11 réponses à ce sujet

[cardinalally]

Before I start, I just want to say that I really enjoyed playing DAI. It is a good game, but it has its problems. Like every game. This was Biowares first foray into the open/semi-open world game design. As such they faltered in some of its execution. I liked the move to the more open world gameplay but how most of the quests where presented in the zones could use some work. To begin, in a game such as this the quests can be broken down into three main catigories.

 

1. Primary quests – These are the main story quests. For the most part these were done really well.

2. Secondary quests – Sidequests with story elements. These would be the quests that advance the individual zone stories.

3. Tertiary quests – Fetch quests. Ex. Find Druffy.

 

Now before everyone says “but there were no secondary quests” let me finish. The Secondary quests are there but because both the Secondary and Tertiary are presented in the same fashion they often get lost in the shuffle. With some changes to how the Secondary quests were presented this could have created much more enjoyable questing in the zones. Mainly by including these three things.

 

1. Dedicated quest gives for Secondary quests. 2-3 per zone.

2. In-game cut scenes for the beginning and end of the quests. Floating camera is okay for convo's in the midst of the quest. Not ideal, but not a huge issue either.

3. Quest grouping. What I mean by this is that many of the quests in the zones are secondary but there is little to connect them to an over arching story. So the player isn't shown that they are connected to the greater whole. Hopefully this becomes clearer as I continue.

 

For an example of how this would have worked in DAI, I will use the Hinterlands to illustrate my point.

 

• In the Hinterlands you start off by speaking to Harding who gives you the quest to talk to Mother Giselle and seek out Dennet. Mother Giselle is part of a primary quest and will not be addressed here.

  • Horses for the Inquisition: same blurb as in game. (This would not all be done until after moving the main quest along, but here are the steps the quest would include)

    • Talk to Dennet (would be great to get a cut scene here but not totally necessary)

    • Talk to wife

      • Trouble with wolves

      • Return to wife

    • Talk to Bron

      • Build the watchtowers

      • Return to Bron

    • Return to Dennet: Cutscene of farmers returning to the fields, see the towers and patrols on the road.

• After speaking with Mother Giselle you are told to talk to Vale about the refugees.

• Speaking to Corperal Vale should have been another cut scene that showed how bad off the refugee's were. People being turned away from lack of food, injured refugee's etc. PC then asks how they can help, this would then give two quests.

  • Help the Refugees at the Crossroads: The fighting has left the refugee's unable to provide for their most basic needs. Food is running low, winter is coming and many are injured. The inquisition needs your help to provide for these people.

    • Speak to Recruit Wittle about the supplies

      • Find the supply catches

    • Speak to the Hunter about the food

      • Collect 10 ram meat

    • Find a Healer from Redcliffe to help the refugees (this can only be complete after returning from Val Royaleux. Creates a natural break that tells the players they should probably move the main story along.)

      • Help the healer refill her supplies of herbs

    • Once this was all completed, return to Vale for another short scene on how the refugees are now better off. See people getting food and blankets from Inquisition soliders. The healer helping the injured. Instead of just hearing about it you would see it.

  • Secure the Kings Road: The fighting between the rogue Templars and Mages has left the Kings Road impassable for traders. Corperal Vale has given the general areas believed to house the base of their opperations, until the leaders of both factions are taken out they are too organized to mount an effective offense against them.

    • Hunt down the Leader of the rogue Templars

    • Hunt down the Leader of the rogue Mages

    • Return to Corperal Vale: small cut scene where we see traders and refugee's returning to the Kings Road. Or see Inquistion soliders fighting the last hold outs of the rogue factions. Either one.

• Once Horses for the Inquisition, Help the Refugee's at the Crossroads and Secure the Kings Road are finished Vale will give the PC another quest

  • Bandits on the East Road: (until this quest is given the bandits on the road will just keep spawning and the note that tells you about the fortress won't be there). Bandits have been plagueing the East Road. Scouts have reported that these bandits are well organized and equiped. It is likely that they are more than mere bandits. Investigate the bandits camp to determine their intentions.

    • Investigate the bandit camp on the East Road

      • Find a note of orders that suggest the bandits are in fact mercenaries based out of the Grand Forest Villa

    • Investigate the Grand Forest Villa and kill the mercenary leader

      • Coded message is found at the Villa, Waretable mission to decode the message.

    • Decoded message points to lyrum smuggling. The carta is set to meet the mercenary leader in Valimmar.

      • Explore Valimmar and deal with the Carta

      • Find a map of where they are mining and a dock they are using.

    • Return to Vale. Cutscene: Bandits are dealt with, but the area that the smugglers were using has been claimed by a dragon. Vale expresses worry about Redcliffe and the surronding area, if the dragon decides to go hunting. This starts the final Secondary quest for the zone:

• This was not a quest, but it was an activity. As the first dragon you meet I thought it would be nice to have it be an actual quest. Never mind it is a dragon a stones throw away from a town. Probably not a good idea to leave it there! 

  • Deal with the Fereldan Frostback

    • Kill the Dragon (nuff said  )

    • Return to Vale to wrap up the Zone story for the Hinterlands. It would be nice here to get a cutscene showing how the zone has been improved. Kind of like an eagle eye zoom in. See different activities around the zone, such as refugee's returning to their homes and beginning to rebuild, traders on the roads etc. Show us how our actions have changed the zone, don't just tell me.

 

This is 5 quests, with multiple steps, but still only 5. In game this is like 16 individual quests. Nothing connects them and they are presented as Tertiary quests. Doing this would have really helped create a more immersive zone story and while I used the Hinterlands as an example this could be done with each of the zones. While I understand this would create a lot more work for each zone I personally would be fine with 1-2 fewer zones in exchange for a more in depth presentation of the secondary quests.

 

If you managed to actually read that entire thing. KUDOS to you, fine sir/madam  . Please let me know what you think

[sandalisthemaker]

Yeah, cutscenes would have done wonders.  

 

Killing the mage and templar leaders should have been expanded upon. Perhaps we could have tried to negotiate with one side or the other. At least talked to them with dialogue choices and everything, even if we just ended up killing them because they refuse to listen to reason.  It just seemed so..... brief and easy and impersonal. Go to the mage cave, kill these four random mooks and *POOF* all the fighting in the Hinterlands just disappears.

 

I wish there were more cutscenes and story elements.  They could have made the experience much richer. 

[Spellbound7]

That does sound like it would make the quests more meaningful, especially the cutscenes, but the fact remains that you're still being ask to go collect ram meat when you have rifts to close. You're not an errand boy/girl, you literally have an entire organisation supporting you to do all these thing for you. Still, it is better than what was offered, so good job on that. I just would have preferred if Bioware not try to recreate Skyrim in Dragon Age. The two games have drastic differences in how they play. Skyrim can afford fetch quests because that's the nature of the game (massive open world, go where you want, do what you want). Dragon Age is story-driven, so everything has to connect to it.

[DarkAmaranth1966]

That would help but, the biggest problem is that you are chasing rams and looking for where the mages put the blankets when you have rifts to close, agents to recruit and, allies to impress. Dispatching grunts to get the ram meat and blankets would have been better. Dealing with the wolves and setting watchtowers, I can see, the wolves are a demon, so that's your specialty and, you do want to personally see where the watchtowers go because you want to know it's the best you can give the farmers.

 

Bandits, yeah well, if they get in the way, I'll kill a few but, that isn't my concern. The guards from those watchtowers and the local militia can handle a few bandits - I gave them the ability to do that by building the watchtowers.

 

Mages and Templars, okay, I'll handle them, those guys would be rough on farmers and refugees and, they are out of hand.

 

Dragon, well yes then she won't terrorize the farms anymore, the mine can be rebuilt and, that means jobs, money, prosperity for all. Only the mine is never rebuilt so, might as well let the dragon keep it.

 

I do like the game but a few changes would have made it more believable and, meaningful to do the side quests.

[Saphiron123]

Hell, I'd love to see more cut scenes but how about some dialogue... I mean most of the side quest in origins have some kind of companion input, it makes them replayable with different parties, even for just a scene or two (and of course the dialogue in origins is usually an interactive cutscene of sorts, not always but often).

Getting a quest from a note on the ground, that none of your companions have a word to say about, just sucks. There, I delivered the ashes for +2 power, I've seen everything it has to see, and the truth is it wasn't fun.

[Saphiron123]

That would help but, the biggest problem is that you are chasing rams and looking for where the mages put the blankets when you have rifts to close, agents to recruit and, allies to impress. Dispatching grunts to get the ram meat and blankets would have been better. Dealing with the wolves and setting watchtowers, I can see, the wolves are a demon, so that's your specialty and, you do want to personally see where the watchtowers go because you want to know it's the best you can give the farmers.

 

Bandits, yeah well, if they get in the way, I'll kill a few but, that isn't my concern. The guards from those watchtowers and the local militia can handle a few bandits - I gave them the ability to do that by building the watchtowers.

 

Mages and Templars, okay, I'll handle them, those guys would be rough on farmers and refugees and, they are out of hand.

 

Dragon, well yes then she won't terrorize the farms anymore, the mine can be rebuilt and, that means jobs, money, prosperity for all. Only the mine is never rebuilt so, might as well let the dragon keep it.

 

I do like the game but a few changes would have made it more believable and, meaningful to do the side quests.

Don't forget "Find 48 copies of varricks' book" in skyhold. Finding them all nets you 2 power, and nobody even acknowledges it.

Someone at Bioware thought we'd enjoy that. To me, it was almost depressing.

This is the same company who made a quartermaster laugh at you in origins and tell you that you had better stuff to do when you offered to help him find his assistant. Bioware used to make fun of this crap.

[turuzzusapatuttu]

Don't forget "Find 48 copies of varricks' book" in skyhold. Finding them all nets you 2 power, and nobody even acknowledges it.

Someone at Bioware thought we'd enjoy that. To me, it was almost depressing.

This is the same company who made a quartermaster laugh at you in origins and tell you that you had better stuff to do when you offered to help him find his assistant. Bioware used to make fun of this crap.

 

Yep, that quartermaster probably died in the battle against the Darkspawn. Nobody can make fun of fetch quests!

[Eelectrica]

I can live without cut scenes. I think dialog and options for dealing with things is more important.

Shadowrun Dragonfall feels more immersive to me because of all the options and dialogue checks it has despite the look of its graphics engine barely being in the same century.

[Iakus]

I can live without cut scenes. I think dialog and options for dealing with things is more important.

Shadowrun Dragonfall feels more immersive to me because of all the options and dialogue checks it has despite the look of its graphics engine barely being in the same century.

I kinda agree.

 

It's not cutscenes, it's just, even with all these quests, the place feels so...empty.  Having more dialogue options, more people to talk to, more companion banter would do wonders, even wihtout cinematics.

[cardinalally]

Hell, I'd love to see more cut scenes but how about some dialogue... I mean most of the side quest in origins have some kind of companion input, it makes them replayable with different parties, even for just a scene or two (and of course the dialogue in origins is usually an interactive cutscene of sorts, not always but often).

Getting a quest from a note on the ground, that none of your companions have a word to say about, just sucks. There, I delivered the ashes for +2 power, I've seen everything it has to see, and the truth is it wasn't fun.

 

This is a good idea.  I was trying to stick to mainly the stuff that was in game.  Kind of to show that Bioware had the pieces but lacked the presentation.  

Adding dialog/comments by the companions to the different stages of the quests would really help.  This isn't a perfect solution and definitely I would love more people to talk to.

 

I just wanted to put out there a way Bioware could approach the open world elements in future games.  I like the direction they are going they just need to refine it some, to give it the more Bioware feel.

[cardinalally]

That would help but, the biggest problem is that you are chasing rams and looking for where the mages put the blankets when you have rifts to close, agents to recruit and, allies to impress. Dispatching grunts to get the ram meat and blankets would have been better. Dealing with the wolves and setting watchtowers, I can see, the wolves are a demon, so that's your specialty and, you do want to personally see where the watchtowers go because you want to know it's the best you can give the farmers.

 

Bandits, yeah well, if they get in the way, I'll kill a few but, that isn't my concern. The guards from those watchtowers and the local militia can handle a few bandits - I gave them the ability to do that by building the watchtowers.

 

Mages and Templars, okay, I'll handle them, those guys would be rough on farmers and refugees and, they are out of hand.

 

Dragon, well yes then she won't terrorize the farms anymore, the mine can be rebuilt and, that means jobs, money, prosperity for all. Only the mine is never rebuilt so, might as well let the dragon keep it.

 

I do like the game but a few changes would have made it more believable and, meaningful to do the side quests.

 

True, but remember that at this point in the game you are an agent, important agent but still an agent, of a new and unknown organization.  Once you become Inquisitor and the group has closed the breach it doesn't make a lot of sense.  So in later zones the quests should focus more on the big picture and not little fetch quests.  I just used the Hinterlands as an example.  In later zones the secondary quests do need to more about bigger issues that you would actually need/want the Inquisitor to solve.  Cementing alliances, bunch of walking dead etc.  I don't I have a problem with this type of quests in the beginning of the game, but it does become kind of silly in the later game.

[Archerwarden]

I like this Cardinalally. It presents the quests in better way then randomly walking around until you bump into a quest giver.
More cut scenes and dialog options and for quest givers and the game starts to get a bit more interesting.