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furnut5158

Dragon Woe: In Question

Ok this wont be art related....I just need to vent my frustration on the new Dragon Age: Inquisition for PC.  So feel free to ignore this journal :)

Again, this is for the PC version.  Im sure the console version runs fine.

First, the controls.  Seriously...no click to move?  I'm wasding like driving a slow clunky arcade car.  Yes I know theres a autorun but still....why this sudden change?  I hear Bioware will be putting in a Click to Move control later on.  

Second, the frame rate during cutscenes/dialogue parts.  frames drop to 30fps during those segments, because 30fps is the standard for consoles.  apparently they forgot to make it higher for PC.

Yes I found a reddit post saying you can edit the game's shortcut to add in "-GameTime.MaxSimFps 60 -GameTime.ForceSimRate 60+"  so it forces the game to go at 60fps, but it doesnt work for me for some reason.   :|

Third, the character look like dead-eyed puppets.  In the few beginning cutscenes when a guard was talking to Cassandra, he wasn't even looking at her.  He was just kinda staring blankly ahead.  The character shift weight while standing around too often to look natural.

When your character and Cassandra shake hands for the first time, their thumbs stick straight up unnaturally.  Also, when Cassandra points to the Chantry rule book, you hear the sound of her finger poke the book, but her finger never touches the book.  Overall, sloppy mistakes so far.

Fourth, tactical controls.  I fight against the control the entire game.  Trying to pan around head to click forward for my characters is a chore.  I end up using the wasd keys to pan around but, sometimes, the cursor falls off the usual pathing, and i cant move the cursor back up an elevation, as if the cursor ITSELF is an invisible character.  It can't go past obstacles or up cliffs or anything.  So I had to manually reset the cursor by pressing character Function keys to snap back to them.  

The cursor camera also is a problem. If you happen to go under an arc or under a bridge, the camera just flies toward the ground, disorienting you.  Again, the tactical camera shouldnt even be affected by the obstacles.  This makes moving around a pain in the ass.

The first boss fight took an dragon age and forever to finish, because I was fighting against the controls at the same time.  In tactical mode, you can't click on the crystal thingy to interrupt it.  You gotta get out of tactical mode, move the camera up to see the crystal, click on it, then go back into tactical if u want to control your team again.  

Again, just clunky.  

Fifth, a minor thing, but still....LOOTING.  You can't loot anything unless you're close to the object.  Like....3 feet away.  Why?  No reason at all.  

I expected better from Bioware.  It seems rushed out, at least from the parts that I played.  I'm only about 2 or 3 hours into the game, but it seems like 6 hours of chores to me.

I'll wait till they at least patch up the Click to Move until I play this again.  I guess I have to put up with the 30fps cutscenes.  I'll just have to not look at them during these scenes, because they make me dizzy  :|

Why...Bioware?  Whhyyy....   :'(

*edit*

oh great...now i heard about this DRM that is packages with the game called Denuvo, that is rumored to be damaging to SSD drives because of the many read\writes it does from HD to Ram.  So far no one can solidly confirm this.....
Viewed: 94 times
Added: 9 years, 4 months ago
 
canjear
9 years, 4 months ago
Seems like a common thing with AAA games now is to just rush the release out and then patch them later. Unfortunately, while the problems do exist on consoles, it seems to be the worst for PC gamers. Not just because the awkward shifts from 60+ FPS to 30 FPS in cutscenes and control issues, but optimization doesn't seem to be the priority. A quote from Ubisoft is something like "We don't need to optimize games for PC because they can just buy better hardware". They're basically saying, buy a GPU that costs as much as a PS4 to get the same performance as a PS4.

The big complaints right now seem to be the new Dragon Age, Far Cry, and Assassin's Creed. All of which are suffering from tons of problems because EA and Ubisoft just want to rush the games out. They know they're huge titles and that they're gonna sell. So it seems like they just don't care how it performs at launch and figure they can patch it later.

I'm not terribly interested in those three titles, but it makes me lose a lot of faith in EA and Ubisoft, though I've lost plenty in them already. The biggest title I'm excited for is Metal Gear Solid V on PC, so I hope that doesn't have the same issues.
soggymaster
9 years, 4 months ago
Exactly.  Why should I have to buy an R290X or 780 TI or 980 just to play at 1080p 60 FPS, when the PS4 and XB1 has about as much graphics processing power as a first-generation AMD APU?

This is one reason why I avoid AAA titles on PC these days.
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
Thing is, I didnt have these problems in their previous PC games (Dragon age 1 and 2, Mass Effect 1 2 3).   Just this one have glaringly obvious problems.  Totally didnt expect that :|  
canjear
9 years, 4 months ago
It really depends. I honestly didn't think EA was bad at that, but it seems like DA:I is getting some complaints about it. Ubisoft is pretty much the master of bad optimization now. They really don't seem to care about PC optimization at all if their latest games are any proof. I'm still confident that a lot of AAA games will be good on PC.
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
I also learned of the DRM on DA:I.   read what i wrote on the comment below:  https://inkbunny.net/journalview.php?id=158240#commenti...
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
I didnt know some of these issues exist for the console.  Ugh wow.... :|

Who is the publisher for Metal Gear Solid V?
SirBrownBear
9 years, 4 months ago
Konami
canjear
9 years, 4 months ago
Well, maybe not for DA:I, but I know that Assassin's Creed Unity is pretty bad on every system right now. Though that's just what I'm hearing, maybe some are playing it fine.

Konami is the publisher of Metal Gear. Metal Gear Rising was a very good port, but it's not nearly as demanding and it's a spinoff game made by a different company. It seems like a lot of effort is going into MGS5 Ground Zeroes, which comes out Dec. 18 on PC, which is a prologue to the full MGS5 that comes out next year some time. Ground Zeroes has already been out since March on PS4 and XB1, so I'm hoping all that time taken is just them putting extra effort into the PC version. I'll find out in exactly one month.
Killereye
9 years, 4 months ago
"A quote from Ubisoft is something like "We don't need to optimize games for PC because they can just buy better hardware". They're basically saying, buy a GPU that costs as much as a PS4 to get the same performance as a PS4."

I have to totally agree with you on this! Add Heroes of Might & Magic VI to the disappointment list!!!

1. It needs a better graph card then my 1TB current one. I now, my VGA crad is old, but other games are working fine with it. A turned based game shouldn't be having problems with it.

2. I've only found one display error so far: the water is pure white, (like #eeeeec white) and blends with the shore nicely, so my water is actually a thick milky fog, that burns my eyes...Considering, that HoMaM games have maps, that are playing on the sea, this is a serious display problem. I know it's my card's fault, but it's on the listed and sported cards list. :(  I try to find a patch or solution, or just lower the VGA effects, and maybe I will see water where I see Fog now...

3. The confirm check ikon and the cancel X cross ikon is tiny...How tiny? 2*2 millimetre. It's smaller then the third of my smallest nail on my fingers! Why do I have to HUNT for a cancel/confirm ikon, when I play with a game that was made in 2014???? Couldn't they just kept the ikon a bit bigger, like they did in HoMaM V or previous games of this series??? I am forced to lower the resolution, to avoid pixel hunting in 2014!!!!!! Very lame!!!!  My boyfriend says, that I am in need of a new monitor, with widescreen, and then the icons are bigger! GREAT! I need a powerful system, and a powerful display device to enjoy this game, and not notice it's tiny faults!!!

It's still a good game, I just encountered problems, that's are noticeable, because of me not having the most modern of PCs and accessories. Back in the old days, when Heroes of might and Magic was 2D and was developed by an other gaming company, there were no hardware errors in the game! I was somehow okay with the 5th instalment, but this 6th game is just simply too buggy and feels incomplete, rushed compared to previous instalments...HoMaM is dying slowly. UbiSoft...I want to believe in you! Don't be like Bethesda or THQ! D:

furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
yeah i hear Ubisoft is going the way of assholery with the lack care to PC gamers.  the problems you described sounds horrible -___-;
Killereye
9 years, 4 months ago
I forgot to mention a purely aesthetic problem: The NAME of the game!!!! They've couldn't even get that right!!!!
There are two series with this working title: Heroes of Might & Magic, which is a turned based strategy, and Might & Magic which is a first person fighter/shooter/rpg like Elder Scroll games are! How did they f*ckd up???

Well, the title should be Heroes of Might & Magic VI. What did we get?
Might and Magic: Heroes VI. And while you can read the title, as you want, since Heroes VI is bigger and Might and Magic sits on top of it...The standard installation folder's name is also Might and Magic Heroes VI, which leaves the first impression, that you got the Elder Scroll-type of game, and not the turn-based one !!!!!! LAME!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2f/Might_an...

Even the file-name of the cover art in this link is f*cked up!!!! It's Heroes of Might and Magic!!! I know, it's a minority, but please, UbiSoft...KNOW the proper name of the game you are making!!! It's not that hard! It's a mistake, that gouges out my eyes.

Here's how it looks with other games that would look silly this way: Isolation: Alien or Advanced Warfare : Call of Duty or Beyond Gotham : LEGO Batman 3...etc. See? Looks f*cked up! We can guess those games, but messing with the title is just plain wrong...at least I hope they've messed up, because if this was intentional, then it was a stupid decision.

UbiSoft! Stop being this level of lame or being lame at all! :(
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
its like they are trying too hard to start a new naming thing going, and hoping other companies do the same.

all its doing is confusing the customers and making themselves look bad :P
Killereye
9 years, 4 months ago
"confusing the customers"

Never a good move, when trying to sell your stuff... *b!tch slaps the boss, and exits from the UbiSoft HQ...*
Yusufa
9 years, 4 months ago
MG V should be fine their publishers have always been solid and the work put into the game is usually optimal, though it MIGHT have some issues that revengence had on pc, but i doubt it. EA and ubisoft are currently dominating the turd market for good games gone bad, EA was picking back up about a year ago but from what im hearing on recent titles it sounds like they just dived back into the shit
KevinSnowpaw
9 years, 4 months ago
honestly by far the most infuriateing thing for me is i keep getting some weird error that crashes my game dering serten cutsceans..so far the only way to avoid it is the run everything on medium...problem with that is medium is more like ultra low the textures are SHIT and the charicters all have plastic hair in that graphics setting what is this crap DX they need to fix this bug.
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
yeah i ran it on medium before....it looks like a completely different game xD

during one cutscene, cassandra's hair shone so bright it left an trail of afterimages in my eyes.  X_x

also, did u try individually turning off stuff and seeing if it crashes?  it might be silly stuff like AA or lighting or vegetation density xD
KevinSnowpaw
9 years, 4 months ago
yeah XD i jhave not messed with the AA yet might be wirth a try if current fixes fail
Killereye
9 years, 4 months ago
"during one cutscene, Cassandra's hair shone so bright it left an trail of afterimages in my eyes.  X_x"

And that was the moment, when they left a subliminal message in your brain. They hid some "Buy more of our games!* text in the über-shining hair, and burnt it in your eyes for long seconds...Congratulations! You are brainwashed now! Scary thought, eh? :I
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
oh, whatever are you talking abou-Must.Buy.EA.Games.Must.Buy.EA.Games.-t?  Gosh i swear you are so paranoid.  hm..weird...i suddenly have an urge to buy some EA games....
Killereye
9 years, 4 months ago
Exactly. I do the same: Planting the word "OBEY!" into a bright flash, and then anyone who saw it will slowly convert under my will. >:3
Killereye
9 years, 4 months ago
First, the controls.  Seriously...no click to move?  I'm wasding like driving a slow clunky arcade car.

When I was playing with World of Warcraft:WotLK back then, I loved Click to Move to fly around shorter distances, like a Silent Winged Death, I was searching for Alliance players to kill...My boyfriend never used CtM only WASD. When I was doing event runs for Him or just did a daily dungeon, I was always forced to turn on CtM option, because I don't like WASD moving for an hour long, when I can manage WASD-ing for 20 minutes. I feel your pain. Option to turn Click to Move on/off is a must!!!

Fourth, tactical controls.  I fight against the control the entire game.  Trying to pan around head to click forward for my characters is a chore.  I end up using the wasd keys to pan around but, sometimes, the cursor falls off the usual pathing, and i cant move the cursor back up an elevation, as if the cursor ITSELF is an invisible character.  It can't go past obstacles or up cliffs or anything.  So I had to manually reset the cursor by pressing character Function keys to snap back to them.  

The cursor camera also is a problem. If you happen to go under an arc or under a bridge, the camera just flies toward the ground, disorienting you.  Again, the tactical camera shouldn't even be affected by the obstacles.  This makes moving around a pain in the ass.

The first boss fight took an dragon age and forever to finish, because I was fighting against the controls at the same time.  In tactical mode, you can't click on the crystal thingy to interrupt it.  You gotta get out of tactical mode, move the camera up to see the crystal, click on it, then go back into tactical if u want to control your team again.  

The first Baldur's Gate game un-paused it'self from tactical phase to real time, if you went into the inventory screen. This was realistic, while switching your sword for a mace that is in you bag do takes time...but in BG2 and following addons and the up-following IceWind Dale series did that not: you were free to organize your stuff, and were not un-paused. You were not fighting, just looking into your bag, if per say you do have some silver or magical weapons against werewolves. You did not actually fought in that time, just browsed your inventory...BG1 not allowed this, and was more realistic, but it was lame. the following games, that were BETTER then the original, had this little reality-check repaired. I know it's not wery realistic, but I can't keep 6 characters belongings in my head...while the CPU utilizes it's full knowledge to beat my party...So staying paused while in the inventory screen was a good innovation, and does not affected battle outcome, just helped you adapt to situations more comfortably.

Having to unpause the game for a click's sake is stupid! I feel your pain again.


Fifth, a minor thing, but still....LOOTING.  You can't loot anything unless you're close to the object.  Like....3 feet away.  Why?  No reason at all.  

NOW to that I can give a valid answer: You can enjoy your victory and your new loot at the same time: Since you need to be up-close to hump the still-warm bodies of your slain enemies, and can easily search for their goodies at the same time!  XD
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
as for the pausing/unpausing, you can pause anytime you want, which is nice.  at least i get that.

and i have to say NO to your looting response >_>;;;
Killereye
9 years, 4 months ago
and i have to say NO to your looting response >_>;;;

Don't be a pussy! XD
Killereye
9 years, 4 months ago
Also, the "paused game stays paused on the inventory screen" option worked so well, in BG2 and IWD, that the latest releases of BG1 and even the Enchanted version has it! It makes the game enjoyable, it's a nice feature, and dare I say, an innovation MUST so you can enjoy that type of games! I was glad, to be able to play BG1 with the improved game feature of BG2! This is how you program your games! Making changes, that makes the game more manageable, thus more enjoyable!
I can mention another game, that pauses while you browse your inventory: Metal Gear Solid...and it is a must! It works so well with it. Without that option, the reloads would be much frequent!
PandaMouse
9 years, 4 months ago
Get your money back! VvV
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
naw.  i still want to play this game. so ill wait until they make it better.  :)
PandaMouse
9 years, 4 months ago
Ok! But you infor a long wait! Just like Sonic fans waiting fo a great Sonic game!

But your game will come way befor there's ! :D
Yusufa
9 years, 4 months ago
get a controller/console, its all the rage!!!

on a serious note i have lost faith in bioware, not because of the company themselves but because of EA. They seem to be pushing the releases of these games to hard causing sub par gameplay. ME3 obviously needed another year of dev, it was clear as day between the lack of content and the patched together ending.
dragon age 2 is also what killed that series for me for many reasons. which saddens me cause i played though origins so many times, me 1 and 2 i played though wayyyyyyy to many times. but once ea got their slimy claws on them its all slipped though the cracks
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
its too bad that Bioware needs a publisher.  probably cant get away from EA even if they wanted now :P

I don't even know who to blame.  Not that it matters if I blame something or not.  It just frustrating to buy something that is clearly not done.  At least we know that the game is gonna get patched over and over and over....

Also, i just learned that DA:I includes a DRM called Denuvo.  It is also included in games like Lord of the Fallen and Fifa 15.  Theres a post by a russian hacker that claims to use a SSD monitoring program and shows in a screenshot that Denuvo encrypts and decrypts game data very fast.

from the russian forum: "The game's read\write operations per 40 minutes resulted in 30 GB of data processed. The number of operations done is insane. SSD's wear level hasn't changed though, however, the load is EXTREMELY high, so after, say, 100 hours of gameplay memory blocks will definitely start to wear down."

screenshot: i9.pixs.ru/storage/5/1/2/855315e479_7456270_14771512.png

i dunno if its true, or someone wanted to ruin the rep of the DRM, or both.  I'm definitely not qualified to confirm this or test this to any degree.  But if you install your DA:I or Lords of the Fallen or Fifa 15 on a SSD, it MIGHT kill your SSD in a year or so.  

Again, I dont know if its true or not.  I also read a post of a user asking EA support about this, and of course, EA support denies it.  Believe what you wish.  :P

People also said that if this was true, won't installing this to a non-SSD HD fix the problem, since regular hard drives are more durable?  Also you would probably hear it in the background going nuts.  But nope, no reports of regular hard drives reading like crazy during these games.  So again...these claims are leaning toward false >_>;
canjear
9 years, 4 months ago
I've been reading claims from both sides. That it does read and write tons of data, enough to impact performance of the game and wear down a SSD, and claims to the contrary saying that it doesn't do that and it's a pretty tame DRM.

Unfortunately, while I'm sure they'll continue patching, it does typically take EA a long time to get a game to acceptable standards. If it really is the DRM causing it, don't expect it to be patched out for a year. In the case of the new Sim City, it was an always online game and plagued with connection errors upon connection errors. Everyone saw this coming and people complained about it months before the game even released. Then a year later, they finally patch in an offline mode with the comment "You asked, we listened". More like "You asked, we ignored you for a year".
Yusufa
9 years, 4 months ago
i havent played these games but i can say that LotR: shadows of morodor is a processor hog. I run it for about 2 hours and i can HEAR my computer working hard, nothing else runs it that hard(typical games i play dark souls 2, payday 2, FF14arr, LoL, Dota 2)
its a same new games these days either are sub par or played with issues like bugs or difficulties for us PC gamers
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
that sounds horrid :|  
Yusufa
9 years, 4 months ago
youd think they would have had the money to choose a better publisher, they had several hit games before they became a part of EA in '07 though it was in 2010 that they merged bioware with mythic entertainment(which is after the released of ME2)
after that they had ME3, DA2, and SWTOR. none of which live up to biowares history of bladur's gate 1&2, neverwinter nights, me 1&2, dragon age origins, jade empire, SW:KOTOR and MDK 2
such a quality drop cant be just a coincidence can it?
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
bioware is probably locked in contract with them for the next 9432875 years.  :|

i wonder if such a big company like them can just break away, start a kickstarter, and make their games that way.   :o
Yusufa
9 years, 4 months ago
you would think, if i could dig up their contract somehow i know my BF could understand the terms and shit they put in there(hes well on his way to becoming a lawyer) hell if i was rich id try to help them out. Though i think the problem would be the titles licenses. EA probably owns most their titles by now, if not all, like star wars.
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
EA probably owns everything Bioware is by now.  Even if they manage to break free, they'd be "Nameless Company" because they owned their name xD
Yusufa
9 years, 4 months ago
lol yeah, EA is nearly a monopoly at this point with the shear amount of companies and titles they own(hell they own enough of the industry they could make origin) which wouldnt be a bad thing if they knew how to manage such a thing
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
inb4 EA adds more DRM on the DRM on top of the Origins DRM.....
MightBeFurry
9 years, 4 months ago
Thanks for the Buyer Beware writeup, FN.. sheesh what a mess
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
i hear from most people that the console version is way better to control.  you can also plug in a controller for you pc and it'll be smoother, but still....kinda defeats the point of using a pc version with mouse and keyboard and not being able to use mouse and keyboard efficiently.  >_>;

once they patch it, im sure it'll be pretty good :D
PrysmTKitsune
9 years, 4 months ago
the game was originally developed for console, the pc version is a port and they did the best they could with the time constraints they were given honestly, this is why the game runs as it does on the pc, if you want to control it easier plug a controller in and switch it to game-pad mode as this is how the game was designed to be played...this is also why the tactile mode is so finicky to control, it was made to be controlled with thumb-sticks
over time some of the issues will be dealt with, the frame-rate thing is not actually due to the port though if i recall correctly i heard it mentioned that it was a 'duct-tape' type fix for a lip syncing bug they had with the pc version, reducing the frame rate during cut scenes prevented the sound and animation from coming unsynced
furnut5158
9 years, 4 months ago
yep....im blaming EA for rushing this game out.  its $$$ first, then patch up holes later.  :|
PrysmTKitsune
9 years, 4 months ago
par for the corse with good old Electronic Assholes
whatdya mean more time fuck that get that out so we can start hypeing next years maden game!
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