380 réponses à ce sujet

[atlantico]

I hope that comment about some regarding their opinions as facts isn't directed at me, I've made it quite clear that I respect people's opinions and their right to hold them. The whole point of this thread is and always has been that critics of the game cannot understand why or how people could like it, not that they shouldn't be allowed to do so.

Well, that comment was either a passive aggressive attempt at trolling (very likely) or the poster was critiquing his own posts in a moment of lucid honesty.

 

It's a common theme that people who are guilty of something are so quick to accuse others of exactly that, trying what they can to distract others from their own exposed weakness. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

-snip-

I'm content to ignore the direction the game gives me. So in that respect, DAI and TES are generally equivalent. They both give me content I can ignore.

ME2 and ME3 don't let me ignore the content, because it gives me nothing else to do (and no reliable way to control what Shepard says). Those games decide both what you will do and how you feel about that. The characters' motivations are a big part of any story, and DAI leaves those to you.

I also don't need the game to acknowledge the character I create. I'm happy if the game just doesn't interfere.

I'm one of the few people who thinks that the NWN OC was good, and it was good for many of the same reasons.

[Elhanan]

I'm content to ignore the direction the game gives me. So in that respect, DAI and TES are generally equivalent. They both give me content I can ignore.

ME2 and ME3 don't let me ignore the content, because it gives me nothing else to do (and no reliable way to control what Shepard says). Those games decide both what you will do and how you feel about that. The characters' motivations are a big part of any story, and DAI leaves those to you.

I also don't need the game to acknowledge the character I create. I'm happy if the game just doesn't interfere.

I'm one of the few people who thinks that the NWN OC was good, and it was good for many of the same reasons.

Minor point: One can skip content in ME3, and may choose other methods for creating War Assets, or enter the final encounter undersupplied if desired. A War Table is also extant to give indications on where one stands towards the end game.

Also, while Shepard still has Paragon/ Renegade choices, one may choose not to always accept them. For instance, as a Paragon junkie, I still do not care for friendly fire, and take the opportunity to tell Loghain... er, Admiral So and So (same VA) every time this occurs.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Minor point: One can skip content in ME3

I just started ME3 (I'm describing my experience in a thread on the ME3 boards), so I perhaps shouldn't yet speak to it.

[Marshal Moriarty]

My point was that in Elder Scrolls, you had a vast world, with new NPCs and quests around every bend in the road, over every hill. You could just strike out in a direction, run into some guy in the forest and before you know it, you're halfway through a dungeon, invested in finding out what is going on there and wondering if the NPC could be trusted etc etc. Its simplistic and Bethesda have a cloth ear for dialogue, but like I say, its a hundred times better than the 'content' this game gives you IMO. Because you know more or less what it wlll be. Find 10 of these, close yet more rifts, establsh camps over and over and over and over. If you ignore all that content, as people have suggested I do, then what does that leave? The Main story quests?

 

Oh be unconfined, my joy... Not!

 

And again you make that statement about being content if the game doesn't react to you, and that runs in direct opposition to what I want from an RPG. That's why I hold Fallout New Vegas up as the gold standard (and apparently the Witcher 3 team held it in equally high esteem and modelled their game around it whilst criticising DA:I's approach - I'm no friend to the Witcher series, as I can't stand its world and characters, but it sounds very much like TW3 would be my kind of RPG, in terms of its mechanics and approach to roleplaying). If your actions have no consequences, if you can act against people and not have the rest of their fellows and related factions take note of that, it makes the world feel shallow and unrealistic. It makes it feel like nothing you do matters at all, and is one of the principle bones I have to pick with Bethesda's games, and what Obsidian did so much better in New Vegas.

 

You don't seem to want a heavily narrative driven story, but without that, what do BIoware games have? They certainly don't have the best gameplay, and as a great many people have said both here and elsewhere, their foray into open world exploration has been a great disappointment due to how empty the world is, and how uninspired the quests are. Skyrim's questing was overrated, but its exploration was exceptional, as it is in all Bethesda's games. But whilst the questing and roleplaying was too simplistic and flatly written for my tastes, it at least wasn't actively bad, and didn't detract too much from the exploration and full customisation of character etc to have the experience you wanted in the game, at your pace.

 

This game forces you into a character class, forces you use specific weapons, doesn't let you change that or branch out. Especially galling as they still refuse to let anyone but Rogues pick locks, or fire bows. That last one, along with the 'Warriors can't use dual weapons, rogues must use only daggers'... I mean what century are Bioware living in?! Times have moved on from this kind of thing, and its just needlessly stifling now. So add the poor gameplay, the pointlessly restricting class system (fine, have classes but make them more open that this, for God's sake), the barren world, the redundant mounts and crafting (because mounts are too slow and no fun to use, whereas item crafting is unnecessary in a game with combat this shallow and where loot is everywhere)..,

 

But I expected no more from the gameplay, and like I said, I wouldn't have cared at all if the storytelling, characters and roleplaying were good. But they aren't. Which of course is just my opinion, but as I've also said, our opinions may not be *actual* facts (or at least they aren't just because we say they are), but they are facts to the person who holds them. Because so long as we are being honest about what we think, then that is the experience we had with the game, that is how it was, how it *is^ for each individual person. You simply have to allow for subjectivity and try to be objective as you can, try to see how and why others could take a different view.

 

Its just unusually difficult to do that here, because everything about my personal experience with this game told me loud and clear that it was an awful and unendurably boring game. Hence the reason I gravitated towards a thread that struck this specific tone (i.e I don't get it), because its genuinely baffling to me how people could like this... thing.

 

But I've said my piece, and that's that. Its just been hard to accept that I waited 4 years and this is what I got. A series I loved, still love, and to come crashing down as far as this... Its been a bitter pill to swallow. So whilst I haven't been on here every day since its release howling with rage, I have dropped back in now and again, still reeling with sheer bewilderment that I feel so little for a game I had waited for, for so long.

[Lebanese Dude]

I just started ME3 (I'm describing my experience in a thread on the ME3 boards), so I perhaps shouldn't yet speak to it.

 

Zomg you're playing ME?!?!?!

[Sylvius the Mad]

Zomg you're playing ME?!?!?!

People on the MEA board convinced me the story was worth seeing.

It better be, because so far the game is pretty bad.

[FKA_Servo]

People on the MEA board convinced me the story was worth seeing.

It better be, because so far the game is pretty bad.

 

I think you're bound for disappointment in pretty much every category.

[Marshal Moriarty]

Mass Effect 3 was very much like Halo 3 IMO. It was a decently serviceable game, that had a few tweaks that improved its combat and gameplay. It had the kind of generally high production values you would expect from a high profile game in an important franchise etc.

 

But it felt tired, and was the least ambitious and least surprising game of its series. It just didn't have that extra something that made the previous 2 games feel *important*. It was treading water rather than treading new ground, and overall felt like a rather soulless, workmanlike affair. There was no real life to it, no suggestion that the developers or writers were as into this one or the series as they had previously been.

 

Mass Effect was never the same after Drew K left. We'll never know for sure what happened, but the fact was that his emphasis on romantic epics and sagas, mixed with Casey Hudson's hard sci-fi approach was a potent mix.

[Bizantura]

Lol are you really trying to argue that GTA5, RDR and San Andreas open world is on par with DAI? Has the DAI defense force really lost their mind?

I get it, you don't like DAI and that is your prerogative.  That you vent that a few times is also understandable if you feel let down.

 

I don't understand you linger on this forum and often not in a friendliest manner relentlesly breaking down DAI to people who are on this forum because they like DAI.  How well meaning your reasons may be, ramming your opinions constantly down others throat works reversed to what you are trying to achieve.

 

Don't let the powerlessness to change anything soure youre personality, move on and let DAI go and let others enjoy the game for what it is to them.  GTA5 surely must have a forum also?

[FKA_Servo]

GTA5 surely must have a forum also?

 

It's particularly active June through September.

[Marshal Moriarty]

A forum is for sharing ideas and opinions, not just praising things unconditionally, If you don't like what Majestic J has to say about the game, then fine, but you need to grow a thicker skin about it. If you reduce a forum to only those who love the current product, then it just becomes an echo chamber and is of no practical benefit to anyone.

 

It might make you feel better to gather fellow lovers of the game together and croon over it, and you have the right to do that on specific threads. I agree that if people insist on going on threads such as those and causing trouble then they are out of line. But this thread is obviously not that, But unlike the previous example, lovers of the game ARE welcome on threads like this. If we are going to make critical statements, then its always fair that people be allowed to make some defence of the game. The very nature of the thread invites spirited debate.

 

Just because we don't like the game, doesn't mean we don't care about the series. We are making our voices heard on this, precisely because we *do* care.

[Elhanan]

Because there is a difference between constructive criticism and what is more commonly found in oppositional complaints. And we care; we really care....

[Marshal Moriarty]

Well, define constructive criticism in this regard. Because most of the critical posts have offered suggestions on what they would have preferred to see. Even simply posting all the things you didn't like, and adding 'Do not do this again, or at least do them better' is in itself constructive criticism. Not that a poster is obliged to do anything of the sort. If they simply wish to air their views on the game, then that's up to them,

 

Again, this is a forum. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion - even if it doesn't happen to match yours. Trolling and outright abuse are another thing, but the title of this thread tells you what kind of theme to expect here. If you don't want to to hear negative things about the game, then don't read them. If you feel they are wrong or have something to say, then you can do so. It is after all, the same as what critics of the game are doing in the first place.

 

If someone was to come on every single thread where anyone says anything positive about the game and tries to start an argument, then yes that is unacceptable and is blatant trolling. But on a thread dedicated to critiquing the game, we're well within our rights to say our piece, so long as we do it with civility.

[Elhanan]

Well, define constructive criticism in this regard. Because most of the critical posts have offered suggestions on what they would have preferred to see. Even simply posting all the things you didn't like, and adding 'Do not do this again, or at least do them better' is in itself constructive criticism. Not that a poster is obliged to do anything of the sort. If they simply wish to air their views on the game, then that's up to them,
 
Again, this is a forum. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion - even if it doesn't happen to match yours. Trolling and outright abuse are another thing, but the title of this thread tells you what kind of theme to expect here. If you don't want to to hear negative things about the game, then don't read them. If you feel they are wrong or have something to say, then you can do so. It is after all, the same as what critics of the game are doing in the first place.
 
If someone was to come on every single thread where anyone says anything positive about the game and tries to start an argument, then yes that is unacceptable and is blatant trolling. But on a thread dedicated to critiquing the game, we're well within our rights to say our piece, so long as we do it with civility.

I get that I can be snarky, but perhaps when you read more of what 'facts' MJ has posted on the forums, it may reveal the kind of posts that has birthed such replies.

As for the Topic, DAO > DAI > DA2, IMO.

[Dai Grepher]

You have to break it up into chunks. Don't do the Hinterlands all at once. Go there and get Mother Giselle, do some helpful stuff in the crossing, and then go to the mage refuge to get their support as well as Ritts.

 

Then see if you can seal the level 6 rift near that location. If so, exit through that gate and return to Haven.

 

Then up your gear if possible, and head for Val Royeaux. Then get Sera and Vivienne.

 

Then return to the Hinterlands to clear out the warring mages and templars. Get Dennet. Explore the caves. Get Blackwall. You can either go after the high dragon now or wait until later, but you can go to Redcliffe now.

 

You can also mix this up by going to the Storm Coast at some point to get The Iron Bull and his Chargers.

 

Then much later when you get Varric's quest, you can take the villa and get the key to the thaig and do that quest.

 

So if you don't want to spend hours in the Hinterlands, break everything up into segments and backtrack. Put variety into what maps you go to and how long you spend there.

[Marshal Moriarty]

But the 'don't stay in the Hinterlands' argument is just something that defenders of the game latched onto as one of their 'You're playing it wrong' arguments. It implies that the rest of the game has all this varied and interesting content that people are missing out on because the Hinterlands is suppoesedly so much more boring. Yet it isn't - the Hinterlands simply drives home how dull this content is, because of its size. The actual content itself is the same kind of tedious collection and flag planting rubbish that you find everywhere else.

 

People love to make these kinds of cheap and easy statements, trying to steal a march and establish 'facts' that simply don't stand up to scrutiny. Its like when Mass Effect 3 fans tried to push the whole '99% of the game is awesome and the best ever, but its just the endings that everyone hates...' trying to keep the argument focused on the highly controversial endings, and silence the many voices who protested loudly that the game most certainly was *not* anything close to 99% awesome.

 

Blaming the Hinterlands, and even worse blaming players for staying in the Hinterlands, like they are *obviously* doing something wrong, is cheap and it isn't even remotely true besides. The whole game has the same structure, the same lack of substance to the quests, the same lack of NPCs, and those who do appear having no real impact, dialogue or personality. Even those examples given there are wildly vague because they don't mention that 'going to get Bull and his Chargers' is just a case of going to a location that was already open, and killing about 6 enemies - boom, quest over. And the villa quest is just another trudge through a villa with the exact same layout as one you went through earlier - you know, in that way that everyone loved from DA2...

 

I'm all for people defending a game they like. But cheap throwaway lines like 'Leave the Hinterlands' as if its some kind of silver bullet to enjoyment of this game, will not do. The issues are more complicated than that, and when either side of this argument tries to simplify it vy resorting to such easy parroting of 'The Party Line' on these issues, then it gets us nowhere, except to make both sides harden their views even further and assume each other are just zealous Fanboy/Hater nutcases who won't listen to reason.

[Elhanan]

One should not blame the Hinterlands for a Player not taking the storied quest to return to Haven to discuss future plans with Mother Giselle. Bioware did not need to club the Player; simply gave them the quest, and the choice is to then remain or leave. And I have tried both options.

[Marshal Moriarty]

So its the player's fault for wanting to stay and help the refugees? For wanting to close the rifts, seeing as how you're the only person who even can do it?!

 

Its called roleplaying, and people shouldn't be penalized for it.

 

If someone creates a character who is like 'My character is obsessive compulsive and would pick up every piece of loot and explore every inch of a new area because he has ambitions of becoming a professional cartographer' then yes, that would be their own fault. But feeling like you should stay in an obviously troubled region to help people in dire need, and actually do your damn job in closing the rifts? That surely cannot be considered an unreasonable desire. And in such a large region which appears to offer so much in the way of exploration and adventure. Remembering that this game was much touted for being open world in a way the previous games were not?

 

Add in that this is the first (and as it turns out the only) place where the much trailored and built up Mage/Templar conflict is actually in evidence, then the player and their character have *plenty* of reasons to feel they should and would want to stay, both in terms of roleplaying and promise of interesting exploration and gameplay. The game then promptly fails to deliver on any of that, but how were we to know that beforehand? And again, it isn't like the other areas are so different. They may look different, but its still the exact same shallow nonsense. And in those other areas, the justifcation for being and staying there is in fact far LESS than what you have in the Hinterlands.

 

The Hinterlands *are* poor, but they are no worse than any of the other locations, because you do the same damn thing in all of them.Saying the player will be so much happier and more fulfilled if they move on, is both false and tiresomely repeated as a cheap excuse.

 

But anyway, its getting to the stage where I've had about enough for a while, I think. Pointless to keep raking over everything like this (yeah right... lol). Just have to hope the next game sees a signficant improvement. And that should only be in what.... 4 years.

[Elhanan]

It is the Player's fault if they linger. Just completed this part again yesterday, and remained long enough to assault both the Templar and Apostate secret base camps. Now that the Crossroads are a bit more stable, I may either proceed to aid the Hinterlands, or return to Haven for further clarification.

Hope to see another game of this caliber in ME:A; exploration included.

[Marshal Moriarty]

And all the rifts you left behind, when you know you're the only one who can close them? Your man is just hoping they won't get worse, is he? And hey, if a huge horde of demons spills out of them and devastates the whole region, including Redcliffe... well, never mind, right?

 

I mean you had to get back to Haven for hot buttered scones. Priorities...

 

Bioware have long been inconsistent on whether they even allow you to return to locations later. ME3 was a prime example where progressing in the Main Quest actually closed off side quests. With no warning, and even though the Main Quests were marked PRIORITY. So many people took that to mean Do it first, and got shafted. Not wishing to have that happen again, many people now do ALL the side content as soon as it becomes available, because who knows if it wlll even be available later.

 

You're criticising people for taking decisions when they had no way of knowing otherwise. We didn't know that you could just leave the rifts and nothing AT ALL would happen. Because common sense says you should do it, seeing as how many of them are right next to populated areas that could be attacked! We didn't know you could leave the starving and freezing refugees and they would still be in the same situation 100 hours from now. That you could leave the woman dying and in need of her son's special remedy, and she was such a tough old girl, she could last 5000 hours until you got round to it.

 

Leaving an area before you are finished is just not how many people are wired, and especially not when there is the fear that the content could be locked later or the situation deterioates because you didn;t act when you had the chance. Don't blame people for taking sensible roleplaying decisions. It isn';t their fault that the Hinterlands content is boring - if you are roleplaying either a character of Goodly persuasion and/or a professional character who sees the value in doing their job closing the rifts and stablizing the region, then you will feel *obligated* to stay. And those are hardly obscure or impossible to predict character traits - they are in fact the most common kinds of characters!

 

Oh, but some rifts are too dangerous. Yes, if only we had nearby camps of soldiers, if only the Inquisition had a force of warriors and mages who could be drafted in to help you... And yet you never do - ever. Because... its bingo night back at Skyhold, maybe?

 

And again, it isn't like the rest of the contnet is so much better. Its just completely false to suggest that the Hinterlands is the problem, when its exactly the same thing as the rest of the zones!

[Elhanan]

Again, it is up to the Player to leave or stay; their choice to decide priorities. It is a single Player game; nobody has to make the same decisions as another. As either option is viable, the only problem seems to be those holding to a singular opinion.

[Marshal Moriarty]

But its learned behaviour, based on what Bioware has done in the past. Progressing with the main quest in all manner of RPGs tend to lead to big events that destroy or close off entire areas. Saying its people's own fault for staying, when they have that extra baggage to contend with is just unfair. And it completely runs roughshod over the great many people who simply like to have things organized and not bounce around all over the place, racking up about 90000 quests, It doesn't make any sense from a narrative viewpoint to put off quests that people impress upon you as urgent, nor does it sit well from a gameplay perspectice, as your list of quests becomes a jumbled chaotic mess of unfinished and half finished missions.

 

Adopting this 'Only do what is fun' mentality, strikes at the heart of roleplaying, because it means everyone should just play a freewheeling, happy go lucky thrillseeker. Plus it is to accept the premise that Bioware has created a game full of things that *aren't* fun to do! Which they have, but they shouldn't have done!

[Elhanan]

Again, I have used both options, and this current campaign is a little of both. All are viable options, and those tend to be a good thing. Each Player may choose what they wish to do for whatever motivates them. And since there is an obvious Quest entry to inform the Player that there are choices, am good at leaving things as implemented; no nose rings required.

[Dai Grepher]

But the 'don't stay in the Hinterlands' argument is just something that defenders of the game latched onto as one of their 'You're playing it wrong' arguments.

Well, I don't agree with people who phrase it like that, but what I suggested is valid. The OP is lamenting how boring the Hinterlands map feels to him. So I gave a suggestion on how to alleviate that. Obviously, if something is getting boring you have limited options. Either you slog through it, find something interesting about it, or you take a break from it.

 

Personally, I was fine with the Hinterlands. I have criticized in the past and will still criticize that the Hinterlands had too much to do at once. Still, I did everything I could in one visit, left, then came back and finished up the things I couldn't complete either because of storyline or because I needed other party members. So I had no problem playing the Hinterlands for hours. I thought there was enough variety to not make it boring for me. Though I do recognize that there is a sort of blandness about the landscape that people find boring.