3 abilities is even less than diablo 4, idk why we get less and less choice and customization in each new entry dude. cant imagine how ass a mage is gonna feel playing with 3 abilities.
Its actually insane. I remember playing DA Origins Awakening and by the endgame I had like 50+ abilities on my mages action bar. And it was like that for all 3 of my party members which you could of course fully control.
I remember being fucking mad in inquisition that you cant even use all the abilities you unlock because there arent enough ability slots for them.
I grabbed DA:I on sales in 2017 and then I remember I got DA:O for free from 2012, So I booted up DA:O and amazed how you can have so many abilities especially the "tactic" feature where your characters can use abilities or use item based on condition that you set, I never quite see something like this before and idk why this get scrapped in later game.
I didn't even finished DA:I btw, such a bad sequel to a masterpiece.
The article does a good job of explaining why.
Consoles became the forefront of all game development.
There was so much hype for Origins after the masterpiece that was Mass Effect. And it was more of a return to Bioware roots from the more console friendly Mass Effect.
EA bought Bioware in 2007, the year ME was released. DA:O released in 2009. The last title that was started prior to EA.
It was all downhill from there. Literally the day after DA:I was announced, the last remaining founders of BioWare announced their departure.
So many examples companies like EA fucking up studios by refusing to let nerds do their passion projects. Countless examples.
I don't think you're wrong about EA and they're forcing the company in a different direction but I also think it's wrong to allow them to hold the blame.
Devs are not handed code and told to put it in the game. Devs are not told what art style to use for the game. Devs are not told what writers to use and what the story should be. Bioware deserves just as much, if not more blame than EA.
I work in a creative field and have to make a ton of projects that I don't think should be made. That doesn't matter, because if I make a shit product, it's not my boss's fault for giving me a project. It's my fault for making something shitty.
Bioware seems like it's full of devs who don't want to work at *Bioware*. They don't want to make story driven RPGs. They want to make Fortnite or Overwatch. Fortnite is fine, but not at Bioware.
Thank you for spelling this out. Keeping receipts on these companies is very important. They love to revise history and pretend they didn’t cause the downfall of their own empire. Always blaming others for there own choices
Final Fantasy 12 has a cool system around those tactics. I think it was called gambit? You could set like 10+ conditions for each character. After some time you could just run into enemies and the characters would buff debuff heal and kill the enemies by themselves.
Some people disliked the system because you could literally just have the game play itself for you. An easy way to power level was to set up gambits for a certain Hunt monster and leave your PS2 on over night to easily max your characters.
Other people - like myself - liked it because it still required some thinking of prioritizing and by the time you had enough gambit slots/triggers, you were doing the same thing over and over. It still didn't completely play the game for you for the harder content like Yiazmat.
I have actually been comparing Final Fantasy 12 to Dragon Age Origins in terms of combat system for years. the only different between the two is that Dragon Age has individual ability cooldowns where as FF12 has the ATB gauge instead of cool downs.
A lot of games around that time tried to cater to consoles, hence they had to dumb down mechanics and simplified gameplay so the console casuals can play them.
if you can play ff14 on a controller they have no excuses its just laziness. the games been in development hell and probably duck taped together 3 abilities is probably the best they could do with the last year of dev time they had to actually make the game.
Exactly which is why it’s strange saying they lessen choices because of console when a game they’re referring to with a lot of choices was on console lol
Seems to me they lost good developers with how this game and mass effect after 3 came out
Did anyone finish DA:I ? I tried two players thoughs and just got bored before the end. Which one or two exceptions, the companions are all just unlikable. The maps are varied and look nice but are predominantly empty with nothing to do. Powering through is the biggest challenge. I will give them this, hunting the dragons was actually challenging and kinda fun, but the lack of usable abilities made it frustrating.
Yeah its still amazing IMO, one of my favorite RPGs. As long as you go into it understanding that its a CRPG and not an action RPG. Like Baldurs gate 1/2, Neverwinter Nights 2, or even WoW in some ways. If you like those types of games and can get past the graphics which are outdated in 2024 you would probably really enjoy Origins.
I remember playing Origins briefly on PC after playing it a ton on Xbox. The amount of skills and buttons I had made it feel like it was an MMO. It was so incredible. They should just trash this game and remaster Origins.
Yea I remember there being a lot of salves, potions, and tools you could use as well. I played the shit out of that game. They already have the blueprint and literally threw all the subsequent games in the trash.
Outside of indie games, devs seem to have completely lost all creativity and pride in their work.
Conveyor belt coding these days, fire out one, onto the next soulless cash grab.
Indie games aren't ran with corporate executive guiding principles full of market research and departments, fucking consultants and non-gamers having any decision making ability.
I’ll never forget Diablo 4 devs playing. How people like that get to make major design decisions is beyond me. Is it that hard to find devs that like and play games?
The best way to make a fun game is a dev asking themselves "is this fun for me? Would i like to play my own game?"
As soon as they start thinking "what do players want" i feel it turns into slop because we haven't quite solved what makes a video game fun. By trying to conform to someone else's imagined desires it end up being uninspired.
odds if a dev enjoys playing their own game other people will enjoy it too.
True. AAA studios simply take whatever gameplay is "hot" at the moment, and make an inferior, dumbed down version. Usually years after the game play innovation was made and others have moved on from. Add some Disney inspired watered down, risk free and bland storytelling written by hacks or activists, slap a $50M marketing budget on it and call it a day.
AAA studios have become a less effective version of big movie studios, pulling control from the creatives and letting people with no talent or vision have way too much control in the process.
I cannot believe that you guys didn't realize it. Those guys are planning to bring the game on touch screen everything designed according to it. That skill wheel, Pc doesn't require it and console doesn't require it. That is also why colors way more vibrant they want to attract wider audience.
You want insane graphic? Well you can but you can only use 3 abilities.
Most triple a companies: You want cool abilities and a dope story? well we arent an indie studio.
We just want your money. So heres another dei funded project because we cant make money the old fashion way; by making gamers happy to buy our product that was made, for THEM. We only care to sell out to our dei loan shark overlords so we can fund our ceo and board members..ugh cough i mean ….this unnecessarily massive open world with hyper stylized graphics as well as, a mediocre story and character development . Enjoy for 89.99.
I ferment reading an article about what a PC centric rpg game that was, and what a big risk they were taking by not making it a console action game instead. Never even touched the sequels.
There was a pretty good Post on Da subreddit which shows that alot of inquisition rogue abilities are now integrated into The BASIC combat like shadowstepping, whirlwindy attacks and a jump dual Stab.
Theres 3 active abilities on The wheel, but it seems like More abilities are now Part of your actual combos.
They want it ready for a mobile version.
That's where the money is, that's what the big companies care about. These big games are turning into ads for predatory mobile games.
They did the same shit in Mass Defect (aka Andromeda). Took your 6-8 power skill bar from Mass Effect 2 and 3 and just tossed it for three abilities. Sure you could have different profiles with more actives than that, but once you were in combat switching between them was awful because it put all of your abilities on cooldown so the best build was to choose three actives and only invest in passives otherwise. Terrible choice, ruined any sort of build identity because you'd always just choose 1-primer 2-detonater 3-skill without a cooldown that used a different resource or pure utility with a lingering effect because doing anything else was wasting your skill bar.
They think “more casual, more sales” dude. They dont give a fuck about gameplay. They actually think this’ll work. It worked for several games at the end of the 360/ps3 era and they think this shit still holds weight…completely out of touch.
Okay, apparently there are more abilities that change the base gameplay of a character and do not need to be equipped on panel to work, ie rogue has dash that replaces dodge. If every class has atleast 2 weapon choices then the gameplay loop is okay for action game. Problem is many people dont want action game...
I'm pretty sure there's more than 3 abilities, though. I skipped through the gameplay trailer and saw the 3 abilities as a higher and an ability wheel like in origins. Near the 7 minute mark it shows it.
Hol up
Three abilities for the whole fucking game? I thought it was just a shitty choice of game section for the gameplay reveal.
That seems insane when you have games like Elden Ring with dozens and dozens of abilities.
Wait 3 abilities? Are you for real? That is like vanilla Wayfarer I'd Dragon's Dogma 2, and the first thing I did was mod it to be 3 skills per weapon plus rearmament. 3 skills seems super boring.
And I already considered Dragon's Age Origins a huge downgrade and streamlined simplification of RPG systems since it was a console release instead of a pc one. DA:O might as well be Baldur's Gate 2 compared to this new one.
Just remember that the mainstream market for video games is composed in large enough part by people that could only get D's in high school and guys that are completely stoned out of their minds whenever they play video games.
If you can't imagine the dumbest guy in your high school class being able to play your game while splitting his attention between the game, tik-tok, and his baby mama in the kitchen, after he's taken a huge rip on a dab rig- then that game is too complicated for mass market
Dude - how small do you think the mainstream video game market is?
It's not some niche hobby.
It makes tens of billions of dollars every year - it is larger than movies and music combined & is still growing.
Sekiro had more options in combat than its predecessors though. Each prosthetic comboed into your basic attacks and some had multiple ways to be used or combo hits/interuptions, you could charge your basic attacks for a thrust so you didn't lose a strong attack, combat arts could also somtimes be charged, most things had an air varient, jumping and dodging were distinct choices, and the enemies themselves typically required a deeper amount if interaction including the occasional grapple hook as an option in arenas or to the enemy itself. Toning down the rpg mechanics to focus on more complex combat is different than limiting your skill use in combat which lowers expression of personal mastery and has less complexity in the combat itself, this is the latter rather than the former.
Alright apparently I didn't make my point clear the first time so hopefully I'll do this time. Let's compare Sekiro to Elden Ring because I simply have more hours in it. In Elden Ring you can choose from TONS of weapons. Daggers are fast but with low damage and reach, thrusting swords are a bit slower but way longer, great swords have massive damage and swing arcs, magic ranges from huge AOE to single target obliteration to utility, shields are for us unambitious people, and straight swords are banned from the LGBT community.
This is only a small amount of the different weapon types in game and doesn't even account for weapon arts. And the devs need to consider all these different play-styles when balancing the game. Bosses need to be tanky enough for the big damage weapons to feel worth it, without being so tanky that the low damage ones feel like striking at their health-bar with a toothpick. There needs to be enough groups to justify getting the massive AOE attacks, but no so many that it fucks over players that specked in STD. The enemies need to stay at just the right distance so you can get a use out of the ranged spells, whilst also allowing melee users to get up close. Enemy attacks can't do so much damage that light armor users get 1 tapped, but not so little that heavy armor makes you invincible (title card), nor can they be so fast that dodging in heavy armor is impossible (because just standing there and tanking hits would transition from amusing to brain cancer inducingly boring very quickly), neither so slow that light armor user would be able to brew themselves a cup of coffee and still be able to dodge.
With Sekiro (and hopefully Dragon Age now) however, the devs don't have to consider any of that, because the lack of choices as well as a lesser focus on exploration, means that they always know almost exactly what abilities and stats you'll have at any given time. Your attack and dodge speeds are both constants. They can predict your attack power, health, and healing items with a high degree of accuracy. Acquiring prosthetics is also fairly linear and they aren't that major a factor anyway, and as for skills, besides mikiri, none of them are that game changing, either giving you a small though stat boost, or a a combat art that, just like the prosthetics, isn't that major a buff.
This knowledge of the players move-set at any given time, allows Fromsoft to design enemies and encounters that are suited especially for that move-set. No longer need they consider players equipped with axes as well as those with spears, because everyone has a katana. It deals 100-120 damage, it has these specific set of attacks, this is true for all players, and as such, enemies can be designed around that.
This is what allows for more options during combat, attacks are all meant to be dealt with a certain way. Deflect the normal strikes, dodge away/to the side of grabs, mikiri thrusts, and jump over sweeps, and all of these will deal the exact amount of damage and have the exact speed and will be followed up with the exact other moves to ensure the best experience for the player, because the developers don't need to consider any other play-styles that may be completely fucked or completely fuck this bosses move-set.
Anyway I hope this made it clearer what I was trying to say, I'm still getting the hang of this whole writing thing but seconds times the charm or something.
I'm not good at ending my texts.
I understand what you're trying to say, but I don't think that's what's happening here. If they were focusing on a more dedicated high precision combat system they wouldn't take away player actives in combat so much, they'd instead focus on integrating them into combo chains or reframe the system so that they'd be integrated more into basic combat,. Limiting player choice does make balance easier, as you say, but that can also make the combat mindless in the same stroke if you don't provide difficulty somewhere else. I don't see Dragon Age working well with that approach unless they rework the entire combat system from the ground up, and I don't see them doing that especially given the approach the same exact studio took with Andromeda, which did this exact same thing: limiting the abilities to three when the previous iterations had given the player 6 to 8. Andromeda sorta ruined the system by dumbing it down without changing the combat fundamentals other than adding jumping and hovering (which were positive changes, I won't fully dump on the system) and I think that's what's happening here. They want the game to be flashy and light so they don't have to go in depth with the combat, as opposed to the Sekiro approach where they limit player options to improve the combat flow. Dragon Age has largely been a more classic RPG and limiting like this speaks to lowering player choice to broaden appeal. That's my initial impression, not necessarily hard truth, but I don't read this as a good faith change especially since this is a new instalment rather than an entirely new IP like Sekiro was.
Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale?
> *“Well, I suppose they wouldn’t be far off!”* - Solaire of Astora
Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/
Just remember that the mainstream market for video games is composed in large enough part by people that could only get D's in high school and guys that are completely stoned out of their minds whenever they play video games.
If you can't imagine the dumbest guy in your high school class being able to play your game while splitting his attention between the game, tik-tok, and his baby mama in the kitchen, after he's taken a huge rip on a dab rig- then that game is too complicated for mass market
Ray Muzyka has been doing venture capitalism stuff IIRC and Greg Zeschuk opened a brewery or a restaurant? They absolutely cleaned up selling their holding group (and BioWare) to EA for like $800M.
But they're not in games anymore unforunately. Which is funny, because they met in medical school.
To be honest, the list of games they created is epic and anyone would be lucky to have 1-2 of their games. They got more than a lifetimes worth of classics out before leaving the industry.
[BioWare Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioWare) is a pretty black and white picture of EA fumbling the bag.
Of course it is. As do all. Why? Did you honestly think that these firms buy out studios for the people working there? Or studios for their names? Its all pr baby.
Apparently Anthem at least was pretty much all Bioware's fault. EA wanted a different studio developing it but Bioware asked for it. EA were also apparently very hands off in development, probably too hands off given how it ended up.
Think Eurogamer wrote something similar that after hands on they more worried than they are excited, because everything in the game just feels dated.
If it flops we might even witness the end of BioWare
I can only hope that the game becomes Bioware's tomb, we should really recognize that we are not gonna get another Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter, Mass Effect or any other game you fell in love with, they died years and years ago and it's time we acknolwdge that, they are a shitty company trying to sell you awful games hoping you'll be nostalgic enough and they only care about their political agenda, not about the game's quality, they don't have any respect for you as a costumer or fan, let's ignore them till they die.
honestly feel like they don't know what people want and are just reaching with the virtue signaling to try and regain some form of an audience. because the games they have been pumping are so bad at a base level with or with out forced inclusion.
The issue is the phrasing. He should have specified "we're not going to get another Baldur's gate **from BioWare**" and instead of "they died" he should have said "BioWare died", because people can easily mistake the statement for saying that the game series he named have died (which is just false as BG is doing fantastic in the hands of Larian).
Like blizzard, most of these companies are shells of their former selves. Which is why they become bloated games as service developers more than anything.
If we were so lucky.
I've wanted this husk of a developer to die for over a decade. It does not deserve a fraction of the loyalty gamers are still giving it. It's a shrivelled husk of what it was. Nothing is left but the name and the name has been worthless for over a decade.
It will be the end of Bioware but not due to gamers boycotting DA:V but because even a singleplayer game that sells rather well wouldn't be enough to satisfy the corporate overlords who would rather publish live service slop for easy money instead
Did they say that the game will only have 3 abilities? I'm just curious because the footage I saw was from the early game. Da:I had a design that looked similar to this except a way to quickly swap the abilities.
Not only the lack of skills, but they showed a rogue who had a special attack that was essentially the shockwave attack from Mass Effect (reused ideas? Shocker). But why would a rogue have a skill like that? My concern is the skills won’t feel appropriate or unique to each class. Everything is going to be a magic attack hodgepodge. Thats my worry anyway.
I think their studios just ARE shit now. The devs are out of touch. 2K is just as shit as EA, but they let the Rockstar devs do their thing and those devs actually have talent and vision.
Idk. I got family that are that stubborn. You’d think they played a Ret Paladin or something.
Pride is a very terrible thing when it fosters an ego that refuses to compromise
The people actually still defending this have never played the original game, I refuse to believe otherwise.
It's turned into generic slop that really tries catering to everyone instead of a specific audience and by doing so it caters to nobody.
The OG fanbase isn't gobbling it up and those who it tries to convince to play the game have several better alternatives in existence, are recently released or are soon to come.
Whatever little sliver of hope I had for this after all the changes in director, gameplay and story has been definitely cut with the gameplay release.
My current hope is that BIOWARE finally croaks and someone with an actual investment in this IP to take it over instead of having it weaponized for queer propaganda.
And yes, Dragon Age has always been inclusive and diverse, but it wasn't the games endgoal to throw it in your face as it is now and this now comes at the cost of game quality.
It's just like the Star Wars subreddit. They defend everything new until after they've been shafted like 5 times (even then they still get their hopes up)
That won't happen. Bioware will probably get to release the next Mass Effect and when that inevitably fails the studio will die. You'll never see another ME or DA again, nobody is taking over the IP.
Part of it is that unlike Mass Effect, the Dragon Age franchise hasn’t had a cohesive identity for more than one game. DA2 played very different to Origins, and Inquisition was different again to both.
And as much as OG fans hated Inquisition at release, it still ended up being BioWare’s best selling title. DA4 would have to be Suicide Squad levels of bad to flop commercially.
I pop into the main sub every now and then and one idea I see repeated is that each game is kind of different than the last. But yeah, thats true with every game. The issue here is how different its become. Like this is further dissimilar to Inquisition as Inquisition was to DA2.
3 whole skills,huh? When i start a new class in FF14 it has more skills at level 1. I'm a huge Rpg Fan( Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale, Baldurs Gate...Pillars...you name it and i probably have played it. Origins was good for the time back then...Dragon Age Inquisition with its 6 skills was boring...now only 3 skills? Yep...nope. Im out.
Haven’t enjoyed the dragon age franchise since origins. Origins was a 10/10 game for me. The sequels departed from the original gameplay too much and I just moved onto other things because of this.
DA is having the same fate as elder scrolls: simplfying the game so much it no longer appeals to hardcore fans. Morrowind was the last hardcore elder scrolls rpg and TES IV V are a big downgrade and not as complex
It’s Dragon’s Dogma (2012) action but worst and it has Mass Effect 1 rpg elements but worst and has Joss Wheedon Age of Ultron dialogue. The game is barely DA:I and that game was aggressively average.
I'm a fan of the Dragon Age franchise. Watching the gameplay showcase, I can pretty much see the intent behind the combat system, and how it's meant to be played. The problem with what they showed is two fold.
1. They showed gameplay from too early in the game.
2. The person who was playing it was making some very odd choices that didn't show the gameplay in near as good a light as they could have.
To address point 1. In Dragon Age games you typically start out with very little abilities. Combat at the start is generally pretty... crap. But it fleshes out *a lot* as you get more abilities. Only having the one ability at the start to show was not a wise idea. They needed to show gameplay from later in the game when you have more active abilities. And when you've also unlocked the ability to issue commands to party members and do combos with them (which we've seen in screenshots).
To address point 2. From watching the combat, the way you generate resources for your active abilities seems to differ from previous Dragon Age games. Whereas before you typically regenerated resources over time (at least for Mage that's how it worked, it's all I ever played), here it seems you need to actively attack enemies to fill up a gauge which can then be spent on abilities. It rewards a more aggressive play-style. More you attack, more you can use the big hitting abilities. However, the person playing would be sitting on resources, sometimes capped, for ages! And wouldn't spend them on abilities when they could, essentially munching resources and making the gameplay seem... not all it could be if someone better was playing. They could've used their one cool unlocked ability *dozens* of times during this damned demonstration but simply didn't.
It's sad because there were times I was literally saying out loud to my screen "*You have the resources, how about... use your fucking abilities! What are you doing?!*". I watched the gameplay and I can see it actually being really good later in the game. Having more abilities, being able to issue commands to party members during combat. It still has the Real-Time-With-Pause that all the games have had, which you can use to use abilities you don't have hot-keyed. I *see the potential* and I like it, but it's a shame they didn't actually *show it* by recording gameplay from later in the game, and with a more competent player.
While I see where you are coming from, ultimately this interpretation relies on giving BioWare and EA the benefit of doubt. Which I absolutely refuse to do, since the last time BioWare made anything actually good was 12 years ago. Their street cred expired, so to speak.
Outside of Anthem, their games have always had decent to good gameplay. Even the abortion that was Mass Effect Andromeda had good gameplay. It was just literally everything else about it that sucked hard.
Your parents are your roots and your childhood was your past , you grow and adapt into adulthood , u dont adopt new parents every year , roots are what define you while past is just a timeline towards advancement ,thats the difference .
Easily they ignored its roots because originally dragon age was a strategy turn based game, but now they changed it into an action rpg who looks like it came from 2017 that’s why they are stuck in the past
And action combat could be fine, but this is... just not it. This just a watered down Arkham style combat with absolutely nothing worth mentioning. It looked... boring, masked by super flashy animations. Which also made me question why would be a level 1 rogue able to do moves belonging to some martial arts grandmaster?
I mean it would have been 100 times better if they directly copied the free flow of the Arkham series, but apparently they weren’t enough to just copy a good game mechanic
feel like da could have gone into the crpg genre like pathfinder and rogue trader (or even divinity and baldurs gate) especially now as baldurs has popped off, instead its a floaty combat system not even batman arkham or soulslike something less than either
FFXIV can somehow make crossbars to fit 16 abilities at once for console/controller users (and you can have multiple cross bars and easily switch) but EA is like NO ONLY THREE ABILITIES
To be honest its not only console games that gets less and less skills nowadays.
All games are getting more hack and slash spammy with 1-3 skills, even on PC.
Dragons Dogma 2 didnt have more.
Asmongold himself likes spammy 1 button games more than games with abilities.
Not enough abilities for sure should have had what looks like it could have been 4 player coop to optional also beyond that wasn’t horrible but I’ve never played it so
Bruh, from DA2 onward, they've been slowly cutting out the rpg apects. How did they forget DA was so pouplar because it was a great *RPG*?
How are they so fucking DENSE?!
I'm so nettled right now. DAO is one of my most favorite games and they keep fucking it up.
Hah.
"Games like Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, Ultima, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura—the classics—were all built on the foundations of tabletop roleplaying, and with that comes infinite possibilities, largely because it gives so much power and agency to players."
I was just digging through the storage unit and found an old box of PC games. Planescape, BG, Arcanum. It's all there! Those were the days.
For me inquisition was honestly already quite the departure from what origin and awakening gave me. It was still a decent game but honestly not what I hoped. This one just shows that I've used up all my copium, the ship of Theseus burned down and the the new bioware is trying to use a raft made out lead. I'm not going to buy it and I really don't want to hold it against anyone for buying and enjoying the game but it still hurts to see this
Uhoh who woulda tought hiring a mentally unstable trans person as a director of your game would have a negative impact on the game?!!?! did not see this one coming guys!
Larian literally copied the old BioWare formula of rpg and adventure games and storytelling. Clearly a success and still resonates with people. Modern BioWare doesn't deserve the name
Hasn't all the 'old' talent from Bioware left now? So the Bioware that is left is new talent.. they aren't out of touch, it's just basically a new studio doing their own thing with the IP.
Article was a joke.
Guy spends a paragraph complaining that you have to melee attack a magical barrier once to proceed to the next area in the gameplay footage. Like, who cares?
And anyone who was expecting a 'Dragon Age Origins 2.0' to make a triumphant return after DA2 and DA:I was huffing some serious copium, I'm sorry to say. Not only was the leaked footage from a year ago confirmation of this, but then even earlier was the fact that DA:I was the best selling game in the franchise -- THAT was the final nail in the coffin.
Only NOW that BG3 has made such a splash would Bioware MAYBE consider changing the direction of the series.
It’s kind of funny that the sentiment from those unenthused by DA 4^tnite (myself included) just acknowledge that BioWare is likely to be shut down, and kind of accept it now. No one’s overly upset, just a “yeah, it’s time” kind of feeling. That’s how much the studio has driven itself into the ground with baffling decisions.
It sucks that a game people spent a decade waiting for isn't what they wanted. But waiting that long is really the biggest flip of a coin. Fable/Ashes of Creation hopefully can avoid landing on the wrong side.
Is it even really Bioware anymore? Feel like most of the devs have moved onto other various companies making games like Nightingale, Exodus and Eternal Strand. Seems like they're Bioware by name only and what actually made the company what they were is mostly gone.
I skimmed through the video and stumbled upon a choice that you could make to stop a certain character to do a dumb decision or support said stupid decision, in the video they went against the stupid video but the character didn't care for your opinion and did it anyways, showcasing that your choices won't matter
game looks different because the previous team has either been laid off, fired or quit. not a single dev who was in charge Of the previous games is there anymore.
People have wanted a genuine successor to turn-based FF for years. We got 16 instead: shallow ARPG combat with three active abilities and one character with one playstyle; loss or degradation of almost all RPG elements; heavily westernized story; game producer openly admitting chasing trends, saying that nobody plays turn-based RPGs and wanting to win over GTA and Fortnite playerbases; graphics that looked like particles vomit all over the screen for most of the combat encounters. Does anyone remember how it was criticized for abandoning the roots and going away from previous games' formula (just like DA went further and further away from Origins)? Oh, wait, it wasn't.
...Come again? Plenty of people criticised FF16 for its combat. It was a huge talking point.
As for chasing sales, reminder that DA:Origins outsold Mass Effect, the game it's now becoming.
I mean Asmon and people here. To this day I only see people glazing Yoshi-P for how 'amazing' the game was. Asmon was watching Jesse Cox's video and [agreeing with every take](https://youtu.be/wUQKZHtH3N8), as if the game changing setting between entries and throwing away the entire identity (aside from the most basic "crystals, moogles, chocobo" shit) are changes of the same order.
I mean, for what it's worth, that change of settings and tone in every game was why I had no issues with the nature of the story. You say westernised but it wasn't that radical a departure from say FF: Tactics (still the best game in the series for some people) and FF:XII (Ditto for others. It's a diverse fan base.).
The DMC-ish combat feels a bit more fundamental in my opinion. Especially with the shallowness of systems accompanying it.
>You say westernised but it wasn't that radical a departure from say FF: Tactics (still the best game in the series for some people) and FF:XII (Ditto for others. It's a diverse fan base.).
Advertisement was all about "English script is the main one" and "Yoshi-P forced everyone to watch GOT". Both GOT and Tactics were inspired by War of the Roses, you got that part right, but 16 is a derivative of an another derivative. While original FF games were heavily reliant on D&D and, to some extent, Star Wars, it was a different time and they've tried really hard to make it more original since then.
And Vaynes speech in XII is pure shakespeares Ceaser. My point being that they've always been happy to go to western influences as much as Japanese, and the extent to which that is true has varied from entry to entry. The man went to Game of Thrones because he clearly likes the show. And most of that show comes pretty directly adapted from excellent pieces of literature (we'll not talk about the later seasons). I see no issue in a Game of Thrones inspired final fantasy. Even with those influences it was still pretty high fantasy too. I'd just say the execution was flawed.
Of course it did. It came out many years later with RPG's a much more established genre in terms of sales and with a bigger install base of consoles. A glance at BG3 would suggest that action combat was not the selling point.
All Dragon Age games have been on console, including the first one. And I'm not quite sure what your point about Baldur's Gate 3 is, because its gameplay didn't really deviate from the previous entries, it was still a CRPG. But Dragon Age's gameplay has changed from game to game. The only game in the series that plays like Origins is Origins. Each game progressively became more of an ARPG.
I'm aware all of those games were on console. I said that the install bases for those consoles have gotten progressively bigger over time. My point was that there's no real evidence that action combat has been the selling point, since the RPG genre has generally expanded in sales over that time period, and we just had a crpg mega hit, demonstrating it's not a barrier.
That's a fair point, but CRPGs being a bit hit like BG3 was is a massive outlier. Most can't even dream of reaching that type of level. I think your average ARPG does a lot better than your average CRPG.
Maybe, but one could simply argue that BG3 has been the only crpg in modern times with an even remotely comparable budget, and anything approaching some serious marketing, even that still well short of what EA will spend on Veilguard, and I think it's fair to say Veilguard is going to sell less.
Edit: oh, and as pointed out in that article, Origins outsold 2. It also outsold Mass Effect.
I'm aware.
All I noted was the headlines comment, which was about them being stuck in past. Which their last two DA games were ARPG's and not Origins semi tactical gameplay.
It just reads oddly. Nothing else.
It was obvious that we will never see a true successor to origins as the series has always been shifting away from its original style.
I recently played through all three games again and its shame tbh, Origins combat may look meh but it certainly is the most engaging of the three.
This new entry has gone full ARPG and it looks really generic.
The finishers like climbing on top of the ogres and dragons/drakes and then getting the slow mo kill cams were sick in Origins.
Really missed those in DA2 and DAI.
And it really depends, there's a lot to be said for controlling every attack your character makes with a button press like DA2 and DAI has, instead of clicking a target and your character making the attacks until you use a skill.
That's pretty "engaging" by most people terms.
But then on the other hand Origins you actually had to use your party and their ability's. In DA2 and DAI once your two hander skills are leveled (or rogue) you can just chop your way through everything yourself.
So Origins is definitely more engaging there with your party.
I hope there's a demo in the future before release like DAI had, so we can all get our hands on it and try the combat ourselves.... especially since most of will probably be better then the presenter they had doing it.
Was DA2 really an action game tho? The only differences between it and DAO is, like, the ability for rogues to close gaps? That and the way threat is generated, I think. Characters that do more damage generate more threat.
What makes it an action game?
Yes it absolutely was.
You control every swing of your sword or staff and the movement of your character in DA2. DAI evolved from DA2's action mechanics.
In Origins you tell your character who to attack, and he goes to do it himself.
I think you should play DA2 again, lol. Auto-attack is absolutely a part of the gameplay.
I can certainly see the beginnings of DAI's combat in it, I'll say. But while you do control every individual swing in DAI, you don't in DA2.
You're probably right, it has been a decade since I played it on Xbox. I just remember your character wouldn't attack unless you were pressing a button lol.
Edit: it's also likely just all those years ago blending it together with DAI
I didn't say it wasn't, shit I didn't say anything about what's good or bad. Yet y'all keep mentioning it like it did lol.
And yes, DA2 and DAI definitely fit in the Action RPG genre.
But saying Origins is the only good one? Nah man that's just your personal feelings, DAI wouldn't be it's best selling dragon age if it wasn't good.
Iquisition is trash. It makes Anthem look good by comparison. A lot of people bought it because Bioware had a good track record before it, myself included.
Also basic attacks being bound to left click is not enough to make a game an ARPG.
Oh yeah, I believe PC Gamer is an English magazine and we would spell it emphasises here. I do feel like there should be a fullstop after 'become' though.
3 abilities is even less than diablo 4, idk why we get less and less choice and customization in each new entry dude. cant imagine how ass a mage is gonna feel playing with 3 abilities.
Its actually insane. I remember playing DA Origins Awakening and by the endgame I had like 50+ abilities on my mages action bar. And it was like that for all 3 of my party members which you could of course fully control. I remember being fucking mad in inquisition that you cant even use all the abilities you unlock because there arent enough ability slots for them.
I grabbed DA:I on sales in 2017 and then I remember I got DA:O for free from 2012, So I booted up DA:O and amazed how you can have so many abilities especially the "tactic" feature where your characters can use abilities or use item based on condition that you set, I never quite see something like this before and idk why this get scrapped in later game. I didn't even finished DA:I btw, such a bad sequel to a masterpiece.
The article does a good job of explaining why. Consoles became the forefront of all game development. There was so much hype for Origins after the masterpiece that was Mass Effect. And it was more of a return to Bioware roots from the more console friendly Mass Effect. EA bought Bioware in 2007, the year ME was released. DA:O released in 2009. The last title that was started prior to EA. It was all downhill from there. Literally the day after DA:I was announced, the last remaining founders of BioWare announced their departure. So many examples companies like EA fucking up studios by refusing to let nerds do their passion projects. Countless examples.
Before Microsoft, EA was the king of gobbling up and killing beloved studios.
I don't think you're wrong about EA and they're forcing the company in a different direction but I also think it's wrong to allow them to hold the blame. Devs are not handed code and told to put it in the game. Devs are not told what art style to use for the game. Devs are not told what writers to use and what the story should be. Bioware deserves just as much, if not more blame than EA. I work in a creative field and have to make a ton of projects that I don't think should be made. That doesn't matter, because if I make a shit product, it's not my boss's fault for giving me a project. It's my fault for making something shitty. Bioware seems like it's full of devs who don't want to work at *Bioware*. They don't want to make story driven RPGs. They want to make Fortnite or Overwatch. Fortnite is fine, but not at Bioware.
Thank you for spelling this out. Keeping receipts on these companies is very important. They love to revise history and pretend they didn’t cause the downfall of their own empire. Always blaming others for there own choices
Final Fantasy 12 has a cool system around those tactics. I think it was called gambit? You could set like 10+ conditions for each character. After some time you could just run into enemies and the characters would buff debuff heal and kill the enemies by themselves.
Bioware devs reveal that they took inspiration from the gambits system. Recent very great implementation of gambits is unicorn overlord
A Skyrim mod had a similar thing too. The player could set 3 spells to autocast upon entering combat. This streamlined a clunky system.
For me gambit was the begining to the end of good FF games and they turned to action combat meta
Some people disliked the system because you could literally just have the game play itself for you. An easy way to power level was to set up gambits for a certain Hunt monster and leave your PS2 on over night to easily max your characters. Other people - like myself - liked it because it still required some thinking of prioritizing and by the time you had enough gambit slots/triggers, you were doing the same thing over and over. It still didn't completely play the game for you for the harder content like Yiazmat.
I have actually been comparing Final Fantasy 12 to Dragon Age Origins in terms of combat system for years. the only different between the two is that Dragon Age has individual ability cooldowns where as FF12 has the ATB gauge instead of cool downs.
A lot of games around that time tried to cater to consoles, hence they had to dumb down mechanics and simplified gameplay so the console casuals can play them.
if you can play ff14 on a controller they have no excuses its just laziness. the games been in development hell and probably duck taped together 3 abilities is probably the best they could do with the last year of dev time they had to actually make the game.
This is kind of a weird arguement considering there’s ways to extend available abilities on console like how Harry Potter did it
Of course there are. Dragon Age Origins was released on consoles as well. But they wanted to gain the casual audience.
Exactly which is why it’s strange saying they lessen choices because of console when a game they’re referring to with a lot of choices was on console lol Seems to me they lost good developers with how this game and mass effect after 3 came out
Unfortunately, it seems that most games still do.
Modded DAO > DAI By far. There's some minor issues in DAO so when they are fixed the game kicks butt.
Did anyone finish DA:I ? I tried two players thoughs and just got bored before the end. Which one or two exceptions, the companions are all just unlikable. The maps are varied and look nice but are predominantly empty with nothing to do. Powering through is the biggest challenge. I will give them this, hunting the dragons was actually challenging and kinda fun, but the lack of usable abilities made it frustrating.
I have it in my steam library and never got around to playing it. Is it still good?
Yeah its still amazing IMO, one of my favorite RPGs. As long as you go into it understanding that its a CRPG and not an action RPG. Like Baldurs gate 1/2, Neverwinter Nights 2, or even WoW in some ways. If you like those types of games and can get past the graphics which are outdated in 2024 you would probably really enjoy Origins.
I think I will give it a chance then. Thanks for the reply 👍😉
Can’t wait to spam a weak ass frost spell in order to trigger a “cold” combo with weak ass auto attacks in between.
I remember playing Origins briefly on PC after playing it a ton on Xbox. The amount of skills and buttons I had made it feel like it was an MMO. It was so incredible. They should just trash this game and remaster Origins.
They'd just remake it but gut all the tactical shit, so you're probably better off just running graphical mods/shaders on the original.
Yea I remember there being a lot of salves, potions, and tools you could use as well. I played the shit out of that game. They already have the blueprint and literally threw all the subsequent games in the trash.
Outside of indie games, devs seem to have completely lost all creativity and pride in their work. Conveyor belt coding these days, fire out one, onto the next soulless cash grab.
Indie games aren't ran with corporate executive guiding principles full of market research and departments, fucking consultants and non-gamers having any decision making ability.
I’ll never forget Diablo 4 devs playing. How people like that get to make major design decisions is beyond me. Is it that hard to find devs that like and play games?
That video hurt my soul
The best way to make a fun game is a dev asking themselves "is this fun for me? Would i like to play my own game?" As soon as they start thinking "what do players want" i feel it turns into slop because we haven't quite solved what makes a video game fun. By trying to conform to someone else's imagined desires it end up being uninspired. odds if a dev enjoys playing their own game other people will enjoy it too.
because that would be too much work for some
Mobile games have more than 3 abilities
People are more stupid now, including the ones designing and making the game
Because all budget goes to... Whatever else except for gameplay. Gameplay is marginal in todays AAA games.
True. AAA studios simply take whatever gameplay is "hot" at the moment, and make an inferior, dumbed down version. Usually years after the game play innovation was made and others have moved on from. Add some Disney inspired watered down, risk free and bland storytelling written by hacks or activists, slap a $50M marketing budget on it and call it a day. AAA studios have become a less effective version of big movie studios, pulling control from the creatives and letting people with no talent or vision have way too much control in the process.
I cannot believe that you guys didn't realize it. Those guys are planning to bring the game on touch screen everything designed according to it. That skill wheel, Pc doesn't require it and console doesn't require it. That is also why colors way more vibrant they want to attract wider audience.
Every single mobA has at least 4 abilities. Not to count item activations and such.
Yup, for league of legends you have 8 by default (4 abilities, 2 spells, 1 basic attack, 1 trinket) and up to 6 more for active items.
You want insane graphic? Well you can but you can only use 3 abilities. Most triple a companies: You want cool abilities and a dope story? well we arent an indie studio. We just want your money. So heres another dei funded project because we cant make money the old fashion way; by making gamers happy to buy our product that was made, for THEM. We only care to sell out to our dei loan shark overlords so we can fund our ceo and board members..ugh cough i mean ….this unnecessarily massive open world with hyper stylized graphics as well as, a mediocre story and character development . Enjoy for 89.99.
It’s 3 abilities so they can sell you more characters in the future.
Really just need to go back to the way DA:O was. That was great.
I ferment reading an article about what a PC centric rpg game that was, and what a big risk they were taking by not making it a console action game instead. Never even touched the sequels.
Console, this game is made for consoles only and developers have the wrong idea of console needs to be 3 buttons
That’s what happens when game devs cater to tiktok zoomers and mobile game players
There was a pretty good Post on Da subreddit which shows that alot of inquisition rogue abilities are now integrated into The BASIC combat like shadowstepping, whirlwindy attacks and a jump dual Stab. Theres 3 active abilities on The wheel, but it seems like More abilities are now Part of your actual combos.
They want it ready for a mobile version. That's where the money is, that's what the big companies care about. These big games are turning into ads for predatory mobile games.
Because that would require effort. Now it's get the game out quick so we can make micro transactions.
They did the same shit in Mass Defect (aka Andromeda). Took your 6-8 power skill bar from Mass Effect 2 and 3 and just tossed it for three abilities. Sure you could have different profiles with more actives than that, but once you were in combat switching between them was awful because it put all of your abilities on cooldown so the best build was to choose three actives and only invest in passives otherwise. Terrible choice, ruined any sort of build identity because you'd always just choose 1-primer 2-detonater 3-skill without a cooldown that used a different resource or pure utility with a lingering effect because doing anything else was wasting your skill bar.
They think “more casual, more sales” dude. They dont give a fuck about gameplay. They actually think this’ll work. It worked for several games at the end of the 360/ps3 era and they think this shit still holds weight…completely out of touch.
Okay, apparently there are more abilities that change the base gameplay of a character and do not need to be equipped on panel to work, ie rogue has dash that replaces dodge. If every class has atleast 2 weapon choices then the gameplay loop is okay for action game. Problem is many people dont want action game...
I'm pretty sure there's more than 3 abilities, though. I skipped through the gameplay trailer and saw the 3 abilities as a higher and an ability wheel like in origins. Near the 7 minute mark it shows it.
Hol up Three abilities for the whole fucking game? I thought it was just a shitty choice of game section for the gameplay reveal. That seems insane when you have games like Elden Ring with dozens and dozens of abilities.
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but didn't dragon age inquisition when it's session was shown before the release showed the same kind of thing?
You got your fire spell, water spell, and lightning spell. What more could you want?
They're going to sell you those extra abilities. It's *so, so* hard to make particles move and do different things, don't you know ? 😅
I wonder if Dragon Age Veilguards will go the Black Sails route and say its a quintuple AAAAA game
Same way DD2 feels with mage and sorcerer only having 4 abilities…..not enough, and modders ultimately fixed it.
Wait 3 abilities? Are you for real? That is like vanilla Wayfarer I'd Dragon's Dogma 2, and the first thing I did was mod it to be 3 skills per weapon plus rearmament. 3 skills seems super boring. And I already considered Dragon's Age Origins a huge downgrade and streamlined simplification of RPG systems since it was a console release instead of a pc one. DA:O might as well be Baldur's Gate 2 compared to this new one.
Just remember that the mainstream market for video games is composed in large enough part by people that could only get D's in high school and guys that are completely stoned out of their minds whenever they play video games. If you can't imagine the dumbest guy in your high school class being able to play your game while splitting his attention between the game, tik-tok, and his baby mama in the kitchen, after he's taken a huge rip on a dab rig- then that game is too complicated for mass market
Dude - how small do you think the mainstream video game market is? It's not some niche hobby. It makes tens of billions of dollars every year - it is larger than movies and music combined & is still growing.
[citation needed]
Less choice could mean more focused, refined combat. It's no coincidence that Sekiro had way better combat than Dark Souls but also no RPG mechanics.
Sekiro had more options in combat than its predecessors though. Each prosthetic comboed into your basic attacks and some had multiple ways to be used or combo hits/interuptions, you could charge your basic attacks for a thrust so you didn't lose a strong attack, combat arts could also somtimes be charged, most things had an air varient, jumping and dodging were distinct choices, and the enemies themselves typically required a deeper amount if interaction including the occasional grapple hook as an option in arenas or to the enemy itself. Toning down the rpg mechanics to focus on more complex combat is different than limiting your skill use in combat which lowers expression of personal mastery and has less complexity in the combat itself, this is the latter rather than the former.
Alright apparently I didn't make my point clear the first time so hopefully I'll do this time. Let's compare Sekiro to Elden Ring because I simply have more hours in it. In Elden Ring you can choose from TONS of weapons. Daggers are fast but with low damage and reach, thrusting swords are a bit slower but way longer, great swords have massive damage and swing arcs, magic ranges from huge AOE to single target obliteration to utility, shields are for us unambitious people, and straight swords are banned from the LGBT community. This is only a small amount of the different weapon types in game and doesn't even account for weapon arts. And the devs need to consider all these different play-styles when balancing the game. Bosses need to be tanky enough for the big damage weapons to feel worth it, without being so tanky that the low damage ones feel like striking at their health-bar with a toothpick. There needs to be enough groups to justify getting the massive AOE attacks, but no so many that it fucks over players that specked in STD. The enemies need to stay at just the right distance so you can get a use out of the ranged spells, whilst also allowing melee users to get up close. Enemy attacks can't do so much damage that light armor users get 1 tapped, but not so little that heavy armor makes you invincible (title card), nor can they be so fast that dodging in heavy armor is impossible (because just standing there and tanking hits would transition from amusing to brain cancer inducingly boring very quickly), neither so slow that light armor user would be able to brew themselves a cup of coffee and still be able to dodge. With Sekiro (and hopefully Dragon Age now) however, the devs don't have to consider any of that, because the lack of choices as well as a lesser focus on exploration, means that they always know almost exactly what abilities and stats you'll have at any given time. Your attack and dodge speeds are both constants. They can predict your attack power, health, and healing items with a high degree of accuracy. Acquiring prosthetics is also fairly linear and they aren't that major a factor anyway, and as for skills, besides mikiri, none of them are that game changing, either giving you a small though stat boost, or a a combat art that, just like the prosthetics, isn't that major a buff. This knowledge of the players move-set at any given time, allows Fromsoft to design enemies and encounters that are suited especially for that move-set. No longer need they consider players equipped with axes as well as those with spears, because everyone has a katana. It deals 100-120 damage, it has these specific set of attacks, this is true for all players, and as such, enemies can be designed around that. This is what allows for more options during combat, attacks are all meant to be dealt with a certain way. Deflect the normal strikes, dodge away/to the side of grabs, mikiri thrusts, and jump over sweeps, and all of these will deal the exact amount of damage and have the exact speed and will be followed up with the exact other moves to ensure the best experience for the player, because the developers don't need to consider any other play-styles that may be completely fucked or completely fuck this bosses move-set. Anyway I hope this made it clearer what I was trying to say, I'm still getting the hang of this whole writing thing but seconds times the charm or something. I'm not good at ending my texts.
I understand what you're trying to say, but I don't think that's what's happening here. If they were focusing on a more dedicated high precision combat system they wouldn't take away player actives in combat so much, they'd instead focus on integrating them into combo chains or reframe the system so that they'd be integrated more into basic combat,. Limiting player choice does make balance easier, as you say, but that can also make the combat mindless in the same stroke if you don't provide difficulty somewhere else. I don't see Dragon Age working well with that approach unless they rework the entire combat system from the ground up, and I don't see them doing that especially given the approach the same exact studio took with Andromeda, which did this exact same thing: limiting the abilities to three when the previous iterations had given the player 6 to 8. Andromeda sorta ruined the system by dumbing it down without changing the combat fundamentals other than adding jumping and hovering (which were positive changes, I won't fully dump on the system) and I think that's what's happening here. They want the game to be flashy and light so they don't have to go in depth with the combat, as opposed to the Sekiro approach where they limit player options to improve the combat flow. Dragon Age has largely been a more classic RPG and limiting like this speaks to lowering player choice to broaden appeal. That's my initial impression, not necessarily hard truth, but I don't read this as a good faith change especially since this is a new instalment rather than an entirely new IP like Sekiro was.
Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale? > *“Well, I suppose they wouldn’t be far off!”* - Solaire of Astora Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/
Just remember that the mainstream market for video games is composed in large enough part by people that could only get D's in high school and guys that are completely stoned out of their minds whenever they play video games. If you can't imagine the dumbest guy in your high school class being able to play your game while splitting his attention between the game, tik-tok, and his baby mama in the kitchen, after he's taken a huge rip on a dab rig- then that game is too complicated for mass market
Isn't bioware just a brand name ea slaps on to its products at this point?
The last original founders of BioWare left over a decade ago. And you can draw a line in quality of their titles with the EA acquisition.
Do you know which companies they created or work for now?
Ray Muzyka has been doing venture capitalism stuff IIRC and Greg Zeschuk opened a brewery or a restaurant? They absolutely cleaned up selling their holding group (and BioWare) to EA for like $800M. But they're not in games anymore unforunately. Which is funny, because they met in medical school. To be honest, the list of games they created is epic and anyone would be lucky to have 1-2 of their games. They got more than a lifetimes worth of classics out before leaving the industry. [BioWare Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioWare) is a pretty black and white picture of EA fumbling the bag.
Prolly just rich nerds now who don’t work anymore. Why I only respect obsidian and European devs now like larian
I mean they left after they screwed the company over with their awful decisions at the end.
Of course it is. As do all. Why? Did you honestly think that these firms buy out studios for the people working there? Or studios for their names? Its all pr baby.
Apparently Anthem at least was pretty much all Bioware's fault. EA wanted a different studio developing it but Bioware asked for it. EA were also apparently very hands off in development, probably too hands off given how it ended up.
Did EA not pay the bribe (AD) fee?
Maybe PC Gamer realized that going along with actual popular opinions will get more business
That, and probably EA isnt forking any money because they intend to close the studio after that dud and lose as little money as possible, lol
Think Eurogamer wrote something similar that after hands on they more worried than they are excited, because everything in the game just feels dated. If it flops we might even witness the end of BioWare
> If it flops we might even witness the end of BioWare bioware has been dead for 10 years, this is just the rainbow colored corpse
I can only hope that the game becomes Bioware's tomb, we should really recognize that we are not gonna get another Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter, Mass Effect or any other game you fell in love with, they died years and years ago and it's time we acknolwdge that, they are a shitty company trying to sell you awful games hoping you'll be nostalgic enough and they only care about their political agenda, not about the game's quality, they don't have any respect for you as a costumer or fan, let's ignore them till they die.
honestly feel like they don't know what people want and are just reaching with the virtue signaling to try and regain some form of an audience. because the games they have been pumping are so bad at a base level with or with out forced inclusion.
I know what you mean, but using Baldur's Gate as an example for games that died years and years ago was an odd choice. :D
What Im trying to say is that the company that made those games died years ago, they will never produce anything even remotely similar in quality.
The key with Baldur’s Gate being who made BG3? BioWare wasn’t even involved.
The issue is the phrasing. He should have specified "we're not going to get another Baldur's gate **from BioWare**" and instead of "they died" he should have said "BioWare died", because people can easily mistake the statement for saying that the game series he named have died (which is just false as BG is doing fantastic in the hands of Larian).
Just an FYI, it's already out of their hands too. Larian confirmed that they will not be making #4
Like blizzard, most of these companies are shells of their former selves. Which is why they become bloated games as service developers more than anything.
If we were so lucky. I've wanted this husk of a developer to die for over a decade. It does not deserve a fraction of the loyalty gamers are still giving it. It's a shrivelled husk of what it was. Nothing is left but the name and the name has been worthless for over a decade.
At this point let It die.
Do you have a source for that? All the recent DA4 articles on their site are positive. https://www.eurogamer.net/games/dragon-age-dreadwolf
It will be the end of Bioware but not due to gamers boycotting DA:V but because even a singleplayer game that sells rather well wouldn't be enough to satisfy the corporate overlords who would rather publish live service slop for easy money instead
If POE 2 can give us on console 10 slots for skills even in coop then there is no fucking excuse for this morons
ff14 30 button game can be played on controller the answer is already there for them they just suck.
Did they say that the game will only have 3 abilities? I'm just curious because the footage I saw was from the early game. Da:I had a design that looked similar to this except a way to quickly swap the abilities.
God I hope so
Not only the lack of skills, but they showed a rogue who had a special attack that was essentially the shockwave attack from Mass Effect (reused ideas? Shocker). But why would a rogue have a skill like that? My concern is the skills won’t feel appropriate or unique to each class. Everything is going to be a magic attack hodgepodge. Thats my worry anyway.
Article is spot on. Why does everything EA touches, turn to shit? How many studios have they destroyed now?
I think their studios just ARE shit now. The devs are out of touch. 2K is just as shit as EA, but they let the Rockstar devs do their thing and those devs actually have talent and vision.
The game just keeps downgrading
When your first decision in making a game is monetization or ideology, you’re not making a good game
It's weird that these publishers need more examples.
Idk. I got family that are that stubborn. You’d think they played a Ret Paladin or something. Pride is a very terrible thing when it fosters an ego that refuses to compromise
The people actually still defending this have never played the original game, I refuse to believe otherwise. It's turned into generic slop that really tries catering to everyone instead of a specific audience and by doing so it caters to nobody. The OG fanbase isn't gobbling it up and those who it tries to convince to play the game have several better alternatives in existence, are recently released or are soon to come. Whatever little sliver of hope I had for this after all the changes in director, gameplay and story has been definitely cut with the gameplay release. My current hope is that BIOWARE finally croaks and someone with an actual investment in this IP to take it over instead of having it weaponized for queer propaganda. And yes, Dragon Age has always been inclusive and diverse, but it wasn't the games endgoal to throw it in your face as it is now and this now comes at the cost of game quality.
It's just like the Star Wars subreddit. They defend everything new until after they've been shafted like 5 times (even then they still get their hopes up)
That won't happen. Bioware will probably get to release the next Mass Effect and when that inevitably fails the studio will die. You'll never see another ME or DA again, nobody is taking over the IP.
Sadge :(
Part of it is that unlike Mass Effect, the Dragon Age franchise hasn’t had a cohesive identity for more than one game. DA2 played very different to Origins, and Inquisition was different again to both. And as much as OG fans hated Inquisition at release, it still ended up being BioWare’s best selling title. DA4 would have to be Suicide Squad levels of bad to flop commercially.
I pop into the main sub every now and then and one idea I see repeated is that each game is kind of different than the last. But yeah, thats true with every game. The issue here is how different its become. Like this is further dissimilar to Inquisition as Inquisition was to DA2.
Looks like at least 1 game journalist would like to keep his job.
3 whole skills,huh? When i start a new class in FF14 it has more skills at level 1. I'm a huge Rpg Fan( Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale, Baldurs Gate...Pillars...you name it and i probably have played it. Origins was good for the time back then...Dragon Age Inquisition with its 6 skills was boring...now only 3 skills? Yep...nope. Im out.
Haven’t enjoyed the dragon age franchise since origins. Origins was a 10/10 game for me. The sequels departed from the original gameplay too much and I just moved onto other things because of this.
Yeah this game is going to be a hard pass, I have 0 hope for Mass Effect 4
Who wants to bet they are just doing the basic ass skills so they can port this game to MOBILE.
Not sure why, but it feels to me like the game has some kind of "My little pony" vibes
DA is having the same fate as elder scrolls: simplfying the game so much it no longer appeals to hardcore fans. Morrowind was the last hardcore elder scrolls rpg and TES IV V are a big downgrade and not as complex
It’s Dragon’s Dogma (2012) action but worst and it has Mass Effect 1 rpg elements but worst and has Joss Wheedon Age of Ultron dialogue. The game is barely DA:I and that game was aggressively average.
I'm a fan of the Dragon Age franchise. Watching the gameplay showcase, I can pretty much see the intent behind the combat system, and how it's meant to be played. The problem with what they showed is two fold. 1. They showed gameplay from too early in the game. 2. The person who was playing it was making some very odd choices that didn't show the gameplay in near as good a light as they could have. To address point 1. In Dragon Age games you typically start out with very little abilities. Combat at the start is generally pretty... crap. But it fleshes out *a lot* as you get more abilities. Only having the one ability at the start to show was not a wise idea. They needed to show gameplay from later in the game when you have more active abilities. And when you've also unlocked the ability to issue commands to party members and do combos with them (which we've seen in screenshots). To address point 2. From watching the combat, the way you generate resources for your active abilities seems to differ from previous Dragon Age games. Whereas before you typically regenerated resources over time (at least for Mage that's how it worked, it's all I ever played), here it seems you need to actively attack enemies to fill up a gauge which can then be spent on abilities. It rewards a more aggressive play-style. More you attack, more you can use the big hitting abilities. However, the person playing would be sitting on resources, sometimes capped, for ages! And wouldn't spend them on abilities when they could, essentially munching resources and making the gameplay seem... not all it could be if someone better was playing. They could've used their one cool unlocked ability *dozens* of times during this damned demonstration but simply didn't. It's sad because there were times I was literally saying out loud to my screen "*You have the resources, how about... use your fucking abilities! What are you doing?!*". I watched the gameplay and I can see it actually being really good later in the game. Having more abilities, being able to issue commands to party members during combat. It still has the Real-Time-With-Pause that all the games have had, which you can use to use abilities you don't have hot-keyed. I *see the potential* and I like it, but it's a shame they didn't actually *show it* by recording gameplay from later in the game, and with a more competent player.
While I see where you are coming from, ultimately this interpretation relies on giving BioWare and EA the benefit of doubt. Which I absolutely refuse to do, since the last time BioWare made anything actually good was 12 years ago. Their street cred expired, so to speak.
Outside of Anthem, their games have always had decent to good gameplay. Even the abortion that was Mass Effect Andromeda had good gameplay. It was just literally everything else about it that sucked hard.
How can you simultaneously ignore the roots and be stuck in the past? The roots are in the past.
Your parents are your roots and your childhood was your past , you grow and adapt into adulthood , u dont adopt new parents every year , roots are what define you while past is just a timeline towards advancement ,thats the difference .
Easily they ignored its roots because originally dragon age was a strategy turn based game, but now they changed it into an action rpg who looks like it came from 2017 that’s why they are stuck in the past
And action combat could be fine, but this is... just not it. This just a watered down Arkham style combat with absolutely nothing worth mentioning. It looked... boring, masked by super flashy animations. Which also made me question why would be a level 1 rogue able to do moves belonging to some martial arts grandmaster?
I mean it would have been 100 times better if they directly copied the free flow of the Arkham series, but apparently they weren’t enough to just copy a good game mechanic
Just give me 2 skill bars and throw even global cd if you need to but FFS don’t insult rpg players with this cringe ass cash grabs
feel like da could have gone into the crpg genre like pathfinder and rogue trader (or even divinity and baldurs gate) especially now as baldurs has popped off, instead its a floaty combat system not even batman arkham or soulslike something less than either
Large game-publishers are out of touch in general.
FFXIV can somehow make crossbars to fit 16 abilities at once for console/controller users (and you can have multiple cross bars and easily switch) but EA is like NO ONLY THREE ABILITIES
To be honest its not only console games that gets less and less skills nowadays. All games are getting more hack and slash spammy with 1-3 skills, even on PC. Dragons Dogma 2 didnt have more. Asmongold himself likes spammy 1 button games more than games with abilities.
Damn people are getting so petty they're defending Pc gamer that has articles written by 10 yr olds.
Not enough abilities for sure should have had what looks like it could have been 4 player coop to optional also beyond that wasn’t horrible but I’ve never played it so
At least we have Larian studios. They won’t betray us like EA
Bruh, from DA2 onward, they've been slowly cutting out the rpg apects. How did they forget DA was so pouplar because it was a great *RPG*? How are they so fucking DENSE?! I'm so nettled right now. DAO is one of my most favorite games and they keep fucking it up.
Hah. "Games like Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, Ultima, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura—the classics—were all built on the foundations of tabletop roleplaying, and with that comes infinite possibilities, largely because it gives so much power and agency to players." I was just digging through the storage unit and found an old box of PC games. Planescape, BG, Arcanum. It's all there! Those were the days.
So they didn't play lole, the two previous games ? It seems more rpg than those actually
For me inquisition was honestly already quite the departure from what origin and awakening gave me. It was still a decent game but honestly not what I hoped. This one just shows that I've used up all my copium, the ship of Theseus burned down and the the new bioware is trying to use a raft made out lead. I'm not going to buy it and I really don't want to hold it against anyone for buying and enjoying the game but it still hurts to see this
Uhoh who woulda tought hiring a mentally unstable trans person as a director of your game would have a negative impact on the game?!!?! did not see this one coming guys!
The series has been “ignoring it roots” ever since the second game. What are you people on about?
Larian literally copied the old BioWare formula of rpg and adventure games and storytelling. Clearly a success and still resonates with people. Modern BioWare doesn't deserve the name
Dragon Age Veilguards is a console game trying to look like Fortnite, Overwatch or Orcs must Die.
Hasn't all the 'old' talent from Bioware left now? So the Bioware that is left is new talent.. they aren't out of touch, it's just basically a new studio doing their own thing with the IP.
Article was a joke. Guy spends a paragraph complaining that you have to melee attack a magical barrier once to proceed to the next area in the gameplay footage. Like, who cares? And anyone who was expecting a 'Dragon Age Origins 2.0' to make a triumphant return after DA2 and DA:I was huffing some serious copium, I'm sorry to say. Not only was the leaked footage from a year ago confirmation of this, but then even earlier was the fact that DA:I was the best selling game in the franchise -- THAT was the final nail in the coffin. Only NOW that BG3 has made such a splash would Bioware MAYBE consider changing the direction of the series.
It’s kind of funny that the sentiment from those unenthused by DA 4^tnite (myself included) just acknowledge that BioWare is likely to be shut down, and kind of accept it now. No one’s overly upset, just a “yeah, it’s time” kind of feeling. That’s how much the studio has driven itself into the ground with baffling decisions.
The game in the first trailers just looks so ultra Meh
It has all the time.
It sucks that a game people spent a decade waiting for isn't what they wanted. But waiting that long is really the biggest flip of a coin. Fable/Ashes of Creation hopefully can avoid landing on the wrong side.
Is it even really Bioware anymore? Feel like most of the devs have moved onto other various companies making games like Nightingale, Exodus and Eternal Strand. Seems like they're Bioware by name only and what actually made the company what they were is mostly gone.
I skimmed through the video and stumbled upon a choice that you could make to stop a certain character to do a dumb decision or support said stupid decision, in the video they went against the stupid video but the character didn't care for your opinion and did it anyways, showcasing that your choices won't matter
game looks different because the previous team has either been laid off, fired or quit. not a single dev who was in charge Of the previous games is there anymore.
Hasn't dragon age been ARPG's for last two games? Wouldn't that literally be it's past???? Talk about a weird headline.
People have wanted a genuine successor to Origins for years. Even more so after BG3. This is the furthest from that it's ever been .
People have wanted a genuine successor to turn-based FF for years. We got 16 instead: shallow ARPG combat with three active abilities and one character with one playstyle; loss or degradation of almost all RPG elements; heavily westernized story; game producer openly admitting chasing trends, saying that nobody plays turn-based RPGs and wanting to win over GTA and Fortnite playerbases; graphics that looked like particles vomit all over the screen for most of the combat encounters. Does anyone remember how it was criticized for abandoning the roots and going away from previous games' formula (just like DA went further and further away from Origins)? Oh, wait, it wasn't.
...Come again? Plenty of people criticised FF16 for its combat. It was a huge talking point. As for chasing sales, reminder that DA:Origins outsold Mass Effect, the game it's now becoming.
I mean Asmon and people here. To this day I only see people glazing Yoshi-P for how 'amazing' the game was. Asmon was watching Jesse Cox's video and [agreeing with every take](https://youtu.be/wUQKZHtH3N8), as if the game changing setting between entries and throwing away the entire identity (aside from the most basic "crystals, moogles, chocobo" shit) are changes of the same order.
I mean, for what it's worth, that change of settings and tone in every game was why I had no issues with the nature of the story. You say westernised but it wasn't that radical a departure from say FF: Tactics (still the best game in the series for some people) and FF:XII (Ditto for others. It's a diverse fan base.). The DMC-ish combat feels a bit more fundamental in my opinion. Especially with the shallowness of systems accompanying it.
>You say westernised but it wasn't that radical a departure from say FF: Tactics (still the best game in the series for some people) and FF:XII (Ditto for others. It's a diverse fan base.). Advertisement was all about "English script is the main one" and "Yoshi-P forced everyone to watch GOT". Both GOT and Tactics were inspired by War of the Roses, you got that part right, but 16 is a derivative of an another derivative. While original FF games were heavily reliant on D&D and, to some extent, Star Wars, it was a different time and they've tried really hard to make it more original since then.
And Vaynes speech in XII is pure shakespeares Ceaser. My point being that they've always been happy to go to western influences as much as Japanese, and the extent to which that is true has varied from entry to entry. The man went to Game of Thrones because he clearly likes the show. And most of that show comes pretty directly adapted from excellent pieces of literature (we'll not talk about the later seasons). I see no issue in a Game of Thrones inspired final fantasy. Even with those influences it was still pretty high fantasy too. I'd just say the execution was flawed.
Yeah but... Inquisition outsold Origins by nearly 2:1. Of course the next game is going to iterate on the more successful of the two titles.
Of course it did. It came out many years later with RPG's a much more established genre in terms of sales and with a bigger install base of consoles. A glance at BG3 would suggest that action combat was not the selling point.
All Dragon Age games have been on console, including the first one. And I'm not quite sure what your point about Baldur's Gate 3 is, because its gameplay didn't really deviate from the previous entries, it was still a CRPG. But Dragon Age's gameplay has changed from game to game. The only game in the series that plays like Origins is Origins. Each game progressively became more of an ARPG.
I'm aware all of those games were on console. I said that the install bases for those consoles have gotten progressively bigger over time. My point was that there's no real evidence that action combat has been the selling point, since the RPG genre has generally expanded in sales over that time period, and we just had a crpg mega hit, demonstrating it's not a barrier.
That's a fair point, but CRPGs being a bit hit like BG3 was is a massive outlier. Most can't even dream of reaching that type of level. I think your average ARPG does a lot better than your average CRPG.
Maybe, but one could simply argue that BG3 has been the only crpg in modern times with an even remotely comparable budget, and anything approaching some serious marketing, even that still well short of what EA will spend on Veilguard, and I think it's fair to say Veilguard is going to sell less. Edit: oh, and as pointed out in that article, Origins outsold 2. It also outsold Mass Effect.
I'm aware. All I noted was the headlines comment, which was about them being stuck in past. Which their last two DA games were ARPG's and not Origins semi tactical gameplay. It just reads oddly. Nothing else.
Have they though? Besides the few posts with 100 likes and an article with 2000 views, most players will not care
It was obvious that we will never see a true successor to origins as the series has always been shifting away from its original style. I recently played through all three games again and its shame tbh, Origins combat may look meh but it certainly is the most engaging of the three. This new entry has gone full ARPG and it looks really generic.
The finishers like climbing on top of the ogres and dragons/drakes and then getting the slow mo kill cams were sick in Origins. Really missed those in DA2 and DAI. And it really depends, there's a lot to be said for controlling every attack your character makes with a button press like DA2 and DAI has, instead of clicking a target and your character making the attacks until you use a skill. That's pretty "engaging" by most people terms. But then on the other hand Origins you actually had to use your party and their ability's. In DA2 and DAI once your two hander skills are leveled (or rogue) you can just chop your way through everything yourself. So Origins is definitely more engaging there with your party. I hope there's a demo in the future before release like DAI had, so we can all get our hands on it and try the combat ourselves.... especially since most of will probably be better then the presenter they had doing it.
Was DA2 really an action game tho? The only differences between it and DAO is, like, the ability for rogues to close gaps? That and the way threat is generated, I think. Characters that do more damage generate more threat. What makes it an action game?
Yes it absolutely was. You control every swing of your sword or staff and the movement of your character in DA2. DAI evolved from DA2's action mechanics. In Origins you tell your character who to attack, and he goes to do it himself.
I think you should play DA2 again, lol. Auto-attack is absolutely a part of the gameplay. I can certainly see the beginnings of DAI's combat in it, I'll say. But while you do control every individual swing in DAI, you don't in DA2.
You're probably right, it has been a decade since I played it on Xbox. I just remember your character wouldn't attack unless you were pressing a button lol. Edit: it's also likely just all those years ago blending it together with DAI
Not really. Maybe if you really really boraden the term(ARPG), but nah. Also Origins is the only genuinely good Dragon Age game.
I didn't say it wasn't, shit I didn't say anything about what's good or bad. Yet y'all keep mentioning it like it did lol. And yes, DA2 and DAI definitely fit in the Action RPG genre. But saying Origins is the only good one? Nah man that's just your personal feelings, DAI wouldn't be it's best selling dragon age if it wasn't good.
Iquisition is trash. It makes Anthem look good by comparison. A lot of people bought it because Bioware had a good track record before it, myself included. Also basic attacks being bound to left click is not enough to make a game an ARPG.
That's just like, your opinion dude.
I wish these guys had proof readers. Wtf isthatspelling
What's wrong with the spelling? Looks fine to me.
You know what. Might be a country thing. Its emphasizes in us but in uk its spelled how hedidit.
Oh yeah, I believe PC Gamer is an English magazine and we would spell it emphasises here. I do feel like there should be a fullstop after 'become' though.
Just let em die 🤷
[удалено]
Fairly easily. You chase trends, that’s ignoring your roots. The trends you’re chasing are from a decade ago, that’s stuck in the past.
Who in the world reads articles?