Annoyance Removal Mod + Gameplay Improvement Ideas

[Alte77]

So... I think the general consensus agrees that Dragon Age: Inquisition is a pretty cool game... unless you consider that half of the 130+ hours you sunk into it was spent collecting Elfroot. The idea behind the following ideas is that you, as the Inquisitor, have better things to do (as you, as a person, also have better things to do). You also have a little army at your disposal, including people that would do all the resource-collection in your stead. Why not let them?

 

THIS LIST IS INCOMPLETE. LEAVE YOUR SUGGESTIONS AND I'LL ADD THEM IF I THINK THEY'RE GOOD IDEAS.

 

Such ideas will be coloured in PALE YELLOW.

 

Annoyance Be Gone

• Herb and Ore collection should happen without animation, or should be automatically collected the second you detect then with the area scan. This would also make the X Perk that inceases your scan range actually useful. One idea would be to make auto-collection only happen when a camp is nearby. Establishing all camps makes this global for the current region.

• Shards should be collected the second you detect them through the Oculum. Let your underlings collect those for you. Same rule as suggested for the herbs/ores applies for range of collecting shards.

• You should mount your horse immediately the second you summon it.

• Horses for party members so as to not lose party interaction.

• Your horse should be 2.5 to 3 times faster.

• Increase jump height.

• Fix the tactical camera so that it doesn't bump into terrain obstacles.

• Fast travel node in Undercroft and one right outside Cullen's office.

• WAR ROOM MENU THAT YOU CAN ACCESS WHENEVER, WHEREVER. *shakes hips*

• Massive UI overhaul to cure the game's bad case of consolitis.*

• Requisitions. Just... no.

• Fix extra potions/grenades bonus from belts going missing when moving from one region to another. (I believe that was fixed in the latest patch)

• Inquisitor can close rifts, but can't swim? Enable Swimming.

• Remove Deft Hand perk requirement. That's just plain annoying early game limitation.

• Prevent NPC movement during conversations. Also prevent them from initiating casual conversation when you happen to wander in their vicinity.

 

Gameplay Enhancer

These are ideas that I believe would make consequent playthroughs more fun.

• A flying mount.

• Crafting overhaul.**

• Return to Origin's AI system.

• Increased range on tactical camera. Increased spell cast range as well.

• Smartphone/Tablet app for the War Room menu that you can access outside of the game. For the sake of balance, should probably only be usable if you're connected to the Bioware server in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Credits to TotalBiscuit for the idea. (I know this one is not going to happen, but it's a fun idea)

• The ability for the inquisitor to interact with locked doors, smashable walls and energise prompts. Mages can magically unlock doors and blast down walls, and warriors can bash locks. Rogues should be able to kick down walls just like warriors. Warriors and Rogues use hand mark to energise.

• Better f***ing merchandise, like holy f***ing s***.

• No more class restriction on armours. (There's a mod for that already, I know)

• 'Hide Helmet' feature per character instead of party-wide. I mean, Vivienne's crazy hats work well with her getup, but that cauldron on Cassandra's head needs to go.

• Better War Table: add sub-menus on the side for recurring missions like herb collection, or a radial menu that appears when clicking on a particular area with related recurring mission. (I will do a mock-up if I have the time to better illustrate my point, but don't hold your breath). Either that, or just make the icons on the War Table different to differentiate.

• Unlock all cosmetic upgrades for Skyhold, and maybe make them look like they make a visual difference? The vanilla ones are barely noticeable. Add more features to upgrade as well - all those quarries and lumber mills collected seem to serve no other purpose than to give you pathetic 'upgrade' choices for Skyhold. By the end-game, I still had a gaping hold in the wall above the stables. Instead, the game thought preferable to build a ring for people to fight in.

• Clothing change in Skyhold. Away with those ridiculous pajamas.

• Remove randomness from acquiring specialisation. Just unlock them all when the War Room quest is completed and then make choice.

• Enable manual stat leveling so that, for example, Mages don't have to waste points in Strength or some such nonsense.

• No more popups - we know how to play the game already + can always go in the options menu to see the key bindings.

• Walk/run toggling. (Was this added recently? I read somewhere it was patched in?)

 

*UI Overhaul

• More than 8 skill slots. Consoles, smh.

• Remove cycling through party members in the inventory/skill screen. Just have all their icons visible in a corner so you just have to click on them to view.

• Smaller icons, longer lists. Make inventory grid-based if possible.

• Skill tooltips in the UI. Like, seriously.

 

**Crafting Overhaul

• Armour/weapon model should be irrelevant when it comes to ingredients.

• Add dyes to the game. Basing the colour of your armour on ingredient is bound to create some ugly s***, unless you want to be matching with Josephine's gloriously golden regalia.

 

 

MAGE SKILL OVERHAUL

• DIS

Edited January 25, 2015 by spellbound7

[alexmac1000]

Bit of an out-of-character, but no class restrictions on the environmental effects such as "Bash", "Energize" and lockpicking etc. I want to run around with a full group of mages but I can't if everytime I find a locked door I have to change the group around!

[TheLonePhantom]

Are modders working on this list or is it just a list?

[Thandal]

@TheLonePhantom; As the Forum title would imply, it's just a place where people can post requests for the various mods they would like to see.

[zalunaya]

Agree on most of these, especially animation removal (+ for looting in general). Got to the point I just stopped checking most enemies.

[Striklikl]

When idle long enough, party members look around/collect lootables and crafting materials/sit down/take lookout positions.(I doubt Sera would stand like a soldier at attention behind you for 7 minutes straight while you finish your spaghetti in real life)

 

We are better tahn monty python witches, a tiny little lake doesn't make us sink like a boulder. Let us swim through inland waters!

 

Is it just me or is there no more meter that tells you what your affection level is with your teammates like the last 2 games? Not saying it's essential, just odd that it's suddenly gone.

 

Different icons than the exclamation on the top of the wartable for resource gathering missions as opposed to companion missions/upgrade missions/story missions, that kinda thing

 

Better looking lore/notes window, rather than the base red bordered black window, have actual parchment for immersion sake?

[theskymoves]

Is it just me or is there no more meter that tells you what your affection level is with your teammates like the last 2 games? Not saying it's essential, just odd that it's suddenly gone.

 

It's not just you. There is no visible tracking of companion approval.

[jorgejekyll]

Less animations os scenario, less view distance, less effects!

[setiweb]

I'd be happy with getting rid of the need to sonar spam (except for hidden objects) and just have things auto-highlight.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Auto-collection of resources upon detection sounds like a winner to me. Better yet- after the Inquisition controls an area by establishing all possible camps, all of the discovered resources in the area are automatically collected upon completion of the camp quest.

 

Likewise with the shards- once detected, they'd be collected after all the camps are established.

 

Agreed and facepalmed on the 8-item quickbar. "We wanted to leave it at 8 because 32 abilities across the party is enough/more 'tactical'/insert handwave justification here." Reeeeally, Bioware? I suppose it's just a coincidence that 8 is the maximum number of inputs on a D-pad? Stop watering down features for consoles! All of them support USB now; just make the silly buggers buy a damn keyboard!

 

 

More suggestions:

 

Get rid of the potion limit. What a silly restriction... they decide to toss both potions as stackable inventory items *and* every single useful healing spell? If I can't have my spirit healers back, at least let me have as many potions as I can carry for those times when I don't feel like building an entire party out of tanks. They put so many great boss battles in this game, but it feels like the only effective way to fight any of them is to stack warriors and that issue can be traced directly back to the absolute gutting of healing and support abilities. Potions are all we've got left, and even those are way too scarce.

 

Unlock all Skyhold cosmetic options. The game is long enough. Adding in the time needed to dig through every corner of Thedas for window dressing and fancy chairs that have no gameplay effect is unnecessary and tedious. Either that or make them all be available in the places that make the most sense- ie Dalish themed items available from the Dalish camp, etc. I'd settle for just flagging them all as unlocked and not having to hunt for them at all, because otherwise I'm never going to bother with that stuff again and it'll all just be wasted content.

 

Unlock armor/clothing restrictions in Skyhold. C'mon, Bioware... really? I have to hold court in pyjamas instead of the super-slick dress uniform? There are already some fine retextures, but the whole "nope, you can't wear what you want to in your own castle" bit is irritating.

 

Reduce the element of randomness in aquiring components for specialization unlocks. I got my first two books for Rift Mage within half an hour of each other, then didn't see the required third until five hours short of the end of an eighty hour playthrough- about a full day of playtime later than the first two. There's something wrong with that. Either the drop chance of the quest items needs to be increased, or the guys who are carrying the things need to be flagged.

 

Magic. Dear Creators, Maker, and Old Gods, BUFF MAGIC. ALL OF IT. I feel like I'm flinging spitwads compared to the last two games! "Blah blah mages blah blah powerful blah blah destroy the world." As a level 30ish Inquisitor who can't manage a single mob of mooks with my best spells, I'm just not seeing what the fuss is about. Mages used to be the very first targets I went after because they were dangerous. Even the lowliest one in DAO could party wipe your sorry behind if not dealt with before they pulled out the chain lightning and fireballs. Although they were nerfed significantly in DA2 I still have some fond memories of stacking five or six AOEs on each other and absolutely murdering those ridiculous waves of mook spawns at night. Now I can't even cast a flipping heal spell! Most of my offensive magic can't even manage to knock half the health bar off a mook that's below my level- meanwhile my mage inquisitor is as squishy as mages have ever been (DAO's incredibly broken Arcane Warrior tree excepted) and dies in two or three hits from enemy power attacks. Gimme back my walking weapons of mass destruction! Show me why people are so afraid of Apostates and Abominations- I feel like I'm performing parlor tricks instead of wielding forces of nature!

 

Things I thought of just now when I started my second playthrough:

 

Eliminate stat autoleveling. Whose brilliant idea was this nonsense? I don't think I really need to explain this one. Screw that noise; I want to put my points where I want them. Maybe with a few more points in magic, my mages won't be such useless goobers.

 

Bloody. Frakking. Popups. These are never helpful and always annoying. I seem to recall there being a way of getting rid of them when the game first came out... now I can't find it for love or money. I can check the keybinds my own damn self; I do not need or want the game to tell me which button to press every time an action comes up that I have not used on that playthrough! Some of 'em actually lack a close window button, and on top of that disable the bloody game menu until they've timed out and closed themselves. This is not acceptable.

 

Walk/run toggle. The general consensus seems to be that people want to go places as quickly as they can all the time. Frankly, I think those people are silly and the Inquisitor should be horribly tired after jogging everywhere. I've known a few runners, but none of them were quite that hardcore. Another feature that appears to have fallen victim to consolitis... because it's entirely possible to walk when you're using an analog stick and can simply not push it all the way over.

 

Health recovery during noncombat exploration. Bioware really, really doesn't like healing these days. No healing spells, hard (and low) cap on healing potions... and no regen when not in combat? Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Does anybody think this was a good direction for them to go in? Really? Since the only way to heal up without consuming my itty bitty potion supply is to fast travel, and since the potion resupply chests are generally found only in camps and larger dungeons, I find myself warping around a lot more than I otherwise would. That means I see loading screens more. Which takes me out of the game and breaks immersion. Which is a bad thing, just to make that perfectly clear. A secondary consequence of all that warping around is that I hardly ever use the mounts I collect, because at that point it would be an inconvenience to mount up and ride all of fifty yards to my destination. I'm not using one feature because another seemingly unrelated feature wasn't included. Just to reiterate, this is a bad thing. It could be solved easily by either adding back in passive health regen out of combat, or by giving me a frakking heal spell.

 

Disable NPC movement while in conversations. I want to tear my hair out every time I'm forced to follow some damn fool around because if I let them get too far away they'll exit the conversation.

 

Remove NPC ability to start 'casual' conversations. Related to the above. The little buggers walk up to you and start talking, then run off and leave the convo before they've had their say... or they start talking while I'm busy with something else and I accidentally leave before I know what they're on about.

Edited January 25, 2015 by Wrath_Of_Deadguy01