Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => The Speakeasy: OOG/Off-topic Discussion => Topic started by: Ollie on 29 Nov 2014, 11:10
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Is anyone playing this? If so, what do you think of it? Should I just stick with Skyrim until we get Elder Scrolls VI for all my open-world RPG needs?
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Still waiting for the patch to fix all the bugs before I continue. It's been nice so far, but the open world areas are very, very MMOy. Fetch quests and so on. Rather dull IMO.
If you don't have it yet, wait until said patch before you get it. It's very poorly optimized for PC. And there's a major 100% guaranteed customization bug that happens a little bit into the main story.
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Inserting obligatory 'bioware ain't the same since they sold to EA' comment.
I hear this game makes up for a lot of the bad will from part 2?
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I consider 2 better, but then 2 had exactly the kind of story I've always wanted from RPGs.
3 is back to the standard epic chosen hero thing.
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Playing the crap out of this.
Its massive. Ridiculously so.
And fun. Best of the Dragon Age games....
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Ulf is "really liking it" and has been playing it most discretionary waking hours. "The combat game is not as good a tactical game as Dragon Age: Origins, but the story is better."
Although it's not my game style, I note that it has some excellent voice acting and some engaging characters. It's been pleasant enough to have around that in our house it's mostly played on speakers rather than headset.
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I love it.
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I've been playing (when I can) as well. I'm having a lot of fun but I think Sami hit the nail on the head with the MMO'y feel. I'm not very high yet but I've found myself spending a good chunk of time aimlessly fetching and collecting what's appears to be a trend for every zone (tablets, star map things, etc) which I get pretty bored of quickly. Besides that my only gripe (and I may just not be far enough in yet) is that all my class followers are identical to each other.
Hate on DA2 all you want but I was a little disappointed when I saw that Varric and rogue B and C all shared the same skill tress. I really liked the distinct flavour of DA2's followers all having a tree unique to them, it really gave your party flavour.
Now I can't be bothered with the other characters because they all just seem the same without the cool gear/upgrades I found for the other.
Tldr: fun game, minor annoyances. Will keep playing.
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Well my internet shat itself and I might not get back online for a couple of weeks. As surfing and particularly typing on a phone sucks donkeyballs, I have time to play DA:I. 17 levels and 43 hours later and I can say it is good. It is not fantastic, but it is good.
Story is enjoyable, performance is great, graphics are excellent, characters are diverse and have depth. The world is humongous and a joy to explore. There are mmoish aspects I do not enjoy as much, but I have grown to handle it.
Where it really comes into its own is when the story missions really get going. Level design, fights, overall worldbuilding and so on blows me away. Also, the trans charscter is really well done.
It is almost too big though. A lot of decisions, a lot of differences depending on savegames etc means a ton of replayability but damn... I will easily be past 50-60 hours before I finish this and the thought of starting anew and do it all again is nothing short of daunting.
Hell, I am just three out of ten dragons in at 44 hours!
Those fughts are truly epic by the way. Long, hard, huge.
And now I am tired of fughting the fucking phone for dominance over this post so I will come back to this thread when I can finally type on a god damn keyboard again.
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I have it, but I use the term loosely. I own the game, but it's a 23GB download and Origin absolutely hates the download on this game for God-only-knows-what-reason. So I'll probably be able to play it sometime next week, if I'm lucky.
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Okay, got a keyboard now. Bless the intranet at work for what it provides. A horrifyingly shitty connection to the interblags.
The bad:
Combat is... eh, different? In DA2 it wasn't very good. Well presented but braindead and weird. My rogue bouncing from one side of the room to the other, instagibbing all the weak enemies (daggers make bodies FUCKING EXPLODE, didn't you know that?) etc etc. In DA:O it was far worse presented, but immensely more enjoyable. More tactical, better paced and with a staggeringly well done positioning system etc.
DA:I has gone a bit... weird. I can't really compare it to either of the other two. Enemies are ridiculously damage spongy at times and especially during the first five to ten levels a lot of the fighting is a pain in the ass. It's partly to do with the controls making you just spam attack into thin air if you're not within range of the enemy and partly to do with the completely weird way everyone moves around. Positioning is very important (particularly for Rogues, especially at later levels) but it's like the game fights you at every turn in that regard. At times, it's like playing an MMO where the mob AI is perpetually set on "random" and your party is played by concussed marmots.
When it shines, it really shines though. The "overworld" fights can be stupid and annoying, but pretty much every single fight I've had (especially bossfights) in the storyline missions and the more "event" like encounters have been lovingly crafted to be fun and enjoyable. Fighting the controls and the way they removed the healing system in favor of a limited amount of health potions per outing is frankly annoying but one can grow accustomed enough to it that the game still works. DA:O had a much better combat system, DA2's was worse (but far faster and better controls) and DA:I lands somewhere in the "wut" scale where it isn't either or.
Some mentioned no differentiation between the companions within their respective classes. You haven't played very long. Once you reach a certain part of the game, specializations unlock and each of your companions have their own while you get to quest for your own. Just make sure you do your own specialization quest reasonably early or you'll run out of skillpoints before you get to fill the new tree. I held off on mine for a bit and thus screwed up a few talents. Of course, you can respecc reasonably cheaply by going to the store next to your armor/weapon crafting in Skyhold and buying the medallion for it.
The tactical camera is a fucking atrocity though. It's the point where the port becomes readily apparent. It's fucking unusable on KBnM controls, I swear. This may very well be the reason combat in DA:I falls very short, as I've stopped even trying to do the tactical thing anymore. It just doesn't work on PC and that pisses me off.
MMOish elements have been mentioned. Yes, there are odd busy work quests and fetch quests. Find x number of shards. Find x number of things that let you pinpoint shards. Find x Astrariums and solve the puzzles. Bring item x to location y.
Yeah, I don't mind these one bit. Most of these are -entirely- optional and just there for the completionist or for those moments when you could use a little bit extra power for the war room to unlock the next area or whatever. I've ignored most Shard quests for instance and I've unlocked bloody everything and got 100+ power to spare. It's just there for the completionists or for when you just want to be out there exploring. I've done every major Skyhold upgrade and still have two regions to explore.
The game is good. There's just no way around that. It's Dragon Age in all its glory and it's worth every penny. Even given the absolutely staggering length of the game, I'll be replaying it a few times over the years, and I'd do it for the dragon fights alone.
Seriously, they are amazing. Each of them have been crafted with special abilities and elements. You'll go from a rather "standard" dragon flying around and shooting fireballs or firesprays at you, landing to show off their humongous size (you're fighting each of their four legs, their head and their tail, each of them being a point of attack), calling in adds etc etc to a lightning infused dragon occasionally pulling up "guard" (it's a new type of damage mitigation in the Dragon Age series) and so on. I don't have words for it. Go fight dragons. It's worth it. Also gives you the best crafting options, obviously.
The addition of a trans character (very well done) and an interestingly hinted D/s relationship doesn't hurt either. Oh, and if anyone played the DA2 DLC where Hawke goes to a Warden prison to find out what Hawke's father was doing? Your minds will be thoroughly fucking blown in this game.
I really enjoy this game. 46 hours in now and going strong. I highly suspect it'll be another ten to twenty hours minimum. If you remember the sheer epicness of the final siege in DA:O, fighting through the city etc, you'll find the same levels of amazing moments in almost every story mission there is, while having a world to explore that dwarfs Skyrim with ease while leaving every location unique and special instead of the same fucking cave every damn time.
Highly recommended.
Oh, and I haven't encountered any real bugs yet. Once a requisition officer stood halfway into the ground and a giant was launched a bit into the air when pushed onto a giant tree root. I've seen -one- texture bug and it was so far out of the way I should by rights not have seen it.
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The major bug for me, the one that has stopped my gameplay in its tracks as I won't play at all until it's fixed, is the accent bug when you meet you know who. If you chose the non-default voice set for your race, it will change to the default if choose the customize option at the meeting.
And that isn't a chance thing, it's guaranteed if you have a non-default voice for your race and choose to customize at that scene. It's fucking ridiculous.
Combat wise, I preferred DA2 tbh. I've never been a fan of the slow paced stop-and-go style of 'classic' RPGs. Having to constantly pause and position people properly and all that just slows the game down for me. But then I play RPGs for the story, not the gameplay, so I prefer to be able to get the combat over with quick and easy so I can get back to the story. Ergo, DA2's was perfect for me.
Speaking of DA2, I really did love the story in that game. I loved just being able to play a mostly regular person trying to get by in a crazy and fucked up world, instead of some big epic hero. Sami actually takes some traits from my Hawke. <.< Sami and her brother are based off FHawke-Carver.
But yeah, combat. DA:I's would be fine if not for the awful controls. Seriously, no mouse move? No autoattack? No click-to-move? Ugh.
The new healing mechanics I don't mind, but then I play a mage and therefore have the ability to spam barrier everytime it comes off cooldown without having to bother switching to another companion to do it. I do dislike how barrier's range is shorter than every other spell in the game though, so if you're pelting someone with DD spells at max range and need to put a barrier on your melee people, you have to run forwards 10 meters before you can. Pretty annoying. Especially since there is no click-to-move so you can't just like, cast the barrier on the party member's portrait and have it automatically move you into position and cast it.
So yeah, not a fan of the combat in DA:I, I find it the worst of the three.
Story-wise, I do love it and am so mad that I'm having to wait before I continue. Seeing Mr. Big Bad the first time was... well, it was very cool. For some reason, even though I'd been expecting to see him in DA:I, I didn't really put two-and-two together and realize that he was actually going to be Mr. Big Bad. The trailers had all been very 'big dark evil monster villain' feel, like another King of Shadows or some boring shit like that, and it made me think this would be the first DA without a really good villain (<3 Loghain, <3 Meredith), but I've eaten my words. Seeing Mr. Big Bad again was amazing.
The party members are great. Except Sera. Did Not Get, she's a fucking chav. <.< But I love Vivienne and Blackwall and Cassandra and Dorian and of course Varric, the best dwarf companion ever. And Cullen and Josephine. Also Cole. Coooooole <3. I'd read Dragon Age Asunder before playing so I'd fallen in love with Cole already and was so much looking forward to him.
Please patch the game and fix the voice switching bug already, Bioware! I want to continue my game. :(
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Very much enjoyed. Now, on to the second playthrough!
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The party members are great. Except Sera. Did Not Get, she's a fucking chav. <.<
No she isn't.
She's a sort of attractive/sort of weird looking blonde with no verbal filter and a love of butts. She's basically tumblr.
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Level 20 rogue. Newly crafted 400ish dps weapons x 2. Almost 90% plus to crit damage. Build focused on more crit damage and more crits. 50 extra stamina from neck. Apply mark of death. Burst every high damage skill (while enemy has 25% armor reduction and I have 20% armor penetration). Manually trigger mark of death. Fifteen fucking thousand crit, on top of all the damage already done.
Pause game to put pants in washer.
Come back and do it all again.
Five dragons to go.
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Nine down, one to go. Level 22, one more zone to do. Just realized next story mission is recommended for levels 12 to 15. Might not be doinitrite.
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60 hours. Level 23. 10 dragons Down. Half a zone left. Stupidly overpowered now. Solo whole packs with ease.
Dreading a second playthrough. So. Big.
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67 hours, end not really in sight. A lot of hard choices. Difficult ones. Ten dead dragons make for stupidly overpowered crafted gear. Should probably not be tanking harder than everybody but Cass at this point.
Turns out starting race makes wuite a bit of difference.
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Pants have been ruined. My favorite DA character is even more awesome than I thought.
Why are you sods reading this? Go play.
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Pants have been ruined. My favorite DA character is even more awesome than I thought.
Why are you sods reading this? Go play.
No patch yet. Still can't progress.
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Make another character. Use sefault voice. Basically, Second playthrough started a bit early is all.
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See, I never do that in RPGs. I pick a character that I feel is right for that game's storyline and anytime I replay the game I replay the same character. I've attached that storyline to that character and it'd feel off to play through it with someone new. My warden is one specific character, my Hawke is one specific character, I've only ever replayed ME with the same Shepard, etc.
I'm a one-character sort of person.
So, I'll just wait.
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Different character for a different story? Hero of Ferelden didn't die and impregnated Morrigan. Hawke did something different maybe. This inquisitor went with the templars or the mages, chose different at x and so on at y.
I always have my own "Canon" playthrough too, but exploring the other choices is what gives me replayability I've found. Also different genders, classes, romance etc.
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Well either way, I'd rather my first playthrough be my canon playthrough, because the first time is the best time, when you don't know how all the options will turn out.
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See, I never do that in RPGs. I pick a character that I feel is right for that game's storyline and anytime I replay the game I replay the same character. I've attached that storyline to that character and it'd feel off to play through it with someone new. My warden is one specific character, my Hawke is one specific character, I've only ever replayed ME with the same Shepard, etc.
I'm a one-character sort of person.
So, I'll just wait.
I feel it usually exactly the same too. That's also why I don't really like dynamic storylines, as I will always redo the exact same thing, which is basically what I think works the best for the story, character wise and plot development wise.
I usually like to quickly watch other plot branches and choices on youtube most of the time.
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Yeah, same.
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Pants have been ruined. My favorite DA character is even more awesome than I thought.
Why are you sods reading this? Go play.
No patch yet. Still can't progress.
I'm still downloading the game after 5 days. 68% complete. You'd swear Origin hates me or something, or maybe it's the fact that I'm on a shitty Wifi connection whose server keeps capping me out at 2% of 48mb/s.
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Well, mages are waaaay easier to play. Click, hold, occasionally press number key. None of the challenges that made Rogue yarder and frankly more rewarding to play.
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I'm playing a rogue with archery and stealth skills. I have a bow that has a 10% chance to do Immolation damage. You have no idea how entertaining I find it when every 1 out of 10 shots explodes.
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Things I wish I had noticed earlier in my first playthrough. #1 Sell All also sells research items, not just junk. Did not notice until well late in the game.
Anyone fugured out what approval really means though? Other than the possibility for boinking, I can not seem to see it making any difference?
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So I've got some sort of bug going on and I could use some thoughts/ideas on how to fix it. For the last week I've been trying to download DA:I. The download gets to 99% with 10 minutes remaining, then it resets itself to anywhere between 91-95% remaining and continues downloading.
I've tried letting it run, and on the second go-round it again resets itself and continues downloading. (It's like a vicious little cycle from EA Hell.) I've also tried cancelling the download and restarting to no avail. I wasn't able to find anyone with similar problems on the EA forums, but I posted there for what good it'll do.
Anyone have any ideas on a fix? (Apart from obviously just not downloading it.) Considering the fact that I sank $60 into this game I'd like to actually get my money's worth and not have it be a decorative item in my Origin library until the end of time. :ugh:
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http://forum.bioware.com/topic/532511-dragon-age-inquisition-patch-2/#entry18018579
About fucking time.
@Baxter: Make sure your computer has at least double or triple the required space for the game. This is because it has to keep a temporary file open while installing, and therefore you need more space than the game will actually require in order to install it.
If that's not the problem, then try not only stopping the DL but making sure to delete anything that might have been saved or installed already, and then restarting it. You might even consider reinstalling Origin.
Lastly, if that doesn't work, try running the download on another computer. Then you can copy it over to your primary one.
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@Baxter: Make sure your computer has at least double or triple the required space for the game. This is because it has to keep a temporary file open while installing, and therefore you need more space than the game will actually require in order to install it.
If that's not the problem, then try not only stopping the DL but making sure to delete anything that might have been saved or installed already, and then restarting it. You might even consider reinstalling Origin.
Lastly, if that doesn't work, try running the download on another computer. Then you can copy it over to your primary one.
Thanks for the advice. I may end up downloading it on another computer, but first I'm going to delete everything out of Origin's game installers folder and go from there.
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Maybe try to see which TCP/UDP socket ports Origin uses, at least for the download speed. Open them up in the firewall of your router/modem and try again, it might solve the speed issue if your wifi is not the culprit. Not really hopeful on this one, but that's the only thing that comes to mind...
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Mage is just unbelievably easymode. No worrying about positioning or avoiding the heavy melee hitters at all. Just click, hold, fire off the spells that fit the situation. That's pretty much it. If the ground starts glowing, move a bit. Technically less dps than the Rogue, but frankly with bypassing armor and no need for movement, you probably do more overall once AoE is taken into account. Not even the dragons pose any kind of challenge.
Dagger rogue is probably not going to be matched when it comes to gameplay, I suppose.
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Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I find dragons quite challenging. Of course, I don't play Knight Enchanter on my mage, which is apparently easymode. Usually when fighting dragons my party just whelps themselves by standing in fire and I can't get it past about 40% health because it has so much health and I run out of potions by about then.
Is there anything particular you're supposed to do? There are all these different parts to target, and yet they all seem to share healthbar with the dragon itself and so shooting them doesn't seem to accomplish anything.
What level are you supposed to be fighting them anyway? I'm currently 14, Mage-Necromancer with most points in Spirit, Necromancer, and Frost (and one in Electricity), in that order.
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Obviously potential spoilers ahead.
Well, since you're saying Fire I'm assuming the Hinterlands dragon? Or possibly the Western Approach one? At 14 the Western Approach one may be a bit hard, but the Hinterlands one should be fairly easymode in comparison, if only due to level difference. In actual mechanics, the Hinterlands one is frankly one of the hardest ones, due to the intro sequence with the bombardment, all the adds, the ledge perking etc.
Dragons telegraph their attacks far in advance. Make sure when you see the dragon raise a leg or if you have lost overview over your melee crew in the dragonlimb clusterfuck to pause, check your party's positioning (at least one will be in the danger zone of the limb in question) and move them away.
He also telegraphs the fire, so make sure your tank is taunting and barrier'd, while everyone else is behind and if necessary moving further behind. During air phases, run your ass off perpendicular to the dragon's location.
When it lands on a ledge, hide underneath that very ledge. Keep your ranged people handy for when the adds spawn. One or two tends to stay on the ledges and blast you with fireballs, while the others come brawling. A decent AoE will usually deal with the meleers.
Technically, the Hinterlands dragon is meant to be the first one, but it's also harder than the "second" dragon in Crestwood due to the adds and airborne phase. I almost always do the Crestwood dragon first, leaving the Hinterlands one for after. (Almost always meaning all three of my runs so far) If you want a "training" run, do the Crestwood region. You'll -know- when it spawns, after you've followed the region's storyline for a bit. It's electricity based, and the trick there is to keep everyone apart during one of its attacks (you'll know), and otherwise it's got no special tricks at all compared to the serious pain in the neck that Hinterlands dragon can be.
Limbs: They all share healthbars with the dragon, -but- if you damage the right combination of them in order you will topple the dragon for a while. It shouldn't be too hard figuring out which.
Make sure your gear is in order. Seriously. It's the single greatest boost you get in this game, so go craft awesome gear for yourself and possibly the tank.
If need be, save the dragons for last in a zone and level up once or twice more, but at 14 I will usually have taken Crestwood and Hinterlands dragons and be well on my way to start kicking the Western Approach dragon in the tits.
My Mage party composition is also a bit op I suspect. One tank, one rogue and two mages (one with spirit, me with nothing but necro+lightning pewpew) so very little incoming damage on anything but the tank and me moving the Rogue around if need be.
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Killed the Hinterland's dragon at lvl9. Took 3 attempts. Eventually won because I leveled up mid fight returning my whole party to full hp >_>
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The Hinterlands one and the Crestwood one are both the ones I've tried, and I haven't been able to down either.
When I said stand in fire, I meant by WoW raiding terms. "Standing in fire" = standing in any bad AOE thing bosses lay down and dying. So Crestwood's lightning thing counts.
Gear... meh. Gear and loot and item management is the thing I hate the most in single player RPG games. I don't know what's really all that good, and am not particularly interested in it at all. I don't think my gear is bad for my level... I mean while I was waiting for the patch to come out I was just running all the operations and open areas down, so I've got a large stockpile of items I can't even wear yet because they're too high level.
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Don't think I've ever lost against the Crestwood dragon. At all. It's just so easy. The only mechanic it uses that -can- be a pain is the lightning charge thingy, at which point you just (if need be) pause time, move people away from each other, resume kicking copious arse.
I suspect that you may simply be a bads, Samira.
As for gear, DPS for everyone but the tank. The tank is max constitution/health, armor, stamina. Also, crafted gear will almost always be vastly superior to found gear. Buy tier 2 weapon and armor (and the upgrades) specs from the vendor in Orlais Citeh.
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Well then I'm bad then, whatever.
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WARNING: Dragon fight spoilers ahead.
I doubt your actually bad Sami. I'm playing on a harder difficultly (mistakes were made) and at lvl 14 the hinterlands dragon could outright kill anyone on my party with fire + fire damage (besides Cassandra.) I wanted to try a warrior cause I always played make or rogue in DA (Half the DPS of a rogue, half the maneouverability, more mistakes made)
Anyway push comes to shove I got a couple of key Inquisition upgrades and the dragon went from outright murdering my face to posing a laughable threat.
For the most part. You NEED glass tempered flasks for the extra potion slot. Equipping Healing Mist, Regeneration, and standard pots is really helpful. In fact I'm pretty sure it's what swung the battle for me.
Next up. If you can having the +4 healing potions from the "Forces" perk tree should put you at around 12 healing pots. Another incredibly useful perk. (I didn't have this one by hinterlands.) "True Grit" for 10% less damage also goes a long way as it turns one shots into holy-shit-that-nearly-wiped-me's.
A good group comp is also a must. Having a mage with barrier and subsequent perk power up's is a must. Properly boosted your tank should be able to shrug off even the fire breath without it penetrating the barrier. Revive is also a huge boon as it allows you to recover from costly mistakes.
You tank is gonna need shield wall, challenge, war cry, shield charge on his/her bar. These generate guard and keep the dragon and any adds focused on your tankys bits instead of squishy bits. For DPS I found ranged is much preferable to melee as dagger rogues tend to proceed unwanted swipes and tail lashes from the dragon that can stress your potion usage. But since your a mage (I'm assuming without barrier and Revive that puts you in that position.
Finally and I can't stress this one enough is "Use tactical camera!" right when the fight starts and anytime the dragon repositions pause the game and move you party respectively. Never ever ever keep your squishy in line the the snout of the beast. (you will Diaf.) All the dragons also have this annoying "wind pull" trick. It hurts, anyone outside of the "windwall" gets pulled inside and hurt every second they are outside. There it's best to position your party at the flanks of the beast somewhere within 10'-15' to ensure they are out of reach of its claws but inside this annoying wall. Again, tactical camera is your friend.
The hinterlands dragon is by far the hardest respective of level, the fire patches make revival difficult and the perches it uses make applying damage difficult. (I highly recommend hiding directly under the the same perch it uses and waiting out this phase as only range and therefore squishies can hit him at those points. He also has an annoying stun + dragonling call that he uses with increasing frequency as his health goes down.
Mercifully he uses it the first time while perched. Don't get lured out of hiding. Draw the dragonling to you. (Use "Disengage" if your party heroically runs out in the dragons Line of sight to engage these little buggers.) Use your DPS to kill these dragonlings fast as he will call more later (while grounded and fighting you.) They will absolutely overwhelm your party if not handled quickly. (Don't let your tank off the dragon, fire happens.)
Anyway I think that's how I handled it. There's probably much easier ways to do it, but these tactics have allowed me to engage and kill every dragon since without fail.
Hope that helps. :)
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My tank is the one I don't have to worry about. He basically takes no damage. It's my DPS that tend to let themselves get killed off, so my Barrier cooldowns are always used on them. My tank tends to be the last one standing (at which point I can do nothing as I have no idea how to play warrior).
I do have Barrier and Revive on my PC. My companion mages also all have Barrier. Everything I read from before the game launched was that Barrier is all important so everyone who can has it does have it. Only my PC goes far enough into the Spirit tree for Dispel and Revive though.
The wind thing is what tends to hurt me a lot, as I tend to keep my DPS people really far back.
I tend to use Blackwall, Varric, and A Mage. I don't like using melee companions precisely because they take a lot more damage (though I do bring Cole along instead of Varric sometimes just because <3 Cole, but not for dragons).
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Then you are almost doing it right.
Do not keep them so far away that they are not getting the range specific bonuses from various activated skills, and you can also revive more efficiently by simply going to them and tussling their hair gently. Not having to run across the zone for that helps too.
Dps is a concern with a range heavy comp though. Melee rogues hit seriusly hard and reaver warriors are not exactly smacking them with wet noodles either. Ranged rogues, Varric in particular unless you have really upgraded Bianca heavily, are much lower dps and while mages bypass armor I really hope you have extremely well crafted and upgraded weapons.
Less incoming damage is entitely negated by the much longer time spent taking said damage. Like I mentioned earlier, dragons telegraph their attacks way in advance so you can bring meleers safely if you micromanage them a bit. Or time your barriers better.
Make sure the tanks taunt abilities are set to preferred so he is constantly pulling attention away from the dps and that he is attacking the head. Positioning here is very mmo like in this regard. Everyone else can then move with impunity around the dragon while remaining inside wind reach.
Trying tank myself at the moment. Also too easy. Harder than mage, sunce range and positioning becomes more important. Much more reactive skill use though, each being far better suited as a response to a situation than as any preemptive action. Bit too easy to for all intents and purposes become invulnerable though.
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Yikes, log in to Origin after finishing DA:I once, and almost on two other playthroughs while offline and spend fifteen minutes listening to the client having a fit over god knows how many achievements I couldn't give less of a shit about. Good gods. Seriously, I'm sitting here while typing and it's still going. Stuttering and dinging as it buckles under the weight of almost 100 hours of gameplay being updated to the online side of things.
Anyway, thoughts on classes, as I've now logged a decent game time on three out of five. (I count ranged and melee rogue as two, and tank and bruiser warrior as two).
Melee Rogue: Easily the most fun of the bunch I've played so far. It's more challenging, got more active skill usage and requires a bit of finesse while being incredibly rewarding when you do pull off your moves. It's also the one where combining skill trees and setting up different builds seem to be the most rewarding as well. It's also without a doubt the highest dps class in the game when you get the hang of efficient maneuvering and positioning. It's challenging in that it is incredibly squishy and a lot of the melee enemies in the game loves to flail about and do damage all over the place, and the ranged enemies can really hurt. Especially early on. It shines really well later in the game once you've started getting some cross-tree combinations going, like better/faster stealth, skills that lets you do damage and return to stealth, attacks out of stealth are automatic crits, flanking damage does not generate enmity etc etc. This will allow you to (especially as Assassin, which is the tree that compliments a dagger rogue the best) do some absolutely incredible damage to any one damage in bursts, pick and choose important targets and control the battlefield better than almost any other class. It's also the class that can crit for over 20k in one single hit, if you got the build and skills for it. It does get a bit OP later on, but I suspect that's the case with all classes. It's fun, it's got the damage, it's got the utility (stealth scouting, vital target elimination, good class combos, evasion etc), it requires a little skill or at least situational awareness from the player and a lot of maneuvering on the battlefield. My favorite class so far.
Mage: Any mage, really. None of the specializations really change all that much, compared to the rogue/warrior specializations. You still fill the same support/ranged dps role no matter which spec you choose. They're just way too easy to play, especially if you've got a decent hang of the crafting system. It is also a bit boring. Bioware removed healing "so you didn't have to bring a healer anymore" and instead made Barrier fairly required, since almost every fucking tree synergize with barrier and half the skillpoints become damn near pointless without it. The trees are far more boring, the spells far less spectacular, the AoE far more gimped and I'm honestly not enjoying the class very much. Charge in, click and hold preferred enemy, fire off spells to suit the situation. No maneuvering required unless the tank derps or you're fighting a dragon, and even then it's just... boring. If I'd started the game as a mage right off the bat, it'd probably be less so, but after a dagger rogue it really becomes dull. Good utility, decent enough dps if using good crafted weapons, should not be soaking much damage unless you really screw things up and I really do recommend bringing another mage doing the barrier/spirit tree thing to take that chore off your hands. This is really a big step down from the spellmasters of DA:O and DA2, no matter how fun Walking Bomb might be. Least fun class so far.
Sword and Board Warrior: Well shit, this is tanky as fuck. You only start off with one real taunt skill and it's really short range, but it is sufficient to start off with. After a bit of initial faffing about, relying a bit more on other party members than you'd expect to control the field, you'll start getting enough skillpoints to become a walking fucking god. Unbelievably hard to kill and a master of controlling the battlefield. The two taunt combinations will keep almost all enemies on the field focused on you unless it's a really complicated fight and they'll make you bloody invulnerable to boot with the Guard mechanic. You have the lowest dps of all classes out there, but frankly you don't need it. You just grab the attention of all the baddies and keep them turned from the rest of the party (normal basic mmo mechanics here) and let them hammer on you while you whittle away at their healthbars and remove their own guard with Shield Slam, while your party goes to town on them. With decent crafted gear, you are frankly never going to die. Add champion spec and battlemaster skillpoints and your guard + armor will be absolutely fucking insane. You know how Cass/Blackwall is damn near unkillable past 12-15 levels? They've got nothing on you, if you use your skills with care. Sod barrier, you don't need it. Ever. As for skill use, it's... a bit odd. This is the class where I use skills other than the taunts the least. They're very situation specific. One I save for when I get thrown on my ass, as it immediately gets me back up and swinging. One I save for guarded enemies. One I save for when I need to move fast on the field, etc etc. Extremely reactive class, rather than active one. You still need to do some clever maneuvering, ensure that your party is doing their thing right and you've got the dangerous baddies handled and so on but I finish most fights never using anything but the taunts. This is a class where you really need to make sure your party is composed right and doing their things right. Set their tactics up right and make sure they're using the right skills at the right times and such, because you're going to rely far more on them to do the actual killing. Your strengths are obviously soaking up the damage, but also in simply making sure they -can- do their jobs. Whittle away guard, taunt them to you, increase the party's damage projection etc. Somewhat rewarding to play, but your dps will suffer and since the AI partymembers never seem to be as efficient at doing dps as the pc no matter what class, this will ensure that you might be spending far more time on certain encounters than with other classes. This does really feel like the "proper" inquisitor class though. You are the leader. The one who charges in. The bulwark between Thedas and the Baddies. The giant Qunari woman, unbreakable and indefatigable. Still, it doesn't compare to dagger rogue in the "fun" department.
I suspect I'll never play ranged rogue since it's pretty much another mage without spells, but I might try a Reaver down the line.
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Thoughts on World/Story. Might contain spoilers.
Okay, DA:O was better. Let's get that out of the way right now.
It was far darker and had more hard choices. Choices where all alternatives were bad. In this one, it's far more... "This is the GOOD choice, but might not be the most effective choice. That one is the BAD choice, but is ruthlessly efficient". With very little consequence for either one, other than approval/disapproval from your companions. It also doesn't have the grimdark you found in DA:O. The little personal horrors. The Brood Mother part in DA:O will forever be my benchmark for grimdark in an RPG with the glorious rhyme, the build-up, etc etc. The mother killing her own possessed child. The Grey Warden initiation and final sacrifice and so on. It was great. None of that in DA:I. It's far too "standard Fantasy with slightly original magic vulnerabilities".
On the other hand, we get to see far more of the actual world now. It's huge. We got fantastic giant deserts with interesting content. We've got giant battlefields, huge forests, snowy mountains, great coastlines and so on. I'm not too impressed by the Templar/Mage thing as it sort of falls into the background too quickly, but it's reasonably resolved I guess.
Overall story is quite decent. The storytelling isn't as tight as in previous games, as the gameplay has shifted closer to an open-world experience, which inevitably means those parts of the story will be far less railroaded. The actual story missions are better than ever though, as those levels are lovingly crafted and huge. Great scripted events, good presentation etc.
I do wish they'd go further with the whole Black City/Throne of Gods thing though. It had real potential. Sort of fizzled out a bit compared to the build-up. "I have seen the throne of the gods and it. was. empty." The teaser after the end about the coming problems though? Gods, that gave me an erection I had to get rid of with a fucking hammer. The Dread Wolf comes!
... it was good though. Overall, one of the best games this year.
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Yaaaay. I finally killed a dragon. Funnily, the first one I beat was the Greater Mystral in Emerald Graves, which was level 17 while I'm 18.
Yet the lower level ones I wasn't able to beat.