Junior Adventurer's Guild - November: Dragon Age: Origins

[logincrash]

The ******'s being sassy after supposedly "fixing" the issue and "polishing the dialogue."
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mod ... =167360653
The polished dialogue is identical to the 1st release version.

Copy his mod, run it through Copilot, and republish it?

@logincrash do it out of spite.

lolno
I have better things to do than trying to salvage this AO3 fanfic tier mod. Namely, playing Dragon Age Origins.

[J1M]

LMAO

Do not believe his lies.

I knew something like that would happen. Here's the proof that I installed the latest 1.3 version.

Do not waste your time on this mod. It's low quality AND the author is a butthurt pussy.

I believed you without the receipts. We were in the JAG trenches together, brother.

[logincrash]

I believed you without the receipts. We were in the JAG trenches together, brother.

I do appreciate your trust and, so that it wouldn't be misplaced, here comes the correction.

I specifically redownloaded and did a clean reinstall of the absolute latest version of the mod, to make sure I wouldn't mislead the fine people of RPGHQ.
He did put the script through AI. The grammar and punctuation is noticeably better. Even the AI voices are a little bit more polished.

I still think the author's a sarcastic prick who can't take criticism in earnest. And the writing is crappy, just not in the technical way now. It still reads like modern fantasy slop with anachronisms aplenty. It's on the level of Veilguard.

[logincrash]

Just finished the Broken Circle. Since I'm doing a Vanilla+ playthrough (bugfixes only, no random tweaks or skips), I had to do the Fade section in its entirety.
It's still boring and tedious. Little to no replayability since you can't change your party composition and have to follow the same solution for every "puzzle" and use the same tactics for every fight.
It also grinds the pacing of the quest to a halt. You're going higher and higher, clearing out room after room, with every step bringing you closer and every fight getting more and more intense and, suddenly, you're taking a nap and have to fight 13 XP schmucks for like an hour and a half, all the while doing backtracking because there's a billion "doors" that all require their own "keys."
It's such a shame too, because the Mage Origin Fade opening is so strong, and the companion parts are kinda fun. But the rest is just the same boring **** over and over again.
I strongly recommend getting the Fade Skip mod but only on your subsequent playthroughs. Do give it a go the first time, because the environments are quite interesting.

[logincrash]

Also, the Mabari is surprisingly effective as a tanky crowd control companion. My party for the majority of the game so far has been my Rogue PC, Alistair, Morrigan, and the Mabari.
I am playing on Normal, since it's my first playthrough in years, so that's why it's a viable party composition. I'm gonna do a Hard and then a Nightmare playthroughs as well. I'm gonna start thinking about optimizing some stuff then.

Oh, and a little tip: get a point in Stealing to unlock the best merchant in the game. He will buy stuff from you for the most gold. I've done almost all of his quests and it got me about 45 sovereigns.

[Valter]

Also, the Mabari is surprisingly effective as a tanky crowd control companion. My party for the majority of the game so far has been my Rogue PC, Alistair, Morrigan, and the Mabari.
I am playing on Normal, since it's my first playthrough in years, so that's why it's a viable party composition. I'm gonna do a Hard and then a Nightmare playthroughs as well. I'm gonna start thinking about optimizing some stuff then.

I was gonna say, how the **** are you using the dog as an effective party member? But yeah that makes more sense, he's definitely outshined by human companions in higher difficulties (the miniscule skill tree and equipment pool is STAGGERING, my boy never had a chance). I am not ashamed of putting on the Mabari 5th Companion mod, he's so useless it barely makes a difference in the fights. What a good little useless slobberspawn.

[logincrash]

Also, the Mabari is surprisingly effective as a tanky crowd control companion. My party for the majority of the game so far has been my Rogue PC, Alistair, Morrigan, and the Mabari.
I am playing on Normal, since it's my first playthrough in years, so that's why it's a viable party composition. I'm gonna do a Hard and then a Nightmare playthroughs as well. I'm gonna start thinking about optimizing some stuff then.

I was gonna say, how the **** are you using the dog as an effective party member? But yeah that makes more sense, he's definitely outshined by human companions in higher difficulties (the miniscule skill tree and equipment pool is STAGGERING, my boy never had a chance). I am not ashamed of putting on the Mabari 5th Companion mod, he's so useless it barely makes a difference in the fights. What a good little useless slobberspawn.

His AoE roar has stun and it works very well, better than a mage's Mind Blast stun AoE. I'll get his Overwhelm ability soon and he's gonna become an anti-mage homing missile.

[TKVNC]

Also, the Mabari is surprisingly effective as a tanky crowd control companion. My party for the majority of the game so far has been my Rogue PC, Alistair, Morrigan, and the Mabari.
I am playing on Normal, since it's my first playthrough in years, so that's why it's a viable party composition. I'm gonna do a Hard and then a Nightmare playthroughs as well. I'm gonna start thinking about optimizing some stuff then.

I was gonna say, how the **** are you using the dog as an effective party member? But yeah that makes more sense, he's definitely outshined by human companions in higher difficulties (the miniscule skill tree and equipment pool is STAGGERING, my boy never had a chance). I am not ashamed of putting on the Mabari 5th Companion mod, he's so useless it barely makes a difference in the fights. What a good little useless slobberspawn.

His AoE roar has stun and it works very well, better than a mage's Mind Blast stun AoE. I'll get his Overwhelm ability soon and he's gonna become an anti-mage homing missile.

The AOE stun is a life saver on Nightmare at low levels.

It's also quite useful on certain fights with a lot of enemies, for effective CC.

[Valter]

I was gonna say, how the **** are you using the dog as an effective party member? But yeah that makes more sense, he's definitely outshined by human companions in higher difficulties (the miniscule skill tree and equipment pool is STAGGERING, my boy never had a chance). I am not ashamed of putting on the Mabari 5th Companion mod, he's so useless it barely makes a difference in the fights. What a good little useless slobberspawn.

His AoE roar has stun and it works very well, better than a mage's Mind Blast stun AoE. I'll get his Overwhelm ability soon and he's gonna become an anti-mage homing missile.

The AOE stun is a life saver on Nightmare at low levels.

It's also quite useful on certain fights with a lot of enemies, for effective CC.

Okay now I know you guys are gaslighting me, the stun is nice but that boy is not tanky enough to go on the frontlines without dying, and those injuries pile up. Got about half a mind to do another playthrough right now

[logincrash]

His AoE roar has stun and it works very well, better than a mage's Mind Blast stun AoE. I'll get his Overwhelm ability soon and he's gonna become an anti-mage homing missile.

The AOE stun is a life saver on Nightmare at low levels.

It's also quite useful on certain fights with a lot of enemies, for effective CC.

Okay now I know you guys are gaslighting me, the stun is nice but that boy is not tanky enough to go on the frontlines without dying, and those injuries pile up. Got about half a mind to do another playthrough right now

I will say, he's been quite useful because I was able to use the regular healing poultices instead of only the mabari crunch things. I'm not sure if that's vanilla behaviour. I guess this makes my previous claim of "bugfixes only, no random tweaks or skips" false. If so, I didn't intend for that and it's in one of the three huge bugfix packs that I installed.

[TKVNC]

His AoE roar has stun and it works very well, better than a mage's Mind Blast stun AoE. I'll get his Overwhelm ability soon and he's gonna become an anti-mage homing missile.

The AOE stun is a life saver on Nightmare at low levels.

It's also quite useful on certain fights with a lot of enemies, for effective CC.

Okay now I know you guys are gaslighting me, the stun is nice but that boy is not tanky enough to go on the frontlines without dying, and those injuries pile up. Got about half a mind to do another playthrough right now

I did say, at the start. You get much better CC from other classes, but not til later.

Specifically Crushing Prison, and Mass Paralysis.

I always spec my mages hard into control and support.

[Valter]

The AOE stun is a life saver on Nightmare at low levels.

It's also quite useful on certain fights with a lot of enemies, for effective CC.

Okay now I know you guys are gaslighting me, the stun is nice but that boy is not tanky enough to go on the frontlines without dying, and those injuries pile up. Got about half a mind to do another playthrough right now

I did say, at the start. You get much better CC from other classes, but not til later.

Specifically Crushing Prison, and Mass Paralysis.

I always spec my mages hard into control and support.

That reminds me, wasn't there a combo with Mass Paralysis or some other AoE spell that dealt yuge damage? Man those combos were cool to discover.

[logincrash]

I was gonna say, how the **** are you using the dog as an effective party member? But yeah that makes more sense, he's definitely outshined by human companions in higher difficulties (the miniscule skill tree and equipment pool is STAGGERING, my boy never had a chance). I am not ashamed of putting on the Mabari 5th Companion mod, he's so useless it barely makes a difference in the fights. What a good little useless slobberspawn.

His AoE roar has stun and it works very well, better than a mage's Mind Blast stun AoE. I'll get his Overwhelm ability soon and he's gonna become an anti-mage homing missile.

The AOE stun is a life saver on Nightmare at low levels.

It's also quite useful on certain fights with a lot of enemies, for effective CC.

I'm kinda surprised to rediscover how important crowd control is and how locking down the right enemy and not damagemaxxing wins you the fights. My last playthrough was either the Nightmare two-handed Warrior or the Hard dual-wield Warrior. Those aren't exactly the most versatile classes. I guess I made the Hard/Nightmare playthroughs so much more difficult for myself for no reason. I think I'll make an Aracne Warrior Mage for the Hard/Nightmare playthrough this time.

The AOE stun is a life saver on Nightmare at low levels.

It's also quite useful on certain fights with a lot of enemies, for effective CC.

Okay now I know you guys are gaslighting me, the stun is nice but that boy is not tanky enough to go on the frontlines without dying, and those injuries pile up. Got about half a mind to do another playthrough right now

I did say, at the start. You get much better CC from other classes, but not til later.

Specifically Crushing Prison, and Mass Paralysis.

I always spec my mages hard into control and support.

Yeah. I pushed for Sleep on Morrigan, but it's been pretty ****, even with the Sleep + Horror combo. I should've gone for the ones you mentioned instead.
Also, I hate how Wynne is leveled if you don't get her early. She's got Earthquake and the Mass Rejuvenate, which is just a waste of two points that could've been put into getting Haste.
I think I'll install the mod that lets you level your companions up as you want the first time you meet them.

[logincrash]

Oh, and Mana Clash can one-shot pretty much any mage, but it requires putting 3 points into other barely useful spells, just like Haste.

Okay now I know you guys are gaslighting me, the stun is nice but that boy is not tanky enough to go on the frontlines without dying, and those injuries pile up. Got about half a mind to do another playthrough right now

I did say, at the start. You get much better CC from other classes, but not til later.

Specifically Crushing Prison, and Mass Paralysis.

I always spec my mages hard into control and support.

That reminds me, wasn't there a combo with Mass Paralysis or some other AoE spell that dealt yuge damage? Man those combos were cool to discover.

Yeah, the combos are awesome. DA2 made those into a bigger thing but with cross-class combos. It worked like the ME3 and Andromeda ability combos.

[Valter]

His AoE roar has stun and it works very well, better than a mage's Mind Blast stun AoE. I'll get his Overwhelm ability soon and he's gonna become an anti-mage homing missile.

The AOE stun is a life saver on Nightmare at low levels.

It's also quite useful on certain fights with a lot of enemies, for effective CC.

I'm kinda surprised to rediscover how important crowd control is and how locking down the right enemy and not damagemaxxing wins you the fights.

Outstanding gameplay tie-in with the lore to make you really understand how much the average Fereldan hates mages.

[logincrash]

The AOE stun is a life saver on Nightmare at low levels.

It's also quite useful on certain fights with a lot of enemies, for effective CC.

I'm kinda surprised to rediscover how important crowd control is and how locking down the right enemy and not damagemaxxing wins you the fights.

Outstanding gameplay tie-in with the lore to make you really understand how much the average Fereldan hates mages.

The reason why the first mages were put into the circles is gonna ******* shock you.
https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Codex ... the_Circle
They were permitted to live free, on the condition that they don't do any magic fuckery, but they had to throw a tantrum. And now it's all "nooo im not allowed to nuke the countryside with my magic and have to live in a comfy tower away from war with robot servants doing housework for me im going insaaaaane"
And Dragon Age 2 make mages even more insufferable. Despite how ******** the Qunari are, their treatment of mages is the correct way of doing things.

[TKVNC]

His AoE roar has stun and it works very well, better than a mage's Mind Blast stun AoE. I'll get his Overwhelm ability soon and he's gonna become an anti-mage homing missile.

The AOE stun is a life saver on Nightmare at low levels.

It's also quite useful on certain fights with a lot of enemies, for effective CC.

I'm kinda surprised to rediscover how important crowd control is and how locking down the right enemy and not damagemaxxing wins you the fights. My last playthrough was either the Nightmare two-handed Warrior or the Hard dual-wield Warrior. Those aren't exactly the most versatile classes. I guess I made the Hard/Nightmare playthroughs so much more difficult for myself for no reason. I think I'll make an Aracne Warrior Mage for the Hard/Nightmare playthrough this time.

Okay now I know you guys are gaslighting me, the stun is nice but that boy is not tanky enough to go on the frontlines without dying, and those injuries pile up. Got about half a mind to do another playthrough right now

I did say, at the start. You get much better CC from other classes, but not til later.

Specifically Crushing Prison, and Mass Paralysis.

I always spec my mages hard into control and support.

Yeah. I pushed for Sleep on Morrigan, but it's been pretty ****, even with the Sleep + Horror combo. I should've gone for the ones you mentioned instead.
Also, I hate how Wynne is leveled if you don't get her early. She's got Earthquake and the Mass Rejuvenate, which is just a waste of two points that could've been put into getting Haste.
I think I'll install the mod that lets you level your companions up as you want the first time you meet them.

There's a slightly buggy mod that lets you respec companions fully, you speak to a crow as I understand.

It's also possible to manually respec in the save editor.

It's perfectly possible to get all the spells you need by default, but it saves you the headache of having redundant abilities your characters don't need.

[logincrash]

The dwarves are so ******* cool and weird in Origins.
Here's what happens if you speak to the Shaper (chronicler) of the dwarven society as a Casteless Warden.

woah.jpg

"You do not exist."

[logincrash]

I only started playing on the 26th of March, as my save says. I'm already 39 hours in.
This is what I meant when I said I was afraid Origins will suck me right in and rob me of hundreds of hours.

[logincrash]

Finished the Deep Roads and Orzammar. It's so ******* grimdark, holy ****. Women should never, ever be Grey Wardens. The only exception is if they're very powerful mages.
Forgot to do the Royal Palace dragon fight before finishing the Orzammar quest and now am locked out of it. Oh, well.
I do genuinely think the Deep Roads is my favourite part of the game. Whenever I think back to Origins, the Deep Roads is what comes to mind. And I'm talking about all the DLCs too - the Deep Roads in Awakening are cool as **** too.

[Fitz]

That's a first. Most people hate it. I liked the whole atmosphere, and thought the dwarfs themselves interesting, but was glad I was out of them. The whole experience felt exhausting, very darkspawn heavy too. Guess it makes sense why Grey Wardens go there to die. I like how they tie to the overall plot of the Darkspawns too.
Memories with missing pieces in them. Not a bad reason to replay this.

[Kolgrim]

I actually liked the deep roads a lot as well but then again I'm a weirdo who loved the fade. I think the only part of DAO I dislike is Ostagar and that's only because it's the area you have to push through to get to the real meat of the game. It's a similar situation to Eden Prime and the Citadel.

[logincrash]

On this playthrough I have actually seen some stuff for the very first time in all my time playing DAO. Like the little Chantry in Orzammar or the lyrium smuggling quest that can net you about 60 sovereigns.
I'm playing a Rogue with maxxed out Stealing and I've been pickpocketing literally every single NPC I see. And I've been clicking on them to talk, since the Stealing cooldown is like 30 seconds. Some NPCs don't just have barks that they repeat over and over, but proper conversations with dialogue choices that are there just to flesh out the world. It's so awesome. The game feels more like an open world simulator than actual open world Dragon Age games. Inquisition areas felt like arenas with a million respawning monsters roaming about, not like an actual lived-in locations.

Also, I've been rethinking the companions. I see now what somebody in this thread meant when he said that Alistair feels out of place with his speech. He doesn't spew modernisms, but neither is he written to speak in more formal English, like the rest of the characters. Even Zevran and Oghren have a more sophisticated way of speaking and they're mostly jokey characters.
And Wynne has been getting on my nerves a lot more than I thought would be possible. It's clear that she's written as what a midwit imagines a wise character to be. And so all of her lecturing comes across as a "I know I'm better than you" idiot lecturing you on extremely obvious stuff.

no **** sherlock.jpg

"People fear not the thing but what the thing does"
Yeah, no ****. This sounds like that Veil codex entry where it says "The Veil isn't like a physical barrier. Going through it is like opening your eyes, which involves lifting your eyelids (a physical barrier) from your eyes."

[Valter]

On this playthrough I have actually seen some stuff for the very first time in all my time playing DAO. Like the little Chantry in Orzammar or the lyrium smuggling quest that can net you about 60 sovereigns.
I'm playing a Rogue with maxxed out Stealing and I've been pickpocketing literally every single NPC I see. And I've been clicking on them to talk, since the Stealing cooldown is like 30 seconds. Some NPCs don't just have barks that they repeat over and over, but proper conversations with dialogue choices that are there just to flesh out the world. It's so awesome. The game feels more like an open world simulator than actual open world Dragon Age games. Inquisition areas felt like arenas with a million respawning monsters roaming about, not like an actual lived-in locations.

Also, I've been rethinking the companions. I see now what somebody in this thread meant when he said that Alistair feels out of place with his speech. He doesn't spew modernisms, but neither is he written to speak in more formal English, like the rest of the characters. Even Zevran and Oghren have a more sophisticated way of speaking and they're mostly jokey characters.
And Wynne has been getting on my nerves a lot more than I thought would be possible. It's clear that she's written as what a midwit imagines a wise character to be. And so all of her lecturing comes across as a "I know I'm better than you" idiot lecturing you on extremely obvious stuff.

"People fear not the thing but what the thing does"
Yeah, no ****. This sounds like that Veil codex entry where it says "The Veil isn't like a physical barrier. Going through it is like opening your eyes, which involves lifting your eyelids (a physical barrier) from your eyes."

I am both surprised and disappointed you never smuggled lyrium before. Next you're gonna tell me you never abducted nugs off the Orzammar back alleys.
Also yeah Wynne is a lot more annoying than I remembered her my first few playthroughs, same with Alistair but a much lesser extent, I just realized how immature he is. On the other hand I've grown to appreciate Leliana much more. A sinner genuinely trying to redeem herself in a way you seldom see in vdeo games.
Oh and Zevran gets the knife nowadays. I never cared about him before either but my completionist days are behind me so I don't care to miss out on content. Funny you mention Inquisition, that might have been one of the very first times I told myself "Maybe I don't need to collect every companion... " after Vivienne's intro quest.
I have to ask, what do you think of Oghren? I used to find him funnier, but now it's just kinda sad. He's actually drunk out of his mind half the time you speak to him in camp, it's supposed to be funny and it is sometimes, but it's also kinda sad now that I understand his circumstances better.

[logincrash]

On this playthrough I have actually seen some stuff for the very first time in all my time playing DAO. Like the little Chantry in Orzammar or the lyrium smuggling quest that can net you about 60 sovereigns.
I'm playing a Rogue with maxxed out Stealing and I've been pickpocketing literally every single NPC I see. And I've been clicking on them to talk, since the Stealing cooldown is like 30 seconds. Some NPCs don't just have barks that they repeat over and over, but proper conversations with dialogue choices that are there just to flesh out the world. It's so awesome. The game feels more like an open world simulator than actual open world Dragon Age games. Inquisition areas felt like arenas with a million respawning monsters roaming about, not like an actual lived-in locations.

Also, I've been rethinking the companions. I see now what somebody in this thread meant when he said that Alistair feels out of place with his speech. He doesn't spew modernisms, but neither is he written to speak in more formal English, like the rest of the characters. Even Zevran and Oghren have a more sophisticated way of speaking and they're mostly jokey characters.
And Wynne has been getting on my nerves a lot more than I thought would be possible. It's clear that she's written as what a midwit imagines a wise character to be. And so all of her lecturing comes across as a "I know I'm better than you" idiot lecturing you on extremely obvious stuff.

"People fear not the thing but what the thing does"
Yeah, no ****. This sounds like that Veil codex entry where it says "The Veil isn't like a physical barrier. Going through it is like opening your eyes, which involves lifting your eyelids (a physical barrier) from your eyes."

I am both surprised and disappointed you never smuggled lyrium before. Next you're gonna tell me you never abducted nugs off the Orzammar back alleys.
Also yeah Wynne is a lot more annoying than I remembered her my first few playthroughs, same with Alistair but a much lesser extent, I just realized how immature he is. On the other hand I've grown to appreciate Leliana much more. A sinner genuinely trying to redeem herself in a way you seldom see in vdeo games.
Oh and Zevran gets the knife nowadays. I never cared about him before either but my completionist days are behind me so I don't care to miss out on content. Funny you mention Inquisition, that might have been one of the very first times I told myself "Maybe I don't need to collect every companion... " after Vivienne's intro quest.
I have to ask, what do you think of Oghren? I used to find him funnier, but now it's just kinda sad. He's actually drunk out of his mind half the time you speak to him in camp, it's supposed to be funny and it is sometimes, but it's also kinda sad now that I understand his circumstances better.

No, I've got the nugs. I just never had the 40-50 sovereigns it takes to get the lyrium in the first place before. I usually splurge on useless ****.
I like Zevran only because of the voice actor. That guy has range. He voices the American Inquisitor. And, yeah, I also feel like not recruiting companions is fine. I'm doing a full completionist run right now to get myself reacquainted with the game. Next playthrough I'm definitely leaving Sten to rot in that cell for murdering children and killing Zevran for trying to kill me.
Yes, Oghren is a surprisingly tragic character.

[J1M]

The fade and deep roads are the best parts of the game. Anyone saying otherwise always sounds like they are regurgitating journalist propaganda from reviewers that resented how much content the game had.

The deep roads have to be lengthy and they have to be full of dark spawn. That notion is foreshadowed by half of the rest of the game.

The fade is a place with weird magical rules and hands out free stat boosts. In other words, a great way to introduce some variety in a long game. Reviewers just hate when they have to learn a second control scheme or set of abilities because the people doing that job wish they were movie reviewers instead. Anything that asks more from them, aka is closer to a game than an activity, draws their ire.

[rusty_shackleford]

I liked the deep roads and never understood the hate for it.

[logincrash]

The fade and deep roads are the best parts of the game. Anyone saying otherwise always sounds like they are regurgitating journalist propaganda from reviewers that resented how much content the game had.

The deep roads have to be lengthy and they have to be full of dark spawn. That notion is foreshadowed by half of the rest of the game.

The fade is a place with weird magical rules and hands out free stat boosts. In other words, a great way to introduce some variety in a long game. Reviewers just hate when they have to learn a second control scheme or set of abilities because the people doing that job wish they were movie reviewers instead. Anything that asks more from them, aka is closer to a game than an activity, draws their ire.

I think the Fade is alright on the first playthrough, but it's very boring on any subsequent ones.
I never read any journo reviews for this game and yet I still came to the same conclusion. Some things are just true.

[J1M]

The fade and deep roads are the best parts of the game. Anyone saying otherwise always sounds like they are regurgitating journalist propaganda from reviewers that resented how much content the game had.

The deep roads have to be lengthy and they have to be full of dark spawn. That notion is foreshadowed by half of the rest of the game.

The fade is a place with weird magical rules and hands out free stat boosts. In other words, a great way to introduce some variety in a long game. Reviewers just hate when they have to learn a second control scheme or set of abilities because the people doing that job wish they were movie reviewers instead. Anything that asks more from them, aka is closer to a game than an activity, draws their ire.

I think the Fade is alright on the first playthrough, but it's very boring on any subsequent ones.
I never read any journo reviews for this game and yet I still came to the same conclusion. Some things are just true.

The people I'm referencing played the game on average less than once.

[logincrash]

The fade and deep roads are the best parts of the game. Anyone saying otherwise always sounds like they are regurgitating journalist propaganda from reviewers that resented how much content the game had.

The deep roads have to be lengthy and they have to be full of dark spawn. That notion is foreshadowed by half of the rest of the game.

The fade is a place with weird magical rules and hands out free stat boosts. In other words, a great way to introduce some variety in a long game. Reviewers just hate when they have to learn a second control scheme or set of abilities because the people doing that job wish they were movie reviewers instead. Anything that asks more from them, aka is closer to a game than an activity, draws their ire.

I think the Fade is alright on the first playthrough, but it's very boring on any subsequent ones.
I never read any journo reviews for this game and yet I still came to the same conclusion. Some things are just true.

The people I'm referencing played the game on average less than once.

Sections of the game that force you out of the established gameplay loop (WhiteShark, hi!) into some other completely irrelevant to the overall game gameplay loop always leave a bad impression. Any forced stealth mission in a shooter game is a good example of that.
The Fade takes you out of the party-based combat experience into a solo adventure with backtracking and puzzles. You can argue that it fits the themes of the game and perfectly encapsulates being in the Fade as much as you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the Fade section is annoying at the very least to the majority of the players.
Now, whether it should be removed or should any game consist entirely of purely fun sections without any downtime in-between are completely different arguments. I'm of the opinion that the Fade section should be experienced at least once and to its fullest. You have to explore it and get all the codex entries and all the attribute bonuses, but after that it can be safely skipped. There's no replayability there and thus it's an overall detriment to the game.
The Deep Roads, on the other hand, are proper dungeons. They give you the opportunity to enjoy the party-based combat fully. I also think the pacing is much better than with the Fade.