Dragon Age

[MARS]

I want to play Inquisition so...bad...

I agree with Union, that was a very ģood post.

[Unionhack]

I liked DA2 a lot too, I'll add, the only thing that bugs me is the enemies-falling-out-of-the-sky. Everything else is pretty easily waved away and makes a great game, not a 'disappointment'.

The Dragon Age fandom is typically the embodiment of "it's new so it's automatically bad" and that's such a poisonous mindset. 2 and Inquisition made some hella good strides to further the setting and the gameplay.

[MARS]

I very much prefer 2 over Origins in terms of aesthetic design and characters. I'm okay with the gameplay, personally even if it is a little simple and all dificulty lies in unfairness. Voiced PC is also very well done in 2 imo and I've only heard good things about it in Inquisition.

[The SheoDovah]

I do admit, I miss the massive plate armours but Dwarven Armour was retextured chainmaill apart from 1 or 2 pieces of armour, which was lazy and fails to show off why Dwarves are the greatest smiths/respected heavily for their smithing etc.... ]

Wut



Hakkon is like an entire new area, a la Emerald Graves or Exalted Plains with new side missions and a great fight at the end.

Descent is a dungeon crawl, yeah, but it's a damned good one. Combat in Descent is pretty tough, some of the toughest fights I've had to deal with in Inquisition, so that was rewarding to beat. You get some good, awesome-looking gear, AND you learn some really interesting things concerning the lore.

Trespasser is an epilogue, yeah, but the real treasure of it is capitalizing on the choices you made in the main game and showing off the consequences of such. Plus it gives you some great scenes and shows where the companions end up. Fantastic epilogue material.

I'd say get Trespasser over anything else, then Descent, then Hakkon, but get the GOTY edition if you can. They're all pretty good IMO.

Apart from one or two pieces of armour, Dwarven Armour, if i recall correctly(not the race, just the armour name) is just chainmail retextured. Dwarven Noble/Heavy armour is it's own style but it also reuses heavy chainmail. That said, i think the armour in the picture is just plate armour.



Just get the GOTY, Spaceman. It's on X1,PC and PS4. I think, Trespasser alone, is $15-20. The GOTY edition should be cheaper then it.


The fandom does seem to hate anything that is new or hates the other part of the fandom that likes that new game or that parts hates those who liked the original and they hate those who etc....

[Dirty Spaceman]

Wait, so does the Gotye come as an upgrade if you already own the game, or does it not? I've just now looked it up and I've seen some conflicting answers.

In any case, you can just change the option in the Keep.

That's the thing, I'm pretty sure it had locked out the other options or something, but that might have just been because of where/how I was viewing it. I dunno. I'll check back the next time I go on.

[Kerr]

I think Dragon Age: Origins is Bioware's best game (that I've played at least.) Origins is also my favorite game in the series when it comes to combat and I imagine a lot of the problems I do have with its combat would be solved if I played on PC. Still, I really like 2 and Inquisition.

I don't know if it was just because The Descent was really hard but when I was playing The Descent I bumped the difficultly down to easy on the boss fight and kept it like that for Trespasser and I can't say I regret it. I also bumped down the difficult for Jaws of Hakkon when I played that. Whenever I do a second playthrough of Inquisition (because I'm sure I will eventually, a few years down the line before Dragon Age: The Next One comes out) I'll probably just play it on easy from the start because I'm an adult and I really don't care. The only problem is it would make the main thing I do in the game (combat) a bit of a meaningless slog.

I didn't like how the potions system was implemented. I wish refilling my potions also refilled my health instead of having to down my potions before refilling or picking up potions and then downing half of them. I also found myself not picking up a refill because I still had like 5 potions and I might need it later so I'd go further into the dungeon and then go back to the refill.

---

I'm going to say it here because I don't consider it to be that much of a spoiler, at the end of Trespasser it basically tells you that the next game is going to be set in Tevinter. Which is great because from what I know of Thedas I think that's the most interesting place to set a Dragon Age game, there's a lot you could do there. Rebellion by slaves and other oppressed peoples, tensions with the Qunari, fallout from the events of Inquisition, tensions between the Imperial Chantry and the Southern Chantry, the goings on of the Senate, all that stuff that Trespasser foreshadows. The Byzantine Empire isn't often used when people want a culture to be based off a medieval European culture and Teviniter is closer to the equator so it might have a tropical as opposed to a temperate climate which characterizes a lot of Ferelden and Orlais.

[The SheoDovah]

I do expect DAVI to be heavily baised in favour of mages due to Tevinter being Tevinter. Thus having at least 100-200 spells to pick from and a greatly overhauled mage combat system. I can see the Inquisitor being involved to some degree due to the real threat to THEDAS. Hopefully, we will see a more political theme and having to play the Tevinter version of the game of thrones. I can see the Qunari playing a major role after stepping up their efforts. If i recall correctly, Par Vollen is just putting 0.5% effort into fighting Tevinter and mostly just prodding them. However, i do hope that it's not a chosen one story and that the hero is either another normal person that rises to power(Something like the concept for DA2's story, but with much better execution) or something like the Warden's story. Just being thrusted into power because you have no other choice due to everyone else being dead.

I hate the potions system of DA:I. Apparently, the old system was overpowered but i recall having to rely on potions a lot in Origins and DA2 if i didn't want to waste a talent on the heal spell. It is just annoying and tedious. Either bring back Origin's muti potion,salves system. E.g. carrying as much as you can or allow crafting on the go and maybe, increase the cool down time to avoid spamming potion after potion after potion within the space of a minute or two.

I do hope that we get an insight into how the Wardens work in Tevinter and if Tevinter is far more relaxed with the mages joining it or only allowing a few at a time for political reasons.

[Kerr]

I think I'd get sick if I chugged as many poultices as I did in Origins when I fought Flemeth.

"That's because it's a poultice, ser. You're not supposed to drink it."

[The SheoDovah]

The warden should have smashed both poultices together before chugging them down.

[MARS]

100-200 spells...that's so overkill. Origins had a total of 80 and most of them were borderline useless after a certain point. All you needed was Mana Clash, Mind Blast, AoEs, and Mass Paralysis. I would much rather have few spells and talents that have a broader range of application.

[The SheoDovah]

I disagree. I can see DAIV being twice the size of Inquistion and variety of choice is always a good thing. Inquistion reduced magic to just one school. Having 200 spells at most would fit the Tevinter theme.

[MARS]

Well not really. What would you even use that many spells for? There's no conceivable way for 200 spells to be comprised of actually useful effects. Another idea would be the ability to upgrade your core spells with different additional effects or modifiers. That would give more personalization without getting obnoxiously excessive. Less is more when you can do more with it.

[Unionhack]

Here's my take on why Inquisition combat is my favorite.

Let's disregard Mages for a second and move to rogues and warriors; for now, specifically archery rogues. Let's say I'm playing an archery rogue in Origins.

I have a few abilities; shoot, extra-hurty shoot, debuff shot #1, debuff shot #2, auto-crit shot, etc etc. This discounts a lot of maintained modes and baseline rogue talents, of course, but what I'm getting at is that the combat in Origins doesn't really take advantage of your surroundings or setting like Mass Effect or Inquisition does. 2 really doesn't either; which is why I dig Inquisition so much.

Let's head to being an archery rogue in Inquisition; using Varric (who is a MONSTER if you build him up right; I'm talking 10k damage on a crit full draw), I have a few abilities.
-Long Shot
-Evasive Shot
-Explosive Shot
-Hook & Tackle
-Full Draw
-Elemental Mines

So you'll notice that I've highlighted a few things. These are abilities that are affected by the world and the positioning of yourself and enemies moreso than other abilities. Your positioning matters. Let's say I've been attacked in the deep roads, and I need Varric to dish out some damage. I could unload a nice evasive shot, but his back is to a cliff and it'd kill him to do it. So I do a quick hook & tackle to get Varric in close range, toss a hail of Elemental Mines, and hit Evasive Shot to get him out of danger so that Iron Bull can wade in and re-taunt everyone to get the aggro back in on him.

This isn't even taking into account that I have 2 mages in my standard group, each specializing in 2 of the varying elemental trees, so I have a lot of options to work with. My Inquisitor Frost-steps through a group of enemies in order to chill them. Then he hits Winter's Grasp on a chilled Elite enemy to nuke him for 1000% Weapon Damage and to freeze him, which Varric then takes advantage of with an explosive shot for a shatter combo. And that's just one maneuver!

It's even better when you've got self-fulfilling combos. My newest Inquisitor is a dagger rogue, with the Tempest specialization. She wields double blade daggers, so she's a little more proficient in being in the thick of things as long as she has a barrier or is provided with guard from Bull's Horn of Valor. So I pop a Flask of Frost to freeze nearby enemies, use Shadow Strike for a Shatter combo, and then stealth out to ease off on the threat. Rinse and repeat, or hit Flask of Fire and spam your stamina-free abilities until it wears off and you have to get out of the frying pan.

I love Origins, but when I play it, I feel like I'm playing an pauseable MMO, and I've played MMOs quite a bit over the years. It's not the best mode of combat without a few twists, IMO, and Inquisition gives you those twists. It's a lot more visceral than Origins, while still retaining the tactical feel that DA2 kinda skimped out on.

A lot of people are still upset about how health works, but I love it. Mistakes must be paid for, and you have a limited number of potions in order to make up for it. Use your warriors to build guard and infuriate enemies, use your mages to build barrier, and use your rogues to exploit your enemies paying attention to your warriors. I'm still a little peeved about being FORCED to take Morrigan in certain Origins playthroughs where Wynne isn't an option, because a healing mage is pretty much necessary unless you stockpile healing pouiltices like a madman. I beat Origins without using a mage once, it was really rough. The group composition is vastly improved in 2 and DA:I - 3 of each class is a good move, I think, and they manage to avoid it being too meta because each character is just so very well written.

I play Inquisition on varying difficulties, usually ramping it up depending on my character's level. Hard is my limit and it's SUPER fun if you've got a well-developed party together. I've taken a few dragons down on hard with my party of Knight Enchanter Inquisitor/Bull/Varric/Dorian, and a bit hesitant to try it on Nightmare, but I think it's not too big of a stretch. Definitely try the harder difficulties out once your party reaches the 'broken' threshold on lower difficulties. It's tough, but damn if it isn't rewarding when you beat the tougher challenges.

Also can we please talk about Ramon Tikaram's performance as Dorian? Because damn.

[Kerr]

Well not really. What would you even use that many spells for? There's no conceivable way for 200 spells to be comprised of actually useful effects. Another idea would be the ability to upgrade your core spells with different additional effects or modifiers. That would give more personalization without getting obnoxiously excessive. Less is more when you can do more with it.

It may not work for Dragon Age but Transistor has a really interesting way of combining powers which in Transistor are called functions. There are 16 functions and each can be put in an active, upgrade or passive slot. So active powers are attacks, upgrades in some way upgrade an attack and passive gives some kind of bonus to you as a character. It was more interesting than if they had 40 functions and only had active slots. So if you were applying this to Dragon Age you could have 20 spells like Heal, Fireball, Frost, Lightning, Walking Bomb, etc. And then you can combine each of them by putting them in either an active slot or upgrade slot for another spell. So you could combine Fireball and Ice or Walking Bomb and Mana Drain, etc. You could even make it so each spell has 3 ranks of effectiveness, so you can upgrade the abilities you like more (so you end up with 60 instead of 20 spells, but really it's just a more powerful versions of an existing spell) but using the higher ranks and certain combinations uses more mana. Then you end up with a lot of interesting combinations of different spells but you don't have to make 200 spells, you only have to make 20 spells which players combine together.

But yeah, quality over quantity. Having 200 spells isn't inherently better than having 50 spells. It might be even worse because you're gripped by indecision, looking at a massive skill tree with no way to know what spells are worthwhile and which ones are filler. Never mind trying to differentiate between the spells and have them actually behave differently instead of being the green magic missile that hurts people and the blue magic missile that also hurts people.

--

And can't think of any performance in Inquisition off the top of my head that was bad. I rather enjoyed Freddie Prince Jr as The Iron Bull.

[The SheoDovah]

I will admit, 200 could end up being crap but DA needs more spell variety. Inquistion, none of my mages felt unique. In DAO, i could have a Warden Mage that used spirit magic. A warden mage that used elements, entrophy etc... Inquisition? Apart from the specs, it's rather bland.


Freddie Prince was surprising as The Iron Bull. He does sometimes slip into James Vegas according to people but i've never heard Bull slip into another character. Bull himself, is an excellent companion and not a generic Qunari that wants to sleep with everything in site. Just a Ben-Hassarath that burned out and shoved into Orlais just because it would get him out of the way, that tends to sleep with most things. Zevran would like him.

The one thing that DA:I did really bad was tying up loose ends from the other two games. The whole mage-templar war was rather poor in it's conclusion and just seemed to come down to picking A or B. Don't get me wrong, the quests are excellent but after the hype/mystery that DA2 hinted at, it didn't really live up to it. Also, they wasted Fiona as a character. Just does nothing. But having to pick one of the two is an interesting choice and i was rather surprised by the Templars not being grade A "ARGH! MAGES ARE EVIL!" [&@%!]. Just reasonable authority figures. Or at least, after the quest, they are.

I like Kerr's suggestion and that could fit within DA. Two worlds II had a magic system where you combined effects and spells. I think, there are 5000 combinations and is handled via a card system. Just swap out effects or spell and combine. The current Magic system needs to be overhauled.

[MARS]

That's true, but Two Worlds sucked.

In any case, I guess I just don't care that much about my magic being #UltraLoreRoleplayerDrugs. I play Dragon Age for the characters and the gameplay. I enjoy numbers and using the tactics (yes even Dragon Age 2 had these, even if there's really not that much to it.) so I wouldn't complain even if I only had one spell aesthetic to choose from.

[The SheoDovah]

The original did but Two Worlds II is an utter....... er.... so, so game with a great magic system. I play DA for the story, characters and sidequests along with the lore.

[Unionhack]

I will admit, 200 could end up being crap but DA needs more spell variety. Inquistion, none of my mages felt unique. In DAO, i could have a Warden Mage that used spirit magic. A warden mage that used elements, entrophy etc... Inquisition? Apart from the specs, it's rather bland.

Try harder brah. The specs bring all sorts of utility to the existing trees. A necromancer spirit mage can play way different than a KE spirit mage. Plus, the new toggleable upgrades from one of the later patches lets you specialize even further.

KE Inq: Ice/Lightning/KE. I called him my iron-clad kamikaze. Build up spirit blade charges, frost-step into a huge group of enemies, drop a damage-per-hit static cage, and just start hitting AoE with the Spirit Blade to cause as many static discharges as possible. With guard-on-hit and barrier-on-hit, he was basically immune to sustained damage. When enemies nuke him it's an issue (thus dragons are not his forte) but when he has a lot of mooks to deal with, it's awesome.

Dorian: Fire/Spirit/Necro. Walking Bomb and Sprit Mark for DoTs, obviously, and upgraded terror to freeze enemies in place and prime them for the Inquisitor's static cage. Aside from that, trap-nuking with triple-fire-mine and fire wall. Plus, barrier generation.

Solas: Spirit/Ice/Rift mage. THE RIFT SLAYER. Walk up to a rift, drop down every Crowd Control ability known to man and elf, and start dispelling rift crystals (which prevents spawns, fun fact). Then when Pride Demons start getting antsy, a quick stonefist shuts them up.

Vivienne: KE/Fire/Ice. I don't use Viv much, and I didn't want to turn her into the unstoppable killing machine that KE's tend to be, so I turned her into an almost exclusively trap-based mage. Fire Mine, Ice Mine, Wall of Ice, Wall of Fire, Disruption Filed, Fade Step and Fade Cloak. Lay down a mine under an enemy, then raise an Ice Wall around them to lock them in place as the mine bakes them alive. Disruption field as they walk toward the party, allowing her to fade step through them to regain mana, and then throw more mines out.

The mages can totally be different. Honestly I had more trouble making my mages different in Origns because some of the magic trees were ass. That, and the healing tree was practically mandatory. It did get better in Awakening though.

[The SheoDovah]

They never felt unique to me without the specs and having to pick from just 4 spell trees instead of 12 is just crap. Admittly, some of the spells in Origins were filler and heal was a vital spell. One that i would rarely use for Morrigan. Wynne was my healer. Morrigan, damager. A warden, a mixture of both. Just feels meh in Inquistion. Do miss being able to cast storm of the century. That should have returned in inquisition either as a focus ability for mage inkys or a combo spell by mages.

[Unionhack]

Never liked Storm of the Century, myself. Too much mana that'd I'd rather go to other things.

Using Wynne is great, but what if your run involves siding with the templars? Enjoy your gimped Healer Morrigan, complete with a mandatory point in the worst specialization in the game!

[The SheoDovah]

I never side with the Templars. That said, i've not done an evil son of a [&@%!] Warden playthrough. I kinda disagree regarding Shapeshifting. If used correctly and directly, it can be rather useful. But it is rather underwhelming and limited.

[Unionhack]

Nothing the SS can do can measure up to a whatever a warrior can do, and it removes all your important mage-y talents. Spiders can't throw fireballs or buff allies. I'll take a fireball over a gimped melee fighter any day of the week.

Several (3, half of my 6) of my Wardens have sided with the Templars. "Mages can't be trusted", "They're too far gone, it's a mercy killing", "less magic moar swords pls", that kinda deal. So I've had to do with no Wynne on about half of my playthroughs. Fine with me, she's easily my least favorite companion. Which means it sucks that's she's so damn useful, if you do Broken Circle she's essentially a disc one nuke.

[Kerr]

"You know it's true love when your girlfriend turns into a ugly nauseating giant spider but she's still the most beautiful woman in Thedas to you."

Shapeshifter is pretty terrible, it's a waste of spells, you're better off investing in something else. Like Walking Bomb!

I actually [&@%!] off Wynne in the tower the first time I played Origins and ended up killing her and I didn't reload, instead I just lived with what I did. I sided with the mages anyway, I was always going to. That made fighting Flemeth a lot of fun. I also walked right past Sten without noticing him the first time I played Origins.

I tend to keep Morrigan with me all the time, I get by with the basic healing spells until she can unlock Spirit Healer. I always make Anders in Awakening an Arcane Warrior/Spirit Healer. AW/SH is such a great combo.

[MARS]

I've never once made Morrigan a healer of any sort. Killing dragons without one is kind of hard but it's doable. They're pretty slow, and all you need are 2 rogues with good attack and ranged critical chance, a mage who can cast force field, a tank, and lotsa poultices. Force Field is a good spell.

[Unionhack]

You know what's the best spell in Origins?

Mana Clash.

Holy [&@%!], enemy mages are like harmless training dummies with glowy sticks after you get Mana Clash.