Hey all. I decided to try out DAI for the last few days. As the DA series has pretty much been my all time favorite rpg series I have been looking forward to it since I finished DA II for the 4th time.
If anyone else has been playing it i was wondering if I can get some opinions and helpful hints as first impressions for me have not been great. I am going to give my review based on about 8 hours of game play in normal mode. If you have any thing to add or advice on whether it will improve later please feel free to add.
Here is what i have seen:
No healing skills. Mages no longer have any heals. All they can do is resurrect and throw a slight protections skill. I read an article on EA's reason for not putting in heals and it had something to do with balancing the game and making it harder. IMO that was a big mistake. The game has the feel of Dark Souls which i hated with a passion. I don't like to die every 2 minutes and do a fight over 5 times. The point of playing an rpg is to progress through the story and find out what happens according to the choices I make. A game is not necessarily easier just because you have a healer either. In DAO and DA II it made it more fun to take on the role of the healer mid battle if you needed to ensure your companions would live through the fight as well as manage the rest of the team. That is jmho.
Only 8 healing potions. Potions are the only means of healing. There is also no health regen at this point. Those 8 potions are also for your companions so basically everyone gets 2. You have to go back to a camp in order to refill your potions as well which is a real pain when you are out in the wilderness trying to find and complete quests. There is perk somewhere I think that i read about that will let you carry up to 12? Not sure and not sure where it would be.
Crafting just not necessary. I think they were trying to make this like Skyrim and I think they failed. Skyrim crafting could have used a little more depth but it was still fun and I felt like I could make good weapons and armor for my level with enough work to get the mats with out it being too tedious. Dragon age has me able to collect Iron and I have like 50 pieces but I can't make a weapon because there is one ingredient that I can't find. The weapons you can make early on are ok at best but difficult to make better then anything you can find. Plus I never seem to get what i need to improve or make more than one piece so far. I would rather they just omitted crafting entirely and gave better drops so I could replace for gear with what I find.
Same with potion crafting, kind of useless as you can only carry 8 healing pots at a time. Have not found any recipes for other potions yet though apparently I can make a mana potion but have not found any herbs for it.
Melee fighting is a struggle. Targeting is not specific so you kind of target what ever you happen to be looking at. So if you happen to be looking at a goat in the middle of battle, as it is easy to get turned around then you will be fight that goat too. I have switched to Solas and Varric and found ranged fighting to be a lot easier. Also upon drawing your weapon you are slowed down considerably. There is a pull and a charge if you have the points to spend though but I melee to be clunky.
2H starts with a taunt. You start with a tank in your group. To me 2H is dps and does not need a taunt. Wasted skill point.
Key binding does not seem to let you bind anything to your mouse. I find having to drive with the keyboard as well as hit spells and powers all with the same hand to be very inefficient. Running with the mouse works much better.
I miss being able to talk to my companions at camps. Seems you can only talk to them in the major hub.
Beginning loading screen runs my processor at 100%. After crashing 4 times when I first tried to run it I realized I had to turn everything off in order to play. After I get in the game it goes to about 50% unless I am in a scripted scene or a place where there are a lot of npc's fighting. Then jumps back up to 95%.
Good things:
Travel ability is good. Can pretty much go anywhere you have found.
Acting is great
Scenery is nice.
Quests not too hard to spot.
So if you are playing and happen to know of any tips on how to get around some of these things please let me know. If you are thinking about playing just know that I am not the greatest gamer in the world, but I do prefer things to be set up so game play is easy, but the game it's self doesn't need to be easy.
Thanks
