371 réponses à ce sujet

[DaemionMoadrin]

I don't think it's a case of the game being too big but rather a case of the game lacking in content and what content there is mostly lacks any context. Take the Hinterlands as an example. There's a mine shaft that is blocked by a Barrier you have to batter down, only once you do, you find a few enemies inside guarding a chest and a couple of ore types and pretty much nothing else. Now compare this to Skyrim and for all its faults, you have a cave that has a variety of enemies in it which leads to an old Nordic ruin with a variety of levelled loot and enemies inside, eventually leading you to a word wall and a chest with high value items in it. The context is "I need to gain another word for my Shout" the reward is that word and the loot for your troubles. An average ruin in Skyrim will take longer to clear than Redcliffe Castle, for example yet both games are on a similar scale to each other.

 

The problem is, DA:I is a very different game from Skyrim. Even if it had as much content, it still wouldn't make it a better game because all that content would distract even more from the story.

Skyrim is a large, open world that contains many stories and it's up to the player to decide which story they want to experience... or not. Same for timing and order.

DA:I is a story driven RPG. Your character (despite being a blank slate) is narrowly defined and locked to its path through the story. You can't really deviate from it. The world of Thedas needs to support that, it needs to enrich that main path. Instead it distracts you from it and once you lose sight of it, most of the things you do become pointless. As you said, it lacks context.

[Elhanan]

Personally, I think the game is too big and the narrative really suffers because of it. If I want to get bogged down looking for rocks and plants I'll go play Skyrim.

Actually chose to skip Alchemy and mining in Skyrim generally, but as it greatly benefits the forces of the Inquisition and their leaders, the harvesting was done for DAI. Personally found that choosing the side-quests that bolstered the story and the people of Thedas to be immersive; only a few quests like the Bottles of Thedas to become annoying.

Also like how some Dragons are not assigned as quests; nice for those that have a more 'Live and Let Live' approach to such great beasts.

[Shardik1]

It seems as if it was designed for both ADD and OCD at the same time with not thoughts to the people that are between those two extremes of PDs.

[guntar74]

For me this games open world approach really reminded me of kingdoms of Amalur. Mainly in the fact that sure the zones were big, nice to look at, but ultimately boring as hell. Too many generic mmoish quests that are just telling not showing, and all the forgettable npcs along the way.None of the areas give u any cinematics or truely in depth stories to draw you in and make you want to finish the area.

So ya my only completed playthrough that was originally aiming for a completionist run ultimately had me saying screw it and just finished the main story without doing 4 or so zones at all.

[Galactus]

At least Bethesda put a lot of effort into making armors in Skyrim though. DAI armor and weapon variety appearances are pitful.

[GavrielKay]

My thoughts:

 

1) If you're going to have a giant open world that can damage your characters, then why limit health pots?  Early levels are an execise in patience.  You explore a little and then run back for more potions.  Then you try to find your way back to where you left off.  Large worlds need more healing options.  Either out of combat healing, or more pots or healing magic... something.  LImiting healing just means you have to go back over and over again to the camps.  And since there's few fast travel options, getting back to where you were is annoying and likely to wind up in another fight with more damage etc.

 

2) If you're going to have a giant open world with tons of loot that can't be used because it's less powerful than what you can craft, could we at least have display cases to show it off?  You gave us quarters at Skyhold and no way to put anything interesting in there.

 

3)  If I'm going to spend hours wandering around the world, can I at least talk to my companions?

 

4)  It isn't fun to have jump puzzles.  It isn't fun to go round and round the big hill looking for the path upwards.  It isn't fun to have your party push you off a cliff for damage.  We're supposed to be having fun, right?  So why all this nonsense?  The map should have paths on it so we can find our way.

 

5)  Thanks for the "search" function.  It's great to have several buttons that we need to mash repeatedly throughout the game.  As well as having to hold down the mouse button constantly for camera angle.  Again, it's supposed to be fun right?  Button mashing isn't what made dragon age popular, because it isn't fun.

 

6)  Combat is weird.  The game camera gives you crazy angles.  The tactical camera works so differently from the game camera that I couldn't even be bothered to figure it out.   You can't use more than 8 talents which makes it no fun to level up because you can't use half of what you get.  It's hard to position companions.  And, since you get limited healing, half the time any real combat means a followup visit to camp and then trying to find my way back to something again.

 

I played the game through once.  I guess it was alright.  But DA:O I played through like 4 times before I stopped for a break.  This one I'm struggling to get through a second playthrough.  It could be great, but it just isn't.

[Akka le Vil]

For me this games open world approach really reminded me of kingdoms of Amalur. Mainly in the fact that sure the zones were big, nice to look at, but ultimately boring as hell. Too many generic mmoish quests that are just telling not showing, and all the forgettable npcs along the way.None of the areas give u any cinematics or truely in depth stories to draw you in and make you want to finish the area.

So ya my only completed playthrough that was originally aiming for a completionist run ultimately had me saying screw it and just finished the main story without doing 4 or so zones at all.

Disagree. Kingdom of Amalur was actually fun, and its combat was a good example of action-based one, the exact opposite of DA:I which is painful to play.

[saladinbob]

The problem is, DA:I is a very different game from Skyrim. Even if it had as much content, it still wouldn't make it a better game because all that content would distract even more from the story.

Skyrim is a large, open world that contains many stories and it's up to the player to decide which story they want to experience... or not. Same for timing and order.

DA:I is a story driven RPG. Your character (despite being a blank slate) is narrowly defined and locked to its path through the story. You can't really deviate from it. The world of Thedas needs to support that, it needs to enrich that main path. Instead it distracts you from it and once you lose sight of it, most of the things you do become pointless. As you said, it lacks context.

 

Bioware attempted to take a middle ground between open world type games such as TES and their traditional strong point of story telling, in DA:I, and failed miserably. If you're going to have open locations for you to explore then you need something to explore but Inquisition lacks enough content to explore. Bioware's idea of 'content' was "go running around looking for Shards for a paltry reward" and "Solve these logic puzzles to gain access to a cave you can discover on your own". In their defence they're new at this so where bound to make mistakes. Nonetheless, the problem with Inquisition is that its ambition outstripped its development budget and cycle. Bioware simply bit off more than they could chew given the time they had available to develop the game with a lot of the content people were interested in being cut from the final release. That in itself might not have been so bad had they chosen a different engine were the modding scene could have restored cut content but they didn't and so they have to live with a game that disappoints a lot of people, even if the review sites are gushing over the game.

[Tsunami Chef]

Bioware attempted to take a middle ground between open world type games such as TES and their traditional strong point of story telling, in DA:I, and failed miserably. If you're going to have open locations for you to explore then you need something to explore but Inquisition lacks enough content to explore. Bioware's idea of 'content' was "go running around looking for Shards for a paltry reward" and "Solve these logic puzzles to gain access to a cave you can discover on your own". In their defence they're new at this so where bound to make mistakes. Nonetheless, the problem with Inquisition is that its ambition outstripped its development budget and cycle. Bioware simply bit off more than they could chew given the time they had available to develop the game with a lot of the content people were interested in being cut from the final release. That in itself might not have been so bad had they chosen a different engine were the modding scene could have restored cut content but they didn't and so they have to live with a game that disappoints a lot of people, even if the review sites are gushing over the game.

Except there are a massive amount of voiced side quests as well as side quests with text backgrounds....as much as basically all other open world games, definitely as much as Skyrim. Did you guys expect side content as rich as the main story? I'm really curious, because Idk what games you guys were playing where the main story was full of content as well as the side quests being plentiful and detailed. Here's a hint, that game doesn't exist.

 

They could have made the game the best game in history and it would have disappointed a lot of people. I think they'll be fine with the massive amount of people they made extremely happy with the game.

[saladinbob]

Except there are a massive amount of voiced side quests as well as side quests with text backgrounds....as much as basically all other open world games, definitely as much as Skyrim. Did you guys expect side content as rich as the main story? I'm really curious, because Idk what games you guys were playing where the main story was full of content as well as the side quests being plentiful and detailed. Here's a hint, that game doesn't exist.

 

They could have made the game the best game in history and it would have disappointed a lot of people. I think they'll be fine with the massive amount of people they made extremely happy with the game.

 

 

Such as side quests that tell you to go kill the Wyvern which whether you do or not has no bearing on the story? Side Quests such as the bizzare fetch quests picked up from the requisitions table in camps? Side quests such as the need to collect a crap load of ore to build a banner (which if made of metal would be too heavy to lift) just so you can specialise? Or perhaps side quests such as go kill such and such for some paltry increase in standing with a companion who is so bland and disinteresting as to not be worth your time nor trouble romancing? Oh I know what you mean. You mean those side quests written by a labeorphile where you have to trudge all over Thedas collecting beer bottles, don't you? Yes, that's really clever story writing right there.

 

Many people are content with the game but most of them will never replay it and it Inquisition will never be considered a Bioware classic. I, myself have said it isn't a bad game, just not the great game most of us where expecting. Compared to previous Bioware titles such as DA:O or Mass Effect games or the BG series, Inquisition is outright souless.

[Spooky81]

Many people are content with the game but most of them will never replay it and it Inquisition will never be considered a Bioware classic. I, myself have said it isn't a bad game, just not the great game most of us where expecting. Compared to previous Bioware titles such as DA:O or Mass Effect games or the BG series, Inquisition is outright souless.

 

Oh great, another purist living in the past with ridiculous expectations that DA:I should be a clone of Origins and Mass Effect.  Actually, j/k because I agree DA:I is mediocre and doesn't have the same substance that kept me coming back to BioWare again and again.  Honestly, my appeal to BioWare's hit releases came naturally when I sat down to play them and went with the flow.  Didn't have to dissect the entire product and look at each piece under a microscope to decide it was a great game.

[Draining Dragon]

It's unfortunate that Bioware decided to pad the game with a faffing about quota rather than add more main story content.

[Uccio]

It's like this, you had a great soda you liked. It tasted great and left you refreshed (DAO). Then you get another soda, this time you notice it has one third of its content replaced with water. So yes it kind of tastes the same and and has almost the same color but it leaves you lacking (DAI).

[Elhanan]

It's like this, you had a great soda you liked. It tasted great and left you refreshed (DAO). Then you get another soda, this time you notice it has one third of its content replaced with water. So yes it kind of tastes the same and and has almost the same color but it leaves you lacking (DAI).

More like going from Cola to Dr Pepper for myself, as I enjoy both.

[Benman1964]

[Shardik1]

Yeah the game was over for me halfway through.  That sucks because I really was looking forward to it.

[Average Designer]

The game tries too hard to be like Skyrim and The Witcher series. Instead of sticking to what they did best they did what many fans of the other series begged them to do and turned DA:I into a more open world type game but they forgot to fill it with a lot of side stories and things to make it interesting. They also failed in the loot system using a Random Number Generator from MMO's which really doesn't work for a game like this.

 

With the lack of story for side quests and lack of story for all these places that get unlocked it gets boring quickly. Then there is the grinding for materials for armors and weapons. The grinding for herbs for potion upgrades and so on.

 

Although DA2 had it's issues as did DA:O they both were far better than this game. DA2 had the issue of reusing dungeons and player choice at the end of the game not really mattering in the outcome except on who you chose to side with. In the end in DA2 if you chose to side with the mages Orsino still turned into a monster. If you sided with the Templars, Meridith still tried to kill Hawke. It didn't matter which side was chosen, both Meridith and Orsino tried to kill Hawke and such.

 

DA:O had the clunky battle system but if that had been fixed it would still be the best out of all the games. Honestly DA2 kept the same formula of great characters, nice story telling but lacked the player choice meant anything and the time jumps didn't help either.

 

DA:I suffers from so many problems and the main problem is that they released a beta version of the game instead of a complete game.

 

This has been the trend in the last several years to release games incomplete. Either very buggy, or missing content or a whole slew of other problems.

 

It seems to me and my girlfriend that they don't have Quality Assurance testing going on. Or if they do that it isn't being done correctly or that the Dev's don't care.

 

We aren't sure which but this is deplorable and it's killing the gaming industry as far as we are concerned. We feel that we now have to wait until a GotY edition starts coming out for every game to get the complete game replete with all patches and fixes before we can even buy the game and even then we decide to get it when it's used so that we aren't paying out the big bucks to studios like BW and EA for an incomplete, not fully vetted game.

 

Games back before the current era of gaming were always complete. Look at ME1 it was a complete game had little to no bugs and the bugs it did have were patched immediately. The DLC released after the game was launched was months later and only added to the overall play of the game.

 

Fast forward to today and games are released incomplete and buggy as hell. A complete nightmare.

 

We just don't get why game companies cannot make a complete game, completely vetted with almost all bugs eliminated out the gate instead of releasing such shoddy work.

[DaemionMoadrin]

They release unfinished and mediocre games filled with bugs because they can get away with it. Customers still pre-order and pay the full price, even if it's gilded crap. In the end DA:I was extremely successful financially, so why should they change their formula? No, this means they'll release DLC (perhaps stuff cut from the game?) to rake in even more money until the next big title is ready for release. Rinse and repeat.

 

The times when dedicated artists, writers and designers made the best game they could because they loved providing other gamers with great games are over. This is all about money, deadlines and profit now.

 

As long as we still throw our money and praise at what amounts to an unfinished beta product, this will not change. DA:I had great potential but wasted almost all of it. It does look pretty though. Guess that's enough for GOTY these days.

[Average Designer]

Agreed. Gamers need to stop pre-ordering games. It's the only way to teach the industry that we are not going to put up with this at all.

 

Vote with the wallet is the only thing that game developers will listen to these days.

 

Gaming has become so commercialized that all that is cared about is the bottom line, not good games. Glad my girl and I don't go out to buy new games, we buy used and used is good enough for us.

 

This is the last new game we are buying. The only reason why we bought this new was because a friend had been playing it for a week and recommended it. After the debacle of ME3 we were leery to even touch another BW/EA game. However our friend said it was nothing like ME3. On that they were telling the truth.

 

However it is still a buggy game and incomplete...

 

So from now on it's used GotY games for us.

[saladinbob]

Unfortunately gamers have short memories. That and Bioware have taken to outright lies in their marketing over the last few years. People will forget how bad the Mass Effect 3 ending was and all the bullshit lies Bioware told about it when Mass Effect 4 comes out and they'll happily pre-order it without knowing whether it's an unplayable bugfest or whether it's bland and soulless like Inquisition. People will forget about the "PC game made by PC gamers" and the "The Tactical Camera is just like Origins'" lies and all the boring quest material when the next Dragon Age game comes out and happily put on their rose-tinted glasses to pre-order the next instalment.

 

The only way for gamers to take back control of the content being created for them is to stop pre-ordering the game. Marketing departments will have no idea on potential sales so the only way the developer can ensure a success is to engage with their customer base and make the best damn game they can make. To a large extent, this is precisely what Chris Roberts is doing with Star Citizen (the first AAA PC-only game in a generation for those who don't know of it). Engaging regularly with backers to develop the game they want. The fact that Star Citizen has the highest kickstarter backing in history, comparable to any Publisher-funded AAA title, shows just what an appetite there is out there for engagement with gamers by developers.

[xkg]

^ Yup, that's exactly what I do. Never pre ordered anything in my life nor backed any kickstarter project. I only pay for products never for promises. It works better this way.

[Elhanan]

And I now pre-order instead of waiting as Bioware has earned my trust (DA2, SWTOR, DAI). But I usually wait a while to gather intel on each title, as the content may not apply to me.