[Morgoth]

Blackwall is entirely incapable of dying.

[Maark Abbott]

Once he gets his prestige class, he's Abbath.

[Ceda Cicero]

MTS, on 12 May 2015 - 01:46 PM, said:

Ceda Cicero, on 12 May 2015 - 12:39 PM, said:

Cause, on 08 May 2015 - 09:26 AM, said:

I plan to start this game soon. I like mages (I normally see that as more complex engaging options) and I love the sound of the knight enchanter class. Now truth is I know very little about the game, I have avoided most details and spoilers. I have heard that the knight enchanter is easy cake mode though. Is this still true? Should I avoid this class.

In my experience, playing Knight Enchanter utterly trivialized each and every encounter past level 13-14. Don't get me wrong, it was thrilling for a while, especially the first couple of times out soloing dragons, but it definitely got old and (for me at least) meant that I wrapped up what was meant to be a completionist playthrough pretty hastily because I was losing interest fast.

I guess it's possible to go the Knight Enchanter route and not OP yourself, but that would essentially mean playing the class wrong, because what makes it so insanely powerful is it's basic principle: the Knight Enchanter gets pretty much unlimited barrier as long as it's dealing damage, and there are so many skills that synergize to amp up the damage and keep up a permabarrier that you could honestly just pick skills at random as you level and you'd stand a really solid chance of still ending up with a build that's synergistic and verging on unkillable. Once you max out your damage output (the best build I've found for this is to dig deep into the fire tree) you're invulnerable for all intents and purposes.

I managed to get up to Level 23 with the KE class equipped with most of the Fire tree, and even Nightmare was fairly trivial. I haven't even finished the game because it was so boring and challengeless that I just left it for greener pastures (a.k.a. Pillars of Eternity).

My advice? Go the Archer class. It's boring initially, what with low damage output and being squishy as hell, but once you get some skills up and hit your specialisation, it becomes much more interesting. This is largely because you need to actually think about what you're doing, rather than just mash Spirit Blade and pause to throw some other spells around. There is the potential to trivialise the game though as an Artificer with looping your flasks together to get instant cooldowns, but it's easy to avoid.

This aligns with my experience perfectly.

You can min/max any class to overpower it and end up making the game boring for yourself, but the issue with Knight Enchanter is that you really don't even have to try that much--it doesn't require you to think through skill point allotment terribly much and isn't dependent on quality gear at all. I eventually farmed out top tier gear for my KE because I'm OCD like that, but hell, I was soloing dragons wearing trash before that.

I tend to think that the game takes a pretty noticeable dip in quality very shortly after

Spoiler

the destruction of Haven and arrival at Skyhold.

. Mechanically, it's a LOT less challenging once your party can specialize. And in terms of plot, that's where the oft-mentioned problems of Corypheus not really delivering on (IMO, pretty enormous) potential to be a solid villain really rear their head. S'a'shame, because that whole sequence in Haven and right after is easily one of the sweetest gaming experiences I can remember.

This post has been edited by Ceda Cicero: 13 May 2015 - 12:02 PM

[Gothos]

Some update:

I can't believe how wrong I was about this game pre-release. I didn't much like the promotional videos and I was hella skeptical after DA2, but.... this game is amazing. It's waltzing its way into my top 10 favourite games of all time (this would include ME2, ME3, Morrowind, Skyrim, Thief TDP, Thief TMA, EU4, Civ V and WoW as the others, so the competition is fierce).

While I do admit that the game takes a slowing of pace after your first encounter with the Big Bad, I don't find that negative. There's just so much to do everywhere, so much to talk about with so many characters, there's SO MUCH GOOD CONTENT. I'm even starting to get used to those rather... special controls. Right now I'm level 13 and I've just moved into the Exalted Plains, looks promising. I'm using a heavily 2-handed focused build with some Battlemaster elements (passives are great in that tree) and I'm going into Reaver next. Fighting seems to have become easier now, or maybe I just understand stuff better. I'm wondering if it's one of those games with an uneven/inverted difficulty curve. I haven't taken on any dragons yet, but I definitely will take them all down.

Companions are.... fabulous. Mostly. Think my team solidified now with Blackwall (damn he's unstoppable with Champion unlocked!), Varric (how could I not! the other rogues annoy me too much ) and Solas (he's like the mild go-to guy for being friends, and I like his refreshing perspective on the Fade and spirits.

Vivienne made quite the entrance. If I have a gripe with the game it's that I can't romance that sexy vixen. Even if I don't like her personality. ARGH!

I don't like Sera. I'm seriously considering booting her from the Inquisition. She's absolutely infuriating.
Cole is... weird. Also, close combat rogue AI in this game seems completely retarted, they'll stand in frontal cone AoE and take ridiculous amounts of damage. Chief reason why I don't bring him.

Iron Bull is easily ny favourite character of the bunch. A qunari temple spy mercenary captain? Yes please. I like his attitude.

Varric comes back in style. I did like him in DA2 and I do like him now. I do wonder, however, how he's lvl 1 again after his exploits with Hawke. I guess gameplay/story separation.

I'm trying to run the Inquisition benevolent-like. So far that means I let the Templars govern themselves and took them as allies as opposed to forcing them into Inquisition ranks. We'll see how this goes.




There's just one more thing. The loading times.... by the Maker, the loading times.

[Morgoth]

The only issue with Varric is that his crossbow gets seriously weak compared to other long range weapons if you're overleveled in relation to the main questline. A much more interesting character though, than the other two rogues. Iron Bull is great, as is Solas I thought. Blackwall too, for that matter. I did miss having an actual immoral character in the roster though. They always were great at making those.

I liked DA:I, though I found that I still prefer the DA:O combat, and the AI in inquisition is terrible.

[Ceda Cicero]

Morgoth, on 14 May 2015 - 08:56 AM, said:

The only issue with Varric is that his crossbow gets seriously weak compared to other long range weapons if you're overleveled in relation to the main questline. A much more interesting character though, than the other two rogues. Iron Bull is great, as is Solas I thought. Blackwall too, for that matter. I did miss having an actual immoral character in the roster though. They always were great at making those.

I liked DA:I, though I found that I still prefer the DA:O combat, and the AI in inquisition is terrible.

Did you try setting all AI tactics for each character to "Follow Self" rather than Follow/Defend another character? I noticed my companions (particularly the mages and rogues) started making slightly better decisions after I did that. But still on the whole, yes, they were pretty infuriating.

This post has been edited by Ceda Cicero: 14 May 2015 - 12:47 PM

[Gothos]

I don't like how I can't tell Blackwall to "defend" the entire party as opposed to just some single target. Then I have him stuck wailing on some off-target that I'm attacking while the main mob is bludgeoning Varric into the bedrock somewhere else. GRR.


Bonus roll: I'm starting to realize this isn't as much "end times" as I thought it would be. I mean, of course the stakes are way high, but this ain't the game that finishes a series. I think we can safely expect at least several other Dragon Age titles in the future, the setting isn't even NEARLY done.

I for one can't accept any end of the series that doesn't happen in the Black City. That place is the end game of the franchise and you know it.


BONUS ROUND: I'm not a particularly religious person. I never was, even as a kid. But the moment in the Frostbacks where they start singing The Dawn Will Come...... I can see how people can draw hope from it, and how people can persist in their faith. I think I was a little Andrastean at that moment myself. Amazing moment.

This post has been edited by Gothos: 14 May 2015 - 01:04 PM

[Loki]

They should never have switched out tactics in favour of tactical view.

I want my customisable tactics back!

Edit: The writers have said that it is a five part story/series. Hope the next game scales in difficulty, has proper tactics, and that there are *actually* consequences to the choices/paths you take.

This post has been edited by Loki: 14 May 2015 - 10:05 PM

[Maark Abbott]

Gothos, on 14 May 2015 - 01:02 PM, said:

BONUS ROUND: I'm not a particularly religious person. I never was, even as a kid. But the moment in the Frostbacks where they start singing The Dawn Will Come...... I can see how people can draw hope from it, and how people can persist in their faith. I think I was a little Andrastean at that moment myself. Amazing moment.

It was a fantastic moment, and my only regret was that I couldn't kill them all for their overdependence on their Chantry. #Justes4Andors

[Gothos]

Maark, on 15 May 2015 - 04:24 AM, said:

Gothos, on 14 May 2015 - 01:02 PM, said:

BONUS ROUND: I'm not a particularly religious person. I never was, even as a kid. But the moment in the Frostbacks where they start singing The Dawn Will Come...... I can see how people can draw hope from it, and how people can persist in their faith. I think I was a little Andrastean at that moment myself. Amazing moment.

It was a fantastic moment, and my only regret was that I couldn't kill them all for their overdependence on their Chantry. #Justes4Andors

Oh I killed Blondie on all my DA2 playthroughs. He forced a war nobody could win, brought about hatred and utter destruction to the mages, as well as leading up to the corruption of the Templars. The man's a terrorist of the worst kind. My only regret is that I couldn't kill him in the Deep Roads, his threat was obvious.

[Maark Abbott]

Gothos, on 15 May 2015 - 06:19 AM, said:

Maark, on 15 May 2015 - 04:24 AM, said:

Gothos, on 14 May 2015 - 01:02 PM, said:

BONUS ROUND: I'm not a particularly religious person. I never was, even as a kid. But the moment in the Frostbacks where they start singing The Dawn Will Come...... I can see how people can draw hope from it, and how people can persist in their faith. I think I was a little Andrastean at that moment myself. Amazing moment.

It was a fantastic moment, and my only regret was that I couldn't kill them all for their overdependence on their Chantry. #Justes4Andors

Oh I killed Blondie on all my DA2 playthroughs. He forced a war nobody could win, brought about hatred and utter destruction to the mages, as well as leading up to the corruption of the Templars. The man's a terrorist of the worst kind. My only regret is that I couldn't kill him in the Deep Roads, his threat was obvious.

He did the right thing.

[Gothos]

Maark, on 15 May 2015 - 06:39 AM, said:

Gothos, on 15 May 2015 - 06:19 AM, said:

Maark, on 15 May 2015 - 04:24 AM, said:

Gothos, on 14 May 2015 - 01:02 PM, said:

BONUS ROUND: I'm not a particularly religious person. I never was, even as a kid. But the moment in the Frostbacks where they start singing The Dawn Will Come...... I can see how people can draw hope from it, and how people can persist in their faith. I think I was a little Andrastean at that moment myself. Amazing moment.

It was a fantastic moment, and my only regret was that I couldn't kill them all for their overdependence on their Chantry. #Justes4Andors

Oh I killed Blondie on all my DA2 playthroughs. He forced a war nobody could win, brought about hatred and utter destruction to the mages, as well as leading up to the corruption of the Templars. The man's a terrorist of the worst kind. My only regret is that I couldn't kill him in the Deep Roads, his threat was obvious.

He did the right thing.

He did no such thing. He screwed things for everyone involved. How is a terrorist attack that sparks a civil war the right thing?

[Primateus]

I agree with Gothos. However you might feel for the plight of the mages, he made a choice for everyone that wasn't his to make. So yeah, he's going down!

[Loki]

Few moments in gaming are as satisfying as killing Anders.

[Maark Abbott]

Gothos, on 15 May 2015 - 08:41 AM, said:

Maark, on 15 May 2015 - 06:39 AM, said:

Gothos, on 15 May 2015 - 06:19 AM, said:

Maark, on 15 May 2015 - 04:24 AM, said:

Gothos, on 14 May 2015 - 01:02 PM, said:

BONUS ROUND: I'm not a particularly religious person. I never was, even as a kid. But the moment in the Frostbacks where they start singing The Dawn Will Come...... I can see how people can draw hope from it, and how people can persist in their faith. I think I was a little Andrastean at that moment myself. Amazing moment.

It was a fantastic moment, and my only regret was that I couldn't kill them all for their overdependence on their Chantry. #Justes4Andors

Oh I killed Blondie on all my DA2 playthroughs. He forced a war nobody could win, brought about hatred and utter destruction to the mages, as well as leading up to the corruption of the Templars. The man's a terrorist of the worst kind. My only regret is that I couldn't kill him in the Deep Roads, his threat was obvious.

He did the right thing.

He did no such thing. He screwed things for everyone involved. How is a terrorist attack that sparks a civil war the right thing?

Because without that we'd have no basis for DA3 beyond Coryphellus, that's why.

[Gothos]

Okay so I finally finished my first playthrough. I think I clocked in at something like 78 hours.

Boy, was that a ride.


So, where to start? The size of the game is staggering. I'm thinking more fondly of playing through Origins and Hawke (from now on I'm going to refer to Dragon Age II as Dragon Age: Hawke.) before heading into another playthrough of this game, it's just jarring to think of! Could be said... maybe it's too big? I wanted to have everything done so I took time to finish areas before progressing the main quest quite often, resulting in a rather staggered story progression. It just doesn't feel *enough* like the stuff you do on the side is seriously related to the main storyline. The beginning right until you get Skyhold was gripping and engaging, but later the "open world" sprawl took over, IMO, just a bit too much from the center of the game.
Regardless, I loved it. All of this means nothing when I was catching myself again and again in Western Approach just standing on the edge of that Abyssal Rift and stare. Thinking, holy shit, hundreds of years ago, Darkspawn swarmed out of THIS hole in the ground and spread over the world. You can really get that doomsday feeling about the Blight from that one region that Origins NEVER communicated to me. Only with this game it really struck me how gorram cataclysmic Blights have been in the past, how big a threat that is. Then think of the Deep Roads, those marvels of engineering, seemingly now forever lost to the swarm. Imagine walking down the Deep Roads, those smooth stones, empty, every sound echoing into the still, dead air... imagine the ball-gripping terror of such a place. Imagine this is the world of the Legion of the Dead, of some Wardens. I never really understood or felt before Inquisition that Thedas is a BROKEN world. It's just so much more grimdark than I thought before. The Magisters went to the seat of God and found it... abandoned and corrupted. Me, I can't wait for them to weave us that full story, *what* happened to that world?
On that note, DA:I seems to practice "daylight horror" liberally and with good results. Western Approach, Exalted Plains and Emprise du Lion are serious nightmare fodder if you think about it, in absolute broad daylight and with no stupid jump scares. I can't wait until one of those games sends us to the Anderfels. (And also Seheron and/or Par Vollen, but that's a different matter entirely.)


Resuming technicalities....
As a 2-handed Reaver warrior, I tended to keep my party composition simple: tank, rogue and mage (duh!). For rogue I took Varric like 98% of the game, I just like the bastard too much. For mage, I went with Solas for about half the game, then switched over to favouring Dorian more. Must've been the moustache! Pretty much never had Vivienne in the party for some reason, I don't know - maybe a 3rd melee character would be too much... because this game HATES melee characters (fuck you Hakkonite Brutes!). My tank was, at first, Cassandra, then Blackwall until around the time I was clearing Emerald Graves, then back to Cassandra because reasons. Unfortunately, Iron Bull sat most of the game out (though I think he's my favourite new companion).

A note on the Reaver - GODS but Dragon Rage packs a punch! By level 20+ I could make it crit for 5k, by the end of the game I regularly landed crits of 5,9k on that third combo hit. It's risky with your health pool but maaaan, it can make a fight end quickly (if you don't get thrown off your feet 50% of the time... damn I miss Indomitable).

I did kill all the dragons, though I started on the only at level 18-ish, and by then most of the loot they dropped was only marginally useful. It picked up later in Emprise and stuff. The dragon fights are... well, ok, epic. But I have a lot of angry words to say at companion AI. There's no setting like in Origins (or even Hawke I think as well?) to tell them to stay at close, mid or long range from targets, which means my squishy ranged notoriously ended up right in front of a dragon's breath, under its belly or tail, just to get smacked around and drain all my health potions. Granted, there's the tactical mode but it SUCKS. And why does it suck? Because of the camera zoom level. Even zoomed out at max you can barely see anything on screen, it's usually not enough to even see the entire dragon... So yeah, the combat is confusing enough that I don't know if I'll bother with Nightmare, like, ever. Or just roll Knight Enchanter and roll with Vivienne, Blackwall and Cassandra and sleep my way to victory, I don't know...

I must say I probably spoiled the finale for myself, as I cleared all the zones and did Jaws of Hakkon (more on that later) before I went against Corypheus, which turned into something of a curb stomp battle (though Dorian and Varric did a great job of standing in the fucking beam). Also, the limited amount of ability slots causes level progression past maybe 22-23 ultimately pointless (except more health I guess) and not rewarding at all. But I digress...

Now, the crafting system. I liked it. I wasn't thrown off my feet, but I liked it. I mostly ended up using Unique items anyway (though for my character being Qunari most of those don't fit, at least armor, so I had that crafted).

Moving on... collection quests. By the Maker, collection quests. I'm not sure if the shards were a good idea. It sometimes made you look around a bit and get to know the environment, true, but it's just inflating game time imo, in a bad way. Astrariums I loved to bits, even if most of them I got within 1 minute (the toughest for me was the mountain one in JoH, took me like 20 minutes to finally figure out). Mosaics and Bottles of Thedas........ well, fuck no. Goddamn Dragon's Creed: Revelations. No. I refuse to go and mop those up. No.

So while we're at stuff I didn't like, there's the War Room and Operations. GOD DAMMIT. I finished the entire game and I still have a dozen or so Operations left to do for my guys. The worst part though? No access to operations from the field. I get it how it's supposed to make them feel more official and grand and how you have to gather your advisors to plan grand strategy, but with these loading times, going back to Skyhold every 15 minutes for some small tasks is just out of the question. GODS how annoying that was. I would usually be 1,5 zones further into the game when I would finish up operations from where I was several hours before. Not well coordinated. GIVE PLAYERS ACCESS TO THAT BY RAVEN OR SOMETHING.


OK so now...... some more good stuff.
Jaws of Hakkon is AWESOME. This is such a great DLC. Adds a whole new BIG zone with a lot of content, new environments and enemies, models, magnificent views... challenging battles and gripping storyline. I think they did their homework with this one, I hope further ones are coming soon. There will be more DLC, right? RIGHT?

(Also, best thing ever: recruiting a bear for the Inquisition )



Also a little bit about the ending:

Spoiler

Solas - sequel hook or DLC fodder?
In Anderfels - new Blight coming maybe? Warden Civil War? Sequel hook or DLC fodder?
The Qunari problem - when will they finally tackle this? When will we know the origins of the Qunari?
Lyrium and Red Lyrium - DLC fodder or for sequels?

That's all for today. TTFN!

This post has been edited by Gothos: 23 May 2015 - 12:26 AM

[Cause]

So I put in some serious hours this weekend and so far it's a mixed bag. Mostly similar complaints to Gothos.

Crafting:
Too many different types of items. Never know what does what or where the best place to farm a particular item is. If I have it great. If not, 'Oh well'. Also the travel times to go to Haven or Sky-hold just to access the armourer is absurd.

War Table:
Confused and needless feature. Sometimes, very seldom I feel like I'm leading a massive army mostly I feel it's a pointless time sink. The perks are nice but not necessary. Claiming a keep is cool, claiming a random tree or statue seems silly. Why am I not sending Iron bull, the chargers and Blackwall to bust heads when Cullen is busy on a different mission. Did I really just launch a mission and wait for 100 minutes so I could get a 100 gold? For the most point its all so unnecessary and has no impact.

Mages vs Templars:
Ever since DA II this has been a confused fight. In some ways I understand its supposed to be grey and not black and white. Until you realize that every singly mage, literally every single one that is given freedom in DA II turns to demons and blood magic in a second! Now in DA Inq I'm give a binary choice without understanding the full ramifications that see either the rebel mages or the entire templar order destroyed overnight.

Ridiculous side quests:
I have already reached saturation. I went chasing everything at first but deliver this pointless note here, and discove this bottle of alcohol here etc etc etc etc etc etc etc is driving me insane. Its completely pointless.

Combat:
Its finally starting to become a little fun but the first 5-7 levels you don't have enough skills and your mana/stamina is too low and cooldowns too long for me to feel like I had any choices beside spamming attack.

This post has been edited by Cause: 01 June 2015 - 11:41 AM

[Maark Abbott]

Right. So I'm looking into the DLC packs which are at £12 a pop. Question I have now, how much extra content / gameplay hours do they add?

[LinearPhilosopher]

Maark, on 22 September 2015 - 10:40 AM, said:

Right. So I'm looking into the DLC packs which are at £12 a pop. Question I have now, how much extra content / gameplay hours do they add?

https://www.g2a.com/

Try looking for it there itll be cheaper if they have it.
you also get a 3% discount for using code TRK

This post has been edited by LinearPhilosopher: 22 September 2015 - 02:30 PM

[Maark Abbott]

Will do. I think that it might be cheaper on XBL too if I can get my Orangeing account up... I'll have a look later.