Dragon Age Dragon Age: The Veilguard Thread

[Cohesion]

Not to mention fake inventory and gear screens that have no use and reason to be there anyway, since these games only have junk items and nothing really like some older rpgs that have unique gear and items that actually are usefull to keep or upgrade not to mention part of the world/lore.

Zoomers like grinding. Numbers go up.

 

[deuxhero]

Is the game "just" shit with shit writing? I haven't seen any hilarious bug compilations that normally show up for this kind of crap, just awful writing and awful game mechanics.

 

[Lagole Gon]

SOLASTA IS BEAUTIFUL... IN MY HEART!

 

[Padzi]

Ah, yes. Sten. When Qunari were great.

 

[Space Satan]

Why the hell cocksleeves are talking?

 

[no-return]

My prediction was correct: 5.1 + 2.8 / 2 = 3.95

Reddit is banning my posts so I repost my analysis here.

Do you think Bioware's decline is stable or cyclical?

I think DA2 score is misleading. Because it is still a good Bioware rpg with interesting story. They made combat more action oriented, but it feels tactical on Nightmare. You need to plan builds, combos to survive.

I believe that ME3 was the real start of the decline.

Metacritic user score 2000 Baldur's gate 2 9.1 2002 Neverwinter nights 1 8.2 2003 Kotor 1 8.7 2007 Mass Effect 1 8.7 2009 Dragon Age: Origins 8.4 2010 Mass Effect 2 8.9 2011 SWTOR 8.7 2011 Dragon Age 2 4.7 (7 is real rating) 2012 Mass Effect 3 6.1 2014 Dragon Age: Inquisition 6.1 2017 Mass Effect: Andromeda 5.1 2024 Dragon Age: Veilguard 2.8 (5.1 if stable) 2027 Mass Effect 4 3.4 (3.9)

 

[mediocrepoet]

Reddit is banning my posts so I repost my analysis here.

Do you think Bioware's decline is stable or cyclical?

I think DA2 score is misleading. Because it is still a good Bioware rpg with interesting story. They made combat more action oriented, but it feels tactical on Nightmare. You need to plan builds, combos to survive.

I believe that ME3 was the real start of the decline.

Metacritic user score 2000 Baldur's gate 2 9.1 2002 Neverwinter nights 1 8.2 2003 Kotor 1 8.7 2007 Mass Effect 1 8.7 2009 Dragon Age: Origins 8.4 2010 Mass Effect 2 8.9 2011 SWTOR 8.7 2011 Dragon Age 2 4.7 (7 is real rating) 2012 Mass Effect 3 6.1 2014 Dragon Age: Inquisition 6.1 2017 Mass Effect: Andromeda 5.1 2024 Dragon Age: Veilguard 2.8 (5.1 if stable) 2027 Mass Effect 4 3.4 (3.9)

Stable, even if you wanted to suggest it was cyclical, it's a constant downward trend that never recovers. Besides that, I'd suggest that some of those ratings are higher than warranted.

 

[Mauman]

Wonder how Jade Empire should be factored in that list.

 

[Butter]

The graph also ignores Anthem and its 4.0 Metacritic user score. Veilguard's low score is exactly where you'd expect given the trend.

 

[Warrax]

Bioware's decline is related to their constant desire to make game development more "efficient". In doing so they've gradually removed all the detail and nuance that made their games interesting.

I think it took a couple of games after EA took over for the corporate managers to decide their process needed to be more efficient, and it's been downhill since.

They looked at how often people switch characters in tactical combat and saw most people just rely on AI. Therefore, it's more "efficient" to just remove the ability to control companions. This is the type of decision they've been making for a long time.

Contrast this with Larian's approach of being willing to spend millions developing a niche thing that only 1% of the players will ever see.

I might make the heroic/paragon choice most of the time in my playthroughs, but those rare instances where I go renegade are far more significant to me, because they make the character my own. What's important is the option to do that at each point, even if I don't take it most of the time.

They've been cutting away this kind of nuance at Bioware for ages. Now that they've cut off all the leaves and branches only the main stem is left to cut. Veilguard is the result.

 

[HumanMaleFighter]

Bioware's decline is related to their constant desire to make game development more "efficient". In doing so they've gradually removed all the detail and nuance that made their games interesting.

I think it took a couple of games after EA took over for the corporate managers to decide their process needed to be more efficient, and it's been downhill since.

They looked at how often people switch characters in tactical combat and saw most people just rely on AI. Therefore, it's more "efficient" to just remove the ability to control companions. This is the type of decision they've been making for a long time.

Contrast this with Larian's approach of being willing to spend millions developing a niche thing that only 1% of the players will ever see.

I might make the heroic/paragon choice most of the time in my playthroughs, but those rare instances where I go renegade are far more significant to me, because they make the character my own. What's important is the option to do that at each point, even if I don't take it most of the time.

They've been cutting away this kind of nuance at Bioware for ages. Now that they've cut off all the leaves and branches only the main stem is left to cut. Veilguard is the result.

Efficiency. lol. lmao, even.

There was less than ten years between Baldur's Gate 2 and Mass Effect 2 -- a span in which they released almost one game per year, and some of them very ambitious. Over the past ten years we've gotten... uhh... Dragon Age III (actually a little bit more than ten years old right now), Andromeda, Anthem, and Veilguard. A real shit-tier lineup. (And all of them on Frostbite. ) If the guys running the show at Bioware really give a damn about efficiency, they're completely inept and retarded. Their glaring incompetence should qualify them for MAID, and Canada should just put them out of their misery.

 

[Warrax]

There was less than ten years between Baldur's Gate 2 and Mass Effect 2 -- a span in which they released almost one game per year, and some of them very ambitious. Over the past ten years we've gotten... uhh... Dragon Age III (actually a little bit more than ten years old right now), Andromeda, Anthem, and Veilguard. A real shit-tier lineup. (And all of them on Frostbite. ) If the guys running the show at Bioware really give a damn about efficiency, they're completely inept and retarded. Their glaring incompetence should qualify them for MAID, and Canada should just put them out of their misery.

They cancelled DA4 twice because EA told them to switch directions. That's a whole other retarded thing that comes from EA not Bioware.

Efficiency doesn't mean they produce games faster. It just means they cut costs. For example writing and narrative branching is expensive so they've minimized all that. With Veilguard they're moving to a model of developing the gameplay first and then "pouring writing on it". This is how games where the story is the least important element get made. The cost is reduced because there's no back and forth between writers and coders, and very little redoing things. In RPGs there's typically a lot of redoing because dialogues get rewritten, the story changes, etc. A writer might want to make a character fly in just one scene, so the coders have to go spend extra time on making that possible. This is what they consider "inefficient".

 

[Myobi]

They cancelled DA4 twice because EA told them to switch directions. That's a whole other retarded thing that comes from EA not Bioware.

"ItSH not Blizzard fault mom! Its evil Activision!".


They sold out and most bailed out, its only Bioware in the name.

 

[Warrax]

They cancelled DA4 twice because EA told them to switch directions. That's a whole other retarded thing that comes from EA not Bioware.

"ItSH not Blizzard fault mom! Its evil Activision!".


They sold out and most bailed out, its only Bioware in the name.

I literally wrote a small essay saying exactly why everything's their fault, except the one thing that's obviously on EA. Yes they did sell out, obviously.

People here are fucking braindead sometimes.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Wonder how Jade Empire should be factored in that list.

Like a 6.5/10 at best. They learned the wrong lessons from NWN/KotOR and narrowed the scope of the content, hyper-focusing on the linear main story rather than taking the two years of improved tech and expanding outward again to return to something close to BGII's scale which should have been possible. Witcher 1 proved that they could have their cake and eat it too, barely two years later. Honestly, if the OG XBOX's hardware was the limiting factor they should have just waited a year for the 360 to launch.

 

[Beastro]

What nobody seems to mention besides the obvious that dragon age is shit, that why in the name of jesus are the menus and UIs in games like dragon age 2,3,4 and mass effect, god of war, and pretty much any ass creed game and many more other games so overly sanitized and homogeneous !!?
I mean they look so neutral and bland, like they come from the same stock assets like those free rpg maker games who's developers have no means and/or money to make unique assets for their games.
That alone already makes me not want to play the game let alone everything else. Seriously what the fuck? I understand not wanting the UI to be a clusterfuck but why does it have to be so disgustingly generic, it's like sanitized eyecancer.
Not to mention fake inventory and gear screens that have no use and reason to be there anyway, since these games only have junk items and nothing really like some older rpgs that have unique gear and items that actually are usefull to keep or upgrade not to mention part of the world/lore.

The ideal UI is one in which no one notices or pays attention to, UI should be there to connect the user to the software. When people notice UI it's only when they have something bad to say about it.

Classic RPGs used ornamentation in their UI to help sell the game's aesthetics and draw the player into the world. Easy examples would be Darklands, Diablo, and Planescape.

 

[Cael]

Ah, yes. Sten. When Qunari were great.

Dang. I miss Sten.

"Interesting strategy. Tell me: Do you intend to keep going north until it becomes south, and attack the archdemon from the rear?"

 

[Myobi]

They cancelled DA4 twice because EA told them to switch directions. That's a whole other retarded thing that comes from EA not Bioware.

"ItSH not Blizzard fault mom! Its evil Activision!".


They sold out and most bailed out, its only Bioware in the name.

I literally wrote a small essay saying exactly why everything's their fault, except the one thing that's obviously on EA. Yes they did sell out, obviously.

People here are fucking braindead sometimes.

... and I'm telling you that you are a fucking retard who still thinks that EA and Bioware are two different things at this point... let alone writing essays about it in codex.

Brand names were kept for financial reasons, "Bioware" is just a convenient title they kept for that EA unit, even the products, "Mass Effect" and "Dragon Age" are just there to sell those extra copies.

 

[Supermedo]

I quit and uninstalled the game after 20 hours. I got bored because I didn’t care about the companions, and it’s so weird how the game lacks talking NPC, they only used as backdrop, an entire city and you can only interact with a single merchant, it kills any sense of immersion (if there was any to begin with). You can only talk to your companions when the game decides you can, so there’s no real way to learn more about them or their backstories.


The combat was fun at first (played as mage with orb and dagger), but the lack of enemy variety ruined it. Fighting the same ogre with a different reskin as a mini-boss 10 times in a row isn’t exactly fun.

 

[Vox Machina]

What the shit?!

lmao

 

[Semiurge]

Ah, yes. Sten. When Qunari were great.

Dang. I miss Sten.

"Interesting strategy. Tell me: Do you intend to keep going north until it becomes south, and attack the archdemon from the rear?"

None of these Veilguard party members would question your decisions so aggressively, and it most definitely wouldn't result in a fight in case your persuasion skill is too low, in fact Veilguard has no social stats. Everyone gets along perfectly it seems. Having party members lose their shit at the player like they sometimes did in Origins would just traumatise Bioware's audience. Origins includes some excellent aggressive emoting from the voice actors, such as in the scene where Alistair reacts to your decision to spare Loghain's life, or the scene where you decide to include Wynne into the party and you get sarcastic with Morrigan when she objects. There's probably a lot more that I've missed.

 

[Dark Souls II]

Is the game "just" shit with shit writing? I haven't seen any hilarious bug compilations that normally show up for this kind of crap, just awful writing and awful game mechanics.

The most boring popamole goyslop combat imaginable doesn't have to be bugged to be pure SHIT.

 

[Camel]

I got bored because I didn’t care about the companions, and it’s so weird how the game lacks talking NPC, they only used as backdrop, an entire city and you can only interact with a single merchant, it kills any sense of immersion (if there was any to begin with). You can only talk to your companions when the game decides you can, so there’s no real way to learn more about them or their backstories.

That got to be one of the dumbest decisions in history of RPGs and I'm not surprised it was made by nuBioWare. You can't talk to NPCs, you can't talk to goddamn companions outside of designated places.

 

[NecroLord]

Ah, yes. Sten. When Qunari were great.

Qunari were better when they were a mysterious people with completely alien and strange cultural practices.
You had only Sten to tell you about them.

 

[Moonrise]

Actually, Supermedo, *adjusts glasses* there are a half dozen or so merchants each in Dock Town, Treviso, the Wetlands, and the Crossroads. They're just not marked on the minimap. There are also a few locked behind quests.