Dragon Age: Inquisition (Plot Details in Spoilers!)

  • Guest, it's time once again for the hotly contested and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and fill out your bracket!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Once again, only you can decide!

LadyVex_sl

shitlord
868
0
Just finished Trespasser, hated it. Interesting that a lot of reviews said Descent was the Omega of DA:I, but felt like trespasser was.

Too many flowery endings, super long epilogue. Not that I necessarily want people to die, but it was like they tried to be SUPER POSITIVE about people because of ME3's ending and never really understood why people were mad. The pacing and tone were off; I got married within the first 15 minutes and that felt super dumb to me. We've been together for 2 years without anything fucking crazy happening, now we're in Orlais for these crazy talks, and we should get married NOW? Yea, ok.

Meeting up with old people and reminiscing made sense with some - Dorian had been in Tevinter, Varric in Kirkwall, etc, so catching up with them made sense. But Sera had been with me the entire time, so when she's like, LET'S DO PRANKS, it's like uh could we maybe get a serious face now?

I dislike losing a hand, only because it really seemed fucking dumb. The main incentive to help the Inquisition at the beginning is because you'll die without doing it, but if the answer was just, cut my hand off, it makes the rest seem superfluous. Also, there's such a finality about it. At the end of the other two games, you had this sense that your heroes would not only be important, but would continue kicking ass. And indeed they do. But they specifically state that my adventuring days are over and its like ugh, so now I just push papers forever? SWEET. I guess that's not too different with my Warden becoming Queen or my Hawke becoming Viscount, but it makes it seem so much more finished.

The epilogue mentioned a few things with Hawke and the Warden that make no sense. The original ending of DA:I suggested that shit was going down in Weisshaupt and there had been no word from Hawke. So what then? My ending with Varric said Hawke went back to Kirkwall to help him, so apparently everything is cool in weisshaupt or Hawke escaped or??? Varric even mentions something at the beginning saying he'd heard something about Weisshaupt and shit was crazy in the way it only gets crazy when Hawke is around.

If you romanced Leliana, it says that afterwards the Warden and Leliana go home and live happily ever after. So what happened with the Warden's quest? Did she solve the calling? Inquisition is ending, POOF WARDEN OK. Dude.

Also, the entire reason you're there to have these talks is a bit wishy washy. I guess they specifically made it 2 years so that you could MAYBE understand why people might be getting angry with you after Corypheus's defeat. But 2 years seems like a small amount of time to clean up shit like red lyrium, bandit overlords, left over templars and mages etc.

Not to mention that DA's history is filled with groups of people in the past who were formed for something, (Including the old Inquisition and the Grey Wardens) and while other nations were understandably nervous about it, both organizations managed to either become something else, or remain independent but be granted amnesty because they were there for a purpose. (Re: Grey Wardens.) This very reason makes it super weird that Arl Teagan is a straight dick when he is representing a nation whose rulers are both Grey Wardens, he helped them during the Blight, and his nephew was a big name who granted Grey Wardens new holdings after the blight. Like dude, come on. The Inquisition can't remain to deal with rift shit, ESPECIALLY when after Solas we know stuff will happen later?

The side quests were utter crap. Felt a bit weird that at level 27 with mastercrafted gear I am doing side quests for attribute points. They also often granted schematics for future playthroughs but meh.

DA:I was the first DA where I really felt nothing for my hero. There was a blog post that summed it up and I agreed, that because we didn't get to see our hero before the event or during, (Warden with your normal life and the catalyst that makes you become a warden, or Hawke running from the blight) you basically had no time to get attached. It made me feel like I was just using an avatar to create change. Not a terrible thing, but nothing like what I felt for my Shepard.

So I felt very lukewarm going in anyways, but then the Qunari come and you're like, really? Really? There was something going on with Qunari, is what part of the reason DA2 happened, but this felt like another threat from nowhere, that really had nothing to do with anything. And it didn't, except to serve as a way to explain the true threat. (Which, while you may not have understood exactly what Solas was up to, you knew it was going to be a gigantic thing.) The craziest shit is what happens if you killed Bull's Chargers. I never did because it always felt like a straight dick move, but I did see the ending and how Bull turns on you. But that also makes no sense. The idea is that Bull becomes fully committed to the Qun and the organization again. BUT they very specifically say, in both words and letters, that the qunari doing this shit is not officially sanctioned. That they are a rogue group - a tal-vashoth Bull even mentions it during conversations in trespasser. So WHY, if he has fully committed himself, would he listen to someone ordering him to kill the Inquisitor, when it seems like they are also Tal-vashoth? Fucking nonsense.

The original ending was pretty anti-climatic. It could have definitely been better but I somewhat expected it. They built DA:I up like it was going to a finisher in some respects, and then Corypheus steps out. And you know he's the final boss of this game, but you know he's not responsible for everything happening since DA:O. (In trespasser I think it is Cullen who makes a list of the crazy stuff that has been happening in the last few years, and that's all important. Corypheus wasn't responsible for all of it, but someone is and that is why the world is going to shit. Kirkwall's crazy thin veil, a Blight that wasn't quite a Blight, an architect and a mother trying to "release" darkspawn from compulsion, etc.) So you already anticipated a 4th game at the very least.

But trespasser? I disliked ME3s ending partially because of no closure, but ONLY because it was such an off the wall ending that you NEEDED more. You had done so much for every freaking race, and changed gigantic things, that it was necessary to know how your ultimate choice affected things.

Once again in DA though, choices don't matter, so having a super flowery epilogue that lasts fucking forever and goes in detail to explain the type of pies you make and that Dorian and Bull meet in a cottage on occasion is really dumb.

So trespasser was super bad. I did like Solas's explanation and learning more about the world. The one thing I def give credit to DA:I for was they didn't shy away from destroying almost all of their established lore. That was a ballsy and awesome move. It was part of the reason I loved Descent. Not only was it literally the only deep roads segment that we get that makes it seem LIKE THE DEEP ROADS AND AN ANCIENT AWESOME DWARF CIVILIZATION, but you also learn the answers to why Lyrium is alive, why dwarves MIGHT BE immune to it, etc.

Thoughts?

That ended up being longer than I wanted. OH well.
 

khorum

Murder Apologist
24,338
81,363
Tresspasser was as much David Gaider's farewell to his franchise as it was player's the farewell to DA:I.

And good fucking riddance. Maybe he and Hamburger Helper can start a kickstarter for body-positive radfem mobile gaming about feelings or some shit.
 

LadyVex_sl

shitlord
868
0
Tresspasser was as much David Gaider's farewell to his franchise as it was player's the farewell to DA:I.

And good fucking riddance. Maybe he and Hamburger Helper can start a kickstarter for body-positive radfem mobile gaming about feelings or some shit.
Yea, I'm not super surprised they went that route. I was reading a few other forums to see if anyone was irked by it, and there were a surprising amount of people super happy about the ending.

With that in mind, it's not surprising that they thought people were angry that maybe their Shepard died. I was angry because it made no sense, had too many plot holes, and no closure. I'm also of the opinion that the EC created more questions than answered. I anticipated sacrificing (and wanting to) Shep at the end of 3 just because I'd gone straight paragon the whole way through, often with significant personal sacrifice. So killing myself to give the universe its best foot forward seemed to be the quintessential way my Shepard would have ended it. Except that really the only way that honestly made a damn bit of sense was the red ending.

They're separate teams, but bad writing and a determination not to have people angry about their hero or friends seems like it really overrode any sense of spectacular writing or cohesiveness.
 

Xexx

Vyemm Raider
7,386
1,603
Shrug i liked Trespasser, quite a bit actually - it was easily the best of their DLC imo.
 

LadyVex_sl

shitlord
868
0
Shrug i liked Trespasser, quite a bit actually - it was easily the best of their DLC imo.
Well it's not necessary to agree. A lot of it made no sense in favor of giving people the ending a lot probably wanted.

Though I will challenge your "best dlc" claim. Jaws of Hakkon was far and away a great little piece of DLC, and the Descent changed how I felt about the deep roads.
 

khorum

Murder Apologist
24,338
81,363
I enjoyed Trespasser too. It just felt just that much more gratifying that we were saying goodbye to David Gaider as much as we were saying goodbye to the crew.

Do we still need to spoiler Solas stuff here? I really liked how they filled out that epilogue out tbh. But it definitely felt like a big halo-reach style handoff to some future lead writer who's prolly gonna be hired based on how he's NOT like David Gaider.
 

Regime

LOADING, PLEASE WAIT...
<Aristocrat╭ರ_•́>
16,349
37,560
Haven't played in a year and going to start a nightmare run. What is the best class you'd say ? Don't care for boring, just want the most OP lol.

P.s. Yes please spoiler it I'm just now starting the DLCs.
 

khorum

Murder Apologist
24,338
81,363
I played a tank thru nightmare and that felt OP. It kinda sucked having two tanks with Blackwall around tho.

Actually I'd say it comes down to which companions you want to play through with. So roll according to that. IE: don't roll a mage if you want to hear Vivian playing off Dorian etc.
 

Regime

LOADING, PLEASE WAIT...
<Aristocrat╭ರ_•́>
16,349
37,560
I played a tank thru nightmare and that felt OP. It kinda sucked having two tanks with Stonewall around tho.

Actually I'd say it comes down to which companions you want to play through with. So roll according to that. IE: don't roll a mage if you want to hear Vivian playing off Dorian etc.
Spec ?
 

LadyVex_sl

shitlord
868
0
I played a dagger rogue, knight enchanter mage and an archer rogue on nightmare. The archer felt the most OP, but I rolled with two mages and a tank which allowed me things like double dispels on rifts, staggered barriers, and awesome focus abilities.

My archer was basically all of our dmg - I went assassin and hidden blades is just such a ridiculous ability. If you have trespasser installed, it gets even more ridic. You can stack flanking atk bonus and get the talent that resets stealth on a kill, so I ended up one shotting dudes, instant stealthing, opening up with another ability. Some camps were solo cleared by her.
 

khorum

Murder Apologist
24,338
81,363
I did a straight tank with the taunt tree and the champion spec with some utility skills from battlemaster. Virtually all of my spec was built around the champion "to the death" ability which was a taunt-lock combined with a massive dmg bonus debuff on the mob. Then just pop any other taunt to keep your Guard maxed out. I didn't have any points in the sword-n-board tree at all until near the end of the game, actually.

I even dawdled farming mats and completing zones before getting the Champion spec too, but it didn't really feel terribly hard. Champion just kinda made the game faceroll. In fact I actually spent most my time playing Blackwall while my char was doing shit dps as off tank. Then I got the spec then Blackwall ended up in his barn for the rest of the game.
 

Xexx

Vyemm Raider
7,386
1,603
JoH was meh - the one boss before the dragon was OP and the boss was a push over - The environment and layout pale in comparison to what you go through in Trespasser also.

Shrug dunno, i just enjoyed it more.

I was a Ranger/Skittle tosser, much fun.
 

TheYanger

Bronze Knight of the Realm
264
30
Trespasser was fantastic, I don't see how anyone could be unsatisfied with it. Killing that dickbag Bull was the highlight for me.
 

LadyVex_sl

shitlord
868
0
Trespasser was fantastic, I don't see how anyone could be unsatisfied with it. Killing that dickbag Bull was the highlight for me.
Fairly easy if you pay attention to anything that happened in the previous games or the DA:I base game. Some things were full on ignored in favor of giving people happy feels.

Edit: Trespasser gets some marks for this freaking gem if you watch the credits:

Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC - Cassandra reads Varrics latest book aloud (Easter Egg) - YouTube
 

Regime

LOADING, PLEASE WAIT...
<Aristocrat╭ರ_•́>
16,349
37,560
That's great news yang but spoiler anything else. That does make me want to play it more.

" I'm a man not a woman""!!

That's great but why was I forced into this ham fisted conversation no matter what I chose? I would love to have kicked her in the balls right there.
 

Xexx

Vyemm Raider
7,386
1,603
Fairly easy if you pay attention to anything that happened in the previous games or the DA:I base game. Some things were full on ignored in favor of giving people happy feels.

Edit: Trespasser gets some marks for this freaking gem if you watch the credits:

Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC - Cassandra reads Varrics latest book aloud (Easter Egg) - YouTube
Well DA4 is well underway and im pretty sure much like the others alot of shit will be carried over anyways. Hopefully alot of lessons were learned and the dragon battles arent as weak as they were in DAI.
 

Nester

Vyemm Raider
4,924
3,123
Haven't played in a year and going to start a nightmare run. What is the best class you'd say ? Don't care for boring, just want the most OP lol.

P.s. Yes please spoiler it I'm just now starting the DLCs.
Knight Enchanter is super OP and if you roll with a 2nd mage for bubble you should be unkillable.

its funny going from a range class (mage) that evolves to a melee class.
 

Sulrn

Deuces
2,159
360
Just finished Trespasser, hated it. Interesting that a lot of reviews said Descent was the Omega of DA:I, but felt like trespasser was.

Too many flowery endings, super long epilogue. Not that I necessarily want people to die, but it was like they tried to be SUPER POSITIVE about people because of ME3's ending and never really understood why people were mad. The pacing and tone were off; I got married within the first 15 minutes and that felt super dumb to me. We've been together for 2 years without anything fucking crazy happening, now we're in Orlais for these crazy talks, and we should get married NOW? Yea, ok.

Meeting up with old people and reminiscing made sense with some - Dorian had been in Tevinter, Varric in Kirkwall, etc, so catching up with them made sense. But Sera had been with me the entire time, so when she's like, LET'S DO PRANKS, it's like uh could we maybe get a serious face now?

I dislike losing a hand, only because it really seemed fucking dumb. The main incentive to help the Inquisition at the beginning is because you'll die without doing it, but if the answer was just, cut my hand off, it makes the rest seem superfluous. Also, there's such a finality about it. At the end of the other two games, you had this sense that your heroes would not only be important, but would continue kicking ass. And indeed they do. But they specifically state that my adventuring days are over and its like ugh, so now I just push papers forever? SWEET. I guess that's not too different with my Warden becoming Queen or my Hawke becoming Viscount, but it makes it seem so much more finished.

The epilogue mentioned a few things with Hawke and the Warden that make no sense. The original ending of DA:I suggested that shit was going down in Weisshaupt and there had been no word from Hawke. So what then? My ending with Varric said Hawke went back to Kirkwall to help him, so apparently everything is cool in weisshaupt or Hawke escaped or??? Varric even mentions something at the beginning saying he'd heard something about Weisshaupt and shit was crazy in the way it only gets crazy when Hawke is around.

If you romanced Leliana, it says that afterwards the Warden and Leliana go home and live happily ever after. So what happened with the Warden's quest? Did she solve the calling? Inquisition is ending, POOF WARDEN OK. Dude.

Also, the entire reason you're there to have these talks is a bit wishy washy. I guess they specifically made it 2 years so that you could MAYBE understand why people might be getting angry with you after Corypheus's defeat. But 2 years seems like a small amount of time to clean up shit like red lyrium, bandit overlords, left over templars and mages etc.

Not to mention that DA's history is filled with groups of people in the past who were formed for something, (Including the old Inquisition and the Grey Wardens) and while other nations were understandably nervous about it, both organizations managed to either become something else, or remain independent but be granted amnesty because they were there for a purpose. (Re: Grey Wardens.) This very reason makes it super weird that Arl Teagan is a straight dick when he is representing a nation whose rulers are both Grey Wardens, he helped them during the Blight, and his nephew was a big name who granted Grey Wardens new holdings after the blight. Like dude, come on. The Inquisition can't remain to deal with rift shit, ESPECIALLY when after Solas we know stuff will happen later?

The side quests were utter crap. Felt a bit weird that at level 27 with mastercrafted gear I am doing side quests for attribute points. They also often granted schematics for future playthroughs but meh.

DA:I was the first DA where I really felt nothing for my hero. There was a blog post that summed it up and I agreed, that because we didn't get to see our hero before the event or during, (Warden with your normal life and the catalyst that makes you become a warden, or Hawke running from the blight) you basically had no time to get attached. It made me feel like I was just using an avatar to create change. Not a terrible thing, but nothing like what I felt for my Shepard.

So I felt very lukewarm going in anyways, but then the Qunari come and you're like, really? Really? There was something going on with Qunari, is what part of the reason DA2 happened, but this felt like another threat from nowhere, that really had nothing to do with anything. And it didn't, except to serve as a way to explain the true threat. (Which, while you may not have understood exactly what Solas was up to, you knew it was going to be a gigantic thing.) The craziest shit is what happens if you killed Bull's Chargers. I never did because it always felt like a straight dick move, but I did see the ending and how Bull turns on you. But that also makes no sense. The idea is that Bull becomes fully committed to the Qun and the organization again. BUT they very specifically say, in both words and letters, that the qunari doing this shit is not officially sanctioned. That they are a rogue group - a tal-vashoth Bull even mentions it during conversations in trespasser. So WHY, if he has fully committed himself, would he listen to someone ordering him to kill the Inquisitor, when it seems like they are also Tal-vashoth? Fucking nonsense.

The original ending was pretty anti-climatic. It could have definitely been better but I somewhat expected it. They built DA:I up like it was going to a finisher in some respects, and then Corypheus steps out. And you know he's the final boss of this game, but you know he's not responsible for everything happening since DA:O. (In trespasser I think it is Cullen who makes a list of the crazy stuff that has been happening in the last few years, and that's all important. Corypheus wasn't responsible for all of it, but someone is and that is why the world is going to shit. Kirkwall's crazy thin veil, a Blight that wasn't quite a Blight, an architect and a mother trying to "release" darkspawn from compulsion, etc.) So you already anticipated a 4th game at the very least.

But trespasser? I disliked ME3s ending partially because of no closure, but ONLY because it was such an off the wall ending that you NEEDED more. You had done so much for every freaking race, and changed gigantic things, that it was necessary to know how your ultimate choice affected things.

Once again in DA though, choices don't matter, so having a super flowery epilogue that lasts fucking forever and goes in detail to explain the type of pies you make and that Dorian and Bull meet in a cottage on occasion is really dumb.

So trespasser was super bad. I did like Solas's explanation and learning more about the world. The one thing I def give credit to DA:I for was they didn't shy away from destroying almost all of their established lore. That was a ballsy and awesome move. It was part of the reason I loved Descent. Not only was it literally the only deep roads segment that we get that makes it seem LIKE THE DEEP ROADS AND AN ANCIENT AWESOME DWARF CIVILIZATION, but you also learn the answers to why Lyrium is alive, why dwarves MIGHT BE immune to it, etc.

Thoughts?

That ended up being longer than I wanted. OH well.
If it makes you feel better, I feel like both JoH/Descent are equally the Omega of DA:I. Neither add anything that couldn't have been in the main game. At least with Trespasser you can see them justifying the money grab post-release and the work they put into it, not to mention the major story contribution/confirmation that came with it. Where as with JoH/D you get nothing of significant value in any regard.

I'll agree with you as far as the Trespasser ending. The whole negating your possible reasoning for joining the Inquisition to start with was silly. All said though, all 3 of the DLCs should have been modified and delayed the game release and been included to start with. Trespasser should have been the original ending and the other two excuses for DLC should have been optional side quests. I feel bad for anyone that spent money on any of them.
 

mixtilplix

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,295
109
Trespasser should have been the original ending and the other two excuses for DLC should have been optional side quests. I feel bad for anyone that spent money on any of them
This is pretty much exactly what I said on here after finishing up Trespasser. It really did feel like the real ending. DAI felt so rushed at the end as if they had to get it out asap and couldn't flesh out a good epilogue. Even DA2 felt more complete then DAI. Still look forward to all of bioware's AAA titles though depite their flaws. They will always be preorders in my book.