@Ganymede I do not consider changing which NPC shows up at a scene to be making a difference, sorry. That's a cop out. As to the romance options however, I thought those were well done. In fact, much better than most of the romance options in other bioware games. The fact that your romance options have actual realistic reactions to choices you make in game was great. In fact, your choices made more of a difference in your romance path than in the story.
What about choices that affect the nature of an NPC, and how it reacts in the future? That's on the same line as many of the choices made in the romance paths.
If you decline to finish the Before the Dawn path, I hear it makes Samson nigh-invulnerable.
I guess I can't rule that the choices make no differences until I play the game again, but, by all accounts, your opinion is yours alone. Which is sort of like your madness.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
@Ganymede Before the Dawn is an advisor quest that allows you to conscript Samson for the inquisition later on. It is only available if you choose to side with the mages, It has nothing to do with how strong samson is when you finally fight him. I am also not the only person that did not like this game, so come down off your high horse.
@Alzie : The blind that follow the blind are no less blind because they walk in a group.
You're as welcome to your opinion as I am to ride a horse, or to directly state my judgment of your opinion in direct terms.
Perhaps one of the more damning points of your previous post is the suggestion that I am on a "high horse." There is absolutely nothing to connote that I consider myself somehow superior to you, or that I am looking down upon a plebian opinion. Stating my opinion that you are wrong is no different than your adherence to your own, but your attempt to erode mine with a personal attack is uncharacteristically low.
The other damning point is how you've missed that, despite having played it thoroughly, I too dislike this game, but for different reasons that have been previously discussed.
New place, but same patterns.
Leaving off Alzie's bullshit: I finally went to start the Wicked Eyes, Wicked Hearts quest, and goddamnit. Giant sprawling indoor maps with poorly implemented mechanics are my least favorite thing ever.
Wait, wait. *I'm further along than you are? XD Now @Huzuruth can stop mocking me for overleveling the main storyline.
If they didn't want you to over-level, they wouldn't have given you so much to do.
@Thenomain A lot to repeat you mean, but yes. You are certainly meant to unlock areas and level up prior to story missions. There is no question about that. Also, talk to your allies and advisers for quests. And do the stupid little real time missions on the tactical map because they sometimes open quests on the open world maps.
No, I don't mean that. Man, you certainly got a bug up your butt if you can't let other people enjoy this game. I'm enjoying it, regardless of what you think.
Now, DA2, you're not allowed to enjoy that one.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
@Thenomain Hey, I played through it. I'm more than happy to offer advice and insight. But if my advice and insight is colored with pain then just ignore it. On a more serious note, you really can't be too levelled. Also, if you're a mage, some of the best armor is the self-crafted formal dress wear. You'll know when you see it.
I'm a completionist, so it was easy to over-level. I think I hit Level 22 before I finished the Hissing Wastes.
The Wicked Eyes, Wicked Hearts quest was painful. The poorly-executed PS3 version was poorer still, I'd reckon. If you're going to make a social scene wherein you have to gather rumors and piece together clues, mini-games make for more entertainment than butchering people.
@ganymede I liked the ideas they put forth in that one, but not the implementation. Running around looking for colored circles to eavesdrop was not the best idea I thought. At that point, it's just a tedious jaunt around a room several times trying to find spots to eavesdrop. Even more so when those spots weren't always worth anything. Meaning, they didn't always give up incriminating evidence. On the other hand, I liked the actual parts where you talked to people and they judged you for what you said, those parts were good. It was a pretty good representation of Orlesian politics with some failings.
I had to restart several timez. Once because of approval rating. And once brcause it kept fucking taking my armor off and I went into that final fight in formal wear for my inquisitor. And then all the times that bitch killed me.
@Alzie said:
The 'differences' you see are minor cosmetic and dialogue differences.
Unless, of course you piss Vivvienne off and she starts re-arranging furniture around the castle.
@Ganymede said:
@ixokai : You faced the Ferelden Frostback; that's the issue.
Also, most of the Dragons are level-gated as well, with exception to the first one. So if you got all levelled up and buff and thought "Damn, I'm level 20 now, I can go kick that one dragon's ass!" No. Sorry, that dragon has likely levelled up with you.
@Cobaltasaurus said:
I had to restart several timez. Once because of approval rating. And once brcause it kept fucking taking my armor off and I went into that final fight in formal wear for my inquisitor. And then all the times that bitch killed me.
I would have been in that same boat, only I never fought her. I did restart hours into to the game because my character's ears were too big in the cutscenes.
I'm going to be doing a livestream playthrough, siding with the mages because I have a couple of friends who went Templars and want to see the other side, but are already over 100 hours in and don't want to see it badly enough to play through it all again. I'm also going to try and out-bitch Vivienne, and try to piss off as many people as I can with the choices. And hats. Hats will be worn, always.
@Insomnia said:
Also, most of the Dragons are level-gated as well, with exception to the first one. So if you got all levelled up and buff and thought "Damn, I'm level 20 now, I can go kick that one dragon's ass!" No. Sorry, that dragon has likely levelled up with you.
Yes, but the Dragon didn't get the ability to have a magical lightsaber or gain Guard and a rechargeable Barrier. That's really what tipped the balance, and allows you to take down the Dragon when you're at a higher level, despite the HP leveling.
@Cobaltasaurus What's amusing about this is that the Formal Attire armor for a mage with Tier 4 mats ends up being one of the best armors in the game for mages at 218 armor rating.
I'm going to give some comparisons in my venture into the 360 version and the Xbone one that I got to play for a week or so.
Firstly, the graphics is like night and day. On the 360 there's a lot of drop in textures and stuttering that you don't see in the next gen version. That's what was most glaring to me. Also, I for awhile I thought there wasn't any option to give your Inquisitor scars. Turns out that's only on the 360 version, which I found mildly annoying.
Secondly, I had dumped probably 150 hours into DA:I across three different playthroughs so I had the maps down in my head pretty decently. When I started playing on the Xbone, the biggest thing I noticed is the amount of, well, trees. For example, after playing so long in the Hinterlands on the 360, I had a good idea where most relevant things were and how to get to them. When I started playing on the Xbone, I was lost for a good couple minutes just because the landscape had changed so radically. It was pretty jarring, but certainly a more welcome change.
The biggest complaint out of everything is the drop rate for tier three upgrades. Granted, there is a particular way to farm for them in certain locations, but that can become very time draining, never mind losing the number of chances you have for drops depending upon how many items are in said container. While some chests are static, a good many are not.
Don't play a dwarf if you like your romance options to be very few.
I hate Sara. Like, I REALLY hate her and I could go into a full-length about just how much I hate that character and often wished there was some way to kill her off. Sadly there was not, only the option to tell her to screw off when you first meet her.
Archer Rogue + Assassin = Overpowered as Hell Build.
Mage + Knight Enchanter = also Overpowered as Hell Build. Both of these builds need to be nerfed big time. Otherwise the game lacks any real challenge. The Archer/Assassin especially so since you can simply snipe enemies from a distance and because the AI only reacts within a certain distance, and you can shoot farther than that distance, most enemies will just stand there until dead. I killed a dragon that way. While fun the first time, it started to feel a bit cheap after awhile. The Knight Enchanter is OP simply because by taking the right passive skills you never really lose any barrier strength. Couple that with an armor mastercrafted with Enchanted Obsidian(which gives you 3 armor per hit)and you're nigh-unkillable.
The item duplication(much like the money trick in DA:O and DA2)makes farming for materials stupidly easy. So long as you have one of an item, you can replicate that to infinity and beyond. I may of crafted myself 30 Essences of Perfection simply because I could.
Killing Samson is a guilty pleasure. Because that guy is a total tool in DA2 and DA:I.
Legion of the Dead armor is pretty awesome. If you're a dwarf warrior. I believe it's the best overall armor in the game. Why that would be reserved for just a dwarven warrior is beyond me, but most tier three armors fall just slightly short of it.
Just some thoughts. It's a great game I find and I don't think I've completely done everything there is to do in it. I'm curious how the DLC for it will be. It's a BioWare game by EA, OF COURSE there's going to be DLC. Maybe they'll make Harding actually romancable, because she's such a damn tease.
Second play through kind of bored me. Perhaps this is because this game was designed for people who look for "drop rates" as a primary gameplay element.
I'm glad someone out there really hates Sara, since I can no longer make fun of HR for liking DA2. Sara is the only one to call Varrik out on his bullshit. My problem with the DA:I characters is they seem to be missing dramatic conviction. It's a rather minor quibble.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
I'm sad. I wanted this to be cool but it's not skyrim and I just can't get into it.
@Thenomain said:
Second play through kind of bored me. Perhaps this is because this game was designed for people who look for "drop rates" as a primary gameplay element.
I'm glad someone out there really hates Sara, since I can no longer make fun of HR for liking DA2. Sara is the only one to call Varrik out on his bullshit. My problem with the DA:I characters is they seem to be missing dramatic conviction. It's a rather minor quibble.
My problem with Sara is that there is absolutely zero growth with her. She's childish, hypocritical, short-sighted...I could really go on and on. Her calling out Varric on his stuff is fine, someone does, but everything else, she is a horribly written character with zero depth and zero growth as a character. Everyone else, that actually do some amount of evolving from where they were when you first met them, but Sara is nothing but static. She wants everything to fit into her little world where everything caters to what she thinks it should be. If it wasn't so obscenely immature, I could maybe go with it. But it's not.
Ugh, I hate her so fucking much.
MUSH-free since 02/2017
This may or may not change in the future.
@Ganymede I do not consider changing which NPC shows up at a scene to be making a difference, sorry. That's a cop out. As to the romance options however, I thought those were well done. In fact, much better than most of the romance options in other bioware games. The fact that your romance options have actual realistic reactions to choices you make in game was great. In fact, your choices made more of a difference in your romance path than in the story.
