Dragon Age: Inquisition

cal_el wrote:takes the best of.....DAII 

 
There were some best bits about DAII? Fuck me, Bioware sure as shit hid them 

A couple of things that seem to a common theme in the reviews I've read so far are of a concern to me.

Firstly, the apparent lack of difficulty which thankfully will be negated by differing difficulty options but given that a few of the reviews are also mentioning the lack of under the hood RPG complexities and limited tactics options I have to wonder how well the game will be balanced for higher difficulties. I'm one of those that likes to get under the hood and micromanage literally everything in RPG's and want full control when setting the AI behaviours of my party members and it seems that this element of the game has been dumbed down. I really hope that's not the case.

Interestingly, the Eurogamer review points out quite a lot of negatives about the game and actually reads like a 6/10 game yet they slap an 8 on it .

That said, I'll reserve judgement until I play it, after all, perhaps I'm just looking for faults as for some reason* I just haven't been able to get excited about the game. I also can't shift the feeling that this will be another Mass Effect, in that Bioware seem completely incapable of bettering the first game in the franchise.

*read the existence of DAII

DAII had a fair bit going for it. 

It had one of the best casts of characters in a Bioware game this side of Baldur's Gate II. I felt close to the characters around Hawke and even actively disliked a couple of them (I'm looking at you Fenris you emo bastard!) which all down to who those characters are. 

The story was reasonably complex if you took the time to dig into the nitty gritty of it. It also really added to the backstabbing and political side of the DA Lore. The choices also felt like they had a lot of impact, particularly the big ones. As a result I am really interested to see how those choices manifest in DA:I. In my world I let Anders go so I am expecting him to pop up at some point and hopefully be sorry for his horrendous actions. Even the presentation of the story was done well with it all being from Varric's point of view and him adding the odd embellishment from time to time. It was a simple but brilliant idea that wrapped the game up nicely for me.

Even Kirkwall was an interesting city, it was just so badly realised in the game due to the forced need to reuse the same 12 or so maps for everything. Limiting the game to one city gave the story focus but sadly brought the problems inherent in many games to the forefront. Doing the same stuff in the same area with little variety repeatedly gets boring fast.

I also enjoyed the combat for what it was, a simple button smasher if you wanted it to be or a good system of being super prepared for all fights with the if -> then command set for the AI. It got a bit samey, especially towards the end, but I enjoyed it a lot. 

It wasn't one of the best games ever made but I have played a lot of games that are far worse than Dragon Age II.

I'll wait to see what you lot think, but the only Bioware game I have really liked is the first Mass Effect so I'm not that hopeful really.
I never tried DAII after its horrible reception, but did they essentially 'Mass Effect 2 it'? Or worse? Because somehow people loved ME2!

Moozo wrote:I'll wait to see what you lot think, but the only Bioware game I have really liked is the first Mass Effect so I'm not that hopeful really.
I never tried DAII after its horrible reception, but did they essentially 'Mass Effect 2 it'? Or worse? Because somehow people loved ME2!

IMO Mass Effect 2 is the best game Bioware have ever made 

DAII was more of a victim of EA wanting Bioware to release a game every year no matter what. It was incredibly rushed and it does show despite all the good stuff in there. Since DAII EA have let Bioware be more automatous again. As a result DA:I has had a nice long development cycle that has allowed the team to make the game they want and then expand upon it. Which is a rare thing to see these days.

OH! Also Dragon Age: The Last Court is now available in Dragon Age: Keep,


It's a rather good choose your own adventure thing from the makers of Fallen London (if anyone apart from me has played that!) and built with the Storynexus engine. It is being pushed as a prologue to DA:I and so far I am enjoying it. Some familiar faces have popped up and because it is set in Orlais there is a lot of trickery and intrigue

There is a grinding aspect to it that will see you repeating the same actions again and again but that's how these types of games work these days. Still, once you get into the swing of things you quickly learn how to identify which actions you can just skim over and which need a good reading and a measured approach. 

It has occasionally told me it has added things to Dragon Age: Keep so I'm guessing this will also be added to my world state for Inquisition next week

9 Days to go!

cal_el wrote:DAII had a fair bit going for it...........

I'll have to respectfully disagree with pretty much all of the points you raise and could offer more thoughts in my counter opinion, however, we did this discussion to death on the old forum so there would be little to gain in refreshing that on this board. We'll just have to agree to disagree

PorcusHawk wrote:

cal_el wrote:DAII had a fair bit going for it...........

I'll have to respectfully disagree with pretty much all of the points you raise and could offer more thoughts in my counter opinion, however, we did this discussion to death on the old forum so there would be little to gain in refreshing that on this board. We'll just have to agree to disagree

Games are a subjective thing, one man's crap is another man's gold.*

*but you're wrong

I think I am going to get DA I ... to that end I am currently updating my harddrive as I dont have the room for a single other game and I mean even a game with as small an install as like 6 gigs.

I know most of this is off-topic but it's a great discussion!


@Moozo: You can't trust anything Cal or TPM say if you want an honest opinion! 

Here's why...

Cal bums BioWare too hard and they can't do anything wrong!! OK, slight exaggeration as he does recognise the flaws with DA2 but still talks about the flaws in a way that makes it sound like they're slightly iffy features rather than accepting they're quite big fuck ups.

OK maybe TPM is honest but brutally so!! He couldn't be more opposite to Cal. If a game has a slight issue he will despise the game and developer forever more and condemn them to hell! Usually with a few more swear words than that for good measure! 


For what it's worth, here's my order of quality for BioWare games I've played.

Mass Effect
Dragon Age: Origins
Mass Effect 2
Dragon Age 2
Mass Effect 3

I think ME2 is a great game. However, it lost the 'dark' element and intrigue I felt the first game had. The series really could have a gone in a better direction. I found parts of ME1 to be very creepy and driving the Mako over planets was INFINITELY more interesting than planet scanning to just name a few things I prefer.

Yes, DA2 is pretty much inferior to DAO in every way. I still enjoyed it but when compared it was turd really.

Back on topic...

I'm going to wait to get DAI. I really want it but am too deep into Destiny still and have GTAV coming too. I might as well save money and then get the game when I can give it the time it deserves if the reviews are anything to go by.

I do totally agree with TPM in that the Eurogamer review nearly put me off entirely. The info about the game (which is what I read reviews for) really does betray the score they gave it.

Played this for a fair few hours on Xbox One and here is just some of my initial impressions so far.

The game controls work really well on the control pad. The story appears to be a bit well lack lustre tbh. The main story point of the game as far as I can tell is to repair these tears that have opened up. There letting demons in you see. Also you need to save a high preistess or something as well as clear your name blah blah.

The voice acting is goodish, the scenary is nicely varied, the gameplay is solid but a bit generic. Pretty much standard fair for rpgs. However, there is a tactical mode to the fighting where by you can pause the game and command your troops to do battle then play the game and watch the after math. This is ok but I prefer to be in the action.

On X1 the game looks pretty terrible graphically, I was expecting alot more. It didnt even look like a 360 game in terms of presentation. The Witcher this is not.

Im guessing the story opens up much much more with extra side shoots of story so Im hopeful about it on this front as Bioware have never let me down before.

I only played around 4 out of the 6 hours and tbh I didnt want to continue on the X1 as it was putting me off. Oh yeah the voice controls sucks too.

Im hoping the PS4 version is better. I also hope the story gets better. This is not an immediate purchase for me, Ill be waiting for the bargain bucket. I hope The Witcher gives me the RPG fix I need and I suspect it will.

MarkySharky wrote:Cal bums BioWare too hard and they can't do anything wrong!! OK, slight exaggeration as he does recognise the flaws with DA2 but still talks about the flaws in a way that makes it sound like they're slightly iffy features rather than accepting they're quite big fuck ups.

This is all true. Bioware are my favourite game dev so I can look past a lot of bad decisions on their part because the core of the games they make is always AWESOME!

lol I agree on the whole.

MarkySharky wrote:OK maybe TPM is honest but brutally so!! He couldn't be more opposite to Cal. If a game has a slight issue he will despise the game and developer forever more and condemn them to hell! Usually with a few more swear words than that for good measure! 

I think I may have found my new signature

Haha glad to help!

I wrote a lengthy and somewhat rambley thing about Dragon Age over on my website. Go check it out if you're interested: http://langstrothgamedesign.co.uk/2014/11/17/preparing-for-dragon-age-inquisition/

Arrived this morning and I've put a couple of hours* at most into this so far and I'd have to say that initially it's quite disappointing. I will stress that it is far too early to really form any in-depth opinion so feel free to ignore any thoughts.

*in that I've only just done the prologue and had a brief look at the opening hub area beyond that.

The first major disappointment came when I first levelled up my character, Bioware have for some bizarre fucking reason removed the opportunity for you to add attribute points as you see fit. It's all auto level-up now, no doubt inspired by the 'casual' fucktards that were encouraged into the series by DAII (and who likely spent the whole game auto-levelling). Seriously, WTF Bioware? Why are we not allowed to build characters as we'd like? If I want to add strength (as an example) to my rogue so as to cross-build my class, I'm fucked. Thankfully we still have the option to use ability points as we see fit, but big fucking wow, and I fully expect that to be stripped away in any future game.

The next example of Bioware's continued insistence on dumbing shit down was when I first opened the AI tactics screen (something I was dreading doing after reading some reviews). Those AI tactics, which many of us loved tweaking in Origins and to a lesser extent in DAII (IIRC) have been butchered beyond recognition and taken to the lowest common denominator. It's not even worth bothering with, seeing as there are now so few options to set for your AI.

Strangely enough, whilst the under the hood stuff has been dumbed down to match the intelligence of the average CoD player, the tactical camera has gone the other way and is now needlessly convoluted. It may just be a case of adapting (I fucking hope so) but at the moment it's nowhere near as user-friendly as it was in the previous games, yes, even DAII.

As a result, something about the combat just feels seriously off but again, I'm hopeful that it is just a case of getting used to it again.

There are some positives. Equipment customisation looks to have been expanded beyond the previous games and may have a lot of depth to it. The game looks half decent (barring the occasional shudder) and the lore is as interesting as it's always been. I've also not got very far at all but it appears that's there's going to be a shit-load to do in the game. Whether it's actually going to be fun to do that aforementioned shit is another matter entirely.

I'm sure some of those that refuse to hear anything negative about Bioware's output will offer some defense for the complete dumbing down of the under-the-hood stuff but I ain't buying it and there's no fucking excuse for it.


EDIT: Spent a little time on the multiplayer  and actually enjoyed it. It's very similar to the multiplayer in Mass Effect 3 (which I ended up loving) so it's probably not too much of a surprise that I enjoyed the little I played of this. Obviously, playing with randoms isn't the best so maybe we can organise an evening or two for a forum session in the future.

EDIT 2: Played a couple more hours this evening and whilst the previously mentioned things are still annoying me, there is a lot to like about the game. Made a start on exploring the first proper open-world area and I'm actually a little overwhelmed with stuff to crack on with, there's also a lot of depth to the game and I'm still finding my feet with some on the underlying aspects, things like the war table, weapon/EQ customisation etc. The combat is falling into place and is a nice mix of Origins and DAII, helped by the fact that it's not quite got the stupidly ludicrous pace of DAII's combat, even beginning getting to get accustomed to the tactical camera. It appears that Bioware may have actually gotten this one right.

Not allowing the player to assign attribute points is annoying but it is pretty much the standard for RPGs these days 

Given the overly negative post I made above I felt that I did a great disservice to Bioware, for those that don't follow me on twitter it's worth pointing out that I'm now loving the shit out of this game.

The wealth of content that Bioware have packed in is mind-blowing, I'm only around 12-14hrs in (most of which was spent in The Hinterlands) but I've now temporarily moved on and started exploring other areas and I'm completely overwhelmed with stuff to do. It seems that every time I complete a mission I end up opening up more and my current to-do list is 36 missions, I wouldn't be surprised to see that hit 50+ some time soon. The sheer depth of equipment upgrades and customisation is also a little overwhelming, never a bad thing.

I've still hardly touched the main campaign so I look forward to seeing what else opens up in due course.

Another surprise is just how much time I've spent in the multiplayer (and the reason why I've only spent 12-14rs in the solo) and it's quite possible that I've spent an equal, if not more time, in that mode. Finally got a decent party together last night and completed an Operation for the first time, embarrassing that it took this long but the final stage of each Operation can be nasty if you don't work together but get a decent crew together and it can be a blast.

tl;dr Bioware have done good

WOOP! Hopefully I will be able to get started on Monday night

After the disappointment of finally opening my Collector's Edition and finding half the contents broken  
(don't worry I am already on the case with GameStop UK about getting a replacement or a refund!) I finally started playing the game.

I've only played the opening (after 30mins or so of making my Qunari Mage look just right!) and I am very impressed. The game looks and runs great and the changes they've made to the core mechanics are both understandable and give you the best of Origins and DA:II. The new tactical cam takes some getting used to but I am digging it a lot.

There is also a lot of nice looking particle and lighting effects constantly appearing on the screen which helps the world feel more alive. There is also a fair amount of dynamic effects which is always cool to see in a game. 

The only minor annoyance I have is that during conversations and some cutscenes the camera feels like it is too far forward. Like I am not seeing the whole image. I think I need to have a fiddle with the game, my PS4 and my TV's display settings because it just seems….off somehow.

Sunk about 10 hours into this now and I am loving it

The only problem is that the game is littered with minor bugs, particularly graphical ones. I also keep getting this sound bug where combat SFX stops playing if you open and close the tactical view quickly. (Pausing and un-pausing the game fixes the issue but it is annoying when it happens) Also the controller layout is a bit of a mess on the PS4 version, in particular for the game's menus. (NO D-PAD NAVIGATION!!!) 

The other main controller issue is that they have not used the PS4 touch pad well at all. So many devs fail to use the left side and right side presses on it! It would be perfect to have the left side press quickly open and close the Quest Map and the right side press switch to the tactical view. 

Currently I keep pressing the touch pad to bring up the map because that is how every other game on PS4 deals with maps. I know there is only the two step process of pausing then selecting it but my brain knows the should be a quicker way to open it

EDIT: Also who's bright idea was it to make jump and interact with people/objects the same damn button!

cal_el wrote:Currently I keep pressing the touch pad to bring up the map because that is how every other game on PS4 deals with maps. I know there is only the two step process of pausing then selecting it but my brain knows the should be a quicker way to open it

Left on the d-pad 

Don't worry, it ONLY took me around 20hrs to (accidentally) figure this out 

PorcusHawk wrote:

cal_el wrote:Currently I keep pressing the touch pad to bring up the map because that is how every other game on PS4 deals with maps. I know there is only the two step process of pausing then selecting it but my brain knows the should be a quicker way to open it

Left on the d-pad 

Don't worry, it ONLY took me around 20hrs to (accidentally) figure this out 

AWesome

but,

WHY THE HELL IS THIS NOT TOLD TO YOU????!!!!

So tempted to pick up digital copy on Xbox One for £32.99...

MarkySharky wrote:So tempted to pick up digital copy on Xbox One for £32.99...

May as well wait until it hits that price on PS4, whenever that is. Purely selfish reasons because *I'm always on the lookout for competent multiplayer companions*.

* I bet that's a sentence no-one on here would ever imagine me typing

Haha I did think about that!