10 réponses à ce sujet

[MisterJB]

Hopefully, we can discuss this in a civil manner.

 

One of the most common complaints when speaking of Dragon Age Inquisition is that there is a great number of "fetch quests" which is intended by quests you are told "go pick X of these" and that is the extent of it.

However, while that is absolutely true, I also believe that it is not identifying the core issue which is that there are nearly no sidequests worthy of the name in DAI.

 

First and foremost, we should establish what we believe a "sidequest" to be. The term itself means a quest that is not vital to the plot.

However, what should a sidequest be composed of? Chasing the Golden Halla, for instance, is, without a doubt, a sidequest. And yet, is that all?

Personally, I believe sidequests exist not just to give the player something to entertain himself or herself but also to expand the world of the setting. They should allow the player to interact with the social intricacies of the societies in the game, its history and its people. They should allows us to decide on the outcome of the sidequest.

 

For instance, take Orzammar. When we travelled there, our quests involved helping a woman who had been expelled from home because she had given birth to a casteless, support or oppose the admission of a foreign religion, inbetween we interacted with interesting NPCs that really allowed us a look into dwarven life and created an atmosphere unlike any other, whether these NPCs be a battle hardened legion of dwarven warrior to whom our nightmare is their every day or a Tainted dwarf with a connection to the hive mind of the Darkspawn.

The same can be said of the Dalish camp, for instance. The simple act of the clan's storyteller trying to make you fell guilty with a story if you are humans is, IMO only, superior to all of the Dalish content in the Exalted Plains in DAI.

 

If you don't agree with me, can I ask you which region you preferred the most? DAO's Redcliff or DAI's Crestwood?

The situation is very similar, town in Ferelden under siege by the undead. But I can say, without a shadow of doubt, that I cared for Redcliff whereas I did not for Crestwood.

This is because of all of the sidequests in Redcliff where you prepared its people for the battle, listened to their stories, made decisions that, although not world shaking, still affected their lives and, in the end, how much you helped them will determine how many survive, maybe even all of them will.

That is not say there weren't fetch quests in DAO or DA2. There were, they just weren't in the majority and you could clearly tell which ones were fetch quests because they had to be picked from Chantry boards of Mage's Collectives bags, etc.

 

In conclusion, I do not hate DAI. In fact, I love it. It's one of my favourite games and there are a number of things it did better than DAO.

But, IMO, it really dropped the ball with the sidequests.

Sidequests should be varied, they should have an arch, they should have you interact with interesting people and the world, they should have multiple results.

Can anyone honestly say that any of DAI's sidequests matched these expectations? In my experience, you mostly explored silent areas, read some letters or had two or so lines of dialogue with NPCs.

DAI created a beautiful world but then forgot to populate it. Hopefully, with some many pointing this out, it will be addressed in future DLCs and games.

 

Or, at least, that is what I believe.

[DarkAmaranth1966]

SOME of what you call fetch quests are side quests to me. Getting the ram meat, potion, getting the healer to come and supply caches in the outskirts are side quests. Help the refugees so they will like the inquisition. Cullen even says you get refugees for recruits for the army.

 

Again with Crestwood, draining the lake, clearing bandits those are helping locals so, gaining popularity for the inquisition.

 

Ones that I don't think are worth bothering with are things like Lord Woolsley, The Druffalo, The Wyvern in Crestwood, Astriums, Shards, Requisitions that eat up crafting mats etc... those don't mean anything to anyone except one NPC and, I fail to see how one head matters to the inquisition at all - loose one person so what, I gained the whole town.

[MisterJB]

SOME of what you call fetch quests are side quests to me. Getting the ram meat, potion, getting the healer to come and supply caches in the outskirts are side quests. Help the refugees so they will like the inquisition. Cullen even says you get refugees for recruits for the army.

 

Again with Crestwood, draining the lake, clearing bandits those are helping locals so, gaining popularity for the inquisition.

In a purely technical sense, those quests are not all that different from ones in DAO.

Perhaps it is the lack of meaningful interaction that makes them seem bland.

[Krypplingz]

[snip]

Requisitions that eat up crafting mats etc... those don't mean anything to anyone except one NPC 

[snip]

Actually, the requisitions benefit the whole inquisition. Gathering ingredients for antivenom means that your troops are better equipped to hold out against the spiders roaming the area, giving them better survival chances. More tents means more space for extra troops and prepares them if the weather goes bad. Being able to create better shelters in harsher areas is always a plus. More coats are good. Studying the geologic material in the area means more ways to use them for weapons and tools. More cages means that more prisoners can be captured for interrogation. Puzzle boxes create distractions that increase morale and good morale makes people work harder. 

 

Of course, the implementation could be better, the quest should have been more one off and the requisitions should have more visible rewards. Having the first camps more bare boned and seeing them increase in quality would have been nice. Or having that extra supply of antivenom come in handy when the spider lords return from the fade. 

 

As for the OP. I kind of liked the side quests in Inquisition. The more looser format was a nice change of breath from the structure in the first two games. It's nice to just being able to travel around gathering materials, finding new areas where crystal grace grows instead of that one iron bark tree in the Brecillian Woods _{which is constantly mocking me}. Being able to make up my own stories about why those two skeletons are holding hands in Redcliffe Castle. 

I think this format is nice for this game and maybe in the next game they can add more structure and arches. (_{This post probably didn't add anything, sorry.} )

[ManleySteele]

The result for a few of the side quests is one of the few things I find completely unacceptable in the game. In example, there is a quest to finish off the bandits in Crestwood.  You run it, and the bandits are still there, just as bad as before.  When you run that quest, the bandits should be gone from Crestwood, or at least never respawn, once you have hunted them down.  I have the same problem with the Red Templars in Crestwood. Really, you don't even have to leave the area and come back for them to respawn.  It's too much filler. I realize that respawning baddies is a popular mechanic in modern games, especially games with crafting systems. I don't want to grind mats from enemies. I want to pacify an area and move on.  That's what I think. What do you think?

[Ashagar]

To me the best areas for side quests once you get past the hinterlands are the Western Approach, that region you have to liberate the region from the red Templars with ends with a fight with one of the forbidden ones, The Emerald Groves and Crestwood. All those areas had a sense of progression with a series of quests that were related and were just interesting if explored. I'd say the Hissing wastes as well but there is only one quest there that is great and interesting, the Paragon's tomb with its tomb raidings but otherwise there isn't much to do there other than fight random spiders and lurkers.

 

I didn't care for Orlais's capital as you didn't really get to see or do much there in spite of its supposable being so wonderful according to lore, I also didn't care much for the blasted Plans, the farrow mire or the storm coast which I might have liked more if there was more to do with the dwarven ruins there instead of them just being there.

[Poledo]

I feel more like they half-assed some quests rather than there being a lack of side quests. Lord woolsley is a perfect example. A talking ram? Obviously there is something amiss. So I can either kill it and the quest ends there, or tell it go home and the 'owner' thanks me and I get some xp. This thing is a rage demon... if I kill it there should at least be some follow up to that. If nothing else you should be able to tell the guy "by the way, your goat was a rage demon". What would have been nice was to have some follow up if you just return the ram - then later maybe a war table mission to help with a possession of the owner's son. Or if you killed the goat/demon near the lake, maybe an item could drop giving a hint as to wtf the demon was doing posing as a ram for this family. It would have been so simple, a total lost opportunity.

 

Also as I have stated before, just a few 5-10 seconds cutscenes at different times/places would really add to immersion and help you feel still engrossed in the story if you go off and spend a few hours exploring a zone - example: Discovering the mercenary fortress in Hinterlands, a brief cutscene with the merc commander giving orders to his men, or discussing their work for the carta with his men, or witnessing you approaching and preparing for those meddling inquistion folks. Add a few things like this in and it would really keep you involved.

[Poledo]

Was it actually a rage demon before you shoot it?  Perhaps it was a spirit of wisdom that turned into a rage demon due to your violent nature.   Just another potential facet if it was to be expanded on.

 

Perfect, there you go another opportunity. If you have Solas in your party when you kill the ram, Solas wigs out on your for corrupting a spirit.

[BigEvil]

The result for a few of the side quests is one of the few things I find completely unacceptable in the game. In example, there is a quest to finish off the bandits in Crestwood.  You run it, and the bandits are still there, just as bad as before.  When you run that quest, the bandits should be gone from Crestwood, or at least never respawn, once you have hunted them down.  I have the same problem with the Red Templars in Crestwood. Really, you don't even have to leave the area and come back for them to respawn.  It's too much filler. I realize that respawning baddies is a popular mechanic in modern games, especially games with crafting systems. I don't want to grind mats from enemies. I want to pacify an area and move on.  That's what I think. What do you think?

 

That's a good point about the respawning in Crestwood after those quests are done, it bugged me too. What makes it stranger though, is that in other areas they did this right. When I dealt with the rebel mages and rogue templars encampments in the Hinterlands they stopped spawning and other enemies spawned instead, such as Venatori/Red Templars based on who I sided with in a playthrough.

 

I think there should have been more of that, removing the enemy types that no longer make sense based on quest completion. I could understand if very rarely some highwaymen spawned in Crestwood because there were still some survivors, but they should mostly if not entirely be replaced by other enemies. Perhaps more deepstalkers are driven up from the caves once you drain the lake (like you can run into around the Old Crestwood area), or have increased Red Templar spawns until you've dealt with the mine area.