I like Dragon Age Inquisition but after about 90 hours of holding the right trigger it's dawning on me just how mindless the combat is. The problem is that despite there being a tactical view mode there really isn't much need for it. Divinity is much harder but also so much more gratifying to play. Almost every battle in that game felt important and interesting, something I really can't say about Dragon Age. And it's not that i think that it is a bad game. The exploration and pretty visuals are just enough to drag me trough the somewhat mediocre story. But if' you are looking for a real challenge you should play Divinity. It's just the better rpg out of the two and should trump Dragon Age in all GOTY lists in my opinion.
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Game » consists of 27 releases. Released Nov 18, 2014
Dragon Age: Inquisition is the third installment in the Dragon Age series of role-playing games developed by BioWare.
Divinity is what Dragon Age should have been.
Or maybe it's better that both games are different experiences? I can totally see a strong argument being made for Original Sin being the better straight-up RPG than Dragon Age, though.
But yeah, Bioware aren't really in the business of making the RPGs those people who want every fantasy RPG to play like the PC RPGs of old want at this point. Though it is a shame that the tactical view isn't a more rewarding or necessary part of combat.
Normal difficulty in DA:I is pretty easy if you have know how to construct a party and make a nice character build.
On Nightmare, you need a solid party, a good build, and a healthy usage of the Tactical view. If ya don't use it, you're probably gonna get blown up and burn through a lot of potions.
I would disagree, and I really don't like/agree with this line of thinking. Divinity is what Divinity should be and Dragon Age:Inquisition is what DA:I should be. They are unique experiences with their own pros and cons. Like another person said, the story in Divinity is flat and boring. I would even say the characters are largely in the same boat. While the story in DA:I isn't setting the world on fire I would say I like it, and many of the characters, more than those in Divinity.
Divinity is also much harder to get through in terms of time commitment which means it loses out on a larger number of its potential audience. Does that mean Divinity shouldn't be that? No, it does not, but it also doesn't mean that DA:I is a worse game for not being that. I do agree DA:I could have been harder, but that's up to the player. 99% of the games released these days are fairly easy on what is considered/labeled "normal" difficulty, so a gamer should know to approach games with this in mind. I will say that if I had to play DA:I in the tactical view for most of the combat I wouldn't enjoy it as much.
Yes the combat is weak in DAI. Turning up the difficulty doesnt solve anything either becouse it just turns into an crazy micromanaging of positioning totaly stupid AI guys and the overall tactical aspect of it is just non existant. Basicly in a 5min fight you have to move the mage out of fire 200 times etc.
If you're playing on Normal it doesn't require much from you. Bump it up to Hard and you'll find that you can't just hold RT through many of the fights.
I like Dragon Age Inquisition but after about 90 hours of holding the right trigger it's dawning on me just how mindless the combat is. The problem is that despite there being a tactical view mode there really isn't much need for it. Divinity is much harder but also so much more gratifying to play. Almost every battle in that game felt important and interesting, something I really can't say about Dragon Age. And it's not that i think that it is a bad game. The exploration and pretty visuals are just enough to drag me trough the somewhat mediocre story. But if' you are looking for a real challenge you should play Divinity. It's just the better rpg out of the two and should trump Dragon Age in all GOTY lists in my opinion.
Yep, ''I played this game and it's too easy compared to this other game which was much more chalenging and rewarding. They should've made it like that game because I'm too lazy to hit down once when the game asks me to choose a difficulty setting''.
Besides, what I've heard about Divinity's combat is that the best way to win is to put a fucking pile of chairs in the way so the enemies can't hit you. Now that's what I call ''gratifying to play''.
Not sure how large the Divinity brand is but I still think Divinity Original Sin should of been released as a separate ip without the Divinity name attached to it. I've known people who gave that game a pass cause the Divinity name was attached to it on steam or they weren't aware that Original Sin was the latest game out.
I don't really see the point of taking two great games and saying one should have been the other. I mean, if you feel unfulfilled after 90 hrs of gameplay yoy did have a previous 89 hrs with which to stop or take a break. Both games easily co-exist in my opinion.
@thepickle: What? You immediately create two player characters in Divinity: Original Sin.
@thepickle: What? You immediately create two player characters in Divinity: Original Sin.
I will admit I have not played Divinity but on the wiki it says you start as either a woman or a warrior.
@thepickle said:
@thepickle: What? You immediately create two player characters in Divinity: Original Sin.
I will admit I have not played Divinity but on the wiki it says you start as either a woman or a warrior.
You start with two main characters (a man and a woman), whose appearance and stats and skills you can customize fully. Later on, you find companions that are already prebuilt towards a certain class, much like companions in Dragon Age.
If you want to watch the Divinity Quick Look, they go through the character creator somewhere in either the beginning 20 minutes, or the ending 20 minutes.
I don't really see the point of taking two great games and saying one should have been the other. I mean, if you feel unfulfilled after 90 hrs of gameplay yoy did have a previous 89 hrs with which to stop or take a break. Both games easily co-exist in my opinion.
This guy knows whats up.
@meatball: I have to agree with what's been said, but for me (an older guy) that just likes to kill a few hours here and there I am the perfect audience for Dragon Age. Not too complicated or difficult and easy to pick up and get into to.
I have about 34 hours into it and still look forward to sitting down to play it when I can.
I like Dragon Age Inquisition but after about 90 hours of holding the right trigger it's dawning on me just how mindless the combat is. The problem is that despite there being a tactical view mode there really isn't much need for it. Divinity is much harder but also so much more gratifying to play. Almost every battle in that game felt important and interesting, something I really can't say about Dragon Age. And it's not that i think that it is a bad game. The exploration and pretty visuals are just enough to drag me trough the somewhat mediocre story. But if' you are looking for a real challenge you should play Divinity. It's just the better rpg out of the two and should trump Dragon Age in all GOTY lists in my opinion.
What difficulty is everybody playing? Because on Hard and hitting story missions at the top end of the recommended level cap I'm having to micromanage the hell out of some encounters (and had to cheese a couple of them). I think Nightmare would require some min/maxing on top of that, too.
Divinity... is alright. I didn't dislike it, but it didn't stick with me much. No particular reason, either. It's just that I feel I've played that game over and over again for twenty years. I never stopped playing that particular brand of RPG and Divinity didn't hit me with anything that clicked beyond what I've seen before fast enough to stick. I thought Wasteland 2 was better at doing the same thing, but I also abandoned it before it was done.
As far as old school nostalgic RPG revivals, Legend of Grimrock 2 was it for me this year, but I don't think any of those games is on any sort of apples to apples comparison to Dragon Age, really. They're doing different things and I'm more than happy to have both.
I couldn't get into that game. I ended up giving it back. The combat turned me off from holding down the mouse button and trying to engage. The story seemed very lackluster in the beginning. It's too bad. I really wanted to like this game.
You're free to enjoy one game over the other, but let them be different games. Diversity in this industry is a good thing, the last thing we need is every RPG to be the same game.
I don't know about that. I played Original Sin for 10 hours and had to quit, I just got so bored with it. I finished my first play through on Hard of Inquisition, and immediately I'm starting a new playthrough on Nightmare. If Inquisition was like Divinity, I wouldn't have even finished it. I know it's all down to personal tastes, but there it is.
I disagree. I think both games do very different things very strongly and it's best that they both exist. Dragon Age Inquisition hits so hard in terms of story, setting, and character that I don't mind the less enjoyable gameplay. Original Sin lacks in those departments but makes up in focused quest design and challenging gameplay. I think it's great they we have both and that rpgs are continuing to become more and more diverse.
Dragon Age: Origins is what Dragon Age: Inquisition should have been.
In terms of how combat was handled, I'd have to agree. However, that's not to say I don't think that improvements have been made within Inquisition, quite the contrary.
If Divinity is what Dragon Age should have been, thank god you wankers finally have your love letter to old games and I can play DAI, a game where the voice acting doesn't sound like programmers talking into a tin can. Sounds like we both get what we want. Good for us!
You seem to be forgetting, or maybe you just have no idea cus this is your first Divinity game, how historically the Divinity franchise is more weird and experimental than it is "classic roleplaying". This was a hail mary back to basics because luddites like you weren't responding to them trying new things like turning into a dragon (which was awesome), building a companion out of monster body parts (crazy), and that tongue in cheek politicking stuff in the strategy game. So congrats on that victory. You've made Larian studios afraid to try anything fun and new with their IP. You don't need to ruin every other IP as well by yelling "this isn't what baldur's gate did!" over and over until devs don't try new things anymore.
DA2 & DA:I Archers are some of the most fun I've had in a game. Bummer you can't enjoy it as much :(
DA:I's downfall is it's gearing to consoles, it needed simple controls to play well on a gaming-pad, Divinity is a far better RPG in terms of combat.
EA once again gave a big FU to PC players, no effort to clean up the UI or controls.
Or maybe it's better that both games are different experiences?
That argument would hold more water if they hadn't launched the franchise as a grand return to their CRPG roots with a hint of modernisation. The combat in this game is utterly flavourless.
They made Dragon Age Origins as a throwback to Baldur's Gate. I think any claim that they've continued down that road with the series is patently false.
In regards to Divinity, it fills a different role for me on my RPG hierarchy of needs. It's a deliberately old-school, occasionally hard-as-balls game with a goofy sense of humor and some great combat. Inquisition is a massive game with some pretty great writing thus far and combat that I find passably strategic playing on hard.
If Divinity is what Dragon Age should have been, thank god you wankers finally have your love letter to old games and I can play DAI, a game where the voice acting doesn't sound like programmers talking into a tin can. Sounds like we both get what we want. Good for us!
You seem to be forgetting, or maybe you just have no idea cus this is your first Divinity game, how historically the Divinity franchise is more weird and experimental than it is "classic roleplaying". This was a hail mary back to basics because luddites like you weren't responding to them trying new things like turning into a dragon (which was awesome), building a companion out of monster body parts (crazy), and that tongue in cheek politicking stuff in the strategy game. So congrats on that victory. You've made Larian studios afraid to try anything fun and new with their IP. You don't need to ruin every other IP as well by yelling "this isn't what baldur's gate did!" over and over until devs don't try new things anymore.
Holding down the right trigger for 10 minutes while occasionally pressing X isn't a fun new experience.
I really enjoyed Divinity: OS in terms of its combat systems. Was a lot of fun. I stopped about 45 hours in though because the story was really boring and the writing flat overall - there were some funny, clever segments, but not enough to keep me interested.
The crafting system was neat but unintuitive.
Weird thing to say... It's kinda like saying Street Fighter is what Mortal Kombat should've been, or vice versa. Both games are aiming for different experiences.
For me, Divinity failed almost completely in terms of characters and story, while Dragon Age still has some of that BioWare seal of quality when it comes to characters and storyline. And I put those two things way higher than gameplay when I am enjoying RPG's. Divinity ended up feeling like a disappointment to me, but I appreciate what it was aiming for.
If Divinity is what Dragon Age should have been, thank god you wankers finally have your love letter to old games and I can play DAI, a game where the voice acting doesn't sound like programmers talking into a tin can. Sounds like we both get what we want. Good for us!
You seem to be forgetting, or maybe you just have no idea cus this is your first Divinity game, how historically the Divinity franchise is more weird and experimental than it is "classic roleplaying". This was a hail mary back to basics because luddites like you weren't responding to them trying new things like turning into a dragon (which was awesome), building a companion out of monster body parts (crazy), and that tongue in cheek politicking stuff in the strategy game. So congrats on that victory. You've made Larian studios afraid to try anything fun and new with their IP. You don't need to ruin every other IP as well by yelling "this isn't what baldur's gate did!" over and over until devs don't try new things anymore.
Holding down the right trigger for 10 minutes while occasionally pressing X isn't a fun new experience.
It sure isnt. That's also not how DAI plays. You're not programming the AI yourself anymore and that's a bummer but anyone who plays an RPG predominantly for the combat isnt that smart to begin with. Most people play RPGs for the everything else and stomach the combat. I certainly did with those clunky PC RPGs of old. And DAI delivered on most of that "everything else". So in that way, being a chore to play but having a good story makes it more in line with those "classics" than Divinity, which I found charming personally but plenty of people couldn't tell you a thing about the overall story. But hey do you.
The combat in dragon age gives back what you put in of course if all you do is hold down R2 and spam abilities you're going to be bored with it.
And Call of Duty is way more difficult if all you use is a knife and pistol. The problem with DAI's combat is that it was terribly designed. It's MMO gameplay.
Setting oil on fire is clever and fun the first time you do it. But Divinity was not a complex strategic challenge. Maybe if you never play those kinds of games. I know Patrick had some trouble. Kinda feel like anyone who had trouble with anything here couldn't get halfway through Advance Wars or an hour through original Xcom. Cus there wasn't a lot to it. That fire demon doesnt like water, look I cracked the code. DAI woulda been like 150 hours with a purely turn based combat system like that.
All that said I really enjoyed the part of Divinity where you turn the orcs and mountainmen on each other and its just this big warzone. This game for all its coniving and backstabbing never put me in the thick of a civil war that I created myself. And that's something you can totally avoid doing in Divinity, if DAI had something like that they would make it mandatory because they don't want anyone to miss it. That's my only issue with Bioware games, the lack of unique experiences.
@horseman6: As a current avid MMO player of FFXIV I gotta say I don't think "MMO combat" is bad. You're right in your comparison I'm doing mostly the same thing in both Dragon Age and FFXIV and I quite enjoy it which is why I wish Bioware would just make a Dragon Age MMO. The series from the very start has heavily borrowed from MMO design. That obviously won't be for some people but it doesn't make it inherently flawed or bad.
@horseman6: Its MMO gameplay with aboslutly horrible AI and very limited party controll.
@demoskinos: after old republic i think that bioware does not want to do a mmo
@bdead: crank up the difficulty to Hard at least, then do nightmare. I'm playing DA:I as 100% turn based - all tactics/behaviors off, hardest difficulty, constantly paused, every battle - and it is one of my favorite games of all time. I can't stand it played the "actiony way" personally, and would never have gotten past hour 1 that way. It boggles my mind to imagine anybody playing it in real time, but, you know, to each their own!
Divinity I think is more forward thinking so far as having dialogue with two player characters and magic meaningfully interacting with the world, but, DA's actual world is more interesting to me and so are the characters. The combat in DA is far more fun for me as well, where I found Divinity exceedingly easy and transparent. In Divinity I really felt like I could just do the same things over and over again. In DA I feel every battle has unique needs, and the importance of positioning and timing is exactly what I look for in a game like this.
I would love to see Divinity's take on dialogue decisions as well as the magic system implemented into a BioWare game, but outside those two items, I'm enjoying Dragon Age much more than Divinity.
Eeeeeh.
After the first zone I felt like the combat in Divinity took a sharp dive down the cliff of boring samyness and piss easy difficulty; also next to 0 character build progression and a snooze fest of a story, but that's beside the point.
Not saying Inquisition is some perfect gem. It's got it's own truck of baggage, but if you pump the difficulty up to hard and/or nightmare you absolutely do need to use tactics for level appropriate content.
Mostly saying that Original Sin is not what I would consider some challenging rpg combat. Sure it starts off interestingly complicated with all the elemental interaction. But it then stays in the exact same place for the rest of the game. Any semblance of a "real challenge" quickly evaporated in my personal experience.
(tbh i feel like D:OS rode the nostalgia train like a honeyed cock, but it wasn't all that good of a game et all (and i pretty much grew up on your classic crpgs))
I'm not as fond of DA:I as I feel like the majority of RPG fans are - I liked it, but I kept having the feeling that what it tried to do has been done better. However, I had trouble identifying where I had seen it done for awhile, until Suikoden 2 was released on PSN and I've been playing through that. Obviously standards in games writing have come a long way since the PS1-2 era. But I think that the Suikoden games (2, 3, and 5) do a better job in the broader sense of creating a sprawling politically themed story (the stories themselves aren't quite as mature, but they certainly have a lot more twists and turns than DAO or DAI do) built around recruiting a diverse cast of characters and managing a base of operations. The tones are completely different but most of the mechanics are analogous and better fleshed out in the Suikoden games than in Dragon Age.
So, I guess what I'm saying is, Divinity Original Sin and DAI are totally different games, and I'd never pick DOS over DA. But the standard I was holding Dragon Age to as I played it was some hypothetical game where I would take the tone, setting, character development of DA and include the story scope and base development aspects of a Suikoden game. Instead, they expended their time and effort on open world sidequesting fluff that largely served only the purpose of rewarding me with loot that I didn't need.
In terms of combat, absolutely. Divinity is miles ahead of any of the Dragon Age games in that regard, and especially Inquisition which has the weakest combat in the series.
In terms of narrative / roleplaying, Inquisition is pretty poor by Bioware standards but still obviously better than Divinity. After the first area of the game, Divinity only does the bare minimum required to give the combat a framework to hang on.
I'd still say Divinity is my GOTY just about. 8/10 vs. Mordor & Inquisition's 7/10. I tipped Inquisition to surprise people and be in the conversation for GOTY awards, but now I've played it I think it's very lucky to be getting the buzz that it is. If Inquisition had come out 6 months ago I don't think it gets a look in.
@veektarius: I still think its interesting that a modern AAA game is taking pointers from Suikoden at all. After getting a castle and recruiting my first agent who became an NPC at the base I was like "oh shit they're doing this, haven't done this since the last Suikoden game". Suikoden is (was, Konami forgot how to make these games) based entirely around those elements, though. DAI at this point is a melting pot of ideas from other games (including DAO, Assassin's Creed, Suikoden and the classic PC stuff) but mostly Skyrim. It doesn't do any of those ideas better than the games its influenced by, but its got all of those elements in a single game without feeling too much like a mess of disparate ideas. That's something of an achievement.
And again with Divinity, I really liked where they were taking the series with the dragon stuff, it was super unique for an RPG, so fuck "old school gamers" for shutting down my favorite thing about the series. Hopefully Divinity OS's success doesn'y shirk the dev away from trying fun new things like that again in the next game.
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