Dragon Age: Inquisition has easily become one of the year's biggest surprises, primarily because it both works at launch and (by pretty much all accounts) is quite good, and it seems likely that the latest entry in Bioware's vaunted Dragon Age franchise is likely to draw in a few new fans on the PS4 and Xbox One.
In fact, I was one of the many souls that decided to dive into the series with Inquisition; despite knowing that the Dragon Age franchise is incredibly lore-heavy and without any meaningful knowledge about the series. And, as someone convinced that I'll eventually have time to go back and play all the older games that I've missed, I didn't want to read a bunch of spoilers for Dragon Age and/or Dragon Age II.
Thankfully, I found a game waiting for me that was both inviting and incredibly easy to understand. But Dragon Age: Inquisition is also an incredibly complex beast; one that can take many, many hours to come to grips with and understand from top to bottom. In some cases, that learning curve could be seen as a vital part of the Dragon Age: Inquisition experience, but I thought I'd round up a few tips for fellow Dragon Age beginners looking to get the most out of Inquisition.
1. Mash Your Search Button
I'm generally not a fan of declarative statements. There aren't many easier ways to guarantee the inaccuracy of your own statement than to drop an "always" or "never" on top of your latest word salad.
That said, it is impossible for a human being to spot every single lootable or collectable item scattered throughout the two kingdoms you'll explore over the course of the Inquisition campaign. Yes, that's partially the result of the actual need to use Search to locate certain hidden items. But I also say that because there is a truly unbelievable amount of content waiting to be found.
Fortunately Dragon Age: Inquisition's Search command -- an apt replacement for the Search Area ability found in most pen-and-paper RPGs -- makes it easy to determine whether or not you've found all the goodies in a given area. Best of all, there's no limit on how many times you choose to search a given area, giving players the freedom to explore and interact with the world around them.
Personally, I run a small lap around damn near every room I enter, hoping to find a few goodies that'll help me on my journey, and am almost always rewarded with at a new codex and/or a few extra experience points for my trouble. It also doubles as a great excuse to spend more time in the world of Dragon Age: Inquisition, which might be the most-beautiful game environment I've ever encountered.
2. War Cry Is Your Best Friend
In a game as massive as Inquisition, there are generally numerous ways to approach and overcome any situation put before the player. But, when it comes to combat, I've yet to find anything more effective than properly-equipped Warriors and the War Cry ability.
I've always preferred to play melee characters in fantasy games. I'm well aware of how useful ranged classes can be, and tend to make ample use of them in games where I'm given a party of supporting characters. But I prefer to have a tank under my control and I've yet to find any skill more effective at keeping both myself and my teammates alive than War Cry.
Not only does the ability taunt all enemies within range -- a respectable perimeter that can be expanded with other equipment --but those who successfully taunt more than one enemy will be rewarded with a full Guard meter. Best of all, you can pair War Cry with Challenge to make sure that even your ranged opponents stay focused on the tank(s) and the ability's 15-second cooldown is short enough to make it relatively easy for one or two tanks to maintain aggro throughout most fights.
Which brings me to my next tip...
3. Guard > Potions
The lack of mid-combat healing options in Dragon Age can be a bit confusing and/or off-putting to newcomers. But I'd wager a fair bit of that confusion/frustration results from the fact that Dragon Age: Inquisition doesn't do a great job of explaining the various systems that have been introduced in place of what we typically expect from an RPG.
Each character's Guard and Barrier meters function (more-or-less) as secondary and tertiary health meters. Both can be active on a single character, and maintained with a variety of abilities, but each come with their own caps and restrictions. Barriers eventually deplete, even if the character(s) being protected haven't taken any damage, and Guard is usually only generated for/by melee characters.
Those hoping to take down Dragon Age: Inquisition's toughest challenges -- specifically, the various dragons that reside in Orlais and Fereldan -- will need to know how to keep their party alive and healthy for several minutes at a time. In some situations, that might even mean bringing multiple tanks into battle, and timing your abilities to ensure enemies remain focused on your most-protected fighters.
Obviously, proper potion management also becomes a factor in longer engagements; however, I'd recommend getting comfortable getting through most encounters without needing to use healing items.
4. Inventories Are Best Managed At Home
I played Dragon Age: Inquisition for about 20-25 hours before I realized how difficult I'd made the inventory management process. For the bulk of my first three days with the game, I'd struggled with a lack of space for new loot, an inability to remember which item(s) I was saving for which character(s) and a general feeling that the person(s) at Bioware responsible for the game's inventory management system hated the Dragon Age community.
The problem is that I wasn't paying attention enough attention to how the game changed when back at my base of operation. As it turns out, anytime you don't have an official party, you can look at the inventory of any character you've already recruited to your cause. And I haven't run out of space in my inventory since coming that realization.
Having access to all of your party members makes it much easier to rotate gear, sending hand-me-down items to your lesser-used characters as you find new loot for your primary squad, and eliminates the need to remember what you are/aren't saving for a given member of the Dragon Age: Inquisition cast.
Managing your inventory at home also gives Inquisition players an opportunity to hand in any new creature research materials that you've collected and/or sell whatever valuables you found on your latest adventure. Basically, you can clear out most of the space in your inventory and make room for a new round of treasures when you head back out into the rest of Thedas.
5. Leave The Hinterlands....Eventually
If you've spent any time with Inquisition, or read about the game online, then I'm probably not the first person to tell you this. But I might be the first one who says there's not really any need to rush your exit from the game's starting zone. In fact, dealing with the minutiae of Inquisition's starter zone can offer some real advantages for newcomers to the Dragon Age franchise.
I'd spent about a dozen hours in the Hinterlands before bothering to leave the zone for the first time, and I only completed a single story mission before returning to the various tasks that the starter zone's inhabitants continue to offer me. I think it was around the Hour 20 mark before I left again and finally started spending more time outside of the Hinterlands than in.
And there's still a few hours' worth of content waiting for me if/when I decide to return.
I continue to be blown away by the vast majority of the environments I've encountered in Dragon Age: Inquisition and would happily argue that the game's least-interesting environments still look better than most other games that hit retail this year. But I fail to understand why so many writers seem to demand that you leave the Hinterlands on their pace instead of your own.
There's plenty to look forward to outside of Inquisition's starting area, but I feel pretty confident saying that all of that amazing stuff isn't going anywhere. Just take your time and explore the farthest reaches of Thedas when you're ready.
6. Revisit People You've Already Helped
In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I'll let you discover those reasons for yourself, but suffice it to say I was incredibly pleased to see Bioware include content that rewards Inquisition players for revisiting the people and places they've assisted during their journey.
As an example, one of my quests in the Hinterlands called for me to act as the go-between for estranged members of a family who needed to communicate with one another but couldn't bring themselves to break the silence. Several hours after intervening in the situation, I happened to find myself in the vicinity of one of the family members from the quest and decided to strike up a conversation.
To my surprise, not only was I given an update on the situation I'd originally helped to correct, the ensuing conversation ultimately saw me convince the estranged family to begin patching up its wounds. And this level of detail is present at just about every level of the Dragon Age experience, complete with the sort of excellent voice-over work that makes it easy to remain personally invested in each Dragon Age: Inquisition character's individual story.
While it's certainly tempting to focus on the future, by avoiding the places you've already visited during your time with Dragon Age: Inquisition, don't forget to take a few moments and reflect on the various things you've already done on your current play through. Every once in a while, you'll even be rewarded with useful information and/or new loot for your party.
7. Crafted Gear Is Often Best
It's also worth mentioning that crafted gear almost always has a couple of upgrade slots and Inquisition players will find that it becomes pretty easy to put together formidable equipment once your list of known schematics begins to grow. Especially if you're lucky enough to find a couple of Masterwork armor/weapon plans along the way.
It's a nice departure for those who've grown tired of seeing the crafting mechanics in other role playing games made obsolete by the fact that player-made equipment almost always offered substantially lower statistics than the equipment you'd pull off fallen bosses and others NPCs. Even universally-praised games like World of Warcraft and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim have struggled on that front.
I'm pleased to report crafting feels rewarding throughout the Dragon Age: Inquisition campaign, in many cases offering inarguably better equipment for your party, and gives players plenty of incentive to stop and check fallen enemies for crafting supplies. In fact, while I've replaced my fair share of crafted equipment with loot from my latest boss kill, there have been just as many occasions where equipment I made replaced unique armor and weaponry from my biggest battles.
Similarly, the potion mixing and upgrading systems present in Inquisition both justify the abundance of pickable herbs throughout Thedas and the time needed to gather whatever flora you need to complete a given quest or recipe. It might seem tedious at times, but I absolutely recommend stopping to pick the vast majority of the herbs you spot while playing Dragon Age: Inquisition.
TLDR: Stop and grab all the crafting materials you encounter in Dragon Age: Inquisition and use them to build all sorts of new and useful goodies for each member of your party.
8. Character Builds Should Be Drastically Different
Those who've already spent a few hours with Dragon Age: Inquisition already know that several of the people who can be recruited to your party have the same job title (Mage, Rogue or Warrior). What not everyone realizes is that there's a very specific reason that Bioware is loading you up with multiples of each class.
Games like Dragon Age frequently throw players into combat encounters that require very little actual thought or planning. Random Templar patrols or the occasional fight against a bear don't really require much more than careful placement of your squishiest party members. But you will occasionally find yourself fighting someone(s) that demands a very specific approach to be bested, and those fights can be a real headache if you don't have some diversity among your melee and ranged characters.
Make sure you aren't using the same builds for all of your mages/rogues/warriors if you don't want to find yourself digging through older save files or forking over thousands of gold for respec amulets. Teach characters a few of the talents in their respective specialization trees, try to avoid doubling-down on most abilities and make sure your mages don't all specialize in the same school of magic.
For example, at least one of your warriors should be proficient with two-handed weapons and at least one should be specced to pair a shield with your one-handed weapon(s) of choice. I say "at least one" because you could wind up with more than two of whatever class you ultimately chose for your Inquisitor.
You may never end up using some of the characters as a result but many would agree that the opportunity to change things up on a second run is part of what makes a game like Dragon Age: Inquisition so great in the first place. More importantly, you don't want to find yourself in a situation where you need a specific type of character, but have already spent all your gold and skill points on other builds.
9. Read Everything
If you're playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, chances are you don't actually need to be told to dig into the lore behind the game or to read the various books, scrolls, plaques and other items strewn about the various buildings and zones you'll explore. That said, on the off chance that you've been skipping some/all of that content, I'm here to try and convince you to stop and smell the metaphorical roses.
Not only do the various unlockable codex entries in Dragon Age: Inquisition flesh out a game world that many will likely be experiencing for the first time, new players should know that the game's collectable lore bits also give your character bit of experience towards his/her next level. While the 75 points awarded for most items doesn't seem like much at later levels, and won't offset Inquisition players' need to fight a variety of enemies, the extra points begin to add up as you uncover the thousands of codex entries waiting to be discovered.
Who knows...you might even find the next seeming evidence that the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises are set in the same universe.
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Want to share your own Dragon Age: Inquisition tip(s) with the community?
Head down to the comments section and let us know what you technique(s) you've found most-helpful during your time with Dragon Age: Inquisition!
Do try to avoid both major and minor spoilers, though. After all, nobody likes a great game ruined for them. So let's make sure that everyone feels comfortable using the entire page as a viable source of new information on what could very well be the best game of 2014.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some dragons to hunt.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for additional Dragon Age: Inquisition coverage, including our eventual review of the amazing new RPG, for however long Bioware continues to produce and release new Dragon Age: Inquisition content in the months ahead.
What tips do you have for those new to the Dragon Age franchise? Want to swap thoughts on a particular character build or combat approach? Having trouble with a specific aspect of the Dragon Age: Inquisition campaign?
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