Review RPG Codex Review: Dragon Age: Inquisition

[Lurker King]

Good review, I would brofist If I knew how to. roshan’s criticisms have some merit though. I notice a VD influence on your review, but there is a discrepancy between the VD-fashion way of quoting stupid comments from the developers, and the overall serious tone of the review. VD’s reviews of DA II and FO 3 works well because he is serious when he is demolishing a specific design element, but is mocking most of the time.

 

[Lurker King]

The MMOG quests were mostly skippable. All you had to do to outside the main story to progress the story was to shut down any rifts you came across.

I don’t understand this train of thought: “These stupid quests are all over the game, but they are skippable”. I heard the same excuses about the filler loot in W2. It doesn’t matter whether you can choose to ignore the quests or most of the filler content. The exploration of the world, with all its filler content, was intended as one of the core elements of the gameplay. The fact that it is a chore shows that there is a deep flaw in the game.

 

[Ninjerk]

DAI review brought to you by RPGCodex--because "thoroughly mediocre" is too short.

 

[Infinitron]

The MMOG quests were mostly skippable. All you had to do to outside the main story to progress the story was to shut down any rifts you came across.

I don’t understand this train of thought: “These stupid quests are all over the game, but they are skippable”. I heard the same excuses about the filler loot in W2. It doesn’t matter whether you can choose to ignore the quests or most of the filler content. The exploration of the world, with all its filler content, was intended as one of the core elements of the gameplay. The fact that it is a chore shows that there is a deep flaw in the game.

There's a qualitative difference between quests and loot.

It can be argued that "filler loot" exists in the world not for the purpose of you taking every single bit of it, but to serve as a kind of "residual resource" which you partake of only as necessary, like resources in a strategy game, a survival game, or a procedurally generated roguelike.

"Filler quests" are harder to justify, because they incorporate actual plot and lore content, which a player of a story-driven RPG should want to see as much of as possible.

 

[Zed]

The MMOG quests were mostly skippable. All you had to do to outside the main story to progress the story was to shut down any rifts you came across.

I don’t understand this train of thought: “These stupid quests are all over the game, but they are skippable”. I heard the same excuses about the filler loot in W2. It doesn’t matter whether you can choose to ignore the quests or most of the filler content. The exploration of the world, with all its filler content, was intended as one of the core elements of the gameplay. The fact that it is a chore shows that there is a deep flaw in the game.

I'm just telling you how I played the game. I explored, discovered camps, did a couple of companions quests, and closed rifts.
I'm not making excuses for the MMORPG quest design, I'm just saying there's very little of it on the "critical path."

 

[made]

I'm just telling you how I played the game. I explored, discovered camps, did a couple of companions quests, and closed rifts.
I'm not making excuses for the MMORPG quest design, I'm just saying there's very little of it on the "critical path."

What would you say is the better rift-closing game, DAI or RIFT? Review sadly doesn't seem to touch on this point, although I admit I skipped right to the final score. Which was absent too. Bad review.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm just telling you how I played the game. I explored, discovered camps, did a couple of companions quests, and closed rifts.
I'm not making excuses for the MMORPG quest design, I'm just saying there's very little of it on the "critical path."

What would you say is the better rift-closing game, DAI or RIFT Oblivion? Review sadly doesn't seem to touch on this point...

Fixed.

 

[Bleed the Man]

I'm just telling you how I played the game. I explored, discovered camps, did a couple of companions quests, and closed rifts.
I'm not making excuses for the MMORPG quest design, I'm just saying there's very little of it on the "critical path."

Maybe because the critical path is short as shit.

 

[Zed]

I'm just telling you how I played the game. I explored, discovered camps, did a couple of companions quests, and closed rifts.
I'm not making excuses for the MMORPG quest design, I'm just saying there's very little of it on the "critical path."

What would you say is the better rift-closing game, DAI or RIFT? Review sadly doesn't seem to touch on this point, although I admit I skipped right to the final score. Which was absent too. Bad review.

RIFT. I had a ton of fun solo'ing high level rifts on my dwarf druid.
In DA:I, you quickly became familiar with all demons and they quickly became a chore.

 

[made]

I'm just telling you how I played the game. I explored, discovered camps, did a couple of companions quests, and closed rifts.
I'm not making excuses for the MMORPG quest design, I'm just saying there's very little of it on the "critical path."

What would you say is the better rift-closing game, DAI or RIFT? Review sadly doesn't seem to touch on this point, although I admit I skipped right to the final score. Which was absent too. Bad review.

RIFT. I had a ton of fun solo'ing high level rifts on my dwarf druid.
In DA:I, you quickly became familiar with all demons and they quickly became a chore.

Thanks. As expected, RIFT remains the reference in rifting. Time to fire it up again for some riftan fun; I hear there's a new content update out.

 

[Fry]

AAA isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Of course. Dark Souls is an AAA game and it's fantastic.

Is it? I give DS credit for avoiding hilariously obvious storytelling, but I hate the combat in the Souls games almost as much as I hate DA:I combat. Just for different reasons.

Hey look... that enemy is going to attack me. He's got an attack pattern. He uses the same pattern every time. Guess I better memorize the pattern and time my dodge juuuust right, and then time my attack jusssst right... the same way every time.

Meh. It's like playing a platformer.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Everyone who played this game (except for reviewing purposes) is a moron

Even the review was boring as fuck

Except RK-47 kun who sacrificed his sanity so we didn't had to play this POS Yes its utterly moronic to make on over hyped and marketed AAA games And also true the review would be far more intrusting and full of KKKodex approved vitriol if Comrade VD did it; just compare it to his review of DAO:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=195



But as you say here You can't make bread out of the sh... mud; game is too much of garbage to make good review about her.

 

[SCO]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55CenBjJ7l <-linked in review

 

[felipepepe]

The MMOG quests were mostly skippable. All you had to do to outside the main story to progress the story was to shut down any rifts you came across.

I don’t understand this train of thought: “These stupid quests are all over the game, but they are skippable”. I heard the same excuses about the filler loot in W2. It doesn’t matter whether you can choose to ignore the quests or most of the filler content. The exploration of the world, with all its filler content, was intended as one of the core elements of the gameplay. The fact that it is a chore shows that there is a deep flaw in the game.

There's a qualitative difference between quests and loot.

It can be argued that "filler loot" exists in the world not for the purpose of you taking every single bit of it, but to serve as a kind of "residual resource" which you partake of only as necessary, like resources in a strategy game, a survival game, or a procedurally generated roguelike.

"Filler quests" are harder to justify, because they incorporate actual plot and lore content, which a player of a story-driven RPG should want to see as much of as possible.

Both suck.

Side-Quests were interesting missions not necessarily related to the main plot, but that offered an interesting side-story, gameplay opportunity, challenge or distinct reward (let's find a way to retrieve the legendary blade from the rock!). Now they became filler content, busy work. You do something boring like collecting 5/5 rocks or a FEDEX quest, and as "reward" get XP & loot. It's not a side adventure anymore, it's WORK that you do to get paid.

Games also didn't shower you with shitty loot just because their designers like Diabo but don't understand why it's good. In Diablo there are people that break every single barrel because each of them has 0,0001% of chance of dropping a legendary item. That's stupid already. But now other kinds of RPGs are doing this as well! "Better loot all 200 containers in this dungeon bro, one of them might have a item with 1 DPS more than yours! And don't worry, we added a 5 sec animation/skill check every time you loot one, just to keep things flowing..."

It makes even less sense considering how level-scaled these games are. You can loot all the containers in Skyrim and you won't find anything exciting, because the game actively limits what you can find.

 

[Roguey]

A lot of people really love these timesink activities or are addicts who can't not do it. It's been a part of open-world action-adventure design for over a decade.

 

[Infinitron]

Games also didn't shower you with shitty loot just because their designers like Diabo but don't understand why it's good. In Diablo there are people that break every single barrel because each of them has 0,0001% of chance of dropping a legendary item. That's stupid already. But now other kinds of RPGs are doing this as well! "Better loot all 200 containers in this dungeon bro, one of them might have a item with 1 DPS more than yours! And don't worry, we added a 5 sec animation/skill check every time you loot one, just to keep things flowing..."

Which games?

I think that in oldschool games that had a more abstract representation of things, it was more common for the player to treat randomly generated loot not as something that needs to be sucked dry out of the world, but more as a kind of residual resource to be selectively "foraged" as necessary.

You do see this in modern open world games as well. For example, a non-completionist player in Fallout 3 might realize he's low on money at some point, and go on a selective "scavenging expedition" in D.C. to get some loot and sell it. After he's done that, he goes back to non-completionist mode, following the main quest and not looting everything he sees.

I do agree that this is a somewhat "casual"/non-hardcore way of playing RPGs, but it is a valid way of playing, and something that "filler loot" can support.

 

[Athelas]

The MMOG quests were mostly skippable. All you had to do to outside the main story to progress the story was to shut down any rifts you came across.

I don’t understand this train of thought: “These stupid quests are all over the game, but they are skippable”. I heard the same excuses about the filler loot in W2. It doesn’t matter whether you can choose to ignore the quests or most of the filler content. The exploration of the world, with all its filler content, was intended as one of the core elements of the gameplay. The fact that it is a chore shows that there is a deep flaw in the game.

There's a qualitative difference between quests and loot.

It can be argued that "filler loot" exists in the world not for the purpose of you taking every single bit of it, but to serve as a kind of "residual resource" which you partake of only as necessary, like resources in a strategy game, a survival game, or a procedurally generated roguelike.

"Filler quests" are harder to justify, because they incorporate actual plot and lore content, which a player of a story-driven RPG should want to see as much of as possible.

A game that has something like a reputation system will need a certain amount of quests to utilize such a system properly.

 

[Ninjerk]

Games also didn't shower you with shitty loot just because their designers like Diabo but don't understand why it's good. In Diablo there are people that break every single barrel because each of them has 0,0001% of chance of dropping a legendary item. That's stupid already. But now other kinds of RPGs are doing this as well! "Better loot all 200 containers in this dungeon bro, one of them might have a item with 1 DPS more than yours! And don't worry, we added a 5 sec animation/skill check every time you loot one, just to keep things flowing..."

Which games?

I think that in oldschool games that had a more abstract representation of things, it was more common for the player to treat randomly generated loot not as something that needs to be sucked dry out of the world, but more as a kind of residual resource to be selectively "foraged" as necessary.

You do see this in modern open world games as well. For example, a non-completionist player in Fallout 3 might realize he's low on money at some point, and go on a selective "scavenging expedition" in D.C. to get some loot and sell it. After he's done that, he goes back to non-completionist mode, following the main quest and not looting everything he sees.

I do agree that this is a somewhat "casual"/non-hardcore way of playing RPGs, but it is a valid way of playing, and something that "filler loot" can support.

Way too much thought for Fallout 3.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

What a rambling review! I could barely read any of it. I completely agree with it in every regard, but, boy, was it difficult to read/follow.

 

[Quatlo]

I got this game for free, finished the "tutorial" area, watched the cutscene and decided that in all its shittiness it somehow may pull something interesting to at least keep me playing out of sheer boredom.
Then you get to the "Generic forest area" and Mining Trainer some NPC tells me to get him 10 iron ore, all with mmo-ish yellow "!" above his head. Even the enemies respawn, jesus christ this was so obviously supposed to be an mmo game but tortanic flopped so badly that they quickly jury rigged the rest of the single player game to salvage something.

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

Post it on the BSN. Fat fuck Laidlaw and his team turned this series into a Fedex Sim.

 

[Bubbles]

I got this game for free, finished the "tutorial" area, watched the cutscene and decided that in all its shittiness it somehow may pull something interesting to at least keep me playing out of sheer boredom.
Then you get to the "Generic forest area" and Mining Trainer some NPC tells me to get him 10 iron ore, all with mmo-ish yellow "!" above his head. Even the enemies respawn, jesus christ this was so obviously supposed to be an mmo game but tortanic flopped so badly that they quickly jury rigged the rest of the single player game to salvage something.

This really isn't an MMO engine. The devs simply mimicked MMO design because they noticed how many people put hundreds of hours into MMOs.

 

[Jaesun]

It's just in anticipation for Dragon Age MMO!

 

[Kem0sabe]

If not for the utter disaster that was TOR, I bet Bioware would be already doing an mmo in the DA universe.

 

[Jaesun]

I just wish they would just make a dragon age MMO so they could just stop making this garbage finally...