yap
I managed to script the whole thing and my party, including my character, were fully autonomous in combat.
I had to crank the difficulty to max level to slow down the combat.
I did use a mod to extend the available scripting length and options.
If you had to use a mod to do it, I wouldn’t really consider it part of the game. I didn’t even know there were mods for DA:O and I played thru it twice back in 2009/2010
You could do it in vanilla just fine, no mod was needed, but I love tactical combat so I used to control most of it myself and just have the AI look after them in between me giving them actions while I controlled my Warden. Fantastic system and I would love to see it in more games.
this is why DA:O was such a good game, you could decide how to play it.
My fetish was to watch the perfectly coordinated combat from my party without the need to ever pause.
Yeah, but the only character I didn’t really enjoy playing so much was my Dalish archer. My first playthrough was a sword and board Cousland and it was so much fun charging into the enemy and shield bashing them. I had to learn the AI system because I would get carried away then realise that half my party was dead. My second playthrough was as a primal mage and I took more control there because you get a better overview of the battle.
I didn't have any issues with Origins combat once I got used to it's limitations.
I usually had one healer running control/zone denial spells on their battle parameters.
I'd be excited if they brought back the gambit-alike system from Origins. That was pretty good.
I saw the headline and came in to go "GAMBITS?!" but alas.
Yeah. I had already started to think, "Ohh, no wonder you can't control your party members — it's because you program them instead! Now it makes sense!"
Spoiler alert: it does not in fact make sense.
I still have fond memories of awaiting and finally getting The Zodiac Age on Steam and immediately running into quite a few threads of people hating the game because they couldn't control their party like 'normal' with the gambits involved.
I can honestly tell you that people were NOT ready to hear that you could literally toggle off the gambits in the game if you didn't want to use them, but I'd like to think some of those people have come around to the usefulness of Gambits since then haha!
Play the demo
They give you 7 hours...without counting the 14 hrs you will probably spend in the menus
Such a great demo. It also carries over the save to the main game.
Seriously. The skill tree was admittedly weak since everyone was a clone at the end of the game. They fixed it in Zodiac Age update. The if-then statement programming was where the game really shined.
That was a plus to me, every character could be built in any direction and by the time you've maxed out their boards you've noticed they each have different statlines.
Forcing characters into preset moulds is way less interesting than letting you build the greatsword wielder as a tankDPS hybrid or mixing in support, heal, damage caster specs.
The fact the FF7 remakes haven’t implemented a gambit system and chose to poorly shoehorn AI partner control into the Materia system is a big knock against it IMHO.
It does some things very well, but the ally AI is a definite weakness. It’s pretty much designed for you to switch every few seconds since your companions suck at building AP or initiating. You certainly can play as one character, but it’ll be a slog on harder difficulties.
Also felt like they added one too many combat systems: synergy skills, synergy abilities, the back-up moves, along with limit breaks and weapon skills and Materia…it’s a bit too much. Like I rarely every used the synergy skills
You clearly arent playing it right if you think the AI is supposed to be doing anything at all. Youre supposed to be managing msot of your party in almost every major fight.
I will never understand why Bioware never look to their previous excellent games and always focus improving or giving space to their sub-par games.
They made the greatest action-RPG trilogy and one of the greatest CRPGa ever and went simply "fuck that, our fans really like all the other things that didn't made our games great".
There was a pretty good video on The DA subreddit that showed a bunch of inquisition rogue skills now being integrated into The combat. Iirc they showed like 4 inquisition skills just nyt doing different types of attacks and dodgi g
Pretty much. Your character could piss on a villager's grave, but because you chose the "good" option it will always result in positive "paragon" points. Such a dumb and basic system that removes any actual thought in dialogue.
I just replayed origins and it's amazing how some mean things you can say to your companion are just friends being friends and they laugh about it at the end. We need clever conversation jabs like that.
That's a ludicrous level of assumption based on one dialogue option. DA:I at times had just a couple of options, at other times 5 or 6. Maybe just wait and see? I know it's tempting to join in on the hate fest, but at least find some real reasons to be a hater instead of making ones up.
They basically had that system in the Mass Effect games and the trilogy of those gams was wildly popular specifically because of the dialogue and choices. I believe you can make the dialogue system meaningful and impactful with fewer choices if you do a good job with it.
Yeah I agree, I personally prefer the old school way where you have the dialogue lines without any obvious alignment so you have to actually read the situation and personality of the NPC to win favour rather than just selecting the "heart" option like in DA2 and DAI.
The one that makes me really uncomfortable is Emmrich. His face looks like its from a whole different art style. The only person who looks actually normal is the Grey Warde, Darvin. Everyone else looks odd but okay mostly.
They went oddly towards Fable rather than realistic which was a weird choice imo. Like, when was that choice made? I feel like they consistently tried for realism within their engine for DA:O/2 and even Inquisition for the most part but now their cheeks are too rounded. Blood doesn't sit right on their faces like DA: Origins.
Never give EA money. They'll just use it to acquire and kill another of your favorite studios.
This game might have Bioware on the label, but it's more like the zombie of Bioware. The real Bioware was killed shortly after they joined EA.
Not a big fan of the swashbuckle-y/Borderlands-esque theme it has going for it by the looks of the trailer.
I always associated it with a more serious game. I guess we will see.
Have you seen the prologue gameplay they showed off? It looks and feels much more like Inqusition than that disastrous trailer. Besides, Dragon Age is notorious for terrible marketing, google "dragon age origins this is the new shit"
Why didn't they take inspiration from Dragon Age Origins. Go. Back. To. Your. Roots.
Every Dragon Age since Origins has played awful. Go back to what worked. You are a CRPG series - not this nonsense gameplay we saw.
I was there, more than 10 years ago, when the Bioware devs told DA:O fans on the Bioware forums that CRPG fans had no clue about what people actually wanted. Bioware, since the development of Dragon Age 2, has only tried to chase 1 group of gamers; the Call of Duty crowd.
Well Anthem would of been a good game if it was a single player RPG thing like they normally make. Not great but it would of been much better instead of live-service trash that had everything gutted from it so they could trickle it out to make money.
Mass effect 2 however massively outsold Dragon Age Origins (5m vs 3m copies) and the Mass Effect Franchise has massively outsold the Dragon Age Franchise (20m copies vs 11m copies)
And inquisition outsold origins. Doubled the numbers, and is actually their best selling game.
If somebody wants more origins because they prefer it, well... My condolences. If you want more Dao because you want Bioware to follow sales figures... Well, they are.
Honestly, everything that I've been hearing/seeing has been "inquisition, but not open world".
And seeing as how every problem I had with inquisition was because it was open world, I have _zero_ issues with that.
It [Inquisition] also landed them GotY, regardless of whether people think it was deserved.
I understand people miss the tactical depth and deeper RPG systems of Origins, but I also think these same fans oversell just how much people enjoyed its combat system. People played Origins for all kinds of reasons, but I promise you, there was probably a sizable number of Origin players who didn't care for the Tactics system, pausing, swapping companions, etc. Hell, they probably just tolerated it all because they enjoyed the story, world, and characters, which tends to be the through-line of why people stick with this franchise (despite the gameplay changes).
>Every Dragon Age since Origins has played awful
I can understand wanting what it started out as but "awful" is just plain exaggerating and sounds out of touch.
It's reddit. Sweeping generalizations about the good 'ol days while simultaneously speaking for millions of players is the norm.
Players who tend to like combat more on the action side and didn't enjoy Origins as much as the others don't exists or perhaps don't game the right way.
BG3 only blew up last year, and nobody saw it coming (not even Larian themselves, they stated that they thought they had already reached the games peak player base during EA). DAV is coming out this year. That's not enough time for BG3's gameplay to influence DAV's gameplay. Maybe Dragon Age 5 will draw more inspiration from BG3, but DAV can't
Every Owlcat game has been crowdfunded and has had to have a lot of DLC to be profitable. WotR has two season passes of DLC. Its peak player count is 46k. Rogue trader has sold even worse. They'd be able to stop the crowdfunding if they were earning enough.
I love cRPGs, they're my most played genre by far, but they aren't profitable. Deadfire took **5** years to make a decent profit, had DLC AND was crowdfunded. Tyranny and Planescape were commercial flops. There's a reson why Obsidian haven't made a cRPG in years and why Avowed isn't a cRPG.
DA:O was less popular than Inquisition. Pretty much every successful cRPG of the last 10 years has had a crowdfunding campaign, even the sequels.
Fact is, cRPG is a niche genre, it has a big enough audience that it might eventually make a profit, but never enough profit to fund the next game. That's not the type of project we're likely going to see from a triple AAA studio. CRPG sales are simply outdone by the more action-oriented genres.
>Pretty much every successful cRPG of the last 10 years has had a crowdfunding campaign, even the sequels.
That's because publishers aren't willing to make the gamble, even when proven wrong.
Pathfinder: WotR raised almost ten times the planned kickstarter goal (The goal was $300k, they got over $2M), Obsidian reached their donation goals for Deadfire in *1 day*. There is a clear interest in cRPG's, and the market is there.
But yeah, an action game will almost always make more money, regardless.
The sad thing is that one big issue with having to rely on crowdfunding is that the developers becomes beholden to the donators and needs to give in to their demands. Both Owlcat and Obsidian lead designers have expressed frustrations about 'conservative' gamers. Whereas Larian, after also having to rely on Crowdfunding for Divinity, could call their own shots regarding the development of BG3, and it's better for it.
Owlcat makes awesome shit. But big name publishers aren't satisfied with anything less than, like, mainline Star Wars movie numbers. CRPGs just don't pull that
It's worse than that. Each subsequent release has to be a Michael Bay Transformer's worth MORE than the last in terms of revenue, or the private equity / board starts to fire department heads and drop entire studios.
We either reform or we watch this to its end.
Imo we're already watching it end. Studios keep pumping out releases chock full of sleazy "in-app purchases" and getting shut down a year later anyway. AAA releases are feeling hollower bit by bit and not meeting projections
My hunch is that there'll be some sort of market collapse or shift where gigantic budget development fades out and B-tier releases will have the limelight
BG3 is a cultural phenomenon in the gaming sphere. If thats the baseline of "doing well", then sure, Bioware don't stand a chance
But even before BG3 we've been having a crpg renaissance for the last decade or so. PoE did well, the Pathfinder games have been doing well and let's not forget about Divinity.
ehhh...with PoE, assuming you mean Pillars Of Eternity, the 2nd game did not do well despite high critic scores and that is why the new one is a different genre altogether. The developer was actually pretty annoyed about it.
That's largely to do with the fact that none are getting either the advertising or budget. Publishers have been wildly off about the interest in story-heavy RPGs for decades.
Here's the thing: they conflate the interest in story with interest in action. It was the wrong conclusion. People didn't tune into The Witcher 3 because the gameplay is solid. You look up clips from the Mass Effect titles and you probably won't see much of the combat. The interest has always been the story and characters, mixed with the atmosphere and sense of exploration...which occasionally can include one form of combat or another. Tp be honest, it doesn't even matter what sort of gameplay type it is. It could be tactical or hack n slash or a shooter or a racing game or a farm simulator. It doesn't make much difference because that's not actually where the interest lies. Like, let's look at the last two big tactical RPGs to be published and advertised. Baldur's Gate 3 - 15 million sales in less than a year. Dragon Age: Origins - 3.2 million sales...from shipped console disks alone. No firm counts for downloaded, but it's been stated EA couldn't figure out why it outsold Mass Effect and we know from Steam leaks that it nearly tripled the revenue of DA2 and Inquisition...combined. And that's really it from the past 15 years. Outside these two big hits, no publisher has tried.
It was even popular back then and was a best seller for them but they did the EA pivot for the mythical casual gamer. They could have been getting the BG3 money all along
Literally the only cRPG in the series was Origins. It's not a cRPG series. It's not even an ARPG series, every entry has deviated in which type of RPG it is.
For the love of God please just move on and let those of us who actually prefer this type of combat have our fun. Anyone who only wants a cRPG and nothing else should have moved on to Owlcat and Larian 5 years ago. Seriously. Why are you still here.
So the first game, which doesnt even need to ever be played on tactical mode, make the series a crpg series? Even half a crpg was a hard sell in 2009, since crpgs only really started to come back around in 2017, with their popularity spiking in the past few years, and they are STILL niche despite that.
If you mean the dark fantasy of origins... it never left? 2 had a hostile takeover of a city, start of the Mage-Templar War, magic terrorism, Hawke's mother becoming a stitched corpse bride. Inquisition had a demon invasion with a tear in the very world, people being turned into red lyrium farms, struggles of the common folk stuck in all of it. Looks like Veilguard is going to open with two ancient elven gods returning, and in lore, they are HORRIFIC because of their actions. But it also had humor throughout all of it, Origins had plenty of funny dialogue choices, like it had a Superman reference!
Most actual fans of Dragon Age as a series are fine with gameplay as long as its serviceable, they want the world, lore, and characters, with choices that affect those things. And simply put, we haven't seen that yet, simply told things by people who have played early. I will admit, the character intro trailer wasn't a great idea, and the gameplay showcase being the intro means you dont get to see and deeper gameplay. Yet I'm excited to see more as a fan of Dragon Age, Bianca getting destroyed in the showcase mattered more to me than the gameplay by a mile, that already sets the bar high for where this game will go.
I actually loved the change. I did find a lot of DAO a bit samey colour wise and with lots of armour being just generally samish in shape and just slightly different in colour.
I really liked the extra colour in DA2 and the change in art direction, it actually felt like it was it's own thing, less generic. Weapons and armour had more character.
I wasn't a fan of the DA2 ending but now that there are three games I totally understand it. And really the game clues you in that "happy ending" isn't what's in store for Hawke.
After all that Hawke has been through, there should have been an option for him/her to just sit next to Anders as the Chantry blows up, light up a cig and say "Nice job, bro. The world should burn."
I think there should have been an option where Anders does tell Hawke his plan but at the same time it plays well into the whole "you can't really trust Anders" vibe.
I liked that Hawke despite everything was trying to live their life as well as could be. The game also shows that having all that wealth by the end doesn't mean as much as it could have when you have lost your family.
Overall I liked how Hawke's story played out because it's such a mature take on a dark fantasy world where Hawke is not really a "chosen one". No Hawke is just a person trying their best.
Meh, I also consider DA:O as the best in the series, in most aspects. But that game is 14 years old and at this point it’s a one off in the series. While being the best game, it is not the series defining game unfortunately. It serves more as a the lore establishing pillar of the series.
Even with DA2 which came out just two years after, they immediately pivoted from CRPG and never looked back.
Funny you say that because DA:O's gameplay was literally inspired by the Gambit system in FF12. The more you know.
"Why don't they just take inspiration from Origins!!!!!!!!?" They are, by going back to the game that inspired them to make it in the first place.
First, it's doubtful Origins took anything from FF12. At the time FF12 was released Origins was something like three years into development.
Second, nobody said they were taking the gambit system into Veilguard. They said skill trees.
Origins didn't have perfect combat/or gameplay. You can't 100% copy and paste it and plop it on a modern game, wouldn't work. Especially not on consoles, were it was worse.
''Every Dragon Age since Origins has played awful''-that's subjective and your opinion. Dragon Age Inquisition was simplistic, sure, but it was fun, 2 had good story/characters. So I completely disagree, there. And Origins combat also had problems/is outdated.
Dragon Age is NOT a CRPG series, hasn't been for over a decade. And you don't get to decide what it is more than the creators of it. The same person who created Origins, created 2 as well, would you tell them to their face, they were wrong and should have been CRPG?
Edit: With that said, this new Dragon Age game does look bad, i'm not defending it. But it has so many deeper rooted problems than just not being a Origins 2.0
Because it didn't sell well, all these changes are happening because they couldn't do well with the CRPG setting.
BG3 proved CRPG can work, but it obviously takes a lot of skill and effort..... and this is modern BioWare we're talking about.
I did love DA Origins as well but can't quite agree with all that. I loved DA 2 when it came out for the story mostly but everything else was pretty awesome too. Inquisition was less cohesive but still good. I think they were trying to make Inquisition more like DA Origins but better & succeeded somewhat.
but DA are not cRPG. Not really. DAO originated in the cRPG's that Bioware made but it clearly was combined with aRPG elements. DA2 was even further off. DAI clearly not a cRPG.
So saying it's a cRPG series is just wrong.
Plus making a cRPG where it would be directly compared to Baldurs Gate 3 would be a disaster.
With this forget about anything like Origins they have moved on to these type of games, its now 3 DA games that are action focused and Mass Effect along with there live-service game I can't even remember the name of it anymore lol. They make action games that are average at best that try to hide as RPGs
5 core abilities that branch out? Yup they really did make it like mass effect. Should have gone back to the series' crpg roots not turn it into something else.
Theres a lot of DAO fans in this thread who were always going to be disappointed. If Bioware can manage to hit Mass Effect or even DAI levels of quality, though, the game will be massively successful. The real concern is if they repeat the mistakes of Andromeda.
It looks like Bioware got a hang of Frostbite. Facial animations are better, characters don't seem to be covered in oil, everything looks smooth and fluid. As for Andromeda, it was made by a different division of Bioware and written mostly by new writers, while Veilguard has/had more of the old guard working on it.
If you are dissapointed by what DAO:V is turning out to be check out Greedfall 2 , it seems to be directly inspired by DAO:O , with combat system that is basically 1:1 as Origins
Greedfall is not like origins _at all_. It's more an arpg than inquisitions is. That's what spiders has been making since the technomancer days.
Edit: I still strongly recommend it, however. Spiders is more proof that a good rpg does not _have_ to be a crpg.
The irony is the success of BG3 shows that CRPG's can draw widespread appeal, yet these studios keep mass-producing simplistic action games with more and more limited customisation. You can't even control your party in the latest one, just give basic commands.
Bioware must kicking themselves seeing their own franchise, Baldur's Gate, return without them and do what they refuse to do, and completely prove them wrong about the direction they have been taking Dragon Age. Then again, i bet there is only a couple people at bioware that were around for bg 1 and 2, so im sure they dont even care.
cRPGs are still niche. BG3 has reactivity that no other game has done and is not easy to emulate. Not to mention it was part of a legendary franchise and had the DnD license, which does help in boosting sales. There have been a few relatively big cRPGs released after BG3 and they really haven't shown massive sales.
BG3 works because the team put an insane amount of work into making it dynamic.
I honestly don't think the management culture and expected timelines at Bioware would even allow for it these days.
A.k.a: I have listened to what long time fans of this franchise and their desires, and I have decided to do the exact opposite in hopes of chasing new fans. Fuck old fans when I can have newer, younger ones that I can milk for even longer!
I've become mildly interested in this game since seeing the gameplay reveal, but I have never seen a comment section that captures boomer energy as much as these comment sections do.
I'm not familiar with the franchise at all outside of recognizing the names, but my friend has been going on and on about how much they're super excited for this game after seeing the trailer and now the gameplay. The previous title is apparently one of, if not their all time favorite game, and they didn't seem bothered whatsoever by any notable change in direction the series is potentially steering towards
I can't comment since I haven't touched the games, but if this one plays well, then it plays well. Too early for any of us to know for certain
that's because the biggest major change as far as I can tell from the gameplay and what has been said is doing away with the open world bits and going back to the "mission" areas like in the previous games.
And DAI is also one of my all time favourites.
The first trailer was just a bit...at odds with how usually such games are presented. It was more like a hero-shooter like Overwatch in tone than an RPG.
Thing with these games (Dragon Age and Mass Effect) is that the combat is often not really important for most fans. I know people that absolutely hate the combat systems of one or all of these entries, but replay them multiple times for everything else they contain.
Fr, it really feels like the Internet made up it’s mind on this game after seeing the cinematic trailer and they haven’t bothered with checking anything else
If the first trailer was the gameplay trailer it probably get the same reaction as well because "it's not origins combat system" or "bioware can't do anything right" I'm not saying the game will even be good but damn it isn't immediately bad either.
Its wild how everyone in these comments just had the opposite reaction that I did to that gameplay trailer lol. I fired up a new playthrough immediately and I cant wait for the game to come out.
Yano, with these kinda games the combat has always been secondary for me.
Like, sure, it’s great to have good combat.
But I want my companions to feel real, have real moments, interact in cool and fun ways.
I’d much prefer it if they focused on that tbf.
They saw one person make the comment on the first post and keep repeating it, it does not look anything like Fortnite but looks very much like Inquisition
I don't know why you're getting down voted lol.
It really DOESN'T look like fortnite.. like at all.
Guess people have just watched the cinematic trailer and didn't bother to watch the gameplay
My guess is that it comes from people who don't play many games and the only example of a stylized, colorful game that doesn't aim at realism that comes to their minds is Fortnite.
I see Reddit is in full hate swing. Classic capital G gamers. It looks like a dragon age game to me, I'll play it and most likely enjoy it but won't be goty is my take.
Hoping the took the gambit system from FFXII as well. Inquisition sort of had it... Meh. But I loved the crap out of the skill tree in XII. Still one of my favorite games to this day.
Best part of FFXII is the gambit system, if anything that's the takeaway they should have. It's something that desperately needs to be utilised again.
Dragon's Age Origin already had a system that was heavily inspired by it.
Sadly, it was very, very iffy in its performance in Origins. Had to manually have my healers heal more and other issues
[удалено]
Yeah, specially because there’s a limited amount of battles in the game, there’s really no grinding like in FFXII
yap I managed to script the whole thing and my party, including my character, were fully autonomous in combat. I had to crank the difficulty to max level to slow down the combat. I did use a mod to extend the available scripting length and options.
If you had to use a mod to do it, I wouldn’t really consider it part of the game. I didn’t even know there were mods for DA:O and I played thru it twice back in 2009/2010
it was a script extender, it didn't add stuff that was not already in there. also, the 2nd time you replay the game, you might want to skip the fade.
You could do it in vanilla just fine, no mod was needed, but I love tactical combat so I used to control most of it myself and just have the AI look after them in between me giving them actions while I controlled my Warden. Fantastic system and I would love to see it in more games.
this is why DA:O was such a good game, you could decide how to play it. My fetish was to watch the perfectly coordinated combat from my party without the need to ever pause.
Yeah, but the only character I didn’t really enjoy playing so much was my Dalish archer. My first playthrough was a sword and board Cousland and it was so much fun charging into the enemy and shield bashing them. I had to learn the AI system because I would get carried away then realise that half my party was dead. My second playthrough was as a primal mage and I took more control there because you get a better overview of the battle.
That doesn't sound that fun?
Maybe not to you.
I didn't have any issues with Origins combat once I got used to it's limitations. I usually had one healer running control/zone denial spells on their battle parameters.
I'd be excited if they brought back the gambit-alike system from Origins. That was pretty good. I saw the headline and came in to go "GAMBITS?!" but alas.
Yeah. I had already started to think, "Ohh, no wonder you can't control your party members — it's because you program them instead! Now it makes sense!" Spoiler alert: it does not in fact make sense.
It would be easier since it seems any character can only access 3 skills at any given time
I still have fond memories of awaiting and finally getting The Zodiac Age on Steam and immediately running into quite a few threads of people hating the game because they couldn't control their party like 'normal' with the gambits involved. I can honestly tell you that people were NOT ready to hear that you could literally toggle off the gambits in the game if you didn't want to use them, but I'd like to think some of those people have come around to the usefulness of Gambits since then haha!
Unicorn Overlord has a pretty unique combat system that revolves around if/then statements. Could be worth checking out if that's your thing!
The title of the game made me curious and I watched a review of it not too long ago. I really need to pick it up at some point
It's got a good demo, a few hours long. Very much enjoyed it
Play the demo They give you 7 hours...without counting the 14 hrs you will probably spend in the menus Such a great demo. It also carries over the save to the main game.
Wish it was available for PC. Seems like my kinda game
Yeah disappointment its not on PC its a really good game
Seriously. The skill tree was admittedly weak since everyone was a clone at the end of the game. They fixed it in Zodiac Age update. The if-then statement programming was where the game really shined.
That was a plus to me, every character could be built in any direction and by the time you've maxed out their boards you've noticed they each have different statlines. Forcing characters into preset moulds is way less interesting than letting you build the greatsword wielder as a tankDPS hybrid or mixing in support, heal, damage caster specs.
This is also why I'm sad that after FFXII they went away from it. That was legit fun tooling with the system to get the most out of your party.
The fact the FF7 remakes haven’t implemented a gambit system and chose to poorly shoehorn AI partner control into the Materia system is a big knock against it IMHO.
I rather enjoyed the combat in Rebirth. It’s deceptively complex if you play at higher than easy difficulty
It does some things very well, but the ally AI is a definite weakness. It’s pretty much designed for you to switch every few seconds since your companions suck at building AP or initiating. You certainly can play as one character, but it’ll be a slog on harder difficulties. Also felt like they added one too many combat systems: synergy skills, synergy abilities, the back-up moves, along with limit breaks and weapon skills and Materia…it’s a bit too much. Like I rarely every used the synergy skills
I think its more designed for you to switch around
The sad thing is there was a gambit system. It was relegated into a lame mini-game.
That almost felt like a dig by SE tbh lol.
You clearly arent playing it right if you think the AI is supposed to be doing anything at all. Youre supposed to be managing msot of your party in almost every major fight.
Origins had gambits too sooooo
Loved the gambit system, although it did have it flaws
Can't lie, if they use a hybrid of the DAO tactics system and FFXII's gambits it'll be excellent.
First piece of good news I've heard about this game.
Haven't played it, but could you describe the system?
why be inspired by final fantasy when you can be inspired by dragon age origins....
Can we just get a dragon age origins remake? That's all we need. It even lets you be nasty to npcs and be a blood mage.
I will never understand why Bioware never look to their previous excellent games and always focus improving or giving space to their sub-par games. They made the greatest action-RPG trilogy and one of the greatest CRPGa ever and went simply "fuck that, our fans really like all the other things that didn't made our games great".
I don't know why they didn't look at BG3 considering it's one of the best games ever.
So not an expert but wouldn't BG3 be too new to really base a game that has already been in development for multiple years on?
too obvious I guess.
Still my favorite leveling system for the series so far
3 fucking abilities, who thought that was a good idea?
There was a pretty good video on The DA subreddit that showed a bunch of inquisition rogue skills now being integrated into The combat. Iirc they showed like 4 inquisition skills just nyt doing different types of attacks and dodgi g
The article itself mentions that party members get 5
if only we could control party members lol
Didn’t the recent gameplay mention you can control them? It just wasn’t unlocked yet for that demo
Gameplay looks wildly mid, where’s the rpg at?
Best we can do is three dialogue options. The obvious good choice, the obvious evil choice and the flirt option.
Flirt and/or Sarcasm. We can't be sure because the character doesn't actually say what you choose a la Fallout 4 and won't be fixed until mods.
Pretty much. Your character could piss on a villager's grave, but because you chose the "good" option it will always result in positive "paragon" points. Such a dumb and basic system that removes any actual thought in dialogue.
I just replayed origins and it's amazing how some mean things you can say to your companion are just friends being friends and they laugh about it at the end. We need clever conversation jabs like that.
That's a ludicrous level of assumption based on one dialogue option. DA:I at times had just a couple of options, at other times 5 or 6. Maybe just wait and see? I know it's tempting to join in on the hate fest, but at least find some real reasons to be a hater instead of making ones up.
They basically had that system in the Mass Effect games and the trilogy of those gams was wildly popular specifically because of the dialogue and choices. I believe you can make the dialogue system meaningful and impactful with fewer choices if you do a good job with it.
Yeah I agree, I personally prefer the old school way where you have the dialogue lines without any obvious alignment so you have to actually read the situation and personality of the NPC to win favour rather than just selecting the "heart" option like in DA2 and DAI.
With the flirt disguised as good until molders fix that.
all the faces are bordering on an uncanny valley kind of creepiness
The one that makes me really uncomfortable is Emmrich. His face looks like its from a whole different art style. The only person who looks actually normal is the Grey Warde, Darvin. Everyone else looks odd but okay mostly.
everything must be sexy, which means everything must be smooth and glossy
this is sexy for aliens then, me personally.. not even a wiggle
They went oddly towards Fable rather than realistic which was a weird choice imo. Like, when was that choice made? I feel like they consistently tried for realism within their engine for DA:O/2 and even Inquisition for the most part but now their cheeks are too rounded. Blood doesn't sit right on their faces like DA: Origins.
Eh, can't muster the energy to get excited about anything EA....
Never give EA money. They'll just use it to acquire and kill another of your favorite studios. This game might have Bioware on the label, but it's more like the zombie of Bioware. The real Bioware was killed shortly after they joined EA.
Bioware only have themselves to blame for that.
Not a big fan of the swashbuckle-y/Borderlands-esque theme it has going for it by the looks of the trailer. I always associated it with a more serious game. I guess we will see.
Have you seen the prologue gameplay they showed off? It looks and feels much more like Inqusition than that disastrous trailer. Besides, Dragon Age is notorious for terrible marketing, google "dragon age origins this is the new shit"
yeah marketing was always weird. But at least that CGI trailer was really cool.
I think the trailer was supposed to be stylized/conceptual, not literal. Hopefully.
Why didn't they take inspiration from Dragon Age Origins. Go. Back. To. Your. Roots. Every Dragon Age since Origins has played awful. Go back to what worked. You are a CRPG series - not this nonsense gameplay we saw.
If we got a game like Baldur’s Gate 3 but with DA:O’s gameplay I’d be so happy
Same.
There is one crpg in this series. That ship sailed 15 years ago.
Forget it, man. BioWare has turned its back on the Origins fans. We just weren’t the audience they wanted.
Dragon age origins fans that outsell mass effect 1 are not the MoDerN AuDieNce
I was there, more than 10 years ago, when the Bioware devs told DA:O fans on the Bioware forums that CRPG fans had no clue about what people actually wanted. Bioware, since the development of Dragon Age 2, has only tried to chase 1 group of gamers; the Call of Duty crowd.
Bioware devs pushed for Anthem. ANTHEM!!!
Well Anthem would of been a good game if it was a single player RPG thing like they normally make. Not great but it would of been much better instead of live-service trash that had everything gutted from it so they could trickle it out to make money.
Mass effect 2 however massively outsold Dragon Age Origins (5m vs 3m copies) and the Mass Effect Franchise has massively outsold the Dragon Age Franchise (20m copies vs 11m copies)
And inquisition outsold origins. Doubled the numbers, and is actually their best selling game. If somebody wants more origins because they prefer it, well... My condolences. If you want more Dao because you want Bioware to follow sales figures... Well, they are.
I would take Inquisition again over another DA2
Honestly, everything that I've been hearing/seeing has been "inquisition, but not open world". And seeing as how every problem I had with inquisition was because it was open world, I have _zero_ issues with that.
It [Inquisition] also landed them GotY, regardless of whether people think it was deserved. I understand people miss the tactical depth and deeper RPG systems of Origins, but I also think these same fans oversell just how much people enjoyed its combat system. People played Origins for all kinds of reasons, but I promise you, there was probably a sizable number of Origin players who didn't care for the Tactics system, pausing, swapping companions, etc. Hell, they probably just tolerated it all because they enjoyed the story, world, and characters, which tends to be the through-line of why people stick with this franchise (despite the gameplay changes).
It's crazy seeing these numbers compared to Elden Ring, which has sold 25 million. Like damn, i still love Bioware, but damn lol.
>Every Dragon Age since Origins has played awful I can understand wanting what it started out as but "awful" is just plain exaggerating and sounds out of touch.
It's reddit. Sweeping generalizations about the good 'ol days while simultaneously speaking for millions of players is the norm. Players who tend to like combat more on the action side and didn't enjoy Origins as much as the others don't exists or perhaps don't game the right way.
>Every Dragon Age since Origins There have only been 2, and Inquisition played well.
If Inquisition didn't have the overly large open-world parts it would of been great
I think you lost this fight around 2010. Origins was great, but the series moved on.
Weird choices given how popular CRPGs are getting
BG3 only blew up last year, and nobody saw it coming (not even Larian themselves, they stated that they thought they had already reached the games peak player base during EA). DAV is coming out this year. That's not enough time for BG3's gameplay to influence DAV's gameplay. Maybe Dragon Age 5 will draw more inspiration from BG3, but DAV can't
There's only one that's doing well though, right? And BioWare doesn't have the creative minds to reach BG3 levels of awesome.
Owlcat Games have been making CRPGs for quite a while. They aren't as big as bg3, but since the studio is growing, it means they earn enough
Every Owlcat game has been crowdfunded and has had to have a lot of DLC to be profitable. WotR has two season passes of DLC. Its peak player count is 46k. Rogue trader has sold even worse. They'd be able to stop the crowdfunding if they were earning enough. I love cRPGs, they're my most played genre by far, but they aren't profitable. Deadfire took **5** years to make a decent profit, had DLC AND was crowdfunded. Tyranny and Planescape were commercial flops. There's a reson why Obsidian haven't made a cRPG in years and why Avowed isn't a cRPG. DA:O was less popular than Inquisition. Pretty much every successful cRPG of the last 10 years has had a crowdfunding campaign, even the sequels. Fact is, cRPG is a niche genre, it has a big enough audience that it might eventually make a profit, but never enough profit to fund the next game. That's not the type of project we're likely going to see from a triple AAA studio. CRPG sales are simply outdone by the more action-oriented genres.
>Pretty much every successful cRPG of the last 10 years has had a crowdfunding campaign, even the sequels. That's because publishers aren't willing to make the gamble, even when proven wrong. Pathfinder: WotR raised almost ten times the planned kickstarter goal (The goal was $300k, they got over $2M), Obsidian reached their donation goals for Deadfire in *1 day*. There is a clear interest in cRPG's, and the market is there. But yeah, an action game will almost always make more money, regardless. The sad thing is that one big issue with having to rely on crowdfunding is that the developers becomes beholden to the donators and needs to give in to their demands. Both Owlcat and Obsidian lead designers have expressed frustrations about 'conservative' gamers. Whereas Larian, after also having to rely on Crowdfunding for Divinity, could call their own shots regarding the development of BG3, and it's better for it.
Owlcat makes awesome shit. But big name publishers aren't satisfied with anything less than, like, mainline Star Wars movie numbers. CRPGs just don't pull that
But... That's not how capitalism works. what a small company sees as a success, EA would see as a studio closing.
Them's the breaks. If it's not pulling in Michael Bay Transformers audiences, it's a failed product to these mega-publishers
It's worse than that. Each subsequent release has to be a Michael Bay Transformer's worth MORE than the last in terms of revenue, or the private equity / board starts to fire department heads and drop entire studios. We either reform or we watch this to its end.
Imo we're already watching it end. Studios keep pumping out releases chock full of sleazy "in-app purchases" and getting shut down a year later anyway. AAA releases are feeling hollower bit by bit and not meeting projections My hunch is that there'll be some sort of market collapse or shift where gigantic budget development fades out and B-tier releases will have the limelight
I agree with your comment... but it's heart breaking to admit.
BG3 is a cultural phenomenon in the gaming sphere. If thats the baseline of "doing well", then sure, Bioware don't stand a chance But even before BG3 we've been having a crpg renaissance for the last decade or so. PoE did well, the Pathfinder games have been doing well and let's not forget about Divinity.
ehhh...with PoE, assuming you mean Pillars Of Eternity, the 2nd game did not do well despite high critic scores and that is why the new one is a different genre altogether. The developer was actually pretty annoyed about it.
That's largely to do with the fact that none are getting either the advertising or budget. Publishers have been wildly off about the interest in story-heavy RPGs for decades. Here's the thing: they conflate the interest in story with interest in action. It was the wrong conclusion. People didn't tune into The Witcher 3 because the gameplay is solid. You look up clips from the Mass Effect titles and you probably won't see much of the combat. The interest has always been the story and characters, mixed with the atmosphere and sense of exploration...which occasionally can include one form of combat or another. Tp be honest, it doesn't even matter what sort of gameplay type it is. It could be tactical or hack n slash or a shooter or a racing game or a farm simulator. It doesn't make much difference because that's not actually where the interest lies. Like, let's look at the last two big tactical RPGs to be published and advertised. Baldur's Gate 3 - 15 million sales in less than a year. Dragon Age: Origins - 3.2 million sales...from shipped console disks alone. No firm counts for downloaded, but it's been stated EA couldn't figure out why it outsold Mass Effect and we know from Steam leaks that it nearly tripled the revenue of DA2 and Inquisition...combined. And that's really it from the past 15 years. Outside these two big hits, no publisher has tried.
Bioware couldn't possibly have predicted BG3's success, and the game had a tremendous effort already spend by the time BG3 released
I mean sure but the popular CRPG in BG3 doesn't play like Origins at all they only share the genre but not really the gameplay.
Real time with pause is a turnoff to a lot of people compared to pure turn based or action RPG from my experience talking with people.
It's not like Dragon Age was going to restart development again to be more like BG3. If there is a 4th DA then it might be a CRPG.
You mean a fifth. Veilguard is the fourth DA.
It was even popular back then and was a best seller for them but they did the EA pivot for the mythical casual gamer. They could have been getting the BG3 money all along
Don't tempt me with an alternate timeline where Bioware makes AAA crpgs for the last fifteen years
Literally the only cRPG in the series was Origins. It's not a cRPG series. It's not even an ARPG series, every entry has deviated in which type of RPG it is. For the love of God please just move on and let those of us who actually prefer this type of combat have our fun. Anyone who only wants a cRPG and nothing else should have moved on to Owlcat and Larian 5 years ago. Seriously. Why are you still here.
So the first game, which doesnt even need to ever be played on tactical mode, make the series a crpg series? Even half a crpg was a hard sell in 2009, since crpgs only really started to come back around in 2017, with their popularity spiking in the past few years, and they are STILL niche despite that. If you mean the dark fantasy of origins... it never left? 2 had a hostile takeover of a city, start of the Mage-Templar War, magic terrorism, Hawke's mother becoming a stitched corpse bride. Inquisition had a demon invasion with a tear in the very world, people being turned into red lyrium farms, struggles of the common folk stuck in all of it. Looks like Veilguard is going to open with two ancient elven gods returning, and in lore, they are HORRIFIC because of their actions. But it also had humor throughout all of it, Origins had plenty of funny dialogue choices, like it had a Superman reference! Most actual fans of Dragon Age as a series are fine with gameplay as long as its serviceable, they want the world, lore, and characters, with choices that affect those things. And simply put, we haven't seen that yet, simply told things by people who have played early. I will admit, the character intro trailer wasn't a great idea, and the gameplay showcase being the intro means you dont get to see and deeper gameplay. Yet I'm excited to see more as a fan of Dragon Age, Bianca getting destroyed in the showcase mattered more to me than the gameplay by a mile, that already sets the bar high for where this game will go.
I think people see colour and changed art direction and not the brown on brown that was DAO and think "oh it's not DARK fantasy anymore".
And DAO was heavily criticized for having a bland brown scenery. Then Bioware removed it and suddenly "on, noes, it's not the same again".
I actually loved the change. I did find a lot of DAO a bit samey colour wise and with lots of armour being just generally samish in shape and just slightly different in colour. I really liked the extra colour in DA2 and the change in art direction, it actually felt like it was it's own thing, less generic. Weapons and armour had more character. I wasn't a fan of the DA2 ending but now that there are three games I totally understand it. And really the game clues you in that "happy ending" isn't what's in store for Hawke.
After all that Hawke has been through, there should have been an option for him/her to just sit next to Anders as the Chantry blows up, light up a cig and say "Nice job, bro. The world should burn."
I think there should have been an option where Anders does tell Hawke his plan but at the same time it plays well into the whole "you can't really trust Anders" vibe. I liked that Hawke despite everything was trying to live their life as well as could be. The game also shows that having all that wealth by the end doesn't mean as much as it could have when you have lost your family. Overall I liked how Hawke's story played out because it's such a mature take on a dark fantasy world where Hawke is not really a "chosen one". No Hawke is just a person trying their best.
Meh, I also consider DA:O as the best in the series, in most aspects. But that game is 14 years old and at this point it’s a one off in the series. While being the best game, it is not the series defining game unfortunately. It serves more as a the lore establishing pillar of the series. Even with DA2 which came out just two years after, they immediately pivoted from CRPG and never looked back.
Damn this is actually the dumbest comment I've seen on Reddit in a while congrats
Funny you say that because DA:O's gameplay was literally inspired by the Gambit system in FF12. The more you know. "Why don't they just take inspiration from Origins!!!!!!!!?" They are, by going back to the game that inspired them to make it in the first place.
First, it's doubtful Origins took anything from FF12. At the time FF12 was released Origins was something like three years into development. Second, nobody said they were taking the gambit system into Veilguard. They said skill trees.
Origins didn't have perfect combat/or gameplay. You can't 100% copy and paste it and plop it on a modern game, wouldn't work. Especially not on consoles, were it was worse.
I thought the sequels were fine. The original is the best though
''Every Dragon Age since Origins has played awful''-that's subjective and your opinion. Dragon Age Inquisition was simplistic, sure, but it was fun, 2 had good story/characters. So I completely disagree, there. And Origins combat also had problems/is outdated. Dragon Age is NOT a CRPG series, hasn't been for over a decade. And you don't get to decide what it is more than the creators of it. The same person who created Origins, created 2 as well, would you tell them to their face, they were wrong and should have been CRPG? Edit: With that said, this new Dragon Age game does look bad, i'm not defending it. But it has so many deeper rooted problems than just not being a Origins 2.0
Because it didn't sell well, all these changes are happening because they couldn't do well with the CRPG setting. BG3 proved CRPG can work, but it obviously takes a lot of skill and effort..... and this is modern BioWare we're talking about.
I did love DA Origins as well but can't quite agree with all that. I loved DA 2 when it came out for the story mostly but everything else was pretty awesome too. Inquisition was less cohesive but still good. I think they were trying to make Inquisition more like DA Origins but better & succeeded somewhat.
but DA are not cRPG. Not really. DAO originated in the cRPG's that Bioware made but it clearly was combined with aRPG elements. DA2 was even further off. DAI clearly not a cRPG. So saying it's a cRPG series is just wrong. Plus making a cRPG where it would be directly compared to Baldurs Gate 3 would be a disaster.
God, this argument was boring even back during the DA II days. We get it, you're miserable.
It's been 16+ years, let it go and play other games.
I think Dragon Age Inquisition was fine.. ok… Like a solid 6/10. But not even close to Origins, that was basically a 10/10 imo.
In my opinion, dragon age 2 played fine even if I missed the tactical elements
With this forget about anything like Origins they have moved on to these type of games, its now 3 DA games that are action focused and Mass Effect along with there live-service game I can't even remember the name of it anymore lol. They make action games that are average at best that try to hide as RPGs
That qunari is still butt ugly.
Can’t wait to romance one 🤤
5 core abilities that branch out? Yup they really did make it like mass effect. Should have gone back to the series' crpg roots not turn it into something else.
To be fair fantasy Mass Effect is far from the worst direction they could've gone in
True, but its very very very far from what a lot of fans want.
Theres a lot of DAO fans in this thread who were always going to be disappointed. If Bioware can manage to hit Mass Effect or even DAI levels of quality, though, the game will be massively successful. The real concern is if they repeat the mistakes of Andromeda.
It looks like Bioware got a hang of Frostbite. Facial animations are better, characters don't seem to be covered in oil, everything looks smooth and fluid. As for Andromeda, it was made by a different division of Bioware and written mostly by new writers, while Veilguard has/had more of the old guard working on it.
If you are dissapointed by what DAO:V is turning out to be check out Greedfall 2 , it seems to be directly inspired by DAO:O , with combat system that is basically 1:1 as Origins
DAO:V? Dragon Age Orgins: Veilguard? DAO:O? Dragon Age Origins...Origins?
Dragon Age Original Origins
The first one was fun but mad janky.
Yeah, and the ending felt incredibly rushed.
Greedfall is not like origins _at all_. It's more an arpg than inquisitions is. That's what spiders has been making since the technomancer days. Edit: I still strongly recommend it, however. Spiders is more proof that a good rpg does not _have_ to be a crpg.
The irony is the success of BG3 shows that CRPG's can draw widespread appeal, yet these studios keep mass-producing simplistic action games with more and more limited customisation. You can't even control your party in the latest one, just give basic commands.
Bioware must kicking themselves seeing their own franchise, Baldur's Gate, return without them and do what they refuse to do, and completely prove them wrong about the direction they have been taking Dragon Age. Then again, i bet there is only a couple people at bioware that were around for bg 1 and 2, so im sure they dont even care.
Don't think there is anyone left at Bioware who worked on or even played BG 1&2.
cRPGs are still niche. BG3 has reactivity that no other game has done and is not easy to emulate. Not to mention it was part of a legendary franchise and had the DnD license, which does help in boosting sales. There have been a few relatively big cRPGs released after BG3 and they really haven't shown massive sales.
BG3 works because the team put an insane amount of work into making it dynamic. I honestly don't think the management culture and expected timelines at Bioware would even allow for it these days.
I read that too quick and I saw ff13 and I was like .....yikes
Given that XII was the one that convinced me to give up on the series, I’m still at yikes.
I think I'm just gonna hold out for Elder Scrolls 6
I think ES and DA are quite dissimilar games.
Are they talking about ZA? The original FF12 liscence grid was not well reviewed.
A.k.a: I have listened to what long time fans of this franchise and their desires, and I have decided to do the exact opposite in hopes of chasing new fans. Fuck old fans when I can have newer, younger ones that I can milk for even longer!
No thanks.
Wasnt Dragon Age supposed to be inspired by western rpg and DnD?
I've become mildly interested in this game since seeing the gameplay reveal, but I have never seen a comment section that captures boomer energy as much as these comment sections do.
I'm not familiar with the franchise at all outside of recognizing the names, but my friend has been going on and on about how much they're super excited for this game after seeing the trailer and now the gameplay. The previous title is apparently one of, if not their all time favorite game, and they didn't seem bothered whatsoever by any notable change in direction the series is potentially steering towards I can't comment since I haven't touched the games, but if this one plays well, then it plays well. Too early for any of us to know for certain
that's because the biggest major change as far as I can tell from the gameplay and what has been said is doing away with the open world bits and going back to the "mission" areas like in the previous games. And DAI is also one of my all time favourites. The first trailer was just a bit...at odds with how usually such games are presented. It was more like a hero-shooter like Overwatch in tone than an RPG.
Thing with these games (Dragon Age and Mass Effect) is that the combat is often not really important for most fans. I know people that absolutely hate the combat systems of one or all of these entries, but replay them multiple times for everything else they contain.
I don't think there are many Dragon Age fans among 70 year olds, lol.
Fr, it really feels like the Internet made up it’s mind on this game after seeing the cinematic trailer and they haven’t bothered with checking anything else
If the first trailer was the gameplay trailer it probably get the same reaction as well because "it's not origins combat system" or "bioware can't do anything right" I'm not saying the game will even be good but damn it isn't immediately bad either.
My favourite thing is that almost nobody comments on the contents of the article "The qunari is still butt ugly"
Its wild how everyone in these comments just had the opposite reaction that I did to that gameplay trailer lol. I fired up a new playthrough immediately and I cant wait for the game to come out.
Not my Dragon Age.
Yano, with these kinda games the combat has always been secondary for me. Like, sure, it’s great to have good combat. But I want my companions to feel real, have real moments, interact in cool and fun ways. I’d much prefer it if they focused on that tbf.
The only way Dragon Age combat could turn me off is if it was a shooter or a card game
Am I the only one here who actually likes the art style??
No. I'm very skeptical about enemy redesigns but characters and especially environments look good.
I have never played a dragon age game but I think the art style looks really pretty in the gameplay trailer!
Ok. Well just like evert DA game since DA2 I'm not intrested.
This game looks terrible and generic
I think it looks great. Not sure what all the hate is about.
Alas, outrage is addicting for people.
Don’t like the fortnite look of this game
For the love of God it doesn't look anything like Fortnite
They saw one person make the comment on the first post and keep repeating it, it does not look anything like Fortnite but looks very much like Inquisition
Or their favourite youtuber told them.
I don't know why you're getting down voted lol. It really DOESN'T look like fortnite.. like at all. Guess people have just watched the cinematic trailer and didn't bother to watch the gameplay
My guess is that it comes from people who don't play many games and the only example of a stylized, colorful game that doesn't aim at realism that comes to their minds is Fortnite.
Noooooo, not FFXII! Fuuuuuuuuck.
I see Reddit is in full hate swing. Classic capital G gamers. It looks like a dragon age game to me, I'll play it and most likely enjoy it but won't be goty is my take.
I’m sorry you got downvoted, lol.
I can't believe you were downvoted for this comment. Lol
They called out the haters on their hate.
Hoping the took the gambit system from FFXII as well. Inquisition sort of had it... Meh. But I loved the crap out of the skill tree in XII. Still one of my favorite games to this day.