41 réponses à ce sujet

[MisterJB]

 

If you are like me, the biggest problem you had with DAI was the MMO tone of its areas.

They were bigger than anything in the previous' titles but they felt empty. There were no NPCs to interact with, no worthwhile sidequests (it is telling that the majority of sidequests are given by finding notes and require no contact with any NPC), etc.

Certainly, you could go anywhere but why would you? Nothing was happening anywhere.

The same applied to Jaws of Hakkon even if they had improved the quality of the sidequests.

 

Descent, on the other hand, still has large areas to explore with cool sigths but it is, at its heart, a corridor. But is a corridor just like Virmire and the Dead Trenches were corridors.

It is much more like the areas of DAO (only larger) than those of DAI. This allowed for a tighter story, scriped events and cutscenes.

 

That is not to say I thought "Descent" was great. It is no "Legacy", it lacks choices, interaction with the Inner Circle and it answered little to no questions.

But after places like the Emerald Graves and the Exalted Plains where meaningful interaction related to the history of that place (human vs elf conflict) was a grand total of zero, "Descent" is a breath of fresh air.

 

Hopefully, future DLC and games will follow its example with the necessary improvements, of course.

[Hudathan]

I had fun.

[Apollexander]

It's just a dungeon crawl campaign. I prefer riding in the sunshine of Frostback Basin to jumping up and down in the deep roads.

[KonguZya]

I agree. I greatly appreciate the return of cutscenes and story content, it's what I enjoy most about Bioware games. I hope this means that they've learned their lesson from DAI.

[Eudaemonium]

But after places like the Emerald Graves and the Exalted Plains where meaningful interaction related to the history of that place (human vs elf conflict) was a grand total of zero, "Descent" is a breath of fresh air.

 

 

The horrific paucity of both these areas has so much to do with how underwhelming the entire civil war arc was. At least EG was really pretty.

[Uccio]

As long as it has respawning mooks it sucks. I hate them!

Well, hate might be bit strogn word. I strongly dislike them!

[Korva]

It's not my "biggest problem" by any means (off the top of my head, I can think of about half a dozen more glaring ones), but after the initial enjoyment of the (illusion of) greater freedom of movement had worn off, I too was less than impressed with the wannabe-but-totally-missing-the-point MMO-style pseudo "open world" zones. There are games that benefit from more being more open, and there are games which benefit from a tighter focus, and this kind of RPG is definitely among the latter. Distinct arcs for each area, woven into the main plot and ideally with a personal stake for my character are my preference by far.

[CrybabyXD]

I liked it just wish it had choices to make.

[MisterJB]

 

Could have done without the respawning mooks in the "Clear the Nest section" myself.

What is the problem with having a certain number of Darkspawn plus the Alphas? Why couldn't we just kill them all and then focus on the Alpha?

The Dead Trenches did it and it was great.

[ChoiceSpirit]

I totally agree, I never thought I would miss corridors...and enjoy donjon crawling. While I really enjoyed Inquisition, it felt like it missed something (and I'm glad I played it before Origins and DA II). With The Descent, even if it's not perfect, we're more close to Origins with all the cutscences and the way the story is told ; now we just need more choices to make (and more companion stuff ) and I would be really happy.

[MisterJB]

The horrific paucity of both these areas has so much to do with how underwhelming the entire civil war arc was. At least EG was really pretty.

Indeed. We had a cvil war which was set up by a book and it focused immensely on the tensions between humans and elves. We had two areas, one which was the last elvhen kingdom and one in which the final battle of the Exalted March took place. We had Eluvians which directly linked to Corypheus' main plan and the issue of heritage.

Everything set up for a melancholic story arc which focused heavily on past wrongs, present sufferings, lost history and heritage, etc.

And then the civil war is one mission, both areas have zero history to them and the Eluvians are never mentioned beyond one singular letter.

 

Boooo!

[Korva]

(I had hopes that the Freemen would provide a little more depth instead being a bogeyman for both sides, but that hope was squashed by making them the most murderous of the factions and open pawns of the enemy. Meh. The Exalted Plains are so horrible that I felt like filth for being expected to support any noble who had a hand in creating that hellhole of suffering for the common people. But that is never addressed.)

[wright1978]

If you are like me, the biggest problem you had with DAI was the MMO tone of its areas.
They were bigger than anything in the previous' titles but they felt empty. There were no NPCs to interact with, no worthwhile sidequests (it is telling that the majority of sidequests are given by finding notes and require no contact with any NPC), etc.
Certainly, you could go anywhere but why would you? Nothing was happening anywhere.
The same applied to Jaws of Hakkon even if they had improved the quality of the sidequests.
 
Descent, on the other hand, still has large areas to explore with cool sigths but it is, at its heart, a corridor. But is a corridor just like Mindoir and the Dead Trenches were corridors.
It is much more like the areas of DAO (only larger) than those of DAI. This allowed for a tighter story, scriped events and cutscenes.
 
That is not to say I thought "Descent" was great. It is no "Legacy", it lacks choices, interaction with the Inner Circle and it answered little to no questions.
But after places like the Emerald Graves and the Exalted Plains where meaningful interaction related to the history of that place (human vs elf conflict) was a grand total of zero, "Descent" is a breath of fresh air.
 
Hopefully, future DLC and games will follow its example with the necessary improvements, of course.

Shame to hear it lacks choices. Otherwise sounds much more up my street. I am attempting to play the game again, if I find myself able to endure it I may give benefit of doubt and purchase it.

[BansheeOwnage]

 

 

Could have done without the respawning mooks in the "Clear the Nest section" myself.

What is the problem with having a certain number of Darkspawn plus the Alphas? Why couldn't we just kill them all and then focus on the Alpha?

The Dead Trenches did it and it was great.

 

I agree. Especially considering the first time I tried to clear it I killed dozens of darkspawn (on nightmare, so it took a long time) before realizing one of the 2 ogres fell beneath the floor and I had to restart the entire assault. Fun times Even if there were still quite a lot of them, but not infinite, it would have been okay.

The awesome music really did help though

[BansheeOwnage]

Shame to hear it lacks choices. Otherwise sounds much more up my street.

Me too. Especially at the end. I feel like you should have at least had some small amount of control over the things that happened there. Killed my roleplaying.

[PnXMarcin1PL]

I've read lots of positive opinions about the DLC so purchased it instantly. Now waiting for 1am to be able to download it on night data limit

[MisterJB]

I agree. Especially considering the first time I tried to clear it I killed dozens of darkspawn (on nightmare, so it took a long time)

What was up with the health of the Darkspawn and GroundShakers?

I had to change the setting to casual several times (not because I was having trouble. My Sword and Shield Champion with Platemail of the Dragon Hunter was all but indestructible) but because it would take nearly an hour to kill some enemies. I remember fighting the Ogre Alpha and thinking maybe he was invulnerable at some points because, not matter how I hit him, his health wouldn't budge.

[Jaison1986]

 

What was up with the health of the Darkspawn and GroundShakers?

I had to change the setting to casual several times (not because I was having trouble. My Sword and Shield Champion with Platemail of the Dragon Hunter was all but indestructible) but because it would take nearly an hour to kill some enemies. I remember fighting the Ogre Alpha and thinking maybe he was invulnerable at some points because, not matter how I hit him, his health wouldn't budge.

 

Well, champion has much better sinergy with two handed. I builded Blackwall with that setup and he is the perfect combination of tank and DPS.

[MisterJB]

 

Thanks, will have to try that build.

[Nixou]

There are games that benefit from more being more open, and there are games which benefit from a tighter focus, and this kind of RPG is definitely among the latter

 

 

Xenoblade mixed its open world level-design and linear plot very-well.

(Then again, Xenoblade got a lot of flak for having a rather high ratio of fetch quests compared to the rarer quests with interesting stories, still, it provided both a large playground and a focused story)

[katerinafm]

I agree. It's certainly a step in the right direction. The map wasn't overwhelming and the amount of cutscenes should have been the norm for the base game as well. If the next dlc is like the Descent but with a ton of added companion interaction then we're back on track.

[Eudaemonium]

 

Indeed. We had a civil war which was set up by a book and it focused immensely on the tensions between humans and elves. We had two areas, one which was the last elvhen kingdom and one in which the final battle of the Exalted March took place. We had Eluvians which directly linked to Corypheus' main plan and the issue of heritage.

Everything set up for a melancholic story arc which focused heavily on past wrongs, present sufferings, lost history and heritage, etc.

And then the civil war is one mission, both areas have zero history to them and the Eluvians are never mentioned beyond one singular letter.

 

Boooo!

 

So much of DA:I is handled really poorly. I mean you only have to go to 3 of the 10 open areas in the game (Hinterlands, Crestwood, Western Approach) at all. Hinterlands is saved somewhat by being tied to the Mage/Templar Conflict, and if you side with the Mages then you do the whole Redcliffe arc there. Crestwood has some cool environmental design, but is narratively pretty boring. Western Approach builds up for Here Lies the Abyss a bit. Even with these, though, they're pretty sparse, and the other 7 open areas are lacklustre, even Emprise, which is probably my favourite of the bonus areas. JoH had much better use of environmental storytelling and narrative focus. I just hope that if they stick with the open-world path in future games they draw on that and actually make the different zones matter in themselves.

 

The Freemen were really dumb. They basically existed solely so we had some people to fight who weren't on either side of the people we might side with. It was a Civil War in which neither side was apparently fighting at all.

[Knight of Dane]

It's clear Bioware has to find its balance between these different level design types. I enjoyed Descent much, much more than JoH. If they had just had proper companion interaction I would have actually loved it. Maybe.

[BansheeOwnage]

 

What was up with the health of the Darkspawn and GroundShakers?

I had to change the setting to casual several times (not because I was having trouble. My Sword and Shield Champion with Platemail of the Dragon Hunter was all but indestructible) but because it would take nearly an hour to kill some enemies. I remember fighting the Ogre Alpha and thinking maybe he was invulnerable at some points because, not matter how I hit him, his health wouldn't budge.

I have no idea why they're so tough The first ogre you fight at the beginning didn't even damage me that I noticed. I thought it might have even been programmed to only attack Valta, like a tutorial. But you don't make tutorials with 100000+ health. I just attacked it for minutes on end, without any worry of being defeated. Tedious and not at all adrenaline-pumping. That was basically the experience I had with every Earthshaker, even though they actually attack you. I even had a ridiculously good staff that I sort of cheated to get, but not really. I just saved money and got a high-level schematic from the BE really early. Even with that, the enemies were way too tough to be fun.