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.
I'm talking about those boring "+10% damage to pistols", +10% damage to sniper rifles", etc that are boring, linear, and don't even alter the appearance of the weapon.
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.
In principle, I'm not opposed to some sort of loyalty mechanic, but I thought that the way it functioned in ME was mediocre. To me, loyalty should affect a companion's disposition and perhaps even their willingness to follow your PC, not determine whether or not their competence dips just enough so that they drop dead. Like, helping Wrex in ME1, thereby determining how easy it is to talk him down on Virmire, is something like how I feel loyalty should work.
I suppose I'm just spoiled by Dragon Age, because the way companions function in those games makes the entire ME lineup about as deep as a frisbee. Iron Bull's loyalty outcome > any loyalty outcome in ME2.
I'm talking about those boring "+10% damage to pistols", +10% damage to sniper rifles", etc that are boring, linear, and don't even alter the appearance of the weapon.
Thats abstract design, it's more or less part and parcel with RPG progression that is not about specific stat increase.
It basically allows a gun like the Mattock, for example, to be useful because you get the same bonuses and different feel than a gun like the Revenant, for example. Over say...the Avenger III and Lancer IV, which are static.
That is a good change, because inventory in the first game was more or less atrocious. Keeping it grounded to say 2-dozen weapons with personalities and playstyle, and keeping upgrades and progression abstract by making it percentage is much more honest and is away from a table-top style of game design, something Mass Effect should avoid.
In principle, I'm not opposed to some sort of loyalty mechanic, but I thought that the way it functioned in ME was mediocre. To me, loyalty should affect a companion's disposition and perhaps even their willingness to follow your PC, not determine whether or not their competence dips just enough so that they drop dead. Like, helping Wrex in ME1, thereby determining how easy it is to talk him down on Virmire, is something like how I feel loyalty should work.
I suppose I'm just spoiled by Dragon Age, because the way companions function in those games makes the entire ME lineup about as deep as a frisbee. Iron Bull's loyalty outcome > any loyalty outcome in ME2.
I think it's more about focus than loyalty, so that might be my sole complaint that they should be renamed.
I guess i'm just spoiled by ME2's ending, because the way that game ended made the likes of Inquisition look drab and mediocre.
I think it's more about focus than loyalty, so that might be my sole complaint that they should be renamed.
I guess i'm just spoiled by ME2's ending, because the way that game ended made the likes of Inquisition look drab and mediocre.
With a crappy boss fight and dead end choices (Shepard Dying for example?)
I like the ending to the Suicide Mission a lot, but it shows how you can be over-modular, and have bad design decisions, at the same time. Ironic considering I didn't hate the ending to Mass Effect 3 as much as everyone else I guess...but yeah...every game has problems in the end I guess it's unavoidable.
I think it's more about focus than loyalty, so that might be my sole complaint that they should be renamed.
I guess i'm just spoiled by ME2's ending, because the way that game ended made the likes of Inquisition look drab and mediocre.
I don't think renaming it focus would make it any better; I think it's just a bad mechanic no matter what you call it.
DA: I isn't a bad game. It has some very good moments (the mission where you go back in time for example) but unfortunately for me these are few and far between.
Technically and mechanically it is fine, it's just not terribly interesting,
Oh, and Val Royeax was farcical in its size and the amount of people there - a real let down.
How about we just take the best game mechanics from The Witcher games, The Dragon age games, fallout games, & mass effect games and of course the elder scroll games. Take all of their best game mechanics, apply them appropriately and sincerely not half assedly onto a great and worthwhile game engine. How about we do that, then everyone can shut up because they'll be getting a little bit of everything from some really great games yet none of their flaws. Best of all worlds.
Will that ever happen? No, but it needs to.
I said this elsewhere, but liberally lifting mechanics from a bunch of a games doesn't make a great game. Id rather have failed ideas with an identity than a downright clone of something else.
The template should be ME1+ME2, and pretend ME3 never happened.
I suppose I could agree with that, though I still think if one could borrow said mechanics and in the right hands could become something better and not just a clone. I mean that's what already is being done and has been for well forever. Everything is merely a copy of everything before it, simply with a new face and altered persona yet delve deep enough it's all the same. By taking the best of everything else only then can something genuinely new come to light it will share similarities but it won't be a copy. It'd be more of a jigsaw, kinda like how lunch meat, bread, mayo, lettuce cheese, and tomato are okay by themselves but when combined despite being from different walks of life do they form something truly great. Speaking of which I'm going to make a sandwich. Here enjoy thisI said this elsewhere, but liberally lifting mechanics from a bunch of a games doesn't make a great game. Id rather have failed ideas with an identity than a downright clone of something else.
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.
Grow up. This post is typical gamer tinfoil hat conspiracy BS that gamers give when their SUBJECTIVE taste don't match a majority. They manufacturer conspiracies to justify their option base vs evidence based position. Or they claim that they are a real gamer and all those who like the gaem they don't like are a bunch of casuals. It BS.
How about you provide EVIDENCE that all these awards and accolades are only awarded because of corruption.
Dragon Age: Inquisition has received numerous awards and nominations from gaming publications. The game has received the Game of the Year awards from Game Informer,[107]IGN,[108]Electronic Gaming Monthly,[109]Hardcore Gamer,[110]Gamereactor,[111]SXSW Gaming Awards,[112]Good Game,[101]Game Revolution,[113]Ars Technica,[114]Associated Press,[115]The Escapist,[116]Polygon,[117]Shacknews,[118]The Game Awards,[119] and the DICE Awards.[120] and was nominated Game of the Year by Destructoid[121] and IGN Australia.[122] It was also placed on various lists of the best games of 2014, GamesRadar placed it at 2nd,[123]Joystiq at 2nd,[124]Cheat Code Central at 2nd,[125]USA Today at 2nd,[126]Empire at 9th,[127]GameFront at 3rd,[128]Wired at 8th,[129]Slant Magazine at 17th[130] and The Guardian at 14th[131] and was considered one of the ten best games released in 2014 by Mirror.co.uk.[132] The game also won Role-Playing Game of the Year from GamesRadar,[123]Cheat Code Central,[133]Game Revolution,[134]Hardcore Gamer,[135]Game Informer,[136]IGN,[137]USGamer,[138]The Escapist,[139]The Game Awards[119] and the DICE Awards[120] as well as Best Singleplayer from PC Gamer.[140] Developer BioWare was nominated Best Developer by Game Revolution[141] and won the Developer of the Year Award from Hardcore Gamer.[142]
You don't achieve this many awards and accolades through corruption without some evidence of said corruption surfacing. This isn't one issolated award this is a pattern of awards from DIVERGENT companies for christ sake. I know of no evidence that EA "bought" a single award let alone all of these. I mean the ASSOCIATED PRESS is a well known to be a hive of scum, villainy and corruption. 
hahaha it boggles the mind.
So please show me the EVIDENCE of this corruption on Bioware/EA's part. (Why do I get the feeling there will likely be crickets as a response and even less likely to receive evidence with said response?)
Every game that Bioware makes has a vocal MINORITY that goes on an fraking on how they don't want the next game to be like the last game Bioware produced. It happens with every title in both of Bioware's IP. It isn't any kind of proof that because people on a forum say Don't make up coming X game anything like like the previous Y game. It is a well established fact that most pleased consumers do not comment about how pleased they are with a product. So it is foolish using the forum traffic as some kind of barometer of how well received a game is. And i am pretty fraking sure you know this, but it doesn't fit your narrative so you just make sh!t up. To try an nullify actual credible indicators of how well received a game is like SALE and awards.
I am not claim that DA:I is flawless or that bioware has no room to grow but this constant BS that DA:I isn't a success in terms of sales and customer enjoyment has to stop. It is a good game it just might not be a game you subjectively like. I can say Guild Wars 2 is a good game I simply can't stand playing it because it bores me to death even though on paper I like the majority of its features. I have no need to tell my friends that play it that is is a crap game just because I don't like it or call it mediocre. I don't need to claim that awards it won are part of some tin foil hat conspiracy because I understand that SUBJECTIVE tastes are not causal to quality.
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.
It boggles the mind.
All awards are a collection of subjective opinions gathered by judges to present 'their' take on a given award. Many of these awards mitigate this KNOWN subjective quality by getting said subjective opinions from a large pool. The Academy for the Oscars is a perfect example of this there are more members of the academy then there are awards. The principle being that a large pool of judges mitigates any single person's subjective view. This doesn't eliminate the fact that awards are subjective, however, what you can do is look at a collection of awards in an objective manner.
Winning the odd award is statistically meaningless winning multiple awards from divergent companies is actually statistically meaningful. Dragon age won Lots of awards not a couple but many and as much as you try to Bullsh!t your way around it you can't because consistent success over multiple awards can give us a CLEAR picture that DA:I was a well received and well enjoyed/Liked game even if you didn't SUBJECTIVELY like it.
Accolades[edit]
Dragon Age: Inquisition has received numerous awards and nominations from gaming publications. The game has received the Game of the Year awards from Game Informer,[107]IGN,[108]Electronic Gaming Monthly,[109]Hardcore Gamer,[110]Gamereactor,[111]SXSW Gaming Awards,[112]Good Game,[101]Game Revolution,[113]Ars Technica,[114]Associated Press,[115]The Escapist,[116]Polygon,[117]Shacknews,[118]The Game Awards,[119] and the DICE Awards.[120] and was nominated Game of the Year by Destructoid[121] and IGN Australia.[122] It was also placed on various lists of the best games of 2014, GamesRadar placed it at 2nd,[123]Joystiq at 2nd,[124]Cheat Code Central at 2nd,[125]USA Today at 2nd,[126]Empire at 9th,[127]GameFront at 3rd,[128]Wired at 8th,[129]Slant Magazine at 17th[130] and The Guardian at 14th[131] and was considered one of the ten best games released in 2014 by Mirror.co.uk.[132] The game also won Role-Playing Game of the Year from GamesRadar,[123]Cheat Code Central,[133]Game Revolution,[134]Hardcore Gamer,[135]Game Informer,[136]IGN,[137]USGamer,[138]The Escapist,[139]The Game Awards[119] and the DICE Awards[120] as well as Best Singleplayer from PC Gamer.[140] Developer BioWare was nominated Best Developer by Game Revolution[141] and won the Developer of the Year Award from Hardcore Gamer.[142]
But i am sure your narrative requires that you be dismissive of all evidence that goes against your OPINION, otherwise you'd have to admit that your position isn't evidence based by opinion based.
I don't consider that evidence of anything. I don't see what you're proving. Of course it won numerous awards. It was the best game in a year that almost had nothing notable.
And once again, I am not swayed by the opinion of millions if I don't believe in their opinion myself and once again, when did I ever say my opinion of DA:I was an objective fact about the quality of the game? All I said was, I don't think it's above being a weak game and many others agree. I didn't say I was in the majority nor do I actually care since i just stated my own opinion.
I'm talking about those boring "+10% damage to pistols", +10% damage to sniper rifles", etc that are boring, linear, and don't even alter the appearance of the weapon.
Yeah, that was kinda boring, but they got rid of it in ME3 again and for sure they aren't going back. Speaking of that though, that was my favorite thing in DA:I as unbalanced as it was: crafting and the character customization in general. I hope ME:A has something similar.
@Gothfater
Conspiracy, corruption, and tinfoil hats aside, not many good games came out during 2014.
Some games had good elements and have shown innovation in some ares (the nemesis system in shadow of mordor),
but in the end none of them was really amazing.
DA:I itself was far from amazing:
DA:I had very good graphics, average story that was mostly lacking any real excitement aside from the attack on haven and the time travel section -
everything seems somewhat forgettable, the companions were generally okay but not really amazing, gameplay was highly repetitive and simply not fun (that 8 ability restriction really did a number) nothing had a real weight - it all felt like playing an MMO, the huge open areas that felt empty most of the time, idiotic enemy AI that had access only to rather anemic spells / abilities, the UI on PC was bad, squad commands didn't work half the time, Squad UI was as idiotic as enemy UI - with squishy characters running into every AoE possible and not using abilities effectively.
I could go on, but it was not a very enjoyable experience all in all, the game was simply choke full of annoyances and things that could and should have been implemented better. Alas.
The only reason DA:I won the GOTY was because it didn't have worthy competition.
It simply wasn't good enough to compete on an even ground with games of similar caliber and ambition.
So yeah, it may have won awards, but I don't think DA:I is quite the crowning achievement for BW you make it out to be.
DA:I is not a bad game, but it's not great either, it's average, and perhaps the bitter taste of missed opportunity makes it seem even worse for some.
Tbh aside from DAI, and Destiny i don't even remember 2014's game releases.
Well. Probabbly War table to some extend will be reuse. Why? bc allow to have multiple plot line about side content. Is a nice addtion for waiting.
Probably looking how we going to "settles" new planets, a improve version of the Skyhold. (probabbly with alot of choice and upgrades)
Companions, from DAo to 2 and from ME 1-3. The interaction with comapanions have been improve over and over.
Combat probabbly DA I combat was improve over all, same with ME 3.
Dont go crazy about ppl opinion, there are alot of QQ about DA I, when they game probe that it was and still is a great game. But u cant change the mind of someone that dindt like it. It happen with most game.
Sometimes I have to think twice if I actually did play Inquisition. But then, I remember Morrigan in the game and killing that Corypheus guy with the green Elven relic thing. But yeah, not saying the game is bad, just...not memorable at all for me.
Hell, I don't even think I bothered to romance anyone in the game... 
Let's just have Andromeda be on it's own terms.
I seem to recall that the OP was not posing a discussion about why 'everything sucks'.
Though it doesn't take long for every thread to be about that...
Well. Probabbly War table to some extend will be reuse. Why? bc allow to have multiple plot line about side content. Is a nice addtion for waiting.
Probably looking how we going to "settles" new planets, a improve version of the Skyhold. (probabbly with alot of choice and upgrades)
Companions, from DAo to 2 and from ME 1-3. The interaction with comapanions have been improve over and over.
Combat probabbly DA I combat was improve over all, same with ME 3.
Dont go crazy about ppl opinion, there are alot of QQ about DA I, when they game probe that it was and still is a great game. But u cant change the mind of someone that dindt like it. It happen with most game.
I think it's more about focus than loyalty, so that might be my sole complaint that they should be renamed.
I guess i'm just spoiled by ME2's ending, because the way that game ended made the likes of Inquisition look drab and mediocre.
A lot of folks went QQ on DAO; made at least 20 campaigns myself. Opinions vary, but 130+ thought that DAI is 2014 GOTY.
The argument that 2014 is a bad year in gaming is not unfounded, technically.
The thing is most people seem to regulate it to being a lacking year due to the games released. In truth a lot of good games were released, at least technically and critically. Titanfall, Destiny, Shadows of Mordor, MarioKart, This War of Mine, Hearthstone, Smash Bros, Bravely Default, Dark Souls 2, Bayonetta 2, and so forth.
A lot of games mentioned are smaller-scale games as well, like Pillars of Eternity and Child of Light to name a few.
The problem is the games I mentioned are considered sub-par for various reasons, and that's not including Assassins Creed or Watch Dogs, which were meant to be big names but failed for one reason or another even harder than the list above.
In truth I personally see 2014 as a good year, but it is still a year in transition. If we compare the games overall, only Shadows of Mordor, Destiny, and Smash Bros really stand toe-to-toe with Inquisition id say. 2015 did have a better lineup for sure, but even then id put Inquisition on par with Witcher 3, frankly.
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