The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[Shadenuat]

DA:O had better auto options for tactical combat then?

 

[Lhynn]

Its not. It has shittier graphix

But better art and enviroments.

music

Are you fucking kidding me? Skrims soundtrack is one of the most iconic soundtracks to come from the gaming industry in years.

quests

They are both awful.

writting

skyrims writing is bad to serviceable, DA:I writing is cringeworthy to boring.

art design

Are you for real? DA:I has no art.

combat

Ok, are you trolling me?

magic

Yeah, you are trolling me. You have alteration, conjuration and illusion schools, that alone puts it a step above DA:I, that has "destruction" and "not healing".

loot

No, Skyrim itemization is bad and made pointless because of the crafting, DA:I itemization is banal shit boring.

crafting

They are both shit, crafting is a bad idea in single player games, unless its a exclusive class feature that you only have access to with a single kind of character, makes for varied replays.

C&C

What? no, i comit crimes in winterhold and i deal with it, i can be a bastard and be wanted in every hold in the game, kill half the population, etc. Skyrim may have shitty and shallow C&C but at least its meaningful C&C. DA:I has fake C&C.

deal with it

deal with what, game is shit in every possible way, its boring to play. Skyrim has good bits, DA:I has no redemable qualities, it is impossible to objetively defend it.

The only advantage Skyrim has are porn mods

Not the only one, but its a big one.

i couldnt stand skyrim combat anymore after 20 hours.

I couldnt stand this shit after 15 minutes, i just stood there clicking and pressing 1 till shit died. I got better games to play.

Here after 20 hours i cant wait to pull next enemy with chain hook to me , welcome him with knee to the face squash him with two handed blow and dodge incoming fireball with nicely timed roll

Yeah, im guessing thats how every fight plays out, no thanks, i can take repetition, but theres a limit.

Shittier Dragons Dogma > Skyshit

Yep, you just called DA:I a lesser version of dragons dogma


You actually like this shit, dont you?

 

[Slow James]

DA:O had better auto options for tactical combat then?

Without a doubt.

It's sad when DA2 has the most AI Tactics options in your franchise.

 

[dryan]

music

Are you fucking kidding me? Skrims soundtrack is one of the most iconic soundtracks to come from the gaming industry in years.

Generic and overrated.

 

[Lhynn]

music

Are you fucking kidding me? Skrims soundtrack is one of the most iconic soundtracks to come from the gaming industry in years.

Generic and overrated.

Yeah... that doesnt actually make it bad mate.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

You do realize that BioWare now has two games worth of metadata? Only 6.78% of players chose predominantly "evil" actions in Dragon Age Origins and only 9.42% of players chose predominantly "evil" actions in Dragon Age 2. There's just no justification for resources being spent on evil choices when players only want to pick good ones.

That is very interesting, can you please link to a source?

 

[Telengard]

You do realize that BioWare now has two games worth of metadata? Only 6.78% of players chose predominantly "evil" actions in Dragon Age Origins and only 9.42% of players chose predominantly "evil" actions in Dragon Age 2. There's just no justification for resources being spent on evil choices when players only want to pick good ones.

That's a flimsy excuse. A low amount of TES players run around without a weapon - that doesn't mean they should do away with being able to fight with bare fists. Choice is vitally important to making an RPG, even if many players don't engage that choice.

When dealing with the corporate mindset, you have to look at the bigger picture to understand them. One doesn't lose choices under metrics. Instead, development time that would have been assigned to weakly-used choices is shifted over to areas where lots of people are actively engaging choices. So, instead of an evil option, everyone gets an extra romance option. Players still have the same number of choices as before, but all of the choices are now popular ones.

Now, if Bio made the evil path of a higher quality, maybe more people would choose it. But corps don't play with maybes. They've already got popular areas that will guarantee them a better return if they concentrate more resources there, and they're always going to choose a guarantee over a maybe.

Metrics are like a massive focus group that allows a corporation to slavishly follow the herd, and do so without having to pay for a focus group. One can just imagine all of the suits' cocks hardening at just the concept.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Its not. It has shittier graphix

But better art and enviroments.

music

Are you fucking kidding me? Skrims soundtrack is one of the most iconic soundtracks to come from the gaming industry in years.

quests

They are both awful.

writting

skyrims writing is bad to serviceable, DA:I writing is cringeworthy to boring.

art design

Are you for real? DA:I has no art.

combat

Ok, are you trolling me?

magic

Yeah, you are trolling me. You have alteration, conjuration and illusion schools, that alone puts it a step above DA:I, that has "destruction" and "not healing".

loot

No, Skyrim itemization is bad and made pointless because of the crafting, DA:I itemization is banal shit boring.

crafting

They are both shit, crafting is a bad idea in single player games, unless its a exclusive class feature that you only have access to with a single kind of character, makes for varied replays.

C&C

What? no, i comit crimes in winterhold and i deal with it, i can be a bastard and be wanted in every hold in the game, kill half the population, etc. Skyrim may have shitty and shallow C&C but at least its meaningful C&C. DA:I has fake C&C.

deal with it

deal with what, game is shit in every possible way, its boring to play. Skyrim has good bits, DA:I has no redemable qualities, it is impossible to objetively defend it.

The only advantage Skyrim has are porn mods

Not the only one, but its a big one.

i couldnt stand skyrim combat anymore after 20 hours.

I couldnt stand this shit after 15 minutes, i just stood there clicking and pressing 1 till shit died. I got better games to play.

Here after 20 hours i cant wait to pull next enemy with chain hook to me , welcome him with knee to the face squash him with two handed blow and dodge incoming fireball with nicely timed roll

Yeah, im guessing thats how every fight plays out, no thanks, i can take repetition, but theres a limit.

Shittier Dragons Dogma > Skyshit

Yep, you just called DA:I a lesser version of dragons dogma


You actually like this shit, dont you?

sorry i forgot , DAI has also better :
-puzzles
-dragon fights
-level design and level verticality with shortcuts/secrets
-encounter design
-mobs diversity
-and no level scaling

 

[hell bovine]

music

Are you fucking kidding me? Skrims soundtrack is one of the most iconic soundtracks to come from the gaming industry in years.

Generic and overrated.

Yeah... that doesnt actually make it bad mate.

Doesn't make it good either. Personally, I couldn't stand it 2 hours into the game. And while I had a lot of fun with Requiem, the original magic system doesn't make much sense. Spells don't grow in power, but you can reduce their cost to zero, which combined with levelling monsters is just not much fun. And there is illusion&sneaking. Or just sneaking. Skyrim wouldn't get as far with players if not for the sheer amount of mods (and porn).

 

[set]

You do realize that BioWare now has two games worth of metadata? Only 6.78% of players chose predominantly "evil" actions in Dragon Age Origins and only 9.42% of players chose predominantly "evil" actions in Dragon Age 2. There's just no justification for resources being spent on evil choices when players only want to pick good ones.

That is very interesting, can you please link to a source?

I hate this request because I'm obliged to find my ancient source and I know no one will read it even though I put the effort in. But here it fucking is:

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Origins#cite_note-3

Unfortunately, since BioWare recently did a forum revamp, my source is now gone. I'd have to wayback it to directly quote it and I'm not putting in the effort. And yes, it's more than just a single quote - there are several corroborating quotes that were made when Bioware was half-apologizing over the quality of DA2 a few years post-release. Gaider is just one of the main sources.

Long and short? DA1 and DA2 both incentivized you to play with your BSN account linked up. As evidenced by the wiki citation above, there exists telemetry for all players who played these games - especially console players. The option to turn this tracking off was available, but actually tricky to find at first - I doubt few people turned it off or realized enough to turn it off. If you download DAO or DA2 today you can still find this setting available to toggle, if you please. You did not even need a BSN account for some telemetry to be collected.

Gaider and other developers have confirmed that because of the 5% dwarf race selection in DAO and 15% elf selection in DAO, human was forced choice in DA2 by suits. Well, indirectly. They did not have the resources to support choices players would not make anyway. It was also confirmed how many cutscenes you skipped and other metrics were sent to their server and guided their design decisions in DA2.

There is no evidence to suggest the metrics they collected in DA2 were not used for producing DA3. With creative control vested in the hands of EA and given other developer comments I have read on the BSN, it is easy to say with great confidence that if anything feels "imbalanced" toward a specific type of playstyle, it is because metrics governed it.

In effect, bioware defenders will even if I produce many sources, make stupid arguments in defense of this design-by-metrics philosophy -- so if you really are interested in it, do some googling around and you'll find the necessary quotes. I know there is one such quote on the Obsidian forums somewhere.

 

[Lhynn]

sorry i forgot , DAI has also better :

-puzzles

Yes, i can only imagine DA:I puzzles rival those of grimrock.

-dragon fights

Again, they are both shit.

-level design and level verticality with shortcuts/secrets

Both are shit, linear as fuck. Skyrim does show better architecture tho.

-encounter design

Both repetitive as fuck shit.

-mobs diversity

True, but again, and i feel im repeating myself too much, they are both shit.

-and no level scaling

This is a big one in favor of inquisition.

Anyway, you are comparing the worst parts of skyrim with arguably the best parts of DA:I and still failing to make a point of how DA:I is in any way good. Worse part is that this is without counting the myriad of mods avaliable for free for skyrim that DA:I will never have. If you put a gun to my head and told me to buy one and play it id probably tell you to fuck off and bite the bullet, but if that wasnt an option id get skyrim without even having to think about it.

Doesn't make it good either. Personally, I couldn't stand it 2 hours into the game. And while I had a lot of fun with Requiem, the original magic system doesn't make much sense. Spells don't grow in power, but you can reduce their cost to zero, which combined with levelling monsters is just not much fun. And there is illusion&sneaking. Or just sneaking. Skyrim wouldn't get as far with players if not for the sheer amount of mods (and porn).

yup.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

You do realize that BioWare now has two games worth of metadata? Only 6.78% of players chose predominantly "evil" actions in Dragon Age Origins and only 9.42% of players chose predominantly "evil" actions in Dragon Age 2. There's just no justification for resources being spent on evil choices when players only want to pick good ones.

That is very interesting, can you please link to a source?

I hate this request because I'm obliged to find my ancient source and I know no one will read it even though I put the effort in. But here it fucking is:

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Origins#cite_note-3

Unfortunately, since BioWare recently did a forum revamp, my source is now gone. I'd have to wayback it to directly quote it and I'm not putting in the effort. And yes, it's more than just a single quote - there are several corroborating quotes that were made when Bioware was half-apologizing over the quality of DA2 a few years post-release. Gaider is just one of the main sources.

Long and short? DA1 and DA2 both incentivized you to play with your BSN account linked up. As evidenced by the wiki citation above, there exists telemetry for all players who played these games - especially console players. The option to turn this tracking off was available, but actually tricky to find at first - I doubt few people turned it off or realized enough to turn it off. If you download DAO or DA2 today you can still find this setting available to toggle, if you please. You did not even need a BSN account for some telemetry to be collected.

Gaider and other developers have confirmed that because of the 5% dwarf race selection in DAO and 15% elf selection in DAO, human was forced choice in DA2 by suits. Well, indirectly. They did not have the resources to support choices players would not make anyway. It was also confirmed how many cutscenes you skipped and other metrics were sent to their server and guided their design decisions in DA2.

There is no evidence to suggest the metrics they collected in DA2 were not used for producing DA3. With creative control vested in the hands of EA and given other developer comments I have read on the BSN, it is easy to say with great confidence that if anything feels "imbalanced" toward a specific type of playstyle, it is because metrics governed it.

In effect, bioware defenders will even if I produce many sources, make stupid arguments in defense of this design-by-metrics philosophy -- so if you really are interested in it, do some googling around and you'll find the necessary quotes. I know there is one such quote on the Obsidian forums somewhere.

Just to be clear - I did not ask for source because I doubted your statement but because I am interested in the metadata and how people actually play these games.

I remember that Larian published a whole spreadsheet on the political decisions people made during their Dragon Commander playthrough, that shit was pretty interesting.

 

[Sòren]

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[dryan]

Shit, that's worse than that first Bull romance video with the dwarf lady.

 

[Nikaido]

Spoiler

Skynet knows.

 

[NotAGolfer]

Wait, why is there Baldur's Gate music in this turd? (can't embed the video position, it's from 1:30 on)
Wtf, Bioware, is nothing sacred anymore?

 

[Abu Antar]

Spoiler

Skynet knows.

LOL.

Spoiler

http://www.biowarestore.com/morrigan-statue-deposit.html

 

[Volourn]

"Potion focused combat,"

Nah.

"actiony click fest combat,"

True.


"no itemization,"

Bullshit.


"no class specialization"

Uh. Flat out lie.


", no real tactical view,"

Sure it does.


"no ai,"

No worse than other games.

"no enemy variety or challenge, et cetera."

Baloney.


"I don't think BioWare will be given the choice to make another MMO, not after SWTOR."

People spam about how SWTOR is a 'failure' but that simply isn't true. You don't need WOW numbers to make money FFS.


"And you know what, I'm sure it will sell just as well as DA2 - 2 to 2.5 million copies approximately"

DA2 sold way more than that. It sold that much in less than a month or so. FFS If you are so asanine to foolhardedly believe it has sold 0 since you are an idiot.


"Of course, "selling as well as da2" isn't much of a goal,"

\L0L Tell that to DOS fanboys who brag abotu that game's popularity despite it selling than 1mil copies thus far (at last update). LMFAO


"Ugh, this healing without any healing spells is getting on my nerves now."

Agreed. The whole idea of it is dumb. It took the common RPG complaint of 'healing is too easy' to the other extreme. It is retartet that there is no healing magic. DUMB.


"Wait... so the game does actually have belts, rings, boots, amulets, gloves?"

Yes, people who claim it doesn't have itemization are fruitloop liars. I don't know what exactly because I haven't played it much but I know it has amulets, belts, and rings for sure.


"Skyrim is better in every way imaginable.

EDIT: Even oblivion is better in every way imaginable."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!


, "made me feel more in control of combat,"




"Skrims soundtrack is one of the most iconic soundtracks to come from the gaming industry in years."

FUCK OFF FUCKER


"DA:I, that has "destruction" and "not healing"."

\Liar.

 

[Slow James]

You do realize that BioWare now has two games worth of metadata? Only 6.78% of players chose predominantly "evil" actions in Dragon Age Origins and only 9.42% of players chose predominantly "evil" actions in Dragon Age 2. There's just no justification for resources being spent on evil choices when players only want to pick good ones.

That is very interesting, can you please link to a source?

I hate this request because I'm obliged to find my ancient source and I know no one will read it even though I put the effort in. But here it fucking is:

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Origins#cite_note-3

Unfortunately, since BioWare recently did a forum revamp, my source is now gone. I'd have to wayback it to directly quote it and I'm not putting in the effort. And yes, it's more than just a single quote - there are several corroborating quotes that were made when Bioware was half-apologizing over the quality of DA2 a few years post-release. Gaider is just one of the main sources.

Long and short? DA1 and DA2 both incentivized you to play with your BSN account linked up. As evidenced by the wiki citation above, there exists telemetry for all players who played these games - especially console players. The option to turn this tracking off was available, but actually tricky to find at first - I doubt few people turned it off or realized enough to turn it off. If you download DAO or DA2 today you can still find this setting available to toggle, if you please. You did not even need a BSN account for some telemetry to be collected.

Gaider and other developers have confirmed that because of the 5% dwarf race selection in DAO and 15% elf selection in DAO, human was forced choice in DA2 by suits. Well, indirectly. They did not have the resources to support choices players would not make anyway. It was also confirmed how many cutscenes you skipped and other metrics were sent to their server and guided their design decisions in DA2.

There is no evidence to suggest the metrics they collected in DA2 were not used for producing DA3. With creative control vested in the hands of EA and given other developer comments I have read on the BSN, it is easy to say with great confidence that if anything feels "imbalanced" toward a specific type of playstyle, it is because metrics governed it.

In effect, bioware defenders will even if I produce many sources, make stupid arguments in defense of this design-by-metrics philosophy -- so if you really are interested in it, do some googling around and you'll find the necessary quotes. I know there is one such quote on the Obsidian forums somewhere.

Irrelevant, in all honesty. If the design of your game makes it to expensive to pursue a higher level of options, then your design is flawed. Full voice acting, extremely detailed 3D physics, movie-quality cinematics... these all devour resources and make implementing options more difficult and costly.

Embrace a more simple game design, invert the staffing size of today's RPG studios of writers and mechanics designers to artists and voice actors and you could have the most expansive, reactive and option-filled game in history. But of course, that won't sell 10 million copies, so let's just focus on the full video romance scenes, I guess.

 

[VioletShadow]

I watched. I laughed. I cringed.

 

[dryan]

You do realize that BioWare now has two games worth of metadata? Only 6.78% of players chose predominantly "evil" actions in Dragon Age Origins and only 9.42% of players chose predominantly "evil" actions in Dragon Age 2. There's just no justification for resources being spent on evil choices when players only want to pick good ones.

That is very interesting, can you please link to a source?

I hate this request because I'm obliged to find my ancient source and I know no one will read it even though I put the effort in. But here it fucking is:

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Origins#cite_note-3

Unfortunately, since BioWare recently did a forum revamp, my source is now gone. I'd have to wayback it to directly quote it and I'm not putting in the effort. And yes, it's more than just a single quote - there are several corroborating quotes that were made when Bioware was half-apologizing over the quality of DA2 a few years post-release. Gaider is just one of the main sources.

Long and short? DA1 and DA2 both incentivized you to play with your BSN account linked up. As evidenced by the wiki citation above, there exists telemetry for all players who played these games - especially console players. The option to turn this tracking off was available, but actually tricky to find at first - I doubt few people turned it off or realized enough to turn it off. If you download DAO or DA2 today you can still find this setting available to toggle, if you please. You did not even need a BSN account for some telemetry to be collected.

Gaider and other developers have confirmed that because of the 5% dwarf race selection in DAO and 15% elf selection in DAO, human was forced choice in DA2 by suits. Well, indirectly. They did not have the resources to support choices players would not make anyway. It was also confirmed how many cutscenes you skipped and other metrics were sent to their server and guided their design decisions in DA2.

There is no evidence to suggest the metrics they collected in DA2 were not used for producing DA3. With creative control vested in the hands of EA and given other developer comments I have read on the BSN, it is easy to say with great confidence that if anything feels "imbalanced" toward a specific type of playstyle, it is because metrics governed it.

In effect, bioware defenders will even if I produce many sources, make stupid arguments in defense of this design-by-metrics philosophy -- so if you really are interested in it, do some googling around and you'll find the necessary quotes. I know there is one such quote on the Obsidian forums somewhere.

Irrelevant, in all honesty. If the design of your game makes it to expensive to pursue a higher level of options, then your design is flawed. Full voice acting, extremely detailed 3D physics, movie-quality cinematics... these all devour resources and make implementing options more difficult and costly.

Embrace a more simple game design, invert the staffing size of today's RPG studios of writers and mechanics designers to artists and voice actors and you could have the most expansive, reactive and option-filled game in history. But of course, that won't sell 10 million copies, so let's just focus on the full video romance scenes, I guess.

While I completely agree with you in theory, I don't know how viable it is for an AAA studio to actually do a non-voice-acted game in this day and age. I mean, I've read people complaining on the internet about Skyrim having a silent protagonist. People don't seem to be willing to read at all, and the fact is, in order to recoup and AAA budget's worth of investment, you gotta sell to A LOT of people, even the barely literate.

 

[Slow James]

Skyrim sold 20 million copies.

Twenty. Fucking. Million.

"Some people on the Internet" complaining about silent protags is irrelevant - every RPG developer on the planet should have seen that and said "hmmmm... maybe the tens of millions of dollars we are investing in voice acting and cinematics don't mean shit?" Instead, everyone latched onto the Open World concept, where games are now just a sliver of a hair away from being MMOs without other people. Instead of making games that deliver freedom to create, control, develop and play a character how you want, they are making games that deliver the freedom to roam around and pick flowers.

 

[DalekFlay]

Evil needs to be more than mustache-twirling. Video games have SUCKED at doing it well. It's either "I must destroy the world because I am the embodiment of hell spawn!" or "punch someone in the face because it's hilarious."

More games should offer a logical evil choice. Want to coddle everyone and be best friends? Instead of getting the "rainbows and sunshine" outcome, the game should have the NPCs see you as weak and too soft to get the job done, which results in more fighting and bloodshed. If, instead, you use brutality to bring them in line, it saves more lives in the long run.

A variation of that (or really, any option where "evil" is more than just lip service to the same outcome or markedly worse/darker outcomes) is something I'd be ecstatic to see in games.

Evil paths usually suck because not many enjoy being a sadist for the fuck of it. Dragon Age actually does well in my experience offering choices between social outlooks (order vs. freedom) and the whole mage/templar thing. I'd rather this game focused on that stuff versus "kill all the slaves for funsies." A religious zealot obsessed with order is more fun than a simple asshole.

 

[circ]

If your idea of evil is limited to sadist/kill people for fun, then I don't think you know much about the nuances of evil.