Dragon Age: Inquisition - Hidden Functions of the Tactical Camera

Dragon Age: Inquisition's tactical camera is great, but some of its features aren't explained very well. Watch our guide to fill in the blanks.

[@LouSaydus]

"hidden features" turns out its just a bunch of super basic controls.

[@authorJLAllen]

I like IGN but is there really a need to have 2 ppl commenting on this video? It's just distracting and slows things down. I wanted tips on the tactical camera which the one guy was giving in spades but then the other guy was like "oh, here's my input, yeah I'm saying something also" and the first guy was like "Yes, absolutely, you've said a thing, now back to the point I was making..."

[@DaringPerspective]

I appreciate the tips, but could you not do more than one take so we could actually see what you're explaining... or could you not have prepared your party better before going into that battle? Seems pretty lazy for a couple of guys getting paid to do this

[@bluevegas01]

That's one thing that I cannot understand about the geniuses behind Dragon Age Inquisition, why would you have it where I can see my enemies "vulnerability" and yet, I cannot switch my weapons to meet that vulnerability? So lets say I'm a all fire mage and I came across one of those fire demons who's vulnerable to ice. Well it would be much helpful if I could switch my fire staff to an ice staff, but oh no, my inventory just has to be locked when fighting enemies.

[@yosharian]

"Dragon Age: Inquisition's tactical camera is great," No it isn't

[@demark8262]

Its fecking terrible AND NOT HIDDEN IGN are so lazy these days

[@cursedmonkey1033]

Thanks for the video guys, it really helped me. I thought the tactical camera was useless for all but cooly swinging the camera around characters and going "ooooh, matrix." You can't stack commands and the move to location order doesn't stick. Controlling my party was a constant battle because I would move them to a spot, for instance archers to a safe distance, and they would instantly move in close again again. But now I know it does work, you just have to click twice! I can't wait to try it. Thanks again.

[@ludovik242]

IGN can you put all the voice in stereo. This having two people talking on each side of my head is very annoying. Thanks

[@guybrushthreepwood8174]

Does xbox one have the feature that allows you to cycle thru the targets while in tactical view?

[@MrMonstermusik]

this tatical view is so made for console because its total shit on pc

[@silvarknite7]

wish the tac cam would zoom out as far as it did in origins. Sorta feels like a massive downgrade from the previous 2 games.

[@Infuzibil]

One good thing in Tactical View is that you can see the stats of your foe. Also it could be used to position your ranged characters or to cast more efficiently some AoE spells. And that is all. The camera is constantly jumping and being covered by leaves or rocks, it is almost impossible to find a fallen ally to revive him on the field. Also is very difficult to manually control a character in this mode.

[@guybrushthreepwood8174]

what is R3 equal to for XBox one controller?

[@samvalentine2629]

So excited for the next one!!!

[@jonathanlj16]

How do u issue skill otders?

[@nawawii3750]

Took me 4 years and 5 fully finished walkthrough to find out about some of these things! (And yeah, I needed to find these in my nightmare run with trails, because I really needed it!)

[@ShadowBlack54]

how do you get that dragon like horse?

[@ImyoCello]

Didnt know about the defend thing, thanks man! :D

[@LoboLocoX]

Anyone know of any good Mage armor video guides? I've been stuck with the same armor since the title screen

[@juliusherrera-garcia2637]

I legit didn’t know this. And this helps out a ton

[@ansellbwoy]

Great video. the tips are much appreciated.

[@durgebh9487]

I've given the command to revive in tactical view and not had the character carry out that command. Might want to keep an eye on that.

[@renni6861]

They do it for me

[@5switch09]

Wooow so much use of a tactical camera at once?... and those options, you can move, you can select and you can attack in tactical mode? I think i will buy the game just because of that ! That's it , im sold out!

[@vVAstrAVv]

can someone tell me how i unlock more mounts im still stuck on that brown horse

[@demark8262]

buy them

[@legnd300]

that brown horse lmao. Yeah, I was stuck with it like 90% of the game until the very near end when I found out i could just buy them at the store near the stables. BUT, I still never found out how to unlock all the horses :(

[@DKAndrewY]

From description of the video "Dragon Age: Inquisition's tactical camera is great". Top kek

[@TheSwayzeTrain]

This is a very helpful video, thanks.

[@kumikones]

Not exactly "hidden". I figured these things out pretty easily.

[@Eddiexx4]

Just because you did, doesn't mean everyone else has.

[@kumikones]

It's still easy to find them with some experimentation. Tactical view has some pretty limited room for options, so this happens to be the case. None of those functions were deliberately hidden by the developers. While the word definitely refers something that is concealed, "hidden" is also synonymous to things that are not *easily* found. I'm sure you and many others would have been able to find a fair share of functionality in the tactical view through applying a small degree of logic (moving your analog stick and pressing X on different things). It's not like you're studying relativity or something. My issue was with the word, "hidden", used in this video. I'm not criticising the information provided in it.

[@demark8262]

Eddiexx4 IT TELLS YOU HOW TO USE IT IN THE FECKING GAME

[@alldayanyday1ontheps333]

De Mark lol, it doesn't explain on how to usebit effectively. .it just says press the select button to use tactical camera so you can oversee everything in battle and strategically plan your attacks and blahblahblah..it doesn't tell you anything really other than the things everyone already knew.

[@demark8262]

Alldayanyday1 on the PS3 That's the only thing it adds the ability to freeze combat so you can think and direct players, it doesn't change the way you use skills so what do you need to be told, apart from how to select it

[@KarmaDarkly]

I had no trouble with the tactical camera of previous dragon age games. this on just doesnt make since for me. but the tactics options are lacking alot of choices.

[@lynodavinci6449]

Thanx man that was helpfull Keep up the good work

[@WafflesForOne]

The tactical camera in this game is far from great, especially accompanied with the generally pretty terrible companion AI. It's serviceable at best and utter dogshit most of the time. Ranged units run into harms way and will ignore hold commands if they aren't babysat, which is a pain in the ass with this camera. I just stay in action mode now and make sure I'm a bit overlevelled because this game really fails at satisfying and challenging tactical combat. I still love the game and the combat feels great in action mode, but the tactical view got completely neutered and AI seems to be pretty dodgy.

[@luckygozer]

they pretty much removed the tactic slots from previous games. In origins and i am pretty sure even in da2 you were able to set complicated tactics for your characters. For example: You could set a priority order. Imagine both your tank and hunter are low. You could tell your healer to heal your tank first and only then the rest of your party. You could tell your healer to start healing your tank at say 60% health while ignoring the rest of the party untill they get to say 40%. You could tell them to use abilities only in certain situations. Easiest example an aoe ability you don't perse want to use that ability on just 1 guy. So you could set it up for it to only be used if x number of enemies are grouped up. Dragon age inquistion however removed all that. So now your stuck with either playing on an easier difficulty or micromanaging everything yourself. Setting up those tactics was a bit of a pain sure but not being able to is an even bigger pain.

[@WafflesForOne]

luckygozer To give them the benefit of the doubt, I'm sure that some of those behaviors are now just coded into the AI by default, (such as not using AOE abilities on one enemy.) They did claim the AI was significantly improved. The healer command isn't there because, obviously, healing spells have been replaced with potions. You can choose when they take those potions, and the AI will put barriers etc. on the melee characters actually taking the damage, but obviously it's a lot less customizable now. At the very least the AI seems to handle using abilities properly most of the time. The only thing I think they significantly misuse are dispels, but that's a skill you can disable and manually use when the situation requires it. The biggest issue for me is how it handles move orders and how the ranged AI doesn't seem to bother trying to avoid danger. If I put Sera in stealth and then try move her away from an enemy, she'll immediately start attacking while slowly moving to that position, breaking her stealth. The other issue with them running into the midst of battle can USUALLY be solved by disabling any close range abilities they have. These seem like things that can be fixed relatively easily so maybe we'll even see some improvements in a patch, who knows.

[@luckygozer]

***** i think i will split this up into multiple replies since this will be alot of text ;P. The healing was the easiest example i could think of there were ofcourse many other things. But with the healing being gone i actaully think this has become a bigger problem. With healing aslong as the heal lands before the character dies it's relatively fine. With barriers for them to be effective it has to happen before the damage does. So imagine a mob comes in and is about to do an aoe attack hitting all of your party. Oh dear! With aoe healing aslong as it happens after damage and before a death it's fine. With aoe barrier it has to happen before the aoe attack hits to absorb the attack. The timing window for when it is effective is smaller. Which i don't trust the ai to be able to see an aoe attack coming and cast a barrier on those who will be effected by it beforehand. As shown by solas the mage who continously casted barriers on my character (mage). After he took damage but was under no threat of further damage where as the tank still was. Maybe the ai prioritizes your character over everyone else. Coming to think of it maybe i should play a tank..

[@WafflesForOne]

luckygozer Well, the default AI behavior is set to follow the player character. If you want your mage to prioritize putting barrier on your melee companion then you can set their behavior to defend/follow them instead. I've also heard that setting it to make them defend themselves fixes some idiosyncrasies the companions have, but I haven't tried that yet. But yes, the streamlined companion options are limiting, for sure.

[@luckygozer]

***** As for improvements to the ai. There is probably a group of people that worked very hard on the ai and credit to them but i don't think it has actaully improved. In previous games the ai would do exactly as i told them to, as i wanted them to. In this game the decision it can make by itself might be alot smarter but that doesn't mean it's what the player wants it to do. It's alot of work for something that for me atleast is unappreciated. There are so many variables that it is (probably) impossible to make a perfect ai. In origins i felt like a puppetmaster. I controlled all the little strings and details and if something went wrong i felt entirely responsible fo it. I was the person who told the ai exactly what to do. In this game i feel like a babysitter. Constantly worrying that the ai is gonna do something stupid. Even when micromanaging like you said when you tell someone to move somewhere, they don't interpret it as right away but as get there eventually. Even if the ai is good I suppose my biggest issue is that i no longer feel like the person in control. I am no longer the puppetmaster controlling every move. I am the babysitter and for now the baby might be nice and sleeping. But i am terrified for the moment it is gonna crawl over and stick it's finger in an electric socket.

[@ExhaustedCos]

I played through DAI on the hardest mode without ever opening tactical camera. Its a useless feature. As long as you upgrade your characters correctly you don't need it. I didn't even set up any of the characters tactical settings.

[@vVAstrAVv]

another helpful video now maybe solas will stop getting up in the enemies face stupid mage lol

[@Hadorus1]

great vid thanks!

[@alvinshaw33]

WOW! all things i didn't know.

[@MarcioLiao]

Thx, this video actually helped me a little in dealing with this awful tactical view.

[@Turtleman1234321]

I think this is IGNs 10,000th video

[@WizCantinflas]

do i need to play the games that came before this one?? second is this game online?

[@durgebh9487]

I never played the first 2 and am enjoying it. The game is massive. It does have a separate co-op mode that's pretty fun.

[@WizCantinflas]

thank you!

[@DLxLoo]

I suggest playing number 2 as it's slighted related, however it's not necessary and the first is nowhere near related as far as I have seen (storywise of course)

[@luckygozer]

i haven't played much of inquistion but it does seem to throw you right into things a bit more. I would suggest playing origins first if you so feel like it yes. It warms you up to the gameplay a bit slower and introduces you to the world of dragon age. Dragon age 2 however was a very bad game imo and most people seem to agree so i would say don't bother.

[@luckygozer]

DLxLoo Inquistion throws you quite into the middle of things throwing names at you like the chantry, mages, apostates, the circle, templars, etc. It also throws characters at you like alistair and leliana quite early who are ofcourse in origins. The story is probably more closely related to the events in 2 but if you just want the backstory and have a clue what is going on i'd say playing origins does that just fine. But then i guess i just can't accept anyone reccomending someone else to play 2 because i disliked it so much xD.

[@RaidenCR]

Very interessting!

[@MrJerOrt72]

You guys really need to by a couple new mics or sound check stuff. I'm sure you did a whole series of recording so all of them will be a little off, but stuff that's uploaded the next day could be fixed.

[@TheArklyte]

Even through they used console controles as an examples, they explained it quite good. I hope that in next DA full tactical menu for characters will return and that they will improve tactical screen for commands like take cover, support and protect(right now they are assigned at character tactics screen). What must happen to get consoles proper keyboard and mouse? Controler is great for tps, slashers, fightings and some actions, but Dragon Age isn't one of them!

[@TheArklyte]

Oops, disregard what I said about protecr and support:)

[@SKYMAN-]

That was a good example.

[@Denizzym]

i found out all of that in like the first 20 mins

[@authorJLAllen]

I see a lot of people bashing the Tactical Camera, which is fair if you are a long-time player. Inquisition is my first DA game and I am just starting to use the TacCam at Lv.10 ... I find it's a much better way to do combat rather than relying on your parties AI to behave properly in 3rd person view. Thoughts?

[@Mactav3]

It's good for scattering your party to dodge an aoe or hold a chokepoint higher ground. I mainly use it to get enemy's resistances/vulnerabilities though

[@legnd300]

I find the TC to be a lot more useful when engaged in tough combat, such as a boss battle or strong enemies at a difficult setting. TC is time consuming so in battles against general enemies or at easier settings, it's rendered useless because the party AI can hold its own all the time. I beat the game in my first run through without using the TC once, granted I did have it at normal difficulty.

[@dexteribarrola6392]

What's with the background noise...

[@RS4EVARR]

Ok I have to ask this because it has been bothering me for a long time now, why does most tanks have so much health in every video I watch? My Cassandra have the same hp as I do, and I'm a mage?

[@XSpiegel]

She should be getting defence from moves, succesfully blocking attacks ect. read closer on the warrior abilities, namely the ones in Sword/shield and Vanguard(?) Don't have the game in front of me atm)

[@RS4EVARR]

XSpiegel No I don't mean guard, I got plenty of that but I mean those green health bars, I much much less than him.

[@XSpiegel]

Never counted the amount of bars personaly, but if is most likely a Inquisition perk if you are adament about these guys having more.

[@jexzyboi]

gear?

[@EndlessJourney93]

The bar looks the exact same through out the whole game it won't get bigger or smaller but if you go to their equipment you'll see that their health stats are different, correct me if I'm wrong

[@CRAM079]

I wish Advance time was toggle-able. and if we were able to completely customize our tactics they probably would follow orders better.

[@Shetyre]

colsole age : useless commands

[@Geist452]

quality control! maybe you should have picked a situation that had some dependence on positional play rather than macro.

[@TonyHanny]

I just wish you can play in tactical camara the whole time

[@chickenballs-balls]

I think you can, in PC you can. Dunno with the consoles. On PC press tactical view, press unpause. Then you can play as such.

[@zeromega2414]

liked the idea but it is soooo limited

[@KhanGarth]

so you really can't queue up orders very intuitively? seems like move here, attack this guy would be pretty obvious for them to have done.

[@gabriellanzer]

Thanks IGN, it was in the tutorial by the way....

[@christianortega7610]

so.... i paid 45 dollars for this game... i FUCKING LOVE IT!!! BIOWARE IS FUCKING AWSOME. I HAVE NOT HAD A GAMING EXPERIENCE LIKE THIS IN A LONG TIME. THE STORYLINE IS LONG!!

[@gizmo3846]

conversations in the background spaced me out man, almost impossible to focus on whats actually being said without getting distracted

[@galacticrelic258]

I thought all of this was common knowledge but then again I play on Mouse and Keyboard so it's easier.

[@DaTruth683]

Pc controls needs a fixing. Bad...

[@brkbtjunkie]

Dude on the left mic keeps interrupting dude on the right mic. Annoying not to be able to hear the one guy finish what he's trying to say.

[@Jakesmith943]

The Tactical view is such a poorly implemented feature it's sad. The feedback to the customer base on what, if any, fixes there will be is also sad. In fact to me it signals that there probably aren't going to be many fixes, but to not affect sales they aren't reporting that to the customers. Speculation, but why else not provide any updates? I'm one of those people that was looking forward to the tactical experience, not to having to play the game with a controller in order to best enjoy it. The Tac Cam needs to be able to zoom out further, orders need to be stackable, the camera itself needs to be able to tilt upwards like a free camera....I mean gosh. :-\ Such promise, but we may never see it fully realized.

[@TempestDK]

Yep .. try escaping aerial dragon attacks when you can't see the dragon because the camera won't tilt up. Hold commands that are overridden the first time you ask the party member to use an ability, camera that will only move where characters can move so it gets stuck on terrain etc. But then again, the whole UI sucks. Trying to remember which types of weapons and armor you have on individual characters during crafting is annoying, as there is no comparison in the crafting window. Schematics not showing if they have expansion slot or how many. No sorting of the lists in the inventory. No indications as to level needed for various maps/areas, as well as huge level gaps between enemies in same area (Hinterlands is really bad here). I didn't enter Emerald Graves (spelling?) area until lvl. 18 ... fighting through mostly lvl 7 -11 enemies.

[@JonahGhost]

whoever programmed this tactical combat system must be polish... the queue system should be which and whatever way you want. skill first then move or move first then skill.

[@tonykuykendall2414]

And this is why ive tried to get through this game twice and cant stand how not in control i am of anything in combat. It gets worse the more skills each character has and eventually its just a crap shoot each encounter. Why would they dump their obviously popular combat system that was the first game and not stick with what worked so well?

[@Keomayo121]

Too much walking 7.8/10

[@amandagrogg3487]

LOL the wiki doesn't have *Everything* Dragon Age.

[@Mikito456]

How are these hidden? I figured them out most of these things back in the Frostbacks near the temple in the beginning. Face it, you guys just wanted to record yourselves playing Inquisition, I mean its cool, just be honest.

[@bairdduvessa]

too bad the revive functions never f'ing work on ps3

[@AnklotGames]

Didn't say anything new

[@123pirules]

Come'on i knew this already ther arent verry secret

[@viniciusvieira8651]

Too bad those option don't work, hold position is broken and everyone who actually played the game knows it. You can even deactivate AI and hold position still fails when your character moves.

[@jcksparrowfan]

I HATE this game's tactical camera. dA2 did it better. It was simplistic, it served it's purpose and it wasn't overly complicated, which it shouldn't be. Pause, assign, play.

[@kjvail]

The funniest part is none of it works lol

[@RealiMente]

I hate the tactical view so bad, that i decided not to play this game, even though i played the other 2...

[@ps4legend231]

20 Reasons PC > PS4/XB1: + These are facts not opinions (non refuteable) + I'm not a PC elitist nor do I believe in PCMasterRace + This comment is for educational purposes only + I don't care what platform you prefer, these are just facts + If you are not interested, don't comment + Doesn't matter if no one asked, it's the internet, deal with it + All stupid comments will be ignored and blocked + All systems have the pros and cons, this is my pro list for PC + All systems have their cool exclusives we know this no need to write them 1. Sharper textures, better Anti Aliasing, higher resolutions than 1080p with proper hardware, 60+ fps makes it look smooth 2. Cheaper games (g2a, Steam sales, etc) cheaper in the long run 3. Ever evolving technologies, new lighting tech, gsync, much more do research 4. No need to buy xbox live or ps plus to play online. 5. Very active Indie developer scene on Steam and other sites 6. Hardware price drops for cheap upgrading and expanding 7. Bragging rights over your friends because PC is more expensive up front 8. Way more peripheral options to choose from, joysticks, keyboards, mice, gamepads, etc 9. Open modding community: graphics, gameplay, content, etc 10. Larger variety of game genres; MOBA, MMO, etc 11. PhysX on NVIDIA cards for realistic real time physics calculations 12. Backwards compatability and support for emulators of older consoles 13. The option to upgrade your parts for even sexier and beastly power at any time, SLI, crossfire, RAID, SSD 14. Shit ton of free software for gaming, productivity, entertainment, communication, etc. 15. Ability to use VoIP like Teamspeak to talk to groups of people at luxury, create channels, manage server 16. Be productive while also being entertained 17. PC exclusives of many different genres; RTS, MMO, MOBA, FPS, simulator, etc 18. Budget gaming PC starting at 500$ now compete if not exceed PS4/XB1 in performance at 1080p or 900p example; Alienware Alpha 19. PC gaming has become just as simple if not simpler than console gaming to just play the game thanks to STEAM 20. Ability to map your buttons any way you want to map them

[@xorilla]

Why are you making yourself look like an idiot by posting a random comment that has nothing to do with the video? Oh, and PC Master Race.

[@nygamer544]

I'm not sure if the Alienware Alpha will play 3rd party games as well as consoles since the games aren't optimized for it. And it's $550.. You can pick up an Xbox One for $350. with a couple of free games. That's about a $300 price disparity.

[@ps4legend231]

NYGamer yeah and you will save money over time when buying games on PC, and yes the Alpha can stand toe to toe with the consoles and outperform them in many instances just look up on google or youtube and do research

[@ajdanzac]

STFU loser. Go game on ur gayass pc instead of educating someone abt how ur pc is

[@JAGUARCD32X]

NYGamer I wouldn't buy an Alienware PC at all. For around $670 of your US dollars you can get a PC that comfortably maxes out games without issues. Also games do get optimised for PC and AMD and NVIDIA release drivers that increase the performance of GPU's ensuring that they run the games as good as they possibly can. None of this is relevant in this thread though.

[@ultragarrison]

Too much talking 6/10 - IGN

[@sirdamned9272]

Good video but you literally spent a full 130 seconds explaining that you can "Move and hold," something that literally takes pressing the X button twice. Sometimes it's better to cut to the point. We don't need you to discuss the semantics of double tapping the X button.

[@ecruosedoc4104]

Thumbs down. This isn't PC explanation. WTF?

[@romanscherbakov9561]

Come on, almost 12 minutes 2 guys discussing basic game controls! Really?

[@Blackenedification]

LMAO fail on queuing orders, the tactical camera sucks big time, funny they showed a plain area so that we don't see the major flaws it has

[@PandaPowerable]

Useful for console players I guess.

[@mikkelkoldsvendsen9369]

1st

[@kingbadmovie]

Here, let me show you how this works. *doesn't work* Oh. Yeah that happens sometimes.

[@cryostatcells5642]

He had attack my Target command active on all characters. You'd have to disengage first

[@durgebh9487]

Fix your damn mics!

[@MichaelKeeter]

Dragon Age 2 had just as much of a tactical approach as the first game. All you had to do was set it up in options. People who keep complaining that it didn't work the way DA:O did absolutely do not know what they are talking about.

[@MwueLaFlaga]

It really took you 11 minutes to just tell us 3 things about the tactical camera? jesus.

[@likeabosssepticeye6420]

first

[@mattd8484]

Great game across all platforms. Too bad no life's sit around bashing everything else on every youtube page regarding what specs you run it on or console, the amount of keyboard warriors is amazing but it's the Internet. Never see this convo in public lmao

[@Jungle_Noodle]

the cam ist still shit and you dont need it really

[@JohnCampbell91]

Late game you do. You'll get slaughtered in the late game.

[@AllCopsAreCriminals]

I had to uninstall this game thanks to the crappy and extremely buged combat management...

[@cyro9569]

so boring... Zzzzzz

[@timesfire]

So nearly everything you tried to show us failed completely. You couldn’t keep filming until you succeeded and then actually edit? So lazy. Wasted everyone’s time.

[@ArmandoTheWanderer]

Didn't use it once other than the beginning tutorial doesn't need it. It just adds more B.S to a rushed GARBO! game that wasn't as good as the previous ones oh and the cut scenes are stale awkward and poorly scripted there I said it

[@zo5N1P3Zoz]

Even though the tac cam was clearly broke in November ive learnt some useful things from this lol, tac cam works better now