334 réponses à ce sujet

[Shelled]

I just realized something interesting. The progression of DAO to DAI is very similar to the progression from Morrowind to Skyrim.

1. DAO and Morrowind are both old-school RPGs which use tabletop-style rules with RNG. They are widely hailed by fans as the best in their franchises.

2. DA2 and Oblivion removed the tabletop elements of their franchises in favor of fast-paced action. This was done to increase mainstream appeal. They are also widely considered to be the worst of three games (yes, I know Elder Scrolls actually has Arena and Daggerfall first, but those aren't as well known).

3. DAI and Skyrim were dumbed down even more to appeal to more gamers. They were both fairly successful.

DAI isn't successful and skyrim only got away with its dumbing-down of its magic system and various other tidbits because of mods and amazing mod support.

Honestly the only thing skyrim dumbed down was the magic system, and that happened to oblivion as well oddly enough. You don't need to use quest markers if you don't want to. Not sure how its dumbed down compared to morrowind.

[Il Divo]

I just realized something interesting. The progression of DAO to DAI is very similar to the progression from Morrowind to Skyrim.

1. DAO and Morrowind are both old-school RPGs which use tabletop-style rules with RNG. They are widely hailed by fans as the best in their franchises.

2. DA2 and Oblivion removed the tabletop elements of their franchises in favor of fast-paced action. This was done to increase mainstream appeal. They are also widely considered to be the worst of three games (yes, I know Elder Scrolls actually has Arena and Daggerfall first, but those aren't as well known).

3. DAI and Skyrim were dumbed down even more to appeal to more gamers. They were both fairly successful.

 

Honestly, I'd likewise put Morrowind in the "aren't as well known" category. I certainly don't think most fans consider the best of the franchise, even if it is my personal favorite. 

[Draining Dragon]

DAI isn't successful and skyrim only got away with its dumbing-down of its magic system and various other tidbits because of mods and amazing mod support.

Honestly the only thing skyrim dumbed down was the magic system, and that happened to oblivion as well oddly enough. You don't need to use quest markers if you don't want to. Not sure how its dumbed down compared to morrowind.

When I say successful, I refer to sales.

Also, I would disagree with your second paragraph. The quest markers are basically essential, since the NPCs give you almost no information. Additionally, Skyrim dumbed down the character creation, by removing attributes. And curiously enough, DAI did the same thing.

Though Skyrim also dumbed down the character creator even more by removing birthsigns, which made me a very sad khajiit.

[Shelled]

When I say successful, I refer to sales.

Also, I would disagree with your second paragraph. The quest markers are basically essential, since the NPCs give you almost no information. Additionally, Skyrim dumbed down the character creation, by removing attributes. And curiously enough, DAI did the same thing.

Though Skyrim also dumbed down the character creator even more by removing birthsigns, which made me a very sad khajiit.

The statues are more or less the same thing as birth signs anyhow. Also I haven't played morrowind in over 15 years so I forgot if it had attribute points or not. I just mainly remember the spellcrafting in morrowind was awesome, and I remember it being very poor in oblivion.

[Il Divo]

The statues are more or less the same thing as birth signs anyhow. Also I haven't played morrowind in over 15 years so I forgot if it had attribute points or not. I just mainly remember the spellcrafting in morrowind was awesome, and I remember it being very poor in oblivion.

 

Well, conceptually maybe. Statues now just help you raise either combat, magic, or thief abilities faster. Morrowind had 13 different signs (I believe) and each had a variety of effects attached. Of course, that didn't stop some of them from being absolutely useless, but it could be fun for role-playing purposes. 

[Wulfram]

Well, conceptually maybe. Statues now just help you raise either combat, magic, or thief abilities faster. Morrowind had 13 different signs (I believe) and each had a variety of effects attached. Of course, that didn't stop some of them from being absolutely useless, but it could be fun for role-playing purposes.

There are more statues in Skyrim than just the 3 you find at the start.
http://www.uesp.net/...:Standing_Stone

[Shelled]

Well, conceptually maybe. Statues now just help you raise either combat, magic, or thief abilities faster. Morrowind had 13 different signs (I believe) and each had a variety of effects attached. Of course, that didn't stop some of them from being absolutely useless, but it could be fun for role-playing purposes. 

There are statues different from just experience though. Some of them are for increased magika or better sneaking, that sort of thing. Same thing as the signs. There are a lot of statues that do different things.

[AlanC9]

DAI isn't successful and skyrim only got away with its dumbing-down of its magic system and various other tidbits because of mods and amazing mod support.

DAI isn't successful? And how did mods help Skyrim so much when the majority of players were on console?

Honestly the only thing skyrim dumbed down was the magic system, and that happened to oblivion as well oddly enough. You don't need to use quest markers if you don't want to. Not sure how its dumbed down compared to morrowind.

Well, the lack of a class system removes a lot of thought. I didn't mind this too much, though, since Morrowind's system was pretty awful and unbalanced, and the stat increasing system gave incentives for lots of silly behaviors. Spear at level 1, anyone? But it sounds like you don't remember Morrowind well enough to discuss it intelligently.

[Shelled]

DAI isn't successful? And how did mods help Skyrim so much when the majority of players were on console?


Well, the lack of a class system removes a lot of thought. I didn't mind this too much, though, since Morrowind's system was pretty awful and unbalanced, and the stat increasing system gave incentives for lots of silly behaviors. Spear at level 1, anyone?

the majority of players were on console? For skyrim? Lmao hell no. Elder scrolls has always been more popular on pc due to modding.

And no inquisition isn't successful. I don't consider sales as success, but actual gameplay. Same thing with diablo 3. It sold on hype alone and the game was trash. to me, it dictates whether I purchase a bioware game again and I'm not going to due to how awful the game is so no I don't consider it successful in my point of view.

[AlanC9]

the majority of players were on console? For skyrim? Lmao hell no. Elder scrolls has always been more popular on pc due to modding.

Source? Bethesda has said otherwise. My understanding is that PC sales are at maybe about 45% of total sales now, though the percentage was far lower earlier in the game's lifetime. A lot of those sales were at deep discounts, of course -- like my $5 copy from Steam -- but a user's a user.

And if "successful" means "Shelled liked it," then I guess you do get to decide if DAI was successful or not.

[AlanC9]

There are statues different from just experience though. Some of them are for increased magika or better sneaking, that sort of thing. Same thing as the signs. There are a lot of statues that do different things.

Right. However, a one-time birthsign choice at character creation and a statue bonus that can be switched at will are very different things.

[Il Divo]

There are more statues in Skyrim than just the 3 you find at the start.
http://www.uesp.net/...:Standing_Stone

 

Oh sweet, might be time to boot up Skyrim, if I ever move on from Inquisition. 

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Yeah the elf redesign still pisses me off. Also I hate i can't be a dual wielding warrior anymore. Easily the worst set of class options. For a game with so many options they limited the hell out of us character class wise.

 

The Elf redesign, or rather the Elf design buthering practically made Elves in DAI, especially male Elves unplayable. I was geniunely looking forward to play as a Male Elf Mage...

 

 

DAI isn't successful and skyrim only got away with its dumbing-down of its magic system and various other tidbits because of mods and amazing mod support.

Honestly the only thing skyrim dumbed down was the magic system, and that happened to oblivion as well oddly enough. You don't need to use quest markers if you don't want to. Not sure how its dumbed down compared to Morrowind.

 

See, this is why Bethesda is still tolerable as a developer compared to Bioware. Because even if they streamline their game, they give us a Creation Kit for free and let us go absofreakinglutely wild with it. 

 

There is a very good reason why Skyrim is one of the most played games on Steam, even until today. No one who plays Skyrim on PC, plays it in its Vanilla format.

 

This is also why companies like CDPR are now starting to offer modding with their REDKit, which, when you combine with a game like Witcher 3, will whoop Skyrim's arse into oblivion. 

 

All Bioware had to do to make DAI decent was give us a modding toolset. Perhaps dropping multiplayer and using the resources from there to give us a Creation Kit of some form. Then the complaints would be really few because we would just go and fix things ourselves.

 

But lolnope. 

[Hexoduen]

I heard that console sales of Skyrim were larger than PC sales, but I'd argue that the popularity of Skyrim is longer lasting on PC due to mods.

 

And how I wish Inquisition could be modded just as easily as Skyrim, it would solve many of those 'little' issues in the game (and it'd be good for replayability).

[Elhanan]

See, this is why Bethesda is still tolerable as a developer compared to Bioware. Because even if they streamline their game, they give us a Creation Kit for free and let us go absofreakinglutely wild with it. 
 
There is a very good reason why Skyrim is one of the most played games on Steam, even until today. No one who plays Skyrim on PC, plays it in its Vanilla format.
 
This is also why companies like CDPR are now starting to offer modding with their REDKit, which, when you combine with a game like Witcher 3, will whoop Skyrim's arse into oblivion. 
 
All Bioware had to do to make DAI decent was give us a modding toolset. Perhaps dropping multiplayer and using the resources from there to give us a Creation Kit of some form. Then the complaints would be really few because we would just go and fix things ourselves.
 
But lolnope.

Yet when one hears of the same squabbles and tempests in teapots over on other forums, it does not appear to make much of a difference how the company proceeds.

I like games from all the groups, and have preferences on how I would like to be able to play them. I wish them all the best, as this is what I hope to play eventually if I am blessed.

[TevinterSupremacist]

For me the elf-design butchering started in DA2. Seriously, who thought taking the Na'vi from Avatar, chopping their tails off and adding a new texture on them after giving them plastic surgery on their noses was a good idea?

[Dean_the_Young]

Edit: Whoh, I didn't know you could have too many block responses. The issue with too many questions, I guess.

 

I mean whatever happened to the dark, gritty Game-of-Thrones feel of Origins ?

 

 

It never existed.

 

Origins was never a free-wheeling political thriller in which any and all factions had their cycles of high and low in ever-changing alliances. Once the player left Ostagar, they were unstoppable steamrollars of destruction who put everything to their whims and killed anyone they wished without consequence. Major NPCs were routinely one-note caricatures, with the highmark of 'nuance' being the fact that the nice-guy feel-good character of Dwarven politics wasn't the best epilogue ending (a divergence from Bioware norms so dramatic that it somehow surprised many players).

 

 

 

 

Whatever happened to the grounded gritty art style and design of Origins ?

 

 

It was **** brown, like much of what was considered gritty realism at the time, and the industry struggles to this day to move away from the idea that '**** stained' is 'gritty realism.'

 

 

 

Whatever happened to the grounded combat and combat animations ?

 

I don't know, but what DAO did have was often mocked, and rightly so, for being remarkably exploitable and comically unbalanced. What was the best tank in the game? A mage. What was the best class to solo on Nightmare? An archer so grounded, enemies exploded.

 

 

Whatever happened to desire demons ?

 

It didn't reflect what their intent was with the demonic outbreak, and was already a long-acknowledged element of disatisifaction.

 

 

Or brothels ?

 

What about them?

 

(Ignoring, of course, you only ever found one per country. Which isn't exactly the height of realism.)

 

 

Or the sexism in Qunari culture which was magically whitewashed (Iron Bull is a cool character but I dislike him for this very reason) ?

 

 

Sexism very much applies to the Qunari culture, even post-trans-revelation stuff.

 

 

 

Whatever happened to actually equal romance content for all sexualities ?

 

It never actually existed. Origins had two males/females for straights, but half of that for same-sex relationships. DA2 had twice as many sexual romance for bisexuals as it did for straights or gays, and an additional chantry boy chaste romance for straight women.

 

 

 

 

 

Whatever happen to multiple weapon types usage for rogues & warriors ?

 

Warriors Rogues still have multiple weapon types (warriors have sword-and-board or two-handed, with the additional variation of pure DPS vs. armor-penetration damage types, while rogues have blades vs. blows), they just don't use eachother's multiple weapon types.

 

That went away with the refinement of what statistical growth mechanics were supposed to reflect. Which was pretty much for the best in terms of balancing for future games, because the manual stat distribution system from DAO was one of the less balanced points of the arbitrary mechanics, almost as much so as the superfluous amount of useless skills.

 

 

Where are the Origin stories that actually make us invested in our characters ?

 

Hawke gets a prologue arc and then the family reclamation arc in Act 1, and the Inquisitor gets numerous points to roleplay their past along with the amnesia personal plot about the Breach.

 

If they don't work for you, that's fine- but the Origins of DAO were no more of guarantees of being invested.

 

 

 

Whatever happened to freaking cities and deep roads ?

 

Val Royeaux is... right there. As is Redcliffe village, the crossroads, and Haven, and Skyhold. If we're taking ruined ones into account, there's also the Empress de Lions (where the Red Templars are), the Exalted Plains, the surface thaig, and so on. Haven alone had about as much floor space as Denerim (or rather, Denerim market) had in DAO.

 

 

If you're complaining about the slog of linear deep road tunnels, not sure why anyone would want them more than the far more varied environments of the DAI exploration areas. (Which, it should be reminded, aren't the linear corridors that every DAO level was.) The Deep Roads and the Fade were two of the more complained about elements of DAO, just for how long it could take to grind through them.

 

 

 

Ever seen an role playing game with no cities ?

 

 

Certainly. Not that it applies to DAI, but it's quite easy. There's nothing about RPGs that require massive cities.

 

In fact, DAO didn't have a massive city in terms of floor space. Denerim was just a marketplace, honestly, while Orzamar pales in comparison to other RPGs. You could dump Orzamar into some of the space ports in SWTOR and jangle it around some.

 

(Of course, this is where we'd get into the difference between big cities and pointlessly big cities.)

 

 

 

 

Whatever happened to attractive characters ?

 

If you're into pixilated boobs or butts or pecs, they're still there. Plenty of people have found them attractive as well.

 

What you found attractive about DAO's character designs, except the emphasis on breast armor (or breasts without armor), not sure. But I won't judge your video card fetishes.

[Hexoduen]

*snip*  Every single class now have mage-esque MMO-ish combat  *snip*

 

I could not agree more with the above sentence, welcome to the streamlined version of Dragon Age

 

As a mage there are about 90 different spells to choose from in Origins, and those spells were very different. Not as varied and nor as many as in Baldur's Gate II, but still great fun

 

In inquistion there are about 20 activated abilities per class. Streamlined. Guess it's easier to learn then

[AlanC9]

I heard that console sales of Skyrim were larger than PC sales, but I'd argue that the popularity of Skyrim is longer lasting on PC due to mods.

Yeah, that was my take on it too. I don't know how much income we're talking about in that "long tail" period. Skyrim's listing for $20 on Steam, which I presume is accounting for the vast majority of PC sales these days. But once a game gets to that price point, and you've waited that long for it anyway, you might as well wait for one of the 50% or even 75% off sales. I don't know what consumer behavior is like on Steam, though; it's quite possible that $20 is cheap enough so nobody really cares about waiting for sales. I suppose there's some non-monetary value in keeping the game played for a long time too, but that's difficult to quantify.

Anyway, this discussion doesn't much matter, since going to FB3 pretty much knocked out the toolset option.

[Bioware-Critic]

the majority of players were on console? For skyrim? Lmao hell no. Elder scrolls has always been more popular on pc due to modding.

And no inquisition isn't successful. I don't consider sales as success, but actual gameplay. Same thing with diablo 3. It sold on hype alone and the game was trash. to me, it dictates whether I purchase a bioware game again and I'm not going to due to how awful the game is so no I don't consider it successful in my point of view.

 

Consumers who bought the copy are mostly on the console side, that is a fact.

14,3mio on console vs 3,67mio on PC. All of these are hard copies of course. Digital is not included. But then again, there were no digital coies sold on consoles.

 

But I doubt that all of the sold copies hard copies or digital can even dream to rival all the pirated copies that are around on PC's!

I would not be surprised if something like 20mio PC-gamers frequented a torrent site for that thing!

 

Here are some numbers: http://www.vgchartz....s=0&results=200

[katokires]

Edit: Whoh, I didn't know you could have too many block responses. The issue with too many questions, I guess.

 

 

It never existed.

 

Origins was never a free-wheeling political thriller in which any and all factions had their cycles of high and low in ever-changing alliances. Once the player left Ostagar, they were unstoppable steamrollars of destruction who put everything to their whims and killed anyone they wished without consequence. Major NPCs were routinely one-note caricatures, with the highmark of 'nuance' being the fact that the nice-guy feel-good character of Dwarven politics wasn't the best epilogue ending (a divergence from Bioware norms so dramatic that it somehow surprised many players).

 

 

 

 

Whatever happened to the grounded gritty art style and design of Origins ?

 

 

It was **** brown, like much of what was considered gritty realism at the time, and the industry struggles to this day to move away from the idea that '**** stained' is 'gritty realism.'

 

 

 

Whatever happened to the grounded combat and combat animations ?

 

I don't know, but what DAO did have was often mocked, and rightly so, for being remarkably exploitable and comically unbalanced. What was the best tank in the game? A mage. What was the best class to solo on Nightmare? An archer so grounded, enemies exploded.

 

 

Whatever happened to desire demons ?

 

It didn't reflect what their intent was with the demonic outbreak, and was already a long-acknowledged element of disatisifaction.

 

 

Or brothels ?

 

What about them?

 

(Ignoring, of course, you only ever found one per country. Which isn't exactly the height of realism.)

 

 

Or the sexism in Qunari culture which was magically whitewashed (Iron Bull is a cool character but I dislike him for this very reason) ?

 

 

Sexism very much applies to the Qunari culture, even post-trans-revelation stuff.

 

 

 

Whatever happened to actually equal romance content for all sexualities ?

 

It never actually existed. Origins had two males/females for straights, but half of that for same-sex relationships. DA2 had twice as many sexual romance for bisexuals as it did for straights or gays, and an additional chantry boy chaste romance for straight women.

 

 

 

 

 

Whatever happen to multiple weapon types usage for rogues & warriors ?

 

Warriors Rogues still have multiple weapon types (warriors have sword-and-board or two-handed, with the additional variation of pure DPS vs. armor-penetration damage types, while rogues have blades vs. blows), they just don't use eachother's multiple weapon types.

 

That went away with the refinement of what statistical growth mechanics were supposed to reflect. Which was pretty much for the best in terms of balancing for future games, because the manual stat distribution system from DAO was one of the less balanced points of the arbitrary mechanics, almost as much so as the superfluous amount of useless skills.

 

 

Where are the Origin stories that actually make us invested in our characters ?

 

Hawke gets a prologue arc and then the family reclamation arc in Act 1, and the Inquisitor gets numerous points to roleplay their past along with the amnesia personal plot about the Breach.

 

If they don't work for you, that's fine- but the Origins of DAO were no more of guarantees of being invested.

 

 

 

Whatever happened to freaking cities and deep roads ?

 

Val Royeaux is... right there. As is Redcliffe village, the crossroads, and Haven, and Skyhold. If we're taking ruined ones into account, there's also the Empress de Lions (where the Red Templars are), the Exalted Plains, the surface thaig, and so on. Haven alone had about as much floor space as Denerim (or rather, Denerim market) had in DAO.

 

 

If you're complaining about the slog of linear deep road tunnels, not sure why anyone would want them more than the far more varied environments of the DAI exploration areas. (Which, it should be reminded, aren't the linear corridors that every DAO level was.) The Deep Roads and the Fade were two of the more complained about elements of DAO, just for how long it could take to grind through them.

 

 

 

Ever seen an role playing game with no cities ?

 

 

Certainly. Not that it applies to DAI, but it's quite easy. There's nothing about RPGs that require massive cities.

 

In fact, DAO didn't have a massive city in terms of floor space. Denerim was just a marketplace, honestly, while Orzamar pales in comparison to other RPGs. You could dump Orzamar into some of the space ports in SWTOR and jangle it around some.

 

(Of course, this is where we'd get into the difference between big cities and pointlessly big cities.)

 

 

 

 

Whatever happened to attractive characters ?

 

If you're into pixilated boobs or butts or pecs, they're still there. Plenty of people have found them attractive as well.

 

What you found attractive about DAO's character designs, except the emphasis on breast armor (or breasts without armor), not sure. But I won't judge your video card fetishes.

Another dumb post of a dumb person who thinks that RPG is about combat neing anywhere near interesting and that we have skills because they are useful.

No, RPG is having a character in your mind and having as much options as possible to build it, or something close enough.

If you want to build a, let's say, duelist. You can in DAO and DA2 can't in DAI. Let's say you want a warrior with bow and arrow, it is the same, you can't in DAI.

It doesn't matter if it becomes amazing, regular or barely playable on casual, it is your imagination, your build, it is your expression. It is deffinetly not about effectiveness. So "useful" skills or magic says absolutely nothing. ALL skills and magic are useful because they give you option to create your character.

Same with stats. It is not MMORPG, balance makes no sense, allowing you to distribute your stats allow you to represent all kinds of characters.

I could build a dex warrior, say that unlike his friends in the academy he focused on his agility to defeat his enemies. Or a strength rogue with a two handed axe, because he enjoyed how funny it was to hide and sneak people with such a huge weapon, specially being a dwarf.

Now even with head canon and a lot of imagination it is very hard to roleplay your character.

The more the game acknowledges my character the less I can pretend to be other things. I can imagine I'm a bard or a duelist but my companions will talk about me being a tempest or artificer. And I don't have bard skills...

The thing is that after NWN, aka since DAO, Bioware offers less options, game after game, each new installment is more Bioware and less us and our imagination. To the point that now in Inquisition you have one class and one specialization so it is completely impossible for me to play my characters now. While in DAO I could role play my water dancer being a bard and duelist, now I can only be a boring bioware champion or a boring bioware assassin or whatever boring bioware put in game. There is no escape. Yeah, it is more identity to the character, it is more balance to the game (no it is not, I'm just agreeing with you because whatever) but it does not allow me to build any interesting character.

Since I only care for the build, my character is my build, since I don't care for choices, my character is whatever as long as he is his build, game became useless for me. I can't create the characters I love anymore. There are these Bioware character with which you can make decisions (but I couldn't care less to what happen to Thedas) and that's it.

Before DA2, even if DAO started with the fall, there was still joy in building your character, and that's what I liked, and what I missed.

Balance? WHO CARES ABOUT BALANCE. It is Bioware, there was never balance, there will never be, it is Bioware. If you played Bioware games, ANY, you know they don't know the meaning of balance. They probably don't even know the word (look at how they responded to DA2 small areas - absolutely no balance). But if you are into combat, there are lot's of ways to make it less cheap without removing customizations, one of the easiest simplest is caps, use caps for both offensive and fedensive abilities and there you go. Specially with caps decreasing with difficulty.

Game just became high fantasy movie to watch on youtube. Next Da I will just await for 9 different playthroughs on youtube and enjoy. There is nothing interesting in creating a character in this bullshit anymore.

[Il Divo]

Ever seen an role playing game with no cities ?

 

 

Certainly. Not that it applies to DAI, but it's quite easy. There's nothing about RPGs that require massive cities.

 

In fact, DAO didn't have a massive city in terms of floor space. Denerim was just a marketplace, honestly, while Orzamar pales in comparison to other RPGs. You could dump Orzamar into some of the space ports in SWTOR and jangle it around some.

 

(Of course, this is where we'd get into the difference between big cities and pointlessly big cities.)

 

 

Yeah, this is one of those points where what constitutes a "role-playing game" becomes very odd, even with all the disagreements about the term. It seems designed to arbitrarily express dislike of a particular game. 

[Dean_the_Young]

Oh dear, he called me dumb. My self esteem is shattered by this revelation. How ever will I go on without the good opinion of the anonymous interweb poster who castigated me so?