2816 réponses à ce sujet

[The Elder King]

Arppis wrote...




So I'm not too picky about some minor details. Because the DA:0 controls didn't turn out so well on Xbox360, I just switched the game on casual and played it for the story. On DA2, I notched up the difficulty, because the controls were more refined and accurate. Same goes for ME1 and ME2 difference, controls were better so up goes the difficulty.

What I'm trying to say is that I guess I can live with DA:0 combat. It's not optimal for me, but I can live with it.

:huh:As far as I remember the controls in DAO and DA2 were the same. The only difference was the auto-attack, which wasn't present at DA2 release.

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

Morroian wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Morroian wrote...

DA2 had detective style quests but there still could be more variety. As for length I for one would like to keep the quests at a similar length to DA2. The long dungeon crawls in DAO became too much of a grind and its worth noting games like Skyrim don't have long quests either.

I'd take the deep roads from DA1 over the entire two tiny room expedition in DA2 any day, You only spend the whole entire first act preping for it, getting the equipment and gold, and it's two tiny rooms and over in 2.4 minutes, some payout for the whole entire first act of the game. Exploration is a huge part of RPG's why for the love of god do people want that limited to claustrophobic tiny areas? Are people that lazy that everything has to be super simple? I just don't get it.

As per usual you misrepresent things. IMHO it should be at most the length of the deep roads sequence in Awakenings.

As for exploration I regard sandboxes like Skyrim or Fallout New Vegas as providing that, the long dungeons of DAO are just linear sequences moving from 1 room to the next, not exploration at all.

So basically you want small dungeons that the player can clear in 5 mins and move on. Got you. Yeah no thanks.

Edit: also you're comparing apples to oranges,  Bioware games are not open world sandboxes, they follow a very set formula. One they've continued to reuse for better or worse.

Modifié par CoS Sarah Jinstar, 20 mars 2012 - 09:45 .

[Thor Rand Al]

Rorschachinstein wrote...

Keep all romances bisexual- No exclusives. Lest we remember that awful ME3 hoopla

Ok this I'm ok with but do it where those that aren't into s/s dread going and talkin to the a said companion who wants to hit on the protag, let us initiate the romance if that's what we want.  For the sake of NOT making waves and causing an arguement I'm not going into detail.  But make it to where one doesn't have to feel like their draggin their feet to talk to their companion for fear of being hit on and then gettin rivallry or yelled at  for telling them your not interested.  Not everyone is into the s/s relationships.

N PLEASE DON'T blow this convo out of proportion, I know I'm broaching dangerous territory here but the truth of the matter is not everyone likes to be hit on by the same gender they are.

[Melca36]

Mark Darrah wrote...

Melca36 wrote...

Make drops **count**. I got tired of getting 3X damage rings or 4X fire rings.

Or create a crazy and eccentric NPC character where we can exchange these trash items for something more valuable

So either:
* Make loot be consistently good
OR
* Let me juice bad loot to GET something good?

Dropped Loot doesn't have to be constantly good.  Like say if somebody has 4 or more of the same rings in their inventory, they can exchange it it for something that better **fits** with their class.

Gem Fragments could could be put back together and made into a ring or amulet

The same goes for Torn Pants, broken swords...etc.   The items exchanged for junk don't have to be over powererd either. 

[BomimoDK]

Mark Darrah wrote...

Melca36 wrote...

Make drops **count**. I got tired of getting 3X damage rings or 4X fire rings.

Or create a crazy and eccentric NPC character where we can exchange these trash items for something more valuable

So either:
* Make loot be consistently good
OR
* Let me juice bad loot to GET something good?

Cespenar?

[Arppis]

hhh89 wrote...

Arppis wrote...




So I'm not too picky about some minor details. Because the DA:0 controls didn't turn out so well on Xbox360, I just switched the game on casual and played it for the story. On DA2, I notched up the difficulty, because the controls were more refined and accurate. Same goes for ME1 and ME2 difference, controls were better so up goes the difficulty.

What I'm trying to say is that I guess I can live with DA:0 combat. It's not optimal for me, but I can live with it.

:huh:As far as I remember the controls in DAO and DA2 were the same. The only difference was the auto-attack, which wasn't present at DA2 release.

Actualy it had improvements.

I could order a character to move to certain spot, couldn't do that in DA:0's 360 version.

And yeah, the lack of autoattack made the combat faster and more responsive. I could attack the targets faster and imo more precise. They weren't big changes, but they were improvements that I missed.

[The Elder King]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Morroian wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Morroian wrote...

DA2 had detective style quests but there still could be more variety. As for length I for one would like to keep the quests at a similar length to DA2. The long dungeon crawls in DAO became too much of a grind and its worth noting games like Skyrim don't have long quests either.

I'd take the deep roads from DA1 over the entire two tiny room expedition in DA2 any day, You only spend the whole entire first act preping for it, getting the equipment and gold, and it's two tiny rooms and over in 2.4 minutes, some payout for the whole entire first act of the game. Exploration is a huge part of RPG's why for the love of god do people want that limited to claustrophobic tiny areas? Are people that lazy that everything has to be super simple? I just don't get it.

As per usual you misrepresent things. IMHO it should be at most the length of the deep roads sequence in Awakenings.

As for exploration I regard sandboxes like Skyrim or Fallout New Vegas as providing that, the long dungeons of DAO are just linear sequences moving from 1 room to the next, not exploration at all.

So basically you want small dungeons that the player can clear in 5 mins and move on. Got you. Yeah no thanks.

I agree with you.
The Deep Roads was one of the things I liked more in DAO. If they're going to be present in the next DA game, I'd like to be at least in the same lenght of DAO.

[Mark Darrah]

hhh89 wrote...

:huh:As far as I remember the controls in DAO and DA2 were the same. The only difference was the auto-attack, which wasn't present at DA2 release.

That was an unfortunate bug in the release of DA2. It should be there (and work) with the newer patches.

[katiebour]

 Firstly, thank you, Bioware, for two amazing games that I've loved and played to bits (and am still playing, on both console and PC.  May the Wonders of Thedas never end )

In regards to past content reappearing in the next game, I'd love to see more references to Hawke/Warden/Companions even if we don't (T.T) ever play them again.  Maybe my custom Hawke and her LI, or my Warden and her LI (with imports from DA:O/DA2)are generals/persons of importance in the War, dialogue based on the personality I played and on the side I chose, perhaps giving buffs/abilities to the current team a la Suikoden in a final-battle situation.  Hell, you have my import data- give me my Hawke and LI as final battle companions, with the ability trees and class I played with in DA2!  

It'd be just the same as when I switch to another person in my party and the AI runs them based on chosen tactics.  Give me multiple parties spearheaded by Hawke & LI and Warden & LI, splitting up DA3 characters like we did when we chose before the Archdemon in Origins.  Let me see them off with a tear and a smile, knowing that they're off into the sunset with their loved one into the uncertain future.  Give me wrap-ups for my other companions the way we did in Origins, and for the Maker's sake keep a consistent timeline.  Either Anders was with the Wardens for three years or he was with them for less than six months...make up your minds. XD

Give those of us with imports the ability to directly select import flags- there's a utility on Dragon Age Nexus that generates savegames from DA:O to DAII with checkboxes.  Put that in the beginning, so that we can import data (looks/abilities/personality), and that anything that's uncertain (read:  corrupted or garbage decisions) can be explicitly selected.

*******************************

Battle-wise, Origins was awesome because my tactical selection and party direction mattered; the actual combat, however, was slooowwww.  I'm replaying it at the moment and if I didn't have so many mods going already, I'd install something to speed up the pace.  At the same time, battles in DA2 were often over so quickly that I didn't have time to care about chokepoints and flanking (unless I played on higher difficulties, in which case most of my companions died within several rounds, leaving my Hawke to run in circles for ten minutes, wearing away at the opposition (Tranquility on Nightmare mode is truly a nightmare!  Chantry marathon, around and around and around the track!))

I suspect this was due to an imbalance of damage-to-hitpoint ratio- if my toons had more health/stamina/mana but did less damage (same for their opponents), the battle would last longer, making tactical choices more important, but would still allow for great animation and individual attack pacing (which was a big improvement from DA:O.)

The damage/health imbalance also made my healers somewhat useless- by the time "Ally:  Health < 25%" triggered a heal, said party member would either be dead or have potioned.  Further refinement of the damage/health ratio would make tactics like "Enemy wearing medium armor" more valuable- if it takes longer to die, then me choosing the type of attack and positional makes a difference.  If everything on the screen dies in 10 seconds, then those tactics simply clutter up my selection screen.  If 3 of my 4 companions are dead because they had so little health, then what type of armor my enemy wears is irrelevant, because #4 is simply going to run in circles, attacking when able, praying and cursing.

Any chance that an ally unconcious for x amount of time, in battle, could wake up with a teensy bit of health?  Just enough to maybe quaff a potion and get them back in the game, because maybe my 4th party member is a warrior, can't rez, and it's the beginning of the game and I can't afford spendy potions that rez them...

One thing that DA2 did absolutely right was in giving more tactics slots.  DA:O gives them out like misers, and I like being able to plan my battle strategy and then watch it unfold beautifully.

In part battle issues were also due to lack of choices in the tactics screen- I set tactics like a madwoman, and it always infuriated me that I couldn't easily switch from Anders' Vengeance and Panacea modes seamlessly.  I might choose "Self- At least 2 party members below 50% health" to switch to Panacea, but where is my "All party members above 50/60/75% health" to switch back to Vengeance and kick ***?  I can choose "At least x allies are alive," but what if one goes down and I want my healer to switch from a damage buff (i.e. Anders' Vengeance) to a healing buff that allows rezzing (Panacea.)  

It's possible to do with the Ally:  Status:  Dead, but I have to use a slot to deactivate Vengeance, another to activate Panacea, another to rez, another to deactivate Panacea, another to activate Vengeance and resume ***-kicking, and by then maybe I need to do a group heal, so I have to deactivate Vengeance, re-activate Panacea (assuming CDs are cooperating) group heal, deactivate Panacea, re-activate Vengeance, except my CD for Panacea wasn't up, so I didn't switch back, and now two party members are dead, and I'm waiting on a CD for rezzing, and oh, crap, that Templar hits hard, and why is everyone drinking all of the potions?

On a related note, cooldowns for buffs meant to be switched between constantly might be due some re-evaluation... XD

 I'd also appreciate options like "in combat" and "out of combat" for the activation and deactivation of sustained buffs, rather than having to second-guess it with "Surrounded by no enemies" or "At least one enemy is alive."  Given cooldowns on certain buffs, I'd rather not have my tank get rid of her buff simply because the mobs are over attacking the healer.

***********************

Money, money money.  There were so many great codex entries for items, and so many items I wanted to buy simply to read the codices for them.  Alas, I didn't have the money, and by the time I did, the item was worthless, and look, there's another item over here that costs x amount of gold...  but it'll be worthless in an hour or two, so I might as well wait for a drop or just wear the DLC items...

I know you guys said you were looking at Skyrim for inspiration, and on that note, I'd request the ability to run around in the great outdoors, fighting randomly spawned beasts, bandits, blood mages, Tal-Vashoth, and to loot them for moar monies.  In DAII, once we cleared an area, it stayed clear, forever, thus denying us the ability to make money with good-old-fashioned hunting.  I don't know if you can manage a whole real-time world that constantly updates as in Skyrim, but at least give us the option of having areas respawn with mobs.  I say option because I'm sure some folks prefer to clear once and then run back for other quests/items and so forth without having to work their way through more bad guys.

If we'd had respawns, then we could have bought all the goodies in town, read the codices, enjoyed the lore and the looks, and still earned enough money to not need Dougal's help in DAII, end of Act I (if we wanted to put in the amount of time it'd take, that is.)

Codex entries are nice, but I actually prefer the flavor text on the items themselves.  Easier to look at when it's in inventory and to match with the appearance of the item, instead of switching to the codex and going "now what did this epic robe look like again?"  Maybe put the text in both places, so that we can go back to the codex for reference even after we've sold the old item for cash.

Stuff matters:  I liked Parthalan, and I kept it around in my chest even after I stopped using it.  But eventually it was just taking up space, and I couldn't use nor admire it, so I sold it.  Let me decorate my house with weapons, armor, trophies (hell, I want the Arishok's skull!  It's my gravy boat, right?  ...ok, maybe not.  That's pretty grisly...XD)  but you get the idea.

Crafting matters- let us make potions, and poisons, and traps again.  I'd rather gather ingredients and store them in that chest at home than buy potions from the vendor, and being able to craft on the go would make some of those dungeons easier to manage on harder difficulties.

Let me be a blacksmith, or a leatherworker- we've got reams of games with great crafting systems.  Borrow from one or two, let us tear down old armors and craft new ones from the scavenged mats, gain skill points, make money.  I never wanted to use any of those darkspawn items in DA:O (all those nasty -1 attribute points) but if I could scavenge materials out of them to make something spiffy, that would've been AWESOME.  Let us customize color and general appearance and you'll have done more for your fanbase than WoW did for theirs.  Hell, you guys merged with Mythic- take DAoC's crafting system and put it to good use!

And seriously, don't skimp on the flavor text.  I will write it for you for free if I have to- just get rid of "junk" and make scavenging dead corpses something to smile about once more.  Let my loot matter.  No more torn trousers unless I can make epic mage robes out of 'em.

***********************

Companions- keep up the good work.  Loved (or loved to hate) pretty much everyone in both games.  Would simply like to see more of them, with the ability to chat with your friends about their past, their views on your mission, their views on each other (a la convos with Joker in ME2, at least.)  Let us kiss our LIs, hug them when they're sad, and no more fade to black.  Seriously.

Other than that I have no quibbles.  Banter and romance, characters you love, hate, roll your eyes at, yell at in frustration, that make you FEEL are one of the major highlights of the game.  Just give us MOAR.  And dear gods, if you give us the ability to marry, have children, even wee babbies with our LIs (a la Harvest Moon) and see them as parents amidst the struggle and drama, you will have all of my internets, ever.  Hell, give us an LI with a kid.  Hawke had a family, Finn talked about a family that we never saw, Fenris and Alistair had a sib we briefly saw- give these people families! (and then kill them off for massive ANGST )

I love inter-party romances.  The two who shall remain unnamed for the sake of spoilers who pair up in ME3, or Fenris/Isabela, Carver/Merrill, Sebastian/Bethany- I love love love it.  Their dialogue is awesome and all I ask for is MOAR.

You've heard everything there is to hear about re-used environs already so I won't reiterate that.  Overall I loved both games, and am looking backward with fond reminiscence, forward with anticipation.

Thanks for being awesome!

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Guess my dialog compass idea went unanswered/ignored. Pity, but I guess it won't hurt to keep posting it.

Anyways, also adding some thoughts I posted over the months.

Why Gameplay is Important for Storytelling

The stance that BioWare has taken to their games, particularly with their later ones, as evidenced in Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2 is to focus on the storytelling at the detriment of it's gameplay. Their games have been reduced to story + combat. While this has always been BioWare's formula, it's become progressively worse as the intrusion into the quality of gameplay is now starting to really eat (ironically) at the essence of roleplaying games. That is, to roleplay a character of your choosing.

Why Multiple Solutions lead to better Narratives and better RPGs

1. It rewards creativity.

People feel rewarded if they are presented with a unique challenge and are able to think their way out of it if their character is able to. Examples: Combat. Fans of Dragon Age: Origins are thrilled when their pre-battle tactics and plans go off without a hitch and utterly annihilate the enemy. Similarly, fans of Dragon Age 2 are thrilled when their on-the fly tactics and resource management is handled perfectly, eliminating multiple waves of enemies without a single casuality.

People like to be challenged by their games, because if they can overcome that challenge through creative thinking, it makes the satisfaction all the greater. Nuts to all those who want games to be easier and easier, with the character destroying millions of mooks without effort. That crap is mindless. I can get that from mobile or facebook games for free, why should I fork out money on a AAA production for the same gameplay?

2. It increases replay value.

Going back and solving a quest a different way with differing content and results is one of the biggest reasons why people replay RPGs. Nuff said.

3. It adds depth to NPCs and player characters.

If written right, it allows players to explore different aspects of their own character and of the characters around them. How they react to different actions that the player does and how they develop as a result.

4. It allows players to roleplay.

By giving people more than one way to solve a problem, it gives them the opportunity to roleplay different character concepts without feeling out of place or shunted by the game. Has anyone ever tried to roleplay as a Thief in Dragon Age: Origins, then tried to do so in Dragon Age 2? If you have, you'll know what I mean. You are given the freedom to roleplay as the character you want and the game responds to that.

Modifié par CrustyBot, 20 mars 2012 - 09:46 .

[LyletheBloody]

Its already been posted (and quoted) in this thread. It does not need to be reposted on every page, or every 10 pages.

[The Elder King]

Arppis wrote...

hhh89 wrote...


:huh:As far as I remember the controls in DAO and DA2 were the same. The only difference was the auto-attack, which wasn't present at DA2 release.

Actualy it had improvements.

I could order a character to move to certain spot, couldn't do that in DA:0's 360 version.

And yeah, the lack of autoattack made the combat faster and more responsive. I could attack the targets faster and imo more precise. They weren't big changes, but they were improvements that I missed.

Forgot about that. Yeah, that was a good,
About auto-attack, I have to disagree, though I've yet to try DA2 with auto-attack (only played once,  before the patches), but I prefer DAO's auto-attack.

[Arppis]

@Crustybot

I like your idea.

[Wulfram]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

So don't do it.  If it's not fun, don't do it.

Throwing away money by leaving valuable loot on the ground isn't fun either.

[Darji]

Arppis wrote...

Darji wrote...

Arppis wrote...

Darji wrote...



These are nice suggestions I can live with. Yeah keep the actionary combat for a spin off game.


Also MArk you guys really need to decide who you guys want to have as a customer. The Origins Audience than you really need to scrp most of the stuff DA2 did. Or the DA2/Mass Effect crowd. If we know that than we have atleast a outlook what to expect.

And no you will not be able to please everyone.  You need to decide. Parragon or Renegegade.  And you need to decide early to make the game you guys want to be. Ad not to fight against everything people complaining during the first introduction, or demo or every new information.

Yeah, us who enjoy Mass Effect and enjoyed some aspects of DA2 are clearly inferior customers who shouldn't be taken into account.

No you are not inferior... You are a different auience thats nothing bad. And quite hoenstly If they want to go only for Money the Mass Effect crowd would probably the much better choice. But people need to know this at a very early state.  So that you wont hear much ****ing and complains during the deveope process.

Personally I would be out if they want to go for the DA2 and ME audience but thats my taste in games.

Well, I'm sure they need some time to figure this out. And they did say that they are going for compromise.

I'm a guy who likes Dragon Age Origins, Awakening, DA2, Jade empire, Kotor and Mass Effect games. I like them all. Sure they have their flaws, but they are still worth my time and I am enjoying myself when playing them.

So I'm not too picky about some minor details. Because the DA:0 controls didn't turn out so well on Xbox360, I just switched the game on casual and played it for the story. On DA2, I notched up the difficulty, because the controls were more refined and accurate. Same goes for ME1 and ME2 difference, controls were better so up goes the difficulty.

What I'm trying to say is that I guess I can live with DA:0 combat. It's not optimal for me, but I can live with it.

It not only about the combat but even here I can say that you did not motch up the difficult level becasue of better controls but becasue it was totally unblanced and no challenge at all you most of the time just mashed your way through. 

I never played origins on consoles or with a controller to begin with but here you could really play tactical something you just could not do in DA2 yes it was not even needed but still it was not possible.

But As I said its not only about combat. Its about complexity.  about wanting more skills that are actually balanced.  its about a real skillsystem not like the one from DA2.  The best thing would be even to use actually D&D rules.

But they really need to decide on a direction. And they should tell the people their decisions when the game is getting formerly announced.

With DA2 these developer or marketing guys played a very very evil rule by trying to catch the Origins player too which almost blant lies. And this continued even after the Demo of DA2. 

Origin people really complained alot after the demo becasue they already saw what is going wrong but bioware  always said: "It will be ok and tactical trust us. You wont miss naything good from Origins"  At that time people believed it becasue they had their trust but now this trust does not exist anymore.

This IP has 2 games and both are totally different.  They need to decide what way they want to go with DA3 and they need to let us now right away with the real announcement of this game.

[Woofy128]

Are you... guys trying to commit PR suicide on purpose? I mean, right after your entire fan base almost universally ripped you a new one for failing to conclude Mass Effect, you announce you're failing to conclude Dragon Age 2 as well? And for what? So you can make a Skyrim clone? This is weak, this is hack game design, and this is absolutely unworthy of you as a pioneer in the RPG genre. This stinks like something Obsidian might do, but not you. Utterly disappointing.

For the love of God, stop trying to jump on what's hot and stick to your guns. If there's one thing this long time BW fan finds intolerable in a game studio, it is creative cowardice and flaky opportunism. I want to keep being a Bioware fan but, frankly, you are making it impossible with daft moves like this. I'm not going to invest any interest in a Dragon Age sequel until you adequately wrap up the story of my Hawke. Not generic canonical Hawke in some comic or anime or whatever: I want a proper expansion that concludes my Hawke's story. Without that, and it pains me to say it, I can't continue being a Dragon Age fan, much as I can't continue being a Mass Effect fan without a proper conclusion to my Shepard's story.

[vitotamito]

Dear Mark,

I never post on these forums, but my love of DA2 really drove me here to do so. I saw an article on Kotaku about this, and I came here to fine 84 pages of comments. What this tells me is that there are a LOT of people who have really spent a lot of time and effort on both (maybe even all 3) games.

Myself, I loved DA2. I felt the story was beyond brilliant. It felt unmistakably ambitious for a fantasy game. What people expect out of a Fantasy game is a broad, epic, sweeping story that focuses on large battles and the future of an entire kingdom. What Dragon Age Origins presented was exactly that, so people latched on to the idea that this game series would be exactly that. Then in DA2, you presented a different take on everything. It didn't focus on world changing events, but rather smaller events that played a large part in the world they were in.

If I may be so bold as to use A Song of Ice and Fire as reference, Dragon Age 2 was essentially focusing on the issues at King's Landing. Dragon Age 2 was one storyline in a greater epic. What people want, and unfortunately so, is that greater epic in a game. Less about characters, more about grand sweeping story. I say to that, go play Skyrim. BioWare games, like ASoIaF, focus on the characters first, the story second.

Mass Effect recently ended, and people hated the ending of that game for doing something beautiful, out of the ordinary, and downright revolutionary in indoctrinating the players. The truth is, if you keep listening to fans and their (pardon my crass language) bull**** demands, you never move past the place you're already in. You never move the gaming world forward, you never move yourselves as writers forward, and you never move game players forward from their comfy computer chairs.

You've asked what I, the consumer, the gamer want to see out of Dragon Age 3? While I have told you that listening to the idiot consumers is a bad choice, I will still present my opinions to you in hopes that this... dissertation, in some way helps.

1. Hawke. Not only do I want Hawke, but I want the dialogue system BioWare has come to be known by. Dragon Age Origins, for me, is almost unplayable for that reason. The reason I refer specifically to Hawke is that, for this series to progress, it needs a protagonist. You've shown us the protagonist. Keep him going. Commander Shepard was persistent throughout Mass Effect. People are so upset by the ending because they felt that Shepard's actions were an extension of themselves. They poured so much time into those three games that Shepard became almost a real person. You knew him, you knew how you wanted your game's playthrough to go, and you wanted to see the next installment to continue his story.

2. The Witty Option. Part of why I connected with Dragon Age 2 so much was that third dialogue choice. The hilarious one. I find that when there's an obvious good or bad dialogue option, it makes me play one way or another. If I can't decide, that one little option changed everything for me. Part of the DA franchise has always been humor. Keep it up.

3. Friends. I'm going to ONCE AGAIN bring up Mass Effect, because BioWare also makes it, and it's really the perfect game series. Part of what took you through the story and world of Mass Effect were your crew mates. Three in particular. Tali, Liara, and Garrus. If you keep characters as partners to Hawke throughout the next few games, you have a protagonist, and consistant secondary characters. The ones you choose not to bring along will still be important to the story, and will give emotional resonance later on when they come in and contribute to the story. Mordin's death in ME3 was gut wrenching. Were Varric to come back at some point in your story and do something gut wrenching and die, it gives you the satisfaction of not everything being peaches and roses, while still making the ending be peaches and roses if everyone demands it. It also adds emotional resonance (there I go again with that term) to the people putting time in DA2 to befriending characters or being rivals with them.

4. Multiple Endings. It will be a trainwreck in the planning and writing stages. It will be a headache in the implementation stages. But if a game ended 100% differently than another play-through, it would change the face of DA4 completely. If Origins had ended with the Archdemon NOT getting killed? Where the hell would we be at the moment. It may not have directly impacted DA2, but in terms of the full story? It would be a legendary storytelling and gameplay element to pull off. And that's exactly what DA is, right. Legendary.

5. Lighting and Camera. I'm going back, again, you're sick of it, I know, to Mass Effect. The explosions, the framing, the lighting in 2 and 3 were perfection. In a way, they helped make everything feel more important at times than they even were. Shots like Primarch Victus looking up at his planet burning were powerful and moving. Dragon Age, as far as I know, has never had moments quite like that. There were shots with the Arishok that could have been unbelievably menacing, domineering, and downright terrifying were they used, but we always seemed to have a pretty level camera, and pretty broad daylight. The Archdemon never really felt all that much more important than any other Dragon in Dragon Age. Other than its title. Were it something that stuck to the shadows, never came fully into view, and when it finally did was some sort of decaying half skeletal, half magic infused glowy bits monstrosity of a Dragon. THAT is an Archdemon.

6. The Fighting System. If there is one thing that DA2 Mastered, it was making the fights feel wonderful. The only thing I found was that they usually felt a bit repetitive. I would be fine if there were the majority of enemies who were 2-shot kills, and more of them, but put in far more epic enemies as well to cope with WHILE fighting these nobodies. I'll point to God of War for this. The big boss enemies in that felt like big boss enemies, but it wasn't a matter of simply attacking them, there was a minigame of sorts to take them down. You had to use tactics to beat them, not just keep spamming the A button and sometimes the special moves. Those are fine for small enemies. Big enemies should feel more... gratifying to take down, and should be differentiated from smaller enemies. Going back to my comment about the Archdemon. That just felt like a grueling fight, a test of patience, and overall not very epic. Were the Archdemon not even IN the fight for most of it, simply lashing out every once and a while with attacks that you had to counter, that gave you little glimpses of the Archdemon itself, it would have made a final reveal of the Archdemon absolutely soul crushing.

7. No more repetitive locations. The biggest problem with DA2 was an inherent flaw in the design of the story. The locations in the game were exactly the same. Sure, elements of the city changed sometimes. But in terms of where you went, it was the exact same map. The exact same cave. The exact same coastline. The exact same everything. The most interesting point in DA2 was when you went into the deep roads on your expedition. Somewhere out of the city. Somewhere different! I'm very sorry to say that the entire repetition of everything just felt like Lazy Game Design. It's the part of the game I don't think the fans could ever look past. The first game fell into this trap as well, but not quite as bad. All of the random battles you'd run into in the city or in the forest all felt relatively the same. Really, the game didn't even need those things at all. I continually apologize for bringing up Mass Effect, but in the second game, every character had a loyalty mission to go on. They were all in places that you went to in the game like Omega or the Citadel, but different parts. Everything felt original and non-repetitive. Even the random missions you found while scanning planets were all original places with original designs and plots of their own. That is what Dragon Age needs. It's such an original fantasy setting to feel so unoriginal.

8. Triggers. Yep, I'm going there again. Some of the really fun parts, that showed up in greater numbers in ME3, were the triggers. Conversation Interrupters if you will. You can let things play out, or be a super dick and punch a lady in the face. Or you could be a super nice person and comfort the guy who was crying about his dead husband. There's something cool about making a conversation go one way, or altering it in the blink of an eye with a quick-fire, non-dialogue-wheel option. There were things slightly like this I noticed in DA2, especially with Rogues. Once I got to end a conversation by throwing my dagger through a dude's head. Sure, maybe with patience I could have talked it out, but throwing my knife through the dude's eye was so much more satisfying! That's what I'd like in DA3. Some truly satisfying, almost off-script stuff.

9. The Grey Area. What was thrilling about Dragon Age 2 was the idea that everything was not black and white. Your good guy choices constantly came to bite you in the ass later on. I saved that mage lady because I like mages, but years down the line here she is kidnapping my sister! Siding with the Templars was just as bad. You were condoning violence and oppression against an entire group of people, but you get to see why it's necessary. But your sister is one of those people! It made these choices so difficult to make. DA2 was a game that made you question yourself slightly. What I want from DA3 is a game that makes you question yourself entirely. Contemplate why it is that you do what you do. Contemplate at what lengths you will go to do what you do. And contemplate, at what point does the person playing the game finally have that moment where they can't keep going down the path they've chosen. I almost got that when Anders betrayed me, but something about the game leading up to that point never quite made me as emotionally attached as I should have been. I can't describe it, and that's upsetting when trying to give you advice.

10. Finally, if none of this has convinced you of anything, let this persuade you of, if anything at all, the most important element to Dragon Age 3 that I want. I want to be sucked in. I want, not only to enjoy the story, not only enjoy the characters, but be truly sucked into the game. Sucked in to the point where I literally shed a tear. You'll hate me again for mentioning it, but I cried in Mass Effect 3. When Mordin died, when Thane died. I was ready to give up. The only way to do this is consistency. Consistency of character, consistency of story, and consistency of emotion. The way the game handles its camera and lighting should play into the way the gamer chooses his path. Darken the game as it goes on for someone who is evil, lighten the game for someone who is good. Make certain scenes in the game lack almost all color to make certain things pop visually. Heck, pull some weird Stanley Kubrick stuff off in a dream sequence or the Fade or something. Don't let the game get flat, and especially not repetitive. Make every part of it interesting. Cut things out if you need to. I don't know if it will help, but maybe Celebrity Voice Actors? Martin Sheen and Seth Green were great in Mass Effect. Literally, anything to pull the gamer in and not alienate them from the importance of events in the game or take them out in any way.

I guess at the end of the day, do what you would like to do. You write video games for a reason: A High Schooler does not. You have gone to school to do what you do, someone living in their parents' basement has most definitely not. You've created a game series that 1 MILLION people enjoy, listening to those million people is important to a point, but don't put out the product that you don't want to put out because some people are upset that everything isn't a hollywood ending. Sometimes good guys can be bad guys, sometimes bad guys can be good guys. In the eyes of most people this is blasphemy, but it's this blasphemy that makes truly great storytelling an art form and not just fan service and repetition of tried and beaten to death plots and ideas.

Thank you for hopefully taking the time to read my ridiculously long reply, I hope fans of this series did as well and have at least taken a step back to reanalyze what exactly it was that they didn't like about the second game.

- Travis

[Melca36]

Morroian wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Morroian wrote...

DA2 had detective style quests but there still could be more variety. As for length I for one would like to keep the quests at a similar length to DA2. The long dungeon crawls in DAO became too much of a grind and its worth noting games like Skyrim don't have long quests either.

I'd take the deep roads from DA1 over the entire two tiny room expedition in DA2 any day, You only spend the whole entire first act preping for it, getting the equipment and gold, and it's two tiny rooms and over in 2.4 minutes, some payout for the whole entire first act of the game. Exploration is a huge part of RPG's why for the love of god do people want that limited to claustrophobic tiny areas? Are people that lazy that everything has to be super simple? I just don't get it.

As per usual you misrepresent things. IMHO it should be at most the length of the deep roads sequence in Awakenings.

As for exploration I regard sandboxes like Skyrim or Fallout New Vegas as providing that, the long dungeons of DAO are just linear sequences moving from 1 room to the next, not exploration at all.

For $60 I dont want a dungeon that takes me 15 minutes to do. 

The Dungeons in DA:2 were to over simplified were NOT scary.

Legacy's at least was forboding  and had depth to it.

[Arppis]

hhh89 wrote...

Arppis wrote...

hhh89 wrote...


:huh:As far as I remember the controls in DAO and DA2 were the same. The only difference was the auto-attack, which wasn't present at DA2 release.

Actualy it had improvements.

I could order a character to move to certain spot, couldn't do that in DA:0's 360 version.

And yeah, the lack of autoattack made the combat faster and more responsive. I could attack the targets faster and imo more precise. They weren't big changes, but they were improvements that I missed.

Forgot about that. Yeah, that was a good,
About auto-attack, I have to disagree, though I've yet to try DA2 with auto-attack (only played once,  before the patches), but I prefer DAO's auto-attack.

Heh, yeah it was KINDA redundant there. But I wanted something to do in between cooldowns and I like to attack enemies on fly, sometimes I just kept bouncing between targets, it was faster that way.

And also I hated chasing the mobs in the first game, just as the auto attack was about to begin, the mob moved!

I wish they would have expanded on the idea a bit more, added another "combo" button or something. Because it did felt at times that the autoattack was a bit useless thing on the game.

[Morroian]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Morroian wrote...

As per usual you misrepresent things. IMHO it should be at most the length of the deep roads sequence in Awakenings.

As for exploration I regard sandboxes like Skyrim or Fallout New Vegas as providing that, the long dungeons of DAO are just linear sequences moving from 1 room to the next, not exploration at all.

So basically you want small dungeons that the player can clear in 5 mins and move on. Got you. Yeah no thanks. 

 
You cleared the deep road in Awakenings in 5 minutes? 

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Edit: also you're comparing apples to oranges,  Bioware games are not open world sandboxes, they follow a very set formula. One they've continued to reuse for better or worse.

I'm saying Bioware games are not about exploration and do not make exploration desirable, especially in terms of replayability. 

[Morroian]

Melca36 wrote...

For $60 I dont want a dungeon that takes me 15 minutes to do. 

I'm not saying have 1 short dungeon  I'm saying have 20 shorter dungeons instead of 1 long dungeon. 

Modifié par Morroian, 20 mars 2012 - 09:52 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Wulfram wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

So don't do it.  If it's not fun, don't do it.

Throwing away money by leaving valuable loot on the ground isn't fun either.

Weigh your costs against your benefits.

Nearly every decision you ever make in your life should be the result of a cost-benefit analysis.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Morroian wrote...

Melca36 wrote...

For $60 I dont want a dungeon that takes me 15 minutes to do. 

I'm not saying have 1 short dungeon  I'm saying have 20 shorter dungeons instead of 1 long dungeon. 

Provided it's not the same dungeon copy pasted, of course.

It depends on what you're trying to convey, really. The Deep Roads was good for what it was supposed to be in the context of the world. If anything, it should've been bigger with more divergent paths and less linearity. Probably not plausible from a time/money/resources perspective.

But yeah. IMO, the Deep Roads should've been bigger.

Modifié par CrustyBot, 20 mars 2012 - 09:55 .

[Tsuga C]

Sylvius the Mad wrote on the BSN status update of EyesofaStorm...

"DAO was the compromise. DAO made all sorts of concessions to new players and console limitations and supposedly changing market expectations. DAO was a compromise between the game I want and those newer trends.

I'm not willing to compromise any further. If they want to take another good feature away, they need to replace it with something equally good. So far, they're not doing that."

^ Bravo, Sylvius. My mistaken impressions at the time were that the DA series was intended for the more traditional or "hardcore" roleplayers and that the ME series was to placate the action gamer segment of the market. Sadly, this proved not to be the case.

I want my hardcore emulation of a tabletop RPG back: silent protagonist, choices with profound in-game consequences, racial PC choices + origins, no parachuting enemies, no anime-style combat (but a bit quicker than DA:O), plenty of exploration, companions that'll actually leave if you sufficiently irritate them, no class weapon/fighting style limitations that make no sense (why the heck can't a warrior be an archer?), less magical swag, no preposterously designed weapons, none of this "iconic look" limitations for companions, no compromises for the KKs, and no G-d d-mn-d "awesome button".

Oh, and while you're at it, fire your present marketing team and start from scratch. We don't need any more nonsense of the "This is the New Excrement" variety.

[BubbleDncr]

Rorschachinstein wrote...

Keep all romances bisexual- No exclusives. Lest we remember that awful ME3 hoopla

I'm fine with all romances being bisexual.

I'd also be fine with one hetero and one homosexual romance option per gender. And depending on budget, throw in some bisexual romance options as well - but I guess I'm thinking of SWTOR, KOTOR, and Jade Empire, where I only had one romance option available to me, and I don't have a problem with that.

I really just want consistancy. I was bothered in DA2 that Anders was straight in a female playthough but gay in a male playthrough, rather than just being bisexual no matter what the PC's gender. I was bothered in ME3 that in order for everyone to have an equal amount of options, they made Kaiden bisexual but kept Ashley straight.

So yea, I guess everyone being bisexual is probably the best option, tho I do like the idea of having flat-out straight and flat-out gay characters - its more realistic.