Sera's quest was literally just go to some location and punch a noble in the face. Solas quest was go to a place and free a spirit. Vivienne's takes you somewhere and you watch a man you never seen or heard off randomly die. Both DAO and DAI had good/bad/quick quests. I already stated that I agree that some companions (like Cassandra) had more attention and more developed sidequests but not all of them were that perfect or better than DAO for that matter. But in all games, most of them have an impact on the characters or/and the ending. That's a fact and that's what my first comment was about.
And my comment is about the disproportionate investment. Yes, Sera and Viviene have investment comparable to, say, Wynne and Zevran. Except that the Sera, Viviene and Solas quests are the exception in DAI, not the rule. And there are more characters over which these resources are invested in.
You may value companion quests less, or somehow consider them "different" from the other random side-quests that populate the world, but they all derive from the same resource pool.
Missing the point entirely. Just the fact that she's basically a quest giver but still got stuck in people's memory and even returned in DAI is a sign that DAO did something right. They managed to create a very much loved NPC with only about 3 minutes of dialogue (which is actually more than what you get in a lot of sidequests in DAI). Also the fact that you have choices, like refuse to help her, speak with her father, or go to the circle. Out of the 200 or so sidequests in DAI, how many allowed you to make choices? Probably a handful?
No, it's not missing the point. You have some ridiculous subjective affection for the character; I get that. Some people have ridiculous affection for Scout Harding, despite the fact that your conversations are paper thin and she exhibits, in my view, nothing that really constitutes any character. That's all subjective - it's not a sign of some preeminent or masterful quest design that somehow Bioware dropped in DA:I.
Characters like Fairbanks have substantially more content dialogue-wise, and you have the same binary choice you had with Dagna: sell her out or not.
You're very much right that Bioware has - since DA:O - moved toward very binary choices, and then toward no choices at all. But a lot of that is the result of DA2, and the source is found in the same misguided criticism that infects this thread, namely, a complete disregard for the actual structural problems with the quest-design that Bioware adopts, in place of which there is an expression of general dissatisfaction.
The quest design in DA:O is identical to DA:I. The end-game to a some quests is more varied. Because there are 0 consequences for that, Bioware has, in response to the repeated criticism that they have "empty" or "flavour" choices, dropped those choices from the end unless there will be reactivity in-game. That's a terrible decision quest-wise.
But unless we talk about these features in terms of their actual design, we get nowhere.
DAO has cutscenes, DAI doesn't. DAO gives you choices in nearly all sidequests, DAI doesn't even let you refuse a sidequest. DAO has a lot of dialogue with NPCs, half of DAI's sidequests come from notes on the ground/dead bodies and the other half you talk to someone for like 30 seconds. DAO sidequests can have multiple outcomes, most of DAI's don't (unless you count do the quest or not as a different outcome). So I can't see how DAI and DAO's sidequests are the same to be honest.
I very much agree that DA:O has a cutscene camera, and I've often said a lot of the criticism of DA:I really seems to be founded in the subjective difference people experience regarding those scenes. DA:I and DA:O have comparable NPC interaction. But a lot of the NPCs you can interact with in DA:I aren't necessarily quest givers, and that dialogue is spread out over a great deal more characters.
The actual design of the quest - fetch something for someone, or kill something - is completely identical across both games. You have no novel or clever or even experimental gameplay in DA:I at all, and you didn't in DA:O.
The finding the ring off a corpse quest doesn't become better designed if you could also sell the ring or forge a magic item out of it. It's still a stupid fetch quest. But it feels subjectively better because there are multiple resolutions.
Retour en haut
, etc...completely dismissing people's personal opinion as well as any valid criticism.
bwa ha ha!
