LTTP: Dragon Age Inquisition Works So Much Better Without the Power System or Open World

[Darkpyro2]

So, I'm a big Dragon Age fan.

I've played Origins MANY times, and I tolerated Dragon Age 2 one or two times to catch myself up to date on the Mage-Templar war for Inquisition. I never found 2 blatantly unenjoyable, but it felt rushed and underdeveloped.

When Inquisition was announced, I was MORE than hyped. It looked like a return to the Origins formula with one of my favorite genres, the open-world RPG, mixed in. I bought it on launch day, but until recently, I couldn't finish it.

Heck, I couldn't make it much further than Skyhold, and I've attempted to pick up the game numerous times only to put it back down.

Why?

It felt like a grind. The big story missions were awesome, the characters were great, and I genuinely did want to see who and what I would encounter next. The power system, however, was seriously getting in the way of my enjoyment. Given that most of your time is spent collecting Power in the open world, you'd think that you'd be doing meaningful things. Most of your time, however, is spent clearing fade rifts, collecting camps, and doing dull side quests like killing wolves, planting watch towers, or finding supplies. Some of the quests were interesting -- especially those that granted you with a new companion, or continued an older storyline(Like the Red Lyrium quest through Varrick) -- but they gave so little power that in the end, you had to resort to grinding away at fade rifts and collecting camps. Given that combat in a Dragon Age game usually takes an extended period of time as enemies tend to be damage sponges, closing these rifts and just getting from point A to point B was slow and monotonous. I'd get bored and give up really quickly.

With the recent announcement of Dragon Age 4, however, I figured that it was finally time to hunker down and give things one more shot. I played through Dragon Age Origins again, and then Dragon Age 2, and then it was finally time to tackle the behemoth that was Inquisition.

I did things differently this time, however.

I cheated.

I cheated just enough to bypass the power system and open world altogether. I'd use the Dragon Age Inquisition Save editor to give me all of the power that I needed, a mod to remove the table mission wait times, and Cheat Engine to give myself just enough XP to do the main story quests after completing all of the side content that I actually cared to bother with. And you know what? I'm enjoying the game a LOT more.

The meat of Inquisition is its big story beats and character-focused side content. That's always what's made Dragon Age enjoyable to those of us that are big RPG fans, but aren't super tactically-oriented. With all of the padding gone, everything flows better. I can go back to just doing work for my companions or the odd NPC that I like, as in the old days of Dragon Age, and I don't feel like I'm wading through large amounts of dull busywork just to get to what I actually enjoy. The Warden subplot was AMAZING. The party at Orlais was AMAZING.

I'm currently struggling with the Samson boss fight in the Arbor Wilds as I sided with the mages, and I've still died several times during these big missions. The game certainly doesn't feel easy, even with the boost that I'm giving myself to compensate for skipping the open world. I also don't feel like I'm missing out on much because frankly, most of the things that you do in Inquisition's open world is repetitive busywork, or just plain uninteresting. The game is going much faster than it otherwise would have, but the pacing is much better, so I don't mind.

It kind of saddens me that the Open World is likely here to stay, and will almost certainly be in Dragon Age 4. Even if it's not the greatest addition to Dragon Age, it'd look TERRIBLE for BioWare to remove it -- like they're downgrading their content. Hopefully they'll pace progression differently so that I'm not grinding for hours to get the 40 power required to do story mission C, but BioWare games have always worked best as psuedo-linear games with branching story content. Mass Effect: Andromeda felt just as grindy, but the action combat system made that grind a bit more bearable.

 

[hank_tree]

You still have to deal with the terrible combat, story and characters.

 

[Syril]

Sounds similar to how Mass Effect 2 is better when you cheat to give yourself maximum resources.

 

[InASnowBoundLand]

You still have to deal with the terrible combat, story and characters.

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Except the combat is OK, the story is OK to great with the DLC, and the characters are wonderful.

 

[hank_tree]

Except the combat is OK, the story is OK to great with the DLC, and the characters are wonderful.

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High praise.

 

[CloseTalker]

I did, and still do, think the game is a lot of fun. Certainly padded out with a lot of poor quests if you do everything, but I enjoyed it immensely.

 

[fuzzyset]

You still have to deal with the terrible combat, story and characters.

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What's so terrible about the combat?

 

[Darkpyro2]

You still have to deal with the terrible combat, story and characters.

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The story and characters are pretty damn great. Very Dragon Age, very BioWare.

The combat is the combat. It's a weird mix of a casual RPG and a hard core tactics system, but that's always been Dragon Age. It has to be somebody's thing.

 

[Enduin]

Yeah I agree the open world and by extension Power System to gate it, was not beneficial at all and really informed the rest of the game in a negative and unnecessary way. DAO had the right of it with much more focused and purpose built environments.

DA4 would do well to go back to that setup and leverage the kind of moderately open world areas for a get select few instances. But nothing too big, just like Fallow Mire big.

 

[Azzanadra]

Its funny you mention that, I actually did end up beating the game in 2015 but I went back recently after the game awards teaser but was bogged down for the same reasons you mentioned. I might try perhaps to also "cheat" my way through those aspects and see if I am able to push myself to complete the game once more.

 

[InASnowBoundLand]

High praise.

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Hey, it's closer to the truth than your post, bub.

 

[dancingphlower]

Yeah eventually it felt like a chore to go through and looking back, the story content in each area wasn't even that great so now I can only remember the grind.

 

[Darkpyro2]

Yeah I agree the open world and by extension Power System to gate it, was not beneficial at all and really informed the rest of the game in a negative and unnecessary way. DAO had the right of it with much more focused and purpose built environments.

DA4 would do well to go back to that setup and leverage the kind of moderately open world areas for a get select few instances. But nothing too big, just like Fallow Mire big.

Click to shrink...

I feel that BioWare went in this negative direction because of the reaction to Dragon Age 2. Dragon Age 2, however, was a rushed mess. I can see what they were going for and it could have been the best game in the series if it was given a few more years to fully develop itself. It really did improve on Origins in a lot of ways -- it just fell short in so many other ways that mattered.

 

[rhandino]

Was this a thing they patched later? I played Inquisition last year and I never really grinded for Power and during my 2nd playthrough I barely did optional content and I was still with more than enough power than I needed to unlock areas and main missions.

And the open world was kind of amazing and so pretty and fun to explore.

Ugh, I kind of want to play it again T_T

 

[senj]

The combat's pretty solid once you turn up the difficulty. It's hold-button-to-win on the easy difficulties, but...that's why they're the easy difficulties?

I don't really remember what sidequests I focused on but I never really did any of the crappy fetchquest quatermaster stuff and still had a ton of power to spare. It seemed like Story missions were designed to run you into the vast majority of the fade rifts anyways, so I never really felt like I was doing those as some kind of task in-and-of-themselves, but maybe I'm misremembering

 

[Quinton]

I love the gorgeous environments and (especially) all the diverse combinations of party banter so much that only the least visually appealing regions ever feel like much of a grind to me. As a result, the power system doesn't end up bothering me either, because I clock so many hours that I can easily clear all the war table missions.

That said, I recognize that there are still some considerable faults here, even if I like most of what's on tap anyway. The sidequests could have used a hell of a lot more variation to them.

I like the story, like the combat, and absolutely love the characters, world, and lore. Inquisition is one of my faves.

 

[caylen]

On hard difficulty, I really liked the open world exploration. A lot of the quests weren't high grade (especially compared to how many modern RPGs are now beyond fetch quests), but it made the world feel more alive & some cool story telling.

I'd love to see another Dragon Age in the same engine - especially because the turn based tactical mode worked pretty well as a nod to former titles, but had a good WoW-feeling combat mode (although wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too easy but fun for Arcane Knight).

To be honest though, I care more about what kind of story is told in that series than the actual game UX. If there was a solid Dragon Age visual novel on phones, I'd be super into that, too.

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

What's so terrible about the combat?

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It's mindless and boring. No spell combinations, as far as I remember no buffs or anything like that, just felt super bare-bones to me.

 

[Yeul]

I agree that the power system in Inquisition led itself to a lot of grind, particularly in the opening portions of the game where you are pretty much forced to close rifts, engage in side quests, etc. (in the Hinterlands of all places) before moving on. Once things get going it becomes less of an issue, but I definitely use mods and cheat engine to give myself ample power so as to not be hindered by it in every single one of my subsequent playthroughs.

I will say, though, that there are great examples of an open world done right by BioWare within Inquisition itself. For example, Crestwood in the base game weaves a narrative throughout as you explore that zone. Even better is Jaws of Hakkon, the first DLC that was released for Inquisition. The Frostback Basin is an excellent zone and a huge improvement in level and quest design wrt how they flow and are integrated with one another. The map is not littered with icons even accounting for fog of war, and the main story of the DLC, along with the side quests flow naturally from one to the next until before you know it the whole map is revealed to you. If BioWare uses that methodology for its open world, along levels interspersed with more linearity as seen in Trespasser, I thing DA4 will be a huge improvement in that regard.

 

[Quinton]

I agree that the power system in Inquisition led itself to a lot of grind, particularly in the opening portions of the game where you are pretty much forced to close rifts, engage in side quests, etc. (in the Hinterlands of all places) before moving on. Once things get going it becomes less of an issue, but I definitely use mods and cheat engine to give myself ample power so as to not be hindered by it in every single one of my subsequent playthroughs.

I will say, though, that there are great examples of an open world done right by BioWare within Inquisition itself. For example, Crestwood in the base game weaves a narrative throughout as you explore that zone. Even better is Jaws of Hakkon, the first DLC that was released for Inquisition. The Frostback Basin is an excellent zone and a huge improvement in level and quest design wrt how they flow and are integrated with one another. The map is not littered with icons even accounting for fog of war, and the main story of the DLC, along with the side quests flow naturally from one to the next until before you know it the whole map is revealed to you. If BioWare uses that methodology for its open world, along levels interspersed with more linearity as seen in Trespasser, I thing DA4 will be a huge improvement in that regard.

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Crestwood and the Frostback Basin are the best zones. High five.

 

[fuzzyset]

To be honest though, I care more about what kind of story is told in that series than the actual game UX. If there was a solid Dragon Age visual novel on phones, I'd be super into that, too.

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There are a ton of Dragon Age comics/graphic novels IIRC. I think there's even an animated movie on Amazon?

 

[senj]

There are a ton of Dragon Age comics/graphic novels IIRC. I think there's even an animated movie on Amazon?

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Yeah, the movie is about Cassandra's back story

 

[InASnowBoundLand]

I want to play a life is strange like DA game with little or no combat. A shorter story about a "smaller" character that somehow ends up related to the larger lore/story.

 

[Lowrys]

Was super easy to get overlevelled super quick, particularly if you bothered crafting anything, as it was totally OP.

 

[caylen]

There are a ton of Dragon Age comics/graphic novels IIRC. I think there's even an animated movie on Amazon?

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Disclosure: I worked at EA, and did some stuff in an indirect role for DAI.

Yeap! There was even this wonderful little MUD made by the people that did Shining Sea made to promote DAI that was also fantastic. I enjoy those too, but in terms of gameplay & Bioware's strengths, it would be cool to see more short-form game stuff that taps into that world. The big spectacle stuff is also awesome, but I'm surprised no one in the industry has explored making small experiences to really center in on just the stories themselves.

 

[Lowrys]

Yeah, the movie is about Cassandra's back story

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It's surprisingly violent. Though she looks and sounds totally different to the game.

 

[Lowrys]

Disclosure: I worked at EA, and did some stuff in an indirect role for DAI.

Yeap! There was even this wonderful little MUD made by the people that did Shining Sea made to promote DAI that was also fantastic. I enjoy those too, but in terms of gameplay & Bioware's strengths, it would be cool to see more short-form game stuff that taps into that world. The big spectacle stuff is also awesome, but I'm surprised no one in the industry has explored making small experiences to really center in on just the stories themselves.

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I feel DA2 had the right idea, just poorly executed.

 

[Orochinagis]

How Bioware were gonna back pedal the game then

Also the first area is a trap and burns you for the rest of the game

 

[Dr. Caroll]

I disagree. The Power system is a prototype game design model Ubisoft have adopted and taken to new heights. Eveything you do becomes meaningful in some way. You just wander about doing tasks that take your fancy, and this helps drive the plot forward bit by bit. (The main plot typically isn't very long compared to an old linear game, also.) The only issue is that Inquisition's troubled development meant the quality of quests was lower than it should have been. Also the melodramatic stakes made tasks seem trite at times.

The end goal, as Ubi have demonstrated, is to move away from old style linear narrative towards non-linear exploration where you're sort of a wandering troubleshooter. There's still a linear plot, but it's not really the focus of the game.

 

[Buff Beefbroth]

It's not even really open world. Just a few large zones.

The Hinterlands gets a bad rap. It's the only one of these large zones with things to actually do. The rest are almost all there in service of one or two missions. I liked exploring the Hinterlands because the game was pretty and I liked spending time "with" my custom character.

Some of the other zones, like storm coast, have literally nothing in them except a single mission.

 

[Bizzquik]

When Inquisition was announced, I was MORE than hyped. It looked like a return to the Origins formula with one of my favorite genres, the open-world RPG, mixed in. I bought it on launch day

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This is me.

The big story missions were awesome, the characters were great, and I genuinely did want to see who and what I would encounter next.

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And here's where we disagree.
I disliked most of these characters. I thought they butchered the interesting DA2 Cassandra in Inquisition.
Its all-talk but little-consequence medieval-set political yarn comes across like Game of Thrones for kids.

The threat needs to be real. In Inquisition, the player loses a small village in Haven but gains a kingdom in Skyhold. Compare that to Origins, where the player is just scraping by in a makeshift campfire.

I kept waiting to care for the game in the same manner as Origins, but personally - the game's narrative never got close.

 

[Vamphuntr]

I disagree. The Power system is a prototype game design model Ubisoft have adopted and taken to new heights. Eveything you do becomes meaningful in some way. You just wander about doing tasks that take your fancy, and this helps drive the plot forward bit by bit. (The main plot typically isn't very long compared to an old linear game, also.) The only issue is that Inquisition's troubled development meant the quality of quests was lower than it should have been. Also the melodramatic stakes made tasks seem trite at times.

The end goal, as Ubi have demonstrated, is to move away from old style linear narrative towards non-linear exploration where you're sort of a wandering troubleshooter. There's still a linear plot, but it's not really the focus of the game.

Click to shrink...

I had the complete opposite reaction. It felt to me the story was gated because there was very little story content in the first place and the generic mmo stuff was there to pad the game, unfortunately. The main quests missions are few and some of them were pretty bad like the one at the ballroom/reception where you try to find the assassin. It was a 40 hours+ game with about 10-12 hours of actual story. Hence the best part happens after the credits and in the DLC. Without all the fetch quests and collecting the game would have been super short. It's supposed to be an Inquisition why do I need to find a goat or go on a collect-a-ton spree?

I think it was really great looking maxed out on PC when I played it. Environments and characters were really good looking and as usual the Bioware characters are fun and interesting. The hideout was fun to explore and the game was much better than DAII. Still the combat was pretty poor overall even on hard and it definitely the level of tactical gameplay Origins reached. On PC the UI was also crap and limited by consoles.

 

[saenima]

I dropped it at Skyhold twice, in 2014 and earlier this year. But i picked it up again this week and i think i will finish it this time. I have the same problems with it than you. They went from the tiny DA2 shoebox to honestly just having too much with Inquisition. i'm almost at 50 hours and i feel like i'm a third of the way through.

 

[Elandyll]

You don't even need to cheat though, simply to know which high power cost missions to bypass until later, and if need be to buy Power at Skyhold (granted it requires previous knowledge or reading online).
I have 300+ hours in DAI, and am thinking of returning for a 4th playthrough :)

This being said I mostly agree. The Power mechanic is a detriment (probably a leftover from when the game was supposed to have a strategic wargame element), and multiple zones are far too large and empty for its own good.

Still my 2014 goty :)

 

[Smoolio]

Except the combat is OK, the story is OK to great with the DLC, and the characters are wonderful.

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Thankyou! Totally agree, for me the combat was actually great. I've done two runs, Knight Enchanter melee mage and Whirlwind crit hit cooldown reduction Warrior, both on nightmare and had a blast.