Dragon Age: Inquisition

[SG]

@HelloRaptor said:

I stopped using them entirely in DA:O/A once I realized they'd put in code to allow warriors and wizards to bash or spell open locked chests/doors, and it just had to be enabled. >_>

How do you do this? Once I replaced the rogue with the war dog the combat got reasonable, but I'm missing out oh ph4t loot because Buddy with the giant mace doesn't know it can be used against objects as well as people. Also, I sure wish my shield walls would stop skeletons from running up to gut my wizard.

[Derp]

@HelloRaptor said:

I stopped using them entirely in DA:O/A once I realized they'd put in code to allow warriors and wizards to bash or spell open locked chests/doors, and it just had to be enabled. >_>

How did I not know this is a thing? Tell me more. You have my interest.

[HelloRaptor]

@SG and @Derp

Lock Bash Mod

This mod allows players and followers to "bash" or "force" open most locked chests and doors. This is the real deal, the character will actually attack the object and it will be destroyed with rubble and all (this was clearly a feature cut from the final game).

I was wrong about there being a 'Knock' type spell, it just uses magic to try and force them open. There is a mod to add spells to do it with more finesse, but they're actual mods rather than re-enabling shit that was already there but disabled.

If you want the additional Open Lock spells mod, it can be found here.

[Ganymede]

@HelloRaptor said:

See, I don't usually have a problem with those characters, in general. But I think maybe he reminded me too much of Squall in Final Fantasy 8, who I most defs did despise in almost every possible way.

Yes, but you're also retarded, and not in a cute-and-quirky way like Corky.

Fenris's anger was hard to empathize with. I think this is mostly because his plight is overshadowed by how the storyline leans in favor of Mages, in my opinion. No matter how I played, I eventually sided with the Mage's plight, rather than take the position that Mages ought to be purged.

And, yes, this may be because I adored Merrill. But I like cute things.

So, shut the fuck up, Corky.

[HelloRaptor]

@Ganymede said:

@HelloRaptor said:

See, I don't usually have a problem with those characters, in general. But I think maybe he reminded me too much of Squall in Final Fantasy 8, who I most defs did despise in almost every possible way.

Yes, but you're also retarded, and not in a cute-and-quirky way like Corky.

Fenris's anger was hard to empathize with. I think this is mostly because his plight is overshadowed by how the storyline leans in favor of Mages, in my opinion. No matter how I played, I eventually sided with the Mage's plight, rather than take the position that Mages ought to be purged.

And, yes, this may be because I adored Merrill. But I like cute things.

So, shut the fuck up, Corky.

Did you like Squall or something?

[Roz]

@Ganymede said:

Fenris's anger was hard to empathize with. I think this is mostly because his plight is overshadowed by how the storyline leans in favor of Mages, in my opinion. No matter how I played, I eventually sided with the Mage's plight, rather than take the position that Mages ought to be purged.

Honestly, I find that curious. I am pro-mage rights 4 EVAR and literally feel dirty if I ever side with the Templars in any major way in the games, but I could still empathize with the fact that he was a slave who suffered horrific abuses and was mentally, emotionally, and physically scarred as a result, and who was trying to learn how to make his own choices after a lifetime of having no choice. Idk I didn't feel like empathizing with Fenris and supporting the mages were mutually exclusive items.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Ganymede said:

Fenris's anger was hard to empathize with. I think this is mostly because his plight is overshadowed by how the storyline leans in favor of Mages, in my opinion. No matter how I played, I eventually sided with the Mage's plight, rather than take the position that Mages ought to be purged.

This was one of the things that kind of bugged me about DA2. The first game presented some decent reasoning for why the Circles existed and what was actually dangerous about magic. DA2 sometimes paid lip-service to this (like, most of Fenris' points, while extreme, have a kernel of correctness to them), but by the end you're clearly a freedom-hater who loves oppression and violent purge murder if you don't side with the mages. I keep meaning to do a replay where I side with the templars, but I can never entirely bring myself to do it.

I will say, DA:I has made me appreciate DA2 more. Whatever flaws it had, the compact nature of it was one of the things that probably helped me invest in the companions. DA:I is so diffuse and big it's harder to care. Though diffuse is kind of the point, so I'm not sure how much of that's a criticism, and more it just not being the ideal game for me. Open-world games tend to kinda lose me after awhile, and a lot of it is just...that.

[Roz]

@Three-Eyed-Crow Man, however much any Circle in the world is better than Kirkwall's, I certainly never bought it in DA:O. "Magic is dangerous! Let's teach everyone who has it that they're less than other people and that they should be terrified of themselves all the time. That'll work!" For me, Kirkwall is the inevitable end of all the Circles, because they're intrinsically violent and oppressive, even when they're being "nicer" about it than someone like Meredith.

[HelloRaptor]

@Roz said:

For me, Kirkwall is the inevitable end of all the Circles, because they're intrinsically violent and oppressive, even when they're being "nicer" about it than someone like Meredith.

Noooot exactly the inevitable end. Kirkwall was... Well, spoilers:

! The mason showed me a plan of the city, and my heart skipped a beat. There were patterns in the intersections, back alleys, and boulevards. Some magisters believed in the power of symbols or shapes. In the oldest parts of the city, one can make out the outlines of glyphs in the very streets! What manner of magic is this?

! The list of elven children is numbing: "three maimed, two mute, and four serviceable." These numbers don't add up. For every thousand slaves that came to Kirkwall, a hundred disappeared. I checked the tax rolls, as well, and the discrepancy exists there, too, if one has the wit to see it: 203 slaves went missing in the Imperium's 312th year! That's just one year. Other records showed similar discrepancies. Over centuries, practically a whole civilization of slaves simply disappeared.

! The mages of Kirkwall have a more troubled history than those in other Circles. A greater percentage of them do not survive the Harrowing, and a greater percentage turn to blood magic—almost double that of Starkhaven or Ostwick.

! Access has not been easy, and I fear my disguise will not bear great scrutiny. But I saw the records the templars say do not exist. The blood of countless slaves was spilled beneath the city in sacrifice. Whole buildings were built upon lakes of blood. The sewers have grooves where blood would flow, all leading down. The scale is hard to fathom.

! A blood mage can channel great power from a simple cut. At least a thousand unfortunates died here every year for centuries. For what ungodly purpose would one need so much power?

! It is well known that the Veil is thin in Kirkwall, small wonder given the suffering in the city. But we've discovered the magisters were deliberately thinning it even further. Beneath the city, demons can contact even normal men. Did they seek the Black City to compound the madness of their previous efforts? Or was it something else?

Much as it's easy to see Kirkwall as the inevitable and predictable end of a system of social oppression, it was rather helped along in ways other places are not.

[Ganymede]

@Roz said:

I am pro-mage rights 4 EVAR and literally feel dirty if I ever side with the Templars in any major way in the games, but I could still empathize with the fact that he was a slave who suffered horrific abuses and was mentally, emotionally, and physically scarred as a result, and who was trying to learn how to make his own choices after a lifetime of having no choice.

I didn't say it was impossible to empathize with Fenris; I said it was difficult.

Fenris was enslaved and experimented on by a Tevinter Magister. Everyone hates the Tevinter Imperium, so it was easy to externalize that hatred. But Fenris doesn't hate the Imperium; he hates mages.

His anger, to me, is akin to a generalized hatred for one class or another based on a particular choice, which I personally find stupid. Moreover, if you want to be a generally good person, you spend plenty of time trying to distinguish individuals from groups; for example, Saemus' and Ashaad, that whole quest with the saarebas, and the remnants of the Starkhaven Circle. Fenris' simplification of the issue seemed childish, which, perhaps in context, was fine or the writers' polemic.

In the end, I found him whiny and pointless, and I enjoyed killing him. How dare he speak out against my Merrill.

As for Squall: I don't have to like him to like FF8.

[Apollonius]

Basically, Kirkwall is Sunnydale. And your Hawke is Buffy the Vampire slayer.

I liked Merrill's story line a lot, even if it usually ended in Elven genocide outside of town. Look, I didn't hate Fenris. He just happened to be dreadfully redundant in my party and his demeanor and looks did not appeal to me at all. I like my men manly and my women... uh... womanly. Elven men, by default, are just not manly. Case in point, LOTR and Orlando Bloom. I don't care how hot and bad ass he is, he looks like a girl.

Then again, I may just be strongly biased against Fenris. After all, I was sleeping with Anders, who I made into a dirty Blood Mage in DAO:A. In spite of or because of, he turned out all weird with a healthy dose of bad writing. I really just wanted to find him a fucking kitten and DA2 wouldn't let me do that. THAT would have saved Anders entirely.

RL preferences aside, however, I usually just go with the so-called canonical Romance that Bioware likes to slap onto your Character. MaleShep ME1 was Liara, MaleShep ME2 was Miranda, MaleShep ME3 was Liara again. Male DA:O was strongly Morrigan between her and Leliana. DA:OA had no romance but my Male DA:O Warden would've totally slept with DA:OA Anders. Male and Female DA2 was Anders.

Gay DA:I Male was Dorian and Straight DA:I Male was Cassandra. That said... I got the weird vibe that the canonical Romance for DA:I was actually no romance.

I disliked FF7 and FF8. My favorite FF was FF6, followed by FF4, followed by FF5, with Chrono Trigger in between FF6 and FF4. I liked FF9. I am still unconvinced that RPG writing had not peaked with FF6 and a slight taper to CT before collapsing during the modern 3D era. FF6 had a huge cast of characters but you really cared about every last one, even the ones that were really whiny and annoying like Locke. DA2 had a surprisingly good set of well-written characters overall.

You know what was truly monstrous? No, not how they screwed up Anders. Did anyone notice how they reskinned Zevran from DA:O to DA2 to follow the new Elf model paradigm. It looked like they took his face, injected it with botox, and bashed it in with a frying pan til his face stuck a certain way.

Edit:

This is Fenris: http://i1306.photobucket.com/albums/s573/Stormborn8811/Fenris2_zps124a5a7d.png
This is female Korean Pop Artist Lee Jung Hyun: http://www.allkpop.com/upload/2010/05/100520_LJHmubank_main.jpg

[mondegreen]

@Apollonius said:

You know what was truly monstrous? No, not how they screwed up Anders. Did anyone notice how they reskinned Zevran from DA:O to DA2 to follow the new Elf model paradigm. It looked like they took his face, injected it with botox, and bashed it in with a frying pan til his face stuck a certain way.

he was always kind of a fanficcy character even in DAO, but it was the better side of fanfic, god damn it. even if he reminded me of the Gundam pilot fucking the Ranma 1/2 dude who first introduced me to homosexuality, he was well-executed enough that it worked well enough not to be embarrassing. he didn't deserve the frying pan makeover.

and the Felicia Day character didn't have the redesigned elfyness, presumably because Bioware assumed the nerds would only buy her DLC if she was hot =| then again, hard to blame anyone for not wanting to be represented with that freaky out-of-nowhere goat nose. didn't they drop it in Inquisition and go back to elves being all cute all the time? representative of how many fucks I gave playing Inquisition that I don't remember.

[Thenomain]

I cannot tell you how many times through each play through of DA:I that I was confused because they drop you into the situation in media fucking res. I was so confused why nobody was blaming Anders and the Kirkwall incident for the Mage uprising, like I was supposed to know what happened at some Circle of Magi somewhere.

It came together eventually, but it was awkward and painful in the way of unexpected speed bumps on a back road when you want to go 35. Even the history of your own character was revealed in fits and spurts. I was replying about growing up "Tal-Vashoth" before I knew that the word had history that I probably should have known at the time.

Okay, enough bitching. Time to finish my second play through.

[Monogram]

@HelloRaptor said:

Did you like Squall or something?

Whatever.

Oh, and while I'm thinking about it. Does anyone care about and/or play the DA: I multiplayer? I ask simply because I need to actually stop hating it and actually /play/ it. I loved ME3's multiplayer and played that shit to death. But there's such a steep learning curve in the DA: I's, the one day I put real effort into it, it was just death after death after death.

This might've been changed since I last played it back in January. Anyhow, if anyone plays the Xbox One version of it, let me know.

[HelloRaptor]

@Monogram said:

@HelloRaptor said:

Did you like Squall or something?

Whatever.

Your impression is spot on! ^_^

[Roz]

@Monogram said:

@HelloRaptor said:

Did you like Squall or something?

Whatever.

Oh, and while I'm thinking about it. Does anyone care about and/or play the DA: I multiplayer? I ask simply because I need to actually stop hating it and actually /play/ it. I loved ME3's multiplayer and played that shit to death. But there's such a steep learning curve in the DA: I's, the one day I put real effort into it, it was just death after death after death.

This might've been changed since I last played it back in January. Anyhow, if anyone plays the Xbox One version of it, let me know.

DAI's multiplayer is terrible, especially in comparison to the perfection of ME3.

[Monogram]

I've been playing it for the first time since January and I can say it's been improved alot since I last tried it. The first time I tried it, I couldn't stand it. Now it's gotten a bit more like ME3 MP. I like how when you promote a level 20 character you get stat increases that carries over to all classes, improving every time you promote. I will say that's a welcome reward for actually promoting.

[Tempest]

Holy shit this game is pretty on the PS4. Made my main character a rogue for my first play through, am I going to regret that?

[Derp]

@Tempest

Nobody regrets rogues. They're one of the most versatile classes you can play. And they have enormous damage output.

[Insomnia]

@Tempest If you are a stabby rogue make sure to make weapons with guard on hit and dual wield. Else, you might be a bit squishy.