Your deadliest foe may actually be the mouse.
The initial response from PC players to the keyboard and mouse control scheme in Dragon Age: Inquisition has not been particularly positive. Thanks to the endless diplomatic dance associated with securing review code IncGamers won’t have a working copy of Dragon Age: Inquisition until Friday, so we’re having to rely on reports from US players.
Over at the BioWare forums, the primary thread for PC control woes appears to be this six page affair, which contains quite a few horror stories about how the UI and keyboard/mouse have been implemented. This other thread is attempting to (unofficially) collect suggestions for improvements.
The main concerns seem to be that the “tactical camera” mode doesn’t actually zoom out far enough (at least not far enough to be a whole lot of use,) characters are unable to automatically “loot” items with a ground click, there’s no way to bind functions to additional (side) mouse buttons, and a lot of alarming talk about there being two on-screen cursors – one for mouse and one for keyboard.
The mouse cursor apparently doesn’t pan the screen around, only the second cursor does this. I’m … honestly having a hard time visualising how that would even work, but it’s what Dragon Age: Inquisition players are saying.
BioWare’s Mike Laidlaw has been addressing some of the issues via his twitter account, confirming (for example) that the tactical camera auto-centering when switching party members is a bug:
Tactical view force-centering when switching party members is a bug and will be addressed in the next patch. Continuing to monitor feedback.
— Mike Laidlaw @ E3 (@Mike_Laidlaw) November 18, 2014
Laidlaw also says the team is aware of PC players missing the “hold” functionality for search highlighting.
We are aware of PC folks missing the "hold" functionality for search highlighting. Fix may not be a hold, but may be able to improve it.
— Mike Laidlaw @ E3 (@Mike_Laidlaw) November 18, 2014
He has a tip about holding Shift for mouse panning in the tactical view, too. This presumably helps with one of the issues players were having, but it’s apparently a control subtlety the game isn’t exactly great at communicating.
Holding SHIFT will also cause mouse to pan tactical view based on mouse movement.
— Mike Laidlaw @ E3 (@Mike_Laidlaw) November 18, 2014
It’s clear that the keyboard and mouse control scheme is in need of some serious improvement, and makes you serious question all of those cheery pre-release videos and statements saying how PC was the “lead platform” for Dragon Age: Inquisition.
We’ve asked BioWare for a direct comment or statement on this matter, but aren’t holding our breath for a response.
Published: Nov 19, 2014 10:52 pm