150 réponses à ce sujet

[Zinho73]

Fair enough, I still prefer the original to those. Of course, I don't have the problem with the current endings as some, so take that what you will.

 

My central point, though, is that there is a certain tendency of canonize single individuals associated projects if they left it at the right time, completely ignoring that games in the scale DA are group efforts. What this leads to is somehow making that indivudal central to the franchise and the person keeping it together, which to repeat myself is insulting to the members of the team. Drew K., for example, had some really controversial for ME3, which I personally feel would have been at least as controversial than the current endings.

 

The same with Brent Knowles, who has been painted as the true visionary of the DA project, which is not true in anyway. Since his ideas did not line up with the other people in the project, who had been as instrumental in building DAO to what it was, they parted ways. It is not rare in creative projects. Yet now because of that everything in it is attributed to him. At the same time, when Jennifer Hepler, who was one of the central writers associated with memorable sequences with DAO, left the project, her departure was seen as someone detrimental to the project leaving despite her being as important to the success of DAO than Knowles.

You have a fair point indeed. It is impossible to know how big the impact (if any at all) the presence of one person would have on the whole product. Specially in a company structured as Bioware.

 

But one thing to consider is that when the director of a creative project changes, he usually wants to do things "his own way", and it can lead to change without insight. It is possible that the proverbial "key to the realm" was in the hands of someone that left, but it is impossible to know. What we do know is that the responsibility of the final product now lies with the ones that stayed.

[Zinho73]

Hmm. Better how? Most of the typical complaints about the existing endings -- immoral final choices, irrational Reaper plan, space magic, and so forth -- are just as bad or worse in the dark energy outline. What problem did you have with the existing endings that DE solved?

Dark Energy is simple Sci-fi stuff. It is not brilliant, but it exists in real life science and was hinted before in the game universe. If this ending was as badly executed as the one we got, probably nothing could save it, but this would maintain a minimum of consistency.

 

I can see it working, the Reapers wanting to stop mass-relay travels to avoid or delay the destruction of the universe is cool (not nearly as nonsensical as destroying organics to protect organics from being destroyed) and I really like the option to destroy the Reapers and find a less radical way to save the universe on our own. It is actually an excellent excuse for the next games on the series: a thousand years later, a new group of heroes is ready to step on the shoes of commander Shepard and find a way to stop all this shenanigans once and for all.

 

Deux ex machina kid with space magic is, well, subject for another thread, but you can start by watching the Tasteful, Understated Nerdrage video on youtube.

[dsl08002]

Bioware has a tendency on focusing on the wrong thing when its main focus should be on story

[Saphiron123]

Bioware has a tendency on focusing on the wrong thing when its main focus should be on story

Yup, and it's puzzling when "story" is the central theme of their own slogan. 

[Morroian]

But that is not really true. They had vision for Dragon Age. It was a different vision that Brent Knowles, hence him leaving. 

 

The flip flopping since shows they have no overarching artistic vision for the franchise. Him leaving was due to the compromises they were going to have to make in an EA world, thats got nothing to do with vision.

 

 

The same with Brent Knowles, who has been painted as the true visionary of the DA project, which is not true in anyway. Since his ideas did not line up with the other people in the project, who had been as instrumental in building DAO to what it was, they parted ways. It is not rare in creative projects. Yet now because of that everything in it is attributed to him. At the same time, when Jennifer Hepler, who was one of the central writers associated with memorable sequences with DAO, left the project, her departure was seen as someone detrimental to the project leaving despite her being as important to the success of DAO than Knowles.

 

I don't think Knowles is the 'true' creative DA visionary. I think Gaider also deserves mention here but Gaider was solely concerned with the writing. Knowles was the lead designer and given the design changes since he left I think its logical that his loss heavily impacted the design and the poor choices since he left. 

[KaiserShep]

I can see it working, the Reapers wanting to stop mass-relay travels to avoid or delay the destruction of the universe is cool (not nearly as nonsensical as destroying organics to protect organics from being destroyed) and I really like the option to destroy the Reapers and find a less radical way to save the universe on our own. It is actually an excellent excuse for the next games on the series: a thousand years later, a new group of heroes is ready to step on the shoes of commander Shepard and find a way to stop all this shenanigans once and for all.

 

This would have worked if it wasn't the reapers themselves that even created the things. If they didn't want people using them, they should have just dismantled them lol.

 

Bioware has a tendency on focusing on the wrong thing when its main focus should be on story

 

But what is this wrong thing?

[bEVEsthda]

People will either like the end result or not. If not, then it's never a problem to find details to criticize. But if people like it, they're not so motivated to find faults. (This is why we often have the phenomenon of people criticizing things which were fairly similar in the old game, btw.)

 

 

 

Bioware do have a tendency to overcompensate. When they listen. But I do not really see DA:I as a response to the criticism against DA2. More a response to the fact that DA2 was heavily criticized. They desperately wanted to make a good game, but it was still a team which didn't much appreciate DA:O and had their own ideas.

There was a lot of things that bugged me about DA2, but I don't really see that DA:I has got rid of so many of them. It's more that the total package has now become enjoyable, rather than just infuriating. And I would say that this is a result more from the addition of a healthy dose of Skyrim, than in correcting DA2. 

I would also say that, in regards to criticism, DA:I was mainly influenced by the feedback from people who liked DA2, rather than from those who hated it. The result of that is that DA:I is not anything at all like the DA3 which some people would have liked, and maybe even expected.

 

To me, it doesn't matter, because I had already kissed DA:O goodbye. It was apparent, from the way developers commented here, that wasn't happening. I'm able to take a fresh view of DA:I. 

 

As for the mechanics, I don't really pay much attention to their detail design. I just play them. I don't consider DA:O any improvement on BG/IWD. I think DA2 is awful. However, mostly because they make everything the same. Just different colors. (A typical, formulaic design element of modern Bioware?). Class doesn't matter. Everybody has close quarter melee skills, everybody has ranged skills, everybody has area effects. And everybody's skills are just as magical as the mage's. To me, a system like that is just utter rubbish.

 

Again, I don't see that DA:I combat and character development has improved on DA2.  It's even worse. It's so bad that I don't even understand what the developers have been thinking. But it's not as important any longer, since the game offers so much more. I just push back combat and leveling, in my mind, as much as possible and enjoy the rest of what the game has to offer.

[dsl08002]

This would have worked if it wasn't the reapers themselves that even created the things. If they didn't want people using them, they should have just dismantled them lol.



But what is this wrong thing?

to start with the massive enviroment along with the side and fetch quests, which is really what summarize DAI.

Secondly the experimenting of DA2 which was a huge gamble. I can go on and on.

But note i should have said that this reagrds to ME3, DA2 and now DAI

[Morroian]

Again, I don't see that DA:I combat and character development has improved on DA2.  It's even worse. It's so bad that I don't even understand what the developers have been thinking. But it's not as important any longer, since the game offers so much more. I just push back combat and leveling, in my mind, as much as possible and enjoy the rest of what the game has to offer.

 

From my point of view what it offers that is different to DA2 and DAO doesn't come remotely close to compensating for the poor rpg and combat mechanics.

[Hiemoth]

 

The flip flopping since shows they have no overarching artistic vision for the franchise. Him leaving was due to the compromises they were going to have to make in an EA world, thats got nothing to do with vision.

 

Putting aside another fabled assertation, that EA is responsible for everything even if in this case there is really no evidence for it, this is not true. They had a very clear vision for DA2 was supposed to be, whetever or not someone like it or not does not affect that. Knowles left because he had a very specific, and in my mind, narrow view of what RPGs were supposed to be, which did not match the other members of the team. Again, there is no evidence that there was pressure from EA to do the changes they did for DA2. As for his artistic vision, again, games are a group effort.

 

I don't think Knowles is the 'true' creative DA visionary. I think Gaider also deserves mention here but Gaider was solely concerned with the writing. Knowles was the lead designer and given the design changes since he left I think its logical that his loss heavily impacted the design and the poor choices since he left. 

 

 

But this would first require to agree that all the design choices after him leaving are poor, which we do not. DA2 had, for me, the best combat system in DA games so far and an excellent character build system which far superior to DAO. It also had great companions and awesome antagonists with a completely new attempt at approval and interaction. All of these things happened after the vaunted artistic vision of Knowles left the project.

[Zinho73]

This would have worked if it wasn't the reapers themselves that even created the things. If they didn't want people using them, they should have just dismantled them lol.

 

You do understand that my whole argument is that the idea was not there yet, but it is way better than jumping into beams of light to activate an ancient magic device? A machine activated by visual metaphors is a great idea for a Monthy Python Movie, though. 

 

It is obvious that they wanted to make the Reapers operate under a faulty logic, or not being necessarily "bad".

 

Let´s say the relays needed a few thousand years of rest before becoming dangerous and they give an opportunity to life on those intervals, or that they could not destroy it without destroying themselves. Those are all bad ideas that contradict the lore, but I could roll with it - and I think if they hammered on it a bit it could work.

 

In my opinion, the very best idea is to keep simple: The Reapers are a bunch of evil, angry aliens that like to eat intelligent species and created the mass-relays to accelerate this process.

 

And sorry - I promise I will let this go an go back to Dragon Age, please do not lock the topic.

[AlanC9]

I can see it working, the Reapers wanting to stop mass-relay travels to avoid or delay the destruction of the universe is cool (not nearly as nonsensical as destroying organics to protect organics from being destroyed) and I really like the option to destroy the Reapers and find a less radical way to save the universe on our own. It is actually an excellent excuse for the next games on the series: a thousand years later, a new group of heroes is ready to step on the shoes of commander Shepard and find a way to stop all this shenanigans once and for all.

The obvious -- and I mean blindingly obvious -- problem with this argument is that the Reapers encourage lots of mass relay travel before they put a stop to it. This is more stupid than what we got.

As for liking the option of finding a "less radical solution," yeah, Bio's played cheap cop-outs like that before. You can make a respectable case that ME games -- Bio games generally, really -- have always been about avoiding dilemmas rather than facing them, and the ending should have followed suit.

In the typical Bio resolution, the "risky" choice always plays out pretty successfully. Sounds like you had something similar in mind, since apparently you intend that the final choice of the DE plot would be a fake choice, with preserving humanity being obviously correct in retrospect since ME4 would be winnable. Or am I misreading this? I can envision a pretty cool version of ME4 where it turns out that the universe would have been better off without humanity, but I can't imagine Bio going there.

As for videos: pass. If someone's got an argument to make here, he can make it himself. And videos are a terribly inefficient way to make arguments anyway.

[Zinho73]

The obvious -- and I mean blindingly obvious -- problem with this argument is that the Reapers encourage lots of mass relay travel before they put a stop to it. This is more stupid than what we got.

As for liking the option of finding a "less radical solution," yeah, Bio's played cheap cop-outs like that before. You can make a respectable case that ME games -- Bio games generally, really -- have always been about avoiding dilemmas rather than facing them, and the ending should have followed suit.

In the typical Bio resolution, the "risky" choice always plays out pretty successfully. Sounds like you had something similar in mind, since apparently you intend that the final choice of the DE plot would be a fake choice, with preserving humanity being obviously correct in retrospect since ME4 would be winnable. Or am I misreading this? I can envision a pretty cool version of ME4 where it turns out that the universe would have been better off without humanity, but I can't imagine Bio going there.

As for videos: pass. If someone's got an argument to make here, he can make it himself. And videos are a terribly inefficient way to make arguments anyway.

OK. The videos are very good, though.

 

And just for clarification: the argument is the paragraph above the text you quote (I think it was blatantly obvious, but we never know).

 

What you quote is some musings on possible templates (that would need a lot of work around them - you can't possibly expect that I will formulate a solution for the endings in a paragraph, in a thread about Dragon Age, I am trying to keep it short), please see my answer to Kaisershep.

[Han Shot First]

I think the Mass Effect series had a clear identity.  They had a solid Protag and didn't stray from their own lore.  The ending to ME3 sucked but that's the only major negative I can think of.  Although people did complain about how there was too much auto dialogue.

 

DA on the other hand is just all over the place.  The lore is changeable, the design of certain locations is changeable,  Qunari look different from DAO then DA2 now DAI.  Elves look different from across the three games, too.  They just can't decide what the heck they want of out this franchise.

 

In Mass Effect, the Asari looked the same, the Krogan, Turians et al.  So I can't blame all of BioWare. Just the Dragon Age team.

 

While I agree with your post for the most part, I think the Mass Effect team had a couple instances where they threw the baby out with the bath water in response to criticism as well. The disappearance of the Mako (at least until ME: Next) is probably the biggest example. Jacob being a very unpopular character overall from ME2 also seems to have resulted in his entire romance arc being scrapped rather continued in ME3.

[Morroian]

Putting aside another fabled assertation, that EA is responsible for everything even if in this case there is really no evidence for it, this is not true. 

 

If you read his his reasons for leaving its quite clear that it was about the compromises with EA now funding them.

 

 

But this would first require to agree that all the design choices after him leaving are poor, which we do not. DA2 had, for me, the best combat system in DA games so far and an excellent character build system which far superior to DAO. It also had great companions and awesome antagonists with a completely new attempt at approval and interaction. All of these things happened after the vaunted artistic vision of Knowles left the project.

 

I actually agree about the combat system and abilities but both of them are iterations on the DAO combat and ability systems, not wholesale changes like DAI, changes for the worse. 

[AlanC9]

OK. The videos are very good, though.
And just for clarification: the argument is the paragraph above the text you quote (I think it was blatantly obvious, but we never know).

I didn't quote that paragraph because it didn't actually advance an argument. It was wishful thinking masquerading as an argument. One might as well say that the existing ending would have been better if it had been executed better than the existing ending was actually executed. Unless the point was that dark energy was a part of the setting and a standard SF element, while organic-synthetic conflict was not? Such an argument would be formally correct, but it would also be flat-out wrong.

Your evil angry aliens idea doesn't work well either, unless the Reapers are too stupid to manage their hunting preserve effectively. However, I've seen far worse here. If the Reapers just find war fun it gets around a lot of the problems ME1 caused. It's not much of a resolution to the mystery ME1 teased, and isn't coherent with Harbinger's dialogue in ME2, so I presume this is a suggestion for an alternate ME1. In that case, we can also presume changes to ME1 and ME2 to make it work.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I despise the cross class combo system

I preferred the spells combos from DAO, but I don't see why we couldn't have both.

[Sylvius the Mad]

If you were actually around leading up to the release to DA:O you would recall the series of explosive and highly critical posts accusing DA:O of amount to a betrayal of everything that made BG2 good:

1) Regenerating health/mana rather Vancian casting, which both dumbs down combat and removes any strategic choice.
2) MMO-like ability on level up rather than D&D style (largely) set ability scores.
3) Cooldown that allow for ability spam instead of tactical per/ecounter or per/day type abilities (cf. POE).

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I personally complained about all of those things.

I still think cooldowns are stupid.

[AlanC9]

I'd add MMO-style Threat management to that list, although I'm not sure that aspect of the design was well-understood prior to release. I certainly didn't know about it prior to playing, where it appalled me. Though I learned to tolerate it, obviously.

[In Exile]

I personally complained about all of those things.

I still think cooldowns are stupid.

 

I don't think you were wrong to complain. I just like reminding people that DA:O wasn't received the way they think it was received. 

 

I prefer cooldowns to Vancian style per rest abilities, but I found the ways that POE handled per-encounter abilities interesting. More than that, I thought their approach to wizard-leveling was a very novel way to deal with Vancian casting. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

I don't think you were wrong to complain.

I didn't think you did. I was presenting myself as an illustrative example to support your point.

[In Exile]

I didn't think you did. I was presenting myself as an illustrative example to support your point.

 

Thank you. If you had the chance to play POE, by way of aside, send me a PM. I'm curious on your thoughts. 

[Innsmouth Dweller]

DA:O was so mechanically different from BG2 that the comparison is silly. DA:O was intending to have a similar feel to BG, just like ME tried to have a similar feel to KoTOR. Both are "spiritual successor" games. Bioware looked to a lot of sources in creating the combat system. If you were actually around leading up to the release to DA:O you would recall the series of explosive and highly critical posts accusing DA:O of amount to a betrayal of everything that made BG2 good: 

 

1) Regenerating health/mana rather Vancian casting, which both dumbs down combat and removes any strategic choice.

2) MMO-like ability on level up rather than D&D style (largely) set ability scores. 

3) Cooldown that allow for ability spam instead of tactical per/ecounter or per/day type abilities (cf. POE). 

 

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. 

 

There were a lot of very clever and very good changes on the mechanics side from DA:O to DA2. People obsess over the poor encounter design in DA2 (waves!) or the artstyle (hot rod samurai!) without every looking at the mechanical innovations over DA:O. Everything from the abilities, to the trees, to the unique type of spells and CC (e.g. force mage), to the cross-class-combo system, was quite mechanically clever. There were issues, which makes sense since we got DA2: the Alpha Release instead of a proper game, but it just frustrates me to see a lot of clever design fall by the wayside and not get a fair shake. 

agreed, DAO has MMO-like combat mechanics; trinity, cooldowns, mana/health regen. agreed, comparing DAO to BG is silly. agreed, combat-wise, DA2 reminds me WoW even more than DAO (skill trees, crowd control, waves of trash, even Cory fight design). it's not a bad thing, mind you, just... unexpected - they decided to go further into MMOs.

i like DA2's force mage spec very much, even if it reminds me adept from ME (a cinematic experience with autoaiming which i cannot call a "game"). attribute/talent tests don't exist in DA2 anymore, the only variable is dialogue wheel choice (with class-test option once in a while)

 

DAI expands on this, adding more action-y combat, more passive abilities, and almost completely removing any choice from side-quests, aside from binary one - accept quest or not. it even introduces grinding, for the very first time in DA history it's intrusive (RNG schematics, materials, and reputation-like: power). if that's not a MMO gameplay, i must have been playing different World of Warcraft.

dialogue wheel is used almost exclusively in main plot missions, and because it exists, it reminds me SWtOR more than WoW. no, wait... in swtor there was actually a role-playable dialogue in area missions.

DAI has not only MMO combat mechanics, granted - it's more developed than the DAO one, but also a MMO gameplay

 

people can get used to slightly different combat mechanics. unless they're grognards, they won't even notice. gameplay and general feel of the game is a different story. it should aim to give best cRPG experience ever, interactive world, unlimited exploration - be it terrain or quest outcomes; not aim for the static open world from online rpgs

[Sylvius the Mad]

unless they're grognards, they won't even notice.

You've just managed to reduce my opinion of anyone who isn't a grognard.

[In Exile]

I'm not sure how one doesn't notice gameplay changes. That's worrying. Not minding them is different.