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Correct_Carlo

Arcane
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
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8,471
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Pronouns: He/Him/His
Dragon Age Inquisition is by far the best game in the series. People unfairly shit on it as action just because you had to press a button for each attack, but its mechanics were very similar to DA:O and there were a great deal of options for strategy--more than there were in DA:O. Plus, there were way better fights, especially on Nightmare. DA:O is so easy I can do Nightmare in my sleep without even optimizing.

This sounds terrible, though. You still had a great deal of control over your companions in DA:I, but this sounds like there's almost no strategy to combat with them if they can only use one ability.
 
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Lord_Potato

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 24, 2017
Messages
10,025
Location
Free City of Warsaw
Dragon Age Inquisition is by far the best game in the series. People unfairly shit on it as action just because you had to press a button for each attack,
Not only it had action combat, it had poor low-lethality combat, all those shiny attacks taking a laughable amount of hps.

it also had stupid disconnection between the story (which happened on separate small, heavily scripted maps) and those large mmo-like arenas where you just killed shit and gathered some ridiculous collectables (I remember shards and alcoholic drinks).
but its mechanics were very similar to DA:O and there were a great deal of options for strategy--more than there were in DA:O.
Dude, the tactical camera was fucked and was too close to the battlefield to actually give you proper situational orientation. DAI failed in every of its aspects as an action rpg, tactical party rpg and as a semi-open world rpg.

The only good thing about it was the dwarven DLC.

Plus, there were way better fights, especially on Nightmare. DA:O is so easy I can do Nightmare in my sleep without even optimizing.
the only half decent fights I remember were against dragons.
 

NecroLord

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Sep 6, 2022
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8,816
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Southeastern Yurop
Remember how there is an entire country of frenchmen, who are all wearing ridiculous masks, all the time, and who openly pride themselves on treachery and disloyalty?
Orlais?
Yeah, I never understood their weird cultural motif of wearing masks.
Presumably invented by Bioware to make them more interesting? It just makes them more dumb.
 

Lord_Potato

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 24, 2017
Messages
10,025
Location
Free City of Warsaw
Remember how there is an entire country of frenchmen, who are all wearing ridiculous masks, all the time, and who openly pride themselves on treachery and disloyalty?
Orlais?
Yeah, I never understood their weird cultural motif of wearing masks.
Presumably invented by Bioware to make them more interesting? It just makes them more dumb.
Probably invented by Bioware to make fewer animated faces.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,554
Dude, the tactical camera was fucked and was too close to the battlefield to actually give you proper situational orientation. DAI failed in every of its aspects as an action rpg, tactical party rpg and as a semi-open world rpg.
I watched a video Let's Play of it. The camera was so bad, the guy never knew where his toon was. The number of times his toon backflipped off a cliff was hilarious. Utter failure of camera.
 

Ryzer

Arcane
Joined
May 1, 2020
Messages
5,496
Origin's combat was dogshit. Inquisition was a drag.

DA2 was still the "best" of the trilogy because at least it didn't try so hard to waste my goddamn time.
Bullshit, Origins allows positioning your party accordingly and control your spells in the way you want as well as fully control party's AI in the way you decide, it's just that the real-time with pause is really not thrilling. It also suffers from poor-made encounter design.
Whereas Dragon age 2 is a shitty brainless beat-em up where you smash the buttons until shit dies.
 

Nikanuur

Arbiter
Patron
Joined
Mar 1, 2021
Messages
1,528
Location
Ngranek
They don't even know who they are anymore. Their games used to have a few distinctive traits that set them apart from their competitors. Even if some of those traits were controversial, they helped to shape their identity as a company. This sounds as generic as an Ubisoft game.
It's nice to read such recognition, even after so many years.
 

Semiurge

Cipher
Joined
Apr 11, 2020
Messages
6,201
Location
Asp Hole
The romances have been incredibly cringe since Origins. Interacting with the characters in a romantic fashion is literally something that makes you instinctively look over your shoulder to make sure no-one is seeing what you see - the love interest's face up close like in some deviant romance simulator, delivering corny lines in an attempt to stir an emotional response.
 

Harthwain

Magister
Joined
Dec 13, 2019
Messages
4,797
Dragon Age Inquisition is by far the best game in the series. People unfairly shit on it as action just because you had to press a button for each attack, but its mechanics were very similar to DA:O and there were a great deal of options for strategy--more than there were in DA:O.
It had shit controls.

I had to turn off friendly fire, because it was impossible for mages to use spells and not damage allies in the process. Team control was impossible, because instead of the somewhat sensible Origins UI we got some kind of shitty console one. Good luck doing any kind of strategy with that. As a result it was only playable as a shitty third-person action game. Barely.

Dragon Age: Origins is the best game in the series and that isn't setting the bar very high.
 

Nikanuur

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Ngranek
I don't know... I like furr, eehrm..., I mean, I watch tentac... eehhhggrhm, what I meant to say is, I like woman friendly porn as much as the next guy, but I always felt that sex in RPGs is just out of place. Like having a 2-ounce over-sweetened cake delivered instead of that extra-large pizza mexicana you ordered so you could close the curtains, lock the door, and rewatch all of Aliens throughout the night.
 
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Joined
Jan 21, 2023
Messages
3,147
I don't know... I like furr, eehrm..., I mean, I watch tentac... eehhhggrhm, what I meant to say is, I like woman friendly porn as much as the next guy, but I always felt that sex in RPGs is just out of place. Like having a 2-ounce over-sweetened cake delivered instead of that extra-large pizza mexicana you ordered so you could close the curtains and rewatch all of Aliens throughout the night.
At first I was a bit confused as to why your companions would want to stop a world-ending war (the usual threat in rpgs, especially bioware's) just to fuck, but then again real life examples mirror these attitudes (the baby boom of the 40s). There's also the case of nurses and doctors, it's not a stereotype, they really are horndogs because the proximity of death brings out the most base fight or flight instincts out of human beings.

Combat is not a priority of Bioware. The only decent combat design they ever made was found in the early D&D games because they had something to prove, but as they went along it became clear that narrative was the thing people were buying their games for. When a Bioware player wants help with their game, they want to know if they're going to be fucked by the C&C of their actions, or which romance is the best. "I can't beat X" is never an issue, even though a lot of people play on Nightmare.
 

mediocrepoet

Philosoraptor in Residence
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Combatfag: Gold box / Pathfinder
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At first I was a bit confused as to why your companions would want to stop a world-ending war (the usual threat in rpgs, especially bioware's) just to fuck, but then again real life examples mirror these attitudes (the baby boom of the 40s). There's also the case of nurses and doctors, it's not a stereotype, they really are horndogs because the proximity of death brings out the most base fight or flight instincts out of human beings.
It's also a great way to deal with stress.

Not that that's why the average land whale that Bioware caters to wants it in there, or why it's included, but it's at least kinda/sorta realistic.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
6,069
Romances and companions are a waste of resources. The equivalent of literally burning money. And time. And effort.
Both could be of interest if they were made realistically, rather than being self-insert soapboxing for whatever the fad du jour is for developers.
 
Joined
Jan 21, 2023
Messages
3,147
The only realistic romance I've seen in a videogame is FF4's relationship between Rosa and Cecil. For just one tiny detail. In the intro, Cecil is all gloomy because of his role in the kingdom, and then Rosa walks in and says something to the effect of "If you want someone to talk to, I'm here. I know you are sad and it worries me. You know I love you".

That's the only thing I've seen from a videogame romance that actually mirrors interactions that people actually have in real relationships.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
6,069
Both could be of interest if they were made realistically
How would you do both realistically? Genuinely curious.

Writing believable characters/romances is at the same time very easy and very hard.

On the easy end, take a few basic fiction writing classes and drop all your personal beliefs and biases at the door. Writing is an act of creation, and the writer must create something different from themselves.

This same principle is why writing characters can be very hard, because a lot of writers are opposed to creating characters not only very different in personality, but also diametrically opposed to their beliefs.

Romance is just an extension of your characters. But I think this is a hard one because I don't think most modern writers have any conception of what a normal relationship is outside of movies.


TL;DR: Take some writing classes taught by people who know what they're talking about. Read lots of books. Get more life experience. Have more sex, it's good for you.
 

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