19 réponses à ce sujet

[Seyd71]

Anyone who has played Dragon Age Inquisition knows for a fact that it's large, but is it too large?

 

I feel like Bioware made the areas in-game as large as possible, yet I feel that they made them large for the sake of making them large. While the areas look good in-game, I feel like they have no real purpose other than for a bunch of boring mini-quests. They focused the main story around the Inquisition, and you have to build it up throughout the game to progress. You can't fight A huge threat without resources and soldiers after all. But while some main missions and side missions are large and fleshed out, it feels like the rest are a bunch of boring, pointless side quests that help the inquisition, even though most of them really shouldn't do anything at all. How would retrieving a small item for some unimportant person who lives alone in the forest help your cause? It feels like they gave us these empty MMO style quests for three reasons: 1. To have an excuse for huge areas, 2. To stretch out the game as long as possible, and 3. To build up the Inquisition.

 

However, I don't want to build an organization like that.

I don't know about anyone else, this is just my opinion, but I'd rather have a smaller amount of meaningful quests in a more compacted, focused area than a bunch of filler quests with no story that belong in an MMO in a large area that while amazing and quite nice, is too much.

 

For example, I played DA:O for the first time last summer, and my base game playthrough with all the DLC (Not counting time on Awakening, Witch Hunt, and Golems) took about 50 hours if I remember correctly. Now, my Inquisition playthrough with Zero DLC took a lot longer, but yet I felt a lot more satisfied with DA:O. While DA:I was great, and all of those crappy mini-quests they forced you into made it feel like a really long playthrough, I didn't have the same feeling about the ending as I did Origins. Maybe this is because they plan on making more and fleshing it out with DLC, I don't know.

 

I just feel like I would've been more invested in the story if I had done longer side quests with story rather then run around really large areas collecting flowers and metals. I mean if you're going to need that many of a material you might as well cut out the animation and let people collect them like Skyrim did with plants.

[katerinafm]

While I like open areas like these, it's true that it looks like they haven't found the right balance between an open world and actual interesting content. More meaningful quests are more fun than larger empty areas with things to collect. I hope in future DLCs and future games they focus on story heavy stuff more (with cutscene conversations, please, not this tiny bit of zoom that doesn't get you immersed at all).

[HM Vengeance]

Large....yes, boring.....definitely. The quests that fill these areas are unbelievably dull, i think the worst one i've come across was taking flowers to a grave.

[devSin]

The game tries to serve two masters and ends up failing both.

[SACanuckin Oz]

The more I play this game (trying to finish it), the more it reminds me of the MMORPG RIFT, and the less it reminds me of previous DA games

[Winged Silver]

I can relate - a lot of the time spent on Inquisition isn't really in the purpose of any larger goal. I didn't always remember why I was going to certain maps. Had our purposes in all the areas remained very clear as to how they'd help the Inquisition, I think that would have gone a long ways (for example, besides from just 'helping out the populace', I wasn't sure what my Inquisitor was doing in the Exalted Plains.)

 

I think characterizing certain maps as large isn't a bad goal, but I agree that there needs to be a purpose to it besides just 'it's big, that's cool, right?'

 

Areas like the Hissing Wastes, which were characterized as being large, desolate, and lonesome make perfect sense for large map sizes. The size actually contributes something to the atmosphere of the place, which I think is always important in a video game. In an area like the Hinterlands, however, the size was overbearing for how little we technically had to do there (as in, missions pertinent to the main story line). If that map had been half that size, I think the same overall feel would still have been accomplished, with far less irritated completionists tearing out their hair in frustration at how much there is to do. 

 

I really think they ought to take a careful look at all the quests they really want to put in the next game (not necessarily filler missions, but ones that actually have interesting little stories behind them, to describe what I consider to be the smallest of decent quests), and decide if a large map size is really worth them. And if so, cool, that's probably a pretty cool quest, but if the large space is mainly filled with 'ram meat please' type missions, than I'd think pruning the quest tree would be a good idea.

[chance52]

Anyone who has played Dragon Age Inquisition knows for a fact that it's large, but is it too large?

 

It feels like they gave us these empty MMO style quests for three reasons: 1. To have an excuse for huge areas, 2. To stretch out the game as long as possible, and 3. To build up the Inquisition.

 

 

 

I feel that the size of the map didn't cause the MMO style quests, DA2 had a ton of those fetch quests and go kill this random group of bandits and didn't have any map near the same size as the Hinterlands.

 

Look at DA:O's biggest area, the Deep Roads, and look at the quests that filled that region.  You are told you are heading into the Deep Roads to go find a Paragon, or whats left of her house, and many people come to you with important issues and ask for your help before you set out.  "My son is lost and his company won't say what happened" "I know my family was a noble house before we were pushed back by the darkspawn, please bring back something that proves my family matters" "My wife is that paragon you are looking for and not just some political tool, let me follow you to find her" Now the quests you find down there get you a ally in the final battle too, and that is a side quest "prove the Legion of the Dead count's as a noble house" and pass a speech check and boom, final push against the darkspawn in the end you can call the Legion of the Dead for help along the way.  Each quest in that large area made sense why you were doing it.

 

The Deep Roads had more than enough space to fill with any number of MMO quests. The entire region you explore could handle most of what the hinterlands gave you "Go kill 12 of this" "go kill 3 of those" "escort a druffalo through this area" and yet not one quest in the deep roads was like that.

 

I honestly think it's just lazy writing becoming the acceptable because with a map that size and plenty of warning from Skyrim fans about how people hate 'go collect/kill/find X number of whatever then come back" quests there is no reason DAI should have had so many maps filled with those exact quests.

[DarkKnightHolmes]

The game has 3 deserts..... who needs that many deserts in a game?

[Bacchus]

I agree completely. The MMO-style quests have gone overboard in this game and it really feels like they tried to stretch this game out as much as possible at the cost of fluidity.

 

I would rather have smaller areas with meaningful quests that actually tell a story. I really like this game, but some of its design decision are atrocious:

 

• MMO-style quests and large areas for the sake of it
• The Inquisitor always has to be a nice guy/gal more or less, no really shocking consequences from your actions (like learning blood magic from the demon in DA:O and leaving the small boy to his fate)
• The gathering of metals and herbs (it becomes torture after a while and you develop a mild OCD about gathering)
• Only 8 ability slots without even the option to switch to a second bar (I wonder whose bright idea that was)
• The hair (also the eye lashes, the beards and the eye brows ... they are all pretty bad)
• Companions disappearing when you mount up (so no banter) and the mount being painfully slow
• Just because the character can jump now, doesn't mean you have to place shards in the most impossible to reach locations and make the levels as vertical as possible
• No schematics for the best looking weapons (Inquisition sword and shield, refined greatsword) in the game and no method to use the appearance of other weapons during crafting
• etc ...

 

I guess most people here can recognize their own complaints in this list.

 

The large open world worked in Skyrim because it's a sandbox-style game. It can't really work in Dragon Age if there is to be a compelling main story. Sidequests need to have their own story line, which isn't necessary for the progression of the main story line, but should be somewhat linked to it, to not completely feel out of place.

 

I hope for the next Dragon Age installment Bioware will focus more on compelling story and depth and less on size for the sake of it and eye candy. But I'm somewhat pessimistic.

[Das Tentakel]

I agree with the OP, DA:I was too large. It’s not just the regions and the number and types of quests and missions, it’s also the art assets. Not everybody will have noticed, but DA:I suffered quite a lot of ‘the same dead white tree’, ‘the same overhanging rock’, ‘the same statue’, the same wooden railing with the same broken piece’, the ‘hey, every building in Orlais uses the same tileset’ and of course the ‘hey, we didn’t have enough assets so that’s why we put expensive paintings and fancy desks in this simple Fereldan wooden hut’ etc etc. syndrome. The absolute amount of different assets (although quite a few were reused old assets or were perhaps scrapped leftovers from earlier games / DA projects) seemed quite respectable to me. However, compared to the various different lands, cultures and historical periods represented in the game it just wasn’t enough. Not by a long shot
 
Most large games have similar problems, but the sheer size and length of DA:I means that you really, really, REALLY get to notice it after a while.

[caradoc2000]

Some of the war table missions might have been interesting as actual quests.

[Koneko Koji]

Inquisition is sadly one of a few games where I can spend a few (precious) hours in my off time playing, and come away feeling like I've done nothing and achieved nothing.

To be honest, I like the game - but the more I play it, the more it just becomes 'something to do', whereas Origins - I'm still finding 'new' content and dialogue that I've not experienced before, and making decisions that affect my game in totally different ways.

Inquisition is too linear, there's just no sense of threat, peril, or personal adjustments being made for the situations you choose - this is of course, IMHO.

[Koneko Koji]

I agree with the OP, DA:I was too large. It’s not just the regions and the number and types of quests and missions, it’s also the art assets. Not everybody will have noticed, but DA:I suffered quite a lot of ‘the same dead white tree’, ‘the same overhanging rock’, ‘the same statue’, the same wooden railing with the same broken piece’, the ‘hey, every building in Orlais uses the same tileset’ and of course the ‘hey, we didn’t have enough assets so that’s why we put expensive paintings and fancy desks in this simple Fereldan wooden hut’ etc etc. syndrome. The absolute amount of different assets (although quite a few were reused old assets or were perhaps scrapped leftovers from earlier games / DA projects) seemed quite respectable to me. However, compared to the various different lands, cultures and historical periods represented in the game it just wasn’t enough. Not by a long shot
 
Most large games have similar problems, but the sheer size and length of DA:I means that you really, really, REALLY get to notice it after a while.

 

I found it wasn't just the backgrounds either - in the elvhen temple, just about every treasure box I opened contained Vitaars. I know the loot is random, but it just made no sense what so ever to have a SEALED elvhen temple being filled with Qunari items - as cliched as it sounds, it breaks immersion.

[Das Tentakel]

I found it wasn't just the backgrounds either - in the elvhen temple, just about every treasure box I opened contained Vitaars. I know the loot is random, but it just made no sense what so ever to have a SEALED elvhen temple being filled with Qunari items - as cliched as it sounds, it breaks immersion.

Good point, I remember that as well. I know I really got miffed with DA:I when I frequently ran into ‘out of context’ objects in ruins and complexes – Tevinter statues in Grey Warden forts, stelae that were the same in historical Orlesian and Tevinter contexts, Grey Warden military architecture being identical – not similar, but identical to civilian Tevinter architecture etc.

Repeating assets are a problem, but even worse is mixing objects of different cultures and periods. While you could explain them away, it’s a major immersion breaker for the gamer who pays attention to his / her surroundings.
One mistake BioWare made was repeating things that are normally really, really specific – whether it’s the style of a fortress, some stelae, statues etc. and use them in all kinds of contexts. You can do that somewhat with ordinary run-of-the mill houses (within a particular civilization) and utilitarian items. Nobody is going to notice that a kitchen knife is in a style from Kordilius Drakon’s reign rather than that of late pre-Andrastian Tevinter, or that a bucket is really Qunari and not Fereldan in construction. It’s the things that in the real world are instantly recognisable by a certain cultural style and / or are custom-designed and made – those are things you don’t want to repeat too much or get mixed up.

[Seyd71]

 

I honestly think it's just lazy writing becoming the acceptable because with a map that size and plenty of warning from Skyrim fans about how people hate 'go collect/kill/find X number of whatever then come back" quests there is no reason DAI should have had so many maps filled with those exact quests.

 

I actually enjoyed those quests in Skyrim, because it worked in that game. I could do things very differently, and missions were randomly generated. Putting these quests in a third-person only game and making most of them collection and fetch quests ruined it for DA:I. 

[Seyd71]

Some of the war table missions might have been interesting as actual quests.

 

Agreed, there were so many good operations that they could've made into interesting missions. It would've definitely made it worth it to go back and make different choices because you could do different missions.

[Koneko Koji]

Agreed, there were so many good operations that they could've made into interesting missions. It would've definitely made it worth it to go back and make different choices because you could do different missions.

 

Even if they wouldn't let us do the missions ourselves, just having a short cut scene showing the resolution of events would have made all the difference in the world, and lifted the War Table up from being just another codex style info dump (IMO).

[Sartoz]

 

Big Sbip

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I really think they ought to take a careful look at all the quests they really want to put in the next game (not necessarily filler missions, but ones that actually have interesting little stories behind them, to describe what I consider to be the smallest of decent quests), and decide if a large map size is really worth them. And if so, cool, that's probably a pretty cool quest, but if the large space is mainly filled with 'ram meat please' type missions, than I'd think pruning the quest tree would be a good idea.

 

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Unfortunately, the map sizes was a knee-jerk reactions to the DA2 criticisms (which were valid) and the fans' praise for the open world of Skyrim. Add the fact that the FB3 rendering engine is perfect for generating large landscapes and the designers went overboard... forgetting that large areas need to be filled with engaging content. A W3 trailer shows how an engaging sidequest is easily done if some thought is put into it.  Especially, so,  if the design allows for multiple outcomes = replay value.

 

DAI originally had some good ideas... look at that first PAX leaked demo.... the callapseable bridge, setting boats on fire... decision to save the village or save your soldiers... Varric's look of pain when the red templars  slaughtered the villagers. That, and much more was cut from the final game because of a bad design decision from the start. The decision?... to support all five platforms able to play the same game.

 

The results? Game content was cut because the old-gen hardware limitations was unable to meet the resource demands from the game. So, the PC and new-gen consoles got the old-gen game.... but with better graphics.

 

DAI was an ambitious game that got hobbled by old-gen hardware constraints. But, hey... the good news is that over 300K games were sold for the 360+PS3. At $70/game = 21 million dollars... a good financial decision but bad for us gamers.

[Koneko Koji]

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-snip-

 

Even as a 360 player, I agree with it being too ambitious to cover all bases.
At the time the game came out, I replaced my 360 because it broke, but had Inquisition only been available on the Xbone etc, i would have saved up the extra and gone for that console - that is how much I was waiting for this game. But with the way it is, I'm glad I didn't buy the machine just for THIS game that we got, because I would have been sadly disappointed.

[Winged Silver]

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Unfortunately, the map sizes was a knee-jerk reactions to the DA2 criticisms (which were valid) and the fans' praise for the open world of Skyrim. Add the fact that the FB3 rendering engine is perfect for generating large landscapes and the designers went overboard... forgetting that large areas need to be filled with engaging content. A W3 trailer shows how an engaging sidequest is easily done if some thought is put into it.  Especially, so,  if the design allows for multiple outcomes = replay value.

 

DAI originally had some good ideas... look at that first PAX leaked demo.... the callapseable bridge, setting boats on fire... decision to save the village or save your soldiers... Varric's look of pain when the red templars  slaughtered the villagers. That, and much more was cut from the final game because of a bad design decision from the start. The decision?... to support all five platforms able to play the same game.

 

The results? Game content was cut because the old-gen hardware limitations was unable to meet the resource demands from the game. So, the PC and new-gen consoles got the old-gen game.... but with better graphics.

 

DAI was an ambitious game that got hobbled by old-gen hardware constraints. But, hey... the good news is that over 300K games were sold for the 360+PS3. At $70/game = 21 million dollars... a good financial decision but bad for us gamers.

 

I agree. I can appreciate them wanting to let the game be available for more platforms, but given that they'd set up something to let people 'import' (whatever we call the Dragon Age Keep) across platforms, I think the game really would have been strengthened if they were able to focus more of their resources on only three platforms (I suppose I should mention that this is coming from someone who played the first two DA games on the xbox 360, but switched over to PC).

 

Indeed, it does seem like they went the complete opposite direction of DA2 in efforts to shed that old problem....and found some new ones in the process. It may be optimistic of me, but I really hope that having seen now how a DA game can play in small maps and large maps, they'll be able to find a better balance in the future.

 

As for quests....I'm not really sure where exactly in the process they went a little off the path. They had some decent examples of side quests with different outcomes in the first two games, of varying levels of engagement and intrigue. I hope they can at least try to bring that back in the next game. 

 

Fingers crossed, anyhow