Schmooples' Den! The DA News Discussion Thread

1. I did not forget Argent, I was just thinking she would probably just stay in the bg, because she's an assassin and that's what she does. (Let's be honest, who notices she's in the tower with Leliana if you don't already know she's there )

2.

Everyone ready to make some music?

I have to agree with the points raised here, honestly. As much as I like Bioware's games, their open world and side quest design have left a lot to be desired. Some of the quests actually felt more like MMO-ish chores: Even moving outside of the Hinterlands's first side quests, DA:I had things like destroy red lyrium deposits, gather Warden artifacts, kill Seeker targets... and even ME:A had "scan 50 planets", "scan 25 unique ore nodes". All of these with practically nothing in the way of story attached to them - even something like adding snippets of lore to each artifact you gather or target you kill would've been an improvement over what we got.

The tactical mode... suffice to say, I finally got DA:I and started playing it yesterday, and what I saw in terms of tactics... was very, very watered down compared to Origins or DA2's tactics. I mean, I never played around much with them anyway, but the fact remains that plenty of depth has been removed in Inquisition, and that was a bit of a letdown for me, as where I had the chance to go really in-depth when looking over my companions' combat behaviors in previous games, several of the choices I could make have been taken away in DA:I. That's something that needs to be addressed for DA4, in my opinion.

There were also some other points that I have expressed before as well, such as the zoom-in camera that takes a lot of the cinematic feel away from conversations and ends up reducing their impact.

Overall... yeah. Bioware's got one hell of a climb to make, and while I personally am of the opinion that they can make it, only time will tell what happens in these next few years.

One of the strongest aspects of turn-based squad combat, or squad based isometric combat, is the strategy element it adds. If a studio is going to water that down until it's almost non-existent or tack it on as an after-thought … should Bioware even keep parties anymore or just fully morph into single player RPGs?

no.

as much grief as DAI gets for its lack of tactics I just can't imagine how the game would even work without companions. Without Dorian or Solas laying down barriers...or dispelling other mages. Of Blackwall using warhorn to generate guard, or Cass saving all our bacon with a timely Rally. Even watching enemies health dissolve when Sera used flask of lightning or thousand cuts especially when coupled with my Inquisitors use of Mark of Death.

Even in Andromeda my Robert had a lot of synergy with Cora and Drack.

most combat has a certain degree of luck to it.

And I plain disagree. Again party based combat, at least in DA, ME, and certain spec ops shooters is all about assigning those characters roles and planning out your strategy accordingly. And I tend to give my party members specific roles and with that in mind I strategize which combat I need and what my tactics are for any given fight.

Blackwall and Cass- tanks
IB- DPS
Sera-DPS
Cole- stealth ninja assassin thing.
Varric-Tank
Solas- Support.
Dorian- Support/ DPS.
Viv-DPS.

Now granted since I normally play on normal I don't go too indepth...usually, but if I need exact control that is what the tac cam and taking direct control of my party is for.

Abelas, obviously. I would also accept any of the MP characters, but particularly Hall. Sadly, I think Cilian is too old to make a widely accepted LI so we'll need a different mage...

I beat the game on its hardest difficulty without using tac cam so I have to disagree with you on that.

Amended statement:

Without playing the game 50 times, tac cam is absolutely necessary on its harder difficulties and it felt tacked on. And yes it is awkward moving people around and a lot of that is problems with the camera

I think the tac cam can just be your character being a battlefield commander.