capabilities have been questioned by many. We have seen what happens if they go
"all capitalist" and want to make as much money as quickly as
possible (DA2), or what happens if they ignore the braindead community (ME3).
It is clear to me that there is no more room for failure, and they know it.
This also makes me wonder, how effectively they will be able to merge the
skyrim open world style with the bioware story-telling, character oriented RPG
scheme. So i would like to come up with some ideas, warnings, what should be
avoided at any cost, and what are we, GAMERS expecting to see from our
favourite company!
1. Immersion
I think
this is the most important part of any RPG. You have to be drawned into the
fantasy world. That world has to REACT to your actions, it has to feel ALIVE.
This is quite obvious, but how to achieve it?!
In my opinion bioware has making a HUGE
MISTAKE by implementing this DA2/ME 3 option, 2 sides system. I dont want to "be
evil all the time", just to be able to recruit Morinth. This kills the very
purpose of decision-making. Dragon Age Origins and the more complicated
dialogue options were much better. I have a suggestion for the decision-making
system, but i will explain that later on.
People
want to see the consequences of their choices. While there should be some main
elements which could be varied, but it eats up way too much resources. I think,
you should be cheating a little bit, to fool the players. What i mean is, that
the npc's should react to your previous achievements, starting with your party
members. Trust me, everyone loves to hear about his/her great deeds. It wouldnt
take much to make the drunken dwarves sing about the glorious death of the
legion of the dead under the leadership of the warden in the battle of ferelden
in some forsaken inn. Or guards commenting on your blood magic usage. Companions constantly commenting, reacting to your decisions. And if you ****** them off badly, they shoulndt just get themselves killed. Instead they should abandon you and join the other side. Facing them in the final battle would be a great addition
There
should be a FAME bar. The more quests you complete, the more famous you get,
which leads to even more quests and reactions from the world. If you are a
famous ruthless blood mage, who is known to be chasing his/her own interests
and spitting on the law, there should be certain groups which should be trying
to eliminate you. Starting with the Duke, templars, whoever's interests you
were hurting. If you are ignoring the thieves guild, or even betraying them,
there should be "random" events. Assassin appearing during the night, ambush,
GETTING POISONED in a ****house… These would make us feel much more involved,
than anything else.
Instead
of the current evil/good, 3 options dialogues there should be a completely new
system. A system based on the players personality. Every decisions should be
filling bars (which might should be invisible for us), but instead of filling
the Light side bar, there should be personality trait bars. Like trusting vs paranoid,
kind vs selfish, GREEDY, ruthless, kind, outright evil, WROTH,MAD… During the
chapters every quest, decision should add to these personality traits, which
later on would trigger seemingly random events. Like if you are famously
greedy, the thieves guild might approach you with a crazy offer to rob you of
your money. This is closely related to the FAME bar idea. The more famous you
get, the more side quests should be available randomly, based on your character
traits. Also these traits should affect the main storyline. I might even
consider limiting your freedom of choice in the main story, and your character
would be acting according to his/her personality. If you are a ruthless,
selfish, careless, power-hungry mage, you might not be able to save a companion
of yours, and he/she should be wounded, maybe even fatally, if you ignore
things. Of course being badass should have its rewards, like MORE POWER.
And
here we go, POWER. Its just sad, how bioware is ignoring this issue. Dragons
dropping random loot? REALLY? In a single player game, you wanna "build
the perfect character", you wanna become legendary. For me, the main
motivation is always to get more powerful. The promise of blood magic kept me
driving in dragons age origins, but the story of a secret old dwarven aetherium
forge also kept my undivided attention in skyrim. Power is always good. We want
more and more. Constantly improving gear, obtaining unique abilities (maybe
based on your personality, decisions J)
should be one of your primary concerns. And please, let us use those items for
a while. In dragon age 2, practicly by the time you got the full set, you could
already throw it out, since the chapter was over. And gold really shouldnt
provide the best gear in the game. Venturing into the deepest pit… thats
something, walking to a clueless elf and paying 150gold just doesnt make me
feel epic in any ways…
Crafting:
Crafting is a great way to EXTEND the game hours, which is your primary
objective! Make it work! As i wrote earlier, the best gear should be obtainable
from quests, so in my opinion crafting should have its role in
enchanting/jewelcrafting and COSMETICS! Maybe its just me, but i care for the
looks of my character far more than anything else. We should be able to craft
various jewelry (visible on the character), unique looking belts, BAGS, dyes to
modify our armor's colour, little gold plates to improve our armor, or simply
engraving words into our swords, putting gems into our armor. LITTLE THINGS DO
MATTER!
2. Atmosphere
Please
and im begging you, leave the cartoonish **** behind. Dragon age Origins had a
really great DARK atmosphere. Why did you punish us with those DA2 darkspawn!?
We really didnt deserve it L…
The game should be as realistic as it can be. I know dark is annoying, but it
also provides something extra. There is nothing better than feeling a little
FEAR while you are exploring. Fear for your life and well, things should be
scarry. Spiders randomly swooping at you(
as in DAO), TRAPS, and not just mechanical ones. Back to crafting, there should
be fishing/cooking/resting. I know these sounds dull, but they greatly lengthen
the game with little effort. You dont have resources for everything, this
should be a nice trick to keep up busy for long hours, without even noticing
it. Its quite hard to imagine a dragon age character fishing!
, but well inskyrim it would have been completely alright and you are planning to move to
that direction… It certainly has its charm when you are just doing things in a
fantasy world, preparing for future adventures. Not just always rushing
forward, ignoring everything… Inns with their bards were alone a great addition
to the game in skyrim. Who didnt love their songs. In dragon age , there should
be unique dialogues available only in inns while drinking with companions…
3. Combat
Both
DAO and DA2 has its fans. Personally i hated the DA2 combat. Those insanely
FAST swings, limbs everywhere. I like seeing BLOOD and detached heads, but that
was just sad. I think the combat should be combined. Of course the DA2 speed
has to be slowed down to make it more realistic, but the weakest enemies should
provide the hack and slash experience and lt's, minibosses and bosses should
appear quite often and they should provide the more tactical, brain based fighting
experience. In my opinion in combat u shouldnt be able to controll your party
members. You should be able to preset their behaviour, spells used before any
combat, but in the heat of battle u
should be focusing on your own character. There should be voice commands to
alter the actions of your companions. Like focus my target, heal me, fall back…
Imagine this combined with my previous suggestions. A bloodthirsty berserker
character overwriting your commands and randomly ordering everyone to CHARGE IN.
If you have the WROTH and BERSERKER traits your character gets battle frenzy,
increased damage (taken), leading everyone to their deaths…. GLORIOUS! Or
having a cowardly party member, he/she should be always positioning himself/herself
behind everyone, healing himself/herself before anyone else…
I
would also love to see some dark soul. no save style combat. There should be
checkpoints and if you die, you start from there instead of facing a GAME OVER
you SUCK line. Of course i do realize this is too far from bioware, but
ultimately this is the way things should be. Death should be just a setback,
part of gaming, with serious consequences. You should be punished for your
failures, losing gold, time, resources, FAME, trust of your companions… This
would also provide a great opportunity to rotate our companions. If someone's
skull was cracked, he/she should be resting, so you have to take someone else.
If you dont you risk losing that companion for good
…4. Story
I think
there should be a shift in the story elements of RPG's. This …"oh im just
a random adventurer and i save the world the every other day" is out of
fashion. We want power feuds. I wanna be a ****ing BARON, with servants,
castle, own banner, army (maybe a side quest to become king?!
), plotting againstthe king, that would be fitting for those french bastards in Orlais! The whole
world is burning and your primary concern is to assassinate the emperor and to
take his place, lovely (Loghain huh). Thats how people react to crisises in
reality
+++
Mounts… Riding that silly horse in skyrim improved the game
by miles
Kill moves- Who doesnt love bloody kill moves? Ogres ripped
apart, random mobs blown up, decapitated, smashed …etc etc… it feels great to
annhililate enemies. Having a bloorthirsty character trait should increase the
chance of a kill move by 30%
…Battle Banner: This is related to my idea of being a baron,
owning estate, army whatever. Having a battle banner, which could be used once
in a while in battle to rout úr companions, providing extra health/damage, EPIC
MUSIC, companions shouting to create that yes, this is it feeling! Or imagine
that you could engrave your tabard into your signet ring in crafting. Would be
epic, again, little things
Make the game mod friendly. We have seen what the players
did to skyrim. It was amazing as it was, but mods made it legendary.
NIGHTMARE difficulty: Make sure that there will be a
difficulty fitting for the hardcore players. I liked the Mass effect 2 style,
multiple re-plays with the same character. Maybe that could be intorduced as a
feature
Character creation: We want extremely detailed character
creation settings. I wanna have a PRETTY or HANDSOME CHARACTER.
Friendly fire should be turned on all the time
Of course i dont expect any officials to read this topic of
mine, but if u like it guys, feel free to steal the ideas and present it in
other topics, conversations. Maybe one day we will see something from these in
a future game….
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