Anyone playing Inquisitor?

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Is anyone around here playing or planning to play Inquisitor?

This just came to my attention recently. It's been out in Czech for a few years, but was just recently released in English after some 3 years of translating effort. The translations are supposedly very well done.

At any rate, I'm wondering if anyone is playing that would want to share some feedback on this so-called Baldur's Gate clone. The slow movement speeds alone give me pause, as I just don't have a ton of time on my hands.

 

The movment speed is slow with my priest and I have no clue how to learn spells from scrolls as right clicking a scroll brings up an info box but there is no learn button or anything. So I am a priest without any type of spell and it sucks. So I honestly do not know if I will ocntinue trying to play this or not. At least the shops reload their inventory when you exit and renter them but it sucks when you need to compare the equipment in the shop to what you are wearing as there is zero way to do that from within the shop window. So rentering after checking your stats means you have a completely different set of shop items. Sucks when you saw a decent weapon in the shop before and wanted to compare it to what you have. So yeah its confusing and there are some limitations that are annoying and some features missing.

 

I appreciate the feedback Topken.

The first let's play is already up. I don't typically love this guy's style, but I found the first video to be rather informative. He shows the differences between the three classes, and even shows how to equip spells in the action bar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJmdHXOUsfU&list=PLcbACK_uiNo71oDw1kEvkYi3NKtbyBz2U&feature=plcp

Anyhow, it looks pretty interesting. I've seen parties as large as 4 in the game trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekCC3OsE1Mg

 

I’m strongly leaning toward putting this game on my list. There aren’t many reviews out there yet, but I’ve found a number of player made videos, the Let’s Play by Gamehorder, and I’ve been peeking at the GOG forums for this game.

On a certain level I’m asking myself, what in the hell is stopping me? This is an old-school CRPG in an “Infinity Engine” style isometric view. Like Torment, it is extremely heavy on story, with plenty of hack and slash mixed in. It seems to be a medieval setting with somewhat light fantasy elements (though magic seems to be readily available to the PC). In a way, this sounds like the sort of game I’ve been waiting years for never to find. It also seems that the slower walking speeds can be mitigated by raising your speed attribute over the course of the game.

The game seems to have its issues, but as I’m reading on some of those, a lot of them trace back to not being familiar with the game interface and options. I guess documentation is light on a fairly dense set of controls. For example, I hear people complaining that followers are drinking potions like they are going out of style, and costing a lot of money for the player. But it turns out that you can tell your followers not to automatically drink potions on their own volition, and directly control this yourself. I’ve also heard that it was not possible to buy potions without clicking several times per potion, but there is a “buy” button that allows you to purchase items with a single click.

I’m currently working on both IWD2 HoF and Planescape Torment, and then there’s BGEE soon to be released. I’ll keep an eye on the reviews and such in the meantime, but think this will likely be a game I eventually pick up. Even if it takes me a year to get through the reported 150+ hours of gameplay, it’s not like there’s much else new on the horizon that interests me CRPG-wise anyway.

I think that a lot of BoM users would do well to check the reviews on this as well, since this game might end up being up your alley. An old school CRPG that isn’t concerned with dumbing it down for the masses – and that actually didn’t get abandoned before it was completed – just doesn’t happen everyday.

Should I pick it up, I’ll be sure to drop some updates in this thread.

 

Frankly, my first reaction to seeing the screenshots and the action was not so much that it looked like BG, but more like Diablo. Although apparently the story is a lot better than Diablo. And you get AI controlled NPCs in a way that reminds me somewhat of NWN.

It looks interesting, though. As long as we're not forced to play as the real inquisition (burning innocent people at the stake), it looks like a game to keep an eye on.

 

Henkie first major quest is to find out about a heretic and to find out if hes innoccent or not and if found guilty which all signs lead to so far would mean burning at the stake and you can accuse other of being heretics as well. SO yeah it would seem that is the way they devs are leaning and the game develpoment started in 2001 but its a recent release ala 2006 for the czech version and even more recently for the english version. That gave them plenty of time to do things like scaleable UI where it would scale with the UI instead of the mess it current has. SO many minor things that add up to making it a tough game to play at times.

 

Thanks for the info Topken.

It's good to hear that you at least have the option to choose different things. I was watching a bit of this let's play that Marceror linked and I noticed that they have a sort of alignment meter there too, going to blue or red. The UI looks like something I could live with, though it would've been nice if they'd made the inventory just one scrollable box instead of dividing it over multiple boxes like in NWN.

The one thing bothering me the most is that the combat kind of reminds me of Diablo, or perhaps more accurately of Sacred. Which I'm not too fond of. Is it a clickfest like those games, or can you turn on AI for your PC like in BG and NWN?

Overall, I'd probably not get it for the 15 bucks it costs over at GoG right now, but for half that price I would be able to over look a lot of lack of polish. And anyway I've got plenty of games that I still want to (re)play at the moment, so I'm not in a hurry to get it anyway.

 

It is one click and it auto attacks and you can use skills and spells as needed.

 

Well, I caved in and purchased this afternoon. I have already downloaded and installed, and have been enjoying learning about the situation in Hillbrandt by talking to the residents.

There seems to be a strong story here, but the translations to English are not as good as I had hoped. My sense is that they were done by strong writers for whom English is their second language. The way they choose to word certain phrases and the like are just a tad awkward. I can tell that it was lovingly done, but it falls a bit short. Still, it's certainly readable, and I think I can deal with it.

I decided to try a cleric, and I'm hoping to be as fair and impartial as an inquisitor as I can possibly be (read: I want to be a "good" guy, as usual).

I finished PST last night, and in the wake of the BGEE delay, this game ought to serve nicely.

 

I have to say that so far I’m finding this to be quite the addictive game. Despite having a fair few flaws, the game has a lot going for it. I like the medieval setting, and how the game world is very similar to our own in many ways. Until a few years ago, this world would have seemed even more like our own, with most folks living hard, mundane lives, striving to make ends meet, and religion being a key factor in peoples’ lives. Then the 3 judgments of god came: 1 year of famine, 1 year of plague, and year 3 brought fires from the heaven, destroying many towns and many lives. Since then, creatures believed to be only from myth and folklore – orcs, trolls, giants, dead rising from the grave, etc. – have become realities. It is believed that humans assisted in bringing about many of these events. As the inquisitor, your role is to sniff out these heretics and make them confess their sins. Your investigation results in you facing off against many of these mythical monsters, presenting opportunities to level up and become a powerful adventurer.

The first hour or two running around Hillbrandt to learn about the goings on was fun. Even though there was a lot of repetitive dialogue (there’s maybe a dozen or so key topics that are on most peoples’ minds), I enjoyed formulating my initial theories around who was being honest and who was hiding secrets. I spoke to basically everyone and asked them everything I could. In this way the game reminds me a bit of Torment, though the writing is nowhere near as good – suffice it to say, it’s a dialogue heavy game.

Once I left Hillbrandt and started exploring some of the more dangerous areas, it became a mixed bag of having fun, and being frustrated. I am playing as a Priest which is the game’s dedicated caster class (though all classes can cast spells), and I think this class has a pretty high learning curve. I also had with me a Paladin of the Order, Hugo Montesque and a faithful Doberman that I befriended named Diabolus. They are my meat shields, and both of them can be met in Hillbrandt very early.

Magic fails a lot early on, as a lot of monsters have natural magic resistance, and it takes a while before your spells consistently work. Many times I considered restarting as a Paladin or Thief, but I carried on (for which I am glad). There is no level scaling here, so you really have to be careful who you tangle with. I ended up spending a lot of time in the two graveyards that are close to Hillbrandt. A number of undead respawn in these locations, so this makes for good, safe early xp gaining, and allows you to get comfortable with the combat interface and controls.

As to the game interface, it really takes some getting used to. It’s particularly important to learn things like G tells your companions to stay put, A tells them to charge the enemy, and pausing requires hitting that somewhat inconveniently located Pause/Break button, among others. Once you get the hang of the controls, things become much easier.

Also, once you start gaining a few levels, combat becomes a lot easier, and fun. Around level 12 I noticed that I was able to hold my own a lot better. Level 15 was a real turning point, as this is where I advanced from apprentice to student in Inquisitorial magic and Divine magic, which are my two primary schools of magic. I noticed around this time that my spells rarely failed, and I could kill a lot of enemies with my Open Wounds spell (my primary attack) before they were even in range. In particular, I could take out groups of spiders from afar, thus avoiding their very powerful and annoying poison effect. AND, this is where I gained the ability to heal myself and my followers, reducing my reliance on health potions.

I’m currently level 19, with Hugo being just slightly behind me in level, and Diabolus being just slightly ahead of me. We have become quite the formidable force.
My advice so far is to choose a few skills and invest heavily in them with your skill points. My primary skills are divine magic, inquisitorial magic and wisdom, though I raised my melee and armor skills enough to be a Disciple in those skills (which means I have a nice variety of arms and armor that I can use, and I can use them rather effectively, so far at least). Also, learn the school of magic that gives you levitation, regardless of your class, as this will be extremely useful when you find a broken bridge, pool of acid, etc. that you need to cross.

My main mistake so far seems to be that I put 4 points into identify, but there is an inquisitorial spell that identifies all items I am carrying. Those 4 points could have better been used elsewhere. That said, so far my other build decisions seem to be sound.
Anyhow, if you can get past the initial learning curve, there’s a rather enjoyable game to be played here. I’m looking forward to advancing the story.

 

Ugh. I tortured my first heretic, using the rack, and I have to say that I was not comfortable with that at all. It certainly didn't help that the graphics for this process were fairly vivid!

The saving grace in this game, in contrast the witch hunts that happened in our world, is that there are actual, bona fide heretics who are consorting with demons and the like. Fortunately, this first one confessed rather quickly. I was so worried that I'd made a mistake!!

Amazing how a game can affect a person's emotions in this way.

 

I know right. I'm the kind of person who doesn't even like to see a person being stuck with a needle. So for me, the rack or strappado are right out!

Burning the heretic at the stake wasn't fun for me either.

My second torture and burning were easier than the first, however. So by the time I complete this game I should be quite the enthusiastic inquisitor!

There's nothing like a good computer game to suck the decency out of a person!

 

Dragon Age Inquisition

Just caught this thread and thought you were already playing the yet to be released, /dragon age inquisition. Just read about Bio wares project yesterday on Forbes News. Sounds really interesting as you can have up to 10 characters. I'll see what more I can find out and get back with the additional info.

 

Thanks for sharing your experiences here Marceror.

It does sound like an interesting game, if a bit unpolished. Is there a sort of alignment system in this game? I noticed in the Let's Play you linked earlier that there seemed to be a bar in one of your stat screens with a blue and red end, which suggests some kind of aligment system. Possibly linked to the inquisitorial and divine magic trees, as those are blue and red color coded as well.

 

Yes, there is an alignment system in the game, but I've yet to understand how it affects game play. I've heard it rumored that the farther your alignment swings toward good the more powerful the accepted forms of magic become, and the farther toward evil more powerful the prohibited forms of magic become, but I'm not sure if that's true. It seems that the devs were pretty tight lipped about this feature. What's not clear is if Inquisitorial magic is considered good or evil. It's accepted, but it's colored all red and ominous just like the prohibited schools of magic. But oh well, it's what I use first and foremost, so there you go.

My understanding is that virtually any decision you make can shift alignment, but it's always such a small shift that you will never notice any one particular alignment shift.

I just started act II, and I can see that my alignment bar has traveled slightly to the left (meaning I'm more good) since the game started. I'm trying to play a good guy in every situation, but I believe I've messed this up once or twice.

At any rate, it would seem that the alignment effect is subtle, otherwise people would understand its consequences better.

ION, I have to admit that in spite of a number of polish issues, this game has become a breath of fresh air to me. I even appreciate the fact that in one particularly large dungeon I had to leave a few times just to repair my equipment and sell off my full backpacks full of loot. Each time I had to make a long trek out of the dungeon and back to town. Why is this refreshing? Because games just don't force you to do this sort of thing anymore. It's actually sort of nice for a change just to have to slog my way back to town every so often, because I don't feel that I'm being "catered to." I'm tired of being catered to dammit!

I hear that in act II I will obtain armor that doesn't have to be repaired, and when I do, you better believe that I'm going to appreciate it. The other thing this game seems to do is make you struggle quite a bit in the beginning, and then as you become more powerful and better equipped, minimize or remove many of those struggles. This for me heightens the sense of progression and accomplishment in a game. But this is something that game developers these days avoid like the plague, in their effort to lull in the masses and make everything easy, easy, easy, easy from the word go.

 

This is actually one of the main reason I don't like that many newish RPGs.
Oblivion? Level-scaling. Don't like.
Dragon Age: Origins? Level-scaling. Don't like.
Fallout 3? Level-scaling. Don't like.
Skyrim? Level-scaling. Don't like.
The lack of feeling of progress just made me lose complete interest in these games.

So that's definitely a big plus for this game - provided the beginning isn't so hard it becomes frustrating. But from what I've seen, I don't think it's actually a frustratingly difficult game.

 

I'd say this game could easily be frustrating at first for someone who doesn't have any background playing this style of game, or doesn't have the patience to learn a new interface that isn't completely intuitive (you actually have to look at the control mappings to figure out how to do a lot of stuff, and memorize the keys).

But my experience hasn't been frustrating. I expected the learning curve and didn't mind it. The only possible exception is that I didn't understand why my spells were often failing. This happens a lot at lower levels when you can't beat a foe's magic resistance easily. It's less common after higher levels, but currently at level 25 it's still a possibility against tougher enemies. That said, for those tougher enemies you have glyphs that allow you to cast direct damage spells (fire, cold or lightning based) that aren't subject to spell failure. These are actually quite common in the game, and so if you want to be a spell caster, are recommended use for early levels.

Otherwise, most of my gripes go to polish issues, which aren't huge issues, and certainly aren't show stoppers. What's good about the game has far outweighed those issues for me personally. In fact, I don't remember the last time I was so enthralled by a game.

It would have been awesome to have a better translation. Some of its quite good, a lot of it is marginal. Some of it's plain bad (typos and grammatical issues). Verb conjugation is consistently... awkward. But overall it's acceptable considering everything the game has going for it.

The other observation (and I'm probably really asking for a lot here) is that no one in the game has their own distinct voice. Everyone talks the same way. Uses the same words. I'd love to see a boisterous barkeep who greets me:

But instead we get:

And this is how the beggar on the street talks, the servant to a Duke, the Duke himself, and the highest cardinal in the church. In many cases the text on a particular topic is a direct copy and paste for several individuals. But, I imagine that with the amount of text in the game that there was to translate, and the fact that it took 3 years to get what we've currently got, I'm really dreaming on this point.

Anyhow, like all games, there are strengths and weaknesses. I'm just feeling a little spoiled after completing a run through of PST, where the writing is superb.

 

I’m still enjoying the game immensely. I’m currently level 28 or so, and am making heading into Act II. For anyone who plays, I strongly encourage you to take note of the following hotkeys, as I didn’t learn them all right away. Those mappings cannot be changed, so they are what they are. Once I learned about them, they made life much easier.

Z + left click on target – This command orders your party to attack a specific target. This applies to locked doors and locked chests as well! This is very important if you are not a thief because your character’s weapons lose durability when you use them, and bashing open every chest you see can pulverize your weapons, requiring you to switch to a different one, return to town to repair (or in the case of the Paladin, if your blacksmithing is high enough you can repair it yourself in the field). Your followers’ weapons do not degrade, so they serve as the perfect door and chest bashing team! Be careful of trapped doors and chests though, as they can result in your followers dying. I usually save 3 or 4 times during the bashing process, just incase. Later in the game I guess you start finding indestructible items, so this becomes less of a concern. My priest is now using the pagan spell “shatter” which allow me to immediately open chests/doors from a safe distance, which is nice.

G – This tells your followers to hold still. This is particularly important when you want to avoid having your guys rush headlong into certain death! Before engaging a larger group of enemies, I like to cast spells (or a bow works too) to pick off a few before the main fight is joined. Using a seal with area damage is also a good tactic, for which you want your followers out of harm’s way. If you don’t do this, your followers will never miss an opportunity to charge into battle.

A – Use this to tell your team to charge. This is effectively what cancels the hold (G) command.

X – Project me – Not as useful as some of the others, but this causes your followers to attack whatever is attacking you. This can be helpful when you need help, but it’s difficult to click on a specific target for your followers to attack via the Z command.

Pause/Break – Opening any menu (inventory, quest journal etc.) pauses the action, but the Pause button allows you to pause and assess what’s going on and issue commands. For me, the pause button is on the top right of my keyboard, making it less than convenient to get to, but I’ve sort of gotten used to the fairly pronounced hand movement that’s required. The space bar is truly the ultimate pause key, but oh well.

Another key thing that I didn’t realize right away: do not sell magic boxes! You can use them to make a wish, but what’s best is to tell the genie that arrives when you destroy the box that you’d prefer not to make a wish. The can result in a magic item, gold, a skill point or an attribute point. I use these to obtain extra skill points (some saving, reloading, and retrying is often necessary to get this). This can really help you to get those primary skills up to higher levels, or perhaps give you the flexibility to invest a little more in secondary skills. The cost to increase a skill increases significantly the higher it gets, so to max out at 20, you have to spend a lot of skill points.

Do not sell Devil’s root, which are randomly found during the game. If you take these to a “mystic” (a woman who has dreams about things that occur around her, and brews potions – you’ll meet suck folk in game), she can turn them into potions which you likely won’t want to miss out on.

 

Here are my inquisitor's stats at level 35. He has become a true powerhouse.

He can certainly be overwhelmed if he's not careful, but Maxmilian is one absurdly powerful priest. He's awesome at melee and managed to find an incredible melee weapon. His defense is excellent, as are his hit points, so he is a first rate tank. He started out very slow in these areas, but has really ended up shining.

His spellcasting is his true power though. At level 35 he finally gains access to Initiate level spells. His previous main attack spell hit for around 80 damage on the high end. He has now upgraded to a spell that can do around 2.5x as much damage and can be cast twice as quickly. It takes 4x the mana to cast, but with such a large mana pool, this is no concern. I'd rather burn mana quickly and have no more enemies alive, than burn it slowly and get killed!