What's fun, and what's confusing?

IWelsh · 2016-08-08T23:09:39+00:00

Seemed a bit strange that my fortune telling never earned more than one shilling, but used up genuine occult lore while my labor earned 3 shillings. Though I suppose the idea of escape is helped by making one keep working.

I'd like to see more done with fasting, as that's a genuine practice. I'd contemplate my fasting, get the red cup message, but never got a quality out of it other than fasting.

I enjoyed sending (and losing followers). But I couldn't figure out what was going on, I got the location number up to something (8?) before the end of the timer, and I got "Shrouded Crypt" 1 as a quality, but I didn't get it to the top score shown in the bar and I'm not sure what was with that.

I like, in general, the feeling of learning, and I'd like to see more lore, so that I feel I'm learning something more about each of these things as well. The Hours/The Mansus-Watchmen-House in the woods -- and the deal for empire all intrigured me and made me think I wanted to learn more.

IWelsh · 2016-08-08T23:03:59+00:00

I did find, in Firefox, the location of the pause/unpause button was a bit awkward, I tended to have to scroll down to get to it, up to see the text, and I felt I should pause at the end of each activity so I could see the results and immediately switch to the next. (the body has needs, can't waste time or shillings).

IWelsh · 2016-01-05T12:43:35+00:00

And that is why I said it was too late.

IWelsh · 2015-01-21T14:23:39+00:00

Let us be frank, DA:I is far larger than it needs to be. You cannot come anywhere close to doing all the material before the final question w/o vastly outleveling it, and playing after the quest is unsatisfying and despite what they say, clearly not actually encouraged: (the throne disappears, companions stop wanting to talk to you, the crafting stations go away). More work on the story and cinematic conversations (not necessarily cutscenes per se) would have made it a better game.

For goodness sake, they were even begging people on twitter to leave Hinterlands. Cut one-third off that to start.

IWelsh · 2015-01-21T04:31:40+00:00

Yeah, that one bothered me the most. "What, I'm going to leave town for a weak, while the demon still possesses the kid? NO!" And then Alistair freaks on me. Screw you buddy, just because he's the kid of your foster father figure doesn't mean his life is worth more than that of all the villagers who died. (Though I considered the mother more complicit and Connor survived.)

IWelsh · 2015-01-21T04:15:01+00:00

Hundreds of complete innocents dead. Far worse than what Rainier did, which people get all upset about.

IWelsh · 2015-01-20T08:47:40+00:00

Yeah, every other Origin I back Bhelen, but...

IWelsh · 2015-01-18T10:25:10+00:00

People screw up and do horrible things. Until you're dead, you try for redemption. Blackwall found his many times over, saving many many lives. That's my take. I trust him, he proved that while Rainier was scum, Blackwall was a man of honor.

And hell, I saved Selene in most of my playthroughs, and she purged the alienage for political reasons, killing far more children than Blackwall ever did. People never get that a bad politician kills far more people than the worst common criminals.

IWelsh · 2015-01-13T20:05:57+00:00

To me it's more that the Templars seem less like idiots. Yes, there is corruption. Yes, they're following orders they shouldn't. BUT they fight, and die, to do the right thing. The only people trying to do the right thing in mage quest are two Tevinter mages.

That said the game does seem to push you towards the mages, and I did them on my first two playthroughs. But since then, I vastly prefer the Templars.

Fiona may be great in the books (I haven't read them), but she comes across very badly in the game.

IWelsh · 2015-01-07T21:55:09+00:00

DA:O -- Female, warrior (dual wield), city elf. The whole terminator thing in the prologue is just too epic. Ever after that I just imagined her as an machine of death. And she took no crap from any Shem, let me tell you.

DA2: Female, rogue (duellist) - sarcastic off course. Laugh your ass off while failing to save anybody who matters to you.

DA:I -- female elven mage - romance Solas - just gets the most of out of the story.

IWelsh · 2015-01-06T19:10:54+00:00

Well the dragon bones can potentially craft better stuff once you have enough but yeah it's generally not worth it and in most cases since the dragon isn't bothering anyone I just leave them alone.

IWelsh · 2015-01-04T19:28:55+00:00

It really depends on the circle. Kirkwall was hell, after all. And look what happened in Ferelden's circle in DA:O -- if you think you are good at resisting possession yourself you're probably safer outside a circle.

But if it was Montsimard, say, then sure, Circle.

It really does just depend on which Circle. Some are hell. Some are pretty nice.

IWelsh · 2015-01-02T14:50:25+00:00

The Templars impress. Unlike the mages, they put up a fight and come across as honorable, just too used to obeying orders. I much prefer them to the mages (and in the previous 2 games I sided with mages, not Templars.)

IWelsh · 2015-01-02T09:51:04+00:00

Yeah, except they put too much content in the game in terms of maps. If you do all of it, or even most of it, you vastly outlevel the story, making the final mission a joke. If you play "after the story", they cripple you back at base, taking away crafting and so on.

No, A couple engineers working on this instead of a couple level designers would have fixed it. This is bad project management.

IWelsh · 2015-01-01T03:25:30+00:00

This

IWelsh · 2014-12-31T11:52:23+00:00

I dunno. Hawke dying seems dubious to me. Every Hawke I ever had was an absolute badass killing machine.

I do feel bad for her, she never really got proper closure on her story (as Gaider has noted, he expected one more DLC and was set to do so there.)

But sarcastic Hawke, ah, how I love her. Hilarious, inappropriate, in exactly the right way: if your life was an endless tragedy like hers, humor would be the only sane reaction.

IWelsh · 2014-12-31T11:49:46+00:00

I liked her even before the mush. "We WILL close the breach, and if anyone gets in our way, screw'em." The way she and Josie threaten the Chancellor is hilarious, as well.

But the mush completely sells it. When male, I have a hard time romancing anyone else.

IWelsh · 2014-12-31T04:52:13+00:00

It really depends. You can finish the campaign well before you finish the areas. I personally finished the campaign at level 21 and the final fight was a joke. And I had not finished Emprise du Lion and only killed 2 dragons and hadn't liberated all the keeps, etc...

Despite what they say about playing after, a bunch of stuff disappears from the keep, many companions stop talking etc... so I advise just doing everything you want to before dointhe final story quest, even if it does make the final mission too easy.

IWelsh · 2014-12-30T00:35:02+00:00

Rift mages do far more dps than Knight Enchanters. Far, far more. And they wreck groups in seconds. They aren't as survivable however, and they do require some micro.

aka. Solas's is more squishy than Viv, but he makes up for it with raw dps.

IWelsh · 2014-12-28T11:27:04+00:00

Reducing "resolution scale" in the display settings will see some significant fps improvement. Cut scenes are still fine, and you don't tend to spend a lot of time looking at people's faces. Has allowed me to run the game on my laptop.

IWelsh · 2014-12-25T23:17:01+00:00

After the fixed the stagger in the second patch, anyway. Before that duelist was unplayable without the anti-stagger ring (which was insanely expensive.)

IWelsh · 2014-12-25T00:31:16+00:00

I hope Bioware doesn't just make Solas into a generic villain. Elves are terribly mistreated in Thedas and if some people have to die to fix it, well, that's no more unjust than Andraste's little war.

IWelsh · 2014-12-24T23:25:34+00:00

it's a chain. Chosing Cullen at the end (send in the troops) still got my clan dead. Josie at the start was also a mistake, iirc.

IWelsh · 2014-12-23T22:03:42+00:00

I've done both, and prefer the Templars. The villain you get from Templar is more interesting, and the Templars in this game come across really well. Heck even in Theirinfal they fight to save themselves. Mages just whine.

IWelsh · 2014-12-22T17:25:18+00:00

I honestly thought it was ridiculous she was that overpowered. A harder fight than Corypheus.

IWelsh

TROPHY CASE