Nobody expects the Dragon Age Inquisition

[Twig]

+1 for the combat getting better when you get deeper in, but it's pretty far in (like halfway).

Anyone else super hot and cold with this game? I have sessions where I feel like "wow this is the best game ever!" ...And other sessions that feel like I just did five loads of laundry and cleaned out the garage.

Yes. Very much yes. That's pretty much why I'm taking a break. Normally I'll put up with crashing in a video game if I really like it (although of course I'll still complain!), but with this game I'm just like get me out of here. I'll come back when it's better...

 

There was a recent patch that allegedly fixed a lot of things, but there was no mention of the nVidia driver crash, sooooooooooooo blech.

[Dr Wookie]

+1 for the combat getting better when you get deeper in, but it's pretty far in (like halfway).

Anyone else super hot and cold with this game? I have sessions where I feel like "wow this is the best game ever!" ...And other sessions that feel like I just did five loads of laundry and cleaned out the garage.

I'm definitely hot and cold, and I don't think I'm far in despite putting in over 35 hrs... I'm at the point where I'm working towards my specialization (I'm some whay through level 12). As far as I understand it, a decision you make ~10-15 hours into the game has a huge effect on how the later game plays out... different missions, bosses etc. and one way could be significantly better than the other.

 

I was a lot happier before the big choice and immediate consequence because the war map was a lot emptier and seemed more managable. Now, every time I clear a bunch of stuff, a whole load more comes on. And the area maps are chock full of icons.

 

I think the various artists have done a fantastic job, but I'm just not enjoying the game as much as I hoped. It's pretty good in shortish bursts, which is a shame because I was up till gone 1 am on a work night doing the first really big thing... that enthusiasm is just gone.

 

@Twig: yesterday's play session after the update didn't crash once, which may indicate some improvement in the nvidia drivers. There's a new game experience as well which reset my DA optimisation choices.

[Brannigan]

I never had an nvidia related crash, so obviously I'm way cooler

[prettyunsmart]

Yup that's me. I really enjoyed it when I played it, but looking back the whole thing felt like busy work. I don't think it's a very good game. But I played it a lot and had fun. I dunno, it's weird.

A common criticism, but I felt like the story was instantly forgettable. I honestly don't remember the ending, nor the motivations of the bad guy. ThE character was ok. Some were more of a miss than a hit (fucking Sera was annoying) and some felt like their side story was irrelevant. Iron Bull's felt anti climactic

I help him leave the spies he worked for but nothing changed as a result. He left...ok. He barely even cared. I was expecting it to be a big deal he was no longer part of the Qun, but he just kinda shrugged.

I ended up feeling how you felt about Bull's side story with pretty much everyone. Just as I thought they were going somewhere, they just hit a dead end. It just left me wishing that Bioware would make a game with smaller stakes that tried to mostly focus on character interactions rather than saving the world. I think someone on the Bombcast, years ago, posing the idea of a Star Trek: The Next Generation style Mass Effect game that's mostly about the crew of the ship solving small scale problems and getting to know each other over time. Man, I really want that kind of game.

[Twig]

@Twig: yesterday's play session after the update didn't crash once, which may indicate some improvement in the nvidia drivers. There's a new game experience as well which reset my DA optimisation choices.

Hm maybe I'll try getting back into it this weekend, then. I read a proposed solution to turn post-processing down, so if it crashes still I'll try that. And then if it crashes again I dunno I'll like cry or whatever.

[Griddlelol]

Yeah that would be better. When dragon age starts off with "the pope is dead!" I had a little hope, but it quickly went to a "the world is going to end!"

A TNG style Mass Effect would be my GOAT. The way I would design it, is the player character as pretty much Worf. Someone who is important for combat, because games can't be without it, but most importantly, he is almost a fish out of water, plus he's a relatively middle level officer who is surrounded by higher ranking people with great personalities.

I'm tired of games where I am the leader. I want to play a game where I'm just a lieutenant who has a little bit of influence, but not the grand chosen one, or the captain. That's someone else, I'm just tagging along on their story. Man, I really want that game.

[Bjorn]

I'd play that.  When the hero has to go to some big meeting about the end of the world, and listen to a bunch of people drone on, you just get to go run around and get into some shenanigans until the hero needs you to kick a door down or blow up an asteroid or something. 

[Valorian Endymion]

....A lot of orlesian men dress like they're cosplaying Katamari.

 

That is the most accurate description of orlesian design XD there is that npc in Skyhold which I believe might have current winner.

 

 

+1 for the combat getting better when you get deeper in, but it's pretty far in (like halfway).

Anyone else super hot and cold with this game? I have sessions where I feel like "wow this is the best game ever!" ...And other sessions that feel like I just did five loads of laundry and cleaned out the garage.

 

Overall hots moments got the large advantage, but there is few cold moments there and there:

 

- One thing I can´t avoid to notice, is how easy sometimes you can finish a quest even before you know what is going on:

On Exalted Plains you end up freeing all ramparts and doing the rituals even before you can meet the npc which give you the quest, so you have no idea what are you really doing. To be fair, to meet him before free the ramparts is very difficult, since he is thrown in side of the map, even the main enemy of the quest you end killing before you talk to the npc. In my current play, I free all the ramparts and kill the enemy wizards and only them I talked to the npc.

 

You got the collect shards, but not idea why, its very easy so forget the mission on war table, so you keep getting stuff without even know why.

 

I keep finding the Sola´s Artifact without he even say anything or I even know what is.

 

Requistions might require stuff that you don´t know if its valuable or not, I mean, I sold some malachite only to figure I would need it, but now I am no idea where to find more... meanwhile I have lots of other valuable which I don´t know what I should do it.

 

- Sometimes the game tell you the average level for a area, sometimes not - its a bit annoying, because you have places like Hinterlands, where they expect you to came back later while other areas could be done in a single run. Since is not really clearly how level difference works, because you can defeat enemy higher than you, other times not, you can get struck without know much you need to grind.

Hinterlands dragon is level 12, very hard for my 14 level party, but some dragonlings around are level 14, but are very easy to defeat.

 

The elven temple mission (that one close to orlais capital) have a last boss which is 2 levels higher that average monsters there.You can finish the whole mission, only to figure you can´t beat him. Also why they don´t at least allow a npc to refill your potions? its strange going back to Orlais and back to the temple to refill potions since it break immersion

 

Some places created some strange lore hype in my mind:

In Crestwood you have the whole story about the people begin lead to the caves and died there - I expect, since there is even a ghost there, to be presented with Bioware style, narrative and description of what happened to them (like they did with the Broodmother arc in Dragon Age Origins in the Deep Roads), specially after finding the dwarven ruins and Darkspawn, but it never happened, I mean you go there close the portal and leave, judge the mayor and that it. I got so confused I end searching everything, to see if I didn´t miss something and even start wondering if there was a bug in my save. But as I checked a wiki I did find out there wasn´t much.

 

I wonder how much Bioware might be struggling itself, since sometimes it appear they wish to do something close to a Visual Novel or story based game, but at the sametimes they want to do a rpg (or fps). It´s a tough spot, the fanbase expect both things, but part of it want both thing at once, while other expect one or another.

[Dr Wookie]

Having been a bit down on the game previously, I had an incredibly enjoyable session this afternoon with momentous stuff and a hard choice to make. Perhaps DAI suffers in the same way that the late game of Divinity Original Sin does in that it gives too much free reign to the player to dictate pacing. I'm loving my assassin skills, having earned them earlier on today.

[Mawd]

I wish there was more of a chance to have a human 'jokey moment' with my companions. The only really option to do that is to choose one of the flirt options but then the entire camp gets all highschool and decides you two are like, totally going to have sex and get married. It just feels weird. So then I feel like I have to be tactical with jokey 'flirty' conversation options so I chose a character who I was fine with my pc romancing. So my female dalish elf is now chatting up Dorian despite the fact that he totally bats for the other team.

 

Sigh the romance options in bioware games have always felt kinda dumb. Except for Mass Effect where it actually felt like after such a long time together some members of the team bond romantically; although it would have been interesting if rather than every character being an option for Shepard, several NPC's formed bonds among themselves or at least talked like they were.

 

Anyway I have most of the problems everyone else has been getting. Not enough indication to what areas are suitable for a level, not exactly much reason to care for certain events, magic feels kinda wimpy in parts.

I wish that I had a menu screen that let me talk to every character I wanted to at Haven without having to find them. It's neat every now and then but gets tiring. I wish conversation heads lit up when there was a new big thing to talk about as well.

Also having to wait 22 hours for an offscreen action to happen is just so duuuuumb. I think with the offscreen gold and gathering missions it'd feel worthwhile doing them if in addition to the measly amount the PC gets the game also mentioned that say the organisation had 100 new potions for everyone else to use or 5000 gold to pay for logistics operations.

 

Tactical camera's way too up in my face.

 

Finally my last gripe is that having no healing magic is just so lame. If Barrier is so important either let me cast it on everyone at once or let me designate it for one person and let it hit the nearest people if they're close by because grouping up everyone for the AOE is painful. 

Besides the potion system just doesn't work that well. There's no way I'm going to go back to camp if I'm halfway through some dwarf ruins, I'd rather just spam barrier and save scum so let me have some wimpy healing magic at the least.

[Gwardinen]

Sigh the romance options in bioware games have always felt kinda dumb. Except for Mass Effect where it actually felt like after such a long time together some members of the team bond romantically; although it would have been interesting if rather than every character being an option for Shepard, several NPC's formed bonds among themselves or at least talked like they were.

 

Actually, didn't this happen with Tali and Garrus in ME3 if you haven't romanced either of them? I'm sure I remember there being reference to the two of them being together.

[Griddlelol]

I really liked the lack of healing magic. The worst part of DA:O was having enemies who could practically one shot you since health was basically a non-resource thanks to healing magic. This meant that you had to play as the party's healer to get through some tough encounters.

They've moved it to a very specific finite resource. I think it works. It's along a similar lines to dark souls. If you're running out, you're either doing something wrong, or you're under levelled. It's a good indication of skill/level requirements, rather than having infinite health to the point that it's no longer a resource. Barrier and guard are both extremely powerful, but unlike HP, can only be useful in combat.

The aoe is awful. Most of the markers are smaller than the effect, leaving you to guess whether things are actually going to be hit or not. Cannot understand why they did that. Just make the marker bigger, or the effect smaller.

[Twig]

Sigh the romance options in bioware games have always felt kinda dumb. Except for Mass Effect where it actually felt like after such a long time together some members of the team bond romantically; although it would have been interesting if rather than every character being an option for Shepard, several NPC's formed bonds among themselves or at least talked like they were.

This actually happens in DA:I, though! Only with

Iron Bull and Dorian

, if you don't romance either of them, as far as I know.

 

Something to keep in mind is that in all three DA games, there's a significant amount of time passing, even if they don't explicitly say in some cases. Like it's obvious in DA2, because they'll say "three years" etc. But DA:O it's just sort of implicit with all the traveling back and forth. DA:I is usually months at a time, when they even bother to say it. They don't have space ships or FTL, so you're technically riding by caravan or horse or whatever from location to location! So even though it seems like there's not much ACTUAL time to bond with your party members, there's a lot of implicit behind the scenes communication? I dunno, it's weird.

 

All that said, I actually agree with you. The romance stuff always feels super awkward to me. After DA:O, I just decided that in future games I'd flirt with everyone, every chance I get, and see where that takes me. It felt more natural to do that in DA2, though. Like, Hawke (as I played her!) felt like the kind of person who might do that. And it was funny, more often than not. But in DA:I, it feels like you get into Serious Romance far quicker than you did in DA2, so it's more... awkward. I might just be reading into things too much. At any rate, I romanced no one in DA2 as a result, but I think I'm approaching Cassandra Romance mode faster than anyone else (which I'm actually okay with, because I like her a lot). I'm definitely not taking it seriously at all, though, as a player, even if the game probably thinks I am.

 

...It'd be really cool if the game actually bothered to detect that I'm just being super flirty with everyone and reacted appropriately. Kind of like how if you consistently pick the nice/sarcastic/angry responses, your character naturally becomes more nice/sarcastic/angry over time. (This was, again, far more noticeable to me in DA2, but I'm assuming it also happens in DA:I?)

 

God all this talk just really really really makes me wish they'd had the time to make DA2 what they wanted it to be. It was SUCH a better game is SO many ways, but its obviously unfinished state really hurt it a lot. ):

 

---

 

In other news, I played a couple hours yesterday and no crash! So maybe they fixed it! (Or I got lucky!) Hurray!

[Bjorn]

Actually, didn't this happen with Tali and Garrus in ME3 if you haven't romanced either of them? I'm sure I remember there being reference to the two of them being together.

 

Yeah, in ME3 you can totally walk in on them trying to figure out how to make out. 

[Mawd]

I'd be super happy with changing conversation options it's something I really want in my RPGs. (I also go super flirty usually although I'm holding back since I don't want to sneeze and accidentally sex someone )

I never played ME3 so I wouldn't know.

As for lack of healing magic I'd still prefer a wimpy spell that healed things to 1/4 health and maybe no more.

I'm not sure if you realised but I wasn't calling all healing magic wimpy, I was calling for a really weak healing spell that wouldn't mean infinite healing at all.

I was on level for the Haven encounter but I'd built my party with my pc as a dps Mage, Solas as a hard support, Cassandra as a tank, and my mistake was taking Iron Bull for these encounters Because he became a huge potion sink which screwed me over.

I'm not sure if I agree with the comment "it's like Dark Souls" honestly. This game isn't exactly wholly designed for that mode of play. I mean with DS most of the time I can avoid being hit so I don't need to use my estus at all (in addition to there being non-replenish-able healing stones anyway). But in DA:I it can end up being too hard to micro everyone away from danger to avoid certain types of party members becoming auto drinking potion sinks.

In some of the extended encounters that's bit more noticeable as you're expected to ride the waves of enemies with fewer chances of respite. I'm not sure how many side quests at the Haven encounter you did but I feel like I should be able to manage it with a not wholly unreasonable party.

Anyway I've just received that dreadful Nvidia crash twice in a row after Haven so I'm not sure how much more I can play right now.

[Twig]

Honestly I really dislike the combat in DA:I. It's way too easy to die very quickly. I mean, maybe I just have low-level equipment? I don't know. I haven't been crafting. That's probably my problem? Crafting requires materials, though, and gathering materials is fucking boring. Bleh.

[Mawd]

Yeah gathering sucks.

I've been playing on hard and I've noticed that I only do 4 base damage to some enemies which is really lame. Plus my staff never seems to do as much dps as advertised anyway.

[Brannigan]

At least on normal you eventually just get strong enough that you rarely need to heal, unless you're fighting a dragon or something.

[Twig]

I am playing on normal! I've tried fighting a dragon like five times as I've leveled up (I think I'm like level 16 or so now) and have yet to kill even one. I usually give it one or two shots and barely get it to half, if that. I also die all the time when not fighting dragons.

 

Also the war table is garbage. Having to wait X hours for some of these operations is real dumb.

 

The more I play this game the worse I think it is. And I wasn't exactly all that high on it to begin with.

[Brannigan]

I didn't pay much mind to the wartable...set missions then checked in whenever I actually went back to skyhold. I didn't fight any dragons till 18-20 I think. Other than them I just rarely was in trouble in any fight. Usually ran cassandra, myself as an archer, mage, and sera or sometimes iron bull

[Mawd]

With the war table just set your pc's system clock forward.

[Griddlelol]

I am playing on normal! I've tried fighting a dragon like five times as I've leveled up (I think I'm like level 16 or so now) and have yet to kill even one. I usually give it one or two shots and barely get it to half, if that. I also die all the time when not fighting dragons.

 

Also the war table is garbage. Having to wait X hours for some of these operations is real dumb.

 

The more I play this game the worse I think it is. And I wasn't exactly all that high on it to begin with.

 

Level 16 you should really have crafted some gear. I'm pretty certain the best gear you can have is crafted. Also, gathering materials is easy, I never once had to farm. You just sort of pick things up as you do wartable stuff and kill things.

[brkl]

Picking up all the crap along your way is part of what makes the game so tedious to play, though.

[Griddlelol]

I guess years of WoW, farming ore made picking up the occasional rock in a game feel completely fine. I just wish I could cancel the animation.

[Twig]

I do all that and still don't have enough for even just four regular party members, let alone the rest of them that I regularly switch through, unless I want to build with the weakest materials, at which point why bother because the random loot I get is on par or better. Unless I'm missing like the super amazing super rare ultra special recipes. I'm pretty fucking thorough, though, so I doubt that's the case.

 

Also, I'm out of elfroot so I can never replenish my regen potions unless I explicitly go farm or do the gather herbs mission, but then they're not doing the other missions. Also! The Gather Materials missions are so short that it's like why do I even bother leaving the wartable. Might as well wait, because by the time I get out to wherever I'm going, I'll kill a few bears or wolves or zombies and oh, the mission's done, time to go pick up my herbs...

 

ALSO! The search ping is terrible. Everyone's just going to be mashing it all the time, so why bother making it an active thing? Just show the shit on the minimap. Nothing of value is lost, and you save the player a bunch of pointless activity. The only time it's even remotely interesting is when you're hunting down bottle of alcohol or whatever.

 

Ugh it's just not good. So many unnecessary problems. Really bad game design. If they really want people to have to ping to search and really want people to have to gather materials like this, they should've made the loot spots far rarer, but also return a proportionally appropriate amount of materials. So you have to bend over like a quarter of the time you do now, but you get four times as many herbs or whatever.

 

AlsoASLSLASOs last night I was running around in an area and found a "Ghoul's Beard" that I could not loot. It just wouldn't let me. I'd never seen it before, so I assume it's rare? And it wouldn't let me have it. Nice. Hopefully it'll show up in one of the areas I haven't visited, yet. Or, actually, I guess I don't really care, since I probably won't ever use it...