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Dragon Age Dragon Age: The Veilguard Thread

Padzi

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 24, 2017
Messages
1,045
Location
Auschwitz-Birkenau

Tytus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 9, 2011
Messages
3,644
Location
Mazovia
I intend to upgrade my PC next year, but to fill the gap I bought half a year of GeForce Now, so I naturally received the game in the deal.


I absolutely hate the combat. Not only am I doing the same thing over and over, but I finally get why people were comparing it to Guardians of the Galaxy in their reviews. It’s the exact same system—charge up the enemy’s stagger bar, and when it’s full, run up and press "E" to either finish them if they’re low on health, or do massive damage. There’s even a super special finisher, just like when the Guardians unlocked theirs at the end of their character arcs; here, it’s just the fourth option. (Actually, it’s kind of like Kingdoms of Amalur, too, in the “press button to win” way). But in both cases—GotG and Amalur—they handled it better than DAtV did. And it's absolutely true that enemies almost always focus only on you.

I also hate that the warrior is just another mage. You have so many abilities that deal damage from a distance, drain life with necrotic effects, etc., that it doesn't even feel like I'm playing a warrior. And you can't play as a tank, either; it’s an action game, so your goal is not to get hit—or to parry hits. Because of that, you never have a lot of health. You’ve got two weapons you can switch on the fly: sword and shield when you press X, or a two-handed weapon. There’s no subclass division here like in DAO either. And if they didn’t want comparisons to Marvel movies, maybe they shouldn’t have given the warrior a move where, if you hold down "Q," you can throw a shield that comes back to you after hitting an enemy.

The game also has no exploration. It feels like Final Fantasy 13—corridors with mini-branches so you can find a hidden chest a few steps off the main path, and that’s it. The inventory system is also annoying; I equipped a helmet on Rook, didn’t like how it looked, and thought, “Fine, I’ll find a better one later.” But you can’t take it off. You can only swap it for another helmet or hide it if you don't want to see it. Once you equip something, it stays. The inventory system is so bare-bones, it's ridiculous.

The puzzles are just like SkillUp showed: turn two statues to face each other, move a glowing crystal from one pedestal to another a step away, or set up a laser beam to hit a mirror. And of course, everything is right there in front of you, barely a meter away. I swear if enough birds sat on it, they’d complete the puzzle by accident. Or, you’re blocked by some Blight growths; find the pulsating red umbilical cord bigger than you, destroy the node, and done.

Enemy variety is pretty bad so far, though I’m only at the beginning, so it might improve. But there’s also this thing where enemies spawn out of nowhere in waves—DA2 days are back! Then again, GotG had this, too, though combat there was actually fun. And it’s got all those “modern” elements that you see in every game now—Jedi Fallen Order, GotG, and the new Tomb Raiders have them too. You go through super-narrow passages as hidden loading screens, and then there are slope slides everywhere. It's so common now it's almost funny.

ISQnmYh.png


I feel sorry for the translator who had to work on this. Here, you can’t just use plural forms; it immediately sounds what communists used over here. There are no agreed-upon pronouns either, because it’s a gendered language, so everything just sounds awkward. Onu/Jenu just does not exist in the Polish grammar, these are just retarded neopronuns.

And speaking of dialogue, maaaan, it’s so bad. First off, characters repeat the same information over and over, with no synonyms. It’s like I’m listening to an echo. NPCs do it, companions do it, and there's so much “as you know” type of stuff. Plus, everyone just believes whatever you say. You walk into the elves' camp and say, "Hey, guys, your mythical gods—the ones you’re not even sure existed—they’re back." And they immediately react with, "OMG, our evil gods have returned!" Jesus Christ, maybe ask for some evidence or proof or something?

The new lore is ridiculously dumb. You’re in Arlathan, surrounded by ruins of entire cities filled to the brim with ancient magi-tech. Tevinter had literally thousands of years to ransack this place when they beat the elves. They controlled the area for so long that there would be nothing left, especially since they have legions of mages. Even if the traps killed a lot of people, they would’ve disarmed them eventually. But nope, everything is lying around and works perfectly. The power crystals that have kept everything running for so long would be priceless to the Imperium, but okay. Now, darkspawn don’t even have broodmothers anymore; they spawn from Blight pools on the ground like the Uruk-Hai in LOTR films. Broodmothers are out—it’s current year, after all, time to get rid of them.

BmUZS9i.jpeg


At least the fish are back; Shepard would be envious.

I also hate those moments when the game turns into a visual novel. You get control of your character, kill three enemies, two-minute cutscene, walk five steps and break a barrier, two-minute cutscene. This happens especially at the start of new levels (and was super annoying in the prologue). Speaking of lack of control, the dialogue wheel is basically just different flavors of the same sentence over and over. You rarely get the chance to disagree or suggest an alternative; you’re just along for the ride.

The only thing I like is that they finally provide answers to long-standing questions—like what exactly the Black/Golden City is, confirming what/who Sandal was, etc. But in this run, I probably won’t romance anyone, because romance options pop up at the most awkward times. For example, there’s a character who is beating herself up about something she could have done differently, and my three options are all focused on addressing her feelings—or, derailing the conversation to flirt with her. Stuff like this has made me skip the heart options multiple times. For some reason, they feel the need to force in the option to flirt in serious conversations.

BTW, for whatever reason, the game has no two-handed swords. So if you like greatswords, like I do, you’re shit out of luck.


R1dbtFj.png



It's pretty funny that as many people are playing the new Dragon Age as are playing a game that came out 15 months ago.
 

Warrax

Novice
Joined
Jun 10, 2024
Messages
98
I'm really curious how they're going to translate this game into languages without gendered pronouns like Chinese or Estonian.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,498
Veilguard had peak 70k concurrent players. I say it reaches around 100k.

Now let's compare it to other RPGs released in recent years:
Baldur's Gate 3 https://steamdb.info/app/1086940/charts/#max 875k
Elden Ring: https://steamdb.info/app/1245620/charts/#max 953k
Starfield: https://steamdb.info/app/1716740/charts/#max 330k

Doesn't look good for Bioware's newest sweet baby.
https://steamdb.info/app/2358720/charts/ 2,415,714
Wukong has a 75 million bugdget , while veilguard is around 150 millions. 32,209 players per million vs 666 players per million if veilguard peak even reach 100K.
 

Tarkleigh

Learned
Patron
Joined
Jan 25, 2021
Messages
479
Location
Germany
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming!
Side question, is it possible to hate women so much, you become gay?
Fun fact: a radical feminist group called Redstockings actually opposed male homosexuality which they saw as misogynist. I think they actually believed these men became gay because of their contempt for women. Which begs the question: How on earth did they know the Codex in 1969?
 

aloeh

Educated
Joined
Jan 18, 2021
Messages
62
Location
Brazil
BmUZS9i.jpeg


At least the fish are back; Shepard would be envious.

Literally the first thing I truly like.
It's very nice to look at.
The environments of the game are beautiful. If EA didn't scrap with the FrostBite we could be had other gorgeous dogshit games.

I have a 4080 and runs smoothly, i didnt had any slowdowns.

After I got from 7 seas, played the prologue. Beautiful game.
 

Xorazm

Cipher
Joined
Jan 22, 2015
Messages
209
Bras aren't particularly liberal, libs want to free the nipple and so on. But I honestly can't see the joke, must be a language barrier.
I'm being for real here - I had this joke told to me by Bulgarian girl. You know the little coffee plates? The joke is that (it's as if) A-cup women call a "cup" something that's actually too flat to be a cup, but the rest of the world is playing along out of politeness.

Dude, this board is like 90% autistic, 10% retard. You don't just have to explain jokes, you have to explain basic elements of human interaction.

Ideal place if you want to see people analyzing and breaking down deeply crunchy aspects of RPG design. But then you say something sarcastically and realize that you're in the room with no scissors, safety paper and the kid who starts fires.
 

Axel_am

Exploring and Enjoying
Patron
Joined
Jul 23, 2023
Messages
728
Location
Buckkeep
Codex+ Now Streaming!
I remember when picking the female character or playing an elf was the queer option in video games. We are indeed living in progressive times.
 

Xorazm

Cipher
Joined
Jan 22, 2015
Messages
209
12 year old boys like big tits and violence, not having sticks and trannies lecturing them about pronouns and muhsogyny.

I mean



I mean, music aside I still think this is a pretty good trailer. Dropping the scabbard, dude knowing he's walking into certain death, knowing he's going to keep on swinging until an unstoppable mob takes him down, then that cut to the nice clean red/black aesthetic which defined a lot of Origins and gave it a distinct visual identity.

I wouldn't say it's an all-timer or anything, but it serves as a good reminder of how far things have fallen. Now the visual identity is all of the purple and the only willing sacrifice for the greater good are cringe-miners suffering through the game.
 

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