It's more of a problem endemic to open-world games than RPGs.
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LTTP: DA:Inquisition, so long it feels like a chore
- Thread starter lmbotiva
- Start date
Oh come on. He knows better than that. Laidlaw has been with BioWare for at least a decade in one capacity or another. If he can't design a game well after all that time then curtain call, please. It's not smart to create a game beyond your means, beyond your scope. Clearly they put market first and didn't worry one iota about quests; these are kindergarten-crafted designs anyone with half a brain could do. Is this all wasted talent? Or is it sloppy, inexperienced execution? I guess BioWare didn't have anyone left to hand this off to.I'm pretty optimistic on that front. Kotaku hosted a Q&A with two of the franchise's lead developers back in late March, and Mike Laidlaw in particular openly admitted to getting the balance wrong between exploration and story content. He said it was their first go at this sort of thing and he's definitely taken this particular complaint to heart.
They also mentioned being well aware of the requests for story-focused DLC, as well as using Jaws of Hakkon as a testbed for attempting to do better by the concept of open-world regions by attempting better quest flow that feels more integrated and unified.
This all should have been the gold standard going into the vanilla game itself, ideally, but it is what it is. I agree with most of the rest of your post, by the way. Well, aside from the part about the cast being second only to ME2. I'm one of those crazies who loves ME3's something fierce, too.
They coaxed sunny reviews for this lazy excuse of a game. The quests are objectively bad, the side content is objectively meaningless and it makes up a huge majority of the game. I'm not interested in what critics felt was good or bad about things which are inarguably trash. That Laidlaw got so much pushback on this area would indicate a lot of reviews being, well... Wrong.
John Kowalski
Banned
Well since no one seems to be noting this, i think they did a pretty excellent job with the MC. Generally respectful, lots of questioning, and very nice acting. Fem voice 2 at least.
Apoleptica
Banned
I stopped playing at 17 hours, tried going back multiple times but just couldn't.
Likes
Likes
- Pretty environments
- Varied environments
- Boring Quests
- Boring Dialogue
- Boring Story
- Boring Combat
- Boring loot
- Ugly and annoying characters
LurkerPrime
Member
Everything except the actual game and overall story itself was well done; audio, visuals, writing (in general) - all great. It's the completely uninspired and lazy structure of the whole thing that brings it down massively. The initial impressions DAI gives are overwhelmingly positive, and this is because the fundamental issues it has only become apparent very late in the game, when it's obvious there's nothing more to it.
Frankly, I'm disappointed that reviewers never caught on to DAI's shortcomings. There's more to a game than just production values, as DAI so triumphantly displays. Then again if it wasn't DAI winning GotY it was Shadow of Mordor, which had pretty much the opposite problems - good core gameplay, with absolutely nothing else to support it.
Bah, humbug.
Comfort Jones
Banned
I got like 30 hours in and quit.
Bioware is so overrated. The flaws in their games are always super goddamn obvious to me and they never seem to really bother reviewers.
Their approach to how skills work is so confusing to me. You need magic AND they have a cool down? Why? So every combat moment basically gets to feel like I'm waiting to do the next obvious predictable thing? And within this system they still manage to fuck up balance by giving mages an energy shield ability, ie I really quickly realized I should just have 3 of those and one warrior, which basically lets you not take damage forever unless your enemy is ridiculously strong. That's literally all you have to do the entire game.
Bioware is so overrated. The flaws in their games are always super goddamn obvious to me and they never seem to really bother reviewers.
Their approach to how skills work is so confusing to me. You need magic AND they have a cool down? Why? So every combat moment basically gets to feel like I'm waiting to do the next obvious predictable thing? And within this system they still manage to fuck up balance by giving mages an energy shield ability, ie I really quickly realized I should just have 3 of those and one warrior, which basically lets you not take damage forever unless your enemy is ridiculously strong. That's literally all you have to do the entire game.
Just because a game designer is experienced in making one type of game doesn't automatically translate to being an expert in all types of game design. The more open world is something completely new to DA, and pretty new to Bioware who have tended to make games far narrower in scope. The imbalance between exploration and narrative content is hardly something that only Bioware gets wrong, the loss of story focus is a common problem in open world.
They didn't 'coax sunny reviews'. It's a good game with flaws. Many don't like it, many do. I'm still having tons of fun with it, and enjoying the bigger quests, which are by no means objectively bad. There's too much filler, too little focus on the plot, sure, but it's hardly the horror show you and others are making it out to be. I honestly don't get the strength and bitterness of the backlash.
@jeffzero yeah I liked James, EDI and Javik too. It's pretty hard to place Bioware's casts because they're all so damned good. I think Neverwinter Nights had the only companions I was less than keen on, but even then there were exceptions (Sharwyn and Linu and that evil monk guy).
I also felt that DA:I was a complete filler time waster. By 20 or so hours, I was ready to finish the game because I was tired of the fucking fetch quests to get more power to actually finish the story. By the time that happened, I didn't give a fuck what was going on anymore and I just wanted to finish the game because I already put so much time into it. The combat was nothing special and the scenery was quite nice, but nothing I'd want to spend 100 hours on.
Pinko Marx
Banned
I didn't find the plethora of fetch quests as annoying as most. I just wanted more reason to explore and get into fights because the combat system is what I enjoyed most about the game. Basically I played the game like a Diablo.
John Kowalski
Banned
That would indicate that the summation of its parts amounts to general competence, i don't think any one bit of it is so particularly egregious that one who is enjoying its not mechanical content should take offence at the places where the game does not shine.
I knew what expected me, though, so i had already chosen to stick with it.
KyanMehwulfe
Member
Default difficulty should have been higher, I think, because the combat is a lot better on Nightmare. It's only really 'boring' if you play it on the default easy mode. I mean, it's called Normal I guess. But it's rather easy.
Itemization should have been more liberal, too. There are so many great armour models that are probably never seen by the average playthrough. It's often a bit rare to get a proper armour drop for your level, let alone see all 3 different version (with the 2 different versions of each upgrade). I barely saw any of the Mails in contrast to the Coats or Armours until halfway through, like the trench for Cassandra or fully body armour for Iron Bull. And I didn't know that Masterwork/Superior Battlemaster/-mage/Prowler (dropped) were different than crafted 'Superior ("Sturdy" or Masterwork) (e.g. Varric's chest finally gets a breasplate or extra pouches) until I was almost 140 hours into game.
Crafting materials would be a lot more fun if they were more common, too. You could craft a lot of extra gear purely for aesthetic reasons... going into snowy Emprise? Quickly make full tier 3 Coat out of Bear Fur. Going into the Storm Coast? Switch it to Wyvern Scales? Fighting a lot of Rage and Pride demons? Make specific sets of items with Demon Killing bonuses and Fire and Lightning resistance.
I do a lot of this stuff now, but the only reason I can afford to is because I have 100s of every resource and now the game finally as a Vault. It that was there from day one, and resources (and releveant item schematics) dropped at 2-3x the rate, the itemization would probably not only be a lot more aesthetically and creatively fun, but they can increase the difficultly and make it more reliant on smart 'utility' use of items (so, using the right +damage per monster type, using the right resistances, etc) and in general more planning.
Right now the game on normal difficult is basically just spam Attack so I think the devs did a disservice by making itemization too conservative and difficulty too easy because the combat and itemization are actually a lot of fun at the end-game on Nightmare difficulty. Not wearing the right resistances can get you slaughtered against demons and dragons, and just spamming attacking is a good way to die in general -- you basically live and die by blocks, parries, and barriers.
Itemization should have been more liberal, too. There are so many great armour models that are probably never seen by the average playthrough. It's often a bit rare to get a proper armour drop for your level, let alone see all 3 different version (with the 2 different versions of each upgrade). I barely saw any of the Mails in contrast to the Coats or Armours until halfway through, like the trench for Cassandra or fully body armour for Iron Bull. And I didn't know that Masterwork/Superior Battlemaster/-mage/Prowler (dropped) were different than crafted 'Superior ("Sturdy" or Masterwork) (e.g. Varric's chest finally gets a breasplate or extra pouches) until I was almost 140 hours into game.
Crafting materials would be a lot more fun if they were more common, too. You could craft a lot of extra gear purely for aesthetic reasons... going into snowy Emprise? Quickly make full tier 3 Coat out of Bear Fur. Going into the Storm Coast? Switch it to Wyvern Scales? Fighting a lot of Rage and Pride demons? Make specific sets of items with Demon Killing bonuses and Fire and Lightning resistance.
I do a lot of this stuff now, but the only reason I can afford to is because I have 100s of every resource and now the game finally as a Vault. It that was there from day one, and resources (and releveant item schematics) dropped at 2-3x the rate, the itemization would probably not only be a lot more aesthetically and creatively fun, but they can increase the difficultly and make it more reliant on smart 'utility' use of items (so, using the right +damage per monster type, using the right resistances, etc) and in general more planning.
Right now the game on normal difficult is basically just spam Attack so I think the devs did a disservice by making itemization too conservative and difficulty too easy because the combat and itemization are actually a lot of fun at the end-game on Nightmare difficulty. Not wearing the right resistances can get you slaughtered against demons and dragons, and just spamming attacking is a good way to die in general -- you basically live and die by blocks, parries, and barriers.
CecilRousso
Member
This game is built around corridors as well. They're just hiding it well, like all other flaws in the game. Wherever you go in the game, they're always pushing you a certain way with cliffs, water and other obstacles.
Thanks, yo. Pretty much exactly how I would have responded.
In any case BioWare is still my favorite developer. I have to hope this shift to open world won't harm their narrative capabilities, and that the issues within DAI are temporary. It is indeed a good game. Its flaws are sometimes hard for me to cope with, but yeah, I still like the story. If they can get the balance down going forward then I'll not hesitate to continue regarding them as top-tier deliverers of the types of games I most enjoy.
FloatingDivider
Member
I thought the pacing for the story was beyond terrible though. Here's a summary explaining why, I even numbered the missions /D.
- Tutorial mission, you have amnesia about all relevant events, nearly executed for murder. Use glowy shit for the first time. End up crowned herald of Andraste in cutscene at Haven because you have glowy shit on your hand.
- You watch a cutscene where you talk to the head of the chantry to be interrupted by templars being dicks. You don't know why they're dicks but figure you might want to find out. None of the dialogue options change anything.
- You choose between mages or templars knowing little to nothing about their respective situation until you've already made the choice. Quests are okay though, you end up subjugating/or allying with your chosen faction. Makes very little difference which one you choose
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You close the rift, Corypheus lands on Haven spouts some semi nonsensical shit about the glowy shit on your hand, you get whipped (because he has a dragon) but manage to survive, cut to singing in the snowtopped mountains because Herald of Andraste. Solas finds skyhold and you get crowned inquisitor because you used the green glowy shit on the big rift.
- You speak to Josephine and Varric and run to the war table in skyhold.
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You visit the western approach and crestwood to watch some cutscenes with hawke and whoever your grey warder of choice is and kick the ass of 5 henchmen from the faction you didn't ally with. They tell you shit's going down at Adamant involving demons or some such shit and you head over there to shitkick the demons in the face. You fight 4 groups of demons, watch a cutscene(none of the dialogue choices matter) and fall into the fade. You walk through a corridor in the fade, regain your memories by talking to something that could be the spirit of the first enchanter or a demon, you don't know and never find out, fight a pride demon and exit the fade leaving behind the person you care the least about to die. This is probably tied with wicked hearts for the most involved quest in the game though.
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You go to settle a dispute for the antivan throne because corypheus might assasinate the empress. So you run around the castle for a while pressing square/x on doors, unmask the traitor, decide who gets to sit on the throne, and ally with that person. Also you meet morrigan, her tits are barely contained by her shirt.
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Miss tits out of shirt tells you coryphytits is looking for shit in an ancient elven temple, you go there, find the elves are still there, they tell you about a kiddy pool in their backyard containing souls of something or another, you decide who's going to drink the smelly feet water in the kiddypool you or miss tits.
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You watch a cutscene where flemeth reveals herself to be the vessel for some ancient elven god or someshit and whoever drank the tainted kiddypool water is now her slave. (also some shit about old god kid but that's only if you imported your keep world state). For some reason you get a dragon too so you can match coryphytits dragon for dragon and not get your shit whipped.
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Coryphytits shows up again, your dragon fights his dragon but your dragon sucks and loses so you end up fighting his dragon anyway. You fight coryphytits and stab him in the face. Roll epilogue.
- Ballteasingly annoying cutscene:
fade to credits, game over.Solas somehow ends up being an ancient elf too, the betrayer or whatever his name in elvish was, he gave coryphytits the orb that started all of this shit, he kills flemeth(or appears to kill flemeth)
John Kowalski
Banned
I liked Morrigan. I liked the story too, especially its implications on the established theologian truths. Though they weren't explored as much as i'd like.
Comfort Jones
Banned
He says while adding absolutely nothing to the conversation. Shit posting to the max!
iNvid02
Member
by the time i got to the hissing wastes i was pretty burned out, if i had to replay it again i would ignore more of the rifts and fetch quests. aside from that most of the time i spent with it was very enjoyable.
they should focus on the larger quests instead of filler content for the sequel
they should focus on the larger quests instead of filler content for the sequel
Thanks, yo. Pretty much exactly how I would have responded.
In any case BioWare is still my favorite developer. I have to hope this shift to open world won't harm their narrative capabilities, and that the issues within DAI are temporary. It is indeed a good game. Its flaws are sometimes hard for me to cope with, but yeah, I still like the story. If they can get the balance down going forward then I'll not hesitate to continue regarding them as top-tier deliverers of the types of games I most enjoy.
@jeff agreed. Bioware is my favourite dev as well, and I'd hate for future games to lose sight of their storytelling and characters. As much as I'm glad they've opened the world up a bit, there are clearly some problems to iron out. Hah, and you're welcome! I couldn't help myself
@floatingdivided the storylines of most video games can be reduced to a sentence or two, most are hardly the pinnacle of narrative sophistication. Also, some fairly big untagged spoilers there.
Edit: thanks for tagging.
Denton
Member
I finally got around to trying this out and...
I finally understand the thread title, except for me the chore set-in about 10 minutes after I started playing. I am sorry, but the start of the game is so bland, so boring, so generic fantasy oblivion gates, so...last gen, in every meaning, that I had to force myself to get through the intro..
Got to Hinterlands, got my first share of MMO quests, and quit it. Not gonna be going back.
Witcher 3 just spoiled me completely, I have no idea what to play. I guess it's time to find new hobby until expansions come out.
I suppose Origin doesn't give refunds if I bought it months ago, huh ? :/
At least the environment graphics was kinda nice, I suppose.
I finally understand the thread title, except for me the chore set-in about 10 minutes after I started playing. I am sorry, but the start of the game is so bland, so boring, so generic fantasy oblivion gates, so...last gen, in every meaning, that I had to force myself to get through the intro..
Got to Hinterlands, got my first share of MMO quests, and quit it. Not gonna be going back.
Witcher 3 just spoiled me completely, I have no idea what to play. I guess it's time to find new hobby until expansions come out.
I suppose Origin doesn't give refunds if I bought it months ago, huh ? :/
At least the environment graphics was kinda nice, I suppose.
No big deal. Every area in the game has the same quests as the Hinterlands does, they just look different. Doing the same things in different places is Dragon Age: Inquisition's MO.
All you do in this game is capture Logging Stands and hunt for Shards.
Malcolm9
Member
I literally finished this today, my total game time was 103 hours, which was over the last 3 weeks.
I didn't bother finishing all the missions on the war table, but I pretty much completed all the quests apart from 1 glitched quest, and some of the requisition quests as I had enough power points to last me a lifetime!
I enjoyed the game but it could have done with more depth to the side quests. I'm now going to start The Witcher 3, as I was advised to play that after DA:I as it's a much better game.
I didn't bother finishing all the missions on the war table, but I pretty much completed all the quests apart from 1 glitched quest, and some of the requisition quests as I had enough power points to last me a lifetime!
I enjoyed the game but it could have done with more depth to the side quests. I'm now going to start The Witcher 3, as I was advised to play that after DA:I as it's a much better game.
Don't tell me you weren't excited by the prospect of hunting shards in desert areas after Hinterlands? If that dosen't excite you i bet planting flags in desert/snowy/swamp areas will!
Dick Justice
Banned
I enjoyed the character interactions, but my God was this game a fucking chore to play. Just another Ubisoft-style bar-filling simulator with a forgettable story and lazy side quests.
Party interactions were WAAAAAYYYYY too few and far between, compared to Dragon Age: Origins.
I think they patched that, but I played it at launch.
Dick Justice
Banned
I heard about it being a bug, would've made doing all that tedious bullshit a lot more tolerable if there was some actual dialogue going on. Curious to know if they fixed it.
BoxManLocke
Member
It was fixed in January yes.
Party members interacted much more regularly after that.
Party members interacted much more regularly after that.
I played about 20 hours before i gave up. I really should try and get back into it but it's been months. And in those months i've played Witcher 3 which could make the return that much rougher.
Don't have many games i'm looking to get before Fallout 4. Probably Dishonored, and Divinity for PS4 whenever that comes out, but that's about it. So have time to waste. And there seems to be a lot of opportunity to waste time in DA:I.
Don't have many games i'm looking to get before Fallout 4. Probably Dishonored, and Divinity for PS4 whenever that comes out, but that's about it. So have time to waste. And there seems to be a lot of opportunity to waste time in DA:I.
Nickdogmoneycash
Member
Got about halfway through and lost all motivation to finish the game.
The game is simply too big with too much to do (never knew this could be a negative), that I don't feel like completing it.
The game is simply too big with too much to do (never knew this could be a negative), that I don't feel like completing it.
Then CDPR comes along and does their first open world game and BOOM, it can be done. I'm not a fool, there's more than a few straightforward Help Us Mastah Witchah quests in TW3, but there's a lot you can't see the ending to. Characters surprise you, they reach beyond what you expect of them. And there really is no Fetch 3 Bear Asses busywork as in MMOs from a decade and a half ago, whereas Dragon Age is chock frigging full of these. It's to the brim with these. It's spilling onto its own table with these. I'm supposed to sit here and give its designers milk and cookies because oh, poor babies, they haven't made an open world game before? They can go and fucking experiment somewhere else. What next, will I get called on the floor for never having made a game myself? I've done lots of things they haven't either.
This is not a personal assault. I don't think people are idiots for enjoying the game, but yes you should have a shred of perspective because bar none, the game is kinda bad and there's a TON of reasons why that's so. You will never convince me of its greatness because you haven't made any arguments towards that, only concessions on what could be my exaggeration (though I challenge anyone here to say this game doesn't have a shitload of barebones fetch quests - doesn't matter if other games do because it's a measure of suckage). Is that all? Yes there should be more focus here and here, but the game is good, look at the scores? That's it???
Would you even mention this in the same breath as Baldur's Gate or its much-revered sequel? Are there huge swathes of backlash on THAT game? I think it's become a little overrated via the passage of time, but it's clear why people like it. There is no missing that point, it's not a divisive tale. There were also no terrible, repetitive, mandatory filler quests you had to do over and over again to up a stat. Earning gold for Gaelan Bayle gave you an excuse to do a bunch of interesting quests if for some reason you had no desire; it was not a strong motivator.
BioWare have been on the "game of the moment" EA design treadmill for awhile now. I feel this is their biggest failing and worst AAA game by a large margin. Give me Jade Empire any day of the week. By all means they don't have to or shouldn't make the same type of game ad nauseum, but I thought them smarter than to copy paste Everquest 1-era design..... And in a singleplayer game to boot. Surely no one wanted such a ludicrous result? Anyway, that's the nail in the coffin. They undeniably ran out of time or ideas or talent - or something - and it killed their game.
Nothing changes, the first few hours is pretty much the entire game. Bin it. Lazy game design, they put no thought into the quests - it 2015 and they thought it was ok to close voids over and over again and over again, collect elf root and spider essence for requisition orders, get books and other manner of shit to tie it to character skill leveling. Why did i buy this game, never going to listening to gamers here regarding this brand again - god damn waste of money.
I been playing the hell out of this game, but the main gripe that I have with DA:I is the dumb ass quests that seem impossible to find on the map. It gets annoying to climb mountains and slide all over the place just to get to a simple fetch quest. It's annoying. Don't even get me started with the Hinterlands. Thankfully, I left that area and never desired to go back. Besides these gripes, I'm enjoying the game.
My question is, how did this get so many GOTY nominations from critics?
Their job is to objectively critique games, yet when ever I come into a GAF thread the base design of this game is getting torn to shreds.
This game was obviously aimed at the mainstream (streamlined, filler quest design, simple combat, etc) but what happened critically?
Their job is to objectively critique games, yet when ever I come into a GAF thread the base design of this game is getting torn to shreds.
This game was obviously aimed at the mainstream (streamlined, filler quest design, simple combat, etc) but what happened critically?
Omega Kirby
Member
Bayonetta 2 was robbed from GOTY
GAF tears everything to shreds. I think defenders of some games get tired of it and don't feel like discussion anymore after a bit. Look at threads on MGS4. You'd think it was the biggest abomination ever, yet GAF also voted it GOTY fucking twice.
JeffG
Member
Maybe its not the game. Maybe its you?
Tekomandor
Member
A vocal minority that was always going to form no matter the quality of the game does not sprout the mythical objective critical truth.
grandwizard
Member
It kind of makes sense when you read about the multiplayer origins of the game. If you were running around the vast areas with a few friends it might have made the mmo-style quest design and fetch quests / kill lists more bearable. On your own though it is just awful for playing it alone.
It was a great game that a vocal minority whines about.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
I will say, at least I was able to finish ME3, even with its random "walk by people to get fetch quest" system. Dragon Age just got too much in terms of the quest design.
John Kowalski
Banned
The game is generally well done and only falters against the highest of standards. It's no miracle nor a revelation, but it managed to do a lot fairly well. It was also released at a time prime for the next gen on the press.
Also, though it may not appear so, the median of gaf's feelings about this game is more positive than negative.
CambriaRising
Member
It is not a great game. It has well done aspects That attract people to it, but on the whole it is a badly designed mess.
This is what video game forums are all about
I think it's a great game that only falls apart if you're one of those anal "must do everything" sorts of gamers.