Dragon Age Dragon Age: The Veilguard - coming Fall 2024

[Storyfag]

FFS, it's (supposed to be) an RPG. Why would you care about romances?

 

[Irxy]

FFS, it's (supposed to be) an RPG. Why would you care about romances?

FFS, because the hero gets the princess in the end, it's part of genre.

 

[Reinhardt]

How many people find any of these sexually attractive, I wonder?

mc is a nigga so... all of them?

 

[Fedora Master]

It's just the new trend to suck Larian's dick while shit on Bioware.

Bioware deserve it though. But it's pretty funny to see people praise BG 3's playersexual route while shit on DA 4's "everyone's pansexual" when they are exactly the same thing.

Larian did manage to give us a glimpse of a quality RPG once and BG3 came out at the right time.

 

[Baron Tahn]

So, which beloved series' reboot from EA and/or Activision you want most?

Activision: Arcanum, Krondor, Wizards & Warriors, Quest series, Caesar?

EA: Ultima, Lands of Lore, Dungeon Keeper, Kyrandia, Nox, Bioforge?

Arcanum II: Diesel & Dreadnoughts

You mean quest for glory? I'll have that. Does Activision own that now? That series kicked ass. Some of my favourite games.

 

[Vulpes]

No save import, just tell the game what you did

Good, Dragon Age Keep was shit to begin with. Seriously, who thought that using an external program that requires an Internet connection to manage save data between games was a good idea?

 

[Baron Tahn]

Not me. Come to think of it I own some of these games somewhere. The old EA launcher maybe? How DO I access my old DA shit if for some reason I wanted to play that again?

 

[Lodis]

Bioshills going full retard. I mean sure it's their natural state but now they're trying to push back criticism by trying to single out Origins as not being "Dragon Age".

 

[Drakortha]

It's much easier to dunk on wokeness in shitty games.

What's the matter? Is Dragon Age not gay enough for you?

It must be hard times for the Larian fanboys. Larian have already turned their back on Baldur's Gate. I feel genuinely sorry for you. But at least you've got the rest of pride month to look forward to.

 

[SmoothPimp]

I like their hypocrisy and craving to present themselves as oppressed minority, when they start their post with "I know I'll be downvoted / hated for what I'll write next, but...", while they perfectly know that their message / opinion is subreddit's consensus.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Meh. The Reapers should have been a one-off thing

I'm pretty sure the Reapers were BioWare's take on Babylon 5's Shadows. The problem is that BioWare doesn't have the writing talent that Straczynski had when he wrote Babylon 5.

David Gaider is a man of no real imagination. He can't put himself into the shoes of another person and try to see the world from his perspective. He can only impose his narrow worldview on everything he sees with no regard to sense, logic, or verisimilitude. He can't imagine how a regular medieval human would react to a very real danger of living demonic conduits in their midst, or the ever present threat of being consumed by hellbeasts from the nether realms. Gaider can only imagine how to enacapsulate a story within a narrative of social justice, and ensure the player reaches the 'correct' conclusion by the end.

I don't think there's any argument on this. It hamstrings the plot reveals once you figure this out because it always goes in a predictable path.

Bioshills going full retard. I mean sure it's their natural state but now they're trying to push back criticism by trying to single out Origins as not being "Dragon Age".

Which is interesting considering that Origins was the best one and it's been downhill ever since. Not saying that Origins was great, it was okay and the rest of them were perpetually worse than the one before it. If you're going to shit on the series, taking a massive dump on the best one isn't the best place to start.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

https://www.rpgsite.net/interview/1...ill-trees-being-inspired-by-final-fantasy-xii

Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s director talks RPG systems, skill trees, and being inspired by Final Fantasy XII​

by Alex Donaldson on 13 June, 2024
Dragon Age: The Veilguard was fully revealed with a flurry of exciting activity this week, with BioWare putting out a trailer, some gameplay footage, and a bunch of information. But as the promotional material focuses on courting the mainstream with dazzling action-led footage and its cast of characters, it of course has led to one key fan outcry: is it still a role-playing game?
Naturally, we were interested in that too. The hands-on offered glimpses of an incredible character creator, interesting dialogue choices, and some consequences for those choices - all role-playing staples. But what about combat? What about good old-fashioned RPG character progression and growth, which in many ways is the bedrock of the genre?

After seeing the hands-off demo, we got a chance to briefly chat with Dragon Age: The Veilguard director Corinne Busche - who right away gushes about being a real RPG system nerd. I get the impression we could’ve sat and talked about classic RPGs and their mechanics for hours; she is one of us. In our brief chat, she expands on how The Veilguard’s progression, growth, and skill tree work - revealing granular information not present in the demo shown so far. Here’s our chat.


RPG Site: So, can you just broadly talk to me about… in that preview, we don’t even see the menu, right? So can you talk to me about where the game sits and what it’s like in terms of that RPG progression, from the perspective of hardcore RPG fans?

Corinne Busche: Incredibly deep! So if I were to contrast Mass Effect versus Dragon Age, for instance… I really view Mass Effect as an ARPG. Big action, minor RPG. We're almost the total inverse of that.

So a few missions in, you unlock the skill tree right away, Every level up, you get skill points, of course. The skill tree is absolutely enormous and it is bespoke for your class. So when we talk about the specializations, we know that skill trees can be overwhelming to players as well. So what I love – I'll try to paint a picture for you….

When it is unlocked, imagine almost a gigantic spider web-like visual. And if I'm a mage right at the very center is the core of the Mage kit.

RPG Site: So I’m gonna interrupt you briefly here and say something – this may resonate with you, it may not - but when you say that, I think, er… Final Fantasy X Sphere Grid.
Corrine Busche: Heavily influenced! Absolutely. Final Fantasy X - one of my all-timers. I will tell you that 12, especially the Zodiac edition, is my favorite. The level of ability selection, passives, in our case also traits - I would say the amount of customization is more analogous to that. The organization is more similar to the Sphere Grid.

So Final Fantasy XII might be in my top three favorite games. I'm highly influenced by that when it comes to our progression. But if you, if you want to paint a picture, the spear grid is more… not an exact match, but it’s more akin.

What we've done though, to make it more accessible, is that each of the specializations is on the outer edges of the grid.

RPG Site: So you start in, and you work outwards, but you get to choose which direction you work out into?

Busche: Yeah. I know where I'm going to start. I have an idea of which specialization looks or sounds the coolest - and that really aids players in charting their course so they’re not just lost to the wilds.


RPG Site: So that’s why you surface that at the start - show not just the core classes, but also what the specialization options are, right there in the character creator, right? Because you want people to know ‘oh, I’m a Warrior, I’ve got this specialization up here, this down here’, and you choose your direction.

Busche: And we even put some uh helper labels along the way. So it is divided into three sections in addition to the specializations. In the case of Warrior for instance you have a section that’s more defense-oriented, one that’s more weapons oriented, and one that’s more ability oriented. So what you might do trying to get to, say, the Reaper specialization is go… Rather than going up through defense into Reaper, I’m going to go down through Ability into Reaper.

RPG Site: That’s a great, real easy way to sell it, really - talking about the license grid, the sphere grid… people, our audience, they definitely get that. Can you talk about, within that, the breadth of skills and how often you’ll be getting new stuff?

Busche: So, the skills are unique per class. Every level you get a skill point, there are other site activities to get skill point… We are very player-friendly; you can refund your last, refund the whole thing…
We have a level cap of 50. One of my frustrations with some other games that have similar skill tree systems is that getting up into the specialization might take up absolutely all of your skill points, and then you have nothing else.

We're the exact opposite. You get into your specialization about mid-game, and then you can really branch out.


RPG Site: And how about the party members?

Busche: They all have unique skill trees, too. Now, those ones – we don’t want to overwhelm the players. So their skill trees are organized around their individual abilities. So when you unlock their full suite of abilities, each one has a skill tree full of choices where you can get autonomous usage, or lower the cooldowns, or add additional effects to the ability.

RPG Site: What is the breadth of the actual active abilities for them? Like, are the characters quite prescribed with a handful of core abilities, or is it a larger number where the player is choosing which ones are on the ability wheel?

Busche: So each follower, each companion has five core abilities. There are decisions you can make along the way that add mechanical changes to each ability.

Now, going back to your question - Neve and Bellara are both Mages, so they share two core Mage abilities between each other, right? However, the other three are class or character-unique. Neve is an ice mage, Bellara is not - so Neve is going to have ice-specific abilities that are unique to her.

RPG Site: I’m being signaled we’re out of time, but first, just on that topic - elemental stuff. There’s been an increasing trend of some games making elemental stuff just a visual thing… but you mention ice magic there. So are elements a factor in combat? Or does it not matter?

Busche: Hell yeah. Oh, it really matters!
RPG Site: Good! Thank god for that. [laughs] Thanks for your time - hopefully, we can nerd out again before launch.

A reminder https://blog.bioware.com/2023/02/23/bioware-community-update-all-by-design/

 

[SmoothPimp]

https://www.rpgsite.net/interview/1...ill-trees-being-inspired-by-final-fantasy-xii

Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s director talks RPG systems, skill trees, and being inspired by Final Fantasy XII​

by Alex Donaldson on 13 June, 2024
Dragon Age: The Veilguard was fully revealed with a flurry of exciting activity this week, with BioWare putting out a trailer, some gameplay footage, and a bunch of information. But as the promotional material focuses on courting the mainstream with dazzling action-led footage and its cast of characters, it of course has led to one key fan outcry: is it still a role-playing game?
Naturally, we were interested in that too. The hands-on offered glimpses of an incredible character creator, interesting dialogue choices, and some consequences for those choices - all role-playing staples. But what about combat? What about good old-fashioned RPG character progression and growth, which in many ways is the bedrock of the genre?

After seeing the hands-off demo, we got a chance to briefly chat with Dragon Age: The Veilguard director Corinne Busche - who right away gushes about being a real RPG system nerd. I get the impression we could’ve sat and talked about classic RPGs and their mechanics for hours; she is one of us. In our brief chat, she expands on how The Veilguard’s progression, growth, and skill tree work - revealing granular information not present in the demo shown so far. Here’s our chat.


RPG Site: So, can you just broadly talk to me about… in that preview, we don’t even see the menu, right? So can you talk to me about where the game sits and what it’s like in terms of that RPG progression, from the perspective of hardcore RPG fans?

Corinne Busche: Incredibly deep! So if I were to contrast Mass Effect versus Dragon Age, for instance… I really view Mass Effect as an ARPG. Big action, minor RPG. We're almost the total inverse of that.

So a few missions in, you unlock the skill tree right away, Every level up, you get skill points, of course. The skill tree is absolutely enormous and it is bespoke for your class. So when we talk about the specializations, we know that skill trees can be overwhelming to players as well. So what I love – I'll try to paint a picture for you….

When it is unlocked, imagine almost a gigantic spider web-like visual. And if I'm a mage right at the very center is the core of the Mage kit.

RPG Site: So I’m gonna interrupt you briefly here and say something – this may resonate with you, it may not - but when you say that, I think, er… Final Fantasy X Sphere Grid.
Corrine Busche: Heavily influenced! Absolutely. Final Fantasy X - one of my all-timers. I will tell you that 12, especially the Zodiac edition, is my favorite. The level of ability selection, passives, in our case also traits - I would say the amount of customization is more analogous to that. The organization is more similar to the Sphere Grid.

So Final Fantasy XII might be in my top three favorite games. I'm highly influenced by that when it comes to our progression. But if you, if you want to paint a picture, the spear grid is more… not an exact match, but it’s more akin.

What we've done though, to make it more accessible, is that each of the specializations is on the outer edges of the grid.

RPG Site: So you start in, and you work outwards, but you get to choose which direction you work out into?

Busche: Yeah. I know where I'm going to start. I have an idea of which specialization looks or sounds the coolest - and that really aids players in charting their course so they’re not just lost to the wilds.


RPG Site: So that’s why you surface that at the start - show not just the core classes, but also what the specialization options are, right there in the character creator, right? Because you want people to know ‘oh, I’m a Warrior, I’ve got this specialization up here, this down here’, and you choose your direction.

Busche: And we even put some uh helper labels along the way. So it is divided into three sections in addition to the specializations. In the case of Warrior for instance you have a section that’s more defense-oriented, one that’s more weapons oriented, and one that’s more ability oriented. So what you might do trying to get to, say, the Reaper specialization is go… Rather than going up through defense into Reaper, I’m going to go down through Ability into Reaper.

RPG Site: That’s a great, real easy way to sell it, really - talking about the license grid, the sphere grid… people, our audience, they definitely get that. Can you talk about, within that, the breadth of skills and how often you’ll be getting new stuff?

Busche: So, the skills are unique per class. Every level you get a skill point, there are other site activities to get skill point… We are very player-friendly; you can refund your last, refund the whole thing…
We have a level cap of 50. One of my frustrations with some other games that have similar skill tree systems is that getting up into the specialization might take up absolutely all of your skill points, and then you have nothing else.

We're the exact opposite. You get into your specialization about mid-game, and then you can really branch out.


RPG Site: And how about the party members?

Busche: They all have unique skill trees, too. Now, those ones – we don’t want to overwhelm the players. So their skill trees are organized around their individual abilities. So when you unlock their full suite of abilities, each one has a skill tree full of choices where you can get autonomous usage, or lower the cooldowns, or add additional effects to the ability.

RPG Site: What is the breadth of the actual active abilities for them? Like, are the characters quite prescribed with a handful of core abilities, or is it a larger number where the player is choosing which ones are on the ability wheel?

Busche: So each follower, each companion has five core abilities. There are decisions you can make along the way that add mechanical changes to each ability.

Now, going back to your question - Neve and Bellara are both Mages, so they share two core Mage abilities between each other, right? However, the other three are class or character-unique. Neve is an ice mage, Bellara is not - so Neve is going to have ice-specific abilities that are unique to her.

RPG Site: I’m being signaled we’re out of time, but first, just on that topic - elemental stuff. There’s been an increasing trend of some games making elemental stuff just a visual thing… but you mention ice magic there. So are elements a factor in combat? Or does it not matter?

Busche: Hell yeah. Oh, it really matters!
RPG Site: Good! Thank god for that. [laughs] Thanks for your time - hopefully, we can nerd out again before launch.

A reminder https://blog.bioware.com/2023/02/23/bioware-community-update-all-by-design/

director Corinne Busche - who right away gushes about being a real RPG system nerd. I get the impression we could’ve sat and talked about classic RPGs and their mechanics for hours; she is one of us.

 

[Drakortha]

"I know I'll be downvoted / hated for what I'll write next, but...", while they perfectly know that their message / opinion is subreddit's consensus.

As opposed to what? The Codex consensus? It's 1:1 exactly the same at this point.

At least Veilguard seems to have an established artstyle. Even if everyone personally dislikes it and thinks it's too cartoony, at least it has it's own sense of style.

BG3 on the other hand was just Original Sin 2 with a de-saturation filter over the top of it to make it feel 35% edgier. It's derivative and ugly as hell. Yet it gets praised to the moon and back around here, just like on reddit.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

EA shat on Mass Effect many times. It has Shepard, re-occurring side characters and a consistent look across all three Shepard games, but the cheapening started with ME2 already

Correct. ME2 was the beginning of the end of Bioware. ME1 and DA: Origins were the last old Bioware games in development during the acquisition.

ME1 is surprisingly tonally and thematically consistent. All the stories in the game revolve around the dangers of technology. The Rachni, the Krogan, the Geth are all the result of science used recklessly. Cerberus are bad guys because they misuse technology. The Citadel mostly revolves around regulating tech; the Spectres are pretty much the Technology Police. Even the reapers are related to this, their original incarnation was to regulate use of the Mass Effect, which was supposed to be killing stars. Too many sentients flying around would eventually implode the galaxy.

ME2 throws this all straight into the garbage. The villains are monsters of the week, the themes are replaced with meaningless character drama. Technology misuse no longer matters. Cerberus and Geth hostiles were just 'rogue factions.' AI is no longer a danger, it's just a few bad apples, or bad ideology (reaper indoctrination, aka Religion). The Mass Effect has no consequences. All criminals were just misunderstood or victims of society. Sheppard loses all moral authority and pretty much becomes a petty thug enforcer for a cartel.

ME3 takes it to its ridiculous conclusion. While humans are being exterminated en masse, you busy yourself with rescuing genocidal robots and lizard people from oppression. This fails to appease the reapers who now exist to avenge oppression. Sheppard has no moral leg to oppose them, can't even stand for self determination. The game makes it clear killing the mass-murder bots is the bad ending.

Bioware is a cargo cult now, all their games are just vine-and-bamboo imitations of the past, with no understanding of the underlying craft or skill that went into making them.

 

[sosmoflux]

I can't (can) believe how bad the voice acting is. The Indian fop hat bitch reads every line like she's delivering Uber Eats. "Let's handle these demons". Bitch handle my Amazon refund first.

 

[Cael]

https://www.rpgsite.net/interview/1...ill-trees-being-inspired-by-final-fantasy-xii

Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s director talks RPG systems, skill trees, and being inspired by Final Fantasy XII​

by Alex Donaldson on 13 June, 2024
Dragon Age: The Veilguard was fully revealed with a flurry of exciting activity this week, with BioWare putting out a trailer, some gameplay footage, and a bunch of information. But as the promotional material focuses on courting the mainstream with dazzling action-led footage and its cast of characters, it of course has led to one key fan outcry: is it still a role-playing game?
Naturally, we were interested in that too. The hands-on offered glimpses of an incredible character creator, interesting dialogue choices, and some consequences for those choices - all role-playing staples. But what about combat? What about good old-fashioned RPG character progression and growth, which in many ways is the bedrock of the genre?

After seeing the hands-off demo, we got a chance to briefly chat with Dragon Age: The Veilguard director Corinne Busche - who right away gushes about being a real RPG system nerd. I get the impression we could’ve sat and talked about classic RPGs and their mechanics for hours; she is one of us. In our brief chat, she expands on how The Veilguard’s progression, growth, and skill tree work - revealing granular information not present in the demo shown so far. Here’s our chat.


RPG Site: So, can you just broadly talk to me about… in that preview, we don’t even see the menu, right? So can you talk to me about where the game sits and what it’s like in terms of that RPG progression, from the perspective of hardcore RPG fans?

Corinne Busche: Incredibly deep! So if I were to contrast Mass Effect versus Dragon Age, for instance… I really view Mass Effect as an ARPG. Big action, minor RPG. We're almost the total inverse of that.

So a few missions in, you unlock the skill tree right away, Every level up, you get skill points, of course. The skill tree is absolutely enormous and it is bespoke for your class. So when we talk about the specializations, we know that skill trees can be overwhelming to players as well. So what I love – I'll try to paint a picture for you….

When it is unlocked, imagine almost a gigantic spider web-like visual. And if I'm a mage right at the very center is the core of the Mage kit.

RPG Site: So I’m gonna interrupt you briefly here and say something – this may resonate with you, it may not - but when you say that, I think, er… Final Fantasy X Sphere Grid.
Corrine Busche: Heavily influenced! Absolutely. Final Fantasy X - one of my all-timers. I will tell you that 12, especially the Zodiac edition, is my favorite. The level of ability selection, passives, in our case also traits - I would say the amount of customization is more analogous to that. The organization is more similar to the Sphere Grid.

So Final Fantasy XII might be in my top three favorite games. I'm highly influenced by that when it comes to our progression. But if you, if you want to paint a picture, the spear grid is more… not an exact match, but it’s more akin.

What we've done though, to make it more accessible, is that each of the specializations is on the outer edges of the grid.

RPG Site: So you start in, and you work outwards, but you get to choose which direction you work out into?

Busche: Yeah. I know where I'm going to start. I have an idea of which specialization looks or sounds the coolest - and that really aids players in charting their course so they’re not just lost to the wilds.


RPG Site: So that’s why you surface that at the start - show not just the core classes, but also what the specialization options are, right there in the character creator, right? Because you want people to know ‘oh, I’m a Warrior, I’ve got this specialization up here, this down here’, and you choose your direction.

Busche: And we even put some uh helper labels along the way. So it is divided into three sections in addition to the specializations. In the case of Warrior for instance you have a section that’s more defense-oriented, one that’s more weapons oriented, and one that’s more ability oriented. So what you might do trying to get to, say, the Reaper specialization is go… Rather than going up through defense into Reaper, I’m going to go down through Ability into Reaper.

RPG Site: That’s a great, real easy way to sell it, really - talking about the license grid, the sphere grid… people, our audience, they definitely get that. Can you talk about, within that, the breadth of skills and how often you’ll be getting new stuff?

Busche: So, the skills are unique per class. Every level you get a skill point, there are other site activities to get skill point… We are very player-friendly; you can refund your last, refund the whole thing…
We have a level cap of 50. One of my frustrations with some other games that have similar skill tree systems is that getting up into the specialization might take up absolutely all of your skill points, and then you have nothing else.

We're the exact opposite. You get into your specialization about mid-game, and then you can really branch out.


RPG Site: And how about the party members?

Busche: They all have unique skill trees, too. Now, those ones – we don’t want to overwhelm the players. So their skill trees are organized around their individual abilities. So when you unlock their full suite of abilities, each one has a skill tree full of choices where you can get autonomous usage, or lower the cooldowns, or add additional effects to the ability.

RPG Site: What is the breadth of the actual active abilities for them? Like, are the characters quite prescribed with a handful of core abilities, or is it a larger number where the player is choosing which ones are on the ability wheel?

Busche: So each follower, each companion has five core abilities. There are decisions you can make along the way that add mechanical changes to each ability.

Now, going back to your question - Neve and Bellara are both Mages, so they share two core Mage abilities between each other, right? However, the other three are class or character-unique. Neve is an ice mage, Bellara is not - so Neve is going to have ice-specific abilities that are unique to her.

RPG Site: I’m being signaled we’re out of time, but first, just on that topic - elemental stuff. There’s been an increasing trend of some games making elemental stuff just a visual thing… but you mention ice magic there. So are elements a factor in combat? Or does it not matter?

Busche: Hell yeah. Oh, it really matters!
RPG Site: Good! Thank god for that. [laughs] Thanks for your time - hopefully, we can nerd out again before launch.

A reminder https://blog.bioware.com/2023/02/23/bioware-community-update-all-by-design/

*gets flashback to FFX*

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

At least Veilguard seems to have an established artstyle.

Yeah, that artstyle was established by the Saints Row reboot. The first trailer they put out even uses the silver text with a purple backlight just like Saints Row the Third, Saints Row IV, and Gat Outta Hell.

Go back and watch the Saints Row reboot trailer and then watch the reveal trailer. Not only is the art style very similar, but the quirky, quipy dialog with all the action going on around them is pretty similar as well.

 

[moon knight]

How and when do Origins or DA2 save and upload to Bioware's server how many times we switch to combat camera or characters?

He's reaching an absurd level of shilling.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

OG Bioware guys (Karpy, Gaider etc) weren't any better than the current crop. Back in a day I've attempted to read some of Karpyshyn's novels and that stuff was on the level of bad reddit fanfic post, it was laughably bad. I couldn't believe a publisher actually looked at the draft and thought 'yes that's the huge bestesller in the making".

It's just that in the old days the games were more inclined in general and superior gameplay would paper over the cracks in the script and worldbuilding.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

How and when do Origins or DA2 save and upload to Bioware's server how many times we switch to combat camera or characters?

He's reaching an absurd level of shilling.

Nobody used Tac-Cam in DAI because that shit was awful. It's like burning someone food, serving them and then removing from the menu because nobody liked.

 

[Darkwind]

It's much easier to dunk on wokeness in shitty games.

What's the matter? Is Dragon Age not gay enough for you?

It must be hard times for the Larian fanboys. Larian have already turned their back on Baldur's Gate. I feel genuinely sorry for you. But at least you've got the rest of pride month to look forward to.

Your hatred for Larian and BG3 is far more than just the game having some issues, it is irrational bordering on hysterical. Which makes me wonder... who hurt you at Larian? Did you apply for a job there and Swen said you suck at life and get the fuck out of his office for wasting his time? Because you talk about it the way that a jilted female lover obsesses over the Chad Thundercock that told her he loved her at the bar, brutally banged her out for one night, and left her by the next morning.

Tell us more about this affliction you have-- Does the Larian tell you to do things? Is the Larian in the room with us now?

 

[Darkwind]

director Corinne Busche - who right away gushes about being a real RPG system nerd. I get the impression we could’ve sat and talked about classic RPGs and their mechanics for hours; she is one of us.

"She" is definitely 'one of us'

 

[Frozen]

All these Larian loving faggots should transition to BioWare forums.

 

[Semiurge]

I like their hypocrisy and craving to present themselves as oppressed minority, when they start their post with "I know I'll be downvoted / hated for what I'll write next, but...", while they perfectly know that their message / opinion is subreddit's consensus.

They know full well that dissention isn't tolerated in their safe spaces. No one strays from the party line without paying the price, which is excommunication. They all know the consequences, so they never post anything truly outrageous.

Even saying that a "she" is really a 'he' is aking to Galileo Galilei's immortal phrase "And yet it moves.", uttered when he was forced to renounce his scientific discoveries.