Dragon Age - Discussion Thread

[Reverend]

I have to say, you guys made a bunch of great looking characters, props to you!

As you can see in my case at least, it was mostly trial and error. If I had the ability, there's still a few things I'd tweak, but it's close enough. I mean at least she doesn't look as freakish and bug-eyed next to Cassandras as she used to.

Has anyone gotten to the Empresses's Winter Palace yet? I found something very familiar looking in the trophy room...can't quite place it though...

Spoiler: easter egg

Shepard?

On the subject of easter eggs, I won't spoiler where I found it, but they're taking this cheesy running joke to a whole new level!

 

[FPAlpha]

I just arrived at Skyhold and damn.. all those 20+ hours i already put in just seemed like prologue

Now i have so many options and things to do i don't know where to start and i am so excited. Some cutscenes before Skyhold seemed very cheesy and they were but i didn't mind.. it's a fantasy epic so cheesy is to be expected and demanded!

Yet to kill my first dragon but my team has improved quite a lot so i could manage some encounters that i failed multiple times before so there is kind of visible improvement going on besides getting better equipment and stats.

Spoiler: Spoilers up to the encounter in Skyhold

HAWKE!

That was friggin awesome even though i didn't bother to custom design his appearance. I have wondered if we would see cameos from the previous games besides Varric and lo and behold.. here comes your character from the previous game

I'm hoping there's going to be other cameos and unfortunatley i've been spoiled on one of these but i still can't wait to come to this point.

 

[Evil Twin]

Once you reach Skyhold you're just INUNDATED with quests. Seriously, this feels like densest Bioware game since Baldur's Gate II. I haven't felt this overwhelmed since running around Athkatla back in the day.

One of my favorite easter eggs so far is having to craft a Murder Knife for the assassin specialization.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGDL-hXZt5Q[/yt]

 

[Reverend]

Yeah, the size and scope of this game really is impressive and it really sinks in when you get to Skyhold after 5-10 hours and realise the real game has just gotten started! Bioware have really outdone themselves this time, especially considering the deeply flawed masterpiece that was ME3 and the overall disappointment that was DA2. Let's hope the next Mass Effect game will hold to this new high bar!

The only thing I will say is that with all the vast open world questing. character interaction can sometimes feel a bit thin on the ground. Not just party banter (which seems to trigger infrequently) but interactions between the characters themselves. In Haven in Skyhold they all pretty much keep to themselves, which is a shame since one can imagine plenty of possibilities for such a diverse group.

 

[Jono]

Still waiting for Bioware to fix the Hawke bug and it's really stalled my progress in the game. It's not like I can't go anywhere, I'm going through the Exalted Plains so I have something to do (where I think I've run into another bug around recruiting an agent), it's the fact that it locks out Varric and I need him for some other interactions.

 

[Reverend]

Yeah I think I've run into a bug with Cullen's companion/loyalty quest. He's basically gone from his normal haunt in Skyhold and there's an Inquisition soldier stood by his desk, but no option to speak to them.

I think what did it was that I was in there with Sera during one of her quests and it must have bugged it out. Baring a console command that can re-enable the option to talk, I'm not sure there's anything I can do about it since I was a good 10 hours further in when I noticed it, so re-loading is out.

 

[Jono]

Compared to my experience with ME3 I've found DAI to be far more buggy, though it's also a lot bigger so maybe that's to be expected.

 

[Reverend]

^Did you start playing ME3 on launch or after the first few patches? IIRC there were a handful of very buggy sidequests, mostly on the Citadel. To this day the Omega DLC's cutscenes are full of animation errors that they never bothered to fix.

I can very forgiving with an (semi) open world game like this since they're several orders of magnitude more complex than most AAA title. So long as

Most of what I've encountered are physics/animation and other graphical glitches as opposed to actual bugs. Do date that one with Cullen is the only one that actively impedes gameplay.

My only real complaints about the game is the baffling lack of a storage chest and a very clumsy implementation of the tac-cam system. The strange thing is that these are both things that they managed perfectly well in previous games (on PC at least.) Not sure what the thinking was there.

On another topic, has anyone tried out the MP mode yet? I had a quick go the other night and...well it's not very good sadly. Not that I had very high expectations, but I was pleasantly surprised by ME3's MP and hoped they'd do something similar. Oh well.

 

[Skywalker]

I agree about the inventory and the tactical camera, but I also find the Journal and Codex really cumbersome and not particularly user-friendly like they were in the past. I hardly ever open either one of them up in DAI.

 

[Jono]

^Did you start playing ME3 on launch or after the first few patches? IIRC there were a handful of very buggy sidequests, mostly on the Citadel. To this day the Omega DLC's cutscenes are full of animation errors that they never bothered to fix.

Played it from day one and I don't remember that many bugs or even having a CTD, of which I've had I think 5 or 6 so far in DAI.

I don't remember many animation glitches. The main thing I remember about the cutscenes is that it really annoyed me that they didn't show the weapon you were using and instead just showed the default weapon model. It was a bit of an immersion breaker.

Most of what I've encountered are physics/animation and other graphical glitches as opposed to actual bugs. Do date that one with Cullen is the only one that actively impedes gameplay.

On Sera's companion quest I had the noble you needed to talk to not appear leaving me stuck in the instance and having to load an old save. Luckily knowing we were off on a mission I saved just before I accepted it, but I did waste several minutes running around trying to find something or an exit.

 

[John Clark]

I too started ME3 as soon as I got it and apart from a couple of clipping issues and the weapons change in cut scenes, it was smooth sailing.

I haven't started DAI properly yet. I've got to the point where I've met Varric and Solas. I'm waiting on the new m/board + Processor before I get serious about playing.

I've had a couple of crashes, usually at the start screen. There are also some graphical glitches, but as I'm running it on a laptop that doesn't have a graphics card to push up the effects, I'm putting it down to that.

I am hearing comments (from other places than here) about people not being able to interact with certain npcs that they need to though. (There's also some complaints about mouse and keyboard use, but I haven't run into any issues yet).

 

[Reverend]

Really? I had a bunch of side quests break on me. The only one I can recall off the top of my head though is Kasumi's mission at the embassies. To this day the cinematics with Legion's mission and some of the pre-London scenes have some janky animation.

DAI has behaved itself pretty well for me so far. I have had two CTDs after extended play sessions (like 3+hrs!) due to DirectX errors, though I gather they're working on this with Nvidia.

Other oddities like the animation not loading during one of the judgement scenes so all the characters were in the default, static scarecrow positions...it actually made the bit with the goat even funnier.
That only happened the once and was fixed with a simple reload.

 

[John Clark]

Actually, there may be one or two that comes to mind. On my first run through ME3, Kelly Chambers was nowhere to be found.

The other one is on Rannoch (Though that may be me because I forget to check the armory once I have my preferred kit) but on a mission after the VR Server one, I get to the planet and realize I only have my pistol (at least until I find the sniper rifle).

The rest seemed to go fine.

(Of course, clipping went on a fair bit and that's just thinking of one of the hair choices and one of the visors. As you say, the animation in Omega was screwed up, but for me that was a lot later)

I am doing a replay on a different machine so we'll see how it works out there. (Both are AMD graphics and processors though)


On DAI my crashes so far seem to be either if I try to mess with the graphics settings too much, or the Templars just freeze on the start screen. Restart the game and it's fine.

As for the tactical camera, apparently someone has come up with a cheat/fix for that using cheatengine though on indoor scenes it may not work as well.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/631230-dragon-age-inquisition/70682962

I don't know how happy Origin will be with using that in the background though.

 

[MNM]

I'm liking what little I have played so far.

But... just how do you use a potion??? I must have missed the tutorial. All I see is when I go to the equip potion thing at the station in the camp or wherever my potion belt shows they are there.

When I'm out in the field, I just cant use it, or see it, at all. Its making me want to cry lol. My guys keep dieing because it auto saved just before a fight and they have little health left to start off with.

On xbox one.

 

[FPAlpha]

I have a PS4 but i guess controllers are similar enough.

On the PS4 controller it's the left shoulder button that when pressed opens a window with a command wheel.

The top option is to use a potion, other options are to quick command your party and some options will be unlocked as you progress in the game.

So open the command wheel, mark the top option with your stick and select it. If your character is not down or already dead he will chug down one potion and refill his health.

 

[MNM]

Ah, it's so damn simple now I know! thank you!

not that my guys dont keep dieing anyway, damn this fade rift and my sucking....

 

[FPAlpha]

A Tip concerning Rifts:

When your character tries to close one he needs a few seconds before it is damaged.

During that time every attack that hits him interrupts the process and needs to be restarted anew. However when you do damage the rift it wounds the demons and stuns them which gives you a window to do some additional damage.

So try to get the rift as soon as possible and increase your chances.
The tutorial also says that a mage with the dispel ability can damage or outright destroy demons before they even fully materialize out of the rift, haven't tried it yet because my main character is a warrior and i'm too lazy to take control of the mage in my party.

One last thing.. the game is non-linear so you might encounter enemies that are too powerful for your current characters, this also applies to Rifts and demons (i once tried to go up with level 6 caharacters against level 12 demons.. didn't go too well ).

So bite the bullet, swallow your ego and retreat. Level up your guys and gear and return later for some sweet revenge and some ass kicking!

 

[Evil Twin]

Hmmm.... Easter egg? Western Approach, Echoback Canyon, just north of the astrarium there's a hole in the rock with a floating gold chalice inside. The cursor doesn't change when you mouse over it and there doesn't appear to be a way to reach it.

 

[Reverend]

^Yeah I found that too. Can't find a way to get to it so I assume it's a holy grail easter egg.

Didn't manage to get a capture of the subtitles, but I did catch some NPC's doing a Monty Python sketch. Pretty much had to happen in a game about something called The Inquisition.

Been messing around with the CC trying to come up with an interesting non-human design with varying degrees of success.

I'm sad to say I'm a bit disappointed with the Qunari. the horns seem bigger and higher up than in DA2 and none of the options have the cool swept back look. Also I'm pretty sure the DA2 Qunari had a second set of smaller horns. That aside, for some reason the horn options are linked to the hair options and there's nothing in the way of long hair. Indeed the hair options across all the races are a disappointment.

I'm rather pleased with this one (though not sure about the freckles) as it's pretty close to my old 2H city elf warden from DAO. And yes, an elf with a greatsword looks hilarious....and awesome.

 

[SPCTRE]

I just made it to Skyhold which was a huge, eye-opening, epic moment.

I agree with the sentiment that the game is really impressively vast in scope and breadth of content. To me, everything about that game, every change they made from DA2, feels like a massive "Sorry! Our bad! We know you hated aspects XYZ of DA2, so here is us going back on them!" to the fans.

Also really digging the digital soundtrack that came with my Deluxe Edition. It's a bit of an amalgam of fantasy soundtracks, certainly derivative in many ways, but I love it to death.