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Dragon Age III: InquisitionFollow

#177 Nov 18 2014 at 8:27 PM Rating: Good
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A few initial thoughts:

1. The game looks stunningly gorgeous, especially the character animations.

2. The controls for PC (mouse + keyboard) are a little clunky, and it won't let me map anything to the extra buttons on my gaming mouse.

3. Movement during combat is slow, but that may be just because I picked a heavy armor-wearing, two-handed sword-swinging damage monster.
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Jophiel wrote:
I managed to be both retarded and entertaining.

#178 Nov 18 2014 at 8:38 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
What the Christ is this? Actually, it's fairly well done and certainly a trillion times better than that embarrassing video with Felicia Day but I still want to shout "Nerd!" at her Smiley: laugh



I think she is a pretty good bard. I like her. I've seen some of her other stuff and I also have a soft spot for the fiddle.

In other news the hinterlands are great so far. Really glad I finally got to the walkabout open stuff. The beginning is enough of a on rails corridor feel to dread that DA:2 LIVES. I knew the open areas were coming from reviews but I am really liking the feeling of roaming around options.

Also digging my dash strike and shield bash skills on the SnB. I kind of wish I would not have sold the defenders armor to equip the garish dragon stuff. It just feels wrong for my characters current power level. Not that it is super OP, just too ornate. My guy is a noble but I want him to look like a rough and practical soldier rather than a parade armor victim. I did already find a vendor blue sword that is better. It was not better enough to buy but I was glad that the pre-order power curve was not going to stick me with the bonus weapons for too long.

Also stutter seems gone without post processing. Confirmed. Using Gamepad with no issues so far. I checked out the tactical cam and it seems ok with pad. I made my ranged guys actually shoot the ranged attackers once. Then I decided to just go get them myself with charge since with Cassandra my party already has 2 tanks. So I can just ARPG around and whale on stuff currently. (Normal difficulty)
____________________________
An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

~ Matsuo Basho
#179 Nov 18 2014 at 9:56 PM Rating: Excellent
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I'm slowly getting used to the controls. No performance issues that I've noticed yet. Makes my system crank though, running about 55-60C. Was told about the fate of the universe resting on my shoulders and said "Right, I'm 100% on that" and then wandered off to beat on mountain cows with my axe. Leliana is a big crank. Thedas seems to have uncovered vast resources of lip gloss since last I visited.
Shojindo wrote:
Not that it is super OP, just too ornate.

I was amused that the first shield upgrade I picked up took me from a wooden disc to some ornate metal griffon wing thing. Then the next upgrade brought me back to wooden slab with a piece of cloth tied to it.

Edited, Nov 18th 2014 9:58pm by Jophiel
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#180 Nov 18 2014 at 10:16 PM Rating: Excellent
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Whew, put in a bit more time. More stream-of-consciousness thoughts:

Figured out that it was the mesh graphics option that gave me plastic hair. Set it to "High" and now it looks normal. Moreso, at least.
Played through the side quest in the Fallow Mire. Didn't finish all the quests, as I found that stepping into any water in the area spawns 4 level 12 skeletons nearby (I was level 6 or 7 at the time).
Also had my first (two!) party wipes trying to kill my first Revenant. If the tank dies, everyone else goes quick. Unfortunately, Cass seems squishy as heck right now.
The new demons scream like Banshees from ME3, which freaks me out.
I just learned that "F" key is the answer to my prayers. It auto-loots items nearby you (though you need to still accept multiple items; space bar works for that). Beats the point + click method.
I have 37 Power and nothing to spend it on Smiley: glare
Mage feels a little underpowered, but every level I gain I like it more and more. Barrier is key, but I found some other spells good as well. I want to expand outside of Spirit, but it's the closest we have to a "healing" tree so... no idea what to pick for now.
Varric feels so much weaker in this game than in DA2, where he was easily one of my best attackers...
Any advice for Inquisition Perks? I've chosen the Inventory expansions so far. Nice to have 80 slots!
I am no longer the king of Elfroot now that I've discovered the amazingness of Regeneration Potions. Down to about 20.
I feel like if I invested some time and effort into item crafting and modification I could probably improve my lot in life. Unfortunately it's a bit intimidating to start...
I found my first dragon in the Hinterlands. I killed the dragonlings (nearly dying myself) and decided to NOPE right out of there.

Still had a blast tonight. I feel like I'm a decent way into the game... then I remember I haven't even picked up any additional companions yet! Next story quest us Val Royeaux, so I might get one there. We'll see?

Edit: This may say more about the player than the game, but I feel like so far my times has been broken down like this:

10%: Story, cutscenes, and lore (including reading the cards in the loading screen and codexes)
20%: Warping to a previously visited map and running to where I need to go nearby.
20%: Fighting enemies
20%: Attempting to climb mountains that have an objective behind them according to my map.
30%: Trying to find the freaking item my Detect ability has pinged.

Edited, Nov 18th 2014 11:23pm by LockeColeMA
#181 Nov 18 2014 at 11:23 PM Rating: Good
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Quote:
30%: Trying to find the freaking item my Detect ability has pinged.

This. What was so wrong with sparkles?

Also, why on the Maker's desolate earth would anybody want to romance Cullen? He was a paranoid buzzkill in both previous titles, and he desperately needs to shave.
____________________________
Jophiel wrote:
I managed to be both retarded and entertaining.

#182 Nov 18 2014 at 11:45 PM Rating: Excellent
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Origin interrupting my game with bloopy arcade game noises to celebrate my achievements is going to drive me batty.
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#183 Nov 18 2014 at 11:53 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Origin interrupting my game with bloopy arcade game noises to celebrate my achievements is going to drive me batty.


I like how they are 10 times louder than the game sounds and make me jump out of my Fing seat. You just reminded me I want to fix it. Sounds liek there is no official way but you can rename the .wav. I'm going to do that.

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Origin/Disable-achievement-sound-notification/td-p/3658881/page/3



Quote:
Here is a "work around" until this issue is addressed properly (or at all):



Go into your Origin install folder: "C:\Program Files\Origin\" by default.;

Go into the subfolder "sounds";

Rename the file "Achievement.wav" to some other name (I used "bakAchievement.wav").



Notification will still appear visually, but will not play that horrible sound. I suppose you could even replace the file with a more pleasing sound if you wished, but I have not tested this.




Edited, Nov 18th 2014 9:53pm by Shojindo
____________________________
An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

~ Matsuo Basho
#184 Nov 18 2014 at 11:53 PM Rating: Decent
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I just ran into a large yellow dragon that ate my party for lunch. I'm guessing that I'm not supposed to go down there yet...
#185 Nov 19 2014 at 2:47 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
I'm either blessed or cursed with the inability to notice fps rates above 30ish. I've watched videos, I've stared at .gifs that are supposed to illustrate it, etc. Sometimes if given specific instructions I can spot a tiny difference ("yes, the dust cloud from that debris collapse is slightly smoother") but I don't play games by staring intently at dust clouds anyway so my noticing it in a specially designed .gif is academic.
It's more noticeable on faster paced games. Honestly, as long as it's locked to 30, I have little issue with it, but a game that maxes at 30 and dips below is usually terribly noticeable.
#186 Nov 19 2014 at 5:45 AM Rating: Excellent
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Another tip I just found out... the "Sell All" function at the merchant sells not only "worthless" valuables but also all the monster items you can turn in to research. Turn them in before you sell off your junk! I've probably made this mistake 4 times...
#187 Nov 19 2014 at 5:00 PM Rating: Decent
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I found a couple small things that are a bit annoying. First, there's an elf chick you meet by a cave in the hinterlands. She asks you to help activate an artifact that will show you the location of rifts on your map. You go into the cave, kill some stuff and turn on the thingy. Then she says that she found something for herself. If you use the dialog to ask her what it is, she turns hostile and accuses you of trying to steal it. Then it's either kill her or reload. That is not really the response I was expecting.

Secondly, in the Gulley of the Burnt Men, you encounter a large water buffalo looking creature. It can't be killed. It has a charge attack that will kill anyone in your party (at least at level 5) it hits, but you can stand on a ledge and used ranged attacks on it. But if you get it's health bar down to nothing, it still won't die. I did some checking online and apparently it's a quest mob, but if you don't have the quest, you don't know that. I tried killing the damn thing four times before giving up.
#188 Nov 20 2014 at 2:08 AM Rating: Good
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From reading some GG tweets tonight, I learned something effed up that's DA:I related. Apparently DA:I has been banned in India(and other countries) due to portrayal of homosexuality. Smiley: motz
#189 Nov 20 2014 at 2:34 AM Rating: Good
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That's what GG wants, isn't it? An end to these little games with their so-called 'progressive' politics.

Also, you're five days and five dollars short, Joph posted about this a page or so back.

Edited, Nov 20th 2014 3:36am by Kavekkk
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#190 Nov 20 2014 at 2:38 AM Rating: Good
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Kavekkk wrote:
Also, you're five days and five dollars short, Joph posted about this a page or so back.
D'oh! Smiley: bah My bad.

Edit: Ah, I see where I missed it. Oops. I've mostly only been skimming the thread and must have overlooked it. Did a quick scan of this page and didn't see it there so I figured I was good. As for the other question, I don't want to turn this thread into GG argument part deux, so if you really want to discuss it, feel free to repost on the other thread.


Edited, Nov 20th 2014 1:44am by Poldaran
#191 Nov 20 2014 at 2:48 AM Rating: Good
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Jesus Christ, that comment thread you linked to is full of some very stupid people.
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#192 Nov 20 2014 at 2:56 AM Rating: Good
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Kavekkk wrote:
Jesus Christ, that comment thread you linked to is full of some very stupid people.
Comment threads usually are. I only read the first nine or so and called that good enough.
#193 Nov 20 2014 at 8:04 AM Rating: Good
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I prefer the love between a man and pixels. I flirted with Cassandra some last night. She is kind of growing on me, maybe my first...*gasp! digi-romance of DA:I. I was never good at being a one pixel man though.

Edited, Nov 20th 2014 6:05am by Shojindo
____________________________
An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

~ Matsuo Basho
#194 Nov 20 2014 at 8:47 AM Rating: Excellent
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TILT
I made a clumsy pass at the Spanglish speakin' Antivan diplomat chick. Shot down!

So, in cross-board shenanigans, elsewhere on the net I was in a conversation about the tactical game. Someone said that he played DA:O on both PC and on the Xbox360 and thought that Xbox was easier, which he extrapolated to mean that it was dumbed down for controller play. I've never played it on console so can't respond to that but said "So jack up the difficulty and go to town". Someone else said that jacking up enemy HP/Damage isn't a replacement for tactical depth.

My response to this was that, in Dragon Age, it is. The game plays as "intelligently" on Easy as it does on Hard, the only difference is how much thought YOU need to put into defeating more powerful (not more intelligent) opponents. But the AI has always been pretty much "attack guy with most aggro". You don't even see it thinking anything even as deep as "We're going to dogpile the mage even though she hasn't cast yet since her AOE capacities exceed any one guy with a sword or bow". The game AI itself tactically sucks, all the tactics come from the players. Anyone disagree? I should mention that he was directly comparing DA:I to DA:O and implying that DA:O had more depth on the part of the AI itself.
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#195 Nov 20 2014 at 9:14 AM Rating: Good
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The AI on DA:O was rock stupid. Well, that's unfair. It was just really basic. But I also only played it on a console, so I can't comment on whether it was better on the PC.
#196 Nov 20 2014 at 9:30 AM Rating: Good
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Wasn't the tactic of DA:O take two mages, make storm of the century, and laugh at the carnage? Honestly I do remember on my non mage heavy games doing some slightly tactical things early on. For example telling my party to hold behind cover and luring the mobs in through a choke point to focus fire them down from behind the tank.

The AI was not really much beyond "come at me bro " in the most direct way possible. But there were some tactical things you could do beyond AOE to funnel them and not pull to many if you needed to. Such as the battle of Redcliff, choosing your ground and pulling them into kill boxes etc.

I don't think you can really call any DA game an RTS. It's not what makes them good. But some people used to do neat things like soloing the game with a trapping rogue on the hardest difficulty. You can make your fun with whats given.
____________________________
An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

~ Matsuo Basho
#197 Nov 20 2014 at 9:36 AM Rating: Excellent
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I think the tactic in DA:O was "Make Arcane Warrior with Blood Magic, win game".

Edited, Nov 20th 2014 9:36am by Jophiel
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#198 Nov 20 2014 at 10:54 AM Rating: Good
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Yuuuuuuuuuuup.

If anyone had 'balancing dragon age' as part of their job description, they should've been fired.
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Timelordwho wrote:
I'm not quite sure that scheming is an emotion.
#199 Nov 20 2014 at 1:54 PM Rating: Good
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I was wondering how long I should stay in the Hinterlands. I'm having lots of fun there and still only level 5 or 6 but I thought this might be good advice. I might try some new area's tonight, besides just going back to Haven to use the wartable or talk to my peeps.

EDIT: NM The link is unusable because it contains a swear.... sigh It's at the top of the reddit forum for this game though: PSA Leave the Fing Hinterlands!



Edited, Nov 20th 2014 11:57am by Shojindo
____________________________
An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

~ Matsuo Basho
#200 Nov 20 2014 at 6:19 PM Rating: Good
****
7,861 posts
Jophiel wrote:
I made a clumsy pass at the Spanglish speakin' Antivan diplomat chick. Shot down!

So, in cross-board shenanigans, elsewhere on the net I was in a conversation about the tactical game. Someone said that he played DA:O on both PC and on the Xbox360 and thought that Xbox was easier, which he extrapolated to mean that it was dumbed down for controller play. I've never played it on console so can't respond to that but said "So jack up the difficulty and go to town". Someone else said that jacking up enemy HP/Damage isn't a replacement for tactical depth.

My response to this was that, in Dragon Age, it is. The game plays as "intelligently" on Easy as it does on Hard, the only difference is how much thought YOU need to put into defeating more powerful (not more intelligent) opponents. But the AI has always been pretty much "attack guy with most aggro". You don't even see it thinking anything even as deep as "We're going to dogpile the mage even though she hasn't cast yet since her AOE capacities exceed any one guy with a sword or bow". The game AI itself tactically sucks, all the tactics come from the players. Anyone disagree? I should mention that he was directly comparing DA:I to DA:O and implying that DA:O had more depth on the part of the AI itself.

I started DA:O on console, bought and switched to PC because of "The Fade". The mod to skip it on PC was a lifesaver.
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People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome. ~River Tam

Sedao
#201 Nov 20 2014 at 7:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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Shojindo wrote:
I was wondering how long I should stay in the Hinterlands. I'm having lots of fun there and still only level 5 or 6 but I thought this might be good advice. I might try some new area's tonight, besides just going back to Haven to use the wartable or talk to my peeps.

It's a bit unintuitive, but the early game is all about jumping around. Get to level 6 or so, head to the Storm Coast, then head to the Fallow Mire at 7-8. Then either explore more Hinterlands or move on to Orlais.

For reference, I'm level 10 (going on 11) and I've JUST moved on from Val Royeaux. It took me over 15 hours to get new companions, which was too darn long.
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