I like Inquisition but it could have been better. I mean unlike II I'm gonna finish it, probably even do a 100% run or 2, but I won't do 5 of these like I did in Origins.
I like the "no heals" approach, it's vastly superior to healbot spamming/sitting around doing nothing but waiting for your health to regenerate in both Origins and II. It's much more rewarding when you get out of a fight you really had no business winning because of good tactics and not because you spammed Heal/Regenerate and potions.
I like the open world-ish maps, frankly they are huge and it seems there's a ton of shit to do. The crafting system is really good as well, I really dig it.
I like the reduced cooldowns, Origins' cooldowns were really long which meant you autoattacked most of the time, and since warriors and rogue recover stamina with each melee attack, you can use a lot more skills. From what I've seen they tend to be more interesting as well than both Origins' and II's (lol I know it was in II but I'm really digging the chain pull, I upgraded it with the "siddown!" kick, Winter's Grasp freeze + improved Mighty Blow right after for insane burst, I've done 850-ish at level 4). I also like the new auto-attack, it rewards positioning instead of dice rolls for hits and misses, even though at first I thought it was really annoying.
I'm also glad they didn't go with the "mobs level with you" bullshit, I've ran into a fair few areas where mobs were double my level and I had to really work hard to survive. I'm really, really fucking glad they've brought back companion equipment. II's system was a mess. They also got rid of waves and mobs spawning out of thin air from II. Really, DAII was just a terrible game. They had more time to develop this one and it shows.
I don't like how they got rid of tactics macros for the AI, you could do some really sweet things with it in Origins. Sometimes the AI is really fucking dumb with its spells and you can't really choose when they will use them, only if they'll use them more or less often.
I don't like the skill trees, especially for mages, there's a lot of spells missing and you're basically stuck having at least a part-Primal mage until you unlock the specializations because 3 out of the 4 basic trees for mages are just Primal but split up. There seems to be less skill trees than in DA:II as well. Sustained talents especially seem to be missing, which sucks because I really liked them in Origins. One of my favourite things to do with mages was an Entropy/Glyph/BM build, just CCing everyone with AoE crowd control then fucking up everyone with AoE damage from Mass Sleep/Waking Nightmare combos and Blood Wound while walking around with sustained spells debuffing the shit out of every mob. No need for this elemental bullshit. Primal mages are just really generic and not that fun to play.
And where in the Hell are attribute points? Can you even raise them yourself or do you need to rely on gear/the game deciding what goes up when?
Speaking of spells combos, what I've seen to date is mostly the DAII style interplay between knockdowns/stuns/freezes/etc, I don't remember seeing specific mage spell combos (like Grease Fire for instance) but I could be wrong.
Also, 2H warriors do not seem very good in Inquisition (they were my favourite in Origins and if you knew how to time your sunders, they did really good single target DPS in addition to the AoE slamfest), you're better off just having a dagger rogue for melee DPS or S&S warrior for tank. Outside of talents, 2H doesn't really seem to do a lot of damage, and missing an AA is brutal. I mean I get that 2Hs are supposed to be melee AoE DPS but to date I haven't encountered a lot of situations where AoE even works because of the larger maps. Besides, rogues can do the AoE shred/sunder stuff once they get the Fan of Knives knockoff. It also seems like there are less mobs at once in a fight and I've found focusing the stronger mobs is almost always the better option. I'm looking forward to test 2H tank when I find a party member I can actually replace Cassandra with, because as usual the AI fucking sucks at melee rogue.
Speaking of melee rogues, I miss the two swords/axes/maces build. It looked really cool. Now, you're shoehorned into playing a dagger/archer rogue. You're also shoehorned into 2H/S&S warrior, dual wield warrior kicked ass in Origins.
I also utterly despise the new search system, spamming V when walking around to find loot/materials is really fucking tedious, the good old "highlight everything in range" in Origins was vastly superior. Also, fuck the freaking dialog wheel. Although this one is a fair bit better than II's, I still preferred the voiceless Warden in Origins, because it was so much easier to be immersed, and I could say exactly what I wanted to instead of relying on snippets that may or may not carry the meaning I intended to roleplay. It's a Mass Effect/Risen style narrative, and while I can tolerate it, I much prefer the BG style. Sometimes it seems a bit too JRPG-ish.
From what I've seen to date (admittedly, not much) it also seems more difficult to roleplay an asshole in Inquisition. The dialog choices seem less "extreme" than in Origins where you could basically tell anyone to fuck off or insult them. The few sidequests I've done do not seem to have many "asshole/self-serving" options as well, but keep in mind I'm not that far into the game. Also, I've yet to run into a charm/intimidate situation, I'm sure they're there but there seems to be less of them? Talking my way out of pickles is my favourite thing to do in any RPG game.
Mouse control is also really glitchy, sometimes your mouse will stop working in menus/dialog wheels, I've found alt-tabbing fixes it but it's still a bit frustrating. I've had just one CtD as of now. The cutscenes seem to stutter a lot too and my PC is pretty strong.
The interface fucking sucks, the huge "what quest am I on" screen is really annoying (reminds me of Far Cry 3's which is stupidly annoying, if you're gonna do that at least do like WoW and show multiple quests instead of just the active one), the inventory system is a bit lame and I haven't figured out a way to show spell descriptions when hovering the icon on the quick bar, which is a huge oversight, especially in tactical mode. Simply put, the interface is too console-ized, I'm sorry but it's true. Even the tactical screen is a better fit with a controller. I'm sad they released DA on consoles, I really wanted the series to keep on being Baldur's Gate II's spiritual successor with PC-centred mechanics (see, tactics, inventory system, etc). Good PC-only RPGs are getting rarer and rarer, and consoles are well-known for throwing the genre to shit, just look at Skyrim, it was so console-centric the PC version might as well have been a port.
Overall DA:I kinda seems like Witcher 3 lite to me. I think the latter will be a better game but Inquisition is still a good game and I'm still gonna play the fuck out of it.
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By the way, I gotta pass an English test to receive my bachelor's degree today (in 2 hours in fact). I need to score at least Intermediate. I'm not worried lol.
