Fallout 4 vs Dragon Age: Inquisition

Inquisition was better than DAII but it played like an MMO. Giant empty (if pretty) levels, lots of meaningless tasks and sidequests, little respawning groups of trash enemies, little strategy or peril, more just grinding. Eh.

DA: Origins with it's tight design and tactical gameplay is the best DA, clearly!

Fallout 4 is decent, at least, if not amazing.

DAI was a great spectacle, not so good as a game. It looked great, there was lots going on it but most of it was pure nonsense. It was absolutely riddled with filler content. So was Witcher 3 which had much better sidequests but suffered from truckloads of drivel 'collectable' content and completely bizarre random quests that were all identical to each other all over the map as though they felt they couldn't let you move an inch on the map without 'killing stuff' maybe they think their audience is 8 year olds?

I liked DAI a lot but got bored of it eventually same as Witcher 3 because loot became completely pointless which means exploring is pointless too though the environments and areas in DAI shat all over those in Witcher 3 from a great height IMO.

Fallout 4 on the other hand rewards exploring and encourages you to mess around with and modify the great loot you find everywhere you go and makes new areas a new adventure not just more of the same like the other two (there are NO random repeatable filler quests, not a single one) and it's the game I keep coming back to and starting all over and discover new things every time.

Witcher 3 is an interactive narrative with an absurdly restrictive (and frankly, boring) main character and DAI has Ubisoft disease with horribly dull 'do this, do that for ABSOLUTELY no reason over and over' gameplay neither holds a candle to FO4 IMO.

.. Yeah I heavily disagree on the "tactical" gameplay of DAI.. DAI gameplay consisted of the massively over powered mage face rolling over everything along with a absolute bastardization of the pen and paper systems it was trying to mimic.. On topic, I though Inquistion was great.. And the biggest problem I had with it personally is the game ended in a whimper.. Where the main villain in the beginning looked to be this unstoppable person.. Turned into a power rangers villain where he stomped on his hat every time you destroyed his plans.. That and the ending made absolutely no sense because it pretty much said from the outset that he couldn't do the big event again due to the beginning, and that was why he was looking for other ways..

I assume you're referring to Origins here?

Well on Normal the game was a cakewalk no matter what you did. On the hardest difficulty though? Oh man, that's where it becomes a masterpiece!

While the mage is incredibly versatile and can do damage, tanking AND healing, depending on build, rogues have by far the best damage, also very useful crowd control skills (pinning, etc), and can sneak around to destroy high value targets in the back ranks like mages. While warriors can also both tank and DPS, their main benefit is that they are the only class who can manage aggro. You can have multiple really varied builds and styles, and assign really detailed custom AI orders to everyone too. There's also funky stuff like armour causing fatigue (permantly lowered stamina/mana pool), necessitating a choice between defense vs skills usage.

My party on my last Nightmare playthrough for example:

Me, elf mage focusing on damage spells early on, but eventually became an arcane warrior with heavy buffing spells too. Kill them all!

Alistair, tank, loaded down with shield and heavy armour. Assigned to charge into battle recklessly, and only use defensive skills and constant taunts and shouts to attract enemy aggro. Hold the line!

Sten, damager with massive two handed sword, and lighter armour to allow constant skill spamming. Fragile, but ordered to stay close to me in the back ranks. Anyhting that ran past Alistair got chopped down by Sten. Defend the leader!

Morrigan, healer/buffer/damage, jack of all trades assigned to run around like a headless chicken and heal all of us constantly via spells or potions. Heal the wounds!

*deep breath*

Sorry, got excited there! I've played and loved all of Bioware's RPGs but in terms of gameplay NOTHING has come close to the sheer brutality and tactical thrills of Origins on hardest! Never have I felt such a precision series of interlocking systems leading to perfect, challenging and rewarding tactical gameplay! :D

(The only "flaw" I can see is the cheese of laying 50 traps.. but that aside...)

Even Baldur's Gate 2, as awesome as it is, hasn;t got such tight tactical gameplay, and has far more cheese/exploits + bloat/useless stuff.

.. These games are plain awful when it comes to any kind of combat strategy compared to ones like Divinity Original Sin.. There are clear choices to make because the game was never properly balanced.. You can see that with the absolute mountain of mods out there in trying to fix these problems.. Even BG2 I would not consider very good when it came to combat tactics.. Positioning is absolutely awful compared to the pen and paper.. Hell just look at the dragon fights compared to what the pen and paper version was suppose to be.. These are great games, but I would not even remotely close consider these games deep when it comes to combat.. If I want a deeper strategy I will play a 4x game, or something like Divinity Original Sin before I would play these games.. I seriously think people are overblowing the depth of these games by a incredibly large portion.. They are great RPG's but I would not consider them any where close to having amazing tactical combat..

Origins is one of the best games, by far the best in the series.

Considering that Inquisition became a chore to complete halfway through my playthrough, I went with Fallout 4 which while didn't impress me as much as Fallout 3 did, it still provided more fun and interesting things to do in-game.

Well seeing as DA:I is a steaming pile.... I think any game would win against it.

If you like sewer water? yeah it's totally fantastic. If you actually like, you know, good things, nope, game is mind numbing trash.

Says no one.

Dragon Age Origins is by far the best in the series, 2 is trash and 3 has meh combat + tons of bore quests.

Origins is the ugliest in the series but it has tactical combat, quality choice/relationships with characters, etc etc.

Are you trying to be hipster or something?

Except even on its hardest difficulty it's not tactical, it's a mind numbing number crunch using MMO principles, right down to having aggro to boot. It's not exactly in the vein of what Baldur's Gate or even something as recent as Pillars of Eternity are. It also doesn't help that the game has some of the most atrocious level design (an aspect of game design Bioware refuses to actually get good at) between the deep roads and the fade, to the sheer lack of enemy variation with most dungeons coming down to this one has a giant purple spider, but this other dungeon has a wait for it *gasp* a giant red spider, to just lazy encounter set ups like archers being lined up perfectly in a row for the simplest solution, and that's the game on its higher difficulties.

A few of the characters are pretty good (Shale, Morrigan), but given that it comes in a setting and plot that is painfully generic fantasy, no, it's greatest achievement being that it's better than a game that is somehow dumber than it? Isn't exactly high praise.

Origins credit is primarily due to their being a large gap between releases of crpgs, you hold it to the standards of the crpgs that came before it, and even the ones that have been coming after it (Shadowrun: Hong Kong, Divinity, Pillars, and I'm not a Pillars person), and it's dramatically inferior to the rest and you realize Origins status is really a product of a big name developer making the game.

It's not hipster sunshine, it's called not being ignorant towards the rest of the genre.

Definitely Fallout 4 is the better game out of the two. DA:I is just... ok. Is a georgeous game to look at, there's no doubt about it, but thats it. Boring quests, uninteresting characters, convoluted lore, stupid plot, basic and repetitive combat, etc, etc... at least fallout 4 had good gameplay

It's not tactical? My ass, there are number crunches, but that's literally a core principle of rpgs in general. Also considering enemies don't respawn, it's not a grinding game.

It has mmo principles but the time stop and having to control 4 indepently and worry about where you attack hits, drawing aggro, etc etc. Spoiler alert: high leveled mmo playing is tactical and controlling 4 at the same time is even more so, especially considering friendly fire in a thing.

Seriously are you upset because they are owned by ea? You seem unrealistically upset with dragon age. The lore allows form monser variety but the main enemy are the darkspawn due to that being a key plot point in origins.

Archers line up in lines, that's how the real world works, it's to avoid them hurting each other by friendly fire, archers usually behind a line of warriors. You're literally trying to insult the game for being smart and realistic. "the ai is too smart, good rpgs have shitty ai strategy"

Generic fantasy? The darkspawn are people who tried to go into the land of the gods and therefore were cursed, each blight has a leader and when said leader is taken down (only possibly via a certain group), the dawnspawn head underground until the next blight. There are generic things like dragons, but they are done in unique ways.

Shadowrun is distinctly different than origins, what your'e doing is simply a difference in taste. Hong Kong isn't a good shadowrun btw, Dragonfall takes the cake.

The games you listed are pretty good, but not any better than Origins is, the rest of the series is pretty rubbish though.

"ignorant" yet listed off Hong Kong for shadowrun, your argument sounds more like you googled things instead of actually knowing what you're talking about.

Has no bearing on my happiness sunshine, I've enjoyed quite a few games published by EA.

Except the AI isn't smart, because in a game where I'm dealing working with mages, wrecking things that are focused too much on "realism", isn't exactly a selling point. The point is the game makes no effort to really work on enemy positioning to actually make the battles interesting, a lot of them are just straight forward n basic.

An ancient evil that comes back in cycles? That's the thing you want to hang your hat on for this series?

It's not irrational mate, you're just butt hurt at an opinion. Although considering your idea of good game AI is them setting themselves up as cannon fodder, I was probably expecting too much.

Nope not butt hurt, your opinion is just shit.

You're the one who likes hong kong, so if anyone's taste should be judged, it's you.

Hong Kong is a good game. It being inferior to Dragonfall doesn't inherently make it a shit game sport. Just like Origins being better than Dragon Age 2 apparently, doesn't suddenly make that game less vapid. But, good talk.

Huh? You have some valid criticisms of Origins but I don't get this at all.

I hate MMOs, partly why I didn't really enjoy Inquisition, but Origins isn't MMO-ish.

I didn't encounter number crunching, in fact the spells and such specifically don't even have damage numbers if I remember correctly, just textual descriptions.

The concept of aggro is basically necessary in a party RPG? How else is a group of enemies going to prioritise who in your party to attack? Why is having skills to control that a bad thing? It adds to the complexity of combat, using one guy to draw the fire so others can cover him.

I find Origins to be a much tighter, better designed version of the Baldur's Gate combat systems, basically. I don't understand how you describe Baldur's Gate as tactical but Origins not, when you can do absolutely everything that game had and more in Origins?

I managed to finish neither... But i'd vote FO4, for at least keeping me entertained far longer.

I love both, neither is disappointing for me. I chose DAI over Fallout 4. I prefer DAO over DAI, but DAI was close to it, I also liked DA2 a lot. Fallout 4 was the first game that I've liked from Bethesda. Maybe Morrowind & Oblivion are good too.

DA:I has gorgeous and varied settings, and a colorful cast of characters. But FO4 is so much more fun for me. The main thing dragging it down is the settlements nagging me. I like messing with them, but only on my terms and when I'm in the mood. FO4 doesn't respect that. Both are not on the level of TW3, but FO4 is my winner in this match up

P.S. I agree that DA:O felt mmo compared to classic crpgs. The thing that immediately came to mind when I launched it was Warhammer Online. I get that the mechanics are THERE for you to engage more deeply in combat, but that doesn't mean they are well integrated or often even necessary for successful combat. Same for DA:I. The deep combat mechanics are there, but the game doesn't do enough to encourage their use beyond skin-deep consideration. In general, I think the DA series is overrated in this regard - it gets points for including "real RPG" elements and combat mechanics, but people don't often acknowledge how poorly integrated they are

... Holy cow you think FTL is complicated? How bout you look at the staggeringly numerous 4x and turn based strategy games out there, or the grand strategy games.. Origins is not a very deep game..

Dragon Age: Origins is pretty darn mmoish.

• Combat design focuses on a healer, tank, damage dealer trinity. With some redicilously overpowered crowd control (several mage spells were game breakers):
• The quest design was mmoish too.
• Same goes for general combat design. With the focus being on number crunching instead of genuine tactics.
• Itemization built around stats instead of unique effects. Everything was built around taking more damage or dealing more damage.

Aggro has never been necessary for an RPG, and only really ever existed because of how MUDs were built up. Why should they prioritize the warrior? Of course that is convenient for the player. But instead of letting the enemy target the heavily armored guy for free. How about making the player work a bit for that result. You know... positioning, one thing DAO seriously lacked. No need to position anything in DAO, because everything would target the tank regardless. This is why Aggro is such a terrible system. Allowing the player to control the enemy and flow of combat with incredible ease, removes serious layers to the tactical aspect and steamlines away elements such as zone of control, line of sight, combat formations and range management. Elements that added some actual depth to combat.

Baldur's Gate had signficantly more depth than DAO, simply because of much deeper spell interactivity. Baldur's Gate had for instance, far more spell synergy and far greater focus on hard and soft counters. But even Baldur's Gate was very shallow compared to the goldbox games, Knights of the Chalice or Temple of Elemental Evil. Looking outside D&D inspired games, its also more shallow than the likes of Divniity: Original Sin, Jagged Alliance 2 and Final Fantasy: Tactics. All of these games are of course more indepth than DAO, which was by cRPG standards, kinda shallow. Not only due to how it streamlined away a lot of important mechanics, but also in its lack of balance. Mages dominated that game, and had several game breakers, such as cone of cold.

^Bingo.

@Maroxad@jgx4champ

Sorry, got a little ranty again, to no real purpose as we'll never agree and who cares anyway?

It's fun to babble on about games I love though :)

Out of interest, are there ANY WRPGs of the last let's say decade, that you guys feel are NOT MMOish?

In Baldur's Gate combat healing was generally not overly practical. Due to a combination of touch based healing and easy interuptability. Therefore by that alone, part of the trinity is already broken. BG2 doesnt adhere to it. Even if that wasnt the case, characters didnt strictly adhere to their trinity role. Thieves had excellent non-combat utility, fighters did decent damage, mages had a lot of support, archers would interrupt enemy mages, clerics came with good damage dealing potential, could obliterate undead and could even survive on the frontlines, bards could fulfil any role. Compartively, in DAO, everyone only brought with them offensive capabilities, tanking capabilities or magic. It was a lot more strict, and as a result, lead to a lot less room for improvisiation.

Are you telling me the countless kill 10 boar quests werent mmoish? Dont be in denial.

In most good cRPGs stats generally serves as a means to the end. In many good cRPGs stats were descriptors to help define a character. Rather than something that existed for the sake of boosting numbers. A sign of a bad RPG is when the game starts revolving around numbers. In DAO, stats were something to be raised, rather than something to define weaknesses and strengths of your character. The whole 3 attribute points per level didnt help either. Stats in DAO came with none of the good and all of the bad.

Are you seriously in denial of how easy it is to keep aggro on the tank? Sure you do lose out on some damage, on the tank, but so what? Because no one else was at risk of getting hit, everyone else could focus more on damage dealing. And no, threat does not add to the variety of tactics. Since it removes a lot more tactical elements than it adds. With aggro, the dominant system is to keep all enemies on one character with massive defense, and the tank more or less just charges for most of the part. Compare this to something like Jagged Alliance, where you would deny your enemy ground and territory, flank, and rush to certain points of interest for the tactical advantage they provide. If not that, how about in Divinity, where I would improvise heavily on the situation, provide artificial walls and smoke walls to protect my squishies from archer fire. Summon spiders to obstruct enemy fire, immdediately target anyone who is a potential threat to my squishies. In DAO on the other hand, my method of protecting the squishies was just to bring in the tank and taunt and make everyone focus fire on him. When one tactic is so much easier to pull off than the rest while providing better and more stable results, the rest might as well not even exist.

Difficulty argument wont work here, as I played on nightmare. I never had any issues with Allistar maintaining aggro. But this may simply be due to me being a tank in mmorpgs.

How cute, in that list of spells you mentioned, you didnt even bring in any the best spells in the game. In Baldur's Gate 1, summons dominated the game. In Baldur's Gate 2, Breach and Sequencers all the way. And no, you completely missed the point. The thing is not how spells synergize with eachother (though that is certainly part of the appeal), but how spells interacted with what the enemy was casting. There is a reason the Mage Duels in Baldur's Gate 2 were so well recieved.

With the redicilous CC the mages were capable of doing, it was easy enough to never get hit in the first place. They dominated DAO, and had the most gamebreakers, this is almost universally accepted.

Divinity, Pillars of Eternity, and the Shadowrun games.

As far as the triple A stuff, while structurally yeah, it's pretty obvious, on balance the things that The Witcher 3 is good at: The exploration, the setting, the characters, the questing, how that series has always handled its morality, and the likable aspects of its battle system I would argue aren't mmo'd up. Dragon Age's brand of isometric combat could potentially be neat, but the difficulty and demand from the player just isn't there for my liking. Hence why I'm more into Original Sin (which is more sandbox), Pillars (which is blatantly like older crpgs, to a detriment), and the Shadowrun stuff. Poor balance I can get over, rpgs in general tend to always have balance issues. It's how mind numbing Origins is to play, how bad Bioware has actually stayed at level design, and how painfully generic that universe is. I get stuck on that mmo nonsense, because go to defense is always "you must not like crpgs" and actually, no, of the rpgs I dig, crpgs fit the bill. I don't like Origins, because I think it sucks.

Age of Decadence and Serpants of the Staglands are also supposed to be neat, but they have that rpgcodex circle jerk surrounding them, so I'm going into those games with the expectation of "it probably has cool ideas, but the execution is the type of shitty nonsense PC gamers would apologize for because they like the rest of gamers have bad taste". We can't all be Champ n perfect after all, namasayin?

Legend of Grimrock is neato, but that's more dungeon crawler than anything.

As the one who is so edgy someone has asked me to teach them lessons on how to be badass :P I enjoy trashing bad games. So I dont mind this at all.

Recent non mmorpg wRPGs include Divinity, Shadowrun, Pillars of Eternity, Neoscavanger and The Banner Saga (ex-bioware devs are amazing indeed), Age of Decadence, Underrail, Wasteland 2, NuXCOM 2.

Generally considered disappointing? What are you on about? By who?

The games did incredibly well review-wise and sold a ton of copies. Aside from the usual crybabies on message boards such as this one, people like both games a lot.

Dragon Age at least was a game a bought and played...

Mods are the main reason why I personally pick fallout 4 over inquisition, with the help of mods I can easily get hundreds upon hundreds of hours out of fallout 4.