re: Official Dragon Age: Inquisition Nonstop Fapathon

Yeah you can really do whatever seems most fun/coolest. No grinding required at all. The leveling curve is well done imo.

That bulldog dude was probably grinding hinterlands requisitions over and over instead of exploring storm coast or fallow mire

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I usually focus on one and when I have it most of the way done I open up another one. They seem to give you a reason to go back anyways.

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Same.

I've gone through Hinterlands, Storm Coast, Fallow Mire, Forbidden Oasis, and am now working on Exalted Plains.

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How much this feels like grinding to you depends on what you're trying to get accomplished, but the grind is certainly there.

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All games in this genre have an element of grinding.

Witcher, Dragon Age, Dragon's Dogma, Skyrim, Mass Effect, etc., all have an element of grinding.

It is just an element of those games.

They aren't for everyone. You live and learn.

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Witcher, Dragon Age, Dragon's Dogma, Skyrim, Mass Effect, etc., all have an element of grinding.

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I've never played Dragons Dogma. I've played the Witcher 1 and 2, but not enough to really comment. As for Mass Effect, the three Mass Effect games combined are probably my favorite all time gaming experience, and never once was I in a situation where I had to do x number of side missions before I could unlock the next chapter of the main quest.

I played through the main story, stopping long enough to do the quests I thought were interesting. In Mass Effect 3, I did practically everything because I never wanted the game to end, but never once did I feel forced into doing them to progress through the main story and never once the game make me feel like the side activities were more substantial than the content for the main questline.

I understand that games like Skyrim and Oblivion are actually pretty darn short if you play through the nothing but the main questline, but most people probably aren't playing a Bethesda RPG for the same reason they're playing a BioWare RPG. Bethesda games are critically acclaimed for their massive immersive gameworlds, but even there, you just kinda do things as you come across them and nothing feels forced upon you such as you must do some combination of x y or z before you are a high enough level or before you have enough of some made up resource to complete the next story objective.

I feel like given the criticism of Dragon Age 2, BioWare went too far in the other direction with Inquisition, and they're just not as good at creating an open world RPG as Bethesda. I would've preferred a smaller, more narrative-focused experience as in KOTOR and the original Dragon Age or even Dragon Age 2 as long as it had more than the same 5 areas recycled for 30 hours.

It's still game of the year, but it's just not grabbing me because so much of my time is still spent doing ancillary activities. I don't feel like I'm making any progress in the game at all when hours of my playtime is devoted to scouring maps, looting items and closing fade rifts.

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and they're just not as good at creating an open world RPG as Bethesda. I would've preferred a smaller, more narrative-focused experience as in KOTOR and the original Dragon Age or even Dragon Age 2 as long as it had more than the same 5 areas recycled for 30 hours.

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Sorry, the open world part of Inquisition blows Skyrim away. Skyrim recycles so much in the open world part that it gets pretty boring after a while. Now Skyrim's crafting is much better than DA:I, I will say that.

I'm not sure how you are feeling particularly forced to do anything, I suppose the Power requirements could sort of be considered that way, but you could mostly bounce from one main quest part to the next. I have craploads of power and I've barely scratched the surface of anything and mainly have been doing NPC side quests and lately.

I do agree with you about the comparisons to origins though, I would have preferred more of them sliding towards Origins style, particularly in combat and tactics. The combat and strategy in DA:I is extremely weak compared to DA Origins.

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I have craploads of power and I've barely scratched the surface of anything and mainly have been doing NPC side quests and lately.

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I have over 100.

Power is easy to get.

The combat is less complex than Origins, but it is still pretty fun. I play the support role with my Mage. Keeps me attached to the combat.

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The civil war wastelands in exalted plains tell a tale on their own

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frick that zone. Hate it. I hate the swarms of zombie corpses that are no real threat, but are tedious to kill in bunches of 25. And there's one shard that I can't figure out for the life of me how to get. One thing I really resent about DA: I is the inclusion of a jumping mechanic. Now platform-y type quests like fetch 22 shards become viable and I have to run around stupid mountain sides trying to figure out where I can run/jump up it to access the point that will allow me to drop down to grab the shard.

It feels like fricking Mass Effect 1 and the Mako farming resources on every planet.

But that's not a huge gripe, just an annoyance.

The grindyness depends on how eager you are to play the game, I was so completely excited to play this game that I hit every quest in every area without a second thought. My second playthrough, as soon as I hit the hinterlands, it was kind of daunting looking at how much shite there is to do

Yeah I noticed that as well

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Not sure if I have it in me to do that quest. That's a lot of damn books and pretty tedious.

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Well, I found some areas I had never been to. I didn't realize I had a dungeon until I did the quest.

It doesn't need to be tedious, if you just grab a few here and there. They spawn all over the place. Usually in groups of 3 but there are also singles.

It is barely a mission. One of the lesser mages in the library tosses that quest at you if you talk to him a few times.