Dragon age inquisition

[Zenophilious]

Playing on PC.

 

I'm having a good time with it personally. I played through Origins numerous time and I've only put 15 or so hours into Inquisition, so I'm not ready to draw a comparison just yet. If you're a completionist you may find all the side quests tedious, but there's a lot of freedom in what you can do. I was a bit dubious when I heard the game was open world, but I think it's working out well. As for the controls, the camera control is what makes it awful. Also, you can't make your character walk on a keyboard and mouse which kills some of the more cinematic moments. Switching to a gamepad (what I did) eliminates all the control issues.

Bugger.  I can't resist 100%'ing a game unless it's stupid hard to do.

 

As for a gamepad...not really a problem, since I play Dark Souls and Skyrim on PC  lol  One of the better purchases I made, gaming-wise, recently.

 

I'll have to check it out after I 100% Origins on Steam.  Already beat it on my 360, but that's just not enough.  I need moar.

[Clephas]

tbh, I'm not terribly fond of the battle system either... basically hold down the attack button and click the hot buttons for your attack/defense/active skills as necessary... and Blackwall suspiciously resembles the perfect MMO tank (has access to tons of taunts and can add an extra health bar in battle, as well as the possessing Champion specialty, which lets him prevent enemies from passing him by).  Nonetheless, overall the game is pretty fun (just don't choose Knight Enchanter as a mage... because it'll put you on easy/god mode), fighting a high dragon really feels as hard as it should (think having to constantly order your squishier party members out of the line of fire when it jumps and/or flies around), and there are tons of characters and personalities involved...

 

On the other hand, the environments aren't recyclable and one-path like they were in DAII, there are numerous ways to get yourself killed wandering off the beaten path, and the main antagonist is as ugly and mean as you could want him to be... 

 

I've been playing as a mage (I recently respecced using a certain item you can purchase because I got the Knight Enchanter specialization) and I can tell you that spamming ice-freeze spell and fire explosions can shave most enemies to nothing in no time, on easy mode anyway (I'm not interested in an excessive and inevitably tedious challenge, since the worst of the enemies are still hard even on easy mode).  The mage makes up for this overpowered set of skills by having weak attack damage and using up most of the mana bar with his better skills (though blizzard is awesome for dealing with enemies assaulting from all sides, since it keeps going as long as you have mana... meaning taking lyrium potions can keep it going for as long as you need it).  The warrior has the advantage of being difficult to kill and doing decent damage, but they lack the extreme damage a rogue or a mage can do.  A rogue... has good evasion skills, great damage skills, and is almost as fragile to getting hit as a mage (moreso if you choose to use a dagger setup and have to fight a dragon). 

 

The Knight Enchanter specialization, quite frankly, makes the game immensely boring.  Why?  Because you can just hold down the spirit blade spell button and win any given fight just by pointing your mage in the direction of the nearest enemy.  As long as he is hitting something, a barrier protects his health bar, and if you feel you are cornered you can just use the 3 second invincibility/pass through enemies spell to get yourself away.  Combine that with freeze and immolation spells for long range and you basically have an unstoppable tank and an op dps in one single package. 

 

Edit:  Yes, at first it was really exhilarating being on god mode with KE... but that lasted only until I realized that I wasn't even trying to be strategic anymore, outside of the keeping squishy people out of danger thing.

[BookwormOtaku]

Here's some more proof of how OP Knight Enchanter is:

http://tmi.kotaku.com/i-just-soloed-a-friggin-dragon-1662909653/+jschreier

[Clephas]

Yeah, that's pretty much the way it is.  I'd still be pissed off if they nerfed it (because KE's only advantage is being able to survive being a meat shield while cutting enemies apart with the spirit blade)...  Oh and it also has the only multi-healing skill (KE's focus skill heals the party). 

 

I forgot... they got rid of healing magic, other than Spirit's resurrection skill, the KE's focus skill, and self-heals on Reaver.  To be honest, fighting without healing magic and no KE against a high dragon is... painful.

 

Edit: I tested a few strategies before I just started alternating two mages casting barrier spells on two warriors with shield/sword skillset for guard protection.  Way too much micromanaging there though.  (Solas, Inquisitor-mage before respec, Blackwall, and Cassandra). 

[joehawks12]

i just finished the game finally.  What a ride. my first character was male mage inquisitor, as my dragon age 1 and 2 first characters were male mages, all were goody two shoes in theri own rights, but hawke was humorous and charming, so he wasn't always that good of a guy.  That said, that ending brings to light how everything happened, and why it was happening.  Enjoyable, though i'm disappointed all of my side quests were for naught in the ending, only the important bits were given an ending summarization. and yeah, knight enchanter is OP on normal mode, though i imagine it's not nearly as easily difficult on hard/nightmare.  i didn't go knight enchanter(went necro for the walking bomb skill and life drain passive, and maxed pyromancer for the increased fear and barrier damage, with level 2 fade walk for the escape.  Very crowd control, such explosions, much wow), but my normal setup in fighting dragon bosses was vivienne, iron bull(for the approvals, after i was maxed i switched to cole), and blackwall.  and yeah, blackwall is the ideal tank.  that fucking wall of defense skill and to the death skill? OP as FUCK.    also, FUCK YOU BIOWARE FOR NOT ALLOWING MOTHER GISELLE TO BE THE DIVINE.

time to start on my second playthrough, which i also have of dragon age 1 and 2.  human female rogues in both(first was just for having her marry alistair, i thought it interesting to have a king and queen gray warden).  will likely go human female rogue again.  hmm, i seem to be fond of patterns. Regardless, TO THE KEEP!

also, on the side-quests:
there is one puzzle that requires you to use tactical camera. it is a fucking pain in the ass.  i never saw another puzzle like it, so a heads up that you're at that puzzle: a rotating elf statue has a bow that points at 4 giant orbs that are all supposed to be lit, only one is unblocked, the rest are blocked by giant pillars which require to be lowered through various means. it's tedious as fuck. and before i forget;
protip:THE REQUISITION QUESTS AT THE CAMPS ARE NEVER-ENDING.  DO NOT DO THEM, THEY ONLY GRANT POWER AND INQUISITION REPUTATION.  THEY WASTE MATS. THERE ARE FAR BETTER WAYS TO EARN POWER AND REP. HELL, AT THE END OF MY FIRST PLAYTHROUGH I STILL HAD OVER 160 POWER LEFTOVER, AND MY REP WAS AT LIKE LEVEL 24. DO. NOT. DO. THEM.

[Okami]

Here's some great news for all of us still w8 for a crack Denuvo was cracked by 3DM.

 

Here's the source with a translation from some guy I found:

 

http://www.3dmgame.com/news/201412/3406040.html here it is their post..
(01 December 2014 - 10:04 PM) Denuvo is cracked by 3DM but they still working on it : 3DM cracked it, this is what they said :-

Yes,Finally we cracked 64 bit version of Denuvo protection.
But We still have some work to do before we release a crack for public.
We need to collect enough different models of CPU information in the next few days and maybe our first crack of DAI will release later this week.
But I'm not very sure.

3DM experienced technician after 15 days of effort, the latest DenuvoDRM 64-bit version has been cracked, which means "FIFA 15" "Dragon Age: Trial", "Fallen" and so the game will probably be released in the near future. To tell the truth, this powerful encryption really great, it really makes me worried for a while, because there is no break in the case, "FIFA 15" and "Dragon Age" Genuine performance is not good, which "FIFA15" parallel domestic sales 5000 sets, "Dragon Age: trial" only more than 3000 units, compared to foreign sales in the hundreds of millions of sets, simply drop in the bucket, optional, many genuine Xia, every day dancing feet of squalling, saying how how we sabotage market, now see, and did not break someone buy it? I think that, in our current cultural environment and buying habits, the game can not crack, damage to Chinese stand-alone game is huge amount of users, it does not increase the number of sets of genuine game sales, the player has not to buy genuine game, most people still chose to give directly. Habits need to slowly build, market environment need to slowly train the government's attitude also need to slowly transition, one can eat fat ah.

In fact, so many years we all behavior, nothing more than hope to have more people can play a single game, can improve or maintain a single game of users, we are willing to excellent game makers in the country to promote and sell their products, but first, to be able to break through the layers of government restrictions, and to have a more in line with China's consumer price levels, if good game can not cracked the case, and also sold several million copies in China, I am afraid we are going to crack its power, it was not so strong.

Technology is just a capability that we have it, necessarily want to use him to do the right thing.

[CLuBLioN]

Thanks for the info Okami

[BookwormOtaku]

Apparently Inquisition took another note of Inspiration from Skyrim...making you understand Stephen Colbert's hatred of bears:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comicsandcosplay/comics/critical-miss/12694-Dragon-Age-Inquisition-bearly?utm_source=latest&utm_medium=index_carousel&utm_campaign=all

[crunchytaco]

So is it worth buying a PS4 to get this? Or should I just drop that same money on a graphics card?

[Clephas]

It was worth it for me, because even though I had a pc that could handle the pc version, it was less annoying to do a console version (no mod capability means it isn't worth it to play pc).

[crunchytaco]

It's just bad I couldn't find any good PS4 deals this holiday. They were all bundles with games I didn't care for. Unlike the Xbox one bundle which actually had a 299 sale. I'll wait until Christmas to pick this game up.

[joehawks12]

you'll need more than a graphics card to run this at high spec.  Anyways, while you guys are waiting on your cracks, i'm already 30% through my second playthrough.

Much prettier than my first character, who looked like a bit like commander shepard, oddly enough.  And no, i didn't use face specs to make her pretty. did it myself.  Rather proud of my hour or so of tinkering.  Also, i fucking love their new facial customization.  especially the eye coloring. You can really create some interesting irises.  (and fuck bears.  I had to re-spec because of those shits to bows because of how much damage they deal with their fucking aoe.  3/4 of my god damn health bar is removed )

[kyrt]

I've been enjoying the game just about to do Here Lies the Abyss (and I'm over 100 hours in the game). Unfortunately I'm having problems with cutscenes on my PC...half the time no one bothers to speak and the facial animations freeze and look creepy as hell. I'm playing a rogue archer...mage looks fun. 

 

It's fun but buggy. I also have the settings to low everything and still have problems...it's not my computer either so I'm hoping they fix this little problem in the future. Easy enough to still read the dialogue if it freezes I can just hit escape to continue the conversation just won't be able to hear it. It's annoying but playable and the speaking isn't gone always just certain characters and cutscenes. Rather random it seems. Fun game though so far.

[Darklord Rooke]

Yeah, the PC version is ultra buggy. And although the recent patch fixes a few issues it presents a few more problems for the PC. I suppose this is just the way the game industry is now

[SilverLi]

Yeah, the PC version is ultra buggy. And although the recent patch fixes a few issues it presents a few more problems for the PC. I suppose this is just the way the game industry is now

Yes indeed. That's why I wont buy a game on release anymore. The gaming industry ruined a lot of games in the past years. 

 

But what's your thoughts on DA: Inquistion. My friends says it is a disappointment because they expected more (hardcore DA fans) but reviews say it is the RPG of the year and so on. I am divided. So what's your opinions on it. I know it is buggy so don't have to tell me that. 

 

The big negative factor my friends told me about was that the loot is located in the multiplayer and not in the singeplayer story.

[RinXD]

I was told not to waste money on it its that bad then again I wont buy anything EA has had their hands on

[nohman]

 

But what's your thoughts on DA: Inquistion. My friends says it is a disappointment because they expected more (hardcore DA fans) but reviews say it is the RPG of the year and so on. I am divided. So what's your opinions on it. I know it is buggy so don't have to tell me that. 

 

I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Have about 100 hours into it, with only some minor complaints. I was a bit dubious of it when I heard that it was open world, but everything after the Hinterlands (the first big area of the game) has pretty much assuaged those suspicions.  I really enjoy the lore and setting of Dragon Age, and DA:I delivers that stuff pretty well. Gameplay wise, I like it. A couple of my friends don't. I guess it depends on what you expect. It hasn't presented that large of a challenge even on nightmare, but as long as you don't play a knight enchanter it won't be a 100% cakewalk. Overall, I think it probably is my GOTY.

[Darklord Rooke]

But what's your thoughts on DA: Inquistion. My friends says it is a disappointment because they expected more (hardcore DA fans) but reviews say it is the RPG of the year and so on. 

 

 

I've put about 40 hours into the game and was addicted to it for several days. Here's my thoughts.

 

Warning - They're mixed

 

The game is open world, lots of places to roam and things to come across. This is pretty neat but presents some problems. The introductory area is massive, you can sink a good 15 hours into it but it doesn’t have much story to it. Because of this some find this map to be a bit dull. You can leave the introductory area about of a third of the way through, but a lot of people don’t and they get bogged down.

 

The other problem with the game being open-world is there isn't much depth to a lot of the sidequests. It’s one of the trade-offs which should be obvious, but some people weren’t expecting.

 

The searching system is balls. They incorporated the ME2 planetary scanner into the search mechanism, you click a button and it tells you if something retrievable is nearby by making a "ping" sound. It sounds neat but results in a frustrating time trying to hone in on an object when it pings on your RADAR. Frustration is multiplied when you discover you found a shrubbery and not the hidden Sword of Excalibur +15. They fixed this in the patch though, so now items appear on your minimap and this makes locating objects much easier. This is good. However if you install the patch other problems could arise, like the game freezing every few minutes. This prevents a lot of people from being able to use it. This is what's called being a tease!

 

Writing – Story is short, plot is straightforward and nothing to write home about. The writing is good though, the characters are brought to life, they're funny or annoying and they'll all have their points of view. I tend to view them as the best set of characters in the Dragon Age series. There are a couple of moments where you can shed a tear but this is interspersed between hours of … walking. A lot of people don’t like the characters – let me warn you now. There’s a certain little bratty elven… lass who if you get on the bad side she can possibly shit you up the wall. Oh, and she doesn’t care about your opinions either, nor anybody elses, so that can possibly shit you up the wall. And she makes fart noises, which apparently shits people up the wall. Overall I liked her :3.

 

The fact that a couple of the characters produces such feelings in the fans, whether positive or negative, is probably a good demonstration of how well they’re written. Much better than DA:O where Leliana was *yawn* and Wynne was *yawn*… possibly Sten too.

 

500K words of dialogue (not counting lore and stuff) in an open-world game is pretty ambitious stuff. And it’s constantly funny.

 

Mounts – useless. I want to eat mine. Good for climbing I suppose.

 

Hardcore stuff – There are no stat/attribute manipulations, only 8 useable skills at a time, combat is as actiony and twitchy as number two. When Bioware says “tactical combat” they mean “combat which is anything but”. Oh yeah, tactical cam is useless. You will have to use it but it’s useless. I use it under protest but would really rather be chewing off my right testical with some leper’s wooden dentures.  The A.I behaviours are a joke which mean you have to micromanage everything on harder difficulties … BY TACTICAL CAM (which is called the developers having a fucked up sense of humour.) Let’s see, what else.

 

Choice and Consequence. There are traditionally 2 ways this can go, you can either have your choices affect the story (ala VNs) or you can have your choices affect the environment (ala The Walking Dead.) This game is the latter. Your choices won’t have much impact on the overall story, but it will have an impact on your environment and world. I hope that makes sense.

 

Other hardcore stuff… HA! Bioware still thinks longswords are 1 handed weapons. I think they do anyway.

 

Romances – Not like DA2, characters can only be romanced by certain protagonists. Which seems to annoy people. Bioware changed it from DA2 because when every protagonist could romance anybody it annoyed people. Apparently the internet is filled with annoyed people.

 

Bugs – Plenty. They give the game “character.”

 

Overall – Inquisition is one hell of an ambitious game. Buggy, yes. Flawed, hell yes. But it’s a romp which is constantly fun because of the writing. Old-school RPG fans won’t like it because it doesn’t rely on your character’s abilities, nor do they get to choose how to approach certain challenges. New gamers won’t care as much. Trolls will point to the game’s “SJW” tendencies *rolls eyes* 

 

I’d give it a month before picking it up though to sort out the bugs. 

 

Anything in particular you wanted to know?

 

EDIT: Oh, right. Multiplayer's focus is on the loot, but there's loot in the SP also. It's just not the objective of the entire experience like it is in the Multiplayer. 

[SilverLi]

I've put about 40 hours into the game and was addicted to it for several days. Here's my thoughts.

 

Warning - They're mixed

 

 

Thank you for your long review with positive and negative sides of the game. I am going to pick it up sometime but now I feel I don't need to rush it. Let the community and patches push the game through alpha/beta state.

[RinXD]

LOL

 

Thank you for your long review with positive and negative sides of the game. I am going to pick it up sometime but now I feel I don't need to rush it. Let the community and patches push the game through alpha/beta state.

Alpha and beta state leave it to EA to sell you a game thats not done yet

[joehawks12]

my main complaint is that the level cap in areas and in general is way too low.  I made the mistake in my first playthrough of just grinding out in the first open area and being overleveled for the rest of the fucking game.  My side complaints are as follows: that nothing you do really seems to matter, you always gain the support of houses and spies and armies and what not.   there are only 8 slots allowed for skills for a player controlled hero.  the resistance tonics and attack tonic and tears of the dead are way too good at their initial levels, and fucking overpowered in their upgraded levels, and rock armor tonic is fucking useless.  iron bull goes unconcious way too quickly in everything for him to be of any use when not in tactical.  Besides the dragons and the final boss, there are hardly any challenges.  This game barely uses my cpu unless i unpark all of my cores and up the memory offset of my gpu by like 400( but that's probably only because i have a shite gpu).  and even in ultra, the game isn't nearly as pretty as the trailers would show it to be.  The only reason i have 400+ hours clocked in my origin account is because of those stupid bullshit AC4 timed missions that give you fucking nothing in the end, and if they do, you probably already have crafted weapons/armor or found accessories just as good as it's item level, or better. that said, it's dragon age, and i loved the original, so i've already played the shit out of this one.  on my third playthrough as a dwarf warrior in nightmare mode(i like raising the difficulty every new game to increase the replay value of these kinds of rpgs.  Usually i have fun doing this, but this time it seems like a chore until i get to a dragon. also ONLY 10 DRAGONS THAT YOU CAN KILL?!  WHY ARE YOU NAMING YOUR SHIT DRAGON AGE.  THERE ARE HARDLY ANY DRAGONS IN ANY OF THE GAMES.).  After this i'll likely stop playing until i see some quality mods drop in on nexus or the expansion is put in.  Also, i'm pissed the races don't have different voices.  i only did humans for my first two playthrough, so i thought those were the "human" voices, but apparently not, those are the "inquisitor" voices.  Fuck you EA, you shekel hoarding scum, pay some voice actors so i don't experience voice dissonance.

[RinXD]

my main complaint is that the level cap in areas and in general is way too low.  I made the mistake in my first playthrough of just grinding out in the first open area and being overleveled for the rest of the fucking game.  My side complaints are as follows: that nothing you do really seems to matter, you always gain the support of houses and spies and armies and what not.   there are only 8 slots allowed for skills for a player controlled hero.  the resistance tonics and attack tonic and tears of the dead are way too good at their initial levels, and fucking overpowered in their upgraded levels, and rock armor tonic is fucking useless.  iron bull goes unconcious way too quickly in everything for him to be of any use when not in tactical.  Besides the dragons and the final boss, there are hardly any challenges.  This game barely uses my cpu unless i unpark all of my cores and up the memory offset of my gpu by like 400( but that's probably only because i have a shite gpu).  and even in ultra, the game isn't nearly as pretty as the trailers would show it to be.  The only reason i have 400+ hours clocked in my origin account is because of those stupid bullshit AC4 timed missions that give you fucking nothing in the end, and if they do, you probably already have crafted weapons/armor or found accessories just as good as it's item level, or better. that said, it's dragon age, and i loved the original, so i've already played the shit out of this one.  on my third playthrough as a dwarf warrior in nightmare mode(i like raising the difficulty every new game to increase the replay value of these kinds of rpgs.  Usually i have fun doing this, but this time it seems like a chore until i get to a dragon. also ONLY 10 DRAGONS THAT YOU CAN KILL?!  WHY ARE YOU NAMING YOUR SHIT DRAGON AGE.  THERE ARE HARDLY ANY DRAGONS IN ANY OF THE GAMES.).  After this i'll likely stop playing until i see some quality mods drop in on nexus or the expansion is put in.  Also, i'm pissed the races don't have different voices.  i only did humans for my first two playthrough, so i thought those were the "human" voices, but apparently not, those are the "inquisitor" voices.  Fuck you EA, you shekel hoarding scum, pay some voice actors so i don't experience voice dissonance.

^ this is why I buy nothing from EA

[Darklord Rooke]

Anti-EA opinion starting to creep into this thread...

 

I'm too old for pointless campaigning on principle. EA publishes some damn good games including the Total War series, the Sim series, the Dungeon Keeper series, and all of Bioware's games. I'm not going to deprive myself of all these gems because people a) don't like EA or b ) typically have to wait a few months after release for games to be patched. It's not like EA is the only culprit of the latter point anyway, Skyrim is unplayable on the PS3, Red Dead Redemption was full of bugs on release and froze on me every 15 minutes, Fable 3 had a game killing bug and only 1 save file which meant it killed your game and etc etc. Don't see the point of all these "don't buy from EA" opinions, how long have people been saying that? How long have EA not cared?

 

Regarding your accusation that EA was responsible for the diluting of RPG mechanics, I can tell you now they weren't. All AAA RPG companies are streamlining RPG mechanics to widen their potential fanbase, from Diablo to Skyrim. Furthermore, a lot of problems in Inquisition are a result of Bioware having not made an open-world game since Baldur's Gate.

[SilverLi]

Anti-EA opinion starting to creep into this thread...

 

I'm too old for pointless campaigning on principle. EA publishes some damn good games including the Total War series, the Sim series, the Dungeon Keeper series, and all of Bioware's games. I'm not going to deprive myself of all these gems because people a) don't like EA or b ) typically have to wait a few months after release for games to be patched. It's not like EA is the only culprit of the latter point anyway, Skyrim is unplayable on the PS3, Red Dead Redemption was full of bugs on release and froze on me every 15 minutes, Fable 3 had a game killing bug and only 1 save file which meant it killed your game and etc etc. Don't see the point of all these "don't buy from EA" opinions, how long have people been saying that? How long have EA not cared?

 

Regarding your accusation that EA was responsible for the diluting of RPG mechanics, I can tell you now they weren't. All AAA RPG companies are streamlining RPG mechanics to widen their potential fanbase, from Diablo to Skyrim. Furthermore, a lot of problems in Inquisition are a result of Bioware having not made an open-world game since Baldur's Gate.

I kind of agree with you.

But the latest Total War: Rome 2 was unplayable for 6 months at least. I bought it on release. The Sims 3. I guess it worked but as every Sims it is just a shell you fill with 10 DLCs. What about SimCity then? Also unfinished and a horrible release. If I recall FIFA 15 was horrible at release too. Battlefield 3 and 4 was also horrible. Every EA game is good in the end. But they force every game too early. They are mostly unplayable or buggy as hell on release.

 

EA deserve a lot of crap but they take a bit too much sometimes. But the latest releases was horrible. But EA isn't alone in this apartment *staring at AC:Unity*. 

 

My philosophy with EA nowadays is don't buy it on release. Wait 3 - 6 months before buying a game. They still make really good games. They just need to turn this "release games in alpha/beta state" to actual games on release. I can accept bugs and such because no game is perfect. But they are not releasing finished games anymore.

[joehawks12]

Anti-EA opinion starting to creep into this thread...

i'm not anti-ea.  Instead of bitching at EA, i probably should have bitched at bioware for only having 4 total protag voice actors.  And pretty much all of my complaints will be eventually fixed with mods and expansions.  I enjoy the game, but the more you play something, the more you notice it isn't as polished as it looks on the first glance.  And i've played this game a lot at this point in time.  There are few games after 2000 that i consider near perfection.  Actually, there's only 3. Persona 4, Snake eater, and New Vegas modded.