320 réponses à ce sujet

[Majestic Jazz]

Well thats good to hear. Now I can enjoy my upcoming DA marathon run knowing that my character stories would extend well beyond DAI.

Next is for them to announce some story DLC for DAI.

[Fidite Nemini]

Good thing they did both in DAI.

 

Hardly.

 

Some DAI companions are completely uninteresting (Blackwall, Solas), some are pretty one-dimensional (Sera) and the story is almost nonexistent among the unending swaths of fetchquests.

It was so bloody boring I can't even be motivated to finish my first playthrough ... and I have played every single other BioWare game dozens of times over. DAI does NOT have a good story. It has a story, but it's neither captivating, nor deep, at least the part I got to play, don't know about the rest, but that I can't be arsed to play the game to its end in itself is a big argument against it.

[Spankatola]

Couple playthroughs and counting, for me. Strong story, interesting characters, both checked. Thought the ending was a bit weak, but I'll live. Can't wait for this franchise to continue.

[Farangbaa]

Hardly.
 
Some DAI companions are completely uninteresting (Blackwall, Solas), some are pretty one-dimensional (Sera) and the story is almost nonexistent among the unending swaths of fetchquests.
It was so bloody boring I can't even be motivated to finish my first playthrough ... and I have played every single other BioWare game dozens of times over. DAI does NOT have a good story. It has a story, but it's neither captivating, nor deep, at least the part I got to play, don't know about the rest, but that I can't be arsed to play the game to its end in itself is a big argument against it.

Solas uninteresting???
Woah. What the hell.

Spoiler

An Elven God, personally responsible for locking away the Old God.

Ugh, someone find me a GIF to show my despair.

[Lebanese Dude]

Hardly.

 

Some DAI companions are completely uninteresting (Blackwall, Solas), some are pretty one-dimensional (Sera) and the story is almost nonexistent among the unending swaths of fetchquests.

It was so bloody boring I can't even be motivated to finish my first playthrough ... and I have played every single other BioWare game dozens of times over. DAI does NOT have a good story. It has a story, but it's neither captivating, nor deep, at least the part I got to play, don't know about the rest, but that I can't be arsed to play the game to its end in itself is a big argument against it.

 

A lot of opinions here... still not seeing an actual argument for bad writing.

 

The funny part is that Blackwall is supposed to be noble and boring because he's trying to hide away the intrinsically human part inside him to embody an ideal. His story arc is rather unique in BioWare games.

Solas is boring.... not gonna even touch that. Seriously...lmao...

Sera.. she's a giant opinionated hypocrite and that's her character. Doesn't make her one-dimensional. It's as if you never talked to her.

 

It seems you didnt even talk to them. You just formed an opinion and said fk it all. Explains the rest of your post.

 

Just go back to shagging Gheyna and killing random merchants. Plenty of story for you there.

[Wulfram]

Solas uninteresting???
Woah. What the hell.

Spoiler

An Elven God, personally responsible for locking away the Old God.

Ugh, someone find me a GIF to show my despair.

A post-credits revelation doesn't really make up if he's been boring you for 80 hours.

Not that he bored me, but his appeal can't rest on that one scene.

[Fidite Nemini]

Solas uninteresting???
Woah. What the hell.

An Elven God, personally responsible for locking away the Old God.

Ugh, someone find me a GIF to show my despair.

 

 

First, this is the no spoiler section!

 

Second, yes, I found him uninteresting. He was just your average know-it-all, holier-than-thou character. A big reveal doesn't change that much unless it also comes with a major break from the previous character.

 

Third, my point is the game is so boring that I don't even want to finish it. That by definition makes it "uninteresting". It is a subjective perception, but it is a valid one and I'm not a guy with attention deficit syndrome, quite the contrary in fact, I played every sidequest I could find, searched nearly every nook and cranny in those regions and the total story content compared to all the game content is shamefully low. I tried to like this game for over 70 hours. I talked with everyone every chance I got, did the quests, got all companions ... and it's boring.

 

If you or others like it, good for you, I sincerely hope you have all the fun you can have. But no one can tell me it has a good story and characters. DAII for all its faults is the far superiour storytelling game, with far superiour characters.

 

 

 

A lot of opinions here... still not seeing an actual argument for bad writing.

 

The funny part is that Blackwall is supposed to be noble and boring because he's trying to hide away the intrinsically human part inside him to embody an ideal. His story arc is rather unique in BioWare games.

Solas is boring.... not gonna even touch that. Seriously...lmao...

Sera.. she's a giant opinionated hypocrite and that's her character. Doesn't make her one-dimensional. It's as if you never talked to her.

 

It seems you didnt even talk to them. You just formed an opinion and said fk it all. Explains the rest of your post.

 

Just go back to shagging Gheyna and killing random merchants. Plenty of story for you there.

 

I didn't say the story is bad. I said it's boring. Good stories can be boring too. It's what you call pacing. DAI has a huge problem with pacing.

 

For someone who pointed out that I am having subjective opinions there (congratulations for stating the obvious) and no objective arguments, you are quite easy with trying to counter that with your own subjective opinions and ad hominem attacks ...

[Lebanese Dude]

A post-credits revelation doesn't really make up if he's been boring you for 80 hours.

Not that he bored me, but his appeal can't rest on that one scene.

 

He had mystery throughout the whole game. He consistently messed up and revealed something about himself that made you wonder.

 

He likes noble parties?

His glaring hatred for Wardens?

 

Yeah I totally wanted to know what the deal was there.

Perhaps you werent paying attention to those details?

 

Also his stories about the Fade are some of the more interesting conversations in the game. *shrug*

[Farangbaa]

A post-credits revelation doesn't really make up if he's been boring you for 80 hours.

Not that he bored me, but his appeal can't rest on that one scene.

It makes an already extremely interesting character

Spoiler

(obvious Elf, no Vallaslin, doesn't feel anything for either the Dalish or any of the City Elves, Fade walker, someone who talks with and befriends spirits)

into a character you cannot possibly ignore.

Spoiler

This man is personally responsible for the world of Thedas as we've seen it. The only others who come close are the magisters who entered the Fade in the flesh (Corypheus, The Architect)

[Lebanese Dude]

First, this is the no spoiler section!

 

Second, yes, I found him uninteresting. He was just your average know-it-all, holier-than-thou character. A big reveal doesn't change that much unless it also comes with a major break from the previous character.

 

Third, my point is the game is so boring that I don't even want to finish it. That by definition makes it "uninteresting". It is a subjective perception, but it is a valid one and I'm not a guy with attention deficit syndrome, quite the contrary in fact, I played every sidequest I could find, searched nearly every nook and cranny in those regions and the total story content compared to all the game content is shamefully low. I tried to like this game for over 70 hours. I talked with everyone every chance I got, did the quests, got all companions ... and it's boring.

 

If you or others like it, good for you, I sincerely hope you have all the fun you can have. But no one can tell me it has a good story and characters. DAII for all its faults is the far superiour storytelling game, with far superiour characters.

 

Meh it seems you don't actually analyze or read the content much. DAI expected the player to make sense of the world on their own as part of the exploration and strategic aspect. Perhaps you need hand-held storytelling? That's fair. DA2 did that better. 

[Lebanese Dude]

The spoilers though

 
No spoiler forum!!

[Farangbaa]

No spoiler forum!!

[Fidite Nemini]

Meh it seems you don't actually analyze or read the content much. DAI expected the player to make sense of the world on their own as part of the exploration and strategic aspect. Perhaps you need hand-held storytelling? That's fair. DA2 did that better. 

 

And again the ad hominem attacks.

 

 

You know, for someone that accuses me of simply assuming things without going deeper to explore it, you do a great deal of assuming what I did or did not when playing the game.

 

If I want a game where I interprete my own story, I play a real sandbox game like Fallout or Elder Scrolls. I bought DAI because I wanted a story, not a game that tried to clone Skyrim and forgot most of its storytelling in the process.

[Lebanese Dude]

And again the ad hominem attacks.

 

 

You know, for someone that accuses me of simply assuming things without going deeper to explore it, you do a great deal of assuming what I did or did not when playing the game.

 

Just gonna quote Wikipedia here for a straight-up response:

 

Ad hominem isn't always wrong, especially when it relates to the credibility of the facts (of which you have none while asserting a factual objective resolution about the game's quality) when used in moral and practical reasoning.

 

...

 

You're claiming that the companions and characters are bland. That's not only subjective,  it's also a sweeping generalization given that you stated that you only disliked three characters as a result of their character which for all intents and purposes actually make sense in context. Had you actually paid attention to their storylines and hints throughout the story, you'd realize that:

 

Spoiler

Blackwall is a stoic unemotive person because he is shrugging off what makes him himself (Thom Rainier) in order to embody an ideal (Blackwall)

 

Solas is a stuck-up prig because he's an old elven deity hanging out with noobs in an attempt to correct his mistake. He's incredibly passionate about what he believes in and struggles to explain his reasoning to you while trying to keep his true nature undetected.

 

Sera is an opinionated hot mess but that's basically her projecting her own confusion and frustration unto the world. She's trying to make sense of things while also trying her hardest not to care. Many theories ascertain that she's Andruil's vessel and there are many subtle hints that this is true from her artwork to her insane love of pwning dragons.

 

Then you claim the story is minimal using some vague definition of the word.  What's story? Is it cutscenes? Stick a cutscene and a discussion about pasteurizing cheese becomes story? Is it actually narrative content? Isn't that usually relegated to the main plot? I'm fairly certain the main plot is significantly more divergent than its predecessors with at least the same amount of content. Six different Orlais endings! Four different M/T endings with completely different antagonists! Three divine options that depend on how you spoke to your characters. Actual long-term reactivity with actual impact! Oh no! 

 

Are you talking about companions? They had the same amount of dialogue if not more. They didn't butt in much in random conversations except at your discretion but they butt in a lot more during main quests and not in a "Hold off one by one in a queue" like in DAO but also at your discretion. Their quests actually had significant divergence with significant effects on their character and some actually relevant and relatable content. Unless of course you find being a wingman to get Oghren laid more compelling than seeing behind Vivienne's aura of arrogance.

Is it just random events done by the character? The "fetch quests" in DAI at least amount to some sort of significance culminating in agent recruitments and roleplaying opportunities. How much RP can you do with fetching garnets? Then you have zone quests like Crestwood that actually have interesting "side-quests" on the way (Spirit of Valor ftw) culminating in a dragon attack and a judgment. While the numerous judgments in DAI do not project the same gravitas as the Loghain/Alistair one did (although Blackwall comes pretty close), they come in a lot more quantity each with their own distinct flavor and resolutions.

 

Then you have the war table...allowing you to roleplay your Inquisitor and Inquisition simultaneously. Unless of course you didn't read it and just sent out agents depending on their availability and time requirements. If you find deciding some random merchant's fate more compelling than deciding whether to send assassins to murder some innocent people or resolve an issue through diplomacy, it seems you're a fan of direct hand-held storytelling rather than indirect and inferred one. 

 

Considering DAI places a significant amount of content on the player while allowing them to piece it all together while exploring the world, it seems that one has to take their time to understand the characters, companions, quests, dialogue, and sub-text rather than just having it handed to them in a very overt and unsubtle way like in DAO and DA2.

 

Hence my conclusion about how you approached it. No offense really.

[Al Foley]

He had mystery throughout the whole game. He consistently messed up and revealed something about himself that made you wonder.

 

He likes noble parties?

His glaring hatred for Wardens?

 

Yeah I totally wanted to know what the deal was there.

Perhaps you werent paying attention to those details?

 

Also his stories about the Fade are some of the more interesting conversations in the game. *shrug*

To be fair the last part probably has to do a lot with Gareth David Lloyd then anything else, I think I could listen to that man read from the phone book and it would be interesting as hell.  

[Lebanese Dude]

To be fair the last part probably has to do a lot with Gareth David Lloyd then anything else, I think I could listen to that man read from the phone book and it would be interesting as hell.  

 

Lmao...fair enough but I honestly did like his stories. I especially remember the one about the Qunari baker who put a pinch of sugar into the bread every day as a small act of rebellion (dat foreshadowing though).

[Fidite Nemini]

Just gonna quote Wikipedia here for a straight-up response:

 

Ad hominem isn't always wrong, especially when it relates to the credibility of the facts (of which you have none while asserting a factual objective resolution about the game's quality) when used in moral and practical reasoning.

 

...

 

You're claiming that the companions and characters are bland. That's not only subjective,  it's also a sweeping generalization given that you stated that you only disliked three characters as a result of their character which for all intents and purposes actually make sense in context. Had you actually paid attention to their storylines and hints throughout the story, you'd realize that:

 

Spoiler

Blackwall is a stoic unemotive person because he is shrugging off what makes him himself (Thom Rainier) in order to embody an ideal (Blackwall)

 

Solas is a stuck-up prig because he's an old elven deity hanging out with noobs in an attempt to correct his mistake. He's incredibly passionate about what he believes in and struggles to explain his reasoning to you while trying to keep his true nature undetected.

 

Sera is an opinionated hot mess but that's basically her projecting her own confusion and frustration unto the world. She's trying to make sense of things while also trying her hardest not to care. Many theories ascertain that she's Andruil's vessel and there are many subtle hints that this is true from her artwork to her insane love of pwning dragons.

 

Then you claim the story is minimal using some vague definition of the word.  What's story? Is it cutscenes? Stick a cutscene and a discussion about pasteurizing cheese becomes story? Is it actually narrative content? Isn't that usually relegated to the main plot? I'm fairly certain the main plot is significantly more divergent than its predecessors with at least the same amount of content. Six different Orlais endings! Four different M/T endings with completely different antagonists! Three divine options that depend on how you spoke to your characters. Actual long-term reactivity with actual impact! Oh no! 

 

Are you talking about companions? They had the same amount of dialogue if not more. They didn't butt in much in random conversations except at your discretion but they butt in a lot more during main quests and not in a "Hold off one by one in a queue" like in DAO but also at your discretion. Their quests actually had significant divergence with significant effects on their character and some actually relevant and relatable content. Unless of course you find being a wingman to get Oghren laid more compelling than seeing behind Vivienne's aura of arrogance.

Is it just random events done by the character? The "fetch quests" in DAI at least amount to some sort of significance culminating in agent recruitments and roleplaying opportunities. How much RP can you do with fetching garnets? Then you have zone quests like Crestwood that actually have interesting "side-quests" on the way (Spirit of Valor ftw) culminating in a dragon attack and a judgment. While the numerous judgments in DAI do not project the same gravitas as the Loghain/Alistair one did (although Blackwall comes pretty close), they come in a lot more quantity each with their own distinct flavor and resolutions.

 

Then you have the war table...allowing you to roleplay your Inquisitor and Inquisition simultaneously. Unless of course you didn't read it and just sent out agents depending on their availability and time requirements. If you find deciding some random merchant's fate more compelling than deciding whether to send assassins to murder some innocent people or resolve an issue through diplomacy, it seems you're a fan of direct hand-held storytelling rather than indirect and inferred one. 

 

Considering DAI places a significant amount of content on the player while allowing them to piece it all together while exploring the world, it seems that one has to take their time to understand the characters, companions, quests, dialogue, and sub-text rather than just having it handed to them in a very overt and unsubtle way like in DAO and DA2.

 

Hence my conclusion about how you approached it. No offense really.

 

Ignoring the characters for now as that's entirely up to personal opinions and going on to the next point: the story.

 

Story for me is the entirity of a game's narrative. How it's conveyed, what is conveyed, who convey's it, etc..

 

My gripe is that out of all the DAI content, only a fraction actually plays into the story. Helping a village to stabilize a region in the Inquisitions name? Good. Killing a couple great bears for their claws because some dead dudes wrote about it? Bad. The latter is pure filling content, existing only to put something into the huge world they created. And doing all those filler quests distracts from the actual story. It destroys the pacing. As a result, you spend most of the time exploring a region with no relevance to the story, until you quite literally either grow bored of grinding through it or there's nothing else to do. Then you go back to your base of operations, either Haven or later Skyhold and proceed to the next region, which starts with story relevant quests and then ends again with the same trivial exploring. Then when you grinded enough and got enough power, you proceed with another mainquest (which are not bad, I thoroughly enjoyed Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts) ... and then you leave for another region full of tedious grinding and trivial filler quests.

 

And with tedious and irrelevant filler quests comes boredom. Boredom kills motivation and without motivation you end up like me; can't be arsed to finish the game.

 

I call that bad game design. And the fault lies with the nonexistent story pacing. There is something wrong when the internet screams at you "LEAVE THE HINTERLANDS!!!!" and not your Inquisition's advisors admonishing you to get your ass in gear and stop hunting that stupid Ram for some random farmer and instead go and do something about that Mage rebellion.

 

The game feels like 20% story, 80% boring filler quests and grinding.

[aaarcher86]

No. This is preposterous. This doesn't fit my Dragon Age is doomed agenda!

[MonkeyLungs]

Solas is one of the most interesting Bioware characters to date (my opinion obviously). Also Gareth David-Lloyd was brilliant as Solas. Such great synergy between the writing staff, the voice acting directors, and Mr. David-Lloyd takes that great synergy and catapults it to epic status.

[Lebanese Dude]

 

Good. Killing a couple great bears for their claws because some dead dudes wrote about it? Bad. The latter is pure filling content, existing only to put something into the huge world they created. 

You couldn't have picked a worse example. You're citing the quest that technically introduces the player to masterwork crafting mats.  It had a purpose, one that was not admittedly obvious but nevertheless entirely optional to the player to begin with. 

 

You should have probably went with tht  Drufallo escort quest...which incidentally has subtextual BioDev humor since the escort path brings you towards a rift which you can then close at an early level using the unkillable druffalo as a tank.

 

Perhaps you should mention scattering the poor woman's dead son's ashes in DAI. That's totally not a roleplaying opportunity for the charitable or pious inquisitor. A douche inquisitor would also totally do it with no expectation of reward.

....

 

Right...

 

And doing all those filler quests distracts from the actual story. It destroys the pacing. As a result, you spend most of the time exploring a region with no relevance to the story, 

 

Filler is such a cute buzzword you keep throwing around, especially when you haven't even defined it yet. I can count around "2" fetch quests in the exalted plains (deliver soldier death notes and tag supply caches) which incidentally can be used as an RP opportunity for a politically minded Inquisitor since they each include a different party (assist Celene or Gaspard or both?).

 

The rest include:

1) Closing Rifts (right...filler...not the entire purpose of the Inquisitor's presence...)

2) Zone quests (saving Orlesians from undead camps that were created by a minion of Corypheus to sow destruction and chaos in Orlais...yep irrelevant).

3) Dalish reputation quests (Roleplaying opportunities with the same number of divergent quest options as the entirety of the Dalish clan in DAO.

Spoiler

You can desecrate the grave rather than just clear it. You can murder the halla rather than guide it. You can mock the elven woman's brother and sell the dalish artifact. You can return the secrets of the Red Crossing to the Chantry rather than the Elves.

Actually earning their trust unlocks their cooperation. Who knew?

 

4) Landmark quests (Basically lore to explain the environment that they constructed. I fail to see how this is remotely uninteresting to the lore-minded player or IQ. Did you want a guide to follow you around? I hear they charge enormous fees)

5) Shard collection (totally incidental and unnecessary). Only for rewards and buffs at Solasan. You find this out 3 hours into the game if you wish.

What else...veilfire rune hunting?

 

Pacing is entirely what you make of it in an open world game. Otherwise you have a linear game that forcefully takes you from one quest to another.

 

You can totally not care about the context of the story while exploring a zone, but that's your fault. I never found pacing disrupted myself, but that's because I read the content so I always felt invested in the story.

 

stop hunting that stupid Ram for some random farmer and instead go and do something about that Mage rebellion.

 

 

Why would they admonish you..when it's part of a sequence of events in assisting the refugees to eventually potentially gain their support in the Inquisition. That's a lot of support for a fledgling organization! I suppose it only "technically" manifests as a 5% reduction in Cullen quest timing, but is it any less relevant than having the Dalish army you'll never use because Golems OP if you sided with Branka?

 

You undermine the need for power and influence (literal and figurative) when constructing your Inquisition. You couldn't even approach the mages and templars without sufficient power and influence to begin with. 

 

Believe it or not, people like it when a complete stranger entity (The Inquisition at the time of its inception) feeds them and brings them clothing. 

You wanna call that trivial? Implying otherwise is insisting that Grey Wardens should have been able to contact the dwarves without having the treaties to compel them to provide an audience because "The Blight". 

 

Power and influence are EVERYTHING. While DAI kinda sucked on the power costs, at least the concept was genuinely interesting and made the IQ"s actions always have an ulterior motive and purpose.

 

 

Pardon my snark it's late and I'm cranky.

[Avejajed]

Solas was pretty interesting when we were doing it in the fade.

[Al Foley]

Solas was pretty interesting when we were doing it in the fade.

...kinkt

[DragonRacer]

Solas was pretty interesting when we were doing it in the fade.

 

Dat Fade tongue, though

[Fidite Nemini]

 

Filler is such a cute buzzword you keep throwing around, especially when you haven't even defined it yet. I can count around "2" fetch quests in the exalted plains (deliver soldier death notes and tag supply caches) which incidentally can be used as an RP opportunity for a politically minded Inquisitor since they each include a different party (assist Celene or Gaspard or both?).

 

The rest include:

1) Closing Rifts (right...filler...not the entire purpose of the Inquisitor's presence...)

2) Zone quests (saving Orlesians from undead camps that were created by a minion of Corypheus to sow destruction and chaos in Orlais...yep irrelevant).

3) Dalish reputation quests (Roleplaying opportunities with the same number of divergent quest options as the entirety of the Dalish clan in DAO. You can desecrate the grave rather than just clear it. You can murder the halla rather than guide it. You can mock the elven woman's brother and sell the dalish artifact. You can return the secrets of the Red Crossing to the Chantry rather than the Elves. Actually earning their trust unlocks their cooperation. Who knew?

4) Landmark quests (Basically lore to explain the environment that they constructed. I fail to see how this is remotely uninteresting to the lore-minded player or IQ. Did you want a guide to follow you around? I hear they charge enormous fees)

5) Shard collection (totally incidental and unnecessary). Only for rewards and buffs at Solasan. You find this out 3 hours into the game if you wish.

What else...veilfire rune hunting?

 

And here we go again ... you're pretty quick about assuming what I mean with filler. And I did define it. Filler is trivial stuff put into the world for the sake of having stuff in the world.

 

Let me remind you about the premise of the the game: sky's torn open connecting the fade with the physical world. Demons roaming the land, civil war, mages rebelling, templars going rogue, it's basically the advent to the end of the world.

 

Yup, the Inquisitor is totally going to run every single errand himself. It's not like he has troops (except when he has them and then again doesn't) he can direct to help a region.

A leader of a growing faction shows up to gain allies in form of a Revered Mother whose knowledge can help you? That is important stuff. Killing some bad people on the way there? Well, you already are there, why not help out with something as crucial as martial threats. Farmer wants his prized ram back? ONLY THE INQUISITOR CAN DO IT! There's no such thing as former farmers or stableboys all over in Haven or even in that very same village that could do such a thing for example.

 

I get it, it's a RPG game. Helping random people with their problems is genre typical ... but it completely misses the scope of the situation. Want to RP a micromanaging goody-two-shoes Inquisitors that does everything himself? Good on you. Don't want to? Too bad, that means you better ignore half the game.

 

So on the one hand, you've got the apocalypse. And in the next second, you run an errand for some villager you just met.

 

Not consistent!

[Lebanese Dude]

Summary of your post:

 

 

 

Yup, the Inquisitor is totally going to run every single errand himself.

 

 

No...and that's why you have a war table.. .so you can assign agents to do the work for you as part of your command structure