236 réponses à ce sujet

[PhroXenGold]

Because it made sense to go around doing good deeds at that point of the story line since you were powerless, you had to prove yourself to everyone by doing those menial good deeds, it was justified fetch questing althought not particulary engaging, but as you grow in power one just ends up realizing that sadly all those big beatiful places are lifeless and empty except for filler mmorpgs quests to extend the game's lenght that give you a reason to explore any zones at all as there is honestly no real incentive to explore most areas except for aimless exploration itself or for main quest progression's sake.

 

It seems like the art department or whatever its called put alot of effort creating the zones but they ran out of time to actually create any content in them.

 

Hell, there are good stoeryline reasons not to explore the later zones and do all the fetch quests. Such as, you know, the Elder One about to become a god/destroy the world. Every single main quest implies that it should be time restricted (i.e. it's happening now), and there's no story based justifications for ignoring them and going wandering around outside.

[Elhanan]

Hell, there are good stoeryline reasons not to explore the later zones and do all the fetch quests. Such as, you know, the Elder One about to become a god/destroy the world. Every single main quest implies that it should be time restricted (i.e. it's happening now), and there's no story based justifications for ignoring them and going wandering around outside.

Aid for refugees, foil some plan of the opposition, gather resources needed by either side, rescue innocents, tactical superiority in battles based on knowledge of the terrain, remove possible allies for the enemy, and remove supply lines are some possible motivations to explore.

[PhroXenGold]

Aid for refugees, foil some plan of the opposition, gather resources needed by either side, rescue innocents, tactical superiority in battles based on knowledge of the terrain, remove possible allies for the enemy, and remove supply lines are some possible motivations to explore.

 

Except you are being told by the story that really really bad things are happening now. If you don't resolve them immediately, then the Elder one will win. Of course, the game just cops out and lets you freeze time for as long as you want until you're ready to do the main plot, and then you'll conventiently arrive just in time regardless of how long you spent elsewhere but that doesn't effect the story justifications.

[Elhanan]

Except you are being told by the story that really really bad things are happening now. If you don't resolve them immediately, then the Elder one will win. Of course, the game just cops out and lets you freeze time for as long as you want until you're ready to do the main plot, and then you'll conventiently arrive just in time regardless of how long you spent elsewhere but that doesn't effect the story justifications.

Actually, the game is fairly good at telling you that you are keeping Cory on his heels (eg; Solas discussions). By strategically doing these other events, one can gain power by undermining the opposition. And controlling the board seem to be a decent way to progress forward overall.

[Darkly Tranquil]

Except you are being told by the story that really really bad things are happening now. If you don't resolve them immediately, then the Elder one will win. Of course, the game just cops out and lets you freeze time for as long as you want until you're ready to do the main plot, and then you'll conventiently arrive just in time regardless of how long you spent elsewhere but that doesn't effect the story justifications.

Dragon Age has never really managed to instill a sense of urgency in its narrative in any of the games. However, short of introducing a time mechanic and having quests get locked out if not done within a certain timeframe, I'm not sure how they could do it. I imagine time locking quests would upset a lot of people, even though forcing players to pick and choose what objectives are most valuable to them could create some interesting gameplay.

[Panda]

I like DA2 still most from Dragon Age series but little different reasons.

 

In my opinion DA2 had best writing and best characters and least generic story. It didn't have villain who was trying to destroy everything, it didn't have epic hero, but just normal adventurer that was building life for themselves. It was also most fast-paced and there isn't boring part unlike in DAO there is Ostagar, Fade, Deep roads etc. and in DAI fetch quests. Combat in DA2 was most enjoyable as well, especially when playing double-dagger rogue.

[Degenerate Rakia Time]

Well for me DA2 is the best in the series, DAI however is not only close but its 10 times the game Origins is, and that Awakening crap doesnt even deserve a mention

[mickey111]

Actually, the game is fairly good at telling you that you are keeping Cory on his heels (eg; Solas discussions). By strategically doing these other events, one can gain power by undermining the opposition. And controlling the board seem to be a decent way to progress forward overall.

 

 

it's not strategic.

 

games in the civilization series are strategic. Civ has little else to it besides dominating the globe, so it has to be doing something right to be as popular as it is. 

 

 

Dragon Age has never really managed to instill a sense of urgency in its narrative in any of the games. However, short of introducing a time mechanic and having quests get locked out if not done within a certain timeframe, I'm not sure how they could do it. I imagine time locking quests would upset a lot of people, even though forcing players to pick and choose what objectives are most valuable to them could create some interesting gameplay.

 

 

locking things based on an arbitrary timer is upsetting, and is the worst way to do so. Like "kills these 10 wild pigs and bring them back before the food spoils" is a bad example. If something is locked out due to your advancing of the story, or because the destination is too far away for you to be able to do anything about a quest as it arises is a better way. Having the enemy AI in control and taking turns to attack player controlled postions like the AI in civilization does is the best method. If you take an encampment, get some quests lined up and the cory takes it back for example, then you're going to lose any quests you've started working on. So it would make good strategic sense to defend the areas closest to the enemy by building fortifications, and figuring out new ways to improve fortifications, and ways of training the troops and the spies etc.

[Elhanan]

it's not strategic.
 
games in the civilization series are strategic. Civ has little else to it besides dominating the globe, so it has to be doing something right to be as popular as it is....

Perhaps, but as I have never played it, I use the term strategic as one that survey's the area, is able to then formulates combat tactics based on terrain and other gathered intel.

[Eternal Phoenix]

Actually I always thought otherwise, despite completing this game. What I disliked was: the story pace, the action oriented gameplay, lack of DAO storyline continuity. But compared to DAI I see it as a pure masterpeice, which makes me attached to the intrigue, to the characters and their development through their journey in and around Kirkwall.

 

Intrigue and interesting character development in DA2? We must have played two different games....

 

And for all its flaws in side content, Inquisition has a far greater story that doesn't have all the plot holes of DA2.

 

I enjoyed DA2 but it doesn't compare at all to Inquisition.

[PhroXenGold]

Dragon Age has never really managed to instill a sense of urgency in its narrative in any of the games. However, short of introducing a time mechanic and having quests get locked out if not done within a certain timeframe, I'm not sure how they could do it. I imagine time locking quests would upset a lot of people, even though forcing players to pick and choose what objectives are most valuable to them could create some interesting gameplay.

 

Ideally for me, they'd have a mix of things in the main plot - some where you have to go and do it now (e.g. the big bad is about to do something really horrible that will spell the end of the world if you don't stop him), others where you're under no immediate pressure and can explore (e.g. we're not sure what the big bad is up to, our agents are out looking for information, so this would be a good time to strengthen our forces and weaken his, gain some goodwill from the people, and smoke every bit of elfroot in Ferelden). The flaw with DA:I in this regard is that the main events in the story imply that they should have an immediate pressure on you to act, but then you're given total freedom to do whatever you like all the time. It never really integrates the open world with the story. And I find this rather immersion breaking. That the world only reacts when I want it to. It never feels like I'm playing a person in the world. Instead I'm playing something controlling the world.

 

And it is indeed true that the games have always had this issue, but to me at least, it seems particularly egregious this time round, mainly because of the freedom you have. In DA:O, the majority of content, if not directly related to the main plot, goes along side it. It's much easier to imagine spending a couple of hours helping out someone on the way to your goal, than to spend months exploring when, say, the Elder One is apparently in the process of summoning a demon army that only you can stop.

[Darkly Tranquil]

locking things based on an arbitrary timer is upsetting, and is the worst way to do so. Like "kills these 10 wild pigs and bring them back before the food spoils" is a bad example. If something is locked out due to your advancing of the story, or because the destination is too far away for you to be able to do anything about a quest as it arises is a better way. Having the enemy AI in control and taking turns to attack player controlled postions like the AI in civilization does is the best method. If you take an encampment, get some quests lined up and the cory takes it back for example, then you're going to lose any quests you've started working on. So it would make good strategic sense to defend the areas closest to the enemy by building fortifications, and figuring out new ways to improve fortifications, and ways of training the troops and the spies etc.

I totally agree. My point was simply that DA games fail on urgency and that there are ways of doing it, and that it could make for interesting gameplay if they could get it right. Unfortunately, there are more bad ways than good ways of doing time locking, so it would take careful thought on the part of the devs on how they might implement it.

But just imagine how good it would have been if in Origins the Darkspawn were slowly creeping across the land and locations would get wiped out if you took to long resolving the various plotlines. It would have really driven home the sense of urgency and impending doom creeping across the land that was sadly missing (apart from the destruction of Lothering).

[AlanC9]

Ideally for me, they'd have a mix of things in the main plot - some where you have to go and do it now (e.g. the big bad is about to do something really horrible that will spell the end of the world if you don't stop him), others where you're under no immediate pressure and can explore (e.g. we're not sure what the big bad is up to, our agents are out looking for information, so this would be a good time to strengthen our forces and weaken his, gain some goodwill from the people, and smoke every bit of elfroot in Ferelden).

Something like ME2, right? When Horizon comes up you simply go, because it's happening right now. When the final mission becomes possible you can either go immediately, or suffer the consequences. On the TES side, Morrowind gets around the issue by having nothing at all be urgent, since Dagoth Ur's working on a time-scale of centuries. (The Corprus sequence fails here, but that's a small part of the main quest.)
 

And it is indeed true that the games have always had this issue, but to me at least, it seems particularly egregious this time round, mainly because of the freedom you have. In DA:O, the majority of content, if not directly related to the main plot, goes along side it. It's much easier to imagine spending a couple of hours helping out someone on the way to your goal, than to spend months exploring when, say, the Elder One is apparently in the process of summoning a demon army that only you can stop.

Right. The traditional heroic narratives Bio typically works with and CRPG structure, particularly open-world CRPG structure, have gone their separate ways, and Bio doesn't seem to be all that interested in reconciling them.

[PhroXenGold]

Odlly enough, when I wrote that post, I wasn't thinking of ME2, but yes, now that you mention it, it does pretty much do things the way I would like DA:I to have done. Some times when you're free to do what you want, other times when you're not. In an ideal world, it would never force you to do any particular main story quest, just that if you decide to do something else, things go very, very bad. To go further, I'd love to see the player be able to fail, leading to alternative bad endings. Not by dying, but simply through not managing to stop the big bad, likely as a result of the choices you made through the course of the game, such as not resolving problems ASAP. But I'd completely understand if putting branching storylines like that into a game would be a lot of effort for something that would probably not see that much play.

 

For example, lets say (DA:I plot spoilers)

Spoiler

you decide not to go and stop the Wardens completing their ritual in Here Lies The Abyss straight away when you discover it is happening. Now, suddenly, you've got a full scale demon army inlcuding the Nightmare as an abomination attacking Orlais and Ferelden. And you still have to try to stop Cory getting to the Well....Bad end here we come...

 

Choices should have consequences.

[Phoe77]

And it does justify it if you ask me, especially since you don't even have to do that many quests to progress. It just doesn't justify the other 70% of the game being more of the same.

 

I would tend to agree that it wouldn't justify the other 70% of the game being the same.  However, I also don't think that the other 70% of DAI is the same as the Hinterlands.  All of the areas that I've explored beyond the Hinterlands have had quests that seemed urgent enough to warrant the Inquisitor's intervention.  There certainly are other less urgent quests  included in those areas as well, but not to the same degree as in the Hinterlands.  

 

I also don't really remember being forced to go out of my way to complete those less important sidequests very often.  If I remember correctly, many of them are found near locations that the Inquisitor is likely to visit while trying to complete their primary objectives, and they are similarly often resolved at a location near a point of interest in the region.

 

 For instance, people often point to the Flowers for Senna quest, but you get that quest in a location that you're bound to visit anyway as part of a much more major operation.  It directs you to an out-of-the-way location, but you'd find yourself there anyway if you were trying to establish all the camps in the region or even if you wanted to find all of Blackwall's doodads.  If you're going to be in the neighborhood on Inquisition business anyway, then why not walk a few feet to the right and leave some flowers on a grave? 

[CronoDragoon]

 For instance, people often point to the Flowers for Senna quest, but you get that quest in a location that you're bound to visit anyway as part of a much more major operation.  It directs you to an out-of-the-way location, but you'd find yourself there anyway if you were trying to establish all the camps in the region or even if you wanted to find all of Blackwall's doodads.  If you're going to be in the neighborhood on Inquisition business anyway, then why not walk a few feet to the right and leave some flowers on a grave? 

 

Yeah, the spacing of the Rifts throughout the zones  means you'll be going through most of the zone area on "urgent Inquisition business" anyway.

[PhroXenGold]

Yeah, the spacing of the Rifts throughout the zones  means you'll be going through most of the zone area on "urgent Inquisition business" anyway.

 

I wish the rifts were "urgent Inquisition business". And indeed, story wise they are. But in game? Not in the slightest. Unless you happen to walk right up to one, they're not a threat to anyone. Leave rifts unclosed and what happens? Nothing.

[Cyonan]

Something like ME2, right? When Horizon comes up you simply go, because it's happening right now. When the final mission becomes possible you can either go immediately, or suffer the consequences. On the TES side, Morrowind gets around the issue by having nothing at all be urgent, since Dagoth Ur's working on a time-scale of centuries. (The Corprus sequence fails here, but that's a small part of the main quest.)

 

ME2 had a good idea, but the whole system was way too easy to game to bypass any and all consequences.

 

I feel like it would have worked better if you couldn't have come back from the suicide mission with absolutely everybody alive from both crew and squad.

[PhroXenGold]

ME2 had a good idea, but the whole system was way too easy to game to bypass any and all consequences.

 

I feel like it would have worked better if you couldn't have come back from the suicide mission with absolutely everybody alive from both crew and squad.

 

Yeah, I had to go out of my way on my second and third playthroughs to get people killed just so I could see what (if any) impact certain deaths would have in ME3, after getting "No One Left Behind" without even trying first time. It's pretty obvious who to send where, and anyone who plays Bioware RPGs will have done most if not all of the loyalty missions even if they didn't know how the "suicide" mission worked, as doing all the stuff is the entire point of the game, right?

[Phoe77]

It took a split second for me to decide who to send through the vents the first time.  I think I originally thought to send Kasumi because it seemed up her ally, but I reconsidered in the end.  

 

I agree that it would be cool if the rifts had more importance.  I don't know what I would like from them really, but as they are now, it seems like there's no reason to worry about them unless you walk right up to one.  People are living like 100 feet away from them in the Hinterlands.  

 

Even just having random demons scattered throughout the map until you closed the rifts would have been fine.  

[songsmith2003]

I liked the concept of DA2, but the limited maps and shoe-horning and repetitive monsters tarnished my opinion of it. They made the game even more disappointing because I could see the gem that should have been there.

 

Plus there was this part of me that secretly hoped Hawke would turn out to be the OGB. I knew that wasn't the case, but I did hope after watching the first couple of trailers.

[ioannisdenton]

Da2 had the best story for me. it really really grows in you after 2 playthroughs. it is hard to follow thats why.
After 2 playroughs it just clicks:
Every quest (seocndary0 is crucial to the story!!
Da2 > daI for me.

Give me back da2 varric , isabella, bethany, UNCLE GAMLEN PLEASE

[Viper371]

In DA2 I didn't have so many filler quests, like in DAI.

really?  Bring back a bottle of wine, pantaloons, some book, all without any interactions with the NPCs?  those weren't filler quests?

 

DA:I is much better than DA2, except for the controls/combat and the number of skills you could use.

[Coyote X Starrk]

DA2 is by and away the worst Bioware game that I have played (ME1,2,3 KOTOR SWTOR DAO, DA2, DA:I)

 

The repetitive level design

 

The horrendous textures in places 

 

The lack of any exploration 

 

The constant confinement of Kirkwall

 

The ridiculous mission placements

 

The random jumps in time, but never showed what I was doing inbetween jumps

 

The characters were the only redeeming factor and that is the only way I was able to complete 2 playthroughs. (Male and Female) 

 

 

But that is just me. I have very high standards for my RPGs 

[Zobert]

Bears. 

 

That is all.