It is one of the coolest snarky twists, at the beginning of a game I can remember in a while.
NPCs: You are the chosen one!
Protagonist: Do you really think I’m the chosen one?
NPC1: No.
NPC2: Hell No.
NPC3: Well, It’s not entirely impossible that you might be the chosen one
NPC4" But you’re the best we got and the idiot peasants will believe it! So off we go.
Eh, I think it’s more the reality that when a major AAA title is released on five platforms, four of which use controllers and one of which can use controllers that KB+M isn’t going to be the priority control scheme.
That said, I haven’t had the same broadly negative experience using the keyboard as some and the game very much feels to me as though it has its roots in DA:O. Not that some keyboard control tweaks wouldn’t be nice.
Input method aside, I was more disappointed by the DA2 world and lack of feeling like I was playing my own character or ability to customize my party. That doesn’t apply to DA:I at all.
They made it work with DA:O somehow. It’s not the fact that keyboard and mouse controls are bad that bothers me - it’s the fact that in order to make a game that works well on gamepad and badly on KB/M, it’s not going to be the group oriented tactical game that DA:O was, it’s going to be something simplified that works as a button masher.
I’ll look at some footage later, but the DA:O and DA2 styles clearly showed what I’m talking about. DA:O was a 3d version of Baldur’s gate, whereas DA2 was closer to God of War or something. It sounds like DA3 is closer to DA2 than DA1.
Another observation:
Is everyone in Thedas gay/bi?
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
Shrug It has much of the pause and select tactical game play of DA:O albeit with less tactics slots options. As I said before, it’s really a hybridized version of the two and allows you to play it either way. That said, you may as well watch footage and decide for yourself. I think the game is great so far just as an entertaining time in the Dragon Age milieu. I wasn’t even able to get behind the “DA2 would be a good generic fantasy game…” camp.
I got ahold of Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate Edition on Xbox for a good price, and playing through it I felt that the combats were a lot easier than in the PC version. In fact, I got pretty far and never did run into that map encounter that was such a huge tactical challenge in the PC version. And the two dragon fights that I ended up skipping on the PC were not that challenging on the XBox. I mean, I was more savvy in a lot of ways, but I actually think the deal was that the tactical element was dumbed-down to compensate for the insufficiencies of the gamepad.
If the new game is optimised for the gamepad, I suspect the tactical elements are similarly dumbed-down.
Jack it up to Nightmare and let loose 
I don’t even remember much of the fighting in Origins. I remember it was tactical options, but I didn’t bother,I guess because Mages were so over powered. The old Freeze-n-Fist was so damn effective, combat became a only temporary speedbump unless you self gimped.
[Strolls by]
Dare I gather that the interface is not fully customizable? I mean, who makes modern-day game nowadays where you can’t do that?
Jacking up the enemy damage and HP isn’t a replacement for tactical depth.
Is there any way to make the game’s volume level higher? Master volume level is 100% in the game options and it’s at 100% in Windows volume control as well, but I need to crank up my volume knob all the way to 60% from the usual 25% for it to be at normal levels. If some other program beeps or I forget the volume up, it can be ear-shattering.
Ohhhh ok.
Thanks!
In Dragon Age? Yeah, it is. It’s not as though the enemy AI has ever used any greater tactical depth than “Attack guy with most aggro”. The game plays as “intelligently” on easy as it does on hard. The only thing making it a greater or lesser challenge is how much powerful the bad guys are necessitating you to take an approach other than running in blind.
Edit: Correction, the other tactical option is also in your hands – turning on and off friendly fire options. No more blasting out fireballs, freeze cones and lightning storms on top of your melee characters.
You’re not understanding me. If, for example, DA:O has dozens of skills and spells that interact and synergize and it’s viable to assign your team to different roles in combat, and set creative traps, and have to manage different sorts of enemies with different strengths and weaknesses, and you were to hypothetically turn that game into something where you just mash 2 buttons over and over again, the tactical depth would all be gone regardless of how the enemy AI acted, or whether or not you could give them more HP and damage to make it more challenging.
So a couple of disappointments so far. Had to turn down the difficulty to HArd instead of nightmare. This will be the first DA game I play where I wasn’t running on nightmare mode 
The amount of micromanagement I need to do in nightmare is just too cumbersome to do for every little fight with a gamepad, and the clunky tactical camera. Hard strikes a better balance. I can do an initial strategic setup, attack, and then re-position or use synergetic attacks a few times during combat from the tactical cam.
I find combat is fairly fluid this way. It’s definitely a shame though. In past games managing my party in every single combat encounter was quick and easy and I enjoyed doing it every time. Now I only want to do it at times when I believe it’s most tactically meaningful.
So my major disappointment so far is Val Royeaux. Man, if the devs where going for that Kirkwall feeling of sterile, soulless, boring, claustrophobic areas, they NAILED it.
This is supposed to be the big capital city of Orlais and all we get is this tiny bazaar. NPC’s are all just statically strewn here or there. Shop keepers just sort of stand there doing nothing in particular. It’s very old-school, I mean it’s what I see in a game like Wasteland 2, but Wasteland 2 isn’t going for the open world feel of a Skyrim, and it also doesn’t have a budget anywhere near what DA:I had to work with. It just feels lazy or maybe rushed. Case in point, there’s a bard lady in Val Royeaux, the SAME exact bard lady in my inn at Haven. And just like her, she has no animations, you can’t interact with her and ask her to play a particular song. The character just stands there like a statue while a music asset dumped on top of her, plays. These kind of things just take you out of the game immediately.
Skyrim was careful about this, and it’s one of the reason why it was so successful in selling that world as a real, breathing universe. In that game every inn had a different bard. You could ask him/her to play particular songs, and different bards all had a different repertoires and would even play different versions of the same song! They also lipped synced to the music and danced or swayed. They had actual animations associated with their instruments, and when they began to play, other characters nearby would gather round and clap or whistle or stomped their feet. It was just so immersive.
I didn’t expect DA:I to go to those lengths, but a statue-like model with a looping sound asset? Common!
Back to Val Royeaux… yeah that area was just in such drastic contrast to the Hinterlands and Haven, it just left a sour taste in my mouth. The scene in which we enter it, also lacked believability and scale. Here I am, the Herald of Andraste (NO I"M NOT!!) The only person with the ability to close the breaches, declared a heretic by the church, strolling into the city for a meeting with the big-wigs of Orlais, and there’s like all of 12 people interested.
I don’t care if you have to put in 2D sprites for crowds, do it! Or make it a cutscene so that you can control the camera and sell the scope of this momentous moment. Whatever you gotta do! Ok, so maybe your engine can’t handle the crowds of AC:Unity, but do something to sell this moment a bit better. 10 random guys on the street standing lackadaisically, not even jeering, or cheering, or doing much of anything, just doesn’t cut it.
I really hope I don’t have to go back to Val Royeaux often.
Atleast I ended last night’s playthrough on a high note. Spotted my first dragon. Such amazing art design on them. They way they take to the sky, like lumbering jumbo jets, and yet there’s something agile and entirely dangerous about them.
The moment lasted all of two second, as the thing flew overhead and killed my entire party with a single ball of fire. Will be going back there in 5 more levels and after I craft me some fire resistant armor. 
It’s neither of those extremes. As I said, it’s a hybrid system. You can set your companions’ AI’s to prefer certain skills/spells and to act in certain ways but not to the complexity of DA:O with its umpteen tactics slots with umpteen subsettings. On the other hand, it’s much more tactical and offers more options than DA2 had. And, of course, you can always pause and jump to any companion to command their movement, set their target, cast a specific spell, etc. You still have synergistic effects like freezing someone solid and shield bashing him (heck, you even get an achievement for using them).
I suppose if you’ll only accept DA:O then anything less will be “it’s like DA2” (and I suppose if you only like button mashing you could argue the opposite). I personally think it’s a decent compromise since I never used more than the top couple tactics slots in DA:O anyway. Your personal opinion may differ.
Oh, and DA:O didn’t really have “dozens of skill and spells that interact and synergize”. It had a few combos such as “freeze and smash” and the rest were pretty independent unless you’re going to count things like “Sleep made him not attack until the warrior taunted him” or “taunt made the mob turn around for the rogue to backstab” which applies here anyway.
By in large, the only “tactic” you needed in DA:O anyway was “Make Arcane Warrior, win game”.
As someone who has never played either of the other two DA games, and has a PS3, is it worth getting? I just wonder if having a “lesser” system will diminish my enjoyment.
In the past, I’ve played Borderlands 2, WoW, and other games of that ilk, for what it’s worth.
I learned last night that pressing “F” near loot will loot the pile and spacebar is “Take All”. Now it is much simpler to loot…I just run by mashing “F” a bit then spacebar when the loot opens. Makes the whole thing much simpler than with the mouse.
I have read a lot of people are much preferring the controller over m/kb setup but frankly I am not having all that much trouble with the m/kb scheme. I find running around with the RMB pressed to control the camera works pretty well for me.
Could it be better? Sure and according to a Bioware guy Tweeting things they intend to look at it and do…something…in an upcoming patch.
I still hate when a melee character is fighting and your target steps out of range that you have to stop fighting, move forward, and start fighting again. Often in the chaos of melee and things blowing up around you it is hard to tell you are just swinging at air. So far this has annoyed me far more than any other aspect of the game. So much so I restarted and rolled a mage (ranged characters “lock on” and then spam whatever).
I put the game on normal because the tactical mode, to me, is still a bit wonky. I should probably put it back up and just learn to deal with it. On normal it plays more like Diablo and I just spam fireballs or lightning. Looks good but not a lot of fun. It does make it easy to just zoom around and explore and progress the story though.
I am sort of a completionist so I am still wandering around the first area (maybe 10 hours of playtime on this character). It is huge and fun to explore. Lots of things to find and do. Accidentally found a dragon…backpedaled very fast (it looked great). Not sure if it is a bug or something else but I ran into a thing called “Druffy” and could not kill it. Got it down to like 1% health without too much fuss then just could not get it past that for some reason.
Overall enjoying the game a lot. Looks great and having fun (FYI there is a texture setting above “Ultra” called “Fade Touched”…I am using that setting but cannot tell if it makes any difference).
I could live without making my guy play Ecco the Dolphin as I run around, pressing the “loot sonar” key. Whatever happened to sparklies for the stuff I can interact with?
As for settings, according the the “TotalBiscuit Port Report” I watched, turning MSAA off gives a major fps boost without really sacrificing any image quality. If you have it turned on as part of the suggested pre-set options you might want to flip it off and see if you notice a difference.