Dragon Age 3

[rk47]

Goddamn.
God.Fucking.Damn.

[Rasix]

This wasn't obvious during character creation?  Seemed pretty obvious.  Why give the choice otherwise?

[Trippy]

It's actually worse than that. You can't switch weapons like from dual wield to bow while in combat. This is more restrictive than the previous games and working as intended.

To clarify while it's true that the card choice at the beginning implies some fixed weapon loadout when you level up and look at your skills you aren't locked to the skills associated with the weapon you picked at the start and you even pick up different weapon types early on that you can switch to (like my dual wielder picked up a bow that I now hunt with) if you want to. However the game still doesn't let you switch during combat basically forcing down one path for most of your combat.

[schild]

Prediction: This is going to be one of the most overrated games of 2014 with the highest number of apologists per intelligent gamer ever made.

[Trippy]

I don't know -- Destiny is going to be tough competition.

[Velorath]

Prediction: This is going to be one of the most overrated games of 2014 with the highest number of apologists per intelligent gamer ever made.

Prediction: Some people will like the game despite its flaws. Also, schild will never play the game making it impossible for him gauge the accuracy of his prediction.

[Ginaz]

Prediction: This is going to be one of the most overrated games of 2014 with the highest number of apologists per intelligent gamer ever made.

Prediction: Some people will like the game despite its flaws. Also, schild will never play the game making it impossible for him gauge the accuracy of his prediction.

I've played the game.  I think schild will be right.

[Velorath]

Well we've already set the bar pretty low since Ingmar was just about called an apologist for suggesting the hair thing might be a bug and mentioning that it's easily fixable in the settings. So by that standard, sure there's going to be a lot of "apologists".

[Jeff Kelly]

The problem I have with that kind of reasoning is that these are the sort of glaringly obvious errors that should have come up during testing and they are bothersome enough and reasonably easy enough to fix that - as a project manager - I wouldn't accept a "will not fix" from development for any of those. At least include a fix in the day one patch you're going to push out anyway.

I wouldn't label anyone an apologist who points out that it's not that big of a deal. I'm always bothered though when something that probably is a minor yet glaringly obvious issue makes it into the final game. I always wonder if they deal with more severe issues the same way if they can't be bothered to fix something anyone notices off the bat.

[amiable]

Played all last night, ran a bow rogue, shield warrior and mage through he prologue, my impressions (Nightmare difficulty with friendly fire turned on - PC):

1.  Controls are ass, but not quite as bad as the whining had led me to believe.  Tac camera is only useful for re-positioning during combat regular camera should be used for everything else.  Melee is practically unplayable due to the wonky controls and the lack of auto move.  Save yourself a headache and play a ranged class until they get this sorted.

2.  Instead of chugging a thousand potions you will be spamming abilities that give you guard and shield.  The AI is pretty good about using guard skills appropriately/whenever they are up but is a lot less intelligent about barrier use, I would recommend micromanaging barrier through the more difficult fights.

3.  The story is hilari-bad.  It's like they decided to to combine Mask of the Betrayer with Skyrim and added a dash of Oblivion and say "look at the neat thing we did."  Also a large contingent of folks wanting  seems difficult to comprehend.

4.  The final fight on the prelude was hella annoying but not due to any inherent difficulty, but because the fight wasn't with the bad dude, but with your controls.    This is really unacceptable, FFS it is your opening section!  That shit should be polished to a fine gleam.

5.  Varrics back!  This is a good thing, he will never leave my party.

[Velorath]

The problem I have with that kind of reasoning is that these are the sort of glaringly obvious errors that should have come up during testing and they are bothersome enough and reasonably easy enough to fix that - as a project manager - I wouldn't accept a "will not fix" from development for any of those. At least include a fix in the day one patch you're going to push out anyway.

I wouldn't label anyone an apologist who points out that it's not that big of a deal. I'm always bothered though when something that probably is a minor yet glaringly obvious issue makes it into the final game. I always wonder if they deal with more severe issues the same way if they can't be bothered to fix something anyone notices off the bat.

I look at games as someone looking for entertainment, not as a project manager. Maybe that's part of the reason why I'm more positive about the current state of video games than you. That's not a knock against you. I had a harder time watching movies on film after doing a job that required me to be able to notice even small scratches, dirt, bulb flickering, overshoots, etc...

My experiences playng Skyrim, NWN2, and the Witcher each involved running into a bug in a main story quest that prevented me from progressing and each required me to look online in forums for a console command to work around the issue (except in the case of the Witcher where I just gave up because I wasn't having fun with it anyway). In the cases of NWN2 and Skryim I was fortunate in that I was playing them well after release and people had come up with workarounds. Now that I think about it, the second main story quest in Skryim I had bug out on me is what got me to stop playing that as well. I had put a lot of time into it, had fun with it and still might go back to it, but it is what is. Something like the DA:I hair thing almost hardly seems noting.

I think not being able to switch weapons in combat though is a valid complaint though. You could do it in DA:O (don't remember if it was in DA2 or not) and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't have been in this.

[Phildo]

You auto-move when attacking in tactical view, and you can position it so that it's almost the same as regular view.  You just need to get used to moving the camera around independently.

The story really is bad, though.  "Here are the keys the the inquisition.  Please make all major decisions for us, Stranger We Mistrusted An Hour Ago."

[Paelos]

Played for three hours last night.

The initial build up is a little slow, mostly because I've seen it already in other Bioware videos. The controls are fine for my tastes on the PC, and they take a second to get used to but not much. My biggest issue is remembering the difference between left clicking to shoot and right clicking to move my camera. Sometimes I think I'm in Diablo and go CLICK THERE! And I end up firing my bow into the ground.

Playing as an archer is easy if not a little predictable in the early game since you don't have many abilities. Mainly you plink plink plink BIG SHOT plink plink plink plink EXPLOSIVE SHOT plink plink plink. This is more engaging on bigger fights and downright easy on the boss I faced. I'm betting things will get more dicey with bigger bosses like dragons as the game moves on, and I'll likely have to manage more than myself. The one boss I did face the adds didn't like me at all. I'm playing on normal though.

The healing thing is hardly noticable other than the fact you don't regen OOC. I sort of like the system, and the AI for the most part handles itself so I can plink plink plink. Hair is a non-issue on high, expect for facial hair. Seriously, facial hair looks fucking ridiculous. The fact that made it past QA means somebody on the graphics team should be fired. And i'm no graphics whore at all if you remember my love of Mount and Blade, but Mount and Blade beards looks more realistic on their character models than this shit.


That mustache looks stupid. And that's just one random pic I found. My mustache on my character I made is even dumber. It annoyed me for some reason.

After you get past the on rails part of the game and get to the warmap feature, you open up areas to explore. I'm not kidding when I say I was overwhelmed. I just wandered about for 2 hours in the hinterlands finding new WoW-type quest exclaimations and finished quests. That was only like 10% of the map. They are huge. It also tracks where you went with a line on the map, so you can see how you were running around like a jackass. Also I would imagine it's important for the explorer type who wants to remember where he went to find something.

The tactical feature camera is dumb, but I knew it would be dumb when they constantly mentioned it in videos. Anytime a dev pimps something like that as a feature like they are proud of it, you know it's going to work like shit. It's a given. And it does work like shit. The main reason is that you are used to WASD for moving and turning, but when given a tool like that you're used to WASD moving the screen. NOPE. A and D rotate the camera on it's axis. It's...stupid. I hope I can change that on keymaps, and if not it will get modded, because it's wonky as fuck.

I think the large map features really speak to me as an explorer-achiever type. All the quests and options totally took me away from the fact that I completely ignored the reason I was there, which had something to do with a warmap quest. I just lauched off to build camps, slay templars, and find resources. I can already tell resources and crafting are going to be weird but incredibly useful. The system is standard resources + other resources = items. But they have different abilities based on core components, then you can upgrade based on other components, and then you can get new recipes from drops, I believe. I'll geek out over this most likely.

Story is silly, but I expected that. MASSIVE RIFTS, PRISONER WE ARE GOING TO EXECUTE, BUT YOUR HAND IS GLOWING, YOU ARE THE HERALD. It's basically TES: Oblivion, but with a darker tone and less dead Emperor. This time you have a dead Divine! Oh the changes we make. What was Oblivion like 10 years ago? Glad to see we've run out of story themes and ideas. Luckily I bought this for the large world and the multiplayer, so I'm sure story whores will be all sad panda. I could care less. Seriously, I can't emphasize enough how much this story felt ripped off from the Elder Scrolls. If I was an Elder Scrolls dev, I'd have already congratulated them on remaking my game 10 years later on Twitter, just to stick it to them.

All in all, it's fun. I don't think you have to apologize to see the fun unless you're already pissed off about it not blowing you on the first day. My expectation was open world areas with lots of quests, decent combat, fun side missions and part one-liners, and lots to do and upgrade. This delivers on that expectation.

[amiable]

Don't get me wrong I am having fun, and this is really scratching an itch i have had for a while, so good on them.  I think the controls will be eventually fixed on the Pc so I will just save my melee playthrough for when that is sorted out.

[rk47]

I can't play this game on action mode.
I guess I gotta try to master the tacticool mode to get semblance of plan done.
It's just impossible to get any idea of precision in the combat clusterfuck.

[amiable]

I can't play this game on action mode.
I guess I gotta try to master the tacticool mode to get semblance of plan done.
It's just impossible to get any idea of precision in the combat clusterfuck.

Controls aren't ideal, but they are workable and I imagine they will improve when Bioware or modders get off their duff.  I guess it depends on your tolerance for micromanaging.

[Bunk]

Played for another four or five hours yesterday and came to the conclusion that its only playable on the PC with a controller. Especially as a melee. I fully understand the complaints about the kb/mouse and why people on PC want to use the kb/mouse - as Stewie said to me this morning "Why didn't I just get it on XBox then?"

Once I got past all that - I found a game that really plays to my exploring/gathering/hording playstyle.

[murdoc]

I upgraded to the latest nVidia driver and it now crashes the game for me, so I guess I'll be troubleshooting that today.

[Tmon]

Thanks to a tip in this thread I now pretty much use f to do any rift, loot, or object interactions.  It makes life much easier.

[climbjtree]

I picked it up for  XBone. The single player is so-so, but I think MP would be fun with some coordination.

So... anyone on Xbox?

[Phildo]

Is anyone else upset that they seem to have watered down leveling even further?  Why can't I allocate my own attribute points anymore?  Also, there seem to be fewer skills to choose from.

[HaemishM]

Prediction: This is going to be one of the most overrated games of 2014 with the highest number of apologists per intelligent gamer ever made.

Otherwise known as "It's a post-EA takeover Bioware game."

[Ceryse]

I'm now 12 hours or so into the game (spread out, granted.. five of that on my sword and board, rest on a mage), and my take on the game hasn't changed much. It is enjoyable.. but, god damn. Some design decision were clearly made by someone with no clue or fucks given. My main, 'wtf!?' gripes are;

- Camera, as expounded upon by many, including myself. It is just laughable.
- Behaviour system*, more on this.. just, tldr; shit.
- Having to manually auto attack; imo, this with movement and camera issues is what makes melee simply fucking unplayable.

Everything else is either what I expected (plot is bad, but it is a Bioware game and they suck at plot) or annoying, but manageable (I have to use Inquisition perks to get a bigger fucking inventory, because special people will sew more pockets into my clothes? Seriously?), or a limitation due to engine choice (modding; god I wish I could change some default clothing choices.. the Inquisitor's non-combat look is... bad).

But, god damn. The behaviour system is what is now making me almost furious. You went from a fantastic tactics and behaviour system in DA:O, where I could specify to my party when, where, and how to use skills/spells. Now? I can tell them to follow or defend certain characters (and defend, imo, is shitty, as half the time they can't actually do fuck all due to cooldowns), special resource (mana, stamina) thresholds to not doing anything below (ugh), what thresholds to use potions at, and what threshold of potion count to not using potions. Oh, and which skills they can and cannot use (but it is merely an on/off switch only...). Guarantees I will never play this game on anything above Normal because micro-managing the party would then be required, which means using the Tac View which is just crap. Even on normal I'm having to micro-manage because Solas/whomever can't be trusted to barrier responsibly. Tank dying? Barrier people not taking damage!

My mage is relatively enjoyable so far.. mainly because I grabbed barrier, can stay at range and just pewpew.. but I picked my warrior back up before quitting this morning and I couldn't take more than five minutes of trying to play a tank. It is just.. unplayable, imo, as a melee on the pcp with keyboard and mouse. I hate having to use a controller; I suck at controllers (mainly because I don't use the damn things). I refuse to use a controller. This means about half the classes are unplayable for me (warrior class and the melee rogue varients) because these peopel don't have a clue how to design for a pc game control scheme. Which, I guess is fine.. still leaves at least two playthroughs of a very long game I enjoy, so I'm going to get my money's worth; it just grates on you how badly designed a game like this, in this day and age, is.

[Khaldun]

Western RPGs that have good plots. Discuss. Planescape Torment and then what?

Because I keep thinking that folks talk like there's some RPG gold standard where you are not improbably chosen to be important and central to major events and so on. Dragon Age's setting at least has some nice wrinkles or variants in it with the standard Tolkien-esque elements of dwarves/elves, magic, dragons, etc. But Bioware's strength is usually in the characters and character-related mini-plots and sometimes in the branching choices you're asked to make, not in the main plot. I'm just not sure there are Western RPGs that have main plots that you'd call "strong" in the sense of surprising, interesting, mature, not riddled with cliches, etc.

The camera and combat I think you can reasonably say, "This did not need fixing, you had it right the last time around, why?" But if the objection is "How ridiculously improbable that I go from being suspect to protagonist right off the bat" and so on, you're really saying, "I hate fantasy RPGs". It's a bit like showing up in a superhero movie/TV thread and talking about how the powers of the characters wouldn't work like that in real life--that's not a meaningful criticism of a specific decision the creators made, that's just rejecting the whole thing.

[Phildo]

In Dragon Age: Origins , the main character wasn't the Chosen One.  He was just a lucky survivor, and the only other one didn't want to lead because of self-confidence issues.  This time around, it's less than 30 minutes into the game before people who should be wary of you are letting you into secret council meetings and ordering the spymaster around.  In my particular playthrough, 30 minutes after that one of them is saying she heard some nasty rumors about my character, and is *shocked* to learn that he was a member of a violent dwarven carta.  Well, maybe they shouldn't have been so quick to make the shady amnesiac dawrf their leader, then.

I just question all of their decision-making skills.  When can I choose some new advisors?

[schild]

Prediction: This is going to be one of the most overrated games of 2014 with the highest number of apologists per intelligent gamer ever made.

Prediction: Some people will like the game despite its flaws. Also, schild will never play the game making it impossible for him gauge the accuracy of his prediction.

You don't need to play a game to extrapolate results based on player reaction aaaaaaaaaaaand all the instant messages I got saying what utter shit it is.

[Ingmar]

It feels to me like the intro to the story is rushed through because they want to get you out into the more open-world/building up your power base part of the game. Once you're through the EXPOSITION! part at the beginning, it settles down and the story stuff gets much better.

Melee controls really are pretty annoying - though not unplayable, IMO - and the tactical mode camera is as bad as everyone says it is. Mostly the issue is that now that we're in an open world with elevation changes and trees and stuff everywhere, and that stuff can get in the way sometimes. It also needs to be able to zoom back farther than it does currently. My other two nitpicks are that holding L+R isn't auto run (and I can't map that) and that I don't automatically walk over to use things I've got highlighted if I'm out of range. I wish fast travel back to home base put you closer to the war table room.

Other than that though? The game is a lot of fun and after the rushed intro the writing is as good as ever, at least for the first 11 hours or so. The big open maps are full of explorer candy too.

[Khaldun]

DA:O has you fairly quickly being the leader because of a crisis. It's a pretty standard trope. "Oh, you're just a farmboy but you're going to have to grow up fast because the kingdom needs you!"  

Just about no Western RPG ever has you wandering around just being a guy who has some abilities having regular old adventures in the style of a pen-and-paper campaign. I suppose some action RPGs/roguelikes are like that but I think folks wouldn't generally commend those as having "plots".  If you play Elder Scrolls games where you ignore the main plot, I suppose those are a bit like that, but that's essentially plotless-ness, not "other plot". The Witcher series has some more political/gritty turns of plot and character. But other than Planescape, I'll be switched if I can think of an RPG that has a story that would seem anything other than generic and full of improbable moments that make the player-character central to the action. Then again, that's mostly true of fantasy novels, actually. The ones with distinctive plots and mood generally wouldn't work as RPG-style games.

[Phildo]

In several of the DA:O origin stories, the Warden starts out as the son of an influential noble or ruler, so that wasn't necessary a farmboy either.  I suppose I haven't gotten far enough into the open-world stuff, but the initial impression of the story and writing was pretty bad.  First impressions matter.

Still going to play it, but so far it has been begrudgingly.  At least that tactical camera doesn't bother me nearly as much as it seems to bother everyone else, and allows for auto-move while attacking.

[Khaldun]

For an 80-hour plus game, I'm a bit puzzled about why first impressions matter, actually. I can think of at least ten unambiguously great games that had fairly dumb tutorial beginnings.

[schild]

For an 80-hour plus game, I'm a bit puzzled about why first impressions matter, actually.

Because first impressions being good will compel you to play the rest of the game more likely than a shitty first impression.

Do you even game, bro?

[Phildo]

Is it so wrong to want a game to start out strongly?  I'm going to be spending 80 hours with these characters, they should be trying to make me think they're not all morons from the beginning.  Again, DA:O started off really strongly.  I think I just wanted Origins all over again.  I really liked that game.

For the record, I don't particularly care that the main plotline is basically a Greatest Hits of Bethesda Soft.  I just want the characters to do things that make sense to me.

[Trippy]

I haven't played much yet but I don't understand the PC melee control complaints. I've opened the world map twice so far as a dual wield rogue (restarted once to fix my nose) and I don't have issues positioning myself in combat. Of course the first control change I made to the game was swapping the turn and strafe keys.* This also fixes the tactical view map scrolling.

* I hope there's a special circle of hell reserved for those that keep insisting on putting the turn keys on A D in games that favor the mouse for turning where they spend eternity turning too far and can never get to where they want to go.

[Trippy]

3.  The story is hilari-bad.  It's like they decided to to combine Mask of the Betrayer with Skyrim and added a dash of Oblivion and say "look at the neat thing we did."  Also a large contingent of folks wanting  seems difficult to comprehend.

I'm just waiting for the big reveal where it turns out you are really Darth Revan and you opened the Rift in the first place*

4.  The final fight on the prelude was hella annoying but not due to any inherent difficulty, but because the fight wasn't with the bad dude, but with your controls.    This is really unacceptable, FFS it is your opening section!  That shit should be polished to a fine gleam.

It's also really annoying that the game gives you no clue that you have to look up at the rift while you are standing underneath it to see the teeny tiny hotspot. I almost wiped the first time through cause I ran around for minutes trying to figure out how to disrupt the rift. It's also annoying that F doesn't seem to work and you have to use right click to trigger it.

* I've actually just started so I don't know what the actual twist in the story actually is, don't blame me if my prediction turns out to be true

[Tmon]

f works for me when I close a rift, I don't even bother to look for the hotspot.