IceBone
Blue Wheel Hipster
TBH, the bows in-game look much more managable.
Dragon Age III: Inquisition
- Thread starter jedd_kenobi
- Start date
During the last weekend I've been to the Storm Coast, Emerald Graves, Exalted Plains, Emprise du Lion and Sahrnia. My summary of each of them respectively would probably be: okay, beautiful but still kinda just okay, catastrophically boring, interesting but repetitive, and interesting.
It's hard to say which I would rate as my top-three favourite locations so far. Probably Hinterlands, Storm Coast and Emerald Graves. The Hinterlands is definitely #1 just because it's so varied - which the rest certainly are not. Mostly the locations have been pretty much the same thing applied to a smaller or larger surface area. (Then again you could say that about any themed location in any game.)
I thought the Exalted Plains were truly mind-numbing, though. It's just waaaay too big and repetitive to be an enjoyable experience throughout. And it's almost exclusively fetch quests / collection quests, too. I did mostly complete it, even though it was getting quite annoying towards the end. The Citadel was the high point there. No elevation-related pun intended.
I overall liked Emprise du Lion even though it's very linear. I think it had a couple too many prisoners and Red Templar groups, but apart from that, it was a fine linear sequence. It also had probably the best loot I've seen yet - thanks to the Grey Warden passage.
The Grey Warden passage was probably the worst-designed map I've seen yet, though. I don't know what they were thinking, placing the fight on basically a cliff face, with random holes in the ground, and then just letting the player fall into the holes while fighting. :?
Also, taking the Keep was hard at least for me. I ended up playing it like a wuss. It was mostly because by the biggest fights, I was out of potions, and there were no supply caches until there was one right before the final boss. So yeah: just stealthed through all giant-fights and used gamebreaking mechanics to beat the boss. Stealthed away from the boss until my team respawned next to me... rinse and repeat. The boss had about 70k HP and endless armor up sequences. It also bugged out once during my attempts to beat it. Died before turning into his final form, and failed to escalate or resolve the quest.
It's hard to say which I would rate as my top-three favourite locations so far. Probably Hinterlands, Storm Coast and Emerald Graves. The Hinterlands is definitely #1 just because it's so varied - which the rest certainly are not. Mostly the locations have been pretty much the same thing applied to a smaller or larger surface area. (Then again you could say that about any themed location in any game.)
I thought the Exalted Plains were truly mind-numbing, though. It's just waaaay too big and repetitive to be an enjoyable experience throughout. And it's almost exclusively fetch quests / collection quests, too. I did mostly complete it, even though it was getting quite annoying towards the end. The Citadel was the high point there. No elevation-related pun intended.
I overall liked Emprise du Lion even though it's very linear. I think it had a couple too many prisoners and Red Templar groups, but apart from that, it was a fine linear sequence. It also had probably the best loot I've seen yet - thanks to the Grey Warden passage.
The Grey Warden passage was probably the worst-designed map I've seen yet, though. I don't know what they were thinking, placing the fight on basically a cliff face, with random holes in the ground, and then just letting the player fall into the holes while fighting. :?
Also, taking the Keep was hard at least for me. I ended up playing it like a wuss. It was mostly because by the biggest fights, I was out of potions, and there were no supply caches until there was one right before the final boss. So yeah: just stealthed through all giant-fights and used gamebreaking mechanics to beat the boss. Stealthed away from the boss until my team respawned next to me... rinse and repeat. The boss had about 70k HP and endless armor up sequences. It also bugged out once during my attempts to beat it. Died before turning into his final form, and failed to escalate or resolve the quest.
Anyways, overall I'm still having a blast. I'm at about 43 hours now. I wrapped up yesterday with the Guilty Pleasures quest, which was the best quest ever in any RPG. :lol:
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Fucking hell, the dragons are hard. I was 3 levels above it, but only managed to get its health down to 80% before I got wiped out.
It appears to be quite dependant on which dragon you stumble upon, where, how your party is set up and how your inquisitor is specced. Yesterday (I think) I tried to fight the first dragon in Emprise du Lion and it was a laughable snap defeat. However, today I killed the dragon in the Exalted Plains expansion (the swamp part) and it was a very manageable and fair fight. I think that dragon was level 15 with about 130k HP. It fought semi-passively with not so much AOE or instakill strikes, and not too many resistances or immunities. That's the opposite of the Emprise dragon which was basically immune to everything and instakilled my party members and me. I was level 17, roughly the same as in the previous fight. The party was the same: Cassandra tanking with a sword and shield, Sera with a bow, and a guardian mage (Dorian instead of the usual Vivienne today but close enough).
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IceBone
Blue Wheel Hipster
Yeah, I'm pretty much the same. One thing I have found is it became a lot easier when you're equipped with fire resistance tonics, go to the temple to get the permanent fire resistance buffs and use a lot of ice magic, as they're vulnerable to it. I managed to defeat the Hinterlands dragon with a 3 level buff.
Credits just rolled at about 72 hours. Level 20 going into the final mission and 21 coming out.
In some ways this game is pretty easy to sum up. But in some ways it's difficult to make my mind up, and I gotta say, it's complex enough to have me guessing if I'm drawing conclusions too early.
From a technical standpoint there's not much to add to what I wrote earlier, only about 15-20 hours in. It's a cohesive package throughout, with very little to complain about. Sometimes there are stupid map design decisions like geometry that the player character can easily get stuck in. Inventory space becomes an issue once you level up enough to start running the longer quests, or when you start to do long expeditions to newer/smaller regions, which would otherwise be doable in one or two goes, except the inventory fills up first.
The crafting system is very random due to the fact the schematics are mostly just lootable. You might be able to make what you need, or not. But when you do, it's so worth it. Crafted stuff seems to be ridiculously powerful.
The skilling system is probably missing one or two trees per class. At about level 17 I basically stopped speccing my characters since there was nothing useful to spend points on.
The high points of the game are definitely the easiest to point out. The graphics and the dialogue.
The graphics are just jaw-dropping pretty much anywhere you go, except in the caves which are quite bland and the regular dungeons which are average. But yeah, the rest is just about the most beautiful combination of game graphics I've ever seen. It's not just the fact that individual styles of setting are so well executed, it's also the fact that the world is so varied. The game engine seems to have no problem making any kind of setting beautiful. Sand deserts, snowy mountains, lush forest, abandoned temples and castles, farms, villages... you name it, this engine makes it gorgeous.
The dialogue probably needs no description as it's a BioWare game. Suffice it to say that it's very situation-aware, eerily well adapting to the party you're running... mostly very intelligent, smart, funny at times... only occasionally let down by the conversation wheel.
Am I ok with having spent 40? on it? Fuck yes. I got more hours per euro than I have from some indie games on sale. This is a must-play for any fantasy RPG fan, no reservations.
Will I keep playing it, now that the main story is concluded? Maybe. I'll have to see if the empty feeling continues, but I'm very much looking forward to DLC and/or a sequel.
My spoilerific collection of 4K/Ultra screenshots is here.
In some ways this game is pretty easy to sum up. But in some ways it's difficult to make my mind up, and I gotta say, it's complex enough to have me guessing if I'm drawing conclusions too early.
The ending concluded the story in quite a thorough way. At the same time, though, I can't help but feel the story of the final mission doesn't jibe with the state of Skyhold when it's all said and done.
My choices along the game obviously affect some of this but let me explain.
Generally my issue is with how abruptly the conversation trees and character interaction disappear when the main plot concludes. Hopefully it's just the immediate state after the final cutscene, but what I just saw was that a couple of the main characters had one discussion, and then a bark going forwards, and the rest only had a bark. If this is the game state after the main story, then I have to say there's very little emotional draw for continuing with the side quests that were left open. Will the main characters' conversation wheels at Skyhold repopulate as I go further in with sidequests, I wonder?
So Leliana becomes the Divine now. That is massive. Yet, when I got back to Skyhold, Lely is still there and happily working away at her post and in the war room. Her explanation is that her inauguration is not done yet, she needs to appoint a new Spymaster, and "maybe she's not ready yet"... I'm not saying I would've liked for her to leave, but in a way the whole situation with her remains unresolved. Perhaps it's by design, or perhaps they just ran out of time to properly conclude that part.
I have to say also that the conversation wheel fucked me at the point where I had to support or not support her in her quest to Divineship. Her idea to totally rework everything and basically reset the country to new (her) ideals came radically out of the blue and seemed undercooked, almost naive. So I chose "do not support", expecting the Herald to explain with at least her desire to keep Leliana around, or maybe even paraphrase what I said, or something along those lines. But no, the Inquisitor just said flat out that "I cannot support you" and offered no explanation. I almost savescummed to fix that conversation but decided to stand with my choice even though the dialogue was shit. Hopefully in a DLC or sequel that conversation option won't make me Leliana's bitter enemy, because that's not what I intended.
Cassandra was not elected Divine and Leliana rejected her as the Right Hand. Yet Cassandra was totally cool with that. She wouldn't even talk about her future plans, except that she'd stay with the Inquisition for the moment... or as the Herald's bodyguard forever, whichever way you want to interpret the main plot conclusion. Cassandra was probably the discussion I was most looking forward to after the final cutscenes... and yet there were hardly any lines, let alone a discussion tree! What the hell?
The ending explained that the Inquisition Mages, which I'd taken under my wing, had moved on. Yet when I got back to Skyhold, Fiona was still there along with the rest of the Mages. That's probably the most extreme example of Skyhold not obeying the final cutscenes.
Speaking of Fiona. Maybe I screwed something up but during my 72 hours of gameplay I hardly got to know her. She had one or two discussions related to her past and that is all. The Mages joined waaay back in the kinda-beginning of the game, but after the quest where I sided with them, they had little to no effect on the story, or the characters, or the surroundings. Fiona in particular was really interesting to me and quite well voice acted, so I was very disappointed to see so little character development (or even use) for her. More discussions with her would've been nice if not even a possibility to have her replace Vivienne as a Mage companion.
Overall I have quite lukewarm feelings about the story arc. It was all right but nothing special. Don't get me wrong, it's quite nice to have a simple and reasonable good vs. evil story. I was still intrigued enough that I stayed and watched how the big bad gets it. And naturally at the very end there were some curveballs. I guess they are foreshadowing for the inevitable DLC/sequel story. For what it's worth, I disliked/distrusted both Solas and Morrigan from the start. Perhaps that was by design.
I dunno. I would've liked for them to leave the discussion wheels open after the main story. Come to think of it, I think Mass Effect 3 had the same thing. Really immersive home base during the main story, that then becomes a literal ghost town after the main story is completed.
My choices along the game obviously affect some of this but let me explain.
Generally my issue is with how abruptly the conversation trees and character interaction disappear when the main plot concludes. Hopefully it's just the immediate state after the final cutscene, but what I just saw was that a couple of the main characters had one discussion, and then a bark going forwards, and the rest only had a bark. If this is the game state after the main story, then I have to say there's very little emotional draw for continuing with the side quests that were left open. Will the main characters' conversation wheels at Skyhold repopulate as I go further in with sidequests, I wonder?
So Leliana becomes the Divine now. That is massive. Yet, when I got back to Skyhold, Lely is still there and happily working away at her post and in the war room. Her explanation is that her inauguration is not done yet, she needs to appoint a new Spymaster, and "maybe she's not ready yet"... I'm not saying I would've liked for her to leave, but in a way the whole situation with her remains unresolved. Perhaps it's by design, or perhaps they just ran out of time to properly conclude that part.
I have to say also that the conversation wheel fucked me at the point where I had to support or not support her in her quest to Divineship. Her idea to totally rework everything and basically reset the country to new (her) ideals came radically out of the blue and seemed undercooked, almost naive. So I chose "do not support", expecting the Herald to explain with at least her desire to keep Leliana around, or maybe even paraphrase what I said, or something along those lines. But no, the Inquisitor just said flat out that "I cannot support you" and offered no explanation. I almost savescummed to fix that conversation but decided to stand with my choice even though the dialogue was shit. Hopefully in a DLC or sequel that conversation option won't make me Leliana's bitter enemy, because that's not what I intended.
Cassandra was not elected Divine and Leliana rejected her as the Right Hand. Yet Cassandra was totally cool with that. She wouldn't even talk about her future plans, except that she'd stay with the Inquisition for the moment... or as the Herald's bodyguard forever, whichever way you want to interpret the main plot conclusion. Cassandra was probably the discussion I was most looking forward to after the final cutscenes... and yet there were hardly any lines, let alone a discussion tree! What the hell?
The ending explained that the Inquisition Mages, which I'd taken under my wing, had moved on. Yet when I got back to Skyhold, Fiona was still there along with the rest of the Mages. That's probably the most extreme example of Skyhold not obeying the final cutscenes.
Speaking of Fiona. Maybe I screwed something up but during my 72 hours of gameplay I hardly got to know her. She had one or two discussions related to her past and that is all. The Mages joined waaay back in the kinda-beginning of the game, but after the quest where I sided with them, they had little to no effect on the story, or the characters, or the surroundings. Fiona in particular was really interesting to me and quite well voice acted, so I was very disappointed to see so little character development (or even use) for her. More discussions with her would've been nice if not even a possibility to have her replace Vivienne as a Mage companion.
Overall I have quite lukewarm feelings about the story arc. It was all right but nothing special. Don't get me wrong, it's quite nice to have a simple and reasonable good vs. evil story. I was still intrigued enough that I stayed and watched how the big bad gets it. And naturally at the very end there were some curveballs. I guess they are foreshadowing for the inevitable DLC/sequel story. For what it's worth, I disliked/distrusted both Solas and Morrigan from the start. Perhaps that was by design.
I dunno. I would've liked for them to leave the discussion wheels open after the main story. Come to think of it, I think Mass Effect 3 had the same thing. Really immersive home base during the main story, that then becomes a literal ghost town after the main story is completed.
From a technical standpoint there's not much to add to what I wrote earlier, only about 15-20 hours in. It's a cohesive package throughout, with very little to complain about. Sometimes there are stupid map design decisions like geometry that the player character can easily get stuck in. Inventory space becomes an issue once you level up enough to start running the longer quests, or when you start to do long expeditions to newer/smaller regions, which would otherwise be doable in one or two goes, except the inventory fills up first.
The crafting system is very random due to the fact the schematics are mostly just lootable. You might be able to make what you need, or not. But when you do, it's so worth it. Crafted stuff seems to be ridiculously powerful.
The skilling system is probably missing one or two trees per class. At about level 17 I basically stopped speccing my characters since there was nothing useful to spend points on.
The high points of the game are definitely the easiest to point out. The graphics and the dialogue.
The graphics are just jaw-dropping pretty much anywhere you go, except in the caves which are quite bland and the regular dungeons which are average. But yeah, the rest is just about the most beautiful combination of game graphics I've ever seen. It's not just the fact that individual styles of setting are so well executed, it's also the fact that the world is so varied. The game engine seems to have no problem making any kind of setting beautiful. Sand deserts, snowy mountains, lush forest, abandoned temples and castles, farms, villages... you name it, this engine makes it gorgeous.
The dialogue probably needs no description as it's a BioWare game. Suffice it to say that it's very situation-aware, eerily well adapting to the party you're running... mostly very intelligent, smart, funny at times... only occasionally let down by the conversation wheel.
Am I ok with having spent 40? on it? Fuck yes. I got more hours per euro than I have from some indie games on sale. This is a must-play for any fantasy RPG fan, no reservations.
Will I keep playing it, now that the main story is concluded? Maybe. I'll have to see if the empty feeling continues, but I'm very much looking forward to DLC and/or a sequel.
My spoilerific collection of 4K/Ultra screenshots is here.
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IceBone
Blue Wheel Hipster
And today the patch arrived. http://blog.bioware.com/2014/12/09/dragon-age-inquisition-patch-2-notes/
http://blog.bioware.com/2014/12/09/dragon-age-inquisition-patch-2-notes/Bioware giveth and Bioware taketh away.
I can run Origin and DA:I in Online mode now without it freezing, but in return it runs at about 8 fps, regardless of whether it's Offline, Logged out or Logged in. And also regardless of whether it's a light scene, medium scene or heavy scene - whereas before the patch it would vary between 25-40 fps depending on scene.
Lowest framerate before the patch - Lowest framerate after the patch
Thank "the Maker" I already finished the main story.
Apart from that, the changes in the list are nice. In theory.
I can run Origin and DA:I in Online mode now without it freezing, but in return it runs at about 8 fps, regardless of whether it's Offline, Logged out or Logged in. And also regardless of whether it's a light scene, medium scene or heavy scene - whereas before the patch it would vary between 25-40 fps depending on scene.
Lowest framerate before the patch - Lowest framerate after the patch
Thank "the Maker" I already finished the main story.
Apart from that, the changes in the list are nice. In theory.
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maxtortheone
Chicken Fiddler
Still doesn't change the fact that you have as much VRAM as DDR2
With the 347.09 beta drivers from NVIDIA the framerate problem seems to be mostly (if not completely) fixed for me. I get about 250 % of the post-patch framerate and 85 % of the pre-patch framerate. So yeah, I can somewhat enjoy the game again. Here's hoping BW will further optimize the game so that I can get it to over 40fps.
I've been playing about 35 hours of DA:Origins since Inquisition broke and it's fun to have that perspective to Inquisition now. This feels really sluggish and it's sad that you can't talk to the party members during exploration like you can in Origins.
The Inquisition soundtrack is available from Origin with the Deluxe upgrade DLC for 9,99 ?, btw. Personally I enjoyed the soundtrack but the problem is that it doesn't contain the tavern songs which is the best part of the soundtrack. Still, I consider it worth the 10 ?. It's 1,5 hours of pretty good orchestral music, after all.
Oh and the companion AI is just as dumb in patch 2 as it was before :lol:
I've been playing about 35 hours of DA:Origins since Inquisition broke and it's fun to have that perspective to Inquisition now. This feels really sluggish and it's sad that you can't talk to the party members during exploration like you can in Origins.
The Inquisition soundtrack is available from Origin with the Deluxe upgrade DLC for 9,99 ?, btw. Personally I enjoyed the soundtrack but the problem is that it doesn't contain the tavern songs which is the best part of the soundtrack. Still, I consider it worth the 10 ?. It's 1,5 hours of pretty good orchestral music, after all.
Oh and the companion AI is just as dumb in patch 2 as it was before :lol:
Looks like they won Polygon's GOTY
http://www.polygon.com/goty
http://www.polygon.com/goty
Veritable
Active Member
@Jupix
Just finished it last night, ~88hrs and at level 24. You are right that the game feels kind of broken if you "continue" after the main story is finished, but I can understand why that happens: so they can do the inevitable DLCs by plopping them into the War Room as new missions / areas and you still have (most) of your companions. Origin's Premium Contents (Return to Ostagar, Warden's Keep) were like that, so I tried to work them into the main story for fear of breaking them and / or having them not make sense.
Also due to suspecting that, I made bloody sure to finish all War Room operations / clear all areas before triggering the final main story mission, and would usually Scout / clear non-story areas based on their power requirements ahead of story areas.
Now I am going back to Skyrim, but also spent the morning installing Dragon Age 2 again.... Played as a non-mage Hawke in DA2 because Bethany >>>>>(ad infinitum)>>>>> Carver, but then Hawke's cameo in Inquisition felt... weird. A bit whiney, IMO. By the time I finish that (for the 3rd time), then start up Inquisition again and hopefully some DLCs / expansions are out.
Just finished it last night, ~88hrs and at level 24. You are right that the game feels kind of broken if you "continue" after the main story is finished, but I can understand why that happens: so they can do the inevitable DLCs by plopping them into the War Room as new missions / areas and you still have (most) of your companions. Origin's Premium Contents (Return to Ostagar, Warden's Keep) were like that, so I tried to work them into the main story for fear of breaking them and / or having them not make sense.
Also due to suspecting that, I made bloody sure to finish all War Room operations / clear all areas before triggering the final main story mission, and would usually Scout / clear non-story areas based on their power requirements ahead of story areas.
Now I am going back to Skyrim, but also spent the morning installing Dragon Age 2 again.... Played as a non-mage Hawke in DA2 because Bethany >>>>>(ad infinitum)>>>>> Carver, but then Hawke's cameo in Inquisition felt... weird. A bit whiney, IMO. By the time I finish that (for the 3rd time), then start up Inquisition again and hopefully some DLCs / expansions are out.
Thanks for your thoughts. For what it's worth I think you're right. I find it pretty likely that DLC are gonna be war room table missions.
If you recall, DA2's Legacy was also launchable from the HQ after finishing the main questline. (In one of the rooms of Hawke's mansion, to be exact.)
I'm 20 hours into my second playthrough of DAI, after constructing a world in DAK based on my DAO -> Awakening -> DLCs -> DA2 -> DLC playthrough over Christmas. I took a female human mage this time. Playing a mage is fun, but the number of spells is really lacking in contrast to DAO where my HoF was a mage.
This time I'm aiming for a completionist run because my first run was pretty rushed in places (Storm Coast mostly skipped, Forbidden Oasis mostly skipped including the temple, Hissing Wastes completely untouched, Emprise Du Lion dragonland completely untouched, etc...) So basically I'm only advancing the storyline when everything else is done.
I also want to correct some stupid stuff that I did in my first playthrough, like I hardened Leliana by accident in DAI. This time I want to make sure she's not hardened when she (hopefully again) becomes Divine. In DAO, my HoF romanced Leliana and she was also mellowed there, although there's no DAK variable for that.
I'm taking my time with this playthrough since it looks like it'll be a while before any DLC comes out. This'll be the playthrough that is canon for my world state.
Actually, that reminds me of a question I have, how do they plan to handle multiple playthroughs when time comes to populate DAK with Inquisition stuff? I assume the DAK tracker for variables is already running in the game, the UI just isn't there on the website. Presumably you'll select the correct Inquisitor for DAI and that fills in the correct variables from the playthrough...
If you recall, DA2's Legacy was also launchable from the HQ after finishing the main questline. (In one of the rooms of Hawke's mansion, to be exact.)
I'm 20 hours into my second playthrough of DAI, after constructing a world in DAK based on my DAO -> Awakening -> DLCs -> DA2 -> DLC playthrough over Christmas. I took a female human mage this time. Playing a mage is fun, but the number of spells is really lacking in contrast to DAO where my HoF was a mage.
This time I'm aiming for a completionist run because my first run was pretty rushed in places (Storm Coast mostly skipped, Forbidden Oasis mostly skipped including the temple, Hissing Wastes completely untouched, Emprise Du Lion dragonland completely untouched, etc...) So basically I'm only advancing the storyline when everything else is done.
I also want to correct some stupid stuff that I did in my first playthrough, like I hardened Leliana by accident in DAI. This time I want to make sure she's not hardened when she (hopefully again) becomes Divine. In DAO, my HoF romanced Leliana and she was also mellowed there, although there's no DAK variable for that.
I'm taking my time with this playthrough since it looks like it'll be a while before any DLC comes out. This'll be the playthrough that is canon for my world state.
Actually, that reminds me of a question I have, how do they plan to handle multiple playthroughs when time comes to populate DAK with Inquisition stuff? I assume the DAK tracker for variables is already running in the game, the UI just isn't there on the website. Presumably you'll select the correct Inquisitor for DAI and that fills in the correct variables from the playthrough...
Veritable
Active Member
Well, the Dragon Age Keep doesn't import anything for DA:O and DA2, as you know. Not sure how they will change that for DA:I, but even if we have to rebuild the story again it's not too bad... the Keep is pretty robust, despite they still calling it a Beta. My DA:O Landsmeet outcome, for example, was pretty convoluted (took a LOT of pre-planning to make it happen), but it worked okay in the Keep.
If anyone asks me, Human Mage Inquisitor is the way to go. You get a LOT of "umm guys? do you not realize that I'm a MAGE? the very group that played a key part in this huge mess? are you sure you want me here?" dialogues. It definitely feel like some higher power is playing some pretty cruel jokes to pick a mage to ultimately fix things. I also reject the "sent to conclave as spy" backstory as almost nonsense, but looks like you played an Elf so maybe the future dialogues are better fleshed out.
You're right, the first choice to "harden" Leliana is weird. You just got let out of your cell, people barely trusts you, and you have to step in to stop her? I know what to do now but given the circumstances, it makes no sense to do so.
If anyone asks me, Human Mage Inquisitor is the way to go. You get a LOT of "umm guys? do you not realize that I'm a MAGE? the very group that played a key part in this huge mess? are you sure you want me here?" dialogues. It definitely feel like some higher power is playing some pretty cruel jokes to pick a mage to ultimately fix things. I also reject the "sent to conclave as spy" backstory as almost nonsense, but looks like you played an Elf so maybe the future dialogues are better fleshed out.
You're right, the first choice to "harden" Leliana is weird. You just got let out of your cell, people barely trusts you, and you have to step in to stop her? I know what to do now but given the circumstances, it makes no sense to do so.
Yeah, overall I really like the Keep. It's as beta as GMail used to be beta. :lol:
Keep even works with iDevices, it's actually great with the iPad, which made it very easy to keep it up to date while I was doing the run through the earlier games.
Anyhow, now that I know the savefiles from the early games are as buggy as they are, I'm not surprised the Keep doesn't import savefiles from them. For Inquisition I'm pretty sure it's supposed to fill in stuff automatically once the feature is released, after all there's even a checkbox for that in the game settings (upload story progress and choices to Dragon Age Keep, or something like that). It would make sense for it to do that, since that allows them to save even the most minute of player decisions, whereas it's mostly only the broad strokes from the earlier games that can be entered into the Keep.
Yeah, that was actually one of the big reasons I went with a mage now! I find it wonderfully ironic and also justified in the world that I made during DA2. See, in there my Rogue-Hawke was very pro-mage (the HoF was a mage after all, as was most of Hawke's family in my world, so it makes sense for someone coming from Ferelden to symphatize with the mages, as opposed to the templars who were, on the whole, just one-dimensional dicks in DA2). It's also pretty nice that occasionally the game dialogue lampshades the fact that there have been a lot of Good mages in my world, including the HoF.
On my first playthrough the Elf Rogue was cool too. The "spy sent from an elusive Elven clan" backstory makes some sense when there's no context for a new player. The beginning was written relatively well in the sense that whatever background you chose, there's enough character building to show the Inquisitor coming to terms with the Anchor, the fame and the people surrounding her. During the story there were quite a few "you're an elf, but still successful and respected, so congratz" -type of moments, but still there could've been more, IMHO, and also some more drastic effects from the race choice, like maybe a couple of racial quests.
Oh and there's one thing I really liked about going Elven: going to the Winter Palace as a feared and respected leader, an Elf, really shits all over the "comfort zone" of the Orlesian nobles. I like that :lol: I'm not sure going in as a human noble mage even compares, since it's entirely normal for her to do so.
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Veritable
Active Member
Not to mention that a Knight Enchanter Mage can solo dragons, which you might have read about or watched some YouTube videos.
Seriously, it's quite broken: you gain Barrier as you deal damage, and the amount you gain is based on the damage per hit you do. Your Spectral Blade DEMOLISHES enemy Guard / Barriers, often dealing over 1100 per hit. That means, when the dragon stomps her feet and puts up Guard, my Inquisitor doesn't even have to cast Barrier; 2-3 swings not only takes the Guard down, but also recharges the Barrier to FULL. Then each subsequent 300+ damage swings replenishes your Barrier as it counts down / takes damage. Thus, if you can keep connecting with your swings, you will never get hurt.
Thus only the Hinterland dragon caused some problems, because she was more mobile and had room to fly around. Not to mention you usually encounter her earlier. Anything that stays on the ground for you to reach is... cake.
Even the Emprise 3x dragon chain, I just did them in one sitting, one after another, no going back to camp. Not hard, just annoying for the sheer length of time they took. The Silverite you gather, though... Mage Knight Enchanter Inquisitor with never-ending Barrier AND crafted Heavy Armour? So wrong Then the final one? Showing up with half-health and not able to fly? Pfft
Good synergy with the Spirit tree (green one) that buffs the Barrier spell even more. Finally, the Knight Enchanter tree has the only healing / mass reviving spell that is in-game.
Started DA2. Graphics definitely a downgrade, but likes Hawke's personality better (so much more snark possible!). Kept on trying to press Z to PING. Forgot how to attack in the tutorial; LMB did nothing. Once this is done, re-do DA Keep then start Inquisition again!
Seriously, it's quite broken: you gain Barrier as you deal damage, and the amount you gain is based on the damage per hit you do. Your Spectral Blade DEMOLISHES enemy Guard / Barriers, often dealing over 1100 per hit. That means, when the dragon stomps her feet and puts up Guard, my Inquisitor doesn't even have to cast Barrier; 2-3 swings not only takes the Guard down, but also recharges the Barrier to FULL. Then each subsequent 300+ damage swings replenishes your Barrier as it counts down / takes damage. Thus, if you can keep connecting with your swings, you will never get hurt.
Thus only the Hinterland dragon caused some problems, because she was more mobile and had room to fly around. Not to mention you usually encounter her earlier. Anything that stays on the ground for you to reach is... cake.
Even the Emprise 3x dragon chain, I just did them in one sitting, one after another, no going back to camp. Not hard, just annoying for the sheer length of time they took. The Silverite you gather, though... Mage Knight Enchanter Inquisitor with never-ending Barrier AND crafted Heavy Armour? So wrong
Then the final one? Showing up with half-health and not able to fly? Pfft Good synergy with the Spirit tree (green one) that buffs the Barrier spell even more. Finally, the Knight Enchanter tree has the only healing / mass reviving spell that is in-game.
Started DA2. Graphics definitely a downgrade, but likes Hawke's personality better (so much more snark possible!). Kept on trying to press Z to PING. Forgot how to attack in the tutorial; LMB did nothing. Once this is done, re-do DA Keep then start Inquisition again!
Veritable
Active Member
My best Inquisition "patch" was to "sidegrade" from 2x GTX 680 2GB SLI to 1x GTX 980 4GB. You can say that it was a "downgrade" in terms of pure horsepower, but I had flickering textures and DirectX CTDs during cutscenes / War Table. The War Table crash, in particular, was almost guaranteed... I couldn't even read through the descriptions and Advisor comments. Had to go in, assign, and then get the hell out before it crashed
The "leave conversation by walking away" feature caused the couple (yes, only happened twice for me) of "party banter" to bug out on me. You're usually running forward, the "banter" triggers and you get the dialogue tree on the bottom of your screen. You don't notice it fast enough and you keep moving forward, then you get far enough from the conversation initiator and you "leave" the convo. Sounds like you had similar issues.
I did take pretty much the exact same party in my playthrough (Cassandra - Heavy, One-Handed, Shield; Varric - Medium, Bianca; Iron Bull - Heavy, Two-Handed; Inquisitor - Light, Staff. This way all the looted items can be used by someone) so I was not surprised when the Party Banter stopped. Now I wonder if there might be more that failed to fire, but I guess I'll find out next time.
3hrs into DA2. Carver getting very much on my nerves. Heck, from Party Banter he's getting on VARRIC's nerves. Must... persevere... to get a good Hawke in Inqusition....
The "leave conversation by walking away" feature caused the couple (yes, only happened twice for me) of "party banter" to bug out on me. You're usually running forward, the "banter" triggers and you get the dialogue tree on the bottom of your screen. You don't notice it fast enough and you keep moving forward, then you get far enough from the conversation initiator and you "leave" the convo. Sounds like you had similar issues.
I did take pretty much the exact same party in my playthrough (Cassandra - Heavy, One-Handed, Shield; Varric - Medium, Bianca; Iron Bull - Heavy, Two-Handed; Inquisitor - Light, Staff. This way all the looted items can be used by someone) so I was not surprised when the Party Banter stopped. Now I wonder if there might be more that failed to fire, but I guess I'll find out next time.
3hrs into DA2. Carver getting very much on my nerves. Heck, from Party Banter he's getting on VARRIC's nerves. Must... persevere... to get a good Hawke in Inqusition....
Oh yeah, I've had those convo bugs. But only after patch 2. Arrival to Val Royeux was ugly: it skipped over a convo, then it re-fired, messed up the dialogue tree, and when the VR area was done and the Inquisitor was heading home, the initial convo fired once again.
GTX 980 is great for this game. In fact it seems to respond really well to GPU horsepower. When I overclocked mine further, I gained an easy 5 fps and sometimes 10 fps, on top of what I had which was 25-30 fps, so the gain was really significant. I'm rockin 30-40 fps now in Ultra 4K, and that's post-patch 2 performance, which is way worse than the game was originally. I'm hoping that once they properly sort out the engine, the game will run even better.
GTX 980 is great for this game. In fact it seems to respond really well to GPU horsepower. When I overclocked mine further, I gained an easy 5 fps and sometimes 10 fps, on top of what I had which was 25-30 fps, so the gain was really significant. I'm rockin 30-40 fps now in Ultra 4K, and that's post-patch 2 performance, which is way worse than the game was originally. I'm hoping that once they properly sort out the engine, the game will run even better.
Veritable
Active Member
It's Frostbite 3, same engine as Battlefield 4, which I logged almost 430hrs into since launch in November 2013. Upon launch the graphics were also messed up, but the texture problems got fixed on basically the 1st day and a week later I had no engine-related issues.
Netcode, sure; balancing is still ongoing with Community Test Environment, in fact. But engine problems got fixed by NVIDIA / DICE very quickly.
I guess that's probably due to 2 things: DICE Sweden made the game AND the engine, so they can get on fixing it quickly. Driver response though is probably down to BF4 being primarily an MP game so there were a LOT of us screaming at various people to get things fixed... so they did
Netcode, sure; balancing is still ongoing with Community Test Environment, in fact. But engine problems got fixed by NVIDIA / DICE very quickly.
I guess that's probably due to 2 things: DICE Sweden made the game AND the engine, so they can get on fixing it quickly. Driver response though is probably down to BF4 being primarily an MP game so there were a LOT of us screaming at various people to get things fixed... so they did