60 réponses à ce sujet

[Vandicus]

Aulis Vaara wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

Could've been dialogue free quests like DA:O. Kill X bandits. Kill 3 wolves. Kill bear. Jeez the level of grind in DA:O was horribad.

You're talking about the first town, which was a tutorial for quests. And while there are some more of those quests in the game, they were both dressed up better, and actual sidequests. I.E. you didn't have to do them to collect gold, and they actually were small compared to the epic main quests. In DAII almost every quest was practically the same size, and perhaps that's part of the problem: no variation. Even in such a tiny detail, variation could make the difference between "the flaws are only details" and "this is boring". Well, in my humble opinion anyway.

I cite quests from the first town because they're most recognizeable to people. Dialogue free quests did exist elsewhere, but they weren't the majority. Meaningless(not save imported, not addressed in-game with dialogue, not in epilogue) quests however were. DA:O only stacks up to about 100 hours of gameplay on a completionist run. With only its main quests(which were a lot better than the sidequests in how meaningful they were) its less than half as long. What I liked about DA2 questing was that most of its side quests were meaningful, aside from the handful of exploration elements(the implementation of which deserves its own discussion).

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "the same size"? I get the impression you're talking about environment re-use or combat scale here. Which is something that can certainly stand to be improved.

[Si-Shen]

I was kinda hopping the OP had a real point to this, its a single example and hardly is a negative. The quests were not a big issue for the game in general, there were many other features that could have used more attention.
Things like better balanced weapons, they really need to work on that. Somehow things like two-handed weapons became a bit too over the top powerful.
Or things like reusing the backgrounds, yes if I re-visit and area sure but every cave was the same.

[Melca36]

Elton John is dead wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

There were boards in Redcliffe and Denerim as well. As a completionist, I can attest to the existence of these quests outside of Lothering. The problem with many DA:O quests was that they were essentially meaningless, both over the course of the game, in regards to save imports, and in the epilogue. The game has huge portions which are devoted solely to increasing wealth, gearing up, or gaining more experience points. The Fade is a massive section where nearly most of the content is devoted to increasing stats.

Yet there were many board quests with some backstory. The Chantry ones, for example, have plenty of backstory and most of them weren't even fetch quests. Then there are the mage side quests (which you take from a mage collective or whatever the hell they were called) which actually had some backstory to them as well.

Meanwhile most of DA2's side quests were fetch quests or "go here and kill an army" and had no multiple solutions or endings. Hell they didn't even have explanations, at least the board quests in Origins gave you explanations from the quest-giver (whoever wrote the message).

Sorry but DA2 had crappy quests. Only the main quests were good and yet they had nothing on the quests from Origins. Hell even the companion quests in Origins were better.

You mean these quests




I can't begin to describe how much these FedEx quests annoyed me

[Melca36]

Vandicus wrote...

Aulis Vaara wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

Could've been dialogue free quests like DA:O. Kill X bandits. Kill 3 wolves. Kill bear. Jeez the level of grind in DA:O was horribad.

You're talking about the first town, which was a tutorial for quests. And while there are some more of those quests in the game, they were both dressed up better, and actual sidequests. I.E. you didn't have to do them to collect gold, and they actually were small compared to the epic main quests. In DAII almost every quest was practically the same size, and perhaps that's part of the problem: no variation. Even in such a tiny detail, variation could make the difference between "the flaws are only details" and "this is boring". Well, in my humble opinion anyway.

I cite quests from the first town because they're most recognizeable to people. Dialogue free quests did exist elsewhere, but they weren't the majority. Meaningless(not save imported, not addressed in-game with dialogue, not in epilogue) quests however were. DA:O only stacks up to about 100 hours of gameplay on a completionist run. With only its main quests(which were a lot better than the sidequests in how meaningful they were) its less than half as long. What I liked about DA2 questing was that most of its side quests were meaningful, aside from the handful of exploration elements(the implementation of which deserves its own discussion).

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "the same size"? I get the impression you're talking about environment re-use or combat scale here. Which is something that can certainly stand to be improved.

Um...FedEx quests are not meaningful. I hope you are referring to Aveline's quests.  There were barely enough sidequests in DA2 to make a distinction.

[MelRedux]

KiddDaBeauty wrote...

I do believe you're criticising what is thought to be one of the best written quests by many (random trash mobs aside). Careful thinking you speak for majorities =)

THIS

[Vandicus]

Melca36 wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

Aulis Vaara wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

Could've been dialogue free quests like DA:O. Kill X bandits. Kill 3 wolves. Kill bear. Jeez the level of grind in DA:O was horribad.

You're talking about the first town, which was a tutorial for quests. And while there are some more of those quests in the game, they were both dressed up better, and actual sidequests. I.E. you didn't have to do them to collect gold, and they actually were small compared to the epic main quests. In DAII almost every quest was practically the same size, and perhaps that's part of the problem: no variation. Even in such a tiny detail, variation could make the difference between "the flaws are only details" and "this is boring". Well, in my humble opinion anyway.

I cite quests from the first town because they're most recognizeable to people. Dialogue free quests did exist elsewhere, but they weren't the majority. Meaningless(not save imported, not addressed in-game with dialogue, not in epilogue) quests however were. DA:O only stacks up to about 100 hours of gameplay on a completionist run. With only its main quests(which were a lot better than the sidequests in how meaningful they were) its less than half as long. What I liked about DA2 questing was that most of its side quests were meaningful, aside from the handful of exploration elements(the implementation of which deserves its own discussion).

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "the same size"? I get the impression you're talking about environment re-use or combat scale here. Which is something that can certainly stand to be improved.

Um...FedEx quests are not meaningful. I hope you are referring to Aveline's quests.  There were barely enough sidequests in DA2 to make a distinction.

I lob FedEx quests in the exploration quest crowd(find item X in special location Y) which I stated deserves its own discussion. In both games they were done poorly(imo).

Also, the fact that you don't perceive DA2 as having many sidequests just goes to show that the sidequests in DA2 were generally more meaningful, to the extent that you mistook them for required quests. Sidequesting makes up most of Act 1(should the player bother, its also possible to just skip most of them since the money can be acquired through a specific choice where someone else backs Hawke) and much of Act 2.

[daaaav]

In my experience most people LIKE the aspects of the game that focus more on characterisation r than hack and slash...

Go play Orcs must die or something

[Aulis Vaara]

Vandicus wrote...

I cite quests from the first town because they're most recognizeable to people. Dialogue free quests did exist elsewhere, but they weren't the majority. Meaningless(not save imported, not addressed in-game with dialogue, not in epilogue) quests however were. DA:O only stacks up to about 100 hours of gameplay on a completionist run. With only its main quests(which were a lot better than the sidequests in how meaningful they were) its less than half as long. What I liked about DA2 questing was that most of its side quests were meaningful, aside from the handful of exploration elements(the implementation of which deserves its own discussion).

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "the same size"? I get the impression you're talking about environment re-use or combat scale here. Which is something that can certainly stand to be improved.

With the same size I mean both lengthwise and size-wise. I don't know if they're actually all the same, but they certainly felt that way. Each one has a handful of rooms, and each one takes approximately the same time to complete. Even the deep roads was this way, and that's my favourite quest in the game.

As for game length, it's usually a good thing that the campaign is shorter than the whole game. This allows people with less time on their hands to complete the game faster. I'm not going to argue about hours though, because I don't know, and it'd quite unfair to check now, since you can't compare a first playthrough with a seventh.

That said, even most random encounters were quite meaningful. Being confronted by Elves because of how you handled the situation in the Dalish questline, Dwarves attacked by Darkspawn, etc. Sidequests also tied in to the world nicely. Doing a few jobs for the Antivan Crows, or battling Loghain's soldiers during the civil war. For quests that are there to give you a little more to do, that's actually quite nice a tie in. Could they have tied in even more? Sure, but there's only so much a game developer can do in a certain time.

To give another example: fighting the High Dragon in Dragon Age II felt like it was there just because there had to be a dragon in the game, while in Dragon Age: Origins, both High Dragon fights tied in to the characters and the plot nicely. The one in Dragon Age II sucks even more, because the best thing you can do for the miners is not getting involved in the quest in the first place. Main quests don't even feel much more meaningful than this. It all goes to hell, whether you're there or not.

Vandicus wrote...

Sidequesting makes up most of Act 1(should the player bother, its also possible to just skip most of them since the money can be acquired through a specific choice where someone else backs Hawke) and much of Act 2.

Don't you need to have done all those quests to even get that option?

Modifié par Aulis Vaara, 05 octobre 2012 - 01:19 .

[daffl5]

and don't forget there were no origins and a set race!!!!!!!!!

[rolson00]

i kinda think BW know all that they need to about da2 and its gotten boring always hearing about it *yawn*

[NRieh]

Wow! OP was Mighty Troll...Thread has already 3 pages...Troll must be fed well.