292 réponses à ce sujet

[Rawgrim]

Lol. What game did you play? Because it clearly wasn't Inquisition.

 

It was. Or do you consider picking flowers 10 000 times a story?

[Shechinah]

It was the story of how Scout Harding became convinced of the Inquisitor's elfroot obsession - I loved that joke in "Jaws of Hakkon"

[Sidney]

Yes great quests in TW2 like The contract assignments, all the gambling and boxing games -- I'm sure these time wastes will magically be good to some. The make this item quests. If we want to pick and choose we can choose the weakest quests in any game and make it sound bad. There are plenty of good quests in DAI thee are also plenty of suck levels quests. That is pretty much the nature of sidequests in most games.

[Rawgrim]

Yes great quests in TW2 like The contract assignments, all the gambling and boxing games -- I'm sure these time wastes will magically be good to some. The make this item quests. If we want to pick and choose we can choose the weakest quests in any game and make it sound bad. There are plenty of good quests in DAI thee are also plenty of suck levels quests. That is pretty much the nature of sidequests in most games.

 

Nope. Most games have side quests with stories and different ways to solve them.

[Paul E Dangerously]

Yes great quests in TW2 like The contract assignments, all the gambling and boxing games -- I'm sure these time wastes will magically be good to some. The make this item quests. If we want to pick and choose we can choose the weakest quests in any game and make it sound bad. There are plenty of good quests in DAI thee are also plenty of suck levels quests. That is pretty much the nature of sidequests in most games.

 

Hey now, don't talk bad about the boxing. It didn't take long and it paid well, so it was less useless than the majority of DAI sidequests.

[mjb203]

Yes great quests in TW2 like The contract assignments, all the gambling and boxing games -- I'm sure these time wastes will magically be good to some. The make this item quests. If we want to pick and choose we can choose the weakest quests in any game and make it sound bad. There are plenty of good quests in DAI thee are also plenty of suck levels quests. That is pretty much the nature of sidequests in most games.

Those at least got you money and were mini-games in their own right. If there was a Wicked Grace mini-game in DAI, I would've played the crap out of it.

[mjb203]

Hey now, don't talk bad about the boxing. It didn't take long and it paid well, so it was less useless than the majority of DAI sidequests.

And at least the contract quests tied into Geralt's profession as a witcher.

[Dutch]

Yes great quests in TW2 like The contract assignments, all the gambling and boxing games -- I'm sure these time wastes will magically be good to some. The make this item quests. If we want to pick and choose we can choose the weakest quests in any game and make it sound bad. There are plenty of good quests in DAI thee are also plenty of suck levels quests. That is pretty much the nature of sidequests in most games.

Name one.

[Paul E Dangerously]

And at least the contract quests tied into Geralt's profession as a witcher.

 

Most of them tie into stuff you're already doing, too.

 

I think that's where DAI's quest design fails - DAO gives you an area, and then a bunch of quests that you'll do along the way. Want to go find Branka? You'll probably run across Topsider's Honor, the Crosscut Drifter's cache, Orta's records, the Demon parts, and the other stuff along the way. The main quest runs through it, so it makes sense.

 

Hell, even Skyrim's sidequests you'll probably pick up because you're going from Place X to Place Y because of the MQ or a faction quest.

 

DAI just kinda dumps an area on you and goes "Here, go get excess power and maybe a tiny handful of gold".

[mjb203]

Most of them tie into stuff you're already doing, too.

I think that's where DAI's quest design fails - DAO gives you an area, and then a bunch of quests that you'll do along the way. Want to go find Branka? You'll probably run across Topsider's Honor, the Crosscut Drifter's cache, Orta's records, the Demon parts, and the other stuff along the way. The main quest runs through it, so it makes sense.

Hell, even Skyrim's sidequests you'll probably pick up because you're going from Place X to Place Y because of the MQ or a faction quest.

DAI just kinda dumps an area on you and goes "Here, go get excess power and maybe a tiny handful of gold".

Yep! All of those Deep Roads fetch quests were done well. You didn't have to explore all the Deep Roads to find Branka, but those quests gave you an incentive to go off the beaten path a bit. Those were fetch quests done right.

[Terodil]

Most of them tie into stuff you're already doing, too.
 
I think that's where DAI's quest design fails - DAO gives you an area, and then a bunch of quests that you'll do along the way. Want to go find Branka? You'll probably run across Topsider's Honor, the Crosscut Drifter's cache, Orta's records, the Demon parts, and the other stuff along the way. The main quest runs through it, so it makes sense.
 
Hell, even Skyrim's sidequests you'll probably pick up because you're going from Place X to Place Y because of the MQ or a faction quest.
 
DAI just kinda dumps an area on you and goes "Here, go get excess power and maybe a tiny handful of gold".

I *completely* agree. But IMO that's not a failure of DA:I's quest design proper, the root cause lies in the open world fad. If you have clear pathways, like in DA:O or KoTOR, you can do this and it yields a great experience. In an open world game, it's much harder to do, though certainly not impossible. It takes a lot of fiddling with level scaling and such.

I don't know. This is one of the areas where I simply do not agree with the common opinion, I think. "Open world" has absolutely no value for me, in fact, I consider it a major obstacle to myself enjoying RPGs. I'm perfectly fine with being channeled through a sequence of areas as long as they are well designed, engaging and simply fun (see above for my criteria for a quest being 'fun').

[9TailsFox]

-cut-

[Rawgrim]

Those at least got you money and were mini-games in their own right. If there was a Wicked Grace mini-game in DAI, I would've played the crap out of it.

 

 

Remember the Arco-Mage card game in the might and magic games? That was fun.

[Rawgrim]

I *completely* agree. But IMO that's not a failure of DA:I's quest design proper, the root cause lies in the open world fad. If you have clear pathways, like in DA:O or KoTOR, you can do this and it yields a great experience. In an open world game, it's much harder to do, though certainly not impossible. It takes a lot of fiddling with level scaling and such.

I don't know. This is one of the areas where I simply do not agree with the common opinion, I think. "Open world" has absolutely no value for me, in fact, I consider it a major obstacle to myself enjoying RPGs. I'm perfectly fine with being channeled through a sequence of areas as long as they are well designed, engaging and simply fun (see above for my criteria for a quest being 'fun').

 

 

The Ultima games were open world, and they had extremely good side quests. If Origin could do that in the 80s, Bioware (and others) should be able to do it today.

[9TailsFox]

This isn't even a "we want DA to be like the Witcher" thread, it's about wanting higher quality side quests. I would sacrifice 50 hours of fetch and walk quests for 5 hours of better, more involving side quests without a second thought. I want content in a game that makes me want to play it, not ponder "hmm, skip it or not".

I realize that gaming preferences differ, of course. Lots of people must be liking the side content DA:I offers. Where would all the GOTY awards come from otherwise?

[Paul E Dangerously]

The Ultima games were open world, and they had extremely good side quests. If Origin could do that in the 80s, Bioware (and others) should be able to do it today.

 

Ultima VII is still my gold standard for so many things.

[In Exile]

The Ultima games were open world, and they had extremely good side quests. If Origin could do that in the 80s, Bioware (and others) should be able to do it today.

 

But Bioware wasn't ever able to have good side-quests from a design POV. They occasionally had good NPCs show-cased in a SQ (and DA:I is largely missing this in the base game) and clever dialogue (which again, not that common in DA:I and frankly not that common in their games generally). 

 

I can't comment on Ultima since I've never played the series but at least insofar as Bioware's concerned the issue here is that they suck at making quests when you take away their dialogue. Using DA:O or BG2 or whatever as a benchmark doesn't really help. 

[Rawgrim]

But Bioware wasn't ever able to have good side-quests from a design POV. They occasionally had good NPCs show-cased in a SQ (and DA:I is largely missing this in the base game) and clever dialogue (which again, not that common in DA:I and frankly not that common in their games generally). 

 

I can't comment on Ultima since I've never played the series but at least insofar as Bioware's concerned the issue here is that they suck at making quests when you take away their dialogue. Using DA:O or BG2 or whatever as a benchmark doesn't really help. 

 

Well you can't really take away the dialogue when you want more story elements in a side quest. But BG2 really had some good side quests. One of them even gave you a Stronghold (entirely optional). And if you agreed to take over the place (different stronghold for each class) you got some extra quests later on regarding that too. That is what I call a great side quest.

 

Ultima was made by Origin. the Bioware of the 80s and 90s. That series went downhill after EA took over too. Strangely enough the games EA released in that series removed more and more rpg elements, and added more and more action elements. Like jumping puzzles and the like. Now where have I seen that happen lately? Hmm....

[wolfhowwl]

 

ME3's reviews were perfectly reasonable given the precedent set by ME1.

 

If you can get a 91 on Metacritic with terrible combat, shallow and poorly implemented RPG elements, repetitive side-content and exploration filled with collectibles and asset reuse, and blatant performance problems, why shouldn't ME3 also score in that range?

 

If people wanted to complain about Mass Effect reviews they should have started in 2007.

[Rawgrim]

ME3's reviews were perfectly reasonable given the precedent set by ME1.

 

If you can get a 91 on Metacritic with terrible combat, shallow and poorly implemented RPG elements, repetitive side-content and exploration filled with collectibles and asset reuse, and blatant performance problems, why shouldn't ME3 also score in that range?

 

If people wanted to complain about Mass Effect reviews they should have started in 2007.

 

Because ME3 was a dumbed down shooter, and almost all of the rpg elements were gone.

[Paul E Dangerously]

Because ME3 was a dumbed down shooter, and almost all of the rpg elements were gone.

 

Eh, ME3 put most of them back. ME2 now..

 

Where ME3 got hit was the auto-dialogue really punted a lot of Shepards in the sack.

[Rawgrim]

Eh, ME3 put most of them back. ME2 now..

 

Where ME3 got hit was the auto-dialogue really punted a lot of Shepards in the sack.

 

I liked it, up untill the ending. But it felt more like Gears of War than a mass effect game.

[Hellion Rex]

[mjb203]

ME3's reviews were perfectly reasonable given the precedent set by ME1.

 

If you can get a 91 on Metacritic with terrible combat, shallow and poorly implemented RPG elements, repetitive side-content and exploration filled with collectibles and asset reuse, and blatant performance problems, why shouldn't ME3 also score in that range?

 

If people wanted to complain about Mass Effect reviews they should have started in 2007.

I don't think that was so much a hit against ME3 as it was about EA and bribery for good reviews.  ME3 got hit hard with the endings and the autodialog on the message boards. 

[Rawgrim]

I don't think that was so much a hit against ME3 as it was about EA and bribery for good reviews.  ME3 got hit hard with the endings and the autodialog on the message boards. 

 

You know, I don't think they would have gotten half as much rage about the ending if they hadn't been telling people that the game would have 16 (I think it was 16) endings, and that all the choices in the previous two games would have real impact on the endings. They kept talking a lot about that stuff during the marketing of the game.