122 réponses à ce sujet

[Apollexander]

If it actually was "choose and then act". It's not, however, most of the time. Things usually resolve themselves without any further intervention after you've chosen.

BTW, the rationalization behind the choices themselves, those I did not criticize. On the contrary, I said in my diary thread that it appears more thought went into why people are doing things in DAI, and I agree that DAI did rather well in that aspect. That doesn't change that the main quests lack complexity compared to DAO. DAO's feel more natural because they don't appear simplistic in their design, using the principle "How can we minimize the divergence in things players get to do while maintaining an illusion of choice?" but rather "What are feasible options to resolve this plot?" and then implement them. At least, that's how it comes across.

When I said "choose and then act" I refered to the choices like Templar/Mage, divine election, or even the paths in the prologue. You can choose differently and then the plot goes in different ways. When you make a choice, you just pick one of the options in the wheel and do not have to play differently for making the choice. The different gameplays are after the choice. That's what I mean.

And for "act to choose", like you said, in DAO you do something to make the choice, not only pick an option in the dialogue tree.

[earymir]

I should mention that I'm not one to be overly susceptible to nostalgia goggles, so when I was followed by a nagging impression that DAO's main quests felt more natural than DAI's, I went back to check and tried to find out what was different that could acccount for such an impression.

 

The observation: In DAO, we effect different outcomes by doing different things. In DAI, we do all the same things and effect different outcomes only by making decisions in a dialogue at key points - usually the end of the quest. In DAI, the divergence is usually almost non-present in the game itself, except for very minor differences.

 

Example: consider DAO's quest "The Arl of Redcliffe". You have three main outcomes - Connor alive and free, Connor alive and possessed, or Connor dead. There are additional variations resulting in "Isolde is dead" or "Isolde is alive", depending on whether you called for the help of the Circle or not. The important thing here is this: while some of those outcomes are decided in dialogue, you actually do different things to make them happen: you kill connor, you go to the Circle for help, you let Isolde sacrifice herself, you either go into the Fade yourself or send one of your mages or Jowan into the Fade, playing as them.

 

Compare: DAI's Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, the main quest with the most variable outcome. With no meta-knowledge, the first real decision you make in this quest comes immediately before the end, namely when you leave the Royal Wing. At that point, you'll have opened the halla door in the Servants' quarters to get Briala's stuff and the halla door to the lower level. You've also been in the trophy room to collect stuff on Gaspard. With no difference at all in what you actually did, you now have access to the three main outcomes - Celene, Gaspard alone and Gaspard/Briala through two decisions made in dialogue: let Celene die or not, and choose Briala or Gaspard if you let her die.

 

it's the same with other quests from DAO: Brecilian Forest - three main outcomes, you do different things: make peace, destroy the Dalish clan, destroy the werewolves. Captured: wait for your friends, break out through deception or break out through force (and hey, the optional seduction would never appear in DAI because it couldn't be made gender-neutral without looking silly). Orzammar: at least the first part has significant forks. Meanwhile, you make two decisions in Here Lies the Abyss but don't do anything different. You can do two different things in What Pride has Wrought but that doesn't affect the possible outcomes, which are, yet again, decided in a dialogue scene.

 

DAI's missions lack complexity. When you play for the first time, you won't notice that because the presentation is overwhelming and the emotional impact tends to make you not pay attention to complexity, but it becomes rather obvious in subsequent playthroughs.

 

In comparison, it becomes all too apparent that the mission designers created the main plot missions on the principle: How can we get significant divergence in the outcomes with an absolute minimum of differences in what players actually get to do? We have one point with a major fork that doesn't follow this principle: the mage/templar choice. However, the missions themselves are again, completely linear and lack complexity. Meanwhile, in DAO it feels more like the designers asked themselves what solutions would be possible considering the characters and the situation, and then implemented them through actual dialogue and gameplay. DAI's main plot missions feel artificially constrained, DAO's more naturally evolved.

 

Which means, I have to rescind the statement I made in my diary thread. In terms of quest design and complexity, DAO still reigns superior. I did not post about this earlier because I thought I suffered from nostalgia goggles. However, a look at both games from some emotional distance makes the differences obvious.

 

I completely agree and so I say this just to give a bit of credit to Bioware.  There are a couple big decisions you can make where you actually do different things.  1) What Pride Had Wrought.  You can just chase right after the baddie and not explore the temple and talk to the elves.  Or, you can do the "ritual" (aka walk around a bit) and talk to the elves and even side with them.  That was meaningful feeling.  2) Choosing templars or mages - totally different quests, which was great.  The parts leading up to it were meh (why after 3 games have we not seen the actual war between the mages and templars? why just some random skirmishes during a cease-fire type situation), but it was pretty cool having completely different quests.  I think that also felt meaningful.  

 

The rest - I agree, and think it's important to analyze why people have had these vague feelings of quest disappointment.  I think you're onto something.  (More things contribute as well, but not for this thread.)

[AlanC9]

Might that be because the 'default' and quick class selection is soldier? 
 
Those speeding through will pick that, hell it may be we've all clicked through on that first to see what the Soldier and mechanics are like before we re-start to do our main class? In which case the stats will be wrong.

Well, Bio's data tracking is granular enough to be able to pick that up. Whether they asked the right questions of their data is another question

[Lady Harlequinn]

Agreed.

[Ash Wind]

I'd have to agree with op. So much of DAI seems to be disconnected in the sense. Yes, its much larger than DA2, but much of it is emptiness. DAO, there seemed to be a more cohesivness. I liked DAI, but it pales in comparison.

[Hiemoth]

While I disagree with the degree of praise given to DAO, I do agree to a large degree with your assessment on the main story structure in DAI. I must also give credit to your excellent and clear way of explaining your viewpoint, it was quite a delight to read. The only complaint I had was the initial ignoring of DA2, which just drives me nuts, until I read your later post on the matter. And while I also disagreed with certain points there as well, it was very well explained.

 

I did not actually feel that DAI's missions had less end results than DAO's when there was an option for choice, but rather that there weren't that many quests with decisions. And I do not feel that that decision was due to them wanting to streamline the experience or somehow take away from the experience of choosing, but rather due to focusing on exploration, which requires resources spend on building content to fill those maps instead of focusing on branching content. An example is the Crestwood quest, which while being quite epic in actual deeds, constantly failed for me to provide any kind of choice and interaction during the quest and in giving that feeling of epicness during the quest.

 

One thing I do completely agree with is the lack of context in the main quests mentioned in the thread. Both the Orlesian Civil War and the Grey Warden questlines basically happened with minimal build-up and you just casually told that it was important, okay.

[Silcron]

First of all I'm going to apologize. I was hallway through the comment when I had to go and I don't think it came out well. I wanted to give some kind of meaningfull feedback but couldn't, and I absolutely hate just saying "that's good." It's kind of pointless to say that, but I did want to do more than just hit the like button.

Secondly. I think the problem also relies partially on the gameplay, at least on the experience you get. For example, in Destiny the story is presented weakly at best, but the gameplay is so enjoyable that I keep playing it. A better example would be the Souls series. The whole story is told in item descriptions, cryptic conversations with few npcs and the look of the areas, storytelling should not be one of its fortes but the gameplay is so enjoyable that you end up taking an interest in what's going on. You read the description of the boss' soul you just got because you want to know more about him. DS makes you naturally interested in what's going on, why are the enemies how they are. At the other end of the spectrum I think there's Inquisition. You have all those codex entries on loading screens, all that dialogue and yet I found myself running around in my horse because I couldn't be bothered to fight the enemies.

[Grifter]

My Grey Warden and I, support leldra =)

 

Sry, have to edit this...

 

U leldra say, for the next DA... why cant be for this one?

And i say this again.... They can do or make this game better

[Ieldra]

My Grey Warden and I, support leldra =)

 

Sry, have to edit this...

 

U leldra say, for the next DA... why cant be for this one?

And i say this again.... They can do or make this game better

It is not feasible to change DAI's main quests, where the problem is most noticeable, and adding sidequests through DLC would do little to mitigate it. 

[Ieldra]

While I disagree with the degree of praise given to DAO, I do agree to a large degree with your assessment on the main story structure in DAI. I must also give credit to your excellent and clear way of explaining your viewpoint, it was quite a delight to read. The only complaint I had was the initial ignoring of DA2, which just drives me nuts, until I read your later post on the matter. And while I also disagreed with certain points there as well, it was very well explained.

 

I did not actually feel that DAI's missions had less end results than DAO's when there was an option for choice, but rather that there weren't that many quests with decisions. And I do not feel that that decision was due to them wanting to streamline the experience or somehow take away from the experience of choosing, but rather due to focusing on exploration, which requires resources spend on building content to fill those maps instead of focusing on branching content. An example is the Crestwood quest, which while being quite epic in actual deeds, constantly failed for me to provide any kind of choice and interaction during the quest and in giving that feeling of epicness during the quest.

 

One thing I do completely agree with is the lack of context in the main quests mentioned in the thread. Both the Orlesian Civil War and the Grey Warden questlines basically happened with minimal build-up and you just casually told that it was important, okay.

I was careful not to make it global praise. There are some things DAI does very well, for instance it brings across the political and strategic dimension and the reality of leading a big organization. It feels more natural to make decisions on a big scale - sometimes at the expense of smaller things, which occasionally feels less natural to do. Also, DAI's immersive environments are way beyond what any of Bioware's games has done before, and characters and voice-acting are generally first-class.

 

Regarding DA2, it is hard to compare because the setting was so different. DA2 has, IMO, the most integrated story of all DA games - It really is more than the sum of its parts - but I wonder if I should consider it possible at this time to make a game with a much bigger scope in the same way. Also, it came at the expense of player agency.

 

About the end results: I did not claim there were fewer in DAI. In fact, the point was that a significant diversity of outcomes was realized with a minimum of variety in the things we get to do. I do miss the minor persistent choices we had in DAO - and that's another thing where DAO appeals more - but that was not the topic. Neither was the isolation of the main quests, which I posted about in a different thread but not here. The story does feel imcomplete though, and while DAI does quite a few things very well, I think it's story may be the least-integrated of all DA games' stories. It has an interesting concept and handles its themes nicely for the most part, but it feels like a collection of disconnected parts.

[MaxQuartiroli]

I suspect that this happened because of this

 

Many players does not have so much time to dedicate to games and they know it. I for one am a good example: with family/work/real issues I can usually reserve 4/5 hours a week to games, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. Despite what the article says I always finish every game I begin (unless I find it a total ****) but it's true that the more the the game is long the less is the replayabilty value for me, especially in a moment like this when many games are out (or are going to be released): the Witcher 3, Pillars of Eternity, Tides of Numenera, Divinity OS..they are all on my list. I initially had 4 planned playthroughs of DA:I and I'm about half done with my second one but honestly I don't really know if I'll ever be able (or If I want) to devote other 300/350 hours to this game while sacrificing all the others in my list and I also suspect that for many other players like me it works the same way..

 

The truth (imho) is that when they release a game which is 150+ hs long they estimate that the majority of the players won't do more than one playtrough, therefore they don't bother too much with different outcomes which only a smaller number of people would be able to see. It's the same old story: they probably consider them a cost which is not worth it.

 

EDIT:

just to be clear: I am not trying to defend or justify them. I am just making an hypothesis which could explain why this happened 

[erikdlan]

Hello, people,

 

Long time lurker here, but I find this topic quite interesting and there are some minor critics to the OP I wanted to make . The OP is well written and well thought and I actually agree that most main quests in DA:I are less complex than main quests in DAO, because most DA:I decissions are designed to be made just through dialog options, without doing different things. But there are some exceptions, and Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts is the biggest one.

 

This is what the OP sais about WEWH:

Compare: DAI's Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, the main quest with the most variable outcome. With no meta-knowledge, the first real decision you make in this quest comes immediately before the end, namely when you leave the Royal Wing. At that point, you'll have opened the halla door in the Servants' quarters to get Briala's stuff and the halla door to the lower level. You've also been in the trophy room to collect stuff on Gaspard. With no difference at all in what you actually did, you now have access to the three main outcomes - Celene, Gaspard alone and Gaspard/Briala through two decisions made in dialogue: let Celene die or not, and choose Briala or Gaspard if you let her die.

 

Spoiler

There are other two outcomes for WEWH Ieldra doesn't mention, the truce between Celene, Briala and Gaspard and making Celene and Briala become lovers again. You need to find no less than five hallas and enter Celene's room to find the evidence that allows you to blackmail Celene and force the truce between Celene, Briala and Gaspard. The other outcome requires other different things to do: find the souvenir that Celene keeps from Briala (that is kept in a three halla door), show it to Celene's interlopers, talk to the Empress and show the souvenir to Briala, or else the best you can get for Briala from Celene is exile.

 

Furthermore for the resolution of WEWH you can fight Florianne or you can avoid the fight and stop her just asking the guards to take her, in a truly courtier style, but to get this possibilty you need to have enough court approval. You gain approval doing some things orlaisian nobles like, such as being fashionable late, or finding coins, or listening to gossips, that is doing different things. By the way you should keep an eye on court approval or else you can find an alternative end game, being cast out from the Winter Palace because you didn't try to play the Game...

 

My point is that WEWH is a very complex mission. It's far from perfect, many people dislike it and can be rightfully critic about many points in it but is very different from the rest of the game and truly complex. Sadly the other main quests in DA:I lack the complexity of many quests in DAO or even the complexity in WEWH or the Divine decission.

Spoiler

Here Lies The Abyss is reduced to take two decissions (Hawke or Warden and Exile or Ally the Wardens), the templars/mages question makes two different branches in the game, but its reduced to are you gonna do one quest or the other and do you want to ally or conscript the mages/templars.

 

I love DA:I, but I find it is a huge game that somehow demands to be much bigger and suffers from disconnection between its different parts, quests and zones.

 

 

Edit to add some spoiler buttons

Modifié par erikdlan, 18 février 2015 - 02:08 .

[9TailsFox]

I suspect that this happened because of this

 

Many players does not have so much time to dedicate to games and they know it. I for one am a good example: with family/work/real issues I can usually reserve 4/5 hours a week to games, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. Despite what the article says I always finish every game I begin (unless I find it a total ****) but it's true that the more the the game is long the less is the replayabilty value for me, especially in a moment like this when many games are out (or are going to be released): the Witcher 3, Pillars of Eternity, Tides of Numenera, Divinity OS..they are all on my list. I initially had 4 planned playthroughs of DA:I and I'm about half done with my second one but honestly I don't really know if I'll ever be able (or If I want) to devote other 300/350 hours to this game while sacrificing all the others in my list and I also suspect that for many other players like me it works the same way..

 

The truth (imho) is that when they release a game which is 150+ hs long they estimate that the majority of the players won't do more than one playtrough, therefore they don't bother too much with different outcomes which only a smaller number of people would be able to see. It's the same old story: they probably consider them a cost which is not worth it.

 

EDIT:

just to be clear: I am not trying to defend or justify them. I am just making an hypothesis which could explain why this happened 

This is main reason for me why DA:I is worst DA game of all 3, DA:I it's just time sink and bad one it's boring. My first playthrough I wanted to do everything because I don't know what to expect, think what i do will affect main story. I play 50h. just running in Hinterlands and not even left Haven go to storm coast play in it for other 20h. at this point I was bored as hell, why do I even playing it, and just started to do only main quest and completed it fast less than 20h. Why should I play game for 300h if game real time is 20h. DA:I suffer from disconnected open world.

DA:O is not short game but it have meaningful side quests and all world is connected, so I don't feel like wasting time but enjoying game witch DA:I is opposite i feel no fun but like working.

[Ieldra]

@erikdlan:

I know of those additional outcomes. Two of them, however, are just variants of "Celene rules", and one of those plus the third require meta-knowledge, which is why I said "with no meta-knowledge" in the OP. You can't aim for those outcomes in-world, because you don't know the halla doors have anything to do with which outcomes are available. Without that meta-knowledge gained from different playthroughs, you will never get them, and you can never aim for them in-world because in-world, there is no way to know that you have to leave two early halla doors unopened in order to get the stuff you need later. This alone is a reason for more criticism.

 

I like the style of this mission very much - It is actually my favorite mission of DAI - but its design is still suboptimal in a number of ways.

[erikdlan]

@erikdlan:

I know of those additional outcomes. Two of them, however, are just variants of "Celene rules", and one of those plus the third require meta-knowledge, which is why I said "with no meta-knowledge" in the OP. You can't aim for those outcomes in-world, because you don't know the halla doors have anything to do with which outcomes are available. Without that meta-knowledge gained from different playthroughs, you will never get them, and you can never aim for them in-world because in-world, there is no way to know that you have to leave two early halla doors unopened in order to get the stuff you need later. This alone is a reason for more criticism.

 

I like the style of this mission very much - It is actually my favorite mission of DAI - but its design is still suboptimal in a number of ways.

Fair enough, and I agree with you it's too metagamey to depend on which door you open without any in game knowledge about it. Some servant could say which door was Celene's room or there could be a dialogue, or codex, or maps to let you know you couldn't open every door and which ones could be relevant about the mission. But my point was those additional outcomes are relevant to this discussion because they are one of the few moments in DA:I that doing diferent things in a mission make possible different outcomes. I don't find them minor variants, even when the only in game consequence is in the texts for the end game slides, but that's just my feeling about it.

 

I love WEWH, but I think In Your Heart Shall Burn is the best mission in DA:I.

[PhroXenGold]

@erikdlan:

I know of those additional outcomes. Two of them, however, are just variants of "Celene rules", and one of those plus the third require meta-knowledge, which is why I said "with no meta-knowledge" in the OP. You can't aim for those outcomes in-world, because you don't know the halla doors have anything to do with which outcomes are available. Without that meta-knowledge gained from different playthroughs, you will never get them, and you can never aim for them in-world because in-world, there is no way to know that you have to leave two early halla doors unopened in order to get the stuff you need later. This alone is a reason for more criticism.

 

I like the style of this mission very much - It is actually my favorite mission of DAI - but its design is still suboptimal in a number of ways.

 

I have to admit, I really disliked WEaWH. The structure of the quest was good, but the actual story being told was, IMO, horrible. The thing is, the Orlesian Civil War had been built up as a major event in the world. I mean, Bioware went as far as to publish and entire book on it. Written on real dead tree. And rightly so. The most powerful nation in Thedas ripped apart by a bloody three-faction civil war. This is a potentially world changing event on it's own, even before you throw in all the other crap that Thedas has to face. 

 

And then along comes the Inqusitor and sovles it in a evening. It's an almost comically bad waste of a good plot. Why go through the effort of building in up so much if it's going to only be a single quest that takes a couple of hours to do? This civil war deserved an entire game of its own. There's that much story to tell in a conflict like this. It's nothing more than an evening long sideshow on the way to beat Cory. And it's just that the plot is wasted, it's not even believable. I mean, I know the Inqusitor is basically Jesus 2.0, but still, he shouldn't be ending a civil war just like that in a couple of hours, particularly not by conviently stumbling across the exact evidence he needed at exactly the right time.

 

I know the epilogue hint that in most of the outcomes, things might flare up again, but its still such a awful piece of storytelling. Ergh....

[Hiemoth]

I have to admit, I really disliked WEaWH. The structure of the quest was good, but the actual story being told was, IMO, horrible. The thing is, the Orlesian Civil War had been built up as a major event in the world. I mean, Bioware went as far as to publish and entire book on it. Written on real dead tree. And rightly so. The most powerful nation in Thedas ripped apart by a bloody three-faction civil war. This is a potentially world changing event on it's own, even before you throw in all the other crap that Thedas has to face. 

 

And then along comes the Inqusitor and sovles it in a evening. It's an almost comically bad waste of a good plot. Why go through the effort of building in up so much if it's going to only be a single quest that takes a couple of hours to do? This civil war deserved an entire game of its own. There's that much story to tell in a conflict like this. It's nothing more than an evening long sideshow on the way to beat Cory. And it's just that the plot is wasted, it's not even believable. I mean, I know the Inqusitor is basically Jesus 2.0, but still, he shouldn't be ending a civil war just like that in a couple of hours, particularly not by conviently stumbling across the exact evidence he needed at exactly the right time.

 

I know the epilogue hint that in most of the outcomes, things might flare up again, but its still such a awful piece of storytelling. Ergh....

 

I agree with you on so many levels and when I think of the major quests in the game, WEaWH is probably the one that disappointed, as if I have any right to be disappointed, the most. The quest was funny in many places, but it also goes out of its way to make things as non-challenging as possible. The only real challenge in the quest comes from the Halla statues, where it becomes basically a matter of luck or reloading where you spend them.

 

What made the quest even worse for me was that within the game there was minimal build-up or context for the civil war. You are told about a couple of times and stressed how important it is, but it doesn't really seem to be impacting anything and then you basically solve it during the first mission relating to it by the shrug of a shoulder.

 

DAO and DAI are similar games in both of them everything happens after the fact and the PC basically solves things because the damage itself has already been done and now it is just basically cleaning things up with the aid one of the sides. However, while I often feel DAO is given undue praise on some levels, what I will agree is that when doing those main missions, it does at least seek to provide context for them and it does actively build them up during them. During the Dalish questline, there is an effort to tell the player how this is impacting both the elves and the werewolves. During the Dwarven quest, there is an effort to show it is tearing Orzammar apart or how much the Dwarves have lost to the Darkspawn. How successful they are is always a different discussion, but it is difficult to deny that there at least wasn't an attempt to do that.

 

DAI just seems to skip that part completely. For example the Grey Warden quest where you are just pretty much told that the Wardens decided to sacrifice their own to build a demon army to storm the Darkspawn because of the Calling. While I don't consider this character assassination for the Wardens as some do, there was no attempt from the game to tell the player why the GW would do something so desperate. No build-up at all and what was worse, the info dump was done by a guy pretty much twirling his mustaches for evil.

[Apollexander]

I have to admit, I really disliked WEaWH. The structure of the quest was good, but the actual story being told was, IMO, horrible. The thing is, the Orlesian Civil War had been built up as a major event in the world. I mean, Bioware went as far as to publish and entire book on it. Written on real dead tree. And rightly so. The most powerful nation in Thedas ripped apart by a bloody three-faction civil war. This is a potentially world changing event on it's own, even before you throw in all the other crap that Thedas has to face. 

 

And then along comes the Inqusitor and sovles it in a evening. It's an almost comically bad waste of a good plot. Why go through the effort of building in up so much if it's going to only be a single quest that takes a couple of hours to do? This civil war deserved an entire game of its own. There's that much story to tell in a conflict like this. It's nothing more than an evening long sideshow on the way to beat Cory. And it's just that the plot is wasted, it's not even believable. I mean, I know the Inqusitor is basically Jesus 2.0, but still, he shouldn't be ending a civil war just like that in a couple of hours, particularly not by conviently stumbling across the exact evidence he needed at exactly the right time.

 

I know the epilogue hint that in most of the outcomes, things might flare up again, but its still such a awful piece of storytelling. Ergh....

If I remember correctly, Gaspard had told you that the war should end in the evening.And you found that all of the three had conspiracies. That meant they had already intended and prepared to end the civil war at that night. Actually the war was ended by them, not the inquisitor. The inquisitor could decide their fates, but the winner did the rest of the work.

[Ieldra]

I have to admit, I really disliked WEaWH. The structure of the quest was good, but the actual story being told was, IMO, horrible. The thing is, the Orlesian Civil War had been built up as a major event in the world. I mean, Bioware went as far as to publish and entire book on it. Written on real dead tree. And rightly so. The most powerful nation in Thedas ripped apart by a bloody three-faction civil war. This is a potentially world changing event on it's own, even before you throw in all the other crap that Thedas has to face. 

 

And then along comes the Inqusitor and sovles it in a evening. It's an almost comically bad waste of a good plot. Why go through the effort of building in up so much if it's going to only be a single quest that takes a couple of hours to do? This civil war deserved an entire game of its own. There's that much story to tell in a conflict like this. It's nothing more than an evening long sideshow on the way to beat Cory. And it's just that the plot is wasted, it's not even believable. I mean, I know the Inqusitor is basically Jesus 2.0, but still, he shouldn't be ending a civil war just like that in a couple of hours, particularly not by conviently stumbling across the exact evidence he needed at exactly the right time.

 

I know the epilogue hint that in most of the outcomes, things might flare up again, but its still such a awful piece of storytelling. Ergh....

I didn't have any problem rationalizing how things went in the mission - as said above, everyone expected the war to end that day one way or another, and the Inquisitor didn't decide who ruled but manipulated events so that things fell out a certain way - but I agree that there is a lack of build-up, and not just here. It may be another part of why DAO's main quests feel more natural, and it's certainly part of the isolation problem - the impression that DAI's story as a sequence of missions feels like a collection of loosely-connected quests rather than an organic storyline. The very long time between main quest missions may also contribute to that. If we could play the main quests in close sequence, it would possibly feel more organic, but then the game would be over in ten hours.

[Saphiron123]

I should mention that I'm not one to be overly susceptible to nostalgia goggles, so when I was followed by a nagging impression that DAO's main quests felt more natural than DAI's, I went back to check and tried to find out what was different that could acccount for such an impression.

 

The observation: In DAO, we effect different outcomes by doing different things. In DAI, we do all the same things and effect different outcomes only by making decisions in a dialogue at key points - usually the end of the quest. In DAI, the divergence is usually almost non-present in the game itself, except for very minor differences.

 

Example: consider DAO's quest "The Arl of Redcliffe". You have three main outcomes - Connor alive and free, Connor alive and possessed, or Connor dead. There are additional variations resulting in "Isolde is dead" or "Isolde is alive", depending on whether you called for the help of the Circle or not. The important thing here is this: while some of those outcomes are decided in dialogue, you actually do different things to make them happen: you kill connor, you go to the Circle for help, you let Isolde sacrifice herself, you either go into the Fade yourself or send one of your mages or Jowan into the Fade, playing as them.

 

Compare: DAI's Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, the main quest with the most variable outcome. With no meta-knowledge, the first real decision you make in this quest comes immediately before the end, namely when you leave the Royal Wing. At that point, you'll have opened the halla door in the Servants' quarters to get Briala's stuff and the halla door to the lower level. You've also been in the trophy room to collect stuff on Gaspard. With no difference at all in what you actually did, you now have access to the three main outcomes - Celene, Gaspard alone and Gaspard/Briala through two decisions made in dialogue: let Celene die or not, and choose Briala or Gaspard if you let her die.

 

it's the same with other quests from DAO: Brecilian Forest - three main outcomes, you do different things: make peace, destroy the Dalish clan, destroy the werewolves. Captured: wait for your friends, break out through deception or break out through force (and hey, the optional seduction would never appear in DAI because it couldn't be made gender-neutral without looking silly). Orzammar: at least the first part has significant forks. Meanwhile, you make two decisions in Here Lies the Abyss but don't do anything different. You can do two different things in What Pride has Wrought but that doesn't affect the possible outcomes, which are, yet again, decided in a dialogue scene.

 

DAI's missions lack complexity. When you play for the first time, you won't notice that because the presentation is overwhelming and the emotional impact tends to make you not pay attention to complexity, but it becomes rather obvious in subsequent playthroughs.

 

In comparison, it becomes all too apparent that the mission designers created the main plot missions on the principle: How can we get significant divergence in the outcomes with an absolute minimum of differences in what players actually get to do? We have one point with a major fork that doesn't follow this principle: the mage/templar choice. However, the missions themselves are again, completely linear and lack complexity. Meanwhile, in DAO it feels more like the designers asked themselves what solutions would be possible considering the characters and the situation, and then implemented them through actual dialogue and gameplay. DAI's main plot missions feel artificially constrained, DAO's more naturally evolved.

 

Which means, I have to rescind the statement I made in my diary thread. In terms of quest design and complexity, DAO still reigns superior. I did not post about this earlier because I thought I suffered from nostalgia goggles. However, a look at both games from some emotional distance makes the differences obvious.

This very true. I am replaying origins right now and who i bring affects the dialogue and experience of even minor events, I want to bring everyone, but I can't... so you know what, I'm going to play again.

This time I had Loghain in the return to ostagar dlc, it was great, the whole experience changed. I was also free to make new decisions, Dagna's staying with her fmaily, I saved conner and isolde in redcliff for the first time... in inquisiiton, there's not a lot of major changes to be had. Sure you can choose templars or mages, and you make a choice in bull's story, but it had no real impact.

Instead we got fetch quests. So many fetch quests that my characters didn't even comment on, and once they're done, you've seen all they have to offer (which is 2 power and no dialogue).

[Saphiron123]

I have to admit, I really disliked WEaWH. The structure of the quest was good, but the actual story being told was, IMO, horrible. The thing is, the Orlesian Civil War had been built up as a major event in the world. I mean, Bioware went as far as to publish and entire book on it. Written on real dead tree. And rightly so. The most powerful nation in Thedas ripped apart by a bloody three-faction civil war. This is a potentially world changing event on it's own, even before you throw in all the other crap that Thedas has to face. 

 

And then along comes the Inqusitor and sovles it in a evening. It's an almost comically bad waste of a good plot. Why go through the effort of building in up so much if it's going to only be a single quest that takes a couple of hours to do? This civil war deserved an entire game of its own. There's that much story to tell in a conflict like this. It's nothing more than an evening long sideshow on the way to beat Cory. And it's just that the plot is wasted, it's not even believable. I mean, I know the Inqusitor is basically Jesus 2.0, but still, he shouldn't be ending a civil war just like that in a couple of hours, particularly not by conviently stumbling across the exact evidence he needed at exactly the right time.

 

I know the epilogue hint that in most of the outcomes, things might flare up again, but its still such a awful piece of storytelling. Ergh....

We never see the war. We just hear about it. Same for mages and templars, the best we get is burning houses and a few mobs. No real fallout, no tough choices, no real tragedy.

Hell, he rifts, did you EVER see them affect the maps they appear in? No. They don't affect the npcs (all 38 of them) they're just there.

[erikdlan]

I think the build up for WEWH should come from the Emerald Plains. In the same way you have to pass through some quests in Crestwood before you can start Here Lies the Abyss, I think it would be much better to do some quests in the Emerald Plains to have an idea of the situation in Orlais. Maybe saving those soldiers in the Emerald Plains could be the way you get the attention of Grand Duke Gaspard?

IMO the main flaw of DA:I is the disconnection of quests and zones.

[CosmicGnosis]

These are good points, Ieldra, but having only experienced one playthrough so far, I still think the quests themselves are damn impressive. I loved almost every single one. Doom Upon All the World was the only main quest that had obvious issues for me, mostly because of the lack of build-up; it was suddenly the end of the game and the final boss. But In Hushed Whispers, In Your Heart Shall Burn, Here Lies the Abyss, Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, and What Pride Had Wrought... I adored these quests. I've been a fan of Dragon Age from the very beginning, and I've found Inquisition's main quests to be the most captivating and best presented quests in the series. I agree most of all with your concerns about isolation. The next Dragon Age game needs to make everything feel more connected. Inquisition feels like a BioWare-caliber story dumped in a semi-open world game. The story feels separate from the rest of the game's content.

[PhroXenGold]

I think the build up for WEWH should come from the Emerald Plains. In the same way you have to pass through some quests in Crestwood before you can start Here Lies the Abyss, I think it would be much better to do some quests in the Emerald Plains to have an idea of the situation in Orlais. Maybe saving those soldiers in the Emerald Plains could be the way you get the attention of Grand Duke Gaspard?

IMO the main flaw of DA:I is the disconnection of quests and zones.

 

To be fair, there is a lot of build up to WEaWH. It just happens in the books rather than in game...

[TBJack]

Some fantastic points and deconstruction in this thread.

 

With a lot of the quests and events in DA:I it feels to me like there were intricate plans at one point which turned out not to be feasible, due to the sheer amount of work involved.  The mage/Templar conflict, the Orlesian war are probably the most glaring examples in my mind.  Whether that's true or not, many of the narratives felt truncated to me.  Not exactly unresolved or incomplete, perhaps more like a severely abridged version of the original script.

 

It doesn't ruin the game for me, but it does often leave me unsatisfied.