Dragon Age 3

[Tannhauser]

Eat a dick.

Why, I'd love to! 


Seriously: I am not condemning the game, despite really (IMHO) unforgivable issues (like crappy controls) it seems have to quite some meat on it and appeals to at least certain players, even among the critical F13 crowd.


The GOTY award leaves a wrong taste though, because you just know it would have gotten it in every case, whether deserved or not.

After 105 hours I can say I love this game despite some significant issues as well as some annoying smaller ones.  Having said that, I'm not sure how far I'll get in a new game.  The combat is OK, but DA2's is better.  I say this having gone back and playing a few hours of DA2.  It's the perfect system between the PC DAO and the consolitis of DA3. 

For El Gallo, I didn't like the controls very much either at first, but, like a Detroit Lions fan, I slowly embraced the disappointment and got over it.   

[Signe]

Well, I got to the end of the Blackwall romance story.  Fuck him.  I'm better off alone.

[Paelos]

Well, I got to the end of the Blackwall romance story.  Fuck him.  I'm better off alone.

This Ruffles romance isn't going as I expected either. It's like they hate love in this game.

Also it won't let me sex up my scout dwarf. That's disappointing. Maybe DLC.

[Tannhauser]

I picked Cassandra because I thought it would be tough to romance her but no.  Bring down the hammer of justice on a few evil-doers and her pants come off like a bikini at a slip n slide.

[Khaldun]

Cassandra and Iron Bull are easy to romance. Sera too but she only will romance women. I get the sense that Cullen might be pretty easy.

I did find it odd that you can flirt with the scout dwarf but that's all.

[Phildo]

They're all pretty easy.  Blackwell went from hating my character to wanting to jump her bones after she found just two of his quest items.

[Paelos]

They flubbed the character interaction part of this game. I think it's a fairly non-controversial thing to say that. I don't like how affection is hidden. I don't like how it works. I don't like the romantic stories that aren't really romantic at all, but are rather just checklist quests of turn in 10 bear asses.

The depth of the game elsewhere is where it shines, but what used to be a strong point of character building and storylines really suffered in this game. It's also something I would like them to address in the DLC, because the scout dwarf seems like she has standards.

[Shannow]

How's it run on PC? Need high end or would a decent gaming laptop run it?

[Rasix]

They're all pretty easy.  Blackwell went from hating my character to wanting to jump her bones after she found just two of his quest items.

Sera won't progress for me past the rooftop.  I've been pretty pro common man throughout my play through, so this is a bit bothersome.

I figured Cassandra might go for my Inquisitor, but I didn't know she was male only.  The brush off from her was pretty hilarious.

I suppose I could always fall back to Cullen or Josephine.   

On another note, you were right rk, Sera's kit is broken as hell.  3 tier focus ult is hilarious.  Outside of that, her lightning and fire flasks means she can pretty much one shot anything.   Of course, I'm also at the point where the party (I am) is level 20 and rocking some pretty OP gear out of Hissing Wastes.  Plus, tier 3 crafting + fade touched obsidian = LOLOLOLOL.  Although sadly, I ran out of that. 

[Ceryse]

For Sera, after you get the roof top scene, make sure you go back to her and do the "I'm into you' dialogue choice again. That was my problem with that romance and it held it up for awhile.

[Rasix]

Ohh, I did.  She keeps giving me the "well, let's travel around some more and see where that takes us" line.

[Ceryse]

Ohh, I did.  She keeps giving me the "well, let's travel around some more and see where that takes us" line.

Hrm. Did you do the war table mission.. March of Merchiel (I think that is what it's called) that is unlocked from talking to Sera? It might be a requirement. So might going on the pranks with her.

[Lantyssa]

Your mistake was not telling her you had a U-haul parked out back.

[Ingmar]

Your mistake was not telling her you had a U-haul parked out back.

 

[Paelos]

Your mistake was not telling her you had a U-haul parked out back.

Oh god the laughs.

[Ingmar]

98 hours in and I've pretty much finished all the open world stuff. Time to finish the plot and see if it goes ME3 on me.

[Polysorbate80]

Finally finished the main story around 85 hours in.  There's still a number of things on the war table, but they're all multiple hours to complete.

I had to start the last battle three times.  Not because of difficulty--other than the first dragon fight, the combat has been a joke--but because it crashed twice.  Once during some of Cory's monologuing, and then again when it was supposed to switch to a cut-scene during the fight.  The other notable bug I got during gameplay was that the mission to send agents to locate Samson never appeared on the war table, so I couldn't finish that up.

I don't know if I'll replay it any time soon.  I like the story. The companions I do like I like a lot; but the ones I don't, I dislike enough to not be worth another playthru just for their dialogue.  Solas needs to spend less time dreaming and more time talking to actual people.  Dorian is too arrogant.  Vivienne is snobby enough to make Dorian look mellow (she had the only companion mission I just said "Fuck off" to).  Blackwall I can't figure out of he's more angry with me or himself, and fuck him for making me travel all the way to the stables for conversation.  A whole goddamn castle and he can't be bothered to live in it?  Cole--just hates everything I do; fuck him.

That, and my first character was an elf mage.  The story worked so well with those choices I can't see trying it again soon.  Especially nice finding out the elves are (unsurprisingly) a bunch of deluded, overly-nostalgic whiners about their history.

Crafting--I did some crafting, but mostly gear didn't seem to be that big a deal so it was mostly for shits 'n giggles.  Perhaps a higher difficulty would alter that?

High points for me?  "Ironically, Spiders"; sentencing the Grand Duchess' head-in-a-box to "community service", and what happens to Morrigan after letting her use the Well  

I got my money's worth.

[Ingmar]

You can trick the war table missions by changing your system clock, don't even have to close the game. I normally don't endorse that sort of thing but themany-hours-long missions are pretty obnoxious given the generally low leverage payoff from them.

[Rasix]

Reading up on the internets, I may be bugged.  According to everything I've read, it should have kicked off by now (I imagine when I try again, it'll just magically work).  I will try some things, but apparently if you do the Arbor Wilds mission, you risk nixing the romances all together.

Man, I've got at least 2 outdoor areas to go, and I'm still level 20.  At some point, I'm just going to stay f it and finish this up.

[Phildo]

The #1 reason to craft is because some of the effects on master-crafted gear are amazing.  In particular, the ones that give you armor on hit which make you pretty much invincible.

Solas needs to spend less time dreaming and more time talking to actual people.  Dorian is too arrogant.  Vivienne is snobby enough to make Dorian look mellow (she had the only companion mission I just said "Fuck off" to).

Mage-hater.

[Ingmar]

+3 guard on hit sounds really underwhelming but in practice it is totally overpowered. It's amazing on a dual-wield rogue; I went from having survivability problems to essentailly being able to solo dragons. Don't put it on more than one piece of gear per character, that's wasted.

Power procs are also really good, hidden blades proc has been excellent on the rogue in particular.

[Rasix]

Yah, Sera pretty much runs around with full guard all of the time thanks to that combined with lightning flask.  I ran out, however.  I think I've only found like 3 total pieces of fade touched obsidian.   Unfortunately one piece is being wasted on an old piece of armor that Cassandra has out grown.  Guess I'll keep it around for the rest of the dragons.

[Ingmar]

I find that it's kind of pointless on the tanks anyway. They usually have full guard running just from their own abilities.

[Polysorbate80]

Pointless on my character as well as a Knight-Enchanter.  Several times I had Cassandra fire off her focus ability that gives everyone guard, and finished the fight still on full guard.  It did keep Sera alive more, but mostly I just stopped caring if either she or Varric died during a fight since the other two were all but indestructible.

[tmp]

+3 guard on hit sounds really underwhelming but in practice it is totally overpowered. It's amazing on a dual-wield rogue; I went from having survivability problems to essentailly being able to solo dragons. Don't put it on more than one piece of gear per character, that's wasted.

Power procs are also really good, hidden blades proc has been excellent on the rogue in particular.

There's also "10% chance to set off Walking Bomb" which in practice procs all the time. Since I made one it's pretty rare at the end of the fight there's any corpse that ain't chunks of meat.

[rk47]

Used thousand cut on final boss.
Bugged the game cause too much dps that bypass all boss forms.
  Wonderful QA. Bravo.

[Velorath]

The GOTY award leaves a wrong taste though, because you just know it would have gotten it in every case, whether deserved or not.

Awards were determined by these 28 people from various media outlets. Just by the nature of these things (and one of the many reasons these awards are stupid), the biggest releases of the year are the most likely to get nominated because they're the ones almost all 28 of these people have played. Out of all the big releases this year, Shadow of Mordor is the only one I can think of off the top of my head that maybe deserved it more (although even that got stale fairly quickly).

[murdoc]

Patch today, apparently

http://blog.bioware.com/2014/12/08/upcoming-patches-and-features-for-dragon-age/

[Rasix]

(I imagine when I try again, it'll just magically work).

  

There's an interesting bug if a certain party member has gone awol during her romance quest.  You can't complete it until that member is back in Skyhold.  I don't know what would happen if that person should perish.  Hilarious quest by the way; the reactions are priceless.

[Falconeer]

I started playing yesterday and while at first I gladly noticed that mouse+keyboard weren't that bad (two handed warrior), I have to say that the animations are so sluggish that it all just feels very off. I wouldn't even say it's because of mouse and keyboard though and I will probably get used to it soon, but I must observer that so far combat feels quite underwhelming, like a bad attempt at action fighting that feels like you are underwater. Uhm.

[tmp]

I started playing yesterday and while at first I gladly noticed that mouse+keyboard weren't that bad (two handed warrior), I have to say that the animations are so sluggish that it all just feels very off. I wouldn't even say it's because of mouse and keyboard though and I will probably get used to it soon, but I must observer that so far combat feels quite underwhelming, like a bad attempt at action fighting that feels like you are underwater. Uhm.

Allegedly that's result of DAO/DA2 feedback -- after complaints how the DA2 instant attacks with HUGE SWORDS felt all weightless and thus fake they decided to dial the speed down and make it more like DAO (but not quite that slow) to better convey momentum and such.

My impression is it'd work ok if their movement code wasn't downright awful. Most of the time it can take few seconds of pointless shuffling around before the ability/attack actually fires. The few times when stars align and it just works, it's decent.

[Rokal]

I started playing yesterday and while at first I gladly noticed that mouse+keyboard weren't that bad (two handed warrior), I have to say that the animations are so sluggish that it all just feels very off. I wouldn't even say it's because of mouse and keyboard though and I will probably get used to it soon, but I must observer that so far combat feels quite underwhelming, like a bad attempt at action fighting that feels like you are underwater. Uhm.

If you have a gamepad, I'd give it a shot. The animations seemed awful for keyboard and mouse to me as well, but they (and movement) meshed better with controller inputs.

[Falconeer]

Patch notes. http://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/2os51i/dragon_age_inquisition_patch_2_notes/

- Increased duration that search highlights things, and added highlighted items to radar while they are highlighted.

- Pressing the interact key (default “F”) will take everything from containers.

 

[jakonovski]

I hear the new patch broke the graphics on pc.

[Comstar]

Is Party banter working now or not?