@tuxfool: My answer is basically, no it is messed up. All I find is literally GREAT daggers. 8 named unqiues with the same name even? It's seeded wrong. Many have noticed the same deal.

Meanwhile here is where it's at for 1h warrior weapons: masterwork mace unlocked by perk which you can get to 200(?) damage. One unqiue sword that has 162 dps from a war table quest. Everything else is random with a messed up seed that gives you daggers at an unhealthy rate. There is no guaranteed vendor or chest for tier 3 masterwork one hander schematics, while there is for for example daggers and bow and 2h swords. So no, you can't actually just craft a hefty one! It's up to the rng and it heavily favors - daggers. There is one guaranteed drop of a 1h sword that is the best of it's kind, but in order to not spoil anything I'll just say it's from an encounter that is most probably the last thing you'll do in the game, well past story completion.

You can look this up if you need to. The loot system is indeed messed up!

*breathes in deeply* ...let's do this.

Yes, absolutely. Each areas needs to have a common thread to it, a core motivation for why they're there beyond a bunch of Inquisition busy work. I still think the Crestwood quest was lacking in character interaction, however, but like you said it's certainly a step above most else that counts as side content. I've mentioned this a couple of times already, but I wish they simply stuck to the way Origins formatted it. Have the environments more contained but littered with all kinds of small stories to discover and interact with.

And like you said, the Power currency means that you'll have to invariably undertake some side content in the game if you want to see the game's story, making it mandatory to a certain degree. That, and again if you want to keep up with the story mission's level recommendations then you'll need to grind out some side stuff, least from my experience playing it on Hard mode.

Ha, yeah, I was a little premature regarding Vivienne's Knight Enchanter abilities because Holy Shit she's practically unkillable! You're not wrong that weirdly enough she's best when she's in the middle, swiping that blade around while also dealing damage just by being hit thanks to that barrier buff... I guess this is Inquisition's very own Arcane Warrior equivalent!

Also, on the topic of specialisations, I can't say I appreciate the amount of hoops you have to jump through to unlock a specialisation for your own character.

Yes, it is at the very least not nearly as prominent as ME3... but I feel that's simply a silver-lining and still isn't ideal. Like, the voiced character thing I can look past (especially since you can least choose a voice, which is impressive given the amount of dialogue), but having my character speak for him/herself clashes against my own attempts at roleplaying. One example is after returning from The Fade during the Grey Warden siege. When you return, my character automatically shared with Leliana what the spirit masquerading as The Divine said to her... Completely against my will.

That there was a decision, made without my blessing; that's the game taking my character away from me and making their own adjustments, which will forever annoy me when that happens. For my first dwarf character I'd have likely gave her the message anyway, but not with my Qunari lady. She would have thought it too sentimental, or perhaps wouldn't have even remembered what she said in the first place as she's very anti-Chantry while also again doesn't care for spirits/demons.

I'm certainly not against a more nuanced way of establishing character relationships, but what they have is the same thing just without any kind of way of reading it. Plus, even if they don't happen to like me, they're still more than willing in giving their personal side quests to undertake, whereas in Origins you had to work for that stuff. But I guess in a game like this that is otherwise littered with poor side stuff, I'm willing to accept it.

I'm also disappointed for how none of my party members have decided to rebel against me or choose to leave of their own accord... Like, when I opted to exile the Grey Wardens, I would have figured Blackwall would decide to leave as well. And while the game gives you the option for him to leave, it would have felt more powerful if he himself decided that ''fuck this'' and left. There's been no confrontations, no antagonism, no consequences really. If a character is to leave I have to be the one to tell them to do so, rather than they themselves simply getting fed up with my bullshit.

I'm rather surprised see you agree with most of my criticisms yet it's still your GOTY! I suppose that speaks to how middling of a year we've had for games. My GOTY is (probably) Alien: Isolation, a game I do really enjoy but one that I also think is flawed in some areas, primarily its length and some pacing issues during the final third.

Huh, neat! Also funnily enough if you kill the Duchess you still have to pass her sentence back at Skyhold... only since she's already dead, you must pass the sentence of her remains in a box, which I thought was hilarious.

The Boss itself was kind of ridiculous, though. I spent most of it running away as my tank after taunting her while the others simply chip away at her health. Well, by others I mean Vivienne, as Iron Bull was kind of useless, as was my own rogue character, as both could barely stand up to her without getting slaughtered.

Oh, no, your character will stay still until you tell them to do something else. It's just that after so long I'll perhaps forget to tell every single party member to do this or that and a character may invariably end up dead. They'll follow your orders fine, but it sometimes feels as if it's all one step away from having to tell them when best to wipe their own ass...

For boss battles I'm OK in having to micromanage everything.... but for every single battle? That I have to continually plan out my strategies for every wolf or bandit fight can frankly be exhausting.

I guess they seem to prioritise you making your own rather than finding awesome loot out in the wild. I don't necessarily have a problem with the loot itself, but again the lack of cosmetic variety for it all (least the armour) is really unfortunate. Also, item management can be something of a nuisance to deal with sometimes. I do really like the amount customisation you have for modifying it all, though, right down to your own Keep.

@yummylee: Oh yeah I can see why having to micromanage every single encounter can be exhausting but considering that I am playing on Hard, I have to do it every time so I don't have to waste potions on every encounter...aaaand I'm also okay with micromanaging every single encounter like a fucking madman. 0_o

@yummylee: weird, I got the choice of what to tell Leilana after the fade...

I was given the choice of how to describe The Divine, but the part after that with the message she wanted you to tell Leliana was automated.

@yummylee: About the Duchess:

Even better, I don't know if it depends the sentence, but you can later find the box in question locked in a cell in Skyhold's dungeon. :)

My problem with Inquisition is one of my saddest problems I've had so far. I love this game, but I... I'm not in love with this game.

Inquisition did so many things right that those rights turned to wrong. The world was so massive that it seemed like a joke. To say that I spent 30+ hours exploring Haven and The Hinterlands almost seems like some bullshit marketing ploy. "HAHA OUR GAME'S SO BIG YOU'LL SPEND HALF YOUR FUCKING LIFE IN THE PROLOGUE!!" But no, it's true.

Allow me to take a second of self awareness to point out that I complained a shitton about the ending of Mass Effect 3. Right here on this very site. Go on, look at my posts. Not quite vitriolic, but demanding and entitled. I wanted Bioware to give me the ending I wanted, not the one they did. That fire in my heart still burns, sadly. Unfortunately. But... when you see people shit on Bioware, it brings this sense of awareness where you realize that you are those people, or you at least have the capacity to be those people. The people who are never happy, or never satisfied. They want to complain and hate because that's all they do. "This character isn't gay enough." "This character's too white." "MUH ENDING BIOWUR!!". So imagine how I feel when I say the biggest complaint I have about this game is...

How big it is. It's fucking massive. Imagine my surprise when I talked to @yummylee and one complaint of his was "The world is too large". What! That's not a complaint you get to make, buddyboy. The game is large enough for the massive number of dynamic and diverse sidequests that fill this large and vibrant world! And it was. For a time.

I spent a total of 101 hours on Inquisition. Right from the beginning to the ending credits. I did every quest I could see on the map and I did everything the war table allowed me to. I did all but one of my companions "personal quests" and I crafted some of the most powerful weapons in Dragon Age history. And yet I felt... hallow.

Whereas there's Assassin's Creed: Rogue on one spectrum, that pads its world with shitty collectibles that mean nothing and serve no purpose other than to extend the games playtime, Dragon Age Inquisition seems to rely on seemingly endless MMO-styled fetchquests that ultimately serve no purpose, only except the characters tell you "You're saving the world! You've helped our people! We'd be lost without you!". All I did watch gather some herbs, kill some bandits... typical RPG shit, but this time my character "leads the inquisition" so suddenly every bandit is a threat to the freedom of the innocent lives living in the wilderness. Suddenly every herb is the target of Red Templars and, and every bear is the spirit animal of some guy I killed in Dragon Age: Origins who seeks revenge. Okay I may have made that one up.

The point is, you do menial shit, just like in other RPG's, but this time you're told that you're the hotshit cock-of-the-walk himself(Or herself) that must defeat Fantasy Satan because no one else can.

I personally never felt like the leader of an Inquisition. I felt like a typical RPG "chosen one" who's destined to forge a party of misfits and save the fucking world.

You never see your forces, you never know exactly how big they are. You never entirely fix Skyhold into not looking like a broken down piece of shit. You never get to personally lead some sort of incursion on your enemies. Nope. While the narrative tells you that you send a "legion of armed soldiers" or a "brigade of Skyhold's best", the cutscenes only show a couple (completely inept) soldiers who are usually slaughtered right away so you can jump into the fight and lead the battles. Alongside your trusty group of rag-tag jimmyrustlers.

The issue I have... the hallowed feeling I got was the sudden realization that: This game is fucking massive, I want to build my inquisition, I want to build my army, I need to complete these quests because without them, how can I build my army? How can I build this inquisition without the support of these guys, or those guys? So I felt this anxiety that if I didn't do all of the side missions, if I didn't build my forces, I would (presumably) be punished during the main missions for not having a large enough, or strong enough, force to take the fight to Fantasy Satan.

So, again, imagine how I feel when my complaint is that I've spent 101 hours on this video game and after about 80 of those hours, I had done everything, I finished every side quests and the only thing left for me were the main missions. What the fuck kind of complaint is that!? "I've had so much fun playing your game that I couldn't put it down and so I've spent a hundred hours doing everything!" I'm fucking insane!! Well, allow me to try(And most likely fail) to put it into words... Words that kill hurrrr

In other Dragon Age games, the worlds were big enough to be filled with content. Let's be hyperbolic(Is that even the right word) and classify this content as "meaningful content". This locket will sway the big bad of this level to stop killing innocents by remembering that he is most human of all. This lost piece of paper contains information for a mercenary group that leads them to a target that they have to kill, but you can choose to use it against them and blackmail them, give it to them and gain their support for future battles, or kill the target yourself and reap the rewards. (Full disclosure: None of this actually happened in any Dragon Age game(But it could. You know where to find me, Laidlaw!), but it contains enough of an example of the depth of the shit you would do in those games).

Here's how it works in Inquisition. You spend six fucking hours searching the Hinterlands because apparently Varric hates the sight of Red Lyrium deposits and you're gonna go destroy a bunch of them for him. So you spot a letter. You pick up the letter and it has a picture of a waterfall, and a note saying "I'M FUCKING DEAD. HERE'S MY TREASURE STASH. FUCK." and you search another six fucking hours because the Hinterlands ARE BIGGER THAN DRAGON AGE ORIGINS FUCK. When you find it, it's being guarded by a group of mercenaries. Hmmm. How do you handle this? Split the treasure? See if you can use your rank as leader of the inquisition to offer them a seat at the table for all the money they can hold? No. You go up, you fucking fight them, and then you click in the left-stick so your radar will ping you to the location of the treasure. Oh, and that treasure? A level fucking 7 "belt of healing". Fuck this.

Whereas Dragon Age would perhaps allow you to communicate with enemies and branch out in a number of different ways, Inquisition says fuck you for being diplomatic, go stab some guys like a real man, or woman, or bulldragon or whatever the fuck a Qunari is.

And it's acceptable for a time. But when you've done it for 80 hours, when you realize the only diplomacy you've shown is for the handful of people you must judge in Skyhold.

Even Dragon Age 2 had this "meaningful content", the game that was considered to be an awful misrepresentation of what Dragon Age should be. The game that was considered to be a gross misstep for Bioware, a sign of the times about how disenfranchised they are with Role-playing games.

Really, Dragon Age Inquisition could be said to be a mix of Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3. There's no Mass Effect 1 or Origins to be found within. While you have the ability to have long(Sometimes pretty long) conversations with multiple threaded pathways, and your character doesn't always speak for himself, you have a lack of decision making while in the moment. Most of the decisions you could make in Origins had so many outcomes you could spend 20 minutes analyzing what choice you would want to make.

And that's sad, not because Origins was a shining star in a sea of oversized worlds and meaningless quests that add to nothing, but because Inquisition is a fantastic step forward. The decisions that you can make totally feel meaningful. You make a decision and then go to the place where you made that decision and you see it. You see the towers you had built. You hear the villagers in the town thank you for providing them with supplies in their time of need. You feel the impact of your decisions. And that's sad. Because my biggest complaint about Inquisition is that it's too big, while still being a great game, it's not Dragon Age Origins, or Dragon Age 2. Or a combination of the two.

We don't need massive landscapes and shitty quests to make such an intensely memorable game. Origins proved that. Let's hope the next Dragon Age, or it's inevitable DLC will get us back to that. Because ultimately, this was a step in the right direction. It's filled with missteps and mistakes, but if we build on this, if we expand in, and not out, we can make the best Dragon Age game in history.

Oh and don't get me fucking started on that stupid crafting system. Goddamn never found a single tier-3 schematic in the whole fucking game and so I had to make do with shitty looking trench-coat armors that were like 80 defense underpowered for the whole 101 hours so it put a ton of pressure on me because I felt like I wasn't playing the fucking game right. Goddamnit.

One more thing: What's up with how you never go to any goddamn cities in this game? You never see Denerim, you never see Orzamarr and you especially never see Redcliffe. You mostly hang out in sandpits and green forests. That's mega disappointing. I would have at least liked to have gone back to Kirkwall, or seen a cameo of the castle your human noble lived in during their origin. I don't know. SOMETHING OTHER THAN COMPLETE FUCKING WILDERNESS WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE. IT'S CALLED THE FUCKING INQUISITION, NOT THE OUTQUISITION!

Maker help us all...

I agree with pretty much every criticism you have. It's a fine game though. Tons of small things that equal me not getting the urge to play. Will probably beat it at some point to. Also, I'm playing on nightmare, so I really have to grind.

Ha, brilliant.

@n7:... Good Lord, you would have been better served in just posting your own blog rather than replying to my own.

@n7: I'm not gonna quote that big wall of text 'cause I'm making one of my own here, so I'll just respond to it instead.

Personally, I don't think the problem is with the size of the world itself. I vastly prefer the size of Inquisition's world compared to the ones in DA:O and especially the broom closet that was DA:II. I don't think the world size is actually the flaw, but rather that, for as much the as size of the world advanced, the underlying systems didn't really keep up and aren't enough to sustain a trek through all that content. Personally, I'd like to see the next Dragon Age game be just as big (if not bigger), but with the following changes:

• The soft cap on levels needs to be higher. Character advancement is an integral part of the payoff you get from exploring various areas, but I definitely reached a point where I felt like my character was no longer getting meaningful upgrades, either in terms of gear or character level. Setting the cap around Level 20-ish is fine for games the size of Origins or DA:2, because you are advancing right up until the end of the game - you tend to tick over to the final levels right as you have explored the last of the content. Spreading that same system out over a 80-100+ hour game like Inquisition as opposed to a 30-50 hour one like DA:O and DA:2 means that you pretty much exhaust the possibilities of character improvement while still leaving several areas unexplored.

• Alternatively to the above, if you are going to have a game this big and set the soft cap at Level 20-ish, then the upgrades to get need to feel really meaningful, to compensate for the slower pace of leveling. However, I found the skill trees, at least for a rogue, to be pretty underwhelming. No upgrade substantially improved my character or made me change my play style greatly and there wasn't an ability that made me really covet unlocking it. Specializations were disappointing too, particularly in relation to the amount of busy work needed to unlock them. For the cap, I felt like I had an excess of skill points and was taking things I didn't really want, which is exactly the opposite of how I should feel. Put another way, the incremental improvement felt more appropriate for a system with a much larger level cap, instead of feeling more meaningful like as it should in a smaller-cap game.

• BioWare tried to compensate for the slow-leveling pace by giving you multiple currencies like Power and Influence, but again, these aren't enough to sustain the size of the game world. Power is given out like Pez, and there is way too much of it for the available unlocks. While this was obviously done to give people choices in what content they wanted to pursue, there was simply too much of it given out, making it meaningless over the long run. The game might have been better had they increased the power costs by at least 1.5-2.0x. As far as Influence goes, it was a nice thought, but it doesn't have enough impact on the game. None of the perks give you the feeling of being part of a powerful organization, and nothing changes in how people react as you gain in Influence. It would have been nice had they included even small cosmetic touches. For example, instead of having the meaningless upgrades to Skyhold they have, the fortress should have improved incrementally for each level of Influence you achieve.

• As many people have stated, you need to get the hell out of the Hinterlands at the start to really begin enjoying the game. However, BioWare didn't do a good job - at all - of communicating this to people. My default behavior when playing an RPG, and I don't think I'm alone here, is to act a bit like a locust, except that instead of consuming crops, I consume all the content. That means that unless there are pretty clear signs that I'm supposed to do something else I'm going to stay in an area and grind until there isn't anything left to do. I think the game would have been better had it railroaded you a bit more initially, possibly hustling you through a smaller, gated portion of the Hinterlands and then shepherding you into the main plot before letting you go back.

When DA:2 and ME3 came out, I groused that those games' problems were the result of BioWare not understanding their audience sufficiently. They designed for a really broad subset of people, and in the process alienated those fans who like deeper RPG experiences. In other words, each of those games fell into an uncomfortable middle - too talky for the shooter crowd, and not deep enough story or gameplay-wise for the RPG crowd - and didn't really end up pleasing anyone.

With DA:I, BioWare got substantially back on track - primarily because it felt like they had a better understanding of who exactly they were making the game for - the hard (or at least semi-solid) core RPG crowd that was unhappy with DA:II. The result was a much more focused and coherent game. However, I also think there was one problem area that led to many of the above problems. As I previously alluded to, they should remember that the default attitude for someone playing an RPG is "do all the things!" Instead, it feels like BioWare designed around an underlying assumption that players would do a small amount of each area of even leave some areas entirely untouched, and then explore those on subsequent play throughs. If you do 60%-70% of the available content, the systems in place make a lot more sense that if you do 90-100% of the content.

@lawgamer: Kingdoms of Amalur had that problem as well. They had stuffed every inch of every town with TONS of quests. TONS AND TONS OF QUESTS. So if you stuck around to do them you'd gain tons of levels and be over-powered for the other parts of the game.

For example: I'm less than 5 hours into my second playthrough of Inquisition and I just recruited Sera and Vivienne. These characters took me 40 hours to recruit when I first played the game because I was busy dicking around the Hinterlands. I got the fuck out of there the second I had enough power this time around and man WOW the game opens up so quick. The Hinterlands should have been a lot smaller or some shit because they really do fail to communicate that you should leave as soon as possible.

@yummylee

I'm just playing through on casual difficulty myself, just didn't want to deal with having to think about the combat, pausing, crafting, upgrading and just wanted to pick whichever party members I liked, and just run in chopping enemies up with my blades. I'm pretty much here for the story.

Two things I'd have like to have seen changed (I agree with your points as well).

1. I really would have like to have seen better organization on the quests. Perhaps organized into categories like: Main Story, Follower Specific, Side mission and Trivial. Put all those fluff "collect 10 ram meat" in the trivial so I know I can ignore them if I choose, and then I know which missions will be more story oriented or proper side missions.

2. I really find running across the terrain to be kind of annoying. I get caught on so much geometry, or sliding back down spots in the terrain that I feel a little more time spent into smoothing out the traversal would have gone a long way. The storm coast I've found to be the worst for it, but still. (plus that jumping animation... I go from a smooth agile rogue to this strange human doing it's best donkey kong impression)

Otherwise, I'm really enjoying the game. Combat feels good, story is good. I couldn't have asked for much more. (Now if Bioware would just hurry up with the next Mass Effect!!!!)

@yummylee: I love this list, but you are missing a few points. Also be warned, I might have some spoilers in this comment. :/ I also haven't yet finished the game, but im almost there. Just finishing off my final wartable missions, character quests etc. before going to the Arbor Wilds for what I assume is the endgame?
First off: Skyhold. I run around for ages doing everything and getting all the quarries and lumber stands to have cosmetic changes ONLY! The Garden should have consequences, like big ones. If you choose the Chantry Garden you should get approval from the chantry, and if you choose the Herb Garden you should get something better than just 6 pots.
The Mage/Templar Tower has absolutely no baring on anything at all. Nothing to do with choosing either the Mages or Templars. Nothing to do defending Skyhold should it come under attack. No bonuses to or against magic etc. It's completely useless.

Then there's the Main courtyard. Don't even get me started on it. For 1, the two options are in two separate locations within Skyhold. For 2: Only one of them actually seems to use both the quarries and the lumber stands, and that's the infirmary; the sparring ring is completely lumber-orientated. And for 3: Once again none of them have anything to do with anything.

If they were truly upgrades they should have had baring on both your party members and the world's view of the Inquisition, like they tell you they will.

Now, lets talk about Skyhold itself. After completing every upgrade, even after making the scaffolding go away, nothing happens to the structure of Skyhold. There are almost no improvements to the castle itself, half the place is a mess, there are holes in walls etc. etc.
I did a wartable mission after sending whats-her-face to help rebuild her town in the Emprise Du Lion Mountains and I get like 500 tons of 'their best granite' or something, and it is simply ignored. No further mention of it at all ingame. I could use it to restore Skyhold completely, or maybe use it around the map to help others out, but noooooooo.

Now lets talk level scaling. I have an opinion on level scaling, that might differ from yours. I believe that it is a brilliant thing, but only on one side. Enemies should scale up, never down. If I go to a new area, one im not ready for yet, I want to try it and get slaughtered for my troubles, hence I level up and come back when Im ready. i DONT, however, want to do an area in the wrong order, like I did this playthrough (My first) and end up being 10 levels higher than any and all enemies in my final 4 areas. It completely ruins the game for me. Also, lets talk personal quests. Companion quests all seem to have enemies at either level 7 or level 11. Bullshit when im only unlocking them at level 25!
I did the game in (Roughly) the following order: The Hinterlands, The Fallow Mire, The Storm Coast, Crestwood, The Emerald Graves, Emprise Du Lion, Exalted Plains, Hissing Wastes, then the Western approach. Apparently the WRONG order for several reasons. 1. Here Lies the Abyss is (obviously) supposed to be completed before Halamshiral, made obvious by the fact that the Western Approach is level 11, and Halamshiral level 16 or so. I wanted to be challenged throughout the game, but it seems the only challenge came in the first 20 hours of m game, after that, and since, its been a cakewalk. And this is on Hard.

Bioware really need to fix this scaling problem, and soon, before it ruins the game like it has done for me.

Also, a sidenote: Origin and Dragon Age: Keep. Simply put, the Former is broken, the latter is a good idea, and great for newcomers, but it should not be forced like it is. Especially when Origin breaks so easily, and you are stuck with the default world as permanent because of some stupid problem with Origin. (my Xbox Live tag is not connected to an Origin ID, but my Origin ID is connected to a Gamertag, one that does not show. Turns out, it is connected to a Gamertag, which is MY Gamertag, but it doesn't work for some stupid reason. If I disconnect I lose all progress/achievements in all EA/Bioware Games. If I don't, I cannot upload my custom world..... FML! It apparently has something to do with either the names of the accounts being the same, or something to do with the emails, but I simply cannot be bothered spending another 5 days trying to fix it).

I really like DA:I but its not what I want out of a Bioware game. Before Inquisition came out I went back and god mode'ed through origins and II just as a refresher on the lore, and at no point during those play throughs did I feel like what I was doing was filler. Where as DA:I it feels like there are entire zones that are just there to pad out your play time. There are way too many table quests that take 4-24 hours to do with no way of doing them other then waiting, and at some point you just want to finish.

The most damning thing that I can say about DA:I is that after I finished it I was done with it, where as every Bioware game since the original mass effect I finished it and then immediately wanted to go do another play through.

Also the last like 1-2 hours were by far the most interesting parts of the story but they never do anything with it other then set up another sequel.

I think the whole war-map thing is weird. Some of the things you can go to and others you can only send emissaries or something to gain gold. The ones you can travel to have no indication of what you'll find there. The first group of enemies you'll encounter can show that they are 6 levels higher then your party; I guess I'll go back to another zone then.
It's chaotic, I feel there's no clear overview of the progress you are making in the game. I've played for 30 hours and I've no idea what I'm doing other then visiting lands and walking to certain points on the map.