A Lengthy Walkthrough of Combat in Dragon Age: Inquisition

I really really hope this turns out good. I can't wait. Thanks for the upload Patrick!

We're all cheering for you Bioware! #comeback

From everything they've shown this game seems to actually be following through on the mix of real time action and more classic tactics that Dragon Age II utterly failed at.

I am extremely excited by the prospect of wading in with a third person camera and hacking fools up during standard encounters but slowing things down and pulling the camera back for the more challenging battles.

Enough with using a controller, jeez, it's an RPG, hopefully.

That aside, I'm highly likely to enjoy it, no matter what the internet thinks. Just like I enjoyed DA2.

If you are going to produce a video about crazy awesome combat, please don't have it narrated by the living embodiment of a yawn.

Did they ever say if the behaviour if/do-stuff is still in the game?

I can't wait to play it in November.

It is.

DA2 = 1 year development

DA3 = 4 year development

Extreme excitement warranted :D

Patrick: I think you would enjoy Dota 2.

@bradical64: You mean quests.

Does anyone have any confidence in bioware to produce a good game after DA2 and ME3?

Really looking forward to this.

Though i have to say i'm a little disappointed that they seem to be re-using a bunch of the mage animations from DA2

Why is it so cartoony now? It looks like an MMO all of a sudden. :/

I'm definitely going to be all about tactical mode when this comes out.

The dialog concept in DA2 killed the series for me. Far too narrow.

Yes. I do. They make good games.

The GAME part of ME3 was great. They rushed the story out in 2012 however, when they should have given it to 2013 (i.e: The same amount of time between ME1 and ME2.) EA focused too hard on competing with Activision, as they were probably pressured by investors.

The delays of Inquisition (a couple weeks probably for bug fixes) and Hardline (2015 - for probably content enhancements) could be a very early sign of change.

But I'm not counting these chickens before they hatch.

This game definitely looks pretty. Maybe I might play it, I dunno.

Well, the bigger sign of change was the delay of Dragon Age by a year from its original release window of holiday 2013. I couldn't have been more pleased when that happened as it showed they were really learning from the mistakes the short dev cycle of DA2 led to.

Looks great!

This is looking great. I hope that pausing doesn't automatically pull the camera back at all. I played Origins and 2 with the camera low while pausing regularly.

Thats very good to hear, I loved that feature.

I kinda agree. I'm really looking forward to play this but the very saturated and over-use of effects was slightly off-putting for me.

I'm just glad that games like Divinity are picking up where Bioware left off when it came to storytelling and tactical gameplay. Regardless of how good this game turns out to be overall, it just isn't the type of game I want to play.

When you allow a game to be played and beaten by controlling one character in real-time with button-presses, it isn't possible to also be the type of game that requires pausing, character placement, and teamwork to win in a battle. Those two ideas are at odds. The only way to achieve that is to artificially change the level of difficulty for those people wanting to play the game in a tactical way, and I haven't seen that work well in any Dragon Age game.

Yeah, I'm just gonna ratchet up the difficulty until I have to play in tactical mode. No interest in a half-assed hack n' slash.

This looks pretty awesome! Thinking I'll have to check this one out

Oh please please please be good.

looks good I can't wait to play this.

It worked well in both, actually. If you want to play with the close camera and only control the one character with button presses and no pausing, it's entirely possible on the Easy difficulty. Trying to play that way on Nightmare is effectively impossible though. I beat both games on Nightmare, and it required extensive use of the tactics menu, pausing in combat, setting traps and using buffs. With the difficulty sliders, you CAN have it both ways. If you want to rail against the Dragon Age games, the camera control and pause function shouldn't be the parts you focus on, in my opinion, because they work quite well.

Bioware has lost me. I used to be a fan boy. Gimme a call once the reviews are in.

What's with the ugly ass UI font? Are they seriously gonna use that in the finished game?

Ditto.

for the love of god please allow controllers on the PC version, Dragon Age 2 played like crap with a mouse.

They have said the PC version has controller support.

I just wish Alistair wouldn't stand around like an idiot after doing Warcry each and every time. No idea what was breaking there.

I only played DA1, but when they say "real-time combat" do they mean it's the same as the first one (MMO-ish, hit the attack button and they keep attacking), or more action-RPG?

The Dragon Age series is a sad tale. The original was built and marketed as a revitalization of and re-imagining of a Baldur's Gate style game. And they were fairly successful as far as I can tell.

Then they decide that market isn't big enough, lets try and do a total 180 and catch the 3rd person action crowd... In one year. A complete cock-up in almost every way. Conceptually all the way to execution.

Now the question is, who is this game made for? If it's another half-assed 3rd person action title, you can count me out.

Man the weight and bombast of the combat is great, I love the way the caster whips her staff all over the place, much better than the usual stand still and shoot fire out of your stick most games do.

Hope it's not terrible!

Dragon Age 1 let you do that?? Like I beat it on 360 for the first time on Normal controlling 1 person like at least 85% of the time if not more. On PC I played it on higher difficulty and I had to manage a lot more, think strategically, and switch my focus to overcome difficult battles.

I don't know that I'd call 3 minutes a 'lengthy walkthrough'.

@dan_citi: I was speaking of Dragon Age 2. Origins was designed as a PC RPG whereas I would argue that Dragon Age 2 was designed as a console RPG with some concessions made for PC players.

I just don't understand... Dragon Age: Origins was an amazing game. Heck, I'd quite likely put it in my all-time top-10. Then they produce a sequel where the first thing you do is mash a button and smash ten dudes to gibs. This video looks like that, but with a thin layer of 'but hey, you can also totally be all tactical'. Why go tactical when the other viable strategy is to yolo/rambo through the game with one character? It's a completely opposite idea and is, as @andrewb mentioned, just not possible in one game without tampering with the difficulty.

Damn-near perfect game gone schizo. I'm sure it can be a good game for a lot of people, but it's just not Dragon Age. I guess Divinity: Original Sin has filled up that slot.

The game was completely different on consoles. The normal difficulty nerfed enemy health, damage, and size of encounters on the console versions. The first boss on the PC was a fairly difficult affair, especially if you only had the temp mage they provided you. On the console you could run up and beat him exchanging blows.

Keep in mind these decisions were made before they even got sales data since all of the planning had to start right away given the quick turnaround. So based on focus groups they though DA:O was going to underperform (of course it was Bioware's best selling game at the time). That likely was also what was behind wasting countless hours redesigning all the character models instead of using artist's time on making environmental art., so you get the one dungeon.

@endaround, @cronstintein:

I would much more attribute that to the fact that Dragon Age: Origins was a game that began life before EA purchased Bioware. Origins was to be a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate set in their own universe, because Bioware was sick of dealing with the D&D license nightmare (at least what I've gathered from following the game's development for as long as someone who isn't an industry insider could, and hearing about the nightmare surrounding what would have been Baldur's Gate 3 which also hurt development on Neverwinter Nights). Building a universe from scratch alongside a new game engine and gameplay structure is pretty rough, and Origins took forever to develop. So long, in fact, that we saw Mass Effect first.

Shortly after, EA bought Bioware. Mass Effect was successful. It feels, at least to me, that the idea was to apply the same type of consolization job to the Dragon Age universe in order to turn around a popular game in a short amount of time to make up for how much time and money was likely spent on Origins.

I'd like to say it backfired, but even knowing how blahh Dragon Age 2 was from the game's demo, I still bought it eventually. I'm not so sure even morbid curiosity in the story is going to get me to keep going unless Inquisition reviews well *and* I see enough of the gameplay/story to convince me I would enjoy it still.

I loved DA1, I enjoyed DA2 despite some flaws and it looks like this one will be even better. It also perfectly illustrates a classic "damned if you, damned if you don't" scenario. No matter what the developer does, people are going to piss and moan anyway. Every attempt to hear feedback isn't a good thing to people, it's a weakness. Every sign of change a sign of concession. At least, that's how it feels to me reading some of the comments, both here and elsewhere. People seem to want this game to fail, just so they can go around screaming that they were right at the top of their lungs.

I don't just want the game to be good at this point, I want it to be amazing. Not just for the obvious reason (That I enjoy fun games) either, but so that maybe, just maybe, I can stop hearing people bitch about the series being whatever they think it is despite the fact that they probably are going to buy it anyway.

Dragon Age 2 actually sold quite well you know...

Yea at times it sort of feels like this weird hybrid that shouldn't fully please anyone. If you try and play it like a action RPG it's feels clunky and not very tactile. (Somewhat less of a problem in 2, but it has it's own set of problems.) Then you have the difficulty curve which is just really wonky in spots.

Now try playing it tactically and the constant pausing and unpausing just makes it seem like it would be better suited as a fully turn based tactical RPG. Also storywise taking direct control of party members doesn't make much sense when you suppose be roleplaying one specific character.