to do something and then come back. Are you able to instantly clear out the Hinterlands or any other zone with you and your party? no that takes a while doesnt it?  when you were sent out to talk to Mother Giselle or to go to Redcliffe village to talk to the mages that took you a few minutes to do too didnt it?  that's what war table missions are...its all just done "on paper" or whatever you want to call it.  Now an argument could possibly be made for war table missions that reward loot.  But why have a war table that allows you to trade cloth and metal instantly for a weapon or a suit of armor when you have crafting tables where you can turn materials instantly into weapons or armor. 

[Obsidian Gryphon]

I think most people would want some realism as events played out; a time counter, seasonal changes, change of raiment according to season, weather and environment conditions, group dynamics. 

[Tidus]

Obsidian,I agree..Skyhold is surrounded by snow covered mountains yet inside  Skyhold its summer time even though its at a high elevation.

 

Must be Skyhold's magicks keeping it nice and sunny?

 

 

As far as the war table I like it since it gives a wider picture of what is going on and in some cases it opens new territory. I know the Hinterlands requires several return trips during the game.

[Obsidian Gryphon]

^ *sigh*

 

The beginning of the game seemed to indicate the onset of autumn / winter; hence, the need to find food, warm clothing, though none of the people in the Hinterlands were huddling around campfires. They were walking / standing around as they pleased. That's a time notch. As the game moved along, there should be other signs of the passage of time.

 

The party travel across Ferelden, Orleis. Even if changes in season cannot be created, then a mention of festivities (the ME team did this with the asari festival in ME). If people cannot celebrate openly, perhaps there're offerings / gifts / greetings to be made to each other. Or even lamentations that it cannot be done; the gifts of spring, of planting, of plentiful harvests, the gift of the Maker to mark a certain day in summer, or autumn, whatever. Since most of Thedas (humans) is Andrastian, the observations would be close / similar. If not the people at those regions, then the people at Skyhold.

 

Scout Harding could even indicate it in her report; the onset of spring has seen the melting of deep snows, watch out for landslides and broken bridges, etc, etc. Even companions could say something. A word about an annual celebration cannot be held; lack of faith? Or to bolster faith / confidence, all the more to remember the day. Or reminiscence of past celebrations.  It may not even be Andrastrian. It could be some old holdover from ancient times. Heck, it could even be a name day (birthday). Little notations like these add to ambience, mark the passage of time, immersion with the game world.

[ThatsCk]

I don't think so. DA2 combat was quite close to DAO combat in many ways (albeit a lot more faster paced), but it had the same general principles. At least it still had the full ability bar with 9 hotkeys instead of the limited number of abilities you can have mapped in DAI. 

I hated this fast paced Combat. It was too fast for me. But i agree, removing those hotkeys was bad. 

 

 

Nah, it was the worst BW story so far. No real motivation for the main villain, he just went mwhahaha and he was evil and we had to stop him. If not for Solas, this game would've sorely lacked an interesting villain character. Also, the game and the story could've benefitted so much from more Corypheus-Calpernia/Samson (especially Calpernia) scenes like the Loghain-Howe scenes in DAO.

The Story about Cory was indeed pretty lame. Because you didnt really learn more about him and his past (he only repeated the things he said in DA2).But what i meant was learning more about Ferelden, Orlais, the fate of the gray wardens, the veil, the Story about Thedas

 

The good:
-The side missions were...extensive, but a lot of the "supplemental" storylines associated with the various areas (the war, and bandits, etc, in the Hinterlands, the flood in Crestwood, etc) were honestly pretty strong. Some of the stuff was pointless, but generally I enjoyed the expansive feeling. On the same note, exploration in general was a lot of fun. Finding little secret spots and other out-of-the-way places kept me entertained.
-Companion cast is great. Well, except for Vivienne, anyway. Their portrayal is entertaining and feels natural.

 

..

..

 

-The War Table was a neat idea in concept, but lacked in execution. I think it would've been better as said in the first post: spend Power for instant completion, since there's so much extra Power to go around anyway.
-Crafting also was a big step up from the previous two entries in the series. It still needed work, though. I didn't like how appearance and stats were tied together.

Exactly my thoughts

 

I have to say, of the many community and fandom reviews I've read about DAI, yours is the first to put the high dragons in the "bad" category.

I only put it in the "bad" category, because for me dragons should be strong Endgame Bosses that drop either Equip with really high stats or material to make this Equip. Like the High Dragon in DA:O which dropped dragonscales for the strongest Armor ingame. The Dragons in Inquisition only dropped sh*t. 

 

 

Main story had a ridiculous start (a green glowing hand that makes you an instant super hero, revered by the whole world); horrible and disconnected pace throughout the whole game and the main game ending was rushed, uninspiring and boring.

Main game's main villain was a "cartoonish Muahahahaha!!!! evil guy" who, by the end of the game, was just a bad joke.

The glowing Hand making you a superhero was a pretty cheap way to give you power, yeah. I personally liked Cory. But Bioware just wasted his potential. I guess we see more of the Tevinter Magisters and maybe Corys Backstory in DA4.

 

 

I really feel like Bioware are in a no-win situation here. If they make a DLC which features important plot points, people complain that they have to buy it to find out what happens (duh!) and feel like its existence somehow diminishes the story of the main game (it doesn't). But if the DLC has no important plot points, then those who buy it feel cheated, as nothing that happened mattered. There is no point in releasing DLC and making it completely skip-able.

I like DLCs that include extra sidestorys if they are well written and match the story. ME2's Lair of the Shadow Broker was simply awesome. It continued the Story of the Shadow Broker who was a side Character in ME 1 and 2. Even Omega for ME3 was how a DLC should be. They just gave you extra Information and were not nessecary for the main plot. But Trespassers felt like the true Ending you wanted in DA:I, because it explained what happened after the Inquisitor "did his/her things".

[Gervaise]

I enjoyed DAI but there are aspects that annoyed me, many of which have already been covered.    I was disappointed with the combat system and hated the tactical camera.  Why couldn't we just go back to the system in DAO?   I also was disappointed that the mage schools were even more reduced from DAO than the ones in DA2 were and we could now only have one specialism, with a paltry choice of 3 for each class.  Several spells that were previously available generally were now folded into being a specialism.     Why can't we return to a system where non-mages at least are able to have two different weapon slots and able to switch between ranged and melee weapons mid battle?    At least in DA2, with only one weapon slot, you were able to still swap out the weapon if you confronted an enemy and found you had the wrong one to hand.    Now this was impossible, so you did find yourself restricted to just one type of weapon.   Why did I end up so often with my dual wielding rogue just slashing at thin air?    It so infuriated me that I gave up on that weapon style, that was formerly my favourite.    No person trains in just one type of weapon.  You specialise in one type of weapon.

 

The main problem with the plot is that according to the ex-Lead writer it was a game where only half the story has been told.   This has left it with this odd feel to it of unfinished business.   What Trespasser revealed is that both the PC and the main antagonist in DAI were only filling those roles because they hit lucky.    It was basically someone else's plot gone wrong.   It was an interesting twist having the actual antagonist wandering around with you the whole time, so you were actually working to their agenda, not your own, but it smacked too much of a TV series to leave the resolution up in the air like that.    It wouldn't be so bad if they were working to the 2 year gap between games, as they did with DAO and DA2 (and even then they had DAA in between)  and even DAI (the extra year was because they couldn't complete it in the time scale) but we are over 18 months since the release of the main game and we don't even know when the next game will be.  

 

There is also the fact that based off the original reveal in 2013, the game we got is not the one intended.    We were meant to be able to customise keeps but in the end we didn't.  That would in turn impact on the way the Inquisition was perceived: warlords, espionage or diplomats.  This instead was determined by the War Table but considering sometimes a certain advisor had to be chosen for an optimal outcome, I'm still not clear how that worked.  Where it didn't seem to matter very often I simply chose who happened to be free because otherwise I got such a back log of uncompleted missions.  We were told our decisions could have a very severe impact on the world - such as whether you sacrifice the villagers of Crestwood in order to preserve your soldiers and the Keep.   This never happened.    The resource gathering would have been less annoying if the upgrades it allowed had made any impact on the outcome of the game.   If failing to upgrade Skyhold properly had resulted in companions dying (like ME2) then you'd really feel that searching for that elusive bit of elfroot or whatever was worthwhile.    For that, of course, you actually needed the final battle to take place at Skyhold.     I also find it annoying that at least one area was in permanent darkness, whilst everywhere else was everlasting day.    We had a 24 hour cycle back with the Baldurs Gate series, so why is that so difficult now?

 

With regard to the fact that the PC is accepted so quickly, that was another thing that seemed to have changed from the original concept.   Remember Cassandra pointing a sword to your throat and saying "you are the only threat I see"?   That seemed to suggest a great deal more mistrust of you than actually shown.   Even now, I'm still am not sure exactly what the anchor was in relation to the orb?   What was Corypheus holding that was knocked out of his hand and came to you?    Did the orb split in two?   Since no one knew, up until Haven, who had caused the explosion, why was you being able to open and close rifts seen as a reason to trust you?   That seemed rather too closely allied to what had occurred in the explosion (someone opening a big rift) and you walking out of the Fade (something that does not commonly occur).   

 

That all links into my biggest annoyance.   The way the whole Herald of Andraste thing was handled.   Having delved into the lore a bit more after first playing the game, I understand why the common people might thing you were, because of the prophesy of Drakon, so they thought you were the Herald who was sent to prepare the way for Andraste and the Maker's return at the end of the world.    At the beginning the Chantry were quite correctly identifying you as a false prophet and your organisation as a bunch of heretics.    It was never adequately explained why this view changed, apart from diplomacy (what has that got to do with core religious beliefs?) and the fact that the big bad was revealed as an Ancient Magister who had once assaulted the Golden City and was intending to attempt to make a repeat visit.   Also the reason you got away with it was that there was no Divine to make a final judgement on the matter.     However, it was subsequently revealed that your anchor had nothing to do with Andraste at all.   It came to you by fortunate accident.    By a use of mental gymnastics the members of the Inquisition who were said to be Chantry believers managed to explain this away by "the Maker moves in mysterious ways" and "we don't want to upset morale by revealing the truth".  Both these ideas were in fact heretical.   According the Chantry belief the Maker doesn't move at all but it is categorically stated in the Chant that the Maker doesn't approve of people who lie and work to deceive others.    He will judge their lies.   If the Maker feels you are a sinner when you die, then you are doomed to wander forever as a restless spirit.   So to make a false claim to be a prophet of the Maker or for others to encourage you to persist in such a guise is a crime against the Maker.  Essentially those involved in the deception are imperilling their own souls and that of the PC.    Yet as Morrigan points out in the Arbor Wilds it seems likely the name that is being invoked in battle is not that of the Maker or Andraste but the PC.    When the new Divine (who can only be one of these heretics) is appointed she gives her approval to the Inquisition but no mention  is made about the title of Herald.   Of course they all know it is false. Besides which one of those Divines can potentially be a mage in defiance of all previous Chantry belief about magic and another promptly starts making wholesale changes to core Chantry doctrine, making you wonder how she ever got voted in.   Yet challenges that are made to these Divines are easily put down, with either violence or just talking nicely to people.  What should have happened in these cases was a complete rift in the Chantry itself or the very least some sort of revolt of the common people, led by self serving nobility who feel threatened by the changes..    If you are going to make religious faith an important part of the plotline, at least be consistent with the in game religious faith that is being depicted.   Otherwise it is just not believable.

[congokong]

The good:

 

- Entertaining gameplay

- Simplified gameplay mechanics (for me, this was preferable)

- Some well developed romances

- Having a mage/templar path

 

The bad:

 

- The open world dynamic was often tedious

- Terrible sidequests

- A near lack of role-playing; no longer being able to be anything from a saint to a psychopath like you could in DA:O

- Some unfulfilling romances; specifically because they lacked content (Josephine, Cassandra, and Solas)

- Those damn shards!

[congokong]

On top of it and when I though that DAI was just a sad reflection of how the industry of AAA video games had become, few months later comes an amazing, superbly executed game, made by a much smaller company that made DAI look even worse. 

 

Shot in the dark here. Are you talking about The Witcher 3? I keep hearing it compared to DA:I, generally as far superior, and looked into it a while back yet was put off by it. I don't know it would be my type of game. Why is it so great? Can it be compared to anything else?

[Qis]

Well, it is DRAGON Age. Dragons are to be expected. I'm just surprised that they never really feature into the main plot, given the title.

 

Yes, that is my question since the beginning...at least in DA:O, The Archdemon is a dragon, so we can relate, and there are other dragons as well.

 

Funnily though, Skyrim main plot is about dragons, even though the title have nothing to do with it.

[CoM Solaufein]

Cory being all show and no go was the biggest let down for me. I fought darkspawn who gave me more problems than he did.