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Dragon Age: Inquisition |OT2| Leave the damn Hinterlands!

Dwalls

Neo Member
So I've had this game since launch, yet haven't made it past the tutorial due to character creation OCD. The one time I had a dude I was super happy with I noticed it didn't import the keep thingies I wanted so I deleted again and restarted. I've played like 20 hours of character creation though. How big of a mistake have I made not playing the actual game for so long?
 
So I've had this game since launch, yet haven't made it past the tutorial due to character creation OCD. The one time I had a dude I was super happy with I noticed it didn't import the keep thingies I wanted so I deleted again and restarted. I've played like 20 hours of character creation though. How big of a mistake have I made not playing the actual game for so long?


The character creation definitely isn't the best bit of the game so I’d recommend moving on as soon as you can!

Having said that I restarted a good 4 or 5 times as I didn't like the way my character looked. There really should have been a real world preview available as the black background and particle effects don’t give a particularly accurate preview.
 
So I don't have access to specializations yet (I only recently just got Dorian <3), but I was already thinking ahead. What type of mage would compliment a Necromancer spec (what Dorian will be)? Would Rift mage work okay with that? I'll be running two mage comps mostly since I like Dorian a lot and my character is a mage already. I have heard Knight Enchanter is OP, but from the videos I saw, it looks extremely boring to play... is it?
 

Xevren

Member
So I don't have access to specializations yet (I only recently just got Dorian <3), but I was already thinking ahead. What type of mage would compliment a Necromancer spec (what Dorian will be)? Would Rift mage work okay with that? I'll be running two mage comps mostly since I like Dorian a lot and my character is a mage already. I have heard Knight Enchanter is OP, but from the videos I saw, it looks extremely boring to play... is it?

Rift would be fine. I think any of the mage specs are great.
 

Maybesew

Member
Ok, so I am only about 7 hours in, level 7. I picked up the guide book last night and realized that I missed adding Belle as a merchant in Orleans, and now she is gone. I must have said the wrong dialogue to her or something.

Is it that bad that I won't have her? I know she buffs Josephine.
 

Brian Fellows

Pete Carroll Owns Me
Ok, so I am only about 7 hours in, level 7. I picked up the guide book last night and realized that I missed adding Belle as a merchant in Orleans, and now she is gone. I must have said the wrong dialogue to her or something.

Is it that bad that I won't have her? I know she buffs Josephine.

Probably just means Josie's war table missions will take a little longer to complete.
 

Ralemont

not me
So I don't have access to specializations yet (I only recently just got Dorian <3), but I was already thinking ahead. What type of mage would compliment a Necromancer spec (what Dorian will be)? Would Rift mage work okay with that? I'll be running two mage comps mostly since I like Dorian a lot and my character is a mage already. I have heard Knight Enchanter is OP, but from the videos I saw, it looks extremely boring to play... is it?

Rift Mage works great with anything because of how good Pull of the Abyss is for grouping enemies for AOE damage. Since Necro's two best abilities are Walking Bomb and Horror, both of which have AOE components (WB if upgraded) I think that would be fine.

Knight Enchanter + Rift Mage is the best combination, but yeah KE is sort of boring compared to Rift Mage (Pull of the Abyss ---> Fire Mine never gets old). You definitely don't want to do double necro so by process of elimination Rift Mage will be your best bet.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Yes it matters. Sometimes sending the wrong one will end a chain prematurely. Rewards are pretty ehhhh for the most part though.

"Inquisitor, you have just stopped a rebellion against the Duke of Notfrancington. Him and his armies have pledged their allegiance to the inquisition."
Reward: Influence, a slightly odd shaped rock.
 
I'm about 40 hours in, where is the best place to dump the 10K gold I have?

I've already bought the best schematics and weapons from the merchants in Val Royeaux (Orlesian Armor what a waste of $$$!!!)

I'm most interested in 2 handed weapons schems (and schems in general), the best one I have right now is Jagged Battle Axe and I've found weapons that outclass that easily.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I'm about 40 hours in, where is the best place to dump the 10K gold I have?

I've already bought the best schematics and weapons from the merchants in Val Royeaux (Orlesian Armor what a waste of $$$!!!)

I'm most interested in 2 handed weapons schems (and schems in general), the best one I have right now is Jagged Battle Axe and I've found weapons that outclass that easily.

Gold is 100 percent entirely useless. I can't recall buying a single thing besides the drapes in Orlais. Literally everything else I came across in shops was so vastly inferior to everything I found that at the end I had enough gold to buy every kingdom thrice over.
 
Rift would be fine. I think any of the mage specs are great.

Rift Mage works great with anything because of how good Pull of the Abyss is for grouping enemies for AOE damage. Since Necro's two best abilities are Walking Bomb and Horror, both of which have AOE components (WB if upgraded) I think that would be fine.

Knight Enchanter + Rift Mage is the best combination, but yeah KE is sort of boring compared to Rift Mage (Pull of the Abyss ---> Fire Mine never gets old). You definitely don't want to do double necro so by process of elimination Rift Mage will be your best bet.

Okay that's great to hear, thanks!

I just knew that watching after Knight Enchanter videos, that it'd seem kind of boring to me. When I picture a mage, I see one casting cool and explosive spells, not going up in melee range and whacking on enemies, lol.

Yes it matters. Sometimes sending the wrong one will end a chain prematurely. Rewards are pretty ehhhh for the most part though.

Wait, it matters who I send missions on besides how long it takes? Uhh.. Is the one with the least amount of time always the best one to choose to keep the chain going?
 

Ralemont

not me
Wait, it matters who I send missions on besides how long it takes? Uhh.. Is the one with the least amount of time always the best one to choose to keep the chain going?

Newp. Need to assess the situation.

Example: as an elf, using the wrong advisors on your clan's missions gets them all killed.
 
I'm about 40 hours in, where is the best place to dump the 10K gold I have?

I've already bought the best schematics and weapons from the merchants in Val Royeaux (Orlesian Armor what a waste of $$$!!!)

I'm most interested in 2 handed weapons schems (and schems in general), the best one I have right now is Jagged Battle Axe and I've found weapons that outclass that easily.

You have only one option: Nugalopes.
 
Gold is 100 percent entirely useless. I can't recall buying a single thing besides the drapes in Orlais. Literally everything else I came across in shops was so vastly inferior to everything I found that at the end I had enough gold to buy every kingdom thrice over.

The top tier schematics are super expensive.
 

Melchiah

Member
Gold is 100 percent entirely useless. I can't recall buying a single thing besides the drapes in Orlais. Literally everything else I came across in shops was so vastly inferior to everything I found that at the end I had enough gold to buy every kingdom thrice over.

How else are you going to get the 10,000 mystery box?! ;) I bought the Lifetaker staff in Orlais as well, and it took ages before I found/crafted a better one.
 
Newp. Need to assess the situation.

Example: as an elf, using the wrong advisors on your clan's missions gets them all killed.

Damn, I haven't even been reading the missions for a while now, lol. Oh well, hope I haven't missed out on anything good. I just assumed it was a short mini-game to earn more influence and money and it didn't matter who you sent.
 

Melchiah

Member
Damn, I haven't even been reading the missions for a while now, lol. Oh well, hope I haven't missed out on anything good. I just assumed it was a short mini-game to earn more influence and money and it didn't matter who you sent.

I chose wrongly regarding some operation, and ended up depleting the
Warden
forces.
 
Do you need the perk for those?

Because fuck me inquisition perks are precious and I'll probably beat the game before I bother to grab that many perks

Nope, the schematics you get from the inquisition perks are pretty much all worthless by late game. I'd only recommend them if you've taken every other perk you want.
 
Nope, the schematics you get from the inquisition perks are pretty much all worthless by late game. I'd only recommend them if you've taken every other perk you want.

Inventory management is a pain in this game, was hoping that selling all that loot would pay off. So now I guess I will just not bother picking anything up that I won't equip.
 

Tabby

Member
Inventory management is a pain in this game, was hoping that selling all that loot would pay off. So now I guess I will just not bother picking anything up that I won't equip.
Don't forget to sell upgrades as well. A lot of the grips and blades you find are worthless.
I forgot to sell them and found they were taking up like, 20 space.
 
Inventory management is a pain in this game, was hoping that selling all that loot would pay off. So now I guess I will just not bother picking anything up that I won't equip.

That's...actually a good idea. If you have the stuff you want, gold really does become useless and loot by proxy. Would have been cool if they let use use gold to build onto Skyhold or something.
 
Well, shit. I thought I was done for, but I just managed to beat
Alexius
on Nightmare with 0 potions. A few times I got really lucky.

Fuck Lesser Terrors though.
 

Lexxism

Member
I finally repaired
Emprise du lion
bridge yet when I go there it's still broken. Am I missing something here?


edit: Never mind. I was at the wrong bridge lol
 

Varna

Member
Just found out there is a lock on target function with the gamepad... Can you do this with the keyboard as well? Can't seem to figure it out.
 

Ralemont

not me
That's...actually a good idea. If you have the stuff you want, gold really does become useless and loot by proxy. Would have been cool if they let use use gold to build onto Skyhold or something.

I'm still holding out hope that they'll improve the Skyhold customization. They said they are planning to add features that they had to cut for release and the lack of upgrade options seems like an obvious case.
 

hateradio

The Most Dangerous Yes Man
I have over 80K of unused money. I hardly bought anything in the game, because nothing's ever as good as the rare stuff.
 

Some Nobody

Junior Member
Okay that's great to hear, thanks!

I just knew that watching after Knight Enchanter videos, that it'd seem kind of boring to me. When I picture a mage, I see one casting cool and explosive spells, not going up in melee range and whacking on enemies, lol.

Gross. Away with your squishiness. My mage leads from the front, like a good leader. XP
 

Vaga

Member
This game needs a proper photomode.

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iY3g3gQKRs1Wu.jpg
 

Sakura

Member
Just finished the game.
The ending was, well, it was an ending I guess.
Overall better than DA2 but worse than Origins.
Also the War Table shit is god awful.
Too many bugs.
Why does the Inquisitor's outfit look like it fell out of Mass Effect? So stupid. They should at least have given you the option to change it, they have all the decor options.
No good girls so I romanced nobody.
Combat was kind of bleh. At least on normal, you don't have to use tactics or anything ever. I was fighting what I think was the strongest dragon, and I beat him by myself. Took a while because I don't do a ton of damage but still.
 
Combat was kind of bleh. At least on normal, you don't have to use tactics or anything ever. I was fighting what I think was the strongest dragon, and I beat him by myself. Took a while because I don't do a ton of damage but still.

Well yeh. Normal is press buttons to win. Ive not done a single fight on Nightmare without tactical pause.
 

Sakura

Member
Well yeh. Normal is press buttons to win. Ive not done a single fight on Nightmare without tactical pause.

Well I mean, I played Origins on Normal, and I remember using the tactical pause thing all the time to get through battles. Here I just charge into a group of guys and hold R2.
Also the tactics section seems pretty bare bones. It's basically just choosing between three levels of how much they use an ability. How about a tactic that says to stay out of AoEs -_-
 

hateradio

The Most Dangerous Yes Man
^ The AI is just designed to attack it seems. That's probably why there's no healer.

Crafting beats everything that can be looted. Takes time to find the top tier schematics though.
Yeah, but it's not worth it.

The game's easy as it is, and I don't intend to replay it.
 
Well I mean, I played Origins on Normal, and I remember using the tactical pause thing all the time to get through battles. Here I just charge into a group of guys and hold R2.
Also the tactics section seems pretty bare bones. It's basically just choosing between three levels of how much they use an ability. How about a tactic that says to stay out of AoEs -_-

The tactics are terrible. But I never used it in Origins either. My biggest gripe is the following distance. Charging in with my Warrior and the whole party teleports into death range. Try it on nightmare and youll find the entire combat a different story.
 
^ The AI is just designed to attack it seems. That's probably why there's no healer.


Yeah, but it's not worth it.

The game's easy as it is, and I don't intend to replay it.

NIghtmare + friendly fire on is definitely not easy. Frustrating as hell, yes, but not easy.
 
Seeing Inquisition win all of these GOTY awards from the media is concerning to me. Not that Inquisition isn't worthy of awards but I can't help but feel like it is a deeply, deeply flawed game and the media praise often glosses over the game's shortcomings because "OOH! ITS PRETTY!" So many of the reviews for the game read like they only played the first third of the game or something.

The game does a nice job of making a good first impression visually, which for the DA franchise is a first, but so many of the actual systems in the game are woefully half baked and ill conceived. My impressions of the game have just gone steadily down the longer I've played it.

Makes me worried that the bigwigs at BioWare get all full of themselves and do make some stupid design decisions a la DA2 post Inquisition cause they got a bunch of GOTY awards from Inquisition. Especially since BioWare has a habit of not iterating on broken things (Tactical View) and just ax them completely from game to game.
 

Maledict

Member
Do we have any idea when the next patch is going to hit? I've put my game on pause cause I'm suffering from the Dorian relationship bug, and would really like to push the main storyline forward but am holding off until it's fixed.
 
Well yeh. Normal is press buttons to win. Ive not done a single fight on Nightmare without tactical pause.

My problem with tactical view is that it's awful for it's purpose, I can't queue actions, there's none of the AI tuning from DA:O (DA:I alternative is crap none of the 'if, then' flexibility) and it's zoomed waaayyyy too close. I played DA:O on normal and lived in tac view top down for the entire game, in fact it almost looked like a fancy BG2 I was so zoomed out, I loved having to think about positioning and the spells had a punch visually. DA:I is 'press A for awesome' on normal and if this is improved from DA2 I don't even want to know how bad that was, especially the spells, everything is a burst of alpha effects that seem to lack the weight a big spell in DA:O had.

I've completed all of the side stuff except for the cache collect-a-thon in Hissing Wastes and a bunch of rifts + shards. Haven't killed all of the dragons bar the one in the Western Approach but I'm not pushed and may just skip it because the fight will be a test of patience not skill. I'm level 20 with 170 odd war table bucks and I'm bored, I'm too bored to go and finish off the actual story because it feels as if the main story just fell apart after the
sacking of Haven and move to Skyhold
.

The game just ran out of steam, it honestly feels like there was a rich power mechanic based around maintaining keeps (a sort of Sim Keep Lite) with faction elements as each keep is aligned to Cullen, Leliana or Josephine. There are those 'spare' quarries and wood stands that serve no purpose now too. With my finest tinfoil hat on I declare that at one point you chose between keeps to upgrade and that was planned to have an effect on your end game. There don't seem to be enough resources to upgrade 3 keeps so perhaps this would have been a faction mechanic. This all sounds way too complicated for the simple power fantasies that are Bioware's stock in trade but the way they dropped it is the worst.

It feels like all of the interesting strategic stuff was dropped from the game and instead the side quests for each keep were served up for act 2 along with the
Warden fight + Ball scene
then leading into what I presume is the final mission
What Pride Hath Wrought (?)
. Nothing bloody happens in Act 2, I was distracted by the 'loyalty' quest stuff but again very few of these were all that memorable but some were pretty well done so I'll call that a wash.

Ah well Act 3 to go yet but right now I'm thinking DA:I is a 30 hour game trapped in a 70 hour single player MMO. So if this is better than DA2 and I'm still hurting for some more BW RPG should I continue to ignore it or just set combat to 'super easy' and enjoy the DA2 ride?
 
Do we have any idea when the next patch is going to hit? I've put my game on pause cause I'm suffering from the Dorian relationship bug, and would really like to push the main storyline forward but am holding off until it's fixed.

Nope. The complete lack of communication with the patching bugs me too. You go over to the BioWare forums and Mark Darrah made some big post on PC issues a day or so after release but its been almost complete silence since that first Patch. Granted, everyone probably left for the holidays but come on. They could at least give a ballpark idea for when they're going to aiming for the next patch.

My problem with tactical view is that it's awful for it's purpose, I can't queue actions, there's none of the AI tuning from DA:O (DA:I alternative is crap none of the 'if, then' flexibility) and it's zoomed waaayyyy too close. I played DA:O on normal and lived in tac view top down for the entire game, in fact it almost looked like a fancy BG2 I was so zoomed out, I loved having to think about positioning and the spells had a punch visually. DA:I is 'press A for awesome' on normal and if this is improved from DA2 I don't even want to know how bad that was, especially the spells, everything is a burst of alpha effects that seem to lack the weight a big spell in DA:O had.

I've completed all of the side stuff except for the cache collect-a-thon in Hissing Wastes and a bunch of rifts + shards. Haven't killed all of the dragons bar the one in the Western Approach but I'm not pushed and may just skip it because the fight will be a test of patience not skill. I'm level 20 with 170 odd war table bucks and I'm bored, I'm too bored to go and finish off the actual story because it feels as if the main story just fell apart after the
sacking of Haven and move to Skyhold
.

The game just ran out of steam, it honestly feels like there was a rich power mechanic based around maintaining keeps (a sort of Sim Keep Lite) with faction elements as each keep is aligned to Cullen, Leliana or Josephine. There are those 'spare' quarries and wood stands that serve no purpose now too. With my finest tinfoil hat on I declare that at one point you chose between keeps to upgrade and that was planned to have an effect on your end game. There don't seem to be enough resources to upgrade 3 keeps so perhaps this would have been a faction mechanic. This all sounds way too complicated for the simple power fantasies that are Bioware's stock in trade but the way they dropped it is the worst.

It feels like all of the interesting strategic stuff was dropped from the game and instead the side quests for each keep were served up for act 2 along with the
Warden fight + Ball scene
then leading into what I presume is the final mission
What Pride Hath Wrought (?)
. Nothing bloody happens in Act 2, I was distracted by the 'loyalty' quest stuff but again very few of these were all that memorable but some were pretty well done so I'll call that a wash.

Ah well Act 3 to go yet but right now I'm thinking DA:I is a 30 hour game trapped in a 70 hour single player MMO. So if this is better than DA2 and I'm still hurting for some more BW RPG should I continue to ignore it or just set combat to 'super easy' and enjoy the DA2 ride?

Yeah, I pretty much agree with everything you said.

The War Table stuff seems like they could have done a ton more with it. Conceptually I really like it. A lot. In practice though, its far too basic and mundane. I was expecting we'd have to upgrade the various Keeps across the War Table that you can capture and that might lead to maybe certain quests unlocking on the map based on choices you made on the War Table. Instead, just about the only integration between the War Table and actual in game quests is by building a bridge here and there. Same with Skyhold itself- I'm in a similar place game wise (about to do What Pride Hath Wrought) and so far Skyhold is an overly large party camp. Coming out of Haven, I was totally expecting
Corypheus to really start tearing Thedas up. But nope, apparently you don't really interact with him very much until the last mission boss fight.

I agree that the game basically collapses under its own weight once you get to Skyhold. Its really cool at first when you get to the War Table and see all of the new zones but once the shine wears off of seeing them, you realize they mostly just have the same sort of quests you've been grinding away at in the Hinterlands for the past dozen hours.

I've been doing most every quest, so of course that's tainted my view of the game's pacing. If I do a second playthrough, I'm definitely going to do as little side content as possible and just stick to the core story material. Still wouldn't fix the problems with the antagonist disappearing post Haven but I imagine it would feel like a tighter experience.
 
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