31 réponses à ce sujet

[Stahl33]

I was quite disappointed with DAI.

It has some great things, and it has some things that can be definitely (in my opinion) be improved upon.

 

The reason for starting this post is to ask that the developers look at these points in developing another DA game.

 

In my mind THE greatest feature of a RPG is:

 

   Choice!

 

Having a wide range of choices that have meaningful impacts upon the game experience is important.

DAI has 3 main classes, and 4 main races.  There are 2 male and 2 female voices with the same dull personality.

There is so many good things about DAI!

Let me cut to the chase, instead of writing an essay:

 

1)  More classes or more class trees, with deeper trees.

Perhaps go another 5 to 8 more choices deeper in the tree, and another 2 standard trees.

You could include things like 2 wielding warrior, or even single handed weapon wielding (without shield)... Creation type tree in Mage, or even summoning.  There is so much room to give more choices and ways to influence battles.

 

The DAI game gets very repetitive and boring with limited options (8 options on the task bar at one time)

 

2)  Increase the task bar list from 8 only to up to 24 (or something like that, but definitely more!

DAO did this very well, and was awesome in that it gave more situational things to do.  Some people said it forces you to choose and that is part of the strategy.  I say that is a crap argument, and useless.  The reason for only 8, was across platform usage.  Find a way to increase it!!!!  It makes it too repetitive and too boring!!

 

3) Add in Personalities to character creation and voices.

If you have played Wizardry 8, you will know what I mean!  Make the voices that you choose have personalities.  So instead of only 2 voices for males, you might (if memory use allows unfortunately) have 1 cocky male voice, 1 serious male voice, 1 noble / snobby male voice, and 1 easy go lucky male voice / personality.

 

4) Make the game significantly different depending upon your choices.

  Enough said... There were only 2 real choices in DAI - mages or Templars, and even then the game was not much different.  Would be good to seize his power yourself, or to Have the inquisition invade Orlais, or convince the magister to capitulate... or geez I don't know... something different!

 

5) Consider adding random abilities to class trees based upon random encounters.

  This is an interesting idea:  Make random encounters / random events, and have them give a random (and once only given) ability.  For example a mage inquisitor / player may come across an old hag, who will share her secret knowledge of mana extraction from the environment (a new ability in a certain tree).... IF you help her out or apprentice to her, she will gift you this knowledge.... This scenario may only happen in perhaps 15% of mage play throughs.... but there will be a 100% chance of something happening (which scenario and what ability would be random).

 

6) Make the Castle significantly more changeable with more options for customisation,

Even based upon the players class or playstyle.  (Fallout 4 was awesome in the ability to create your own settlement)

  When I first got DAI, I was expecting a different building "designs" based upon your choices.  But what we got was superficial changes to the decorations.  Having a completely different style base or castle depending upon class or choices would be absolutely awesome! (ie. a Elegant tower for mages, or beautiful garden with buildings built around the forrest for dalish elves)

 

 

Why not do these things?  If you increase replay-ability:  less money for you (instead of spending more time on another game).  How to overcome this?  Make a lot of options added via DLC to increase profits.

Why not else?  Memory issues:  maybe need to decide over the enabling of high end graphics versus the benefit of more options and better gameplay.  Look at all the game with sub-par graphics doing well simply because the core game is awesome!

 

[Abyss108]

You will never get that many voice options for a game that is fully voice acted, the cost would be ridiculous. You're talking about the largest part in the game, and good voice acting is incredibly expensive. You probably just doubled the cost of the game with that.

 

I'm shocked we even got a choice between two, and honestly think the money could have been better spent elsewhere.

[jhood_shsu]

its been many years but IIRC the 8 skill limit comes from the fact that they made the game for console, then ported to PC.  Console only has 8 skill slots available so that stuck on the PC side as well.

 

Also in the original gameplay teasers, there were lots of either/or options that were cut from the final game.  One of the big ones was saving a town or keep.  If you saved the keep, the town was destroyed and varric was pissed at you.  They definitely need to keep stuff like that in DA4.

 

Agree on the upgraded skill trees/more skill trees.  Bring back legionnaire scout, spirit warrior and blood mage. 

[PhroXenGold]

its been many years but IIRC the 8 skill limit comes from the fact that they made the game for console, then ported to PC.  Console only has 8 skill slots available so that stuck on the PC side as well.

 

Previous DA games let you use more than 8 abilities on consoles which makes that theory look a bit dubious. So in truth, it's likely that they went for 8 because they thought it would make a better game. It's been done before - quite a few more recent MMORPGs went back to the classic EQ-esque 8 ability setup instead of the "more hotbars than you can fit on screen" method (and DA's combat has always been somewhat MMO inspired).

[Abyss108]

its been many years but IIRC the 8 skill limit comes from the fact that they made the game for console, then ported to PC.  Console only has 8 skill slots available so that stuck on the PC side as well.

 

Also in the original gameplay teasers, there were lots of either/or options that were cut from the final game.  One of the big ones was saving a town or keep.  If you saved the keep, the town was destroyed and varric was pissed at you.  They definitely need to keep stuff like that in DA4.

 

Agree on the upgraded skill trees/more skill trees.  Bring back legionnaire scout, spirit warrior and blood mage. 

 

Not everything can be blamed on consoles. The previous games were all on console and had more choices. It was a design decision.

[BansheeOwnage]

You will never get that many voice options for a game that is fully voice acted, the cost would be ridiculous. You're talking about the largest part in the game, and good voice acting is incredibly expensive. You probably just doubled the cost of the game with that.

 

I'm shocked we even got a choice between two, and honestly think the money could have been better spent elsewhere.

I for one am really glad we got 2 voices to choose between. I think it should become semi-standard. But as long as I like the default voice, I wouldn't need more than one, although there would no longer be the RP advantage of using different voices distinguish different characters - it's always a bit odd when two disparate PCs have the same voice.

 

That said, in DA:I, I preferred the "alternate" voice (Sumalee's) to the "default" (Alix's), so I am a bit biased because I would have been out of luck if we only had one.

[Abyss108]

I for one am really glad we got 2 voices to choose between. I think it should become semi-standard. But as long as I like the default voice, I wouldn't need more than one, although there would no longer be the RP advantage of using different voices distinguish different characters - it's always a bit odd when two disparate PCs have the same voice.

 

That said, in DA:I, I preferred the "alternate" voice (Sumalee's) to the "default" (Alix's), so I am a bit biased because I would have been out of luck if we only had one.

 

Fair enough, I tend to only do 1 play through so this doesn't really affect me and it doesn't really help if you want to do more than 2 runs - plus, I spent a long time towards the beginning of the game worrying that I had chosen the "wrong" voice for my character and whether the other one may have been a better actor, and would all the late game cutscenes be ruined for me because of bad acting, etc...

 

I probably would had appreciated it more if the second actress had a Dalish accent, instead of Fereldan/Dwarven.

[BansheeOwnage]

Fair enough, I tend to only do 1 play through so this doesn't really affect me and it doesn't really help if you want to do more than 2 runs - plus, I spent a long time towards the beginning of the game worrying that I had chosen the "wrong" voice for my character and whether the other one may have been a better actor, and would all the late game cutscenes be ruined for me because of bad acting, etc...

 

I probably would had appreciated it more if the second actress had a Dalish accent, instead of Fereldan/Dwarven.

Actually, the role-playing bit was just for the sake of other people, since I only use one voice and only have two characters It would have been interesting if the Dalish could actually have a Dalish accent, but it might be a bit weird on every other race. That's probably why they chose British and North American accents; they can conceivably sound appropriate on all races.

[jhood_shsu]

Previous DA games let you use more than 8 abilities on consoles which makes that theory look a bit dubious. So in truth, it's likely that they went for 8 because they thought it would make a better game. It's been done before - quite a few more recent MMORPGs went back to the classic EQ-esque 8 ability setup instead of the "more hotbars than you can fit on screen" method (and DA's combat has always been somewhat MMO inspired).

pretty sure I only had 6 mapped skills on my playstation versions of DAO and DAA.  But maybe we are talking about different things.

Not everything can be blamed on consoles. The previous games were all on console and had more choices. It was a design decision.

the other two were built for PC then ported to console, this one supposedly went the other way.

[Abyss108]

 

the other two were built for PC then ported to console, this one supposedly went the other way.

 

How would this even make a difference, when they knew from the start they were making both versions? "Oh, we programmed the menu to only have 8 buttons at first for the console, guess now that we are programming the completely different PC menu it would be impossible to add more!"

[jhood_shsu]

How would this even make a difference, when they knew from the start they were making both versions? "Oh, we programmed the menu to only have 8 buttons at first for the console, guess now that we are programming the completely different PC menu it would be impossible to add more!"

considering the admitted amount of stuff that they cut due to time constraints, maybe they never got around to adding more buttons.

[BansheeOwnage]

considering the admitted amount of stuff that they cut due to time constraints, maybe they never got around to adding more buttons.

The thing is, they didn't even need to add more hotkeys. Sure, that would have been a nice luxury for PC, but at bare minimum they could have simply let you access all of your kot-keyed and non-hot-keyed skills from the radial menu, as it was in DA:O and DA2. There was no reason to remove that feature. Not oldgen, not consoles, nothing. It was just a stupid design choice, nothing more, nothing less.

[jhood_shsu]

The thing is, they didn't even need to add more hotkeys. Sure, that would have been a nice luxury for PC, but at bare minimum they could have simply let you access all of your kot-keyed and non-hot-keyed skills from the radial menu, as it was in DA:O and DA2. There was no reason to remove that feature. Not oldgen, not consoles, nothing. It was just a stupid design choice, nothing more, nothing less.

that is very true.

 

I would like to know if the decision was based on the amount of passives to get good skills, or if the amount of passives was due to the radial skill being removed.

[AlanC9]

Hard to say. DA's always had plenty of passives. In the DA:O S&S tree there are only four activated talents, plus three sustains and five passives. Which is why I've never taken the hysteria over DAI's design too seriously.

[Stahl33]

You will never get that many voice options for a game that is fully voice acted, the cost would be ridiculous. You're talking about the largest part in the game, and good voice acting is incredibly expensive. You probably just doubled the cost of the game with that.

 

I'm shocked we even got a choice between two, and honestly think the money could have been better spent elsewhere.

 

It is more a wish list for me.... I would prefer something more like Wizardry 8 (please tell me someone understands this lol), than the extra memory spent on graphics.. but that is just me!  

Does anyone know if something like DA4 is in production?

[Abyss108]

It is more a wish list for me.... I would prefer something more like Wizardry 8 (please tell me someone understands this lol), than the extra memory spent on graphics.. but that is just me!  

Does anyone know if something like DA4 is in production?

 

 

They haven't officially announced it yet, but they are definitely working on it. The DA team hasn't been moved to any other projects, and the ending made it obvious there would be a followup. They probably won't say anything for another year or two at least.

[jhood_shsu]

the new Mass Effect is about a year out, so I would say atleast a year after that.

 

DAO was released in 2009

DA2 was rushed out in 2011 (25-26 months IIRC)

DAI came out late 2014 so 40+ months later

 

IIRC they stopped support on DA2 very quickly after release (may have just been on PS3 that this happened) and focused entirely on DAI.  They didnt do that with DAI, so it may be a longer turn around than the 40ish months.

[PapaCharlie9]

In my mind THE greatest feature of a RPG is:
 
   Choice!
...

I thought you were going to say, "An unvoiced player character!", but that would be the Bethesda forum for Fallout 4, not Bioware. According to F4 fandom, you can't roleplay if some VA is doing the voice for your character, let alone half a dozen.
 

1)  More classes or more class trees, with deeper trees.

I agree. Particularly with an 8 slot limit. Otherwise, every Assassin is the same as every other Assassin.
 

2)  Increase the task bar list from 8 only to up to 24 (or something like that, but definitely more!

The "console port" horse has been well beaten by previous posts, so I'll just say this:

It's all about the pivot to action-based based combat, instead of strategic combat (e.g., turn-based ala XCOM). Having 8 slots makes it more twitch and real-time oriented, instead of planning oriented. Maybe it was a bad decision that you disagree with, but it was definitely a decision. I happen to like action-based combat, so it works for me.

I don't mind the 8 slot limit. You say it's crap, but I disagree. I get a lot of satisfaction out of perfecting a loadout, making trade-offs and hard choices about what ability to have active and which not. If you aren't a min/maxer, even a little, you're going to find it useless.
 

4) Make the game significantly different depending upon your choices.

After the ME3 debacle? Wasn't going to happen.

There are several good videos on the Extra Credits channel about player choice, player agency, the difference between choices (GTA sandbox) and consequences (saving the dreadnoughts instead of the Chargers). I highly recommend viewing them. You'll learn just how difficult it is to have a compelling, dramatic narrative while also allowing players to "choose their own story" with consequences that support the narrative. The two concepts are essentially incompatible. Or at least, no developer has figured out a genius way to do it yet.
 

5) Consider adding random abilities to class trees based upon random encounters.

Random/radiant loot drops or quest rewards drive some players nuts, particularly completionists.

I'd much rather have a game mechanic that allows you to craft new abilities -- what Borderlands did for weapons, DA* could do for abilities. Want to make your own version of Mana Clash? Start from these basic ingredients and add whatever modifiers you can find. If you want to throw in a "craft random ability" schematic, sure, why not?
 

6) Make the Castle significantly more changeable with more options for customisation,
Even based upon the players class or playstyle.  (Fallout 4 was awesome in the ability to create your own settlement)

Bad example. I think F4 went way too far in trying to grab marketshare from Mindcrafsoft.

I do agree with the basic idea, though. The Skyhold customization choices are so bland. Something closer to the Skyrim player house mods, or Hearthfire DLC minus the crafting and resourcing nonsense, would be better.

[Stahl33]

Thanks PapaCharlie9,

 

Yes ME3 shot itself in the foot... but I don't think you need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I think there can be good multiple arc stories that interweave.  The generation of such stories would require some work!

I have no doubt I could do so, and I have no doubt others could (The writer of Game of thrones or writer of the Wheel of time series for example).  The issue I think is in the ways games are developed moreso.

 

As for Action (8) choices, versus more.... I think there are different fan bases.  Whether you look more towards DA4 being action based or more RPG based.  I believe you can have a good mix, if the game is developed properly!  To be honest, I don't find I have as much issue with having only 8 choices with a warrior as compared to a Mage.  But having more options you can use both in and out of battle would be awesome!  But that is my opinion.  I prefer DAO in some ways because of this.

 

(As for random drops/ radiant quests - I would make the sort of encounter or encounter quest I mentioned a limited or rare event... Radiant quests I think work well though (as in skyrim).  But evolution of such mechanics is an ongoing thing, and all can be worked on!

[Cydh]

With only 8 button choices you make melee much more interesting to play than range, since you have far more positioning choices to make during a fight. Unfortunately it also forces all enemies to be very one-dimensional since the player wouldn't be able to adapt to any change in situation.

 

It doesn't need to be that way. Weapon switch from bow to dagger, from sword and shield to crossbow, these should be actual features, and mage should be able to use at least limited versions of spells from other trees to circumvent the immune immune immune spam.

[AlanC9]

Huh? It's not like mages can't take stuff from different trees.

[Cydh]

Huh? It's not like mages can't take stuff from different trees.

 

I meant beyond the 8 baseline.

 

There was a time near the release when all AI-controlled characters could use all their abilities regardless of their action bar. It was cool.

[kann.nix9mm]

If there was one thing I would like to have it is a better A.I. ...

[PapaCharlie9]

If there was one thing I would like to have it is a better A.I. ...

Are you sure about that? I hate playing games where my AI controlled companions steal my kills and play better than me.

If you mean better at target selection, setting up combos and using support abilities correctly, I'm all for that.

[JFKdj]

I hope they bring back deeper tactics, it doesn't even have to be like DA:O or 2, just something more than defend/follow.