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Environmental Interaction (also known as Ledge Grabbing)


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#1
Shadow Quickpaw

Shadow Quickpaw
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Let me preface this by saying DAI looks absolutely fantastic in all respects, truly an improvement over the previous installments. One of the major steps up (pun blatantly intended. :lol:) is the open maps, item destruction during combat, and jumping. Thank the Creators. JUMPING!

 

Now, this is indeed an inovative move for the Dragon Age franchise, and a good one. Do I think it's great we can now jump? Yes. Do I think the mechanic can be improved somewhat? Ssssssssort of.

 

Let us look at the precident. The only previous Bioware game that allowed our characters off the ground is Star Wars: The Old Republic, in which the player must clear the edge of the surface in order to land on said surface properly. (Oh Force... the datacron platforming!!!!! :ph34r:). And this indeed seems to be the route Bioware has taken with DAI with its jumping mechanic. Now on the surface this makes complete sense, and I have no quams with this method (as having it AT ALL is a great improvement over 90% of Bioware's previous games).

 

On the other end of the spectrum we have Shadow of Mordor's climbing mechanic, riddled with cliffs and specific attacks that use the terrain in the same way the Assassin's Creed and Arkham franchise does. In the current generation of semi-open world games, aside from maybe the Infamous series, it doesn't get much better.

 

But there are several reasons this approach would not work for a Bioware game, least of all the fact that this style of traversal is the games' main selling point for Ubisof, Monolith, and Rocksteady respectively. DAI has customized pretty much everything, a party following along behind, and a fighting style that is more dependant on cooperative and strategic combat. AC, SOM, and BA all have their combat systems based entirely on the verticality and arcade "beat-em-up" style combat. This would be unfeasable for a Bioware game in which there are too many weapon and skill variables to take into account.

 

Now it seems there is not way to reconcile these two styles, right? Customizable RPGs will never be as good agility-wise as stealth-platfomer-arcade games, right? Well let me bring in my final example, from Capcom no less: Dragon's Dogma.

 

Now the game itself had its flaws, for certain (a lot of which being a Japanese mostly arcade/horror studio making a "western-style" rpg), but there is one aspect in which it stands head and shoulders above even most Bioware games: Its grabbing mechanic. It is in this way most of the environmental interaction plays out with enemies: hold down the right tigger and your CUSTOMIZED RANDOM ARMOR CHARACTER will climb onto enemies begger than themself, and will grab onto enemies the same size and pick up smaller ones.

 

This allows for direct attacks on different parts of the enemy, and as a side effect: when jumping into the air (and this is the point I've been rambling towards) if you come into contact with the edge of a surface, your character will automaticall GRAB ONTO it and pull themself up.

 

That level of interactivity with one's environment is something few RPGs and even platformers achieve (The early Harry Potter games being a rather ironic exception). I don't think Dragon Age Inquisition needs this exact climbing system, necessarily. They are so close to locking it down for release we can almost taste it, and I think for its time the jumping mechanic they currently have is more than adequate for its purposes, and being an inovation they've only explored once before.

 

However, Dragon's Dogma sets a precident in both action games (granted I realize there are fewer skills you can have with you at any one time in DD than in DA) and in RPGs (being both you and a companion character fully customizable) that I hope we see from more game studios in general, and I hope Bioware is paying attention. I hope that Bioware continues to improve on its exploration mechanics in its future games.

 

Now THAT was a long-winded post with a stupidly simple point. What would you like to see Bioware experiment with that you've noticed in other games?

 

P.S. Also take a look at Dogma's character creator: IT CAN BE DONE. :o


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#2
Lieutenant Kurin

Lieutenant Kurin
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That level of interactivity with one's environment is something few RPGs and even platformers achieve (The early Harry Potter games being a rather ironic exception). I don't think Dragon Age Inquisition needs this exact climbing system, necessarily. They are so close to locking it down for release we can barely taste it, and I think for its time the jumping mechanic they currently have is more than adequate for its purposes, and being an inovation they've only explored once before.

 

However, Dragon's Dogma sets a precident in both action games (granted I realize there are fewer skills you can have with you at any one time in DD than in DA) and in RPGs (being both you and a companion character fully customizable) that I hope we see from more game studios in general, and I hope Bioware is paying attention. I hope that Bioware continues to improve on its exploration mechanics in its future games.

 

I agree, I hope with such a good foundation in Frostbite, future games might include small elements of platforming (climbing cliffs and such). Interactivity is a beautiful thing, and I get the idea that BioWare more than agrees with that. Who knows, someday we might be able to climb high, and swim low.