For those who liked and didn't like MEA, do you think DAI was better?

Responding with babble is still poor form, though.

And you didn't answer my question.

Heir is irrelevant to Bioware now and, according to you, his views were never really relevant to the ME:A or DA:I.   That's the bottom line here.  Since Heir is irrelevant, your assessment about whether or not the company has balls is also irrelevant.  You can go on and on about it as you wish... but it has absolutely no bearing on a comparison between ME:A and DA:I - which is what this thread is somehow supposed to be about.

Oh, this is entertaining enough. Keep it going until you get bored or someone drops by with an on-topic point.

On topic point.  The initial post was mostly about the combat design... which I felt was a real strength of ME:A.  I've found it exceedingly fun and cannot imagine really even going back to play ME1 again as a result.  ME2 and ME3 had already done a lot to spoil ME1 combat for me and ME:A being so much more fun has just absolutely killed it.  I've never been into swordplay type combat... one of the few games where I did enjoy it was AC4 (and that, I suspect, was mainly due to the stealth component and I actually did much of my playthrough of that game armed only with fists and focusing on actually killing a few enemies as possible by just rendering them unconscious).  Overly extensive systems of potions and magic also tend to not interest me much and, if truth be told, I don't tend to get overly excited about the nuances of all the different biotic skills in ME either.  I started a recent playthrough of Oblivion, which has actually reminded me of how much I don't like such involved magic systems.

What I think really appealed to me about ME:A combat was the mobility (the evade moves, charge and jump jets combined with an awesome selection of ranged weapons (SRs) and shotguns.  There is also a random component as to how many enemies may spawn in many of the battle zones (perhaps a residual from when they were mucking about with procedural generation)... and I'm finding I actually like that element of surprise... which is something the Trilogy lacked, causing the combat to become extremely predictable after only a couple of playthroughs.

From the comments I'm seeing here, DA:I combat isn't that great... so, I'm not sure I'm ever even inclined to play that game now.

DAI had quiet a few areas of improvement, but was most definitely the superior game. This was helped massively by having all of the lore, characters, and story lines from the previous to games however. With MEA, I just felt like, I didn't care enough about anything. That, and all of it's flaws at release. Were I to play it now, rather than at release, I might have enjoyed it more.

I wouldn't know. They're totally different. DAO isn't fully voiced for starters.

And by crafting I meant weapons and armor. Elfroot collecting, love it or leave it. It grows on the way anyway and is easily picked up. Alternatively you can just buy it if there's the need.

I like it. Watch youtube to see if its something you would like.

Well, elfroot is mostly needed for potions. If you don't use a lot of consumables you won't need to gather much.

The DAI crafting model is a little bit like ME:A's. You've got schematics in various tiers, and various specific materials which need to be collected or purchased in order to build them. The major differences are, first, you need to equip every member of the party somehow, so in a given playthrough far more of the schematics will be useful. Second, the specific properties of the gear come from the particular materials used to build it rather than the schematics themselves; the schematics govern how much and which kinds of materials you can use. Third, the materials themselves are tiered -- DAI is more linear than ME:A, and has far more limited enemy scaling, so getting tier 3 mats requires being fairly far into the game and being able to beat very powerful enemies. Fourth, the DAI economy doesn't break down as fast as MEA's. It'll be a long time before you can afford all the schematics and mats you want -- some of the good ones must be found in the world rather than purchased.

The upshot of all this is that optimal gearing will require a lot more interaction with the system, and you'll be resource-constrained almost all the way through the game, as opposed to ME:A where you can equip Ryder with whatever her level will allow by level 10 or thereabouts. I don't know if this will sound appealing or annoying to you.



I think we touched on this upthread. The DAI design rewards treating the open world instrumentally, not as a -- kind of playground? The terrain is more an enemy to be defeated than something to be wandered through. I found a pure RP approach worked best. Why is my Inquisitor here? What is she trying to do? This may result in blowing off some areas altogether, which works just fine in DAI since several areas don't have any plot- or companion-critical missions.



There are always discs on eBay.

I think the series works best if played in order. Part of the design intent, from what I can see, was to set up lore in order to subvert it later. Similarly, both DAI and DA2 are subversions of the Chosen One stereotype to some extent, which DA:O plays pretty straight although the PC's status is essentially due to chance. (Unless you want to read that as divine intervention, which actually turns out to be a plausible reading of events.)

DA2 takes it a bit further in that it seems to be a mockery of player agency itself. This aspect is reduced to subtext in DAI; you can see the Inquisitor as a kind of Paul Atreides.

Sounds like you should avoid melee characters and stick to mages and archers, then. The games can be played with the NPCs on AI control all the way, so you wouldn't have to deal with melee beyond a basic understanding of the Threat mechanic. I'd suggest archery for a DA:O PC, since it's a simple build path, and offers fun options. The later games approach parity between the classes.

Mobility will be weak in DA:O; that game is about positional combat in a way that the later games are not. You might like DA2 combat best.

Good point. I don't do this myself because I like the constraints.

Is there any way for an XBox 360 player to spoof the system and get all the schematics on a first run?

Remember UpUpAwayRedux2's personal tastes. Chaos is a feature, not a bug.

Enemies dropped on top of you? Well, deal.

Be aware that the combat for DA:O on the consoles is completely different to the combat for DA:O on the PCs. Some would say it's been gutted, some would say it's been destroyed to the point that the console DA:O experience cannot be called a true DA:O experience, but that doesn't really matter. The point is that it's different (the combat on the PC is fully "tactical" whereas the combat on the consoles was more action oriented ... but the action combat wasn't really well done, imo.) 

Origins is a great game, but I would never recommend it on consoles.