Dragon Age 3: Inquisition announced

[Subyman]

About the 8 skills complaints. While I do agree this is a regression from the other games, it doesn't take into account how many actions the player has access to. My reasoning is that this game is not about a single character. Its about controlling a party of 4. That means you have access to 32 skills that complement each other, which should be plenty to fill out most situations. Just thought I'd point that out.

 

[bystander36]

About the 8 skills complaints. While I do agree this is a regression from the other games, it doesn't take into account how many actions the player has access to. My reasoning is that this game is not about a single character. Its about controlling a party of 4. That means you have access to 32 skills that complement each other, which should be plenty to fill out most situations. Just thought I'd point that out.

While I 100% agree with this, the only problem can be that the controls don't make controlling 4 party members nearly as easy as it used to be. Not being able to tell each character to hold individually and their auto targetting what you are when in tactical mode messes this up a bit (the 2nd complaint I think can be fixed in the behavior tab, by having the companions defend, instead of follow).

 

[facetman]

sorry guys another crafting question ( maybe I am just think headed), but I am having difficulty with how these work as the descriptions are poor and incomplete. An example is the "chance to stagger" - apparently that only works if you are in melee range- so if on a bow - it is useless. also all the "bleed" stuff is broken- so don't use it. So, i wasted that crafting session. Have a Mastercraft material that says - % xx drop caltrops upon hit for 50% of weapon damage = if I craft this on a shield for my tank does that mean they could drop caltrops after they get hit and when the enemy steps on them they will cause 50% of the warriors weapon damage to the enemy? So, if they have a 150 sword then the enemy will get 75 damage for each caltrop they step on? OR can this masterwork material only on armor as it is a defensive thing?

 

[bystander36]

From what I can tell, all the mastercraft effects work on offensive and defensive items. Most the armor mastercraft slots make it so when you are hit, the effect has X% chance to go off, and if on a weapon, they fire off when the enemy is hit. For a while, after using a bow that had caltrops on it (it was a dropped item, not crafted), I kept seeing caltrops dropping at my feet. I didn't have the ability learned and had no idea what was happening, then I saw it on my weapon in a mastercraft slot.

As far as to the damage, it will do the description of the skill at the damage listed on the mastercaft item. That means that as mobs step on the caltrops, they will take 50% damage (your weapon damage, not DPS) every 1 second if I recall correctly. I've used hidden blades also works on bows as well as swords. I even have it on a staff, and it works there too.

I am unsure on shields, since it is considered a weapon, I can only assume it works on shield skills, like bash.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I don't know why but I always end up making a female character in these games. Maybe that says something about me.

KT

i do too. Dont really know what that means, if anything. Seems more pleasant to look at a female character for hour after hour. Also, Bioware seems to usually have really good voice actors for the female characters.

 

[frozentundra123456]

About the 8 skills complaints. While I do agree this is a regression from the other games, it doesn't take into account how many actions the player has access to. My reasoning is that this game is not about a single character. Its about controlling a party of 4. That means you have access to 32 skills that complement each other, which should be plenty to fill out most situations. Just thought I'd point that out.

That may be true, but i am level 12 and have all the hotbar slots filled. Kind of diminishes the fun of levelling up if you can only use new powers by removing ones that you already have. At least they could give you a secondary way to use the specialist powers. My hotbar was filled before I even started Knight Enchanter specialization.

 

[bystander36]

That may be true, but i am level 12 and have all the hotbar slots filled. Kind of diminishes the fun of levelling up if you can only use new powers by removing ones that you already have. At least they could give you a secondary way to use the specialist powers. My hotbar was filled before I even started Knight Enchanter specialization.

You need to pick up the skill improvements and passive abilities. At level 21, my Rift mage has only 1 skill that isn't on his hotbar, and while I really would like to add it, it is still only 1 skill.

Those upgraded skill perks and passive abilities are extremely powerful. Don't ignore them.

 

[Bateluer]

About the 8 skills complaints. While I do agree this is a regression from the other games, it doesn't take into account how many actions the player has access to. My reasoning is that this game is not about a single character. Its about controlling a party of 4. That means you have access to 32 skills that complement each other, which should be plenty to fill out most situations. Just thought I'd point that out.

And if the game had a working TacCam or a better combat system, that might carry some weight.

 

[facetman]

OK thanks- so if I put an offensive ability on a shield it has no chance of activating unless the shield is used for a bash- makes sense. However if I put that same "drop caltrops" masterwork material on my Bow then it has a chance to activate each time I shoot the bow.

So if you put it on armor, then when the armor takes damage then it has a chance to activate as well.

So that applies for defensive stuff as well- the item that has the fade material must has an action for the fade material to possibly activate. For armor that means taking damage, for a weapon that means doing damage. Don't know why this was hard to me to understand. I happen to choose stuff that is either broken= bleed or stuff that is a poor choice for a bow= stun.

 

[frozentundra123456]

You need to pick up the skill improvements and passive abilities. At level 21, my Rift mage has only 1 skill that isn't on his hotbar, and while I really would like to add it, it is still only 1 skill.

Those upgraded skill perks and passive abilities are extremely powerful. Don't ignore them.

Yea, I have obviously been trying to pick up passive abilities since my hotbar is full. I just dont like being basically forced to take them because I dont have space for any more active powers. Even then to add the first power from the Knight Inquisitor tree I had to delete a skill that I already was using. My character is a mage, and that is probably the one that will have the most problem with too many active powers.

Edit: since enemies have resistances to different elemental damage, I was trying to invest skill in different trees like fire, cold, and the barrier tree. Maybe that was a mistake, because it fills up the hotbar real fast when you get basic skills from several trees.

 

[bystander36]

Yea, I have obviously been trying to pick up passive abilities since my hotbar is full. I just dont like being basically forced to take them because I dont have space for any more active powers. Even then to add the first power from the Knight Inquisitor tree I had to delete a skill that I already was using. My character is a mage, and that is probably the one that will have the most problem with too many active powers.

Edit: since enemies have resistances to different elemental damage, I was trying to invest skill in different trees like fire, cold, and the barrier tree. Maybe that was a mistake, because it fills up the hotbar real fast when you get basic skills from several trees.

I can understand that, but it won't be necessary.

Since you went with KE, you always have the spirit blade, and I do not recall anything having any resistance to spirit and there are some that are vulnerable to it. You'll also likely pick one other elemental, either fire or frost. No monster has 2 resistances that I've seen. And of course you still have your staff, which you can swap out, this is more of a dragon thing though.

You definitely want 1 elemental and your spec at least. I am not sure going for 2 elemental trees is necessary. Although, if I had another hotbar slot, I would pick up the initiator in frost, to pair with stonefist.

 

[zinfamous]

i do too. Dont really know what that means, if anything. Seems more pleasant to look at a female character for hour after hour. Also, Bioware seems to usually have really good voice actors for the female characters.

whatever game it was I started playing just after DAO, I started defaulting to female characters on first play throughs. I would always go half and half in MMOs, but at some point, I started to prefer female badass type heroes in RPGs over males.

I guess I got used to it; and it just ended up being boring and stupid to keep playing the same character in all these games which, let's face it--all tell the same fucking story over and over.

So, at the very least, I figured bashing monsters skulls in as a woman was refreshing.

 

[zinfamous]

Yea, I have obviously been trying to pick up passive abilities since my hotbar is full. I just dont like being basically forced to take them because I dont have space for any more active powers. Even then to add the first power from the Knight Inquisitor tree I had to delete a skill that I already was using. My character is a mage, and that is probably the one that will have the most problem with too many active powers.

Edit: since enemies have resistances to different elemental damage, I was trying to invest skill in different trees like fire, cold, and the barrier tree. Maybe that was a mistake, because it fills up the hotbar real fast when you get basic skills from several trees.

I do believe that

Spoiler

Corypheus

has spirit resistance. And I want to say that at least one of the dragons does--maybe one of the Emprise dragons.

Oh, and I know for certain that the Inquisitor has spirit resistance--assuming you complete the appropriate path in the shard oasis cave.

 

[Bateluer]

OK thanks- so if I put an offensive ability on a shield it has no chance of activating unless the shield is used for a bash- makes sense. However if I put that same "drop caltrops" masterwork material on my Bow then it has a chance to activate each time I shoot the bow.

So if you put it on armor, then when the armor takes damage then it has a chance to activate as well.

So that applies for defensive stuff as well- the item that has the fade material must has an action for the fade material to possibly activate. For armor that means taking damage, for a weapon that means doing damage. Don't know why this was hard to me to understand. I happen to choose stuff that is either broken= bleed or stuff that is a poor choice for a bow= stun.

I've ran into this during dragon fights. I've built each of my mages with a focus in one elemental tree and their specialization tree. If I enter a fight against an electric dragon with my electric mage, that fight's going to end really quickly because the primary DPS is worthless. Its a guaranteed reload, fast travel back to camp, switch party members, then trek back to the dragon.

 

[Mem]

In normal combat, my mage is almost casting spells 100% of the time, once I got into my teens. You want to pick up the frost mage 50% regen ability along with the fade walk thing. Then with fire, when you crit it lets your next spell be cast without a cooldown and I have 46% chance to crit. That means I get a crit almost every immolate and fire mine I cast. Then, because of mana difficulties, Rift mage has an ability that gives you mana based on 10% of the damage you do against weakend enemy (all Rift mage abilities weaken), so that always caps off my mana when casting stonefist. As a result of the build, I am casting almost 100% of the time. The only time I'm not is against Dragons, as I'm bouncing between all my characters trying to position them.

Edit: I was just playing, and noticing that my mage casts about 90% of the time. I'll usually get in about 5-8 spells before I have to slow down most time. My typical start is Pull of the Abyss, Fire Mine, wait 1 second, Stonefist, then often, I get in a crit cycle with stonefist or fire mine, and cast about 3 more spells before I slow down. Of course, most the time everything is dead by then, but different resists sometimes play a factor.

Now you did mention something I do find annoying, and that is games which make all 3 archtypes fight the same. Where mages, rogues and warriors all feel like the same character. I think the absolute worst example I've seen of that was Asheron's Call 2. I can see how it applies a bit here, but they do all seem to fight different from my experience.

I have most of those skills already,bearing in mind level 13 at the moment,anyway combat is not fun,maybe it's my gear which I've started crafting myself which seems to be better then loot drops etc,then again maybe not .

Anyway scratching my head on this one, since still end up using default staff range attacks most times while waiting on cooldowns etc...

I have no skill slots in hotbar left so will be concentrating on passive abilities(I presume you can swap skills in and out of hotbar which will be a pain to do and pointless),still no excuse why they did not give us more skills slots.

Also to get to some passive skills you need to take offensive ones so again nowhere to stick those .

I read some players reaching level 23 so that is like another 10 skills that I have no where to stick down the road unless I go pure passive ones,again how did the developers overlook this major issue?


It's these sort of things that make the game annoying,maybe not an issue for you but they should of never been overlooked in the first place,the first two DA games did not have this issue and yes it's not helping my enjoyment of this game.

As a beta tester for games myself, I would of brought these issues to attention right a way.

 

[ControlD]

I read some players reaching level 23 so that is like another 10 skills that I have no where to stick down the road unless I go pure passive ones,again how did the developers over look this major issue?

The developers didn't overlook the issue. The game was designed for consoles first and PCs after. That is just the unfortunate reality of the situation. Controllers have four main buttons, so you get skills assigned in groups of 4. So, you always have four skills available with the main buttons, and then another set you can access with a shift button.

What I would like to have seen is rather than a shift button, they could have made the button cycle through groups of 4 skills, which would rotate back to the beginning when you reach an empty assignment set. I think this should have been easily programmed and would have given people access to way more than 8 skills. Also, this would make it common across platforms. You wouldn't have the situation where the PC version requires a completely different skill selection system than the consoles have. I guess we can hope that perhaps the devs take note of this shortcoming and make a change. Might be worth putting the suggestion out there?

 

[KeithTalent]

i do too. Dont really know what that means, if anything. Seems more pleasant to look at a female character for hour after hour. Also, Bioware seems to usually have really good voice actors for the female characters.

Yeah I think that's a good point. I do prefer listening to a female voice with a nice British accent for 40+ hours.

KT

 

[ControlD]

Yeah I think that's a good point. I do prefer listening to a female voice with a nice British accent for 40+ hours.

KT

I have always played male characters in RPGs. I'm not sure I have ever played a female character unless the game required it. Usually I make a character that looks as close to what I look like IRL actually.

Maybe I should try playing a female character one of these days and see what I'm missing out on!

 

[exar333]

I feel like I've made pretty significant choices so far. What you're talking about doesn't sound like it'd be possible in a video game on any platform, at least not a game with the level of intricacy and nuance to the plot and characters as a BioWare game. We're a long, long way off from computers being able to spontaneously write stuff. Random but detailed scenarios is more the realm of game masters for pen & paper RPGs.

I wish you could make your character different though. Essentially you make choices in the game to pander to the party members you prefer. When I played KOTOR, I could choose to go light side or dark side and make the ending of the game totally different. There isn't a lot of choices in this game, except 'choose this or that'. That's OK, but limited IMHO. Still a great game, but I think we are getting more and more used to 'the illusion of choice' like in Mass Effect, rather than really changing the outcome of the game. It is what it is...

 

[KeithTalent]

I have always played male characters in RPGs. I'm not sure I have ever played a female character unless the game required it. Usually I make a character that looks as close to what I look like IRL actually.

Maybe I should try playing a female character one of these days and see what I'm missing out on!

Yeah, give it a shot. I've played dudes here and there, but I naturaly lean towards creating a female character.

One thing I've always wanted to do is play a complete jerk of a character, but no matter how hard I try I always end up making nice guy choices. One day I am going to try and force a play-through making only the jerk/bad guy choices.

KT

 

[Mem]

The developers didn't overlook the issue. The game was designed for consoles first and PCs after. That is just the unfortunate reality of the situation. Controllers have four main buttons, so you get skills assigned in groups of 4. So, you always have four skills available with the main buttons, and then another set you can access with a shift button.

What I would like to have seen is rather than a shift button, they could have made the button cycle through groups of 4 skills, which would rotate back to the beginning when you reach an empty assignment set. I think this should have been easily programmed and would have given people access to way more than 8 skills. Also, this would make it common across platforms. You wouldn't have the situation where the PC version requires a completely different skill selection system than the consoles have. I guess we can hope that perhaps the devs take note of this shortcoming and make a change. Might be worth putting the suggestion out there?

As usual PC gamers got screwed,first the controls then hotbar,anyway as you stated shift or up and down arrow next to hotbar would of solved the issue,personally think developers are getting lazy and sloppy,no excuse when hotbar slots were much better in previous DA games.

You notice online reviews don't mention issues like these,one reason why I hate online reviews,they always miss the PC short comings and automatically give the game a 9 or 10 because it's a Bioware game .


Btw did they forget ALL those keyboard and mouse PC gamers out there,yes BIOWARE I'm one of them.

 

[Mem]

Yeah, give it a shot. I've played dudes here and there, but I naturaly lean towards creating a female character.

One thing I've always wanted to do is play a complete jerk of a character, but no matter how hard I try I always end up making nice guy choices. One day I am going to try and force a play-through making only the jerk/bad guy choices.

KT

I find it hard to play a bad guy,I always play the characters like I would make the choices in real life,makes the game more personal etc...

 

[KeithTalent]

I find it hard to play a bad guy,I always play the characters like I would make the choices in real life,makes the game more personal etc...

Yeah that must be it. I usually play Lawful or Chaotic Good.

KT

 

[ControlD]

Yeah, give it a shot. I've played dudes here and there, but I naturaly lean towards creating a female character.

One thing I've always wanted to do is play a complete jerk of a character, but no matter how hard I try I always end up making nice guy choices. One day I am going to try and force a play-through making only the jerk/bad guy choices.

KT

That's funny. I always say I'm going to do the same thing, play a bad guy. I NEVER end up going through with it which means even on my fifth run through a game I find myself making the same choices.

 

[ControlD]

As usual PC gamers got screwed,first the controls then hotbar,anyway as you stated shift or up and down arrow next to hotbar would of solved the issue,personally think developers are getting lazy and sloppy,no excuse when hotbar slots were much better in previous DA games.

You notice online reviews don't mention issues like these,one reason why I hate online reviews,they always miss the PC short comings and automatically give the game a 9 or 10 because it's a Bioware game .


Btw did they forget ALL those keyboard and mouse PC gamers out there,yes BIOWARE I'm one of them.

It's too bad this game (or the engine at least) does not appear to be very mod friendly. Most of these issues could be quite easily solved though the community and wouldn't require anything from Bioware at all. The controls themselves probably need to be addressed by the developers, but the interface could be handled through mods. It was really the same issue with Skyrim when it came out. The interface was designed for controllers but the community quickly solved the issue for PC users.

Just as an aside, I STILL don't understand how people play FP games like Skyrim with a controller. DA:I is pretty easy because it is third person. That's really what keeps me on PC these days, otherwise I might have just thrown in the towel and bought a console by now.