15746 Antworten in diesem Thema

[Natashina]

First, you don't need to be condescending.  I haven't been trying to, as I've clearly stated and you don't need to talk down to me.  I have no idea why you're pulling this tone with me, but please stop.  I was asking for your ideas.   I asked you, because you seemed like you could possibly add more.  You did, and gave me the players on this forum some context to your first post.  I was picking your brain, because I've read a lot of posts from other players like the one you had made and I wanted to see if you were willing to add to more than just that.  You did, and I still thank you for it.  You know, from one RPG fan to the other.  I am not one of the types to say that sarcastically either.  If I was being sarcastic or snide, I'd make no bones about it.  It's too hard to tell tone over text and I promise I wasn't trying to sound that way this time either.  

 

C'mon, I don't need an essay, and you didn't have to say that.   Exile and Giledan provided exactly what I've been talking about.  Ogre has too in smaller snippets, as has Kbomb and several others.  Considering that you and others have encouraged me to give it a try, that's about what I was asking for.  Examples and honest comparisons while not just leaving their opinions in the form of blanket comments like "engaging NPCs and sidequests"

 

Your first post, the one I addressed, was not helpful because of the reasons why I mentioned earlier.  Plus, I don't need that sort of feedback in giant posts.  Here and there is fine, but leaving it as what sounded like yet praising post without any examples didn't help.  It's only after I asked for some follow up did I see more than just, "TW did X better."   I've thanked you for actually adding something to this thread other than that.   I'll say it again: Honestly, thank you for adding more to your posts.  You didn't have to, but I highly appreciate it. 

 

 Um...TW3 doesn't have keyboard mapping?  I'm honestly confused.  Could someone clarify this?

 

You just said that DA:I needs a "dumb mode" like TW3, now you're mentioning your two year old son playing DA:I just fine.  You have also yet again, not stated how the combat in TW is "more involved."  Tactically?  Some of us in the forums never played the TW series, and I don't think every dev has either.  I actually liked the combat in TW1 and a few of my friends have convinced me to try it again.  I am going to once I'm done with this latest DA session.  If I liked TW2 and TW3, I'll gladly come on here and give examples on what I think is better and why.

 

So I wanted to see what you meant.  That's all.  I'm glad you have a great little boy you can play games with.  I love my niece and my nephews to bits and they are already playing video games.  I've asked for more details and you've largely given them.  I thought we were having a polite discussion, but this isn't asking for an essay.  You ask just about anyone that has talked to me in private, and there is several in the thread.  I would ask anyone I thought could give a solid answer those questions when it comes to a comparison thread like this.  

 

 If anything, you may not have liked it, but you gave some me some understanding what about some of those features you liked, as well as what the DA team can do better next time.  I hope TW3 continues to do well for you, and I honestly hope that the game has a quicker rate of getting stable than DA:I.  

 

I'm apologize if this seemed like it was getting heated, although I'm a bit confused about your tone.  May your kills be plentiful, may your mount be swift, and your blade be true.   May your loots be useful, and your gameplay fun.  As always, may you get your money's worth and have great memories from TW3.  

[Shechinah]

What I do think is that Bioware should be more like CD project:

2. NO serious crashes during gameplay; I personally did not experienced it but there are reports of some.

 

I'm assuming this is referring to the crashes some people suffered with Inquisition, yes? Because that is something CD Projekt like many others has not been able to correct either since I've seen threads including a lengthy one made about different sorts of crashes that occured with Witcher 3.
 

[Shechinah]

This is wonderfully not what I expected would happen with the forums when "Witcher 3" released; it so... pleasent.

 

*sets phaser* "Well, we've got changelings running around; Everyone form a line to be blood checked."

[Zinho73]

snip

Let me see if I can clear the air.

 

1. combat:

I said that TW3 had a more involved combat and an easier (dumb) option. I did not say that DAI needed a dumber option. What I meant to say is that The Witcher managed to have an option as easy as DAI without compromising the combat difficulty and options overall. Sorry if I conveyed the wrong idea.

 

It is more involved because you have to do more stuff: time your button presses, parry, dive, dodge, prepare beforehand, use different signs (magic) in every situation, manage your upgrades according to your foes and so on.

 

The original idea behind Dragon Age is that the combat was more simple so you could concentrate on the tactical planning of controlling several characters at once, but they botched this in DAI. The game is much more playable controlling just one character, changing eventually for some minor adjustments, so you are left with a simple control scheme for a single character most of the time.

 

2. I am not being condescending. I was actually bothered by your measure of how much useful my comment was not only to you but to the forum and to the developers! It might have needed further clarification to you, and I gladly added something more but, honestly, those bullet points seemed perfectly clear to me. We CAN discuss it further, but we do not NEED to. You sounded in your first post like I have said all of those things out of nowhere, but several of those points were already explained on the thread or commented naturally on the thread (like the horse). And some were beaten to death in other threads.

 

You are welcome to disagree and counter each of my bullet points. You are welcome to ask for more clarification. You can even attribute value to my post (as you did) but then you will end up with and endless parallel conversation that struggles to get anywhere.

 

"Why do you think that?" is a question I am willing to respond.

"What do you mean by involved?" is clarification I am willing to provide.

"What you said has no value unless you explain why with examples" is the start of a discussion completely unrelated to the topic.

 

3. My tone: I think you are sincere in your questioning and that's why I have answered your every post (i do not usually feed trolls and I also do not think I have to justify my every point of view), but I am also trying to dissuade you that feedback have more or less value depending on the amount of information. Suggestions can be terrible ideas and a vague response can give much insight about an issue.

 

In any case, generally speaking, I agree that "I hate this" is very vague and can be improved on (although can still be useful).

But, "your menus are terrible and that game resolved the same problem better" is more than enough for anyone, given the amount of discussion about menus on the forum.

 

That's what I meant to say, hope I made it clear.

 

Best.

[VelvetV]

I found something that DA:I does better than TW3 (so far): main quest. In TW3 the main quest line so far is extremely uninspiring. There's no sense of urgency and I simply fail to care to do what I need to do. I also completely fail to care for main characters. I don't know how to say it to avoid spoilers, but I'm past the White Orchard already and received the actual main quest and everything about it is underwhelming.

 

Attack on Haven was incomparably more exciting than this as the first point of the game. Seriously, I just came here after I stopped playing because I felt bored and unmotivated to investigate the world further. Hopefully in future the main quest will get better and something exciting actually happens.

 

I have heard TW3's hardest difficulty is actually pretty damn hard. I think needing a fade -touched difficulty level is something most of us agree DA:I could use.

 

That's a big exaggeration! I'm playing on the hardest difficulty and has had no problems with it. On this difficulty you need to dodge all the time and use Quen.

[Zinho73]

I'm assuming this is referring to the crashes some people suffered with Inquisition, yes? Because that is something CD Projekt like many others has not been able to correct either since I've seen threads including a lengthy one made about different sorts of crashes that occured with Witcher 3.
 

Yeah, I pulled the trigger too soon on that one. I knew there were some crashes, but minor stuff, nothing like the "impossible to past the intro" in DAI, but there are several reports of constant crashing, so I guess it is a draw.

It does seem to me that the crashes are less severe in nature in TW3, but it is still crashing a lot. I haven't experienced any crashes, though, and I had to wait three patches to be able to play DAI for more than five minutes. And I still have some settings on medium on DAI while I can breeze with almost everything on max settings on TW3.

[Eelectrica]

 Um...TW3 doesn't have keyboard mapping?  I'm honestly confused.  Could someone clarify this?

 

Controls seem fairly mappable. I mean I mapped the strong attack to my thumb mouse button and it seems to have worked. Stiill figuring out what other tweaks I need to make for myself.

I'll be honest, I'm struggling a little with the mouse and keyboard controls and didn't have any trouble with it in Witcher 2's dark mode. I probably just haven't played enough to get used to them though and my timing is just the fraction of a second off at the moment.

I had a couple of early freezes, but think I've rectified those by turning hardware mouse on.

 

I like that when we gather herbs we don't have to sit through an utterly pointless gathering animation that someone in BioWare was asked to waste his/her and our time on.

 

Also the Collectors edition of Witcher 3 absolutely blows the Inquisitors edition out of the water. I really hope BioWare never uses whatever company did that Inquisitors edition again.

[Shechinah]

Yeah, I pulled the trigger too soon on that one. I knew there were some crashes, but minor stuff, nothing like the "impossible to past the intro" in DAI, but there are several reports of constant crashing, so I guess it is a draw.

It does seem to me that the crashes are less severe in nature in TW3, but it is still crashing a lot. I haven't experienced any crashes, though, and I had to wait three patches to be able to play DAI for more than five minutes. And I still have some settings on medium on DAI while I can breeze with almost everything on max settings on TW3.

 

They are not judging by the threads I've encountered and some crashes as well as freezes seem reportedly as being regardless of what people's settings are on it seems. I think this is just something that companies will deal with regardless of how thorough their checking is.  
 

[Natashina]

 

Controls seem fairly mappable. I mean I mapped the strong attack to my thumb mouse button and it seems to have worked. Stiill figuring out what other tweaks I need to make for myself.

I'll be honest, I'm struggling a little with the mouse and keyboard controls and didn't have any trouble with it in Witcher 2's dark mode. I probably just haven't played enough to get used to them though and my timing is just the fraction of a second off at the moment.

I had a couple of early freezes, but think I've rectified those by turning hardware mouse on.

 

I like that when we gather herbs we don't have to sit through an utterly pointless gathering animation that someone in BioWare was asked to waste his/her and our time on.

 

Also the Collectors edition of Witcher 3 absolutely blows the Inquisitors edition out of the water. I really hope BioWare never uses whatever company did that Inquisitors edition again.

 

 

I hope the stuff that came with TW3's CE was less fragile than DA:I's CE.  I heard a lot of sad stories about items showing up bent or broken for the DA:I CE.

 

My goodness, I agree 100% with the stupid gathering animation.  I don't mind flower picking most of the time, but that gathering animation has gotten pretty old.  I think the idea that we could have used our scouts and the like for plant gathering while we went to check out the intrigue would have been so much better.  It certainly would have been more engaging than flower picking and mining.  I hope the devs take note of that.

 

What kind of mouse are you using, if you don't mind me asking? 

[Eelectrica]

 

 

 

 

 

What kind of mouse are you using, if you don't mind me asking? 

 

Razer Lachesis. It's ok, but I was thinking of getting another one sooner rather than later. Just not sure what yet.

[Natashina]

Razer Lachesis. It's ok, but I was thinking of getting another one sooner rather than later. Just not sure what yet.

I've got one of the gaming Naga mice.  This thing had water get dumped on it, and 4 days laying in rice to absorb everything was all it took to get it working again.  They can take some abuse.  I've had mine for about 3 years now with heavy use, and so far no buttons have worn down or stuck.  

[Zinho73]

Controls seem fairly mappable. I mean I mapped the strong attack to my thumb mouse button and it seems to have worked. Stiill figuring out what other tweaks I need to make for myself.

I'll be honest, I'm struggling a little with the mouse and keyboard controls and didn't have any trouble with it in Witcher 2's dark mode. I probably just haven't played enough to get used to them though and my timing is just the fraction of a second off at the moment.

I had a couple of early freezes, but think I've rectified those by turning hardware mouse on.

 

I like that when we gather herbs we don't have to sit through an utterly pointless gathering animation that someone in BioWare was asked to waste his/her and our time on.

 

Also the Collectors edition of Witcher 3 absolutely blows the Inquisitors edition out of the water. I really hope BioWare never uses whatever company did that Inquisitors edition again.

You cannot remap the movement keys.

[Eelectrica]

You cannot remap the movement keys.

Ah, I typically use WASD anyway so didn't notice.

Still it should be remappable for those that prefer other combos. Surprising they didn't just have everything remappable from the beginning.

[Rawgrim]

No, it didn't. DA:O had a fixed good character, with the occasional option to go full on balls-to-the-wall insane with pointless cruelty. But in terms of meaningful variation in a character, DA:I is the an exemplar in how you can customize your PCs emotions, beliefs, and personal relationships. 

 

That all goes out the window when the game takes control of your character in cutscenes, and does a 180 on  whatever emotions or beliefs you think you have given the character.

[Shechinah]

That all goes out the window when the game takes control of your character in cutscenes, and does a 180 on  whatever emotions or beliefs you think you have given the character.

 

While I understand what you mean, I wanted to note that DA:O had moments of doing this as well by giving your Warden a set facial expression during certain scenes like the Joining as an example.
 

[Rawgrim]

While I understand what you mean, I wanted to note that DA:O had moments of doing this as well by giving your Warden a set facial expression during certain scenes like the Joining as an example.
 

 

DA:O had some very small bits of it, that is true. But not on the same scale as DA:I did. The Warden always felt like my own character, the Inquisitor never felt like my own character. That being said, Gerralt doesn't feel like my own character either. But in that case it is ok. I am playing a set character from a series of books, after all.

[TheOgre]

First, you don't need to be condescending.

 

I agree to this -- yet each time I have something negative to say about DAI it is met with some form of remarks that you somehow find amusing enough to like. 

 

It should go for everyone that condescending attitudes shouldn't be liked or approved of here on the BSN. 

[TheOgre]

Every single major choice is justifiable on an utilitarian calculus. The choice in DA:O isn't between "good" and "evil". It's between "pragmatic, utilitarian good" and "pure, moral paragon, good". The only exception is the werewolf choice, where you encourage the massacre of a clan. But let's go through the options here: 

 

1. Redcliffe. The "pure good" option is to have the Circle jump in and save Connor without blood magic, which means leaving Redcliffe alone for days (?). Not taking that risk - and not playing with tens or hundreds of lives that you may have saved - is easily justifiable on a "moral good' scale. 

2. The Anvil. The darkspawn are pure evil rape abominations who poison the land by existing on it. The process of creating golems is horrific. But that doesn't mean that it isn't justifiable - again on utilitarian moral principles - to save the anvil and create golems.

3. The Circle. Blood mages are dangerous, and can control minds. Freedom vs. security is a debate we have IRL. 

4. The Landsmeet. Loghain (and Anora) may well be more capable figures in stopping the Blight and preserving Ferelden. 

 

These are purely heroic outcomes, the "ends justify the means" heroes like Jack Bauer that some people love. Even the darkest possible choice - the werewolf one - is justifiable on the basis that werewolves are just better soldiers at fighting the blight. Even when you're talking about sacrificing elves for a CON+ point, Sten has a moral argument in favour of it (that you need that power to stop the blight). 

 

Of course, you can come up with completely insane moral reasons for doing these things - because you're an evil person that gets off on inflicting pain - but that's really not supported in the game. 

 

DA:I removes a lot of the psychotic, pointless cruelty, but it doesn't change the moral calculus. 

 

Edit: To add to this, my Inquisitors are typically quite power hungry. But not being complete and total idiots, they're smart enough to know that skinning cats alive in the middle of Skyhold while rubbing themselves is not a great way to actually acquire power, so they play it cool and do lawful to chaotic good things. 

 

I think you and I don't agree on what's heroic and what isn't. There was nothing heroic about choosing elves or werewolves. It was a grim task. The heroic resolution was to convince the man to die on his own terms so that the curse would lift against the werewolves and in turn free the elves of any responsibility. 

 

The Anvil, you sacrifice Dwarven lives to create obsidian slaves. HOW is that justifiably good? No, it's cruel but it gets the job done more efficiently then relying on dwarven soldiers. It's nearly villain level and selfish.

 

Jack Bauer is also a bad point to use because yes he does evil things, and he acknowledges them. "The ends justify the means" hardly has any moral positives. How can you be a good guy when you willingly allow a Rite of Annulment in a Circle? They never had a choice, being born as a mage, locked in a tower, and lives now mere cattle for the farmers to cull at their will. When I did do the playthrough where I killed the mages, I was a villain.

 

I already provided my example long ago in a post to you in the debate about morals. One being where I killed a man hellbent on returning with information on where the ashes of Andraste were kept to prevent the Chantry from coming in and claiming the land for their religious purposes. A mage should always fear more power for chantry.

 

It's not pointlessly psychotic and cruel, its natural that you would execute your feared enemies. Loghain? What would happen if he were to ever be freed? A lot of people think of him as a hero for what he did at Ostagar. He wanted me dead for the love of god. So I had him executed.

 

AGAIN and lastly, the Blight, you could have stopped in only one true heroic way by offering yourself as the sacrifice. The other two are not so honorable ways of getting out of 'killing the thing that will kill us all'. You have a weaker case for DAO having "the good guy" than DAI ever had.

 

I think one of the cruelest things you can do in DAI which has no purpose by the way, is give Vivienne the wrong Wyvern Heart. That's grounds for psychotic and cruel and it serves no purpose for the story either. IT can be a point for or against the part where psychotically cruel things are done in the game of DAO for 'ends justify the means'. 

[MiyoKit]

I know this thread has reached thirty pages (at least at the time of typing this) but I just want to add my 2c on why Bioware should & should not be like The Witcher 3.

 

1) Open world.

If I had to put both games side by side, and judge which crafted the best environments, I would have to say DAI. There were times in DAI where I looked up and just marvelled at the beauty of the maps. Statues that shot out of the countryside. Caves that had me on edge while exploring because of how dark they were. Different settings, from huge forests to expansive deserts, kept it fresh.

             However, this isn't to say DAI did everything right and Wither 3 got nothing right. DAI could learn from the outstanding city sizes & active peds that Witcher 3 has. The swimming and discovering treasures / secret caves underwater. Sailing to random islands and accidently stumbling into lvl ?? Golems and fleeing for your life. Weather effects & day / night cycles that drastically change the landscape. These are all the things Witcher 3 did right, but it was let down by the lack of 'woah' moments. There was no distant monstrosity on the horison I HAD to investigate, nor any trees that are impossibly big or ruins that made you stop and look around. It was all 'generic fantasy world' until you marvelled at the cities.

         TLDR; The next DA installment needs to have a 'living' world to go along with a beautiful one. And please, don't go back to a linear RPG.

 

2) Side quests.

Witcher 3 wins out here. Yes there are 'go here, kill monsters, ??, profit' quests, but there are also small additions where you cleanse a village and people return. You clear the nasties around statues and worshippers come and pray. You speak to random villager #23 and actually have a scripted, cutscene-esque conversation with them, where you actually feel for their plight. DAI was massively lacking in scripted quests, with even the major side quests having no face-face time. They never grew from random villager #23, and so I only did the quests for the loot and forgot about them immediately after. This made the world feel lifeless and the quests meaningless.

           Another thing Witcher 3 does is show consequences. DAI, in the side quests, missed that boat completley. I could be the paragon (my preferred play) and it felt exactly the same, consequence wise, as being the renegade. In side quests you have free reign to show consequences. Decided to let this guy go because he said he didn't start the fire? Too bad, he's a crazy arsonist and the village burnt down. Went out of your way to save everyone, making your life harder and more time consuming? Congratulations, everyone in the village loves you and has even made an effigy of how amazing you are. Total free reign to show consequences, and DAI did none of it.

        TLDR; More cutscenes in even small sidequests & consequences.

 

3) Main Story.

DAI wins. I felt for all the characters I met, I was intrigued to know what happens next. Everyone was introduced to me in a way where they became 'people'. Witcher 3's main story, for me, boils down to Geralt trying to rescue people I really couldn't care less about. He meets people I don't ever get to know, because the game is more interested in showing me their assets. It's bland, and I find myself avoiding it at all costs because I don't want to have to sit through any more of it. Bioware are the masters at story crafting, they really don't need to take note of anything Witcher 3 offers, except perhaps a more darker theme here and there.

        TLDR; Keep doing what you're doing, Bioware. It works.

 

4) Armour customisation (looks).

Witcher 3 wins. Yes, DAI technically had more (when including companions) but the PCs choice was awful. Whether you were heavy armour, light armour or medium, you were stuck with the same 3 choices. With Witcher 3 the armours are all different enough to be different. Perhaps if Bioware allowed all the companions armour choices for your own, it would be different. But they didn't, so I was the worst dressed at the party.

         TLDR; More choice, Bioware. I don't want to be outdone by my friends, I'm the hero.

 

5) Crafting.

 I would say they're both even in this regard. Both very indepth.

 

6) Physics.

Hands down, a world away, Witcher 3 wins. The trees are effected by the wind massively. Hair actually looks like hair, and not a plastic head cap. All cloth has physics attacted, even long dresses that trail along the floor. Wooden beams laying in a pile can be pushed and knocked away to open entrances. Bioware, take note of this, pur-lease. In terms of the overall game it's a minor thing to grip about, but it adds SO much immersion. It makes creatures feel more like living creatures, and not computer generated baddies.

 

7) Player Character.

 Bioware, take no notice of the brooding, grey haired man. Give me my own personalised PC any day of the week. Geralt is boring and I have zero attachment to him.

 

8) Bits and Bobs.

Weird title, but by this I mean little things like inventory, equipable things, collectable things, games. Witcher 3 wins. Collecting my deck of cards is a welcomed addition. You can even customise your horse's gear, for god's sake ^^. DAI was lacking in things like this.

 

9) Combat.

DAI wins. Witcher 3 combat is a boring, action, button mashing snore fest. Stab, stab, dodge, repeat. DAI's combat is tactical, expansive (lots of different play styles & weapons), and engaging.

[hoechlbear]

I never played TW games because I never liked the idea of being stuck to this dude (if only we could choose a female protagonist), but I watched the first hour or so of TW3 (just until the part where Geralt and the old man get to the inn) and wow, the amount of cutscenes that game had in that timeframe alone. You enter that place and you're greeted with a cutscene, when you talk to NPCs or have some encounters with them you get a cutscene, you get to ask them things, they talk to you. DAI only has cutscenes during the main quests. So most of the time you don't get a single one when exploring the worlds and that, to me, is a big deal because I don't get invested in the worlds or the NPCs when I'm viewing everything from a distance and can't even see their faces or witness some proper reactions/emotions from them.

 

The world in TW3 in those first minutes of the game looked alive. It has a great mini map that actually shows roads, NPCs walk around and seem like they have a life, they react to you when you bump into them, there are animals and children about, and from what I understood you can click in almost about everyone and they all have a line of dialogue to say. And when Geralt stepped outside of the inn, the weather had changed. (Not to mention no loading screens that take forever!) All of that is completely missing in DAI, the worlds are static, empty, NPCs look like statues that you can't interact with, villages don't have the proper medieval look to it, no animals (cats, dogs, chickens), children and barely any elders. So yeah, I only watched the first hour of the TW3 and I already think Bioware could learn a great deal from it. I'm even considering starting to play it myself. I'm sure it isn't perfect, no game is perfect, but this blind hate some people have for TW is kind of ridiculous sometimes when that game obviously has a lot of high points that would benefit future DA games a great deal. At least in my opinion.

 

EDIT: I forgot to add, graphics wise, TW3 wins for me, specially when it comes to how people look and how believable their movements are. The animations are fluid, hair and clothes move and they actually look like hair and clothes, unlike DAI where animations are stiff and almost everything seems like made of stone or plastic.

[GhostXl]

Witcher 3 is seriously amazing. You can't even to compare it to inqusition and i was a try hard Bioware fan

 

 

 

[AresKeith]

I found something that DA:I does better than TW3 (so far): main quest. In TW3 the main quest line so far is extremely uninspiring. There's no sense of urgency and I simply fail to care to do what I need to do. I also completely fail to care for main characters. I don't know how to say it to avoid spoilers, but I'm past the White Orchard already and received the actual main quest and everything about it is underwhelming.

Attack on Haven was incomparably more exciting than this as the first point of the game. Seriously, I just came here after I stopped playing because I felt bored and unmotivated to investigate the world further. Hopefully in future the main quest will get better and something exciting actually happens.


That's a big exaggeration! I'm playing on the hardest difficulty and has had no problems with it. On this difficulty you need to dodge all the time and use Quen.

Yeah, I heard a lot of people call the hardest Witcher difficulty dodge to win

[Seraphim24]

I know this thread has reached thirty pages (at least at the time of typing this) but I just want to add my 2c on why Bioware should & should not be like The Witcher 3.

 

1) Open world.

If I had to put both games side by side, and judge which crafted the best environments, I would have to say DAI. There were times in DAI where I looked up and just marvelled at the beauty of the maps. Statues that shot out of the countryside. Caves that had me on edge while exploring because of how dark they were. Different settings, from huge forests to expansive deserts, kept it fresh.

             However, this isn't to say DAI did everything right and Wither 3 got nothing right. DAI could learn from the outstanding city sizes & active peds that Witcher 3 has. The swimming and discovering treasures / secret caves underwater. Sailing to random islands and accidently stumbling into lvl ?? Golems and fleeing for your life. Weather effects & day / night cycles that drastically change the landscape. These are all the things Witcher 3 did right, but it was let down by the lack of 'woah' moments. There was no distant monstrosity on the horison I HAD to investigate, nor any trees that are impossibly big or ruins that made you stop and look around. It was all 'generic fantasy world' until you marvelled at the cities.

         TLDR; The next DA installment needs to have a 'living' world to go along with a beautiful one. And please, don't go back to a linear RPG.

 

2) Side quests.

Witcher 3 wins out here. Yes there are 'go here, kill monsters, ??, profit' quests, but there are also small additions where you cleanse a village and people return. You clear the nasties around statues and worshippers come and pray. You speak to random villager #23 and actually have a scripted, cutscene-esque conversation with them, where you actually feel for their plight. DAI was massively lacking in scripted quests, with even the major side quests having no face-face time. They never grew from random villager #23, and so I only did the quests for the loot and forgot about them immediately after. This made the world feel lifeless and the quests meaningless.

           Another thing Witcher 3 does is show consequences. DAI, in the side quests, missed that boat completley. I could be the paragon (my preferred play) and it felt exactly the same, consequence wise, as being the renegade. In side quests you have free reign to show consequences. Decided to let this guy go because he said he didn't start the fire? Too bad, he's a crazy arsonist and the village burnt down. Went out of your way to save everyone, making your life harder and more time consuming? Congratulations, everyone in the village loves you and has even made an effigy of how amazing you are. Total free reign to show consequences, and DAI did none of it.

        TLDR; More cutscenes in even small sidequests & consequences.

 

3) Main Story.

DAI wins. I felt for all the characters I met, I was intrigued to know what happens next. Everyone was introduced to me in a way where they became 'people'. Witcher 3's main story, for me, boils down to Geralt trying to rescue people I really couldn't care less about. He meets people I don't ever get to know, because the game is more interested in showing me their assets. It's bland, and I find myself avoiding it at all costs because I don't want to have to sit through any more of it. Bioware are the masters at story crafting, they really don't need to take note of anything Witcher 3 offers, except perhaps a more darker theme here and there.

        TLDR; Keep doing what you're doing, Bioware. It works.

 

4) Armour customisation (looks).

Witcher 3 wins. Yes, DAI technically had more (when including companions) but the PCs choice was awful. Whether you were heavy armour, light armour or medium, you were stuck with the same 3 choices. With Witcher 3 the armours are all different enough to be different. Perhaps if Bioware allowed all the companions armour choices for your own, it would be different. But they didn't, so I was the worst dressed at the party.

         TLDR; More choice, Bioware. I don't want to be outdone by my friends, I'm the hero.

 

5) Crafting.

 I would say they're both even in this regard. Both very indepth.

 

6) Physics.

Hands down, a world away, Witcher 3 wins. The trees are effected by the wind massively. Hair actually looks like hair, and not a plastic head cap. All cloth has physics attacted, even long dresses that trail along the floor. Wooden beams laying in a pile can be pushed and knocked away to open entrances. Bioware, take note of this, pur-lease. In terms of the overall game it's a minor thing to grip about, but it adds SO much immersion. It makes creatures feel more like living creatures, and not computer generated baddies.

 

7) Player Character.

 Bioware, take no notice of the brooding, grey haired man. Give me my own personalised PC any day of the week. Geralt is boring and I have zero attachment to him.

 

8) Bits and Bobs.

Weird title, but by this I mean little things like inventory, equipable things, collectable things, games. Witcher 3 wins. Collecting my deck of cards is a welcomed addition. You can even customise your horse's gear, for god's sake ^^. DAI was lacking in things like this.

 

9) Combat.

DAI wins. Witcher 3 combat is a boring, action, button mashing snore fest. Stab, stab, dodge, repeat. DAI's combat is tactical, expansive (lots of different play styles & weapons), and engaging.

 

I prefer the combat in W3, even though it's kind of button mashy it has an action base, whereas DA:I's is complicated in a frustrating arbitrary feeling sense to me (similar to DA2).

 

Honestly the biggest tactic in DA games since Origins for me is the run around kiting mobs while mages/archers kill them or whatever which is goofy as sin.

 

I can sort of see what your saying with a lot of things but again for me that main story being grounded in kind of real people's emotions feelings and not the generic save the world thing is a pretty important difference though still, I just can't really get behind it a lot of the time. Someone like Corypheus I'm like... really? He might as well have just been a generic rogue decepticon busting in your castle.

 

 

I think you and I don't agree on what's heroic and what isn't. There was nothing heroic about choosing elves or werewolves. It was a grim task. The heroic resolution was to convince the man to die on his own terms so that the curse would lift against the werewolves and in turn free the elves of any responsibility. 

 

The Anvil, you sacrifice Dwarven lives to create obsidian slaves. HOW is that justifiably good? No, it's cruel but it gets the job done more efficiently then relying on dwarven soldiers. It's nearly villain level and selfish.

 

Jack Bauer is also a bad point to use because yes he does evil things, and he acknowledges them. "The ends justify the means" hardly has any moral positives. How can you be a good guy when you willingly allow a Rite of Annulment in a Circle? They never had a choice, being born as a mage, locked in a tower, and lives now mere cattle for the farmers to cull at their will. When I did do the playthrough where I killed the mages, I was a villain.

 

I already provided my example long ago in a post to you in the debate about morals. One being where I killed a man hellbent on returning with information on where the ashes of Andraste were kept to prevent the Chantry from coming in and claiming the land for their religious purposes. A mage should always fear more power for chantry.

 

It's not pointlessly psychotic and cruel, its natural that you would execute your feared enemies. Loghain? What would happen if he were to ever be freed? A lot of people think of him as a hero for what he did at Ostagar. He wanted me dead for the love of god. So I had him executed.

 

AGAIN and lastly, the Blight, you could have stopped in only one true heroic way by offering yourself as the sacrifice. The other two are not so honorable ways of getting out of 'killing the thing that will kill us all'. You have a weaker case for DAO having "the good guy" than DAI ever had.

 

I think one of the cruelest things you can do in DAI which has no purpose by the way, is give Vivienne the wrong Wyvern Heart. That's grounds for psychotic and cruel and it serves no purpose for the story either. IT can be a point for or against the part where psychotically cruel things are done in the game of DAO for 'ends justify the means'. 

 

Again I think the moral ambiguity in DA:O is somewhat of a feint. It's like this extremely rigid black and white world (Darkspawn and Demons bad, Humans and Wardens good) with minor spheres of ambiguity contained within (Well, some humans are kind of good/evil, some Darkspawn are sometimes good/bad). It's generally speaking characters or mini-narratives that invoke the kind of morally ambiguous situations. The entire Dwarven/Orzammar campaign stands among those IMO. DA2 as was discussing earlier it was really just the blowing up the chantry part that caught my attention. DA:I it's really again more about individual characters.

 

In contrast TW where the Witcher has a pretty gray world in the aggregate, where it's not really clear which side would be good anyway (Nilfgard? The Elves? Humans? Dwarves? Rebels?) or why you should even care (Quest to find Yennefer, remedy relations with Triss, etc). I think preferences for that kind of situation are somewhat rarer though,

[herkles]

I never played TW games because I never liked the idea of being stuck to this dude (if only we could choose a female protagonist),

Actually in TW3 you can play as a female character, Ciri, at some point in the game according to what CDPR said. I haven't gotten there so not sure what that is like. 

 

The world in TW3 in those first minutes of the game looked alive. It has a great mini map that actually shows roads, NPCs walk around and seem like they have a life, they react to you when you bump into them, there are animals and children about, and from what I understood you can click in almost about everyone and they all have a line of dialogue to say. And when Geralt stepped outside of the inn, the weather had changed. (Not to mention no loading screens that take forever!) All of that is completely missing in DAI, the worlds are static, empty, NPCs look like statues that you can't interact with, villages don't have the proper medieval look to it, no animals, children and barely any elders. So yeah, I only watched the first hour of the TW3 and I already think Bioware could learn a great deal from it. I'm even considering starting to play it myself. I'm sure it isn't perfect, no game is perfect, but this blind hate some people have for TW is kind of ridiculous sometimes when that game obviously has a lot of high points that would benefit future DA games a great deal. At least in my opinion.

 

 

This is something I been enjoying, the world just feels alive in the game; for all the reasons above. Also as you mentioned medieval and that is something as a historian I enjoyed, it feels more medieval in terms of how the world is. Especially in regards to clothing, though admitably most armor and clothing is Late Medieval and Renaissance in design.

 

 

As for the Main Quest I can't comment as I have not finished the game, not even close. So I can't say if that is better or not. But I have said before that the main quest of Dragon age is a mess with the big issue being pacing.