159 réponses à ce sujet

[Gothfather]

I'm sorry, but I'm assuming people generally find Inquisition mediocre lol, but for the sake of the argument I hope you can go with it.

 

Imagine ME:A uses DA:I's systems except the combat, no war-map and all the obvious things that belong to Dragon Age that won't be in Mass Effect. Just imagine ME:A is something that has the same side-quest system, the same open-world structure and same companion/dialogue systems as DA:I as an outset to its development.

 

If that was true, what would need to be improved or changed to make it the game you want?

 

OMFG.

 

So you think that a game that was voted Game of the year multiple times, received multiple gamers choice awards and was the fastest selling game in bioware history should be generally considered mediocre?

 

What the frak is wrong with gamers? Do gamers generally speaking lack critical thinking skills? Do people honestly think that just because THEY don't SUBJECTIVELY like a game that it is at best mediocre even if the games sold millions of copies and won multiple awards from consumers and the industry at large? What is it impossible for gamers to grasp the concept that quality isn't a causal relationship to their subjective tastes?

 

Seriously the internet did us no favour giving everyone a voice.

[Shechinah]

I would like to see something like the Dragon Age Inquisition dialogue wheel system since it further developed and refined the dialogue system of the previous installments. It tended to provide a good number of options with different tones that were each clearly marked by an icon to limit confusion and it also kept the investigation category so questions were clearly marked as such but the latter is in Mass Effect 3, I think, so that is hopefully kept. 

 

Paraphrasing is still a bit of an issue in Dragon Age: Inquisition but slightly less I feel than previously so it is making progress and I'd like to see that progress considered in Mass Effect: Andromeda.  

 

I know there are people who do not play both franchises so for those curious about the Dragon Age: Inquisition dialogue wheel system, here's a link: http://dragonage.wik...el_(Inquisition)

[Midnight Bliss]

OMFG.

 

So you think that a game that was voted Game of the year multiple times, received multiple gamers choice awards and was the fastest selling game in bioware history should be generally considered mediocre?

 

What the frak is wrong with gamers? Do gamers generally speaking lack critical thinking skills? Do people honestly think that just because THEY don't SUBJECTIVELY like a game that it is at best mediocre even if the games sold millions of copies and won multiple awards from consumers and the industry at large? What is it impossible for gamers to grasp the concept that quality isn't a causal relationship to their subjective tastes?

 

Seriously the internet did us no favour giving everyone a voice.

Game of the year, gamers choice awards and game reviews by sites like IGN means absolutely nothing because all of those are corrupt and have been for years. DAI scoring high on those doesn't mean anything, because triple A games always score high on stuff like that regardless of how good they are.

 

I don't know if I'd call DAI mediocre, probably not, but it had extremely big problems and was a giant step backward in alot of ways, and frankly didn't deserve the mountain of accolades you mentioned.

 

There's a reason why any time the question "How much DAI stuff do you want in MEA?" The response is typically a collective "the less similar they are, the better" And it isn't contrarianism.

[ArcadiaGrey]

OMFG.

 

So you think that a game that was voted Game of the year multiple times, received multiple gamers choice awards and was the fastest selling game in bioware history should be generally considered mediocre?

 

What the frak is wrong with gamers? Do gamers generally speaking lack critical thinking skills? Do people honestly think that just because THEY don't SUBJECTIVELY like a game that it is at best mediocre even if the games sold millions of copies and won multiple awards from consumers and the industry at large? What is it impossible for gamers to grasp the concept that quality isn't a causal relationship to their subjective tastes?

 

Seriously the internet did us no favour giving everyone a voice.

 

Yup, I thought the topic was actually a good one though.  What could they learn from DA:I, and what elements will they perhaps use again in Andromeda?  I'd like to discuss that, but instead you get a bunch of butthurt Mass Effect fans who take it as a chance to ****** about Dragon Age.    No doubt BioWare have learnt many hard lessons from DA:I, but also seen it's great successes (of which there are many) and will hopefully use elements from them.  

 

But whatever.  If you don't like it, fine.  No doubt there are plenty of threads about that where you can go and complain, but THIS one should have been an interesting discussion about the possible cross overs between the two.

 

Oh well, not on the Andromeda forum apparently.  Let's just whine about DA instead.   *shrug*

[Elhanan]

Game of the year, gamers choice awards and game reviews by sites like IGN means absolutely nothing because all of those are corrupt and have been for years. DAI scoring high on those doesn't mean anything, because triple A games always score high on stuff like that regardless of how good they are.
 
I don't know if I'd call DAI mediocre, probably not, but it was had extremely big problems and was a giant step backward in alot of ways, and frankly didn't deserve the mountain of accolades you mentioned.
 
There's a reason why any time the question "How much DAI stuff do you want in MEA?" The response is typically a collective "the less similar they are, the better" And it isn't contrarianism.

And yet the corrupt industry gave DAI the 2014 GOTY Award over all others. Hard to shrug that off due to corporate bias....

[Gileadan]

I don't know... they will hopefully be rather different games. The thing ME:A can take from DA:I are the well written and voice acted cast of companions and the beautiful landscapes in my opinion. And that's about it.

[Laughing_Man]

And yet the corrupt industry gave DAI the 2014 GOTY Award over all others. Hard to shrug that off due to corporate bias....

 

Yeah, because 2014 was such a great year for gaming... Wining by default is not a great achievement.

[Helios969]

Pretty much agree with all of these points, especially Corypheus. The villain in Inquisition just wasn't that threatening.

I thought it started well enough but was downhill thereafter culminating in a weak and uninspired boss battle in which most of your companions do not participate.

 

No, I hope they take little inspiration from Inquisition.  I would call it a good game with many flaws...and one that's lost it's replayability for me...a rare occurrence among Bioware productions.

[Midnight Bliss]

And yet the corrupt industry gave DAI the 2014 GOTY Award over all others. Hard to shrug that off due to corporate bias....

Tzeentchian already nailed it.

 

Although I will add that I never said it didn't deserve anything, I said it didn't deserve that laundry list the other person mentioned.

[Linkenski]

OMFG.

 

So you think that a game that was voted Game of the year multiple times, received multiple gamers choice awards and was the fastest selling game in bioware history should be generally considered mediocre?

 

What the frak is wrong with gamers? Do gamers generally speaking lack critical thinking skills? Do people honestly think that just because THEY don't SUBJECTIVELY like a game that it is at best mediocre even if the games sold millions of copies and won multiple awards from consumers and the industry at large? What is it impossible for gamers to grasp the concept that quality isn't a causal relationship to their subjective tastes?

 

Seriously the internet did us no favour giving everyone a voice.

Voted game of the year in 2014, where outside of Nintendo almost everything was completely unremarkable and the only other highly anticipated release was Destiny and a bunch of sequels or iterations of tired franchises like Assassin's Creed or CoD. I hate when people bring up the GOTY DA:I won. They were lucky and they knew it.

 

I don't think sales factor into game quality one ****** bit. Destiny sold millions and millions at first. Many quit it or felt disappointed, myself included and it was widely panned for having a short-ass campaign with a jumbled mess of a story and really barebones endgame content at launch and it's still sort of controversial for how slowly it's spread out the DLC content.

 

Again, DA:I is not bad, but it's definitely not great either and most people I've talked to agree. And besides, at what point did I ever say that it's an objective fact? I can say "it's a bad game" but it shouldn't take people much to figure that it's simply my opinion.

 

As for IGN and the people who gave DA:I great scores. I have no problem with that and I don't think those sites are super "corrupt". It's true, they are funded by ads and partnerships with big game publishers to keep their site up as well as getting review-copies and being sent to review/preview events (out of business and good rep) and that in itself does mean someone will maybe be fired if they give a highly anticipated game from a partner a 3/10 for example, so therefore we do see phoned-in review scores sometimes but I don't think EA ever approached them and said "Here's 2 grand for everyone the staff if you give us more than 8/10! hehehehe!". It's an internal thing at those companies. We just heard recently how Bethesda blacklisted Kotaku.

 

As for the Game of The Year... or, "The Game Awards" as it was called, the procedure was unique and I think looking at some winners of 2015 should even give you an impression of how weird their system is. Splatoon won best multiplayer next to Battlefront, Halo 5, CoD etc. and I love Splatoon more than either, but I don't think you can attribute ANY objectivity to that outcome. Heck, Witcher 3 lost "Best story" to Her Story and even CDPR's CEO was visibly frustrated with it. Those scores have no objectivity. It's literally just a host of invited guests who becomes jurys gathered at a roundtable and going "I liked X better than Y because that's my opinion" and the consensus wins. It's more luck-based than based on facts or objective criticisms.

 

...but the real problem I have with IGN is neither. It's that they have a staff, mostly consiting of doofuses who can't remember if Protheans were from Mass Effect or from Halo, and people who come into these games playing them until their review-deadline is up to their neck and scribble out a review like I would write a written assignment in high-school at the 11th hour before I had to deliver it, and really, some reviewers don't even seem to give a ****, they're just reviewing yet another game for the sake of getting their monthly salary and they miss out a lot of potential flaws and other times potential qualities and don't adequately score the game accordingly. As far as I saw, reviews for DA:I were mostly well-rounded though and IGN actually criticised it for having a mediocre plot, as did several other outlets which is an embarrassment to Bioware who has a public image of "The Kings of Storytellers in Gaming".

 

But I digress. I simply think any counterargument about how DA:I got Game Of The Year or how it sold well is a logical fallacy when it comes to determining whether it was a good game or not.

[Addictress]

Have yet to do Tresspasser, so can't say about it yet I guess.

But anyway it's not so much about the content of the speeches themselves I am talking about the emotion/investment of the character.
Inquisitor's speech has absolutely 0 emotion. My problem is that the Inquisitor is always uninsterested.

Perhaps the speeches in particular was a poor example as I can see how some will find the "epic inspiring speeches" cringy, but that was besides the point I mean in general, at least for me the inquisitor has as much personality as a husk, I'd much rather they go with several defined personalities instead of some attempt at making a voiced voice-less like character.

The Inquisitor and FO4's mc suffer from the same problem, they have the worst of both voiceless and voiced characters. The voiceless characters have the freedom of giving the player a wider array of choices as well as imagine the delivery as they see fit. While voiced characters feel more integral and invested with the world, they usually have more emotional impact, etc but at the cost of limiting the freedom roleplaying and interpretation. And Inquisitor lacks both the intensity and the freedom.

Going back to Shep, at least as fem shep goes, you can hear her investment in the story, character depth aside, Shepard is as part of the narrative as any of the main cast. Inquisitor on the other hand stands out so much in an otherwise interesting cast of characters it's not even fun. If it wasn't for everyone constantly telling you how amazing you are I'd almost forget I am not playing a voiceless mc a la Zelda's Link.

. This is a MAJOR complaint of mine for DAI

BIOWARE LOOK

[Linkenski]

Bioware generally has yet to figure out how to create a protagonist with the amount of player choices as in any game that's not ME3 and keep their paramters tight enough to seem like they have proper emotional investment in anything.

 

It really shouldn't be impossible but I do see how it can be hard for Bioware to figure it out with so much choice. I felt Alpha Protocol nailed this quite well though. Granted, it had more autodialogue than most Bioware games but not overwhelmingly so. I would've probably been fine with Mass Effect 3's dialogue system if it wasn't for the fact that Shepard would often voice his opinion after being asked of it by someone when it would've been an obvious moment for player-choice.

[Elhanan]

Yeah, because 2014 was such a great year for gaming... Wining by default is not a great achievement.

Yeah; I keep hearing this, yet it would seem that many also liked:

* Dark Souls II
* Alien: Isolation
* Divinity: Original Sin
* Far Cry 4
* Shadows of Mordor
* Elite: Dangerous
* The Banner Saga
* Etc.

Not that I know most of these, but many others appear to play these and others:

http://www.interacti...rds.asp#b_games

[Laughing_Man]

Yeah; I keep hearing this, yet it would seem that many also liked:

 

Great for them, I enjoyed myself Divinity: Original Sin. Still the fact is that DA:I was the only real AAA contender in its category.

 

Divinity:OS was a very specific semi-serious RPG that is far from being everyone's cup of tea (even inside the niche of isometric RPG),

and was a mere kickstarter product Vs. the financial backing DA:I had from a monster like EA.

 

Pillars of Eternity and The Witcher 3 are both examples for games that came out in 2015, and both of them outdone DA:I (from different angles) as good story-based RPG's.(PoE despite being a Kickstarter project)

 

Those are the kind of games that DA:I can be directly compared against, not the scattershot of games from entirely different categories you mentioned (Elite:D is even a multiplayer centered game), which were not even considered great hits inside their own genre.

[AlanC9]

Guys... shouldn't this be on the DA board? DAI's relative stature among 2014 games has just about no relevance here. Except, of course, that if it had actually failed we wouldn't be having this thread in the first place because the chance of ME:A copying DAI's mechanics would be zero.

[wright1978]

Bioware generally has yet to figure out how to create a protagonist with the amount of player choices as in any game that's not ME3 and keep their paramters tight enough to seem like they have proper emotional investment in anything.

 

It really shouldn't be impossible but I do see how it can be hard for Bioware to figure it out with so much choice. I felt Alpha Protocol nailed this quite well though. Granted, it had more autodialogue than most Bioware games but not overwhelmingly so. I would've probably been fine with Mass Effect 3's dialogue system if it wasn't for the fact that Shepard would often voice his opinion after being asked of it by someone when it would've been an obvious moment for player-choice.

 

I  wouldn't be fine with ME3 dialogue system. Cutting out neutral dialogues was extremely annoying as was the constant opinion coming out of Shep's mouth where before opinion would only come out via choice and auto dialogue would be neutral and a lot less pervasive.

[LinksOcarina]

Come on, everyone wants to be space Jesus. I think Bioware could stand to have a more grounded protagonist. Make it abit more personal, but with a greater overall threat looming. I think Mass Effect 2 did it perfectly, and that is why its my favourite of the franchise, so far.

 

On topic - Don't assume that everyone finds DA:I to be mediocre, i certainly do not. It is a great game, but it does indeed have flaws, like every game has. 

 

They pulled that card already, no need for another character like that though.

 

Also...chances are it will be similar in style. I think the changes need to be minor ones; more cinematics if possible for questlines, less explorable quests (find a thing in another place, boom done with codex entry) and more substantial quests, a few HUBs to go into instead of just 1-2 at best, while retaining level design and variety as much as possible. 

 

It can be done, it will be difficult because since were basically searching what are likely uncharted or unexplored worlds for the most part, it might be barren save for deadly creatures or the occasional pirate.

[AlanC9]

I think the problem stems from poor presentation and a lack of continuity. At a very basic level, the jumps can simply be jarring, prompting a "woah, wait, where am I?" that might snap you out of the scene for a moment.

I guess I'm just not susceptible to that myself. I mean being bothered by it; I figure I'll process the location later,and I do.
 

But more importantly, I think it hurts the reality of the setting. One of my favorite features of ME3 was that companions moved about the ship and talked with one another by themselves. That simple dynamic gave all the squadmates a kind of life and agency I've rarely seen in games before. It feels natural if I walk by character standing on the barricades looking out at the horizon and strike up a conversation and the power of the scene remains if the dialog camera disengages and the character goes back to their staring. That power is instantly lost (or at the very least, diminished) if they're just gone the next second to their standard idle state or I get jerked around to some place I don't expect. It's so procedural, like a puppet show activated at the press of a button. 

I'm jumping my PC around Skyhold at the press of a button anyway, a lot of the time. It's rare for me to walk my PC to the garden to talk to Blackwall, for instance. And yes, this an artifact of the size of Skyhold.

It looks to me like there are four values here -- natural feeling, cutscene variety, player convenience, and base size -- and we can't have all of them simultaneously.

[Obliviousmiss]

Guys... shouldn't this be on the DA board? DAI's relative stature among 2014 games has just about no relevance here. Except, of course, that if it had actually failed we wouldn't be having this thread in the first place because the chance of ME:A copying DAI's mechanics would be zero.

If we take it over there and we got back on topic talking about MEA and what it could take from DAI, wouldn't it just be redirected here again?

[Elhanan]

Great for them, I enjoyed myself Divinity: Original Sin. Still the fact is that DA:I was the only real AAA contender in its category.
 
Divinity:OS was a very specific semi-serious RPG that is far from being everyone's cup of tea (even inside the niche of isometric RPG),
and was a mere kickstarter product Vs. the financial backing DA:I had from a monster like EA.
 
Pillars of Eternity and The Witcher 3 are both examples for games that came out in 2015, and both of them outdone DA:I (from different angles) as good story-based RPG's.(PoE despite being a Kickstarter project)
 
Those are the kind of games that DA:I can be directly compared against, not the scattershot of games from entirely different categories you mentioned (Elite:D is even a multiplayer centered game), which were not even considered great hits inside their own genre.

If opinions mattered, then TW3 and FO4 would not receive nominations as I do not wish to play either of them. But since our opinions do not seem to bear weight to these Awards, guess one of them might get the same pier recognition as DAI.

[Iakus]

Yeah, all those fetch quests, a boring villain, romance that doesn't exist out of a cut scene, that terrible crafting system, no PC optimization and controls that give you RSI...oh wait, that's DAI.

ME2:

 

Was the game where "fetching" your companions was half the game

Had no real villain to speak of

Was the game where LI's would throw themselves at Shepard as soon as you did their personal quest

Had the most boring upgrade system ever

On the PC, had one button that did pretty much everything

 

DAI had it's share of flaws, of course (I'm looking at you, eight power limit!).  But it did a lot of stuff better than Mass Effect.

[UniformGreyColor]

I'd like to see it use DAI's combat, which I find far more engaging than ME's combat.

The lack of direction would also be good. ME1 did this to some degree, as well, in that we have a broad objective to complete, and a wide open galaxy in which to do it, but there's no one path we're expected to follow.

DAI has another thing in common with ME1. Along with the first Baldur's Gate, those are the only three BioWare games to allow us to just go somewhere and experience content without first having been told to go.

 

And Origins as well (which is currently on sale for only 10 buck, quite a deal if you ask me). In DA:O you could complete the story in many different ways. It was the first time I had played a game like that and I really enjoyed trying to line up the perfect queue of what I wanted to complete in which order. As far as ME series goes, IDK, something about them is just not my style. I tried playing ME1 and I just sorta felt forced into having to play a type of "military personality".

 

Lastly. I very much agree that ME:A should be much more tactical then action. But that's just me and you and a few other people.. I'm sure most of the ME crowd just love the combat from the previous games. I just want to be able to control every little thing, unless ofc the ai is so good that I don't even need to worry about my companions making mistakes left and right. I'd like to see less stupid ai if nothing else -none of this, "my companions are just attacking in open space getting shot up and using all my medigels.. ARG!!!" I guess that goes to show that the fundamental way combat is done in ME:A is just not my cup of tea.

 

I will say this though: I did end up really enjoying the damage mitigation that DA:I implemented. I thought it was a really good system when all was said and done and I would not mind one bit if they went back to that for upcoming games and the next in the series'. Guard mechanic was really pretty cool and I really have no idea why more people don't praise that part of the game. With the implementation of Barrier, where I couldn't keep it up constantly (unless I had 2 or more mages in my party) was also really well thought out. Besided the fact that the AI was not perfect when using Barrier or Guard I found the system to be a very pleasant addition to DA combat and I earnestly hope they go back to that somewhat. All that said, I guess I wouldn't mind seeing some more damage mitigation from BW.

 

DAI's dialogue and companion systems should just be copied wholesale. ME needed an approval system, and replacing Paragon/Renegade with tone icons would be an upgrade.

I'd go with more but smaller exploration areas than DAI had.

 

 

While I whole heartily agree, I just don't know if they would want to change something like that. Granted, there needs to be more options than just "good/bad". Anyways, I don't see them really doing any drastic changes to paragon/renegade, but they might just change a few things. It def needs a reboot I thing.

[KaiserShep]

Honestly, just no. If you want to use something as a great template, use Mass Effect 2, the best of the series and the last great game Bioware developed.

 

 

There's only one thing I'd ever want BioWare to recapture from ME2, and that's its atmosphere. Being able to explore lawless space and be neck deep in the scum of the universe is great fun. However, as an actual system, ME2 is terrible and I would prefer it stay dead. The game puts greater focus on the shooting mechanic, but then gives you an anemic arsenal. You have a lot more companions, but you have so few options in ways to interact with them (I'd consider the dialogue system in ME2 the absolute worst among the entire series, and even between both franchises). The game does this sort of Ocean's 11 thing where much of the objective is to gather all of these characters, but save for Mordin, there's absolutely no good reason why you're getting these people, so their lack of any clear function to serve as the reason why sort of takes the importance out of their missions. I'll always be a little perplexed by the lack of the option to abandon Jack, which would be a perfectly sensible outcome for that mission. 

 

And then there's loyalty. Loyalty is a crappy system that should not have existed in the game at all. 

[wright1978]

 

And then there's loyalty. Loyalty is a crappy system that should not have existed in the game at all. 

 

Disagree think loyalty missions and the notion of loyalty/focus having an impact in the end mission was an excellent idea that i heartily want to return.

[Linkenski]

ME2:

 

Was the game where "fetching" your companions was half the game

Had no real villain to speak of

Was the game where LI's would throw themselves at Shepard as soon as you did their personal quest

Had the most boring upgrade system ever

On the PC, had one button that did pretty much everything

 

DAI had it's share of flaws, of course (I'm looking at you, eight power limit!).  But it did a lot of stuff better than Mass Effect.

I'm sure no one would've complained if every fetch quest in DA:I was followed by several conversations and some action scenes. You really undersell the aqcuisition missions in ME2 by calling them "fetch quests". It's not just if the goal of the quest is "get something" that it becomes a fetch quest, but when there is nothing else to it than "go to marked location on map, get x, quest complete". ME2 usually had a unique location, exposition new characters, squad dialogue, action scenes and a boss encounter, so you can't just compare it like that.

 

How is the boring upgrade system in ME2 different from that in DA:I? Both have 3-4 upgrades to the main hub that actually matter in ME2 as they alter the cutscenes in the final mission and potentially kills your squadmates, but they are reduced to meaningless cosmetics in DA:I.

 

And we might have the Spacebar problem in Mass Effect, but DA:I requires you to hold down the friggin mouse button to keep attacking.