13 réponses à ce sujet

[Rolhir]

I just finished another playthrough of ME2, and I finally realized something that had been bugging me about DAI: the companion quests kinda suck. ME2's companion quests, both to acquire them and for the loyalty missions, were full of dialogue and character interaction. In fact, all the Mass Effect games had excellent quests involving companions. DAII had some pretty good ones too. DAI just doesn't. None of the quests really had a problem in concept, but they all basically resulted in "kill a couple guys, maybe a single tough mob, and make a choice regarding your companion." That's exactly the same formula that ME2 used, but ME2 added dialogue, cutscenes, and character development in there. DAI's companion quests just felt short and bland. The sad part is that I love all the characters from DAI; they've even got good ideas for their sidequests. The delivery just wasn't nearly as good as it could have been.

 

Am I crazy?

[vbibbi]

It's tough for the developers, I think, because they have to walk fine lines when designing the game. Fans want heavy companion presence and interaction? OK. Fans want to have the choice whether or not to recruit companions? OK. So this puts them in the position where they can't make most companions integral to the story or to other characters' quests, as they might not have been recruited. I think that's why Sera only pranks the advisors, as they are always present in the game, and Cole's quest involves two of the three permanent companions. It really limits what the devs can put resources into reliably. Companions have to be optional content.

 

That said, I agree that the companion quests could have been more involved. I would even be fine with keeping the fetch/kill quests as a method to gain approval before the actual companion quests. ME2 is the best example of quests, but the "plot" of that game really was about recruiting people for the suicide mission, so that makes sense.

 

What would have been cool is if there were stages to the companion quests like DA2. Have an initial quest for everyone prior to Skyhold, have a follow up one after reaching Skyhold or after WEWH or HLTA, and have the final one before or after the Arbor Wilds.

[Excella Gionne]

ME2 felt like you were babysitting all of your companions. Miranda or Jack gets mad at you should you support either of 'em after completing both of their loyalty missions. I call B.S. on that! 

 

Inquisition doesn't rely on just personal quests for more squad interaction. Party banters add to this effect and it feels more natural this way. You could even put Bull and Dorian in a romance, and reveal that Blackwall has a crush on Josephine through party banters by roaming around. ME2 relied on missions for party banter, and sometimes particular squadmates are favored thus preventing another possible dialogue. Inquisition introduces more character development than ME2, due to the approval system(where squad mates don't 100% agree or are OHKAY with a bad decision like in ME). Honestly, I didn't even know of squad mates's relationship with other squad mates in ME2 unless it was shown. Most felt disconnected from one another. At least in DA:I, we knew how others felt about others in the Inquisition.

[Andromelek]

I'd rather pick ME2 as sample to follow on the matter of tactics, the people you assign for every task and the upgrades you bought have a consequence in the outcome of the Suicide Mission.

The only interesting thing on companions that ME have and DA doesn't is Tali, but I doubt they could do something since no specie on DAverse endangers its health for a romance.

[Excella Gionne]

I'd rather pick ME2 as sample to follow on the matter of tactics, the people you assign for every task and the upgrades you bought have a consequence in the outcome of the Suicide Mission.

ME2's mistake was having the possibility to kill off a lot of new characters. By doing this, you limit the amount of characters that can appear in the next game. ME3 is pretty empty without the existing cast of ME2. 

 

The amount of people "ideal" for a task was limited to a handful of people only. Zaeed and Grunt weren't ideal for any tasks. There weren't that many tasks to hand out to actually make 12 squadmates necessary other than to actually get everyone to live in the end provided you didn't take the strongest squadmates with you to the final fight. DA:I did it right by not killing off squadmates in the main game. This allows for those characters to have a chance of appearing in future games regardless if they were recruited, recruited but left, or weren't recruited. 

[Andromelek]

ME2's mistake was having the possibility to kill off a lot of new characters. By doing this, you limit the amount of characters that can appear in the next game. ME3 is pretty empty without the existing cast of ME2. 
 
The amount of people "ideal" for a task was limited to a handful of people only. Zaeed and Grunt weren't ideal for any tasks. There weren't that many tasks to hand out to actually make 12 squadmates necessary other than to actually get everyone to live in the end provided you didn't take the strongest squadmates with you to the final fight. DA:I did it right by not killing off squadmates in the main game. This allows for those characters to have a chance of appearing in future games regardless if they were recruited, recruited but left, or weren't recruited.

True, but I didn't mean have the possibility of kill everyone in sight, only have actual influence on the battles, I mean, there were two onslaughts in DAI and on both I felt more as a supersoldier than as an actual military leader.

[nightscrawl]

I liked the quests that didn't involve combat at all and were strictly about companion development, particularly Dorian and Cole's quests. Dorian's didn't even involve making a choice, rather it was all about how the Inquisitor reacted to it and in Dorian's response to that. He got to see someone stick up for him to his father's face; how amazing is that? He needed a friend that will accept him for himself, and now he understands that he has one. So regardless of whether you romance him or not, I think he's at a better place emotionally if you end that quest on a high note.

[Excella Gionne]

 "kill a couple guys, maybe a single tough mob, and make a choice 

You say that as if none of the ME2 personal quests didn't involve any of that. Zaeed, Kasumi, Garrus, Grunt, Jack, Miranda, Legion, Tali, Mordin, and Jacob's L.M. had you fight enemies and sometimes mobs. Zaeed, Kasumi, Garrus, Legion, Tali, Mordin, Jacob, and Samara's L.M. had you make decisions that personally impact them. And lastly, Zaeed, Kasumi, Garrus, Legion, Jacob, Tali, and Mordin's L.M. consisted of everything you stated. It is clear that ME2 is more guilty of this than DA:I. 

[NeverlandHunter]

I liked the companion quests. They weren't where I would consider Inquisition "missed the mark".

[Rolhir]

You say that as if none of the ME2 personal quests didn't involve any of that.

 

Literally the very next thing I said was that ME2 had the same formula. I'm saying the formula isn't the problem; the delivery was the issue.

 

I liked the quests that didn't involve combat at all and were strictly about companion development, particularly Dorian and Cole's quests.

 

I liked them as well! Lack of combat or even decisions don't make it bad at all. However, that was the only quest they had. Outside of banter (which has been horribly bugged from day 1; I've had to go to youtube to hear 80% of it), this is where they get a lot of their character development. The problem is that it's a very short quest that didn't have nearly as large of an impact (for lack of a better word) as other Bioware games. You help Alistair reconnect with his sister, have it go not as planned, and help him emotionally deal with it. You help Aveline catch corruption in the guard, help her with bandit raids, and help her with a hilariously awkward courtship. You help Vivienne....fail to save her lover we didn't even know she cared about. That wouldn't be a problem, except it's never talked about ever again. All of the companion quests are over quickly and never really discussed before/after. They're just not as fleshed out as other Bioware titles.

[Panda]

ME2 felt like you were babysitting all of your companions. Miranda or Jack gets mad at you should you support either of 'em after completing both of their loyalty missions. I call B.S. on that! 

 

Inquisition doesn't rely on just personal quests for more squad interaction. Party banters add to this effect and it feels more natural this way. You could even put Bull and Dorian in a romance, and reveal that Blackwall has a crush on Josephine through party banters by roaming around. ME2 relied on missions for party banter, and sometimes particular squadmates are favored thus preventing another possible dialogue. Inquisition introduces more character development than ME2, due to the approval system(where squad mates don't 100% agree or are OHKAY with a bad decision like in ME). Honestly, I didn't even know of squad mates's relationship with other squad mates in ME2 unless it was shown. Most felt disconnected from one another. At least in DA:I, we knew how others felt about others in the Inquisition.

 

And then if you have party banter bug like I do, I get like 10 banters in one playthrough, DAI companions fell bit flat and disconnected from each other : /

[BansheeOwnage]

ME2's mistake was having the possibility to kill off a lot of new characters. By doing this, you limit the amount of characters that can appear in the next game. ME3 is pretty empty without the existing cast of ME2.

Yeah. The Suicide Mission remains one of my favourite parts of any game, and it was really well done, but Bioware kind of screwed themselves over a bit with the option of almost everyone dying. That should have happened in the third game.

[Dean_the_Young]

I just finished another playthrough of ME2, and I finally realized something that had been bugging me about DAI: the companion quests kinda suck. ME2's companion quests, both to acquire them and for the loyalty missions, were full of dialogue and character interaction. In fact, all the Mass Effect games had excellent quests involving companions. DAII had some pretty good ones too. DAI just doesn't. None of the quests really had a problem in concept, but they all basically resulted in "kill a couple guys, maybe a single tough mob, and make a choice regarding your companion." That's exactly the same formula that ME2 used, but ME2 added dialogue, cutscenes, and character development in there. DAI's companion quests just felt short and bland. The sad part is that I love all the characters from DAI; they've even got good ideas for their sidequests. The delivery just wasn't nearly as good as it could have been.

 

Am I crazy?

 

ME2? Character interaction?

 

You sure we played the same game? ME2 had the least charcter interaction of any game since Jade Empire, and that was because Jade Empire only had one character in the field at the time. Nearly all character interaction in ME2 was solely between Shepard and the Companion- inter-companion dialogue pretty much amounted to stock dialogue insertions that didn't change between companions. Character interaction was practically absent in recruitment and loyalty missions- and on the ship. In fact, the two characters who get the most inter-companion commentary are Jacob (official welcome-aboard greeter) and Mordin (who comments on LI's).

 

Nor did ME2 do much character development in terms of having character arcs. Character exposition, sure- but if you weren't in a romance arc, the loyalty missions were mostly about expressing the characters as they were, not them going through a character change over the course of the story. Which isn't really surprising, mind you- since most of ME2's characters only had a single mission and three-four dialogue sequences to get all their character plots done in. Take Thane- Thane doesn't even appear until late in his own recruitment mission, and so gets one mission and the ship-converations to do... well, everything.

 

It's also kind of hard to say that DAI didn't have dialogue, cutscenes, and character development when, well, they did- and not only did they have cutscenes in their missions, but they frequently had them afterwards. Sera has her 'murder the noble' mission- and then pranks. Vivienne has Bastion... then Bastion's relatives. Cassandra has the 'find the Seekers' mission... and then reflections on whether to reform the seekers or not. Cole has the confrontation of his murderer... and then the spirit or human routes. Etc.

 

 

It's perfectly fine to feel DAI wasn't enjoyable. But mechanically, it wasn't lacking  in the means to develop the characters.

[maia0407]

The only interesting thing on companions that ME have and DA doesn't is Tali, but I doubt they could do something since no specie on DAverse endangers its health for a romance.

That does it! We need a darkspawn romance, now!

 

ETA:

Darkspawn: I love you, protagonist! Will you be my ghoul for eternity?

Protagonist: *tears up* Yes, darkspawn, you handsome devil you! I will be your ghoul!