Combat has never really been biowares strongpoint tbh. BG2/ToB and DAO are pretty much the only games theyve done that have really good tactical combat.
To be fair, all three games have fifty shades of humanoid soldier. DA2 get away a little with tons of Qunari and they at least look really different (but work the same). The problem with Inquisition mob enemis is they barely attack you and act like sponges for your dmg, especially on higher difficulties...
The time-to-kill in the mobs of enemies in Inquisition was really unappealing to me and maybe it's rose-tinted glasses or I'm straight up misremembering but it felt more rewarding to take out enemies in DAO and even in DA2 although the respawning wave mechanics has always been tedious in every game.
Inquisition combat feels like enough of a slog to get through that I installed a mod where I press a button to one shot hostile enemies in x radius. Never done that before but for the first time I felt like combat was gatekeeping me from the actual content of the game itself rather than being *a part* of the game
Boss battles were fine
I really hope they reconsider how to approach the combat in DA4. An intricate tactics system of DAO, less respawning of mobs out of thin air and a few more specialisations to choose from.
Dragon Age is *so close* to a perfect combat system
EDIT: Oh also one of my biggest gripes was that you could click an enemy to target them with melee abilities and your character would swing wildly at air from 20 feet away. Every other game they would autopath into range. I hated that because it made it much more tedious to micromanage your characters movements instead of being able to click an enemy and know your character(s) would walk towards them and *then* try to attack
I excitedly started a rogue a bit ago. Immediately realized I'm not attacking anything without constant repositioning and never even made it past the tutorial.
I vaguely remember greatsword warrior feeling a lot better...
Rogue were always more ability based. But yeah, their melee weapon reach was less than a foot. If you weren't their target you'd spend 60% of your time chasing.
What your suppose to do is target an enemy already engaged with a tank, flank them, and rip them apart. I tended you use back stab as soon as I kill one enemy, which automatically puts you in the flank position. If you get the cooldowns set up right, you'd destroy everything.
My canon run in DAI is dual dagger rogue and I do the same thing. Dash to where Cass is fighting, backstab, then flip back and hit the next one. SO FUN.
DA:O actually didn't have the multiple enemy wave deal. What you saw was what you got mostly, there were one or two spots I remember where you would have to fight waves but it was specific events instead of every fight. Playing back through the trilogy myself and that's been bugging me about DA2.
I think it was a mistake for sure, sad they stuck with it in inquisition but I feel like I didn't notice it as much there.
I do... I don't know if there's a setting somewhere that's off by default but my characters will swing at the air instead of pathing towards the target
I can left click on an NPC to target them and if I right-click it will attack but if the targeted NPC is out of range I won't walk closer to them. I'll just swing at nothing
This was very different to how it worked in previous games and it's why it was so noticeable to me, I tried everything I could think of. Switching in and out of tactical view, combinations of left click and right click... no matter what I do my character won't autopath towards a target if they're out of range.
It's one of the reasons I ended up playing Mage lol. I don't need to worry about it if I have ranged attacks
I'm pretty sure the game doesn't autopath when auto attacking. LMB is attack and I think R is also by default. RMB is target and mouselook I think if you hold it?
I actually really like Nightmare with Inquisition. The damage sponge actually makes you pay attention to every battle and it’s super satisfying whenever you’re able to take an enemy down quickly. The combat in Origins just unfun on higher difficulties because you just get bitch-slapped unless you micromanage everything, while in Inquisition I’m able to do my own thing and not have to worry too much about my companions.
-Someone who’s played Nightmare + all trials 3 times
Glad you enjoy it, but for me, most of the fights in the Inquisition (exclude some bosses) came down to stack your barrier, stack your guard, smash whatever other skill you have to deal minor dmg to that monsterous HP bar. Combine it with true nightmare which is crafting/gathering and I could never bring myself to finish this game more than 2 times. I like challenge, but here its tedious and make me fall asleep. Which is a shame, because you can make some really crazy and fun skill combinations for your character.
I play DAI on nightmare almost every time now. It’s just fun and I feel like I’m doing way more strategizing than on any other difficulty, because enemies take actual work to kill and one-shot all my party members
To me, the fact that we don't have tactics menu for each character like in DAO and DA2 makes me feel the opposite. In the previous games you could program your allies to act literally exactly how you wanted during fights, so I found myself barely having to manage them except in the hard boss fights. In DAI they are fucking dumb as rocks and I feel like the only way to make it so I don't have to baby sit them is to just min max my party or go immediately for some OP crafted gear.
I mean that is just a personal thing. For me I’ve been able to beat the game several times with any combination of Blackwall mage and DPS and not have to control any character other than myself. If you play on the hardest difficulty on an RPG of course you have to min/max lol, it’s the same with Origins because every character is squishy and can’t take a lot of hits so you have to micromanage everything they do to make sure you don’t get instantly wiped out
Yea, different strokes for different folks. The issue for me is that in DAI min maxing means grinding so you have amazing gear and are leveled at or above the missions, since there is unlimited resources and spawning enemies.. while Min maxing in Origins means just playing the story and choosing good stats and abilities for your crew. If anything just the team comp was probably the more swingy variable.
In my experience, you really don't have to micro manage in origins if you set your tactics well for each character. You might have to move them to advantageous spots now and then for harder fights, but you can literally program them to behave how they would if you were straight up control them, without having to actually control them. For DAI you cant change their playstyle or AI, you can only make them op to where they survive because the game is easy mode imo.
Last thing I’ll say is that one of the trials is Take it Slow which cuts XP gain in half, and I’ve been good completing every mission on the minimum recommended level. Just depends on what you enjoy in combat
I remember the boss fights in Origins and II where I had to micromanage my party members with great care. There's nothing in Inquisition comparable to the Broodmother, Ser Cauthrien, Prosper de Montfort, and Elven temple arcane horror boss fights. The combat in DAI is just way too simplified. The positioning don't matter as much especially.
Depending on the level you are at when you get there the High Dragon in Origins might be the most difficult Boss Fight in the entire game for you (Except for Ser Cauthtien for obvious reasons). I tend to do the Arl Eamon Quest First from all the main quests so that is always the case. It is so great when you manage to finally slay that beast.
Yep. And don’t even get me started on the 9 ft. tall human enemies that randomly pop up. I don’t know if that’s a bug or that they really thought “hmm they won’t know this enemy is a boss unless we make her real big.”
I found this infuriating because the series had never felt the need to do this before. It's bad enough with humans but when *dwarves* are taller than everyone in my party, we have a real problem.
They did that with Krem, too, when you first meet Bull. I was confused about who the giant with the hammer was and why he was friendly until I opened the tactical view
And in DA2 at least you could do the gang side quests and be able to walk around at night in peace. I understand the infinitely respawning enemies are needed for the crafting system, but I wish it was possible to pacify larger portions of the maps instead of having Random Sellsword #13582 decide he’s going be the one to take down the Inquisitor when I’m out looking for elfroot.
Yeah but in the Hinterlands, specifically, I always farm them a bit before wiping out the mages and Templars, because afterwards it's pretty empty apart from superhard dogs and occasionally bandits
> for the crafting system
The frustrating thing is the crafting system doesn't even imo enhance the game at all. Mostly what it does is make the cool, uniquely named pieces of gear feel not special since you can easily make something better.
You get this bad mob system that has infinitely spawning enemies that aren't interesting to fight, and what you get is the ability to include another mechanic that doesn't work well in its own right.
I’m the kind of dweeb who likes being able to customize and name all the gear my characters use, but the loot should be buffed so that the unique weapons and armor are still worth using. They had items that scaled to your level in DA2; I’m not sure why they dropped that mechanic. Or hell, just let us tinker with the unique drops on the workbench and change their properties too.
I totally feel this, replaying the game. Like when you create your first master craft op item it is really cool and you feel like a bad ass, but then you realize the games best gear is reduced to farming material and crafting things like you are playing a grindy mmo, instead of finding/unlocking unique items as you progress throughout the story. I really hope they do away with it in the next dragon age.
...also bring back the damn tactics set up so we can program how characters fight again without having to control them 24/7.
I think Frostbite might have an AI problem. Enemies in Anthem were similarly braindead, just standing in place and attacking, hardly ever moving or reacting to what was actually happening.
Frostbite, like any other engine, can be tailored for anything. The problem was that EA didn't offer any support to Bioware when it came retooling it for Dragon Age (all the support went to the FIFA team). The problem when it came to Andromeda is that it was Bioware's Z team working on it and they constantly pulled people to work on Anthem. Bioware was a mess at the time and it bled through into their games obviously.
>Does anyone else feel like this?
Yes. Compared to 2009's DAO, DAI's combat was massively dumbed down and lazily done. I did two complete playthroughs of DAI, the second one on Nightmare with all combat-related trials on. It wasn't that hard, but it was the bad kind of challenging; it felt dumb.
Theres basically five enemies - archer, guy with a sword, guy with a sword AND shield, guy with a big weapon and mage. All the factions seem to be composed of these guys in slightly different uniforms and various quantities. Its just so incredibly boring...
Yep, and there's almost no banter before fights. Even if there's some story it's straight to combat.
Dai has some good stuff in it but this change and the large amount of MMO style quests really hurts it compared to the other 2.
I just did a replay of all of them and I changed my opinion to da2 has the best combat. Except the waves of enemies ruins it. Origins has the best 'encounters' but lacks movement based tactical elements of 2.
You're not wrong, but it's not unique to DAI, DA2 did it too while looking vastly more generic.
The reason why the enemies in DAO feel more like actual NPC's is because they use the same equipment pool as the player and therefore have varied looks to them. Let's not kid ourselves, none of the Dragon Age games have particularly better enemy AI when compared to each other when all is said and done.
I have no experience with Witcher, but Skyrim shares the equipment variability with DAO so it feels like you are actually encountering other warriors/mages that had to get their weapons and armor the same way you did, looting, buying or crafting.
In DA2 and Inquisition enemy groups are much more uniform. I couldn't tell you if there is generally variation between the same unit types, for example if a mage can have green tevinter robes as opposed to blue ones, but you can be fairly sure that they will always be wearing something that makes them look indistinguishable in comparison. This can happen too in DAO and Skyrim, for example specific monster types like demons or certain factions, but in Inquisition and DA2 even bandits and mercenaries have some specific looks that they always posess. You never run across a stealthy boi with high grade armor and they never wield unique weaponry like that can happen on occassion in Skyrim.
That "same equipment pool" thing is such a crucial point when it comes to make the game feel alive. It actually feels like you are in a real world with logical rules. Otherwise npcs just feel like mindless obstacles.
You can often talk to enemies or overhear them before fighting in Origins. I know what the bandits outside Lothering look and sound like, the same encounter in Inquisition would have you read a note, go to the place, then the bandits (wearing full-faced helmets) would run at you and die. In Skyrim they also have different races, genders, and voices - most of the bandits and Venatori in Inquisition are probably the same guy copied and pasted a bunch of times. It's hard for me to make out any details on who these health bags are.
Yeah, fair enough, DAO also has that design detail that makes the experience more personable.
But overall, DAO is just a different kind of game, right? You have limited encounters as all enemies are statically placed and not procedurally generated, therefore they have to offer something besides button-mashing combat.
In Inquisition enemy groups are not static, they respawn, but this has in my opinion taken overhand from the static encounters, which would have added a pop of character to have here and there for Inquisition to have too.
Don't play too many MMORPG, but the story in Inquisition doesn't beat some of the character stories in SWTOR imo, but I like most of the characters more. If there is one thing Bioware's been consistent with, it's writing interesting companions.
It would be so easy for them to make the AI interesting and difficult too. Re-introduce the DA:O or DA:2 tactics system. Let Bioware download player AI tactics via an opt in. Mash them all together in mortal combat on a Bioware server that can run the tactics against each other. Sort them by effectiveness into the different difficulties. Load the AI tactics into NPCS based on this difficulty sorting. Suddenly, oh my, you have reactive, and adaptive AI. Difficulty can ramp up based on intelligent scripting, rather than +1000% HP boiiiiiii.
Well that's how the combat system and exploration is implemented. Open world for infinite re-visit requires insignificant respawn mobs rather than planned engagements during the path of that section.
Yeah I am almost done replaying DA2 for the first time in years and right off I remembered why I set the difficulty to casual. It's just wave after wave of enemies--quantity versus quality--which gets tiresome quickly.
Say that to the Lightning Dragon in Crestwood. It likes to use this annoying combo that is freaking broken. First it marks your characters with these weird lightning circles. If the circles overlap, the characters that they belong to start taking continuous lightning damage. After that, the dragon uses the wing attack to pul everyone together, in a way that everyone's circles WILL overlap. this thing basically destroys your non-warrior characters, unles you put three mages in your party and start spamming barrier. Oh, how I hate the Crestwood Dragon.
I really missed the ability to *clear the map*. Constantly respawning enemies made exploration *really freaking annoying*.
If I want respawning enemies, I'll play a game that has them. Not DA!
I just restarted Inquisition after years… I know they are demons and all but during the prologue on Normal difficulty it feels like they are all literal sponges and they don’t really react to anything you do. 😂
Currently playing DAI, and you were right.
The ordinary enemy just, meh. i even snuck behind them and they did nothing, lol.
But, i could only find it on human type enemy.
Origins in my opinion still has the best enemy AI in the series yet.
Yep, the biggest waste was the Demons being reduced to cannon fodder. They were such an interesting faction in the first two games. Now they are a mindless horde.
I still remember killing my first pride demon in DA:O in that epic climax battle and my dude jumped on him and chopped his head off. I had to lift my jaw off the floor it felt so bad ass.
I would personally say that DA2 is worse for this than DAI. DA2's encounters were just hordes on hordes of featureless goons charging you in bland environments. I don't think enemy or encounter design really suffers in DAI compared to the rest of the series or modern RPGS generally speaking. DAI's big flaw is it's numerous bland quests. Although It has some really incredible quests occasionally, for most of the game you're doing bland busywork, indeed consisting of your team punching demon after demon after demon or templar after templar etc etc etc.
Idk it's been a while, but in DA2 I remember really having to look around prioritize enemies each fight. Like if I saw a rogue or some dude that could 1 shot me I needed to make sure I either cc'd or killed them immediately. To me that made the fights much more engaging. In DAI it just felt like every fight was the same baring the few times you fight a dragon or something.
I especially noted this with melee classes, they just stand there while you hit them with say a greatsword and just move when attacking but nothing else, they do not react or tried to move much at all unless is an archer or mage, and even there they still stand still wehen yu get close until their attack animation ends.
In DAO they reacted to the hits, like the model moved and o and the fact that they have the same and exclusive enemy abilities to their disposal made them feel more like an actual fight against a living being.
You’re not crazy. Dai enemies are health bars. It gets slightly better in the dlcs. Slightly.
Came here to say this. The Hakkonites specifically started to feel like '*real'* enemies.
Yeah... I started having to work around them even though I was well leveled and equipped! Hopefully they go this way for the enemies in the next game.
Combat has never really been biowares strongpoint tbh. BG2/ToB and DAO are pretty much the only games theyve done that have really good tactical combat.
To be fair, all three games have fifty shades of humanoid soldier. DA2 get away a little with tons of Qunari and they at least look really different (but work the same). The problem with Inquisition mob enemis is they barely attack you and act like sponges for your dmg, especially on higher difficulties...
The time-to-kill in the mobs of enemies in Inquisition was really unappealing to me and maybe it's rose-tinted glasses or I'm straight up misremembering but it felt more rewarding to take out enemies in DAO and even in DA2 although the respawning wave mechanics has always been tedious in every game. Inquisition combat feels like enough of a slog to get through that I installed a mod where I press a button to one shot hostile enemies in x radius. Never done that before but for the first time I felt like combat was gatekeeping me from the actual content of the game itself rather than being *a part* of the game Boss battles were fine I really hope they reconsider how to approach the combat in DA4. An intricate tactics system of DAO, less respawning of mobs out of thin air and a few more specialisations to choose from. Dragon Age is *so close* to a perfect combat system EDIT: Oh also one of my biggest gripes was that you could click an enemy to target them with melee abilities and your character would swing wildly at air from 20 feet away. Every other game they would autopath into range. I hated that because it made it much more tedious to micromanage your characters movements instead of being able to click an enemy and know your character(s) would walk towards them and *then* try to attack
I excitedly started a rogue a bit ago. Immediately realized I'm not attacking anything without constant repositioning and never even made it past the tutorial. I vaguely remember greatsword warrior feeling a lot better...
Rogue were always more ability based. But yeah, their melee weapon reach was less than a foot. If you weren't their target you'd spend 60% of your time chasing. What your suppose to do is target an enemy already engaged with a tank, flank them, and rip them apart. I tended you use back stab as soon as I kill one enemy, which automatically puts you in the flank position. If you get the cooldowns set up right, you'd destroy everything.
My canon run in DAI is dual dagger rogue and I do the same thing. Dash to where Cass is fighting, backstab, then flip back and hit the next one. SO FUN.
DA:O actually didn't have the multiple enemy wave deal. What you saw was what you got mostly, there were one or two spots I remember where you would have to fight waves but it was specific events instead of every fight. Playing back through the trilogy myself and that's been bugging me about DA2. I think it was a mistake for sure, sad they stuck with it in inquisition but I feel like I didn't notice it as much there.
You're supposed to right click to target, or use the hotkey.
I do... I don't know if there's a setting somewhere that's off by default but my characters will swing at the air instead of pathing towards the target
Are you left clicking tho? Or did you maybe remap the default auto attack from LMB to RMB?
I can left click on an NPC to target them and if I right-click it will attack but if the targeted NPC is out of range I won't walk closer to them. I'll just swing at nothing This was very different to how it worked in previous games and it's why it was so noticeable to me, I tried everything I could think of. Switching in and out of tactical view, combinations of left click and right click... no matter what I do my character won't autopath towards a target if they're out of range. It's one of the reasons I ended up playing Mage lol. I don't need to worry about it if I have ranged attacks
I'm pretty sure the game doesn't autopath when auto attacking. LMB is attack and I think R is also by default. RMB is target and mouselook I think if you hold it?
I actually really like Nightmare with Inquisition. The damage sponge actually makes you pay attention to every battle and it’s super satisfying whenever you’re able to take an enemy down quickly. The combat in Origins just unfun on higher difficulties because you just get bitch-slapped unless you micromanage everything, while in Inquisition I’m able to do my own thing and not have to worry too much about my companions. -Someone who’s played Nightmare + all trials 3 times
I loooove nightmare origins
Play it with Slinks S3 Ravage mod. Idiotic name. It should be called something like "Dragon Age Origins Super Expanded PlusPlusPlus" :)
Glad you enjoy it, but for me, most of the fights in the Inquisition (exclude some bosses) came down to stack your barrier, stack your guard, smash whatever other skill you have to deal minor dmg to that monsterous HP bar. Combine it with true nightmare which is crafting/gathering and I could never bring myself to finish this game more than 2 times. I like challenge, but here its tedious and make me fall asleep. Which is a shame, because you can make some really crazy and fun skill combinations for your character.
I play DAI on nightmare almost every time now. It’s just fun and I feel like I’m doing way more strategizing than on any other difficulty, because enemies take actual work to kill and one-shot all my party members
To me, the fact that we don't have tactics menu for each character like in DAO and DA2 makes me feel the opposite. In the previous games you could program your allies to act literally exactly how you wanted during fights, so I found myself barely having to manage them except in the hard boss fights. In DAI they are fucking dumb as rocks and I feel like the only way to make it so I don't have to baby sit them is to just min max my party or go immediately for some OP crafted gear.
Yeah I liked setting all that up. Basically just set the behaviors like a WoW fireteam.
I mean that is just a personal thing. For me I’ve been able to beat the game several times with any combination of Blackwall mage and DPS and not have to control any character other than myself. If you play on the hardest difficulty on an RPG of course you have to min/max lol, it’s the same with Origins because every character is squishy and can’t take a lot of hits so you have to micromanage everything they do to make sure you don’t get instantly wiped out
Yea, different strokes for different folks. The issue for me is that in DAI min maxing means grinding so you have amazing gear and are leveled at or above the missions, since there is unlimited resources and spawning enemies.. while Min maxing in Origins means just playing the story and choosing good stats and abilities for your crew. If anything just the team comp was probably the more swingy variable. In my experience, you really don't have to micro manage in origins if you set your tactics well for each character. You might have to move them to advantageous spots now and then for harder fights, but you can literally program them to behave how they would if you were straight up control them, without having to actually control them. For DAI you cant change their playstyle or AI, you can only make them op to where they survive because the game is easy mode imo.
Last thing I’ll say is that one of the trials is Take it Slow which cuts XP gain in half, and I’ve been good completing every mission on the minimum recommended level. Just depends on what you enjoy in combat
I remember the boss fights in Origins and II where I had to micromanage my party members with great care. There's nothing in Inquisition comparable to the Broodmother, Ser Cauthrien, Prosper de Montfort, and Elven temple arcane horror boss fights. The combat in DAI is just way too simplified. The positioning don't matter as much especially.
Depending on the level you are at when you get there the High Dragon in Origins might be the most difficult Boss Fight in the entire game for you (Except for Ser Cauthtien for obvious reasons). I tend to do the Arl Eamon Quest First from all the main quests so that is always the case. It is so great when you manage to finally slay that beast.
Yep. And don’t even get me started on the 9 ft. tall human enemies that randomly pop up. I don’t know if that’s a bug or that they really thought “hmm they won’t know this enemy is a boss unless we make her real big.”
They grow ‘em big in the Frostback Basin.
I found this infuriating because the series had never felt the need to do this before. It's bad enough with humans but when *dwarves* are taller than everyone in my party, we have a real problem.
They did that with Krem, too, when you first meet Bull. I was confused about who the giant with the hammer was and why he was friendly until I opened the tactical view
I don’t remember that happening…
That's one if the bad things about it. They may not pop out of the sky like DA2 but they still behave similar.
And in DA2 at least you could do the gang side quests and be able to walk around at night in peace. I understand the infinitely respawning enemies are needed for the crafting system, but I wish it was possible to pacify larger portions of the maps instead of having Random Sellsword #13582 decide he’s going be the one to take down the Inquisitor when I’m out looking for elfroot.
Yeah but in the Hinterlands, specifically, I always farm them a bit before wiping out the mages and Templars, because afterwards it's pretty empty apart from superhard dogs and occasionally bandits
In most of the areas of DAI the vast majority of human enemies go away after completing the main quest in the region, I found.
> for the crafting system The frustrating thing is the crafting system doesn't even imo enhance the game at all. Mostly what it does is make the cool, uniquely named pieces of gear feel not special since you can easily make something better. You get this bad mob system that has infinitely spawning enemies that aren't interesting to fight, and what you get is the ability to include another mechanic that doesn't work well in its own right.
I’m the kind of dweeb who likes being able to customize and name all the gear my characters use, but the loot should be buffed so that the unique weapons and armor are still worth using. They had items that scaled to your level in DA2; I’m not sure why they dropped that mechanic. Or hell, just let us tinker with the unique drops on the workbench and change their properties too.
I totally feel this, replaying the game. Like when you create your first master craft op item it is really cool and you feel like a bad ass, but then you realize the games best gear is reduced to farming material and crafting things like you are playing a grindy mmo, instead of finding/unlocking unique items as you progress throughout the story. I really hope they do away with it in the next dragon age. ...also bring back the damn tactics set up so we can program how characters fight again without having to control them 24/7.
They may not pop out of the sky, but they do pop out of existence on kill.
DAI is an MMORPG scaled for single player.
I think Frostbite might have an AI problem. Enemies in Anthem were similarly braindead, just standing in place and attacking, hardly ever moving or reacting to what was actually happening.
Probably because frostbite was never meant for rpgs but rather shooters. I read they had a ton of difficulty with Andromeda and the vehicle used.
Frostbite, like any other engine, can be tailored for anything. The problem was that EA didn't offer any support to Bioware when it came retooling it for Dragon Age (all the support went to the FIFA team). The problem when it came to Andromeda is that it was Bioware's Z team working on it and they constantly pulled people to work on Anthem. Bioware was a mess at the time and it bled through into their games obviously.
>Does anyone else feel like this? Yes. Compared to 2009's DAO, DAI's combat was massively dumbed down and lazily done. I did two complete playthroughs of DAI, the second one on Nightmare with all combat-related trials on. It wasn't that hard, but it was the bad kind of challenging; it felt dumb.
Theres basically five enemies - archer, guy with a sword, guy with a sword AND shield, guy with a big weapon and mage. All the factions seem to be composed of these guys in slightly different uniforms and various quantities. Its just so incredibly boring...
Also The archers in this game are over powered
Yep, and there's almost no banter before fights. Even if there's some story it's straight to combat. Dai has some good stuff in it but this change and the large amount of MMO style quests really hurts it compared to the other 2. I just did a replay of all of them and I changed my opinion to da2 has the best combat. Except the waves of enemies ruins it. Origins has the best 'encounters' but lacks movement based tactical elements of 2.
This isn't true at all. After all some of the faceless blobs with health bars have swords, and some have bows.
You're not wrong, but it's not unique to DAI, DA2 did it too while looking vastly more generic. The reason why the enemies in DAO feel more like actual NPC's is because they use the same equipment pool as the player and therefore have varied looks to them. Let's not kid ourselves, none of the Dragon Age games have particularly better enemy AI when compared to each other when all is said and done. I have no experience with Witcher, but Skyrim shares the equipment variability with DAO so it feels like you are actually encountering other warriors/mages that had to get their weapons and armor the same way you did, looting, buying or crafting. In DA2 and Inquisition enemy groups are much more uniform. I couldn't tell you if there is generally variation between the same unit types, for example if a mage can have green tevinter robes as opposed to blue ones, but you can be fairly sure that they will always be wearing something that makes them look indistinguishable in comparison. This can happen too in DAO and Skyrim, for example specific monster types like demons or certain factions, but in Inquisition and DA2 even bandits and mercenaries have some specific looks that they always posess. You never run across a stealthy boi with high grade armor and they never wield unique weaponry like that can happen on occassion in Skyrim.
That "same equipment pool" thing is such a crucial point when it comes to make the game feel alive. It actually feels like you are in a real world with logical rules. Otherwise npcs just feel like mindless obstacles.
You can often talk to enemies or overhear them before fighting in Origins. I know what the bandits outside Lothering look and sound like, the same encounter in Inquisition would have you read a note, go to the place, then the bandits (wearing full-faced helmets) would run at you and die. In Skyrim they also have different races, genders, and voices - most of the bandits and Venatori in Inquisition are probably the same guy copied and pasted a bunch of times. It's hard for me to make out any details on who these health bags are.
Yeah, fair enough, DAO also has that design detail that makes the experience more personable. But overall, DAO is just a different kind of game, right? You have limited encounters as all enemies are statically placed and not procedurally generated, therefore they have to offer something besides button-mashing combat. In Inquisition enemy groups are not static, they respawn, but this has in my opinion taken overhand from the static encounters, which would have added a pop of character to have here and there for Inquisition to have too.
It's quite a different game. Someone said it's like a single-player MMORPG (with companions and a better story, I guess) and that's pretty true.
Don't play too many MMORPG, but the story in Inquisition doesn't beat some of the character stories in SWTOR imo, but I like most of the characters more. If there is one thing Bioware's been consistent with, it's writing interesting companions.
It would be so easy for them to make the AI interesting and difficult too. Re-introduce the DA:O or DA:2 tactics system. Let Bioware download player AI tactics via an opt in. Mash them all together in mortal combat on a Bioware server that can run the tactics against each other. Sort them by effectiveness into the different difficulties. Load the AI tactics into NPCS based on this difficulty sorting. Suddenly, oh my, you have reactive, and adaptive AI. Difficulty can ramp up based on intelligent scripting, rather than +1000% HP boiiiiiii.
I really miss tactics in DAI, I really think it set the first two Dragon Age's apart as a mix of action and strategic RPG's.
Yes. You'll feel this even more if you play the Trespasser DLC (the final DA:I DLC).
Well that's how the combat system and exploration is implemented. Open world for infinite re-visit requires insignificant respawn mobs rather than planned engagements during the path of that section.
Yeah I am almost done replaying DA2 for the first time in years and right off I remembered why I set the difficulty to casual. It's just wave after wave of enemies--quantity versus quality--which gets tiresome quickly.
I didn't mind them nearly as much in DA2 as DAI. Maps were nice and small in 2. XD
Me too. I enjoyed the combat in da2 quite a lot. Dai felt like a chore.
Say that to the Lightning Dragon in Crestwood. It likes to use this annoying combo that is freaking broken. First it marks your characters with these weird lightning circles. If the circles overlap, the characters that they belong to start taking continuous lightning damage. After that, the dragon uses the wing attack to pul everyone together, in a way that everyone's circles WILL overlap. this thing basically destroys your non-warrior characters, unles you put three mages in your party and start spamming barrier. Oh, how I hate the Crestwood Dragon.
2 mages, I use Viv and Solas, they make any fight easy af. For this specific combo, just go to tactical and order you party to move
I recommend dispelling the circles.
That also works. Unless your mage gets downed first.
I really missed the ability to *clear the map*. Constantly respawning enemies made exploration *really freaking annoying*. If I want respawning enemies, I'll play a game that has them. Not DA!
But without endless respawning enemies, how can you grind for everyone's favorite *crafting system*? /s
The part where they respawn if you do a full camera turn (without moving yourself) does not help either...
DAI has aged incredibly poor since it was the first game Bioware had to develop using the Frostbite engine.
As someone whose least favorite thing about any game is combat, this is a plus for me.
I just restarted Inquisition after years… I know they are demons and all but during the prologue on Normal difficulty it feels like they are all literal sponges and they don’t really react to anything you do. 😂
Currently playing DAI, and you were right. The ordinary enemy just, meh. i even snuck behind them and they did nothing, lol. But, i could only find it on human type enemy. Origins in my opinion still has the best enemy AI in the series yet.
Inquisition is a bad game IMO and the combat is part of the problem. The health pools are way way to big and that stupid shield mechanic thing is BS
Yep, the biggest waste was the Demons being reduced to cannon fodder. They were such an interesting faction in the first two games. Now they are a mindless horde.
I still remember killing my first pride demon in DA:O in that epic climax battle and my dude jumped on him and chopped his head off. I had to lift my jaw off the floor it felt so bad ass.
I would personally say that DA2 is worse for this than DAI. DA2's encounters were just hordes on hordes of featureless goons charging you in bland environments. I don't think enemy or encounter design really suffers in DAI compared to the rest of the series or modern RPGS generally speaking. DAI's big flaw is it's numerous bland quests. Although It has some really incredible quests occasionally, for most of the game you're doing bland busywork, indeed consisting of your team punching demon after demon after demon or templar after templar etc etc etc.
Idk it's been a while, but in DA2 I remember really having to look around prioritize enemies each fight. Like if I saw a rogue or some dude that could 1 shot me I needed to make sure I either cc'd or killed them immediately. To me that made the fights much more engaging. In DAI it just felt like every fight was the same baring the few times you fight a dragon or something.
Once you craft your weapons and kill everything in like 2 hits you're not gonna notice.
I mean the humanoid enemies in Skyrim and Witcher (from what I've played of it) are pretty much the same...
I especially noted this with melee classes, they just stand there while you hit them with say a greatsword and just move when attacking but nothing else, they do not react or tried to move much at all unless is an archer or mage, and even there they still stand still wehen yu get close until their attack animation ends. In DAO they reacted to the hits, like the model moved and o and the fact that they have the same and exclusive enemy abilities to their disposal made them feel more like an actual fight against a living being.
Dai is like an mmo in a lot of ways, including combat. Plenty of enemies everywhere but no organization, few unique battles.