Hawke should have walked away to... where? Their family home was in Kirkwall, and the character tries to improve the circumstances in that city, because it's their home. In the end, they aren't able to and the untenable situation explodes all over the Dragon Age world.
Anywhere. Literally anywhere.
Forest filled with murderous elves? Better than Kirkwall.
Desert filled with giant intelligent scorpions that hunt people for sport? Still better than Kirkwall.
The inside of of an active volcano? Still better than Kirkwall because that's how badly Kirkwall and virtually everyone in it sucks on every single level.
HappylilElf on
+3
ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
"Forget it, Hawke. It's Kirkwall."
+11
BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
I'd love to see them play around with the binary romance writing again. I know I've probably said it before ad nauseum but the hatesex makes that part of the experience in Dragon Age 2 feel like trashy, pulpy smut literature and it fuckin owns
(It's also just fun to see more diametrically opposed characters inexplicably attracted to each other)
Yeah and Dragon Age Inquisition makes a big deal out of Hawke, so in retrospect even that particular aspect of Dragon Age II doesn't even work. Neither does the counter argument (at the time) of "Hawke couldn't just walk away", because in canon, that's exactly what they ended up doing.
Mounts were just incredibly awkward. Putting aside how slow they were, they also had issues with handling and generally being fucking hideous.
I do love how the mounts can climb basically any degree of incline you will run across.
Well you might as well take the best bugs from Skyrim while you're at it.
TBH though, Dragon Age Inquisition was a rock solid game bar two things: It crashed on the final battle of the game twice. I had to kill what-is-his face three times to finish the game. Thankfully the fight was really easy, even on Nightmare, so it wasn't too aggravating but by attempt #3 I was worried if it wasn't going to let me finish. It also crashed nearly 10 times during Varric's personal quest as well. I had to save and crawl through the last part of the quest to leave the Deep Road area.
Da:I is literally the only BioWare game that I haven’t beaten because I was so mind bogglingly bored by it’s uninspired enemies outside of unique bosses/dragons, enemies respawning lightning quick, and both of the elves being utterly insufferable.
Oh and elf root. Because of course they would make the most commonly used crafting mat the most tedious thing to collect.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
What? The comment doesn’t even make sense. I played the game on nightmare and other than the Deep Roads DLC, the incredibly hard Revenant battle from Jaws of Hakkon and particular Dragons I never encountered respawning enemies anywhere. Are you confusing DAI and DA2? DA2 deliberately spawns 3-4 waves of enemies, frequently right on top of any non-front line characters making any tactics simply impossible.
Running around finding elf root was garbage though.
No aergei, I’m talking about the third game in the series wherein I can run around a rock and see the same three templars I just fought. Hell, I’ve had them pop in right in front of me on a few occasions!
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited November 2021
Enemies in combat encounters do not respawn or add to them, except for the telegraphed entry of daemons into a battle via rifts (which you can actually instantly destroy with a rapid dispel if you're fast enough in many cases). Only a handful of fights feature enemies that come in during them, which are nearly all boss battles and they at least make sense. For the most part, once you murder things they stay murdered and if you do the quests/rifts in an area, they actually become safer with monsters being permanently removed - not respawning. The only place I can think of that happens is in the Hinterlands, which is where you're near the burning buildings near the central area of the map. That place is an ongoing warzone as the characters state when you go near it and they'll even make several barks to the effect that it's pointless because they're never ending in that area. Once you deal with the Mage/Templar situation that region becomes almost devoid of most enemies and you can wander through without being harassed that much.
Again, it's DA2 that shits enemies out of nowhere on you in every fight to extend the same 10 dungeons into 40 hours of gameplay.
Edit: It occurs to me though that I played DA:I well beyond the initial release, with all the patches and similar. So I could be playing something that was changed well after the fact. I know that the waves of garbage mechanic is something absent from the DLC in DA2 as an example, so that might improve my opinion of the combat system in DA2 considerably once I get to the DLC there.
And yes, I did decide to leave Sten to rot in his cage in Lothering. But I did pick up Leliana for the very first time in DA:O. Believe it or not, I've never noticed the tavern in Lothering, so both of my first DA:O characters never saw her and thus she died (or whatever happens to her) in Lothering every time.
Well, the only thing that can trigger the flag for a certain Trespasser ending slide is if you recruited her in Origin
and then kill her in the game
, so she presumably lived.
You mean it will in Trespasser acknowledge me poisoning the Ashes of Andraste, which if she is in the party will cause her to attack me and then I will get a unique ending in Inquisition?
Oh man.
I am so tempted. So tempted. But I don't think I can justify being that cartoonishly evil.
Well, the only thing that can trigger the flag for a certain Trespasser ending slide is if you recruited her in Origin
and then kill her in the game
, so she presumably lived.
You mean it will in Trespasser acknowledge me poisoning the Ashes of Andraste, which if she is in the party will cause her to attack me and then I will get a unique ending in Inquisition?
Oh man.
I am so tempted. So tempted. But I don't think I can justify being that cartoonishly evil.
Or can I?
Specifically:
Poison the ashes, kill her, let her harden in Inquistion--this might not be necessary--then ensure she doesn't become Divine.
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited November 2021
Even then, only the battlefield in Redcliffe and the infinite water zombies are the only places I can think of that do that. Just to confirm I wasn’t being overly generous to Inquisition, I loaded up the Storm coast and went from Crestwood down south to the Dragon and back. I encountered only a couple of random animals on the way back - all enemies stayed firmly dead.
Again this could have been a change with a patch and I have already done all the quests here, which does a lot to “pacify” a region as well. I didn’t mind those side quests, but if you found the game/boring or unengaging I can definitely see how this would lead to a frustrating loop.
But I have been playing more Origins. While Mass Effect was a great game, I miss the moral Grey and complex decisions of Dragon Age Origins. Everything being made into a hammered in here is your good guy side and bad guy side of the dialog wheel system is disappointing in both DA2/DA:I. At least DA:I had some with one quest, but that was it sadly.
Really wish they would realise there are more than two binary solutions to every problem again.
Bud. This happened on both 360 and ps4 complete gold edition . I finish combat with a group, step around a rock and that group has respawned. This didn’t happen with demons or because I ran away.
If this didn’t happen for you I can only assume you were running a pile of mods on pc.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited November 2021
Nope playing on PS4 actually. I never saw that happen and the closest I can think of was hinterlands where there is an active battlefield. Enemies constantly respawn in that area. Because it’s a battlefield. And they tell you there is no end to them when you get near it. Like I can see it happening, but I can't replicate it on a 100% save file because you CAN pacify areas and stop things spawning entirely for long stretches of the place. At the same time, it seems like a molehill to complain about while DA2 is dropping 2-5 entire waves of enemies right onto your backline, from nowhere while you're DPS checking the first group of enemies so you can DPS check the second before they insta-kill all your squishies forcing you to restart the encounter.
I am a single trophy off the platinum. The gathering herbs from Skyhold one where I chose the chantry upgrade and not the bigger garden. Much regrets.
I am playing Origins on PC however and I am considering using the mod to reduce the fade and endless deep roads. These were like the ones I remember people using, but can’t remember.
Give him fine tapestries and tell him to "stfu, I'm the boss" and he may as well be a romance option he loves you so much.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited November 2021
Honestly, I don't mind having extra companions, but I just can't justify letting out a child murderer with my character (especially after what she just went through with the human nobles). Even knowing (on a metagame level) why he did it, I just personally feel he can rot in there and meet the blight head on. Forgetting Leliana multiple times and leaving her to die was just me failing to see the tavern existed. First game with her ever!
The funny thing with the blight is that outside of the beginning of the game you barely see dark spawn in da1; like they’re all over the damn place in the deep roads but for what is supposed to be an apocalyptic event they sure are low key in terms of what they’re up to between the opening and ending.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited November 2021
Playing this and Divinity Original Sin at the same time is certainly an experience. Divinity Original Sin gives me control down to planning to wet an area, teleport a guy into it so he crunches down prone and then electrocuting him + everything else in the water. It's an amazing tactical experience.
While Origins is basically controlling chickens with their heads cut off splurting blood everywhere and not listening to a damn thing you want them to do. I did try Shale for a good while, but I can't make them as effective at tanking as Alistair, because looking things up, I got hugely unlucky with flawless crystal drops and it won't be for a long time before I can make them functional in that role. It sucks because I absolutely love Shales commentary about things when they are in the party.
Now that the nostalgia goggles are wearing off, I do remember Dragon Age Origins for the excellent roleplaying it provides, but dear gods had I forgot the misery some of these rooms are until you meta-game them a little. I'm currently being reminded how painful and overlong some of the dungeons get - particularly the fade portion of the mage tower and the insufferable deep roads (oh, I had forgot that alright).
I am already going to make Loghain take the final blow for the Archdaemon and probably make Alistair King. Probably. It is still great to basically tell every human who calls me a knife ear or similar where to stick it. Sometimes I even do it quite literally!
The drama at Bioware continues: Matt Goldman, the senior creative director of the Dragon Age series and a member of Bioware since 1998 (aside from a brief stint at Ensemble to work on Halo Wars), is out. Here's the email Bioware sent to its staff:
Hi everyone,
I hope you are well. I’m writing to inform you all that Matt Goldman is leaving BioWare. We have mutually agreed to part ways, and his last day is today.
We understand that Matt’s departure has an impact on you, as well as the game’s development. Rest assured our commitment to a high-quality Dragon Age game has not waivered, and we will not ship a game that is not up to BioWare’s standards.
We, including EA’s executive team, have absolute confidence in the leadership here at the studio and the people working on this game to carry forward our vision.
So, either he got fired or quit in dramatic fashion. What the hell is happening over there? Will the next DA game come out this decade?
The question isn't if it will come out but if it will actually be worth releasing. EA has no problem making sure something gets pushed through, and they're the ones who call the shots in the end.
Still hopeful, though. For all the drama surrounding both Inquisition and Andromeda I still enjoyed them immensely despite their flaws.
The question isn't if it will come out but if it will actually be worth releasing. EA has no problem making sure something gets pushed through, and they're the ones who call the shots in the end.
Still hopeful, though. For all the drama surrounding both Inquisition and Andromeda I still enjoyed them immensely despite their flaws.
You're probably right, EA will probably make them fart out something, especially since they don't have any real sources of ongoing revenue (ME: Legendary Edition has pretty much stopped selling, though it was a success and exceeded expectations).
Switch: 3947-4890-9293
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I don't think Bioware have been in a good state for a while and Anthem's tremendous flop would have been massively demoralizing. I've never seen a triple AAA game go from full price to $4 fully new at retail as fast as it did. Bioware badly needs a course correcting win from either Dragon Age 4 or Mass Effect 4. I'm not confident they can do this under EA anymore and with how much gross mismanagement has happened at the top. I am not going to lie, I'm not confident in Dragon Age 4 at all, going from a weird heist concept to probably back to something more akin to Origins/3 following that storyline through, I just don't think they know what kind of game they want to make anymore. My understanding was the heist game was supposed to be some multiplayer thing as well, which makes me wonder how much of it they could salvage for a single player game. Additionally, I just can't believe EA will shake their desire to try to turn everything into shitty GaaS models in some way - especially now that they've had a high profile failure in the new Battlefield to add to the pile of problems they are accruing.
i got inquisition for free through twitch, how is it compared to other single player rpgs?
It is really good. It's got a bit too much cruft in it, because the best stuff is all front loaded into the main quest missions - one of which is some of Biowares best ever quest design and writing. Many of the side areas could have been entirely removed and actively improved the game though, especially if they had been turned into more interesting variations of the main missions. At the same time there are some great choices, like combat feels tactical again, Skyhold feels meaty and well built up, plus you can sit in judgement of a bear and a guy who threw a goat at your castle.
I think it's excellent and was a fantastic course correction after the complete disaster that was Dragon Age 2, but at the same time a lot of the side content boils down to feeling like a major over-correction. The sidequest content is generally entirely bland and devoid of any interesting choices or decisions, so as long as you don't try to be completely completionist about Inquisition (I would do most story quests as soon as you meet the minimum recommended level for them on normal) it's a great game. The DLC if you have it, like Trespasser and the Jaws of Hakkon are excellent as well.
i got inquisition for free through twitch, how is it compared to other single player rpgs?
It's fine enough. A definite step down from the writing and gameplay of DA2, but a perfectly decent time killer game in between bigger releases. I'd put it about on a par with DA:O. It has way too many fluff quests/objectives that are there just for the sake of having stuff to do in its enormous empty maps, is my biggest complaint.
i like how the 2 responses i got were both it's fine but don't do side quests, then each had completely opposite views on DA2. thanks lol
Yeah DA2 is polarizing and I think is easily skippable, aside from one part of DA:I that's going to be very weird as to why it's important if you've not played DA2. I'm curious if time and the DLC added to DA2 will improve the experience, because it's been a long time since I've played it. I've been going through Origins and it's both better than I remember and also worse in a lot of ways now that I'm looking back on it.
I find Dragon Age 2 to be the worst of the Dragon Age games. I can see what they were going for, but it never actually comes together for me. I find the combat the worst, the story the worst, and the characters the worst. I get what they were trying to do, but it needed another year or two in development to fix the story and the combat. The characters would never work for me because they were going for Mass Effect in that design, and I in no way wanted Mass Effect style characters in my Dragon Age game. For a lot of people it works, but for me it was just a huge disappointment.
Considering the amount of time they were given for DA2, I think they did a great job, even if it’s my least favourite of the three. The friend/rival mechanic, as well as the character response system were awesome that I wish they had kept in the third game.
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
The companion friendship/rivalry system was the best they’ve ever done. You could legit treat them as people instead of things you just put the right responses into.
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited November 2021
The problem with DA2 I honestly don’t think has too much to do with the game itself, but the circumstances of its creation.
Bioware created Origins specifically to be a classic CRPG. They wanted to go back to their roots. People rather enjoyed Origins and it became a success for them.
Then they announced a sequel and people saw that their sequel to a classic CRPG was itself not. The entire point of DA was to be a classic CRPG series. Bioware was excited to make it and fans rewarded them with money for it.
Bioware knew that people weren’t gonna like DA2, but even upon release the backlash was a lot greater than they anticipated.
My guess is that EA had a lot of involvement after Origins proved a decent success.
So if you weren’t there for all of that then DA2 is a perfectly fine game.
edit- Keep in mind, when Origins came out, classic styled CRPGs were effectively a dead genre. The success of Origins and the backlash from DA2, in part, caused a fair number of people to take a second look at the genre. From that (at least in part for sure) you started to see a revitalization of the genre. From Infinity Engine styled CRPGs to turn based to the resurrection of long dead IPs. A lot of good came out of all of it in the end.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
Dragon Age 2 was a DA game more in the style of Mass Effect. Mass Effect is dramatically more popular than DA, so this works out, but fans of the first game's 100 year old promises didn't like it. DA: I is more in the style of 2 than 1, so that debate was clearly never factored in, internally at the studio.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Dragon Age 2 was a DA game more in the style of Mass Effect. Mass Effect is dramatically more popular than DA, so this works out, but fans of the first game's 100 year old promises didn't like it. DA: I is more in the style of 2 than 1, so that debate was clearly never factored in, internally at the studio.
Aside from combat, DA:I is much closer to DA:O than it was to 2. The conversation wheel in DA:I is still restrictive, but it's not as ambiguous as DA2 and you generally get a lot more options to work with during main quests than a handful of personality styles and maybe a couple questions. Where it's let down heavily is in side quests where you basically get to say "Yes, I'll do the thing" and "Goodbye". Otherwise DA:I has some actual meaningful choices, there are some big battle set pieces that DA:O also did well, the environments are large and expansive (again, something DA:O did) and so on. The one part that they decided to keep from DA2 was largely the combat engine, but even then they managed to make it feel better with the pure tactical view in DA:I. Several battles in DA:I I played entirely using the tactical view and it was considerably easier to get full control over the entire party so they actually did what I wanted them to do. This helped alleviate the problems DA2 introduced, combined with the lack of wankers appearing from nowhere in your back lines every 5 seconds making actually using tactics viable. So I would not say that DA:I is more like 2 than 1 at all. It has far more DA:O in it than DA2 did.
The problem with DA2 I honestly don’t think has too much to do with the game itself, but the circumstances of its creation.
This is somewhat true, but the game suffers heavily from the fact EA rammed it into an 18 months development cycle.
1) Map repetition. You have what, the same 6-7 maps that are altered by placing crates in different places over the entire game? I can't quite remember, but it only takes a few hours to notice that they have repeated the same mansion, seaside cave, little mountain trail and handful of streets/buildings multiple times.
2) The story is an absolute mess by Act III. I personally feel Dragon Age 2 would have worked better if you whopped off Act III entirely into a later DLC, expanded the first parts of the game and made the final part the battle against the Arishok. Just about everything that DA2 gets horribly wrong story wise happens in Act III, particularly that nothing you choose matters, the head of the mage guide is an idiot, Meredith is an idiot and Hawke is also an idiot who can't read notes. Everyone is an absolute pants on head moron by the end of the game and without the option to just tell them to screw themselves it's simply infuriating.
3) The combat could have been fun, because they objectively made the game better by making Warriors/Rogues actually have interesting fun things to do in a fight other than stand there with sustain abilities on. The problem is that whoever made this decision had to watch as someone kneecapped the entire thing by making waves of enemies spawn on top of your non-front line characters to instantly kill them. Eventually the only viable tactic (on nightmare) is camp a corner, spam AoEs and repeat. Making it oddly more bland and less interactive than DA:O, where at least adjusting for mage AoEs and similar is an important part of the game. My understanding is that the DLCs hugely improve on this aspect, in particular in making waves only come from logical directions instead of magically spawning bandits through walls, which might actually show what potential the combat in DA2 might have had.
4) Anders. Fuck Anders.
5) The conversation wheel in DA2 had interesting ideas on how Mass Effect did things, but was like the bizarro land reversal of the way they went from ME to ME2. ME2 they actually did a lot to make sure you weren't saying things that you didn't intend from the wheel, it's inherently ambiguous by nature, but went the opposite way in DA2. DA2 I frequently felt like Hawke would say things that were almost the polar opposite of what I intended or wanted to say, which was frustrating at times. The solution, as many know, is to play sarcastic Hawke. Aside from the fact even I have to concede sarcastic Hawke is straight up hilarious at times, it's also the only way to get a consistent tone and not get sidelined by saying something unintended (you always know Hawke will be a maximum dick with sarcastic, so it doesn't matter).
edit- Keep in mind, when Origins came out, classic styled CRPGs were effectively a dead genre. The success of Origins and the backlash from DA2, in part, caused a fair number of people to take a second look at the genre. From that (at least in part for sure) you started to see a revitalization of the genre. From Infinity Engine styled CRPGs to turn based to the resurrection of long dead IPs. A lot of good came out of all of it in the end.
Also the fact that classic CRPGs are seeing a huge resurgence, getting tons of sales and that the new Baldurs Gate is being made by people who have turned it into a faithful turn based remake with over 40k very positive reviews on steam (not fully out yet it's worth noting, still in EA). Like, people told me that DA2 was the only way forward and that the classic CRPG was dead. People also told me that you had to turn XCOM into an FPS, because turn based strategy games were dead. I don't think it was the backlash to DA2 that did this though. I think if you want to see why these games came back with a vengeance it was the remake of XCOM that did it. XCOM defied everyone smugly declaring oldschool feeling genres dead and gave publishers the boldness to bring older ideas back.
I don't remember DA2 changing that, but after XCOM I'm playing so many CRPGs - many with completely 100% turn based combat systems - that it just makes me smile. Not to mention all the turn based strategy games that just keep coming out since Firaxis did XCOM:EU. I remember, at the time, arguing heavily that CRPGs and turn based games weren't dead, having a chorus of people going "nah they a dead genre bro! Unless it's an action game it will never seeeellllllll".
Everyone knows you hate DA2, but this is starting to get tedious.
DAO: Silent main character with unvoiced dialogue lines you choose out of a list.
DA2: Voiced main character with options you pick from a dialogue wheel.
DAI: Voiced main character with options you pick from a dialogue wheel.
DAO: Tactical combat based on old CRPGs.
DA2: "Action" combat where you press the button to attack.
DAI: "Action" combat where you press the button to attack (with a tactical view available, not the same as Origins at all).
DAO: Developed with the PC as the main platform, ported to consoles.
DA2: Developed with consoles as the main SKU, ported to PC.
DAI: Developed with consoles as the main SKU, ported to PC. (The game design was famously held back by having to do X360 and Ps3 versions).
DAO: Most well known character Morrigan.
DA2: Most popular character Varric.
DAI: Most popular character Varric.
Most importantly of all, many of the lead devs from Dragon Age: Origins left the company, while the lead devs from Dragon Age 2... made Dragon Age: Inquisition. It's not even a real debate, of course they took more learning from their own work. Dragon Age 2 redesigned a lot of the art and some of the lore, all of that stuff directly carries to Inquisition. The main villain of Inquisition was introduced in 2's DLC! Your last paragraph makes it exceedingly clear you're still very upset from imagined slights from a decade + ago, and very few people here would have ever made those statements in the first place. In fact, I dare you to find receipts that people were in favor of XCOM being a shooter. From the moment of the Bureau's announcement, 2k endured a barrage of never ending dissent and annoyance until they announced Enemy Unknown. Dragon Age 2 also wasn't such a popular game that people would have been arguing en masse that CRPG game style was dead. Instead, what people probably said, completely accurately and correctly, is that Bioware was only interested in making more action style, mainstream games, which sure enough, was exactly the planned course of action for that studio.
+4
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited November 2021
None of that has any real relevance on my point. I just finished playing DA:I and I'm playing Origins right now. DA:I feels much more like Origins did than DA2 does, for a multitude of reasons from feel, encounter design, large expansive environments, set up, story, choices etc. Also I'm not sure I agree with you about Varric was the most popular companion, from a quick look around (he definitely was in DA2 though) I can't find any evidence of that. I did discover in DA:I that nearly 32% of players made a female inquisitor, which I think is one of the higher numbers for a first time playthrough in a Bioware game.
Edit: Why not make an equally silly list as you did to prove a point?
DAO: Can choose to be a variety of different races
DA2: Human (that's it)
DAI: Can be a variety of different races PLUS you can be a Qunari
DAO: Has a large expansive story over a wide variety of places and environments
DA2: Stuck in Kirkwall on the same 7 maps
DAI: Has a large expansive story over a wide variety of places and environments
DAO: There is an overall meta threat to the world from the Darkspawn
DA2: Everything that happens is in one particular city over a period of 10 years. No major stakes*
DAI: There is an overall meta story threat from the demonic rifts
etc
Edit: One last, but this makes DA:I worse for it
DAO: Has a kind of bland companion system where they either like you or hate you, with hating you just doing nothing except having them leave in a huff
DA2: One of biowares best companion systems, where being their rival or friend made a major impact on their view of you
DAI: Goes back to the bland companion system where they either like you or no interesting story content for you
As I've mentioned, I just sunk 100+ hours in DA:I and am right now playing DA:O. I think I can notice that DA:I is very much a course correction and an attempt to bring a lot more of Origins back into the franchise, even if they stuck to their guns on two of the bigger changes - the combat system and the dialog wheel.
*Though in fairness you could argue DA:I heavily retcons this to be otherwise
The main villain of Inquisition was introduced in 2's DLC!
I have not played the DLC in 2, but I do own it from the same bundle that gave me DA:O. Which DLC is he in? This was the single most baffling and confusing part of DA:I to me until I figured this out. I am very curious to see how this starts.
Posts
Anywhere. Literally anywhere.
Forest filled with murderous elves? Better than Kirkwall.
Desert filled with giant intelligent scorpions that hunt people for sport? Still better than Kirkwall.
The inside of of an active volcano? Still better than Kirkwall because that's how badly Kirkwall and virtually everyone in it sucks on every single level.
(It's also just fun to see more diametrically opposed characters inexplicably attracted to each other)
Da:I is literally the only BioWare game that I haven’t beaten because I was so mind bogglingly bored by it’s uninspired enemies outside of unique bosses/dragons, enemies respawning lightning quick, and both of the elves being utterly insufferable.
Oh and elf root. Because of course they would make the most commonly used crafting mat the most tedious thing to collect.
Running around finding elf root was garbage though.
Again, it's DA2 that shits enemies out of nowhere on you in every fight to extend the same 10 dungeons into 40 hours of gameplay.
Edit: It occurs to me though that I played DA:I well beyond the initial release, with all the patches and similar. So I could be playing something that was changed well after the fact. I know that the waves of garbage mechanic is something absent from the DLC in DA2 as an example, so that might improve my opinion of the combat system in DA2 considerably once I get to the DLC there.
And yes, I did decide to leave Sten to rot in his cage in Lothering. But I did pick up Leliana for the very first time in DA:O. Believe it or not, I've never noticed the tavern in Lothering, so both of my first DA:O characters never saw her and thus she died (or whatever happens to her) in Lothering every time.
You mean it will in Trespasser acknowledge me poisoning the Ashes of Andraste, which if she is in the party will cause her to attack me and then I will get a unique ending in Inquisition?
Oh man.
I am so tempted. So tempted. But I don't think I can justify being that cartoonishly evil.
Or can I?
Specifically:
Gaddez is talking about enemies in the open world quickly reappearing after you've cleared them out, not waves during combat
Again this could have been a change with a patch and I have already done all the quests here, which does a lot to “pacify” a region as well. I didn’t mind those side quests, but if you found the game/boring or unengaging I can definitely see how this would lead to a frustrating loop.
But I have been playing more Origins. While Mass Effect was a great game, I miss the moral Grey and complex decisions of Dragon Age Origins. Everything being made into a hammered in here is your good guy side and bad guy side of the dialog wheel system is disappointing in both DA2/DA:I. At least DA:I had some with one quest, but that was it sadly.
Really wish they would realise there are more than two binary solutions to every problem again.
If this didn’t happen for you I can only assume you were running a pile of mods on pc.
I am a single trophy off the platinum. The gathering herbs from Skyhold one where I chose the chantry upgrade and not the bigger garden. Much regrets.
I am playing Origins on PC however and I am considering using the mod to reduce the fade and endless deep roads. These were like the ones I remember people using, but can’t remember.
Give him fine tapestries and tell him to "stfu, I'm the boss" and he may as well be a romance option he loves you so much.
This is eerily similar to how my wife won my heart.
While Origins is basically controlling chickens with their heads cut off splurting blood everywhere and not listening to a damn thing you want them to do. I did try Shale for a good while, but I can't make them as effective at tanking as Alistair, because looking things up, I got hugely unlucky with flawless crystal drops and it won't be for a long time before I can make them functional in that role. It sucks because I absolutely love Shales commentary about things when they are in the party.
Now that the nostalgia goggles are wearing off, I do remember Dragon Age Origins for the excellent roleplaying it provides, but dear gods had I forgot the misery some of these rooms are until you meta-game them a little. I'm currently being reminded how painful and overlong some of the dungeons get - particularly the fade portion of the mage tower and the insufferable deep roads (oh, I had forgot that alright).
I am already going to make Loghain take the final blow for the Archdaemon and probably make Alistair King. Probably. It is still great to basically tell every human who calls me a knife ear or similar where to stick it. Sometimes I even do it quite literally!
~ Buckaroo Banzai
So, either he got fired or quit in dramatic fashion. What the hell is happening over there? Will the next DA game come out this decade?
The question isn't if it will come out but if it will actually be worth releasing. EA has no problem making sure something gets pushed through, and they're the ones who call the shots in the end.
Still hopeful, though. For all the drama surrounding both Inquisition and Andromeda I still enjoyed them immensely despite their flaws.
You're probably right, EA will probably make them fart out something, especially since they don't have any real sources of ongoing revenue (ME: Legendary Edition has pretty much stopped selling, though it was a success and exceeded expectations).
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
It is really good. It's got a bit too much cruft in it, because the best stuff is all front loaded into the main quest missions - one of which is some of Biowares best ever quest design and writing. Many of the side areas could have been entirely removed and actively improved the game though, especially if they had been turned into more interesting variations of the main missions. At the same time there are some great choices, like combat feels tactical again, Skyhold feels meaty and well built up, plus you can sit in judgement of a bear and a guy who threw a goat at your castle.
I think it's excellent and was a fantastic course correction after the complete disaster that was Dragon Age 2, but at the same time a lot of the side content boils down to feeling like a major over-correction. The sidequest content is generally entirely bland and devoid of any interesting choices or decisions, so as long as you don't try to be completely completionist about Inquisition (I would do most story quests as soon as you meet the minimum recommended level for them on normal) it's a great game. The DLC if you have it, like Trespasser and the Jaws of Hakkon are excellent as well.
(Michael Lutz does not work at Bioware, he's just the co-host of Games Studies Study Buddies, among other podcasts.)
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
It's fine enough. A definite step down from the writing and gameplay of DA2, but a perfectly decent time killer game in between bigger releases. I'd put it about on a par with DA:O. It has way too many fluff quests/objectives that are there just for the sake of having stuff to do in its enormous empty maps, is my biggest complaint.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
Yeah DA2 is polarizing and I think is easily skippable, aside from one part of DA:I that's going to be very weird as to why it's important if you've not played DA2. I'm curious if time and the DLC added to DA2 will improve the experience, because it's been a long time since I've played it. I've been going through Origins and it's both better than I remember and also worse in a lot of ways now that I'm looking back on it.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
WoW
Dear Satan.....
Bioware created Origins specifically to be a classic CRPG. They wanted to go back to their roots. People rather enjoyed Origins and it became a success for them.
Then they announced a sequel and people saw that their sequel to a classic CRPG was itself not. The entire point of DA was to be a classic CRPG series. Bioware was excited to make it and fans rewarded them with money for it.
Bioware knew that people weren’t gonna like DA2, but even upon release the backlash was a lot greater than they anticipated.
My guess is that EA had a lot of involvement after Origins proved a decent success.
So if you weren’t there for all of that then DA2 is a perfectly fine game.
edit- Keep in mind, when Origins came out, classic styled CRPGs were effectively a dead genre. The success of Origins and the backlash from DA2, in part, caused a fair number of people to take a second look at the genre. From that (at least in part for sure) you started to see a revitalization of the genre. From Infinity Engine styled CRPGs to turn based to the resurrection of long dead IPs. A lot of good came out of all of it in the end.
Aside from combat, DA:I is much closer to DA:O than it was to 2. The conversation wheel in DA:I is still restrictive, but it's not as ambiguous as DA2 and you generally get a lot more options to work with during main quests than a handful of personality styles and maybe a couple questions. Where it's let down heavily is in side quests where you basically get to say "Yes, I'll do the thing" and "Goodbye". Otherwise DA:I has some actual meaningful choices, there are some big battle set pieces that DA:O also did well, the environments are large and expansive (again, something DA:O did) and so on. The one part that they decided to keep from DA2 was largely the combat engine, but even then they managed to make it feel better with the pure tactical view in DA:I. Several battles in DA:I I played entirely using the tactical view and it was considerably easier to get full control over the entire party so they actually did what I wanted them to do. This helped alleviate the problems DA2 introduced, combined with the lack of wankers appearing from nowhere in your back lines every 5 seconds making actually using tactics viable. So I would not say that DA:I is more like 2 than 1 at all. It has far more DA:O in it than DA2 did.
This is somewhat true, but the game suffers heavily from the fact EA rammed it into an 18 months development cycle.
1) Map repetition. You have what, the same 6-7 maps that are altered by placing crates in different places over the entire game? I can't quite remember, but it only takes a few hours to notice that they have repeated the same mansion, seaside cave, little mountain trail and handful of streets/buildings multiple times.
2) The story is an absolute mess by Act III. I personally feel Dragon Age 2 would have worked better if you whopped off Act III entirely into a later DLC, expanded the first parts of the game and made the final part the battle against the Arishok. Just about everything that DA2 gets horribly wrong story wise happens in Act III, particularly that nothing you choose matters, the head of the mage guide is an idiot, Meredith is an idiot and Hawke is also an idiot who can't read notes. Everyone is an absolute pants on head moron by the end of the game and without the option to just tell them to screw themselves it's simply infuriating.
3) The combat could have been fun, because they objectively made the game better by making Warriors/Rogues actually have interesting fun things to do in a fight other than stand there with sustain abilities on. The problem is that whoever made this decision had to watch as someone kneecapped the entire thing by making waves of enemies spawn on top of your non-front line characters to instantly kill them. Eventually the only viable tactic (on nightmare) is camp a corner, spam AoEs and repeat. Making it oddly more bland and less interactive than DA:O, where at least adjusting for mage AoEs and similar is an important part of the game. My understanding is that the DLCs hugely improve on this aspect, in particular in making waves only come from logical directions instead of magically spawning bandits through walls, which might actually show what potential the combat in DA2 might have had.
4) Anders. Fuck Anders.
5) The conversation wheel in DA2 had interesting ideas on how Mass Effect did things, but was like the bizarro land reversal of the way they went from ME to ME2. ME2 they actually did a lot to make sure you weren't saying things that you didn't intend from the wheel, it's inherently ambiguous by nature, but went the opposite way in DA2. DA2 I frequently felt like Hawke would say things that were almost the polar opposite of what I intended or wanted to say, which was frustrating at times. The solution, as many know, is to play sarcastic Hawke. Aside from the fact even I have to concede sarcastic Hawke is straight up hilarious at times, it's also the only way to get a consistent tone and not get sidelined by saying something unintended (you always know Hawke will be a maximum dick with sarcastic, so it doesn't matter).
Also the fact that classic CRPGs are seeing a huge resurgence, getting tons of sales and that the new Baldurs Gate is being made by people who have turned it into a faithful turn based remake with over 40k very positive reviews on steam (not fully out yet it's worth noting, still in EA). Like, people told me that DA2 was the only way forward and that the classic CRPG was dead. People also told me that you had to turn XCOM into an FPS, because turn based strategy games were dead. I don't think it was the backlash to DA2 that did this though. I think if you want to see why these games came back with a vengeance it was the remake of XCOM that did it. XCOM defied everyone smugly declaring oldschool feeling genres dead and gave publishers the boldness to bring older ideas back.
I don't remember DA2 changing that, but after XCOM I'm playing so many CRPGs - many with completely 100% turn based combat systems - that it just makes me smile. Not to mention all the turn based strategy games that just keep coming out since Firaxis did XCOM:EU. I remember, at the time, arguing heavily that CRPGs and turn based games weren't dead, having a chorus of people going "nah they a dead genre bro! Unless it's an action game it will never seeeellllllll".
I know who was right
DAO: Silent main character with unvoiced dialogue lines you choose out of a list.
DA2: Voiced main character with options you pick from a dialogue wheel.
DAI: Voiced main character with options you pick from a dialogue wheel.
DAO: Tactical combat based on old CRPGs.
DA2: "Action" combat where you press the button to attack.
DAI: "Action" combat where you press the button to attack (with a tactical view available, not the same as Origins at all).
DAO: Developed with the PC as the main platform, ported to consoles.
DA2: Developed with consoles as the main SKU, ported to PC.
DAI: Developed with consoles as the main SKU, ported to PC. (The game design was famously held back by having to do X360 and Ps3 versions).
DAO: Most well known character Morrigan.
DA2: Most popular character Varric.
DAI: Most popular character Varric.
Most importantly of all, many of the lead devs from Dragon Age: Origins left the company, while the lead devs from Dragon Age 2... made Dragon Age: Inquisition. It's not even a real debate, of course they took more learning from their own work. Dragon Age 2 redesigned a lot of the art and some of the lore, all of that stuff directly carries to Inquisition. The main villain of Inquisition was introduced in 2's DLC! Your last paragraph makes it exceedingly clear you're still very upset from imagined slights from a decade + ago, and very few people here would have ever made those statements in the first place. In fact, I dare you to find receipts that people were in favor of XCOM being a shooter. From the moment of the Bureau's announcement, 2k endured a barrage of never ending dissent and annoyance until they announced Enemy Unknown. Dragon Age 2 also wasn't such a popular game that people would have been arguing en masse that CRPG game style was dead. Instead, what people probably said, completely accurately and correctly, is that Bioware was only interested in making more action style, mainstream games, which sure enough, was exactly the planned course of action for that studio.
Edit: Why not make an equally silly list as you did to prove a point?
DAO: Can choose to be a variety of different races
DA2: Human (that's it)
DAI: Can be a variety of different races PLUS you can be a Qunari
DAO: Has a large expansive story over a wide variety of places and environments
DA2: Stuck in Kirkwall on the same 7 maps
DAI: Has a large expansive story over a wide variety of places and environments
DAO: There is an overall meta threat to the world from the Darkspawn
DA2: Everything that happens is in one particular city over a period of 10 years. No major stakes*
DAI: There is an overall meta story threat from the demonic rifts
etc
Edit: One last, but this makes DA:I worse for it
DAO: Has a kind of bland companion system where they either like you or hate you, with hating you just doing nothing except having them leave in a huff
DA2: One of biowares best companion systems, where being their rival or friend made a major impact on their view of you
DAI: Goes back to the bland companion system where they either like you or no interesting story content for you
As I've mentioned, I just sunk 100+ hours in DA:I and am right now playing DA:O. I think I can notice that DA:I is very much a course correction and an attempt to bring a lot more of Origins back into the franchise, even if they stuck to their guns on two of the bigger changes - the combat system and the dialog wheel.
*Though in fairness you could argue DA:I heavily retcons this to be otherwise
I have not played the DLC in 2, but I do own it from the same bundle that gave me DA:O. Which DLC is he in? This was the single most baffling and confusing part of DA:I to me until I figured this out. I am very curious to see how this starts.