I think the biggest weakness is the opening of the game. And most people just play those first few hours. This is its biggest mistake. The early game is very paint by numbers? Nothing really grabs you. But then you hit the first real big moment
Weishaupt
and the game just rockets into awesome. I wish there were some hooks earlier though.
I'm not sure why everyone was talking this up as some amazing spectacle. It had a nice visual at the start, and then a bunch of painfully cliché dialogue. It didn't do enough work beforehand to establish stakes or create emotional investment.
+1
BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
edited March 14
Weisshaupt is essentially the capital fortress of the Grey Wardens and is frequently referred to in previous games as their place of origin. There is an entire arc with the Wardens in Dragon Age Inquisition where communications with the Grey Wardens is cut off and iirc there is a mass exodus/recall of all standing Grey Warden forces back to the Anderfels, so players have been speculating for years what the implications of that were. It's tonally similar to how Mass Effect 3 has the player visiting the homeworlds of the various alien species for the first time because the threat is on everyones' doorstep, the stakes are so existential.
Weisshaupt's siege and destruction results in what is essentially the obliteration of most of the Grey Wardens in Thedas - the primary fighting force responsible for keeping world-ending Blights at bay. The fact that the Evanuris run completely roughshod over the one faction who should be expressly capable of countering them establishes just how serious of a threat their power is.
The siege is a Helm's Deep moment that the defenders for all intents and purposes lose completely, and the tension of the moment is exacerbated by the previous conversations with the First Warden and the warnings from Antoine/Evka that the threat is evolving to a previously-unheard of level of catclysm. A lot of the scenery of the set pieces just do an amazing job of establishing that scale.
So, Veilguard now behaves as if my mouse is constantly moving a pixel or two, resulting in any movement with my controller being a nauseating mess as it tries to obey while also trying to move back towards my cursor.
Google shows a decent number of people developing this problem a few months ago and not finding any solution.
0
DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
I was gonna do an effort post about the game, but then I remembered I hat effort. So I'll just say the game sold like ass for a reason, and it wasn't any of the ones the chuds bitched about.
This is bad logic.
People cant know any of those things without having bought and played the game. And reviews of the game were good. If reviews were also poor you could certainly use that to say people read about all this stuff being bad and passed on it.
There are many many good games and even GREAT games that have sold poorly. Universally praised games that were cult classics. Games i will gladly say are even better than this. But if you use sales to say a game is bad you have to say it's the same for all those games as well.
Sales are a result of marketing and interest.
Like you can make the literal best game ever in a niche genre. So you have to spend less money on it because sales will be lower because overall interest is lower. And if you spend too much it does not matter how good the game is because it just cannot sell enough to make that money back and will be a failure.
This was the fourth entry in a series, not a new property, that is a large factor in how things played out. They made a product that turned off previous fans of the series, but didn't do anything interesting enough to attract new fans. And reviews for AAA games like this barely mean anything. Cyberpunk launched broken and unfinished and still had like a 90 metacritic, it's just another part of their marketing. Like, sure, there are games of quality that don't have the budget or presentation to penetrate the mass and reach success. But that's not what happened to Veilguard. It got the standard AAA gamut of press and marketing, it just wasn't a game anyone wanted.
None of this changes anything that i said or is even a response to what i said except maybe the last line that agrees with what i said more than anything else.
People not wanting it is not having enough intetest which is what i said. That has nothing to do with the quality of the game which is what you were saying. A game not being what you want it to be doesnt make it a bad game. The entire point i was making.
Just like the new Zelda games are not at all what i want from Zelda. And i find them very disappointing as a Zelda experience. But they are clearly incredible games.
And unless you have some sort of data to back up your review statement there's really nothing to be done with that. The industry still thinks reviews matter. The people that actually have data and review that data still think they matter. But reviews alone cant do the trick. Them mattering to you doesnt mean anything.
And cyberpunk seems an odd chouce to bring up because that not omly reviewed well but also sold insanely well. So if the reviews dont matter but the sales do doesnt that mean that Cyberpunk was still great under those terms? But then wouldnt that also mean that score makes sense? It feels like we are just cherry picking single data points to prove a vibe but the bigger picture isnt adding up at all.
So I've been very negative on veilguard in this thread, and I still don't like it. That being said I didn't want it to flop so hard that the brand completely died. I didn't like it but in a perfect world (for me) it would have done well enough with those who did, not to be successful, but successful enough that they go "well let's go back to the old formula and make one more" but initial reports are that even on the base cheapest ps+ tier barely anyone with ps+ is bothering to play it which is..oof. This isn't a great source tbh so they could be wrong but if true I wonder what EA will do with the remnants of BioWare if people with a dirt cheap subscription can't even be bothered to try their game
So I've been very negative on veilguard in this thread, and I still don't like it. That being said I didn't want it to flop so hard that the brand completely died. I didn't like it but in a perfect world (for me) it would have done well enough with those who did, not to be successful, but successful enough that they go "well let's go back to the old formula and make one more" but initial reports are that even on the base cheapest ps+ tier barely anyone with ps+ is bothering to play it which is..oof. This isn't a great source tbh so they could be wrong but if true I wonder what EA will do with the remnants of BioWare if people with a dirt cheap subscription can't even be bothered to try their game
If EA wanted to kill Bioware entirely, they would have already. Granted reducing them to a small team that has to get help from other teams to finish isn't great, but they'll survive. Probably to do Mass Effect, considering 1) AAA publishers are increasingly risk-averse to new IP, and 2) the Mass Effect collection sold really well for a relatively simple remaster.
But barring some kind of crazy buyout or executive reboot years down the line, this is probably the end of the line for Dragon Age, considering how badly Veilguard did and how expensive it was to make.*
*This is not a criticism of the game, loads of good games sell badly, I'm not rooting for Dragon Age/Bioware to fail, etc. etc.
Why the crap did I ever make my original name "cloudeagle?"
I'd imagine Dragon Age will be tied to Mass Effect's success. It's an established brand, which means it has value (remember there are books, pen and paper system, etc). If Mass Effect 5 is a massive success, EA will talk it self into another Dragon Age game. Dragon Age 5? Maybe, or maybe a reboot.
Even if ME5 isn't a success, and Bioware is officially done. I could see them assigning another studio to it down the road or licensing it to someone else. I have a hard time believing that 1 unsuccessful game (that had a rocky development) would kill a franchise when the previous one was very successful.
I been continuing to play Veilguard since it came out on PS+ and it's been fine but I gotta ask when does it start feeling like a Bioware RPG?
I'm not even talking about stats or combat, it's lacking choices and interesting character interactions.
I just finished recruiting Luccanis and been doing some side missions and one or two story missions. Everything seems to be just "follow wave point and fight enemies in between"
And the combat is fine but definitely not enough to keep me further interested
I'm not one of those people that goes 'Oh, once you get past (insert part), it gets better', but the story and the character interactions get more interesting after you recruit the fourth party member, and feels similar in structure as Mass Effect 2 But if you don't feel it's doing it for you, don't force yourself to play more.
I been continuing to play Veilguard since it came out on PS+ and it's been fine but I gotta ask when does it start feeling like a Bioware RPG?
I'm not even talking about stats or combat, it's lacking choices and interesting character interactions.
I just finished recruiting Luccanis and been doing some side missions and one or two story missions. Everything seems to be just "follow wave point and fight enemies in between"
And the combat is fine but definitely not enough to keep me further interested
It never really does. The characters stay on the one note they start with and there's not really any choices to make that aren't about them. It's like ME2 but everyone's friends instead of a bunch of clashing weirdos.
0
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
The game was a solid 7/10 to me.
Not as terrible as some were making it out to be but could have been a lot better.
Did not enjoy the tonal shift as I felt that was already a space Mass Effect occupied.
Finally got around to starting out on Veilgard, at the first big decision point of act 1…
I totally feel like I am missing something from the discourse because I am enjoying this game a lot so far…. Like I feel like everyone else must have been playing some different game than me to hate it so much…
Of course I loved all the Mass Effect games (even Andromeda), hated Inquisition with a passion (inquisition was a big reason I waited so long, I was trying not to play veilguard until I finished it but never could bring myself to complete it), and thought DA:O was a competent but non-exceptional CPG, so maybe that plays into it.
Edit: I will say I do miss some of the racial and factional tensions of the previous games but it’s a totally different area we haven’t been to before, so I just wrote it off as “new place, shit’s different here”.
Finally got around to starting out on Veilgard, at the first big decision point of act 1…
I totally feel like I am missing something from the discourse because I am enjoying this game a lot so far…. Like I feel like everyone else must have been playing some different game than me to hate it so much…
Of course I loved all the Mass Effect games (even Andromeda), hated Inquisition with a passion (inquisition was a big reason I waited so long, I was trying not to play veilguard until I finished it but never could bring myself to complete it), and thought DA:O was a competent but non-exceptional CPG, so maybe that plays into it.
Edit: I will say I do miss some of the racial and factional tensions of the previous games but it’s a totally different area we haven’t been to before, so I just wrote it off as “new place, shit’s different here”.
The strongest indicator of whether or not people will like Veilguard is their opinion of Origins vs the rest of the series... and even then, it's not like a strong indicator, just the strongest one I've seen.
Like, if somebody thinks DAO was just the best and everything since has been downhill? Not as likely to be a Veilguard fan.
But, otoh, I loved DAO? And I also loved Inquisition. And I respect the shit out of DA2, even if I didn't love the Mass Effect-ification of DA. ...and I think Veilguard is pretty great!
I will say I do miss some of the racial and factional tensions of the previous games...
The world is in enough shit as it is, that I don't really need my games to be super grimdark right now. I liked my City Elf origin in DAO, I'm just not sure now is the right time for that game.
(I say this while playing Rogue Trader)
+3
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I think a lot of it is people realizing that the possibility for a scope of multi-game decision trees is just gone. And Bioware giving up on it (whether to just get the game out, or because there isn't the support anymore) hurts some people quite a bit.
I am not discounting the fact that some people didn't enjoy the combat and so on, but I think that dramatic change in scope for Bioware as a company is hanging over the discourse.
Finally got around to starting out on Veilgard, at the first big decision point of act 1…
I totally feel like I am missing something from the discourse because I am enjoying this game a lot so far…. Like I feel like everyone else must have been playing some different game than me to hate it so much…
Of course I loved all the Mass Effect games (even Andromeda), hated Inquisition with a passion (inquisition was a big reason I waited so long, I was trying not to play veilguard until I finished it but never could bring myself to complete it), and thought DA:O was a competent but non-exceptional CPG, so maybe that plays into it.
Edit: I will say I do miss some of the racial and factional tensions of the previous games but it’s a totally different area we haven’t been to before, so I just wrote it off as “new place, shit’s different here”.
The strongest indicator of whether or not people will like Veilguard is their opinion of Origins vs the rest of the series... and even then, it's not like a strong indicator, just the strongest one I've seen.
Like, if somebody thinks DAO was just the best and everything since has been downhill? Not as likely to be a Veilguard fan.
But, otoh, I loved DAO? And I also loved Inquisition. And I respect the shit out of DA2, even if I didn't love the Mass Effect-ification of DA. ...and I think Veilguard is pretty great!
I will say I do miss some of the racial and factional tensions of the previous games...
The world is in enough shit as it is, that I don't really need my games to be super grimdark right now. I liked my City Elf origin in DAO, I'm just not sure now is the right time for that game.
(I say this while playing Rogue Trader)
Dragon Age: Origins is something I have a hard time understanding why people put on such a pedestal, honestly.
I feel like the CRPG genre had 2 real peaks, one in the 1997-2001ish period and one that's basically 2011ish to present.
In between, there were several games that seemed to try to reignite the genre's popularity but just sort of failed to catch fire for one reason or another. Witcher 1, NWN 1 and 2, etc. DA:O was one of those for me. It had a good overall structure, great lore and worldbuilding, but janky ass combat and level design, etc... A lot of the stuff was interesting, but a lot of the stuff people really seemed to latch onto I felt had been done before. Like the magic metaphysics was straight out of warhammer, the racial tension between humans and elves felt a lot like the Witcher, etc... Not that it was a rip off or anything, it just wasn't really breaking new ground for me at the time...
But I think for some people it just blew them away, and I can understand, because there wasn't really anything like it of the same level of quality for 3 or 4 years before or after.
But on the other hand, there's this big pool of people out there that seem to just compare every Bioware game out there to DA:O. And yeah, it does kind of suck that Bioware never made another real CRPG, but it's been 15+ years at this point.
I'm not super in love with DA:O--of the series, I only truly love DA:2--but I think the obvious thing about it is that it's a CRPG, but easy to play. And that's not even common now, with modern CRPGs, much less then.
Getting into 90% of CRPGs past and present is a slog, I always feel like I'm learning to navigate a new software suite for art or design or something instead of playing a video game, trying to get used to the hotkeys and rules for keeping party members moving and all the other whatnot necessary to play smoothly without unintended inputs or doing everything agonizingly slow in pretty much any real CRPG. And I've played a ton of them, so it must be even more harrowing if you haven't.
I don't think liking Origins has anything to do with it. I liked Origins when it came out (I'd probably like it a lot less if I replayed it right now). Same for DA2. Inquisition is probably my favorite, but generally the changes from one game to the next didn't bother me and I enjoyed them all at the times I played them.
I hated Veilguard. I could get past the combat, it wasn't my favorite but it wasn't offensive by any means. Same for the art direction. The writing however was offensive. It was so dumb, it was like a gut punch to fans of Bioware games. Where I'd say Andromeda was more like white noise, it wasn't the good of previous games, but it wasn't terrible. Veilguard is some straight up Saturday morning cartoon level bad. The open begins with the dumbest trope possible. One of your companions gets super powers completely unearned. This isn't a knock on anyone for liking the game, adults like all sorts of things others might think are dumb. Some of my comfort watching is far from well regarded stuff. On top of the writing, the game design itself was pretty bad. I had a companion tell me how to solve a puzzle before I could even really look at what to do. Though given that they were designed for the Saturday morning demo (match these shields, move this thing to this other thing, hit the glowy thing a couple times), maybe it doesn't matter. To be fair, I tend to dislike the super simple puzzle stuff in other modern games as well. Feels like a gimmick to waste time and is a byproduct of open world game design not infesting linear game design.
Maybe in a world where this wasn't a Dragon Age sequel and was it's own thing, the discourse on it would be somewhat different. But for me the combo of quality dropping from Inquisition to Veilguard combined with the expectation of what a Dragon Age game should sort of feel like or a Bioware game should succeed at, it's really hard to deal with as a fan of the studio and the works I've enjoyed in the past. It doesn't help that this came out not long after BG3 which while it may have been too long and not as action-y, the story was well crafted and the companions felt bioware-y.
I had a companion tell me how to solve a puzzle before I could even really look at what to do. Though given that they were designed for the Saturday morning demo (match these shields, move this thing to this other thing, hit the glowy thing a couple times), maybe it doesn't matter. To be fair, I tend to dislike the super simple puzzle stuff in other modern games as well. Feels like a gimmick to waste time and is a byproduct of open world game design not infesting linear game design.
Puzzles in games that aren't puzzle games are like 99% shit and always were, tbh.
I can think of one game I've played in the last few years with satisfying puzzles. Not super obtuse guess-and-check nonsense, not a fake puzzle that exists to waste time because pushing blocks around or spinning the camera around looking for things to shoot is slower than running through the room. Actual puzzles worth doing.
It was Tales of Eternia, a 25-year-old JRPG. Which also had the worst combat I can recall ever experiencing in a JRPG, so, you know, all things must be balanced I guess. (and later games in that series with better combat have the most agonizing puzzles I've ever experienced)
Makes sense. Making good puzzles is it's own thing entirely and I kinda doubt most games have design team members who specialize in puzzles.
I don't think liking Origins has anything to do with it. I liked Origins when it came out (I'd probably like it a lot less if I replayed it right now). Same for DA2. Inquisition is probably my favorite, but generally the changes from one game to the next didn't bother me and I enjoyed them all at the times I played them.
I hated Veilguard. I could get past the combat, it wasn't my favorite but it wasn't offensive by any means. Same for the art direction. The writing however was offensive. It was so dumb, it was like a gut punch to fans of Bioware games. Where I'd say Andromeda was more like white noise, it wasn't the good of previous games, but it wasn't terrible. Veilguard is some straight up Saturday morning cartoon level bad. The open begins with the dumbest trope possible. One of your companions gets super powers completely unearned. This isn't a knock on anyone for liking the game, adults like all sorts of things others might think are dumb. Some of my comfort watching is far from well regarded stuff. On top of the writing, the game design itself was pretty bad. I had a companion tell me how to solve a puzzle before I could even really look at what to do. Though given that they were designed for the Saturday morning demo (match these shields, move this thing to this other thing, hit the glowy thing a couple times), maybe it doesn't matter. To be fair, I tend to dislike the super simple puzzle stuff in other modern games as well. Feels like a gimmick to waste time and is a byproduct of open world game design not infesting linear game design.
Maybe in a world where this wasn't a Dragon Age sequel and was it's own thing, the discourse on it would be somewhat different. But for me the combo of quality dropping from Inquisition to Veilguard combined with the expectation of what a Dragon Age game should sort of feel like or a Bioware game should succeed at, it's really hard to deal with as a fan of the studio and the works I've enjoyed in the past. It doesn't help that this came out not long after BG3 which while it may have been too long and not as action-y, the story was well crafted and the companions felt bioware-y.
You can just turn off the companion hints and tutorials in the menu, I agree it’s stupid to default to that but its a 10 second fix…
Other than that the missions really felt the same as DA2 or Mass Effect to me - a lot of “walk to your objectives conveniently at the end of this corridor which is the only way you can really go” for the main missions with some open worldy side mission stuff, but at least I don’t have 3 people spamming me with bear ass grind quests every time I walk into a new area so…
Writing is definitely a shift in tone and not taking itself as seriously, I think the example presented is a bit weird for the series though…
Harding is clearly from the get go
possessed by a demon equivalent.
and her powers and development are consistent with how that is portrayed elsewhere in the series many times.
I had a companion tell me how to solve a puzzle before I could even really look at what to do. Though given that they were designed for the Saturday morning demo (match these shields, move this thing to this other thing, hit the glowy thing a couple times), maybe it doesn't matter. To be fair, I tend to dislike the super simple puzzle stuff in other modern games as well. Feels like a gimmick to waste time and is a byproduct of open world game design not infesting linear game design.
Puzzles in games that aren't puzzle games are like 99% shit and always were, tbh.
I can think of one game I've played in the last few years with satisfying puzzles. Not super obtuse guess-and-check nonsense, not a fake puzzle that exists to waste time because pushing blocks around or spinning the camera around looking for things to shoot is slower than running through the room. Actual puzzles worth doing.
It was Tales of Eternia, a 25-year-old JRPG. Which also had the worst combat I can recall ever experiencing in a JRPG, so, you know, all things must be balanced I guess. (and later games in that series with better combat have the most agonizing puzzles I've ever experienced)
Makes sense. Making good puzzles is it's own thing entirely and I kinda doubt most games have design team members who specialize in puzzles.
For sure. I was trying to think if Mass Effect 2 or 3 had puzzles in them? Mass Effect 1 had a couple, though some where very purposeful, like the Novaria one. But I can't really remember any from 2 or 3.
Generally I'm not a big fan, but there are times where at least it's thematic. Uncharted for example, the puzzles were easy, but they fit the Indiana Jones style ancient temples vibe. Hogwarts Legacy was interesting, it had wayyyyy too many dumb puzzles (merlin trials), but did have some fun block/physics puzzles. However all of them were optional, so they may fall more in the Breath of the Wild mold, where it's not really the same as a single player linear story driven game.
I don't think liking Origins has anything to do with it. I liked Origins when it came out (I'd probably like it a lot less if I replayed it right now). Same for DA2. Inquisition is probably my favorite, but generally the changes from one game to the next didn't bother me and I enjoyed them all at the times I played them.
I hated Veilguard. I could get past the combat, it wasn't my favorite but it wasn't offensive by any means. Same for the art direction. The writing however was offensive. It was so dumb, it was like a gut punch to fans of Bioware games. Where I'd say Andromeda was more like white noise, it wasn't the good of previous games, but it wasn't terrible. Veilguard is some straight up Saturday morning cartoon level bad. The open begins with the dumbest trope possible. One of your companions gets super powers completely unearned. This isn't a knock on anyone for liking the game, adults like all sorts of things others might think are dumb. Some of my comfort watching is far from well regarded stuff. On top of the writing, the game design itself was pretty bad. I had a companion tell me how to solve a puzzle before I could even really look at what to do. Though given that they were designed for the Saturday morning demo (match these shields, move this thing to this other thing, hit the glowy thing a couple times), maybe it doesn't matter. To be fair, I tend to dislike the super simple puzzle stuff in other modern games as well. Feels like a gimmick to waste time and is a byproduct of open world game design not infesting linear game design.
Maybe in a world where this wasn't a Dragon Age sequel and was it's own thing, the discourse on it would be somewhat different. But for me the combo of quality dropping from Inquisition to Veilguard combined with the expectation of what a Dragon Age game should sort of feel like or a Bioware game should succeed at, it's really hard to deal with as a fan of the studio and the works I've enjoyed in the past. It doesn't help that this came out not long after BG3 which while it may have been too long and not as action-y, the story was well crafted and the companions felt bioware-y.
You can just turn off the companion hints and tutorials in the menu, I agree it’s stupid to default to that but its a 10 second fix…
Other than that the missions really felt the same as DA2 or Mass Effect to me - a lot of “walk to your objectives conveniently at the end of this corridor which is the only way you can really go” for the main missions with some open worldy side mission stuff, but at least I don’t have 3 people spamming me with bear ass grind quests every time I walk into a new area so…
Writing is definitely a shift in tone and not taking itself as seriously, I think the example presented is a bit weird for the series though…
Harding is clearly from the get go
possessed by a demon equivalent.
and her powers and development are consistent with how that is portrayed elsewhere in the series many times.
Yeah I mean the companion hint thing is just a gripe. You get it in Horizon FW, Uncharted, etc. Just like the puzzles and combat, if I was fully invested in the story and characters, I'd get over it.
You mentioned you didn't understand why folks don't like the game. I'm responding to that with why I didn't like the game. If this stuff doesn't bother some folks, that's great, I'm glad they can enjoy the game. I just can't.
Harding beginning stuff:
Harding isn't possessed by a demon, she's possessed by a Titan. The only hint we have about this is from the Decent DLC with Valta. She's hit with lyrium from the heart of the titan, and when she wakes up talks about being connected and maybe has some magic now. Here, Harding touches a lyrium dagger that some how poisons her (though nobody else who touches it later), and with that she's now connected to a Titan and has all sorts of new magic. Lyrium is all over the world, templars, mages, heck Fenris had tattoos. None of that connected anyone to a Titan. Hell this was Sola's dagger, was he connected to Titans?
That's what folks are talking about when they say, this doesn't feel like a Dragon Age game. It's not just the tone, it's that Dragon Age tended to slowly expose the player to the world and lore. Even after a full DLC, Bioware had us theory crafting about Titans, how they fit in this world, what they could do, etc. Here they just do whatever they feel like to fit the game design they wanted. This is just one example out of dozens and I stopped after 20 hours.
And it's not just story design, again they decided to go Saturday morning cartoon with direction as well. All Harding had to do was pass out and once she woke up, she started experiencing her powers. Maybe talk about how she heard singing when she touched the dagger. Let her powers show up slowly (which is what I'm assuming they do throughout the game). Instead they went full cartoon where she needs to DBZ power up, to make sure we know she's got powers now!
I don't think liking Origins has anything to do with it. I liked Origins when it came out (I'd probably like it a lot less if I replayed it right now). Same for DA2. Inquisition is probably my favorite, but generally the changes from one game to the next didn't bother me and I enjoyed them all at the times I played them.
I hated Veilguard. I could get past the combat, it wasn't my favorite but it wasn't offensive by any means. Same for the art direction. The writing however was offensive. It was so dumb, it was like a gut punch to fans of Bioware games. Where I'd say Andromeda was more like white noise, it wasn't the good of previous games, but it wasn't terrible. Veilguard is some straight up Saturday morning cartoon level bad. The open begins with the dumbest trope possible. One of your companions gets super powers completely unearned. This isn't a knock on anyone for liking the game, adults like all sorts of things others might think are dumb. Some of my comfort watching is far from well regarded stuff. On top of the writing, the game design itself was pretty bad. I had a companion tell me how to solve a puzzle before I could even really look at what to do. Though given that they were designed for the Saturday morning demo (match these shields, move this thing to this other thing, hit the glowy thing a couple times), maybe it doesn't matter. To be fair, I tend to dislike the super simple puzzle stuff in other modern games as well. Feels like a gimmick to waste time and is a byproduct of open world game design not infesting linear game design.
Maybe in a world where this wasn't a Dragon Age sequel and was it's own thing, the discourse on it would be somewhat different. But for me the combo of quality dropping from Inquisition to Veilguard combined with the expectation of what a Dragon Age game should sort of feel like or a Bioware game should succeed at, it's really hard to deal with as a fan of the studio and the works I've enjoyed in the past. It doesn't help that this came out not long after BG3 which while it may have been too long and not as action-y, the story was well crafted and the companions felt bioware-y.
You can just turn off the companion hints and tutorials in the menu, I agree it’s stupid to default to that but its a 10 second fix…
Other than that the missions really felt the same as DA2 or Mass Effect to me - a lot of “walk to your objectives conveniently at the end of this corridor which is the only way you can really go” for the main missions with some open worldy side mission stuff, but at least I don’t have 3 people spamming me with bear ass grind quests every time I walk into a new area so…
Writing is definitely a shift in tone and not taking itself as seriously, I think the example presented is a bit weird for the series though…
Harding is clearly from the get go
possessed by a demon equivalent.
and her powers and development are consistent with how that is portrayed elsewhere in the series many times.
Yeah I mean the companion hint thing is just a gripe. You get it in Horizon FW, Uncharted, etc. Just like the puzzles and combat, if I was fully invested in the story and characters, I'd get over it.
You mentioned you didn't understand why folks don't like the game. I'm responding to that with why I didn't like the game. If this stuff doesn't bother some folks, that's great, I'm glad they can enjoy the game. I just can't.
Harding beginning stuff:
Harding isn't possessed by a demon, she's possessed by a Titan. The only hint we have about this is from the Decent DLC with Valta. She's hit with lyrium from the heart of the titan, and when she wakes up talks about being connected and maybe has some magic now. Here, Harding touches a lyrium dagger that some how poisons her (though nobody else who touches it later), and with that she's now connected to a Titan and has all sorts of new magic. Lyrium is all over the world, templars, mages, heck Fenris had tattoos. None of that connected anyone to a Titan. Hell this was Sola's dagger, was he connected to Titans?
That's what folks are talking about when they say, this doesn't feel like a Dragon Age game. It's not just the tone, it's that Dragon Age tended to slowly expose the player to the world and lore. Even after a full DLC, Bioware had us theory crafting about Titans, how they fit in this world, what they could do, etc. Here they just do whatever they feel like to fit the game design they wanted. This is just one example out of dozens and I stopped after 20 hours.
And it's not just story design, again they decided to go Saturday morning cartoon with direction as well. All Harding had to do was pass out and once she woke up, she started experiencing her powers. Maybe talk about how she heard singing when she touched the dagger. Let her powers show up slowly (which is what I'm assuming they do throughout the game). Instead they went full cartoon where she needs to DBZ power up, to make sure we know she's got powers now!
I mean the dagger is
literally one of the most powerful magical artifacts in existence, possibly THE most powerful artifact in existence. It was the same lyrium that was the deep road idol and Meredith and Samsons swords before Solas de-blighted it. Varric straight up says he recognizes it as the same artifact he found in the deep roads, and Solas was going to use it to tear apart the veil, and seems to indicate he used in in binding the Gods in the first place…. It was forged by the primeival Dwarves… It’s really not on the same level as Fenris’ tattoos or templars being lyrium infused.
I don't think liking Origins has anything to do with it. I liked Origins when it came out (I'd probably like it a lot less if I replayed it right now). Same for DA2. Inquisition is probably my favorite, but generally the changes from one game to the next didn't bother me and I enjoyed them all at the times I played them.
I hated Veilguard. I could get past the combat, it wasn't my favorite but it wasn't offensive by any means. Same for the art direction. The writing however was offensive. It was so dumb, it was like a gut punch to fans of Bioware games. Where I'd say Andromeda was more like white noise, it wasn't the good of previous games, but it wasn't terrible. Veilguard is some straight up Saturday morning cartoon level bad. The open begins with the dumbest trope possible. One of your companions gets super powers completely unearned. This isn't a knock on anyone for liking the game, adults like all sorts of things others might think are dumb. Some of my comfort watching is far from well regarded stuff. On top of the writing, the game design itself was pretty bad. I had a companion tell me how to solve a puzzle before I could even really look at what to do. Though given that they were designed for the Saturday morning demo (match these shields, move this thing to this other thing, hit the glowy thing a couple times), maybe it doesn't matter. To be fair, I tend to dislike the super simple puzzle stuff in other modern games as well. Feels like a gimmick to waste time and is a byproduct of open world game design not infesting linear game design.
Maybe in a world where this wasn't a Dragon Age sequel and was it's own thing, the discourse on it would be somewhat different. But for me the combo of quality dropping from Inquisition to Veilguard combined with the expectation of what a Dragon Age game should sort of feel like or a Bioware game should succeed at, it's really hard to deal with as a fan of the studio and the works I've enjoyed in the past. It doesn't help that this came out not long after BG3 which while it may have been too long and not as action-y, the story was well crafted and the companions felt bioware-y.
You can just turn off the companion hints and tutorials in the menu, I agree it’s stupid to default to that but its a 10 second fix…
Other than that the missions really felt the same as DA2 or Mass Effect to me - a lot of “walk to your objectives conveniently at the end of this corridor which is the only way you can really go” for the main missions with some open worldy side mission stuff, but at least I don’t have 3 people spamming me with bear ass grind quests every time I walk into a new area so…
Writing is definitely a shift in tone and not taking itself as seriously, I think the example presented is a bit weird for the series though…
Harding is clearly from the get go
possessed by a demon equivalent.
and her powers and development are consistent with how that is portrayed elsewhere in the series many times.
Yeah I mean the companion hint thing is just a gripe. You get it in Horizon FW, Uncharted, etc. Just like the puzzles and combat, if I was fully invested in the story and characters, I'd get over it.
You mentioned you didn't understand why folks don't like the game. I'm responding to that with why I didn't like the game. If this stuff doesn't bother some folks, that's great, I'm glad they can enjoy the game. I just can't.
Harding beginning stuff:
Harding isn't possessed by a demon, she's possessed by a Titan. The only hint we have about this is from the Decent DLC with Valta. She's hit with lyrium from the heart of the titan, and when she wakes up talks about being connected and maybe has some magic now. Here, Harding touches a lyrium dagger that some how poisons her (though nobody else who touches it later), and with that she's now connected to a Titan and has all sorts of new magic. Lyrium is all over the world, templars, mages, heck Fenris had tattoos. None of that connected anyone to a Titan. Hell this was Sola's dagger, was he connected to Titans?
That's what folks are talking about when they say, this doesn't feel like a Dragon Age game. It's not just the tone, it's that Dragon Age tended to slowly expose the player to the world and lore. Even after a full DLC, Bioware had us theory crafting about Titans, how they fit in this world, what they could do, etc. Here they just do whatever they feel like to fit the game design they wanted. This is just one example out of dozens and I stopped after 20 hours.
And it's not just story design, again they decided to go Saturday morning cartoon with direction as well. All Harding had to do was pass out and once she woke up, she started experiencing her powers. Maybe talk about how she heard singing when she touched the dagger. Let her powers show up slowly (which is what I'm assuming they do throughout the game). Instead they went full cartoon where she needs to DBZ power up, to make sure we know she's got powers now!
I mean the dagger is
literally one of the most powerful magical artifacts in existence, possibly THE most powerful artifact in existence. It was the same lyrium that was the deep road idol and Meredith and Samsons swords before Solas de-blighted it. Varric straight up says he recognizes it as the same artifact he found in the deep roads, and Solas was going to use it to tear apart the veil, and seems to indicate he used in in binding the Gods in the first place…. It was forged by the primeival Dwarves… It’s really not on the same level as Fenris’ tattoos or templars being lyrium infused.
It is also (more Veilguard spoilers)
the dagger that was used by the Elves to 'kill' the Titans, separating their minds from their bodies. Dwarves being closely related to the Titans, it is not unlikely that this would have a different effect on her than on other species.
Posts
I'm not sure why everyone was talking this up as some amazing spectacle. It had a nice visual at the start, and then a bunch of painfully cliché dialogue. It didn't do enough work beforehand to establish stakes or create emotional investment.
The siege is a Helm's Deep moment that the defenders for all intents and purposes lose completely, and the tension of the moment is exacerbated by the previous conversations with the First Warden and the warnings from Antoine/Evka that the threat is evolving to a previously-unheard of level of catclysm. A lot of the scenery of the set pieces just do an amazing job of establishing that scale.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
Google shows a decent number of people developing this problem a few months ago and not finding any solution.
None of this changes anything that i said or is even a response to what i said except maybe the last line that agrees with what i said more than anything else.
People not wanting it is not having enough intetest which is what i said. That has nothing to do with the quality of the game which is what you were saying. A game not being what you want it to be doesnt make it a bad game. The entire point i was making.
Just like the new Zelda games are not at all what i want from Zelda. And i find them very disappointing as a Zelda experience. But they are clearly incredible games.
And unless you have some sort of data to back up your review statement there's really nothing to be done with that. The industry still thinks reviews matter. The people that actually have data and review that data still think they matter. But reviews alone cant do the trick. Them mattering to you doesnt mean anything.
And cyberpunk seems an odd chouce to bring up because that not omly reviewed well but also sold insanely well. So if the reviews dont matter but the sales do doesnt that mean that Cyberpunk was still great under those terms? But then wouldnt that also mean that score makes sense? It feels like we are just cherry picking single data points to prove a vibe but the bigger picture isnt adding up at all.
https://www.truetrophies.com/news/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-the-cowabunga-collection-ps-plus-essential
If EA wanted to kill Bioware entirely, they would have already. Granted reducing them to a small team that has to get help from other teams to finish isn't great, but they'll survive. Probably to do Mass Effect, considering 1) AAA publishers are increasingly risk-averse to new IP, and 2) the Mass Effect collection sold really well for a relatively simple remaster.
But barring some kind of crazy buyout or executive reboot years down the line, this is probably the end of the line for Dragon Age, considering how badly Veilguard did and how expensive it was to make.*
*This is not a criticism of the game, loads of good games sell badly, I'm not rooting for Dragon Age/Bioware to fail, etc. etc.
Even if ME5 isn't a success, and Bioware is officially done. I could see them assigning another studio to it down the road or licensing it to someone else. I have a hard time believing that 1 unsuccessful game (that had a rocky development) would kill a franchise when the previous one was very successful.
I'm not even talking about stats or combat, it's lacking choices and interesting character interactions.
I just finished recruiting Luccanis and been doing some side missions and one or two story missions. Everything seems to be just "follow wave point and fight enemies in between"
And the combat is fine but definitely not enough to keep me further interested
WoW
Dear Satan.....
It never really does. The characters stay on the one note they start with and there's not really any choices to make that aren't about them. It's like ME2 but everyone's friends instead of a bunch of clashing weirdos.
Not as terrible as some were making it out to be but could have been a lot better.
Did not enjoy the tonal shift as I felt that was already a space Mass Effect occupied.
Playthrough #3, go. Zea Mercar, shadow dragon rogue.
Man I love this game so much.
I totally feel like I am missing something from the discourse because I am enjoying this game a lot so far…. Like I feel like everyone else must have been playing some different game than me to hate it so much…
Of course I loved all the Mass Effect games (even Andromeda), hated Inquisition with a passion (inquisition was a big reason I waited so long, I was trying not to play veilguard until I finished it but never could bring myself to complete it), and thought DA:O was a competent but non-exceptional CPG, so maybe that plays into it.
Edit: I will say I do miss some of the racial and factional tensions of the previous games but it’s a totally different area we haven’t been to before, so I just wrote it off as “new place, shit’s different here”.
Like, if somebody thinks DAO was just the best and everything since has been downhill? Not as likely to be a Veilguard fan.
But, otoh, I loved DAO? And I also loved Inquisition. And I respect the shit out of DA2, even if I didn't love the Mass Effect-ification of DA. ...and I think Veilguard is pretty great!
The world is in enough shit as it is, that I don't really need my games to be super grimdark right now. I liked my City Elf origin in DAO, I'm just not sure now is the right time for that game.
(I say this while playing Rogue Trader)
I am not discounting the fact that some people didn't enjoy the combat and so on, but I think that dramatic change in scope for Bioware as a company is hanging over the discourse.
Dragon Age: Origins is something I have a hard time understanding why people put on such a pedestal, honestly.
I feel like the CRPG genre had 2 real peaks, one in the 1997-2001ish period and one that's basically 2011ish to present.
In between, there were several games that seemed to try to reignite the genre's popularity but just sort of failed to catch fire for one reason or another. Witcher 1, NWN 1 and 2, etc. DA:O was one of those for me. It had a good overall structure, great lore and worldbuilding, but janky ass combat and level design, etc... A lot of the stuff was interesting, but a lot of the stuff people really seemed to latch onto I felt had been done before. Like the magic metaphysics was straight out of warhammer, the racial tension between humans and elves felt a lot like the Witcher, etc... Not that it was a rip off or anything, it just wasn't really breaking new ground for me at the time...
But I think for some people it just blew them away, and I can understand, because there wasn't really anything like it of the same level of quality for 3 or 4 years before or after.
But on the other hand, there's this big pool of people out there that seem to just compare every Bioware game out there to DA:O. And yeah, it does kind of suck that Bioware never made another real CRPG, but it's been 15+ years at this point.
Getting into 90% of CRPGs past and present is a slog, I always feel like I'm learning to navigate a new software suite for art or design or something instead of playing a video game, trying to get used to the hotkeys and rules for keeping party members moving and all the other whatnot necessary to play smoothly without unintended inputs or doing everything agonizingly slow in pretty much any real CRPG. And I've played a ton of them, so it must be even more harrowing if you haven't.
I hated Veilguard. I could get past the combat, it wasn't my favorite but it wasn't offensive by any means. Same for the art direction. The writing however was offensive. It was so dumb, it was like a gut punch to fans of Bioware games. Where I'd say Andromeda was more like white noise, it wasn't the good of previous games, but it wasn't terrible. Veilguard is some straight up Saturday morning cartoon level bad. The open begins with the dumbest trope possible. One of your companions gets super powers completely unearned. This isn't a knock on anyone for liking the game, adults like all sorts of things others might think are dumb. Some of my comfort watching is far from well regarded stuff. On top of the writing, the game design itself was pretty bad. I had a companion tell me how to solve a puzzle before I could even really look at what to do. Though given that they were designed for the Saturday morning demo (match these shields, move this thing to this other thing, hit the glowy thing a couple times), maybe it doesn't matter. To be fair, I tend to dislike the super simple puzzle stuff in other modern games as well. Feels like a gimmick to waste time and is a byproduct of open world game design not infesting linear game design.
Maybe in a world where this wasn't a Dragon Age sequel and was it's own thing, the discourse on it would be somewhat different. But for me the combo of quality dropping from Inquisition to Veilguard combined with the expectation of what a Dragon Age game should sort of feel like or a Bioware game should succeed at, it's really hard to deal with as a fan of the studio and the works I've enjoyed in the past. It doesn't help that this came out not long after BG3 which while it may have been too long and not as action-y, the story was well crafted and the companions felt bioware-y.
Puzzles in games that aren't puzzle games are like 99% shit and always were, tbh.
I can think of one game I've played in the last few years with satisfying puzzles. Not super obtuse guess-and-check nonsense, not a fake puzzle that exists to waste time because pushing blocks around or spinning the camera around looking for things to shoot is slower than running through the room. Actual puzzles worth doing.
It was Tales of Eternia, a 25-year-old JRPG. Which also had the worst combat I can recall ever experiencing in a JRPG, so, you know, all things must be balanced I guess. (and later games in that series with better combat have the most agonizing puzzles I've ever experienced)
Makes sense. Making good puzzles is it's own thing entirely and I kinda doubt most games have design team members who specialize in puzzles.
You can just turn off the companion hints and tutorials in the menu, I agree it’s stupid to default to that but its a 10 second fix…
Other than that the missions really felt the same as DA2 or Mass Effect to me - a lot of “walk to your objectives conveniently at the end of this corridor which is the only way you can really go” for the main missions with some open worldy side mission stuff, but at least I don’t have 3 people spamming me with bear ass grind quests every time I walk into a new area so…
Writing is definitely a shift in tone and not taking itself as seriously, I think the example presented is a bit weird for the series though…
Harding is clearly from the get go
For sure. I was trying to think if Mass Effect 2 or 3 had puzzles in them? Mass Effect 1 had a couple, though some where very purposeful, like the Novaria one. But I can't really remember any from 2 or 3.
Generally I'm not a big fan, but there are times where at least it's thematic. Uncharted for example, the puzzles were easy, but they fit the Indiana Jones style ancient temples vibe. Hogwarts Legacy was interesting, it had wayyyyy too many dumb puzzles (merlin trials), but did have some fun block/physics puzzles. However all of them were optional, so they may fall more in the Breath of the Wild mold, where it's not really the same as a single player linear story driven game.
(Pixie's post)
Yeah I mean the companion hint thing is just a gripe. You get it in Horizon FW, Uncharted, etc. Just like the puzzles and combat, if I was fully invested in the story and characters, I'd get over it.
You mentioned you didn't understand why folks don't like the game. I'm responding to that with why I didn't like the game. If this stuff doesn't bother some folks, that's great, I'm glad they can enjoy the game. I just can't.
Harding beginning stuff:
That's what folks are talking about when they say, this doesn't feel like a Dragon Age game. It's not just the tone, it's that Dragon Age tended to slowly expose the player to the world and lore. Even after a full DLC, Bioware had us theory crafting about Titans, how they fit in this world, what they could do, etc. Here they just do whatever they feel like to fit the game design they wanted. This is just one example out of dozens and I stopped after 20 hours.
And it's not just story design, again they decided to go Saturday morning cartoon with direction as well. All Harding had to do was pass out and once she woke up, she started experiencing her powers. Maybe talk about how she heard singing when she touched the dagger. Let her powers show up slowly (which is what I'm assuming they do throughout the game). Instead they went full cartoon where she needs to DBZ power up, to make sure we know she's got powers now!
I mean the dagger is
WoW
Dear Satan.....
It is also (more Veilguard spoilers)
I was hoping at some point they would reveal that Sandal
or otherwise had a larger role in things, but they never went there.