Thoughts... Views... Questions

Holy Bloody H**!! This game is killer. I've not "liked" a game this much in years.

The graphics are intense. Hours upon hours upon hours of "collecting cans" & opening up all areas of the map...

Got the game a few days ago, set it to casual mode to just take my time, explore, get the feel for it. Even in casual, two of the rifts in hinterland were tough until leveling up & the dragon there..... well that I'll have to go back to.

Currently at lvl 10 with a freaky looking Qunari lass. Haven & Hinterland fully explored & quests finished. I'm not sure if the horse race one ever "finishes" though.

Still can't get into redcliffe from hinterland, I'm guessing that will open up after other areas are explored.

Waiting to go with the story line just to get all the side stuff an areas & blah blah. Did have to reload a save after going to the first city.

SLOWLY getting The Fallow Mire area explored & worked on now.....

Which, due to one of the things I'm don't quite like is the clumsy movement & battle.

No difference between walk and run. Climbing is a complete joke and even jumping is quite clumsy. Which, when having to "climb" up the stone like wall/steps to collect a shard in hinterland..... so annoying and took forever. When in battle mode, the slow
moving and the unability to put weapon away and just run makes the Mire a real pain. Working on exploring & opening up and finding areas with the non-stop appearnce of the undead makes it take forever. Running from each in battle mode is slow going. Great
for exp grind, easy to kill, but annoying when wanting to open areas up.

The battle view camera, or whatever it is called, is a decent attempt at turn based battle. Good idea, but kinda clumsy.

I'm sure I will get used to a bit of the controls after a while AND finding some sort of thumbstick cap/cover to stop the thumb issue.

Really, the biggest annoyance and prob one of the worst things in the game is inventory. Huge game, huge maps, SO much to pick up, yet a small inventory. I did find the upgrade, so max is 75 now, but still is no where near enough. usually have to leave weapons
& armour lay instead of picking it up to sell later. I'm guessing that there will be no "storage" area for me to keep stuff. The "valueables" take up alot of room and I have no idea what will and will not be needed later in the game. Nothing bites more than
selling an item that is needed later and it isn't found out untill 40 or so game hours later that it was needed.

Does take a bit of time between travel screens, but there is alot of "stuff" to be loaded, the fast travel saves alot of time, which helps out the clumsy movement a bit. Some areas though, have to just walk there and attempt to clumsy walk/climb to it.

I've looked around, but really can't find a list for what is safe to sell of the valueables. The inventory is really the biggest problem. I really hope there is more upgrades to it & that I can find out what can be sold to make room.

So far, I've not ran into any "bugs" in the game, but really, I've barely scratched the surface of it. I see many days of game play from this just on the first play through.

It seems to stay pretty close to old rpg style, which is nice to see. Being able to have a party makes it feel more like the days of Baulders Gate & Arcanum.

Less clumsy movement and battle action/movement, much bigger inventory AND a storage area an this game would be pretty much perfect.

Thoughts? Views? Answers? (Oye, this got wordy fast...)

:)

 

Bumper & Hood View Too Low

Question: Why couldn't they have made the bumper cam and hood cam views slightly adjustable?

 

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 adds 'Ladies Mode'

What don't you like about the putting Pingu? I thought that was one of the improvements! I see a lot on the EA forums complaining about the camera views.

 

Its a great game and I enjoyed it enough to replay on the 360.

Collecting the shards is an annoying part of the game (though not essential or even worthwhile unless you want all the achievements) and you are yet to navigate around the more annoying leveled areas.

The tactical camera is almost essential if you play on the harder difficulty settings, mages like to stand in AOE's etc.. It also gives you a minute to reflect on what is going on when needed.

You are not expected to be able to clear whole areas like that without coming back to them. Some of them rifts are a nightmare on nightmare, go figure lol. I had to be a level or so above the enemies. The game does get progressively easier, in fact by the
end my Rogue took most things out in a few seconds other than bosses and tough elites.

Valuables aren't described very well, suggesting they may be in some way valuable. These are just your "junk" that can be sold to stores. I found the inventory a little limited but the potions even more annoying. I , basically, every few missions or so check
out the gear I have picked up. Then send the ones I won't ever use to the valuables list to then 'Sell All' at the next store I come across. I send all normal (grey) weapons straight to valuables as I am only interested in the more epic gear. Once you have
a higher level and a few dragons under your belt you want to look into crafting a bit anyway. Some of the fade touched materials give massive combat boosts, both offensive and defensive. Think Guard On Hit and Proc'ing your most powerful DPS abilities automatically.
Not to mention my twin blade Rogue had 500 DPS each dagger.

The game is probably the most bugged I have come across on the system so far but doesn't spoil the experience at all. Only things like people walking on air, glitched achievements and people suddenly dropping out of the air like they have been beamed down
from The Enterprise. Saves becoming corrupt was a problem for me sometimes costing me an hour here and there.

 

OH the horse racing does finish, I think you have to do 3 courses/maybe 4.

For me the hardest fight in the entire game, trying to not to give spoilers to anyone reading, was early on. The Trebuchet turning fight.

 

^^ I'm playing on 'Hard' and that has easily been the most difficult fight I've encountered. Well, aside from the 3 dragons I've defeated.

I do know they are in the process of adding an area where you'd be able to store your goods. I know early on I had the same problem with lugging around too much crap. I've just gotten into a habit to visit the Skyhold more often and sell it off. Usually,
if the gear I find isn't any better than what my characters are wearing, I have no need to keep it around.

Another thing that REALLY helps, find schematics. Once you venture out and find more rare metals/cloths you can really craft some great weapons/armor. I'm up to level 18 now and still haven't visited 3 of the regions. Taking my time, closing all the rifts
I come across and finishing all the side quests.

 

Yep that is good advice, go to Skyhold often and trade it all in. At the same time set your "officers" to work on the war table and if you are after all the achievements get pruning some herbs while you are there.

Although the dragon dropped materials are the best, the other tier 3 things you will collect are almost as good. I killed enough dragons to give my character the best gear, then my tank. I finished the rest of the dragons off once I had finished the story
(which I should add I really enjoyed). You can even save before a dragon fight and kill the same dragon multiple times if you want the achievement only. One dragon you have to kill though if you want all the shards and he is one of the tougher ones. If you
are desperate for a fade touched version of a material then you can use the same repetitive save loading trick.

Depends what you want from the game though, decent crafted gear makes the game incredibly easy even on nightmare. My rogue even could have full guard up all the time if I crafted him so. I like playing the glass cannon role though and he would go down in
one hit, but would kill most in one hit unseen too.

I loved the game thinking back lol, not sure it overtook Origins for me though or not. Well worth a 360 visit if you haven't already. I am a serious Bioware fanboy, probably the main reason the Xbox has been my choice over the other system. Although it seems
pretty equal now across platforms.

 

The inventory isn't much of a problem now after I started selling all the "valueables" that don't show a description. Still a storage would be quite helpful.

Got some stuff crated, but nothing major. At lvl 13 and still working on clearing maps and doing the side quests.... which, I think I'm boned on the shard one in the forbiden oasis

I had all 6 shards, opened one door, completed that door, now the other doors say I don't have enough shards, show 4 of 6 shards, but I've already collected all the shards in oasis hinterland an well all the areas I have open.

Still not liking the clumsy movement & the lack to climb. Gets a bit annoying to spend litterlay 30 mins trying to find a path or way to get around the map.

Still can't tear myself away from the game

 

The shards don't have specific areas or intended for specific doors. You just need x amount of shards to open each door. The shards can come from any map for any door, so you are just concentrating on shards in total from the entire game area if that makes
sense. Your journal should show how many you have and how many are in total for that area. A handy tip is if you see the Oc skull on your map then you HAVEN'T spotted all the shards through it.

I did all the achievements on this game and if memory serves me correctly you needed 114 shards in total to open all of the doors. And like you say it can take 20 mins to get one sometimes, finding a route that you can climb is a pain in the a$$.

 

Yea, I'm gathering the shards if I'm near an area where they are, but I'm saving all of that until after I complete the game. I'm a sliver away from level 19, and still haven't been to 3 areas. I just ran around the Hissing Wastes for the last couple days
clearing out all of the rifts and establishing all of the camps.

Weiand, don't forget to turn in your research. Those occupy inventory slots, and you get a HUGE chunk of XP for doing so. The table for that is on the 2nd floor of Skyhold near Dorian.

 

You need all 114 shards in the game to complete all the doors for the Ruin in the Oasis, you mention.

I found, location-wise, the most time consuming was ... [highlight following text for mild spoiler]

....
the Oasis itself, given all the different levels and that maze of mines and wooden walkways you have to negotiate. The most difficult to actually collect were the last 7 I needed. You have to kill the top two high dragons (not including the final boss fight)
in the game in order to, ONE; get to the Oculara without getting eaten, TWO; actually collect the last of the shards that are sprinkled around these monsters.

I'm a rouge and I couldn't stealth for long enough to sneak by Kahltezahn (level 21), reach his oculara, and use it. Had to bring my crew and smash his head in, one tough hombre. Killed us all a couple
times. before we finally finished him.

Before all this though, you have to rebuild Judicael's Crossing at the war table AFTER you oust the Red Templars from the fortress in Emprise Du Lion.

 

Seems I've a long ways before I can open all the doors then. I still don't have all the areas opened up yet. Do have the shards from the areas I have opened. Still deciding to go with the mages or the templars, so I'm sure that is holding up more areas being
opened. Still have a few side quests an all the exploring and blah blah.

IF the save is measured in game hours, which Ithink it is, I'm showing over 100 hours of game play, still only lvl 13 an not all areas opened up yet.

 

Yes it's a grind Weiand13, but as you say in your original post, it's an enjoyable time with a great game. I do tend to take the circuitous route in these types of games, see the sights, do as much questing as possible you know. I did so in Skyrim also.

If you do like I did and leave the seven near the big dragons in Emprise for last, which wasn't intentional btw, you can get through and completely loot two of those three basement chambers in the Oasis temple and all but the last door of the third chamber,
which was the Spirit chamber in my case, and far left as you face them.

So I got the fire and cold buffs, which probably helped a tad with those last two dragons, one is Ice and the other is Fire. I'm now level 22 (went mages with this character, my first) at 205 hours (if the save is measuring game hours... pretty sure it is),
still have the final boss battle looming and the Dragon's at the Storm Coast and Hissing Wastes to deal with.

Good luck with your game, ask any questions you like.

Peace

 

The grind definatly feels more like an adventure. Granted, the clumsy move / climb does start to get annoying at times.

Seemed I had to make the choice of either mages or templars so I could advance further. Seemed to have done all I could up to that point.

Went with the mages. That time travel part was a nice 'lil adventure.

Time to check out what else poped up after that before returning to the war room agian

 

the world is fantastic to explore!