Dragon Age VI: Siege Harder

[PraetorDragoon]

I highly doubt EA and its money grubbing ways can publish a game I like these days.

[Giggling Ghast]

They did publish Unravel and A Way Out. They aren’t 100% dedicated to Evil.

[Zevox]

While it is not perhaps definitive, Metacritic and Wikipedia both classify Dragon Age II as an action RPG, Steam classifies Dungeon Siege as an action RPG, and Blizzard Entertainment's page on Diablo III claims that Diablo III is a "genre-defining action RPG." Interestingly, neither Dungeon Siege nor Diablo III feature these elements of action RPG combat that you seem to regard as essential to the genre. Dark Souls-style combat is not required for action RPGs by any definition of the genre with which I am familiar.

The defining feature of an 'action' RPG is that its combat system is focused on, well, action while tactics are more of an afterthought, whereas in a 'tactical' RPG you get a much heavier focus on tactics - typically at the expense of the pace of the action. DA:2's combat system is very much a fast-paced system where you have little need to apply tactics - arguably very little opportunity, given how the combat encounters are constructed with enemies spawning in out of thin air in the middle of the fight and that most standard enemies die almost as soon as you look at them.

Can't speak to the other games you brought up (since I've never played them), but I feel that if Metacritic and Wikipedia classify it as such, they're just confused about what an action game is. And while Dark Souls is an action game, it's hardly the one I'd be name-dropping as where they come from - more Devil May Cry or God of War. Hell, for action RPGs the grandady is probably the Tales franchise, at least as far as series I'm aware of go. Maybe Kingdom Hearts if you think of that as an RPG.

And yeah, we definitely disagree about the latter. Dragon Age 2 is in no way focused on "action." There's no action-oriented gameplay going on at all, none of the mechanics that define that style of game involved. Whatever you want to call it (I hesitate to call it a "tactical" RPG either, since in my mind that moniker goes on games like Fire Emblem or Disgaea, with grid- and turn-based systems), it's a totally different beast from action games.

Also, enemies "die almost as soon as you look at them" in DA2? Did we play the same game? One of my bigger complaints about DA2 was the ridiculous health bloat on enemies that caused even smaller encounters to drag on longer than they should have.

Much like Zevox, I have no idea how anyone could call it an "action RPG with tactical elements". The control scheme and party tactics are pretty much the same as they were in Origins,

Precisely. Mechanically, Dragon Age 2 plays exactly like Dragon Age: Origins, just with some rebalancing of abilities across the board and the addition of cross-class combos. Visually they tried to make it look smoother and more like action games, but the underlying mechanics of the two are identical. Without question, they should be categorized the same as far as genre goes. Inquisition altered slightly more, but not much, and what it did change didn't make the game more action-RPG-esque.

There have been things I really liked and disliked from each Dragon Age game. I’m hoping DA4 picks the strengths from each game and comes up with something special.

That would be great, I'd agree. I'd worry though that Bioware themselves may have a different idea than I (or others) do about what the strengths of each game actually are, though. If they decided that the strength of Inquisition was the open-world areas full of junk that's need for the crafting system, for instance... well, again, I skipped Andromeda, I can skip a Dragon Age if it doesn't sound good.

[Psyren]

I want actual healing spells to come back instead of that godawful barrier system from DAI.

And better party AI. For me, Awakening did that the best, being able to lock in/queue up all kinds of detailed conditionals for your party. We've only been going back since then.

[Morty]

That would be great, I'd agree. I'd worry though that Bioware themselves may have a different idea than I (or others) do about what the strengths of each game actually are, though. If they decided that the strength of Inquisition was the open-world areas full of junk that's need for the crafting system, for instance... well, again, I skipped Andromeda, I can skip a Dragon Age if it doesn't sound good.

This isn't really Bioware's decision, though. They don't call the shots. I've heard that Inquisition was originally going to be an MMO of some sort, though I'm not sure how true it is. Its combat system is certainly designed for multiplayer.

I want actual healing spells to come back instead of that godawful barrier system from DAI.

I liked barriers and guard more than healing, myself. They just need to be better balanced so it's not as easy to roll around with full guard and be invincible. If healing is back, though, I'd like it to at least be closer to its DA2 self, where it had some steep cooldowns. DA:O healing where a tank's ability to tank was predicated on a mage spamming heal and regeneration from behind them is not the way to go.

What I would really like is if they dropped the warrior/mage/rogue thing, but that's a pipe dream. They're probably going to stick to the three classes single-player MMO style.

[Dienekes]

Precisely. Mechanically, Dragon Age 2 plays exactly like Dragon Age: Origins, just with some rebalancing of abilities across the board and the addition of cross-class combos. Visually they tried to make it look smoother and more like action games, but the underlying mechanics of the two are identical. Without question, they should be categorized the same as far as genre goes. Inquisition altered slightly more, but not much, and what it did change didn't make the game more action-RPG-esque.

That is strictly speaking, not true.

Dragon Age 2 took several steps to make the game feel more like an Action RPG than its predecessor. The removal of the Tactical View being the most obvious, along with forcing the attack input for every attack your character makes which was not used in DA:O where your character would just keep hammering away until you told it to do something else.

But there were several attempts to make the gameplay mimic action games. A more clear focus on timing of specific moves to avoid damage, such as the Rogues various movement abilities, especially Evade and the Warrior's various timing based damage reduction abilities most noticeably Stonewall. These were given low cooldowns specifically to try and get that feel of a skill based action RPG, rather than the contemplative analysis of a tactics game.

Because, while your large list of things that DA2 doesn't do from earlier is right. All that means is that DA2 is a bad ARPG (which it is). Hell, even if you go back to the old trailers for the game and you can see that they certainly felt it could be both action and tactical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyR1fGMCLXo

Because while Action RPGs have developed to use the systems you listed as a means of promoting the action gameplay. All the term actually means is does the gameplay promote timing based skill expression, as opposed to the tactical RPG's gameplay promoting planning based skill expression. And while I think many modern games have elements of both, usually RPGs lean more toward one or the other. With the Dragon Age series trying to do both, poorly.

At least that's my understanding of the terms and gameplay.

[Morty]

Dragon Age 2 took several steps to make the game feel more like an Action RPG than its predecessor. The removal of the Tactical View being the most obvious, along with forcing the attack input for every attack your character makes which was not used in DA:O where your character would just keep hammering away until you told it to do something else.

Last I remember, Dragon Age 2 still had auto-attacks. It's Inquisition that requires you to keep pushing a button.

[Dienekes]

Last I remember, Dragon Age 2 still had auto-attacks. It's Inquisition that requires you to keep pushing a button.

Having looked it up. Apparently, having auto-attack was an option menu to be enabled or disabled that I just did not know about.

Mine was disabled. And the game was worse for it.

Though I would say that does kind of enforce my main point that DA2 was designed to be both an action or tactical game with even the menu options to cater to both styles of play.

Not well, of course. But the option is there.

[JadedDM]

I honestly thought Dragon Age 4 had been canceled and they hadn't announced so yet, it has been so long since I've heard any word on this. Especially after the whole Mass Effect thing, too.

[Inarius]

I honestly thought Dragon Age 4 had been canceled and they hadn't announced so yet, it has been so long since I've heard any word on this. Especially after the whole Mass Effect thing, too.

From what I understand they stopped development on it for awhile to put everyone on Anthem. With Anthem nearing completion they're probably shifting the DA team back to DA4.

[Giggling Ghast]

Yes, it was all on hands on deck for Mass Effect: Andromeda and then Anthem. Now the focus is shifting to Dragon Age 4.

There was an article that came out prior to the Game Awards that suggests the next game could be at least three years away, based on "sources familiar with the studio." (In other words, probably Jason Schreier from Kotaku.) Of course, the article also lists creative director Mike Laidlaw as a "writer," so perhaps it should be taken with a grain of salt.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/04/dragon-age-4-2021/

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Honestly I don't mind waiting three years, even longer, to ensure it's good. Dragon Age II (as much as I love it) and even Inquisition show evidence of the problems rushing and meddling in the game's production can cause. Besides, it gives me time to replay the older games in preparation!

[factotum]

The only issue there, of course, is that it's not guaranteed to be any good even after three years...see Mass Effect: Andromeda for a fine example!

[Rodin]

For that matter, I'd say Dragon Age 2 was actually improved somewhat by the lack of time. The game remains the most focused out of any of them, and that comes down to them not having enough time to fill out the game with the usual pointless time wasting quests that made up 95% of Inquisition. My perfect DA game would be about the size of DA2, with enough time added to make unique maps and generally recycle assets less. Inquisition was far too big for its own good, leaving it feeling a bit empty and soulless compared to the other games.

[Rynjin]

I've ALWAYS felt people were too hard on DA2. What it lacked in polish it made up for with a tight narrative which neatly sidestepped the issue of sequel escalation, and a likable protagonist. Most of its narrative flaws come in the form of characters acting OUT of character to move the plot along, which thankfully doesn't happen too often (even if the most egregious one still makes me seethe a little when I think about it. God dammit I LIKED Anders and Justice in Awakening).

The gameplay is hit or miss, but at least still has more ability variety than Inquisition and doesn't neuter magic for no apparent reason.

It's a deeply flawed game but still manages to be enjoyable and engaging from start to finish if you don't nitpick over re-used assets too much.

[factotum]

Inquisition was far too big for its own good, leaving it feeling a bit empty and soulless compared to the other games.

I do wonder a bit if you maybe spent too long in the Hinterlands? Because that place was, indeed, empty and soulless. The other locations you got to later were a lot more interesting, I found.

[Zholvar]

I do wonder a bit if you maybe spent too long in the Hinterlands? Because that place was, indeed, empty and soulless. The other locations you got to later were a lot more interesting, I found.

Second that. I realy enjoyed the some of the other areas. The Problem with Hinterlands:
Starting Zone
Ferelden, which most Dragon Age Fans wanted to see improved but Redclif wasn't realy satisfying (City/Villages in generell weren't good in Inquisition)
So the real first impression after the (quite good) "tutorial" wasn't the best Zone which is never a good thing.
I remember after my first playthrough, that i wanted as fast out of the Hinterlands as possible, which isn't a problem if you know how.

[Rodin]

I do wonder a bit if you maybe spent too long in the Hinterlands? Because that place was, indeed, empty and soulless. The other locations you got to later were a lot more interesting, I found.

Certainly the Hinterlands were the worst, but I found the other zones equally full of fluff. Outside of the the really major story missions I don't even really remember the side quests, which I largely do for both Dragon Age 2 and Origins. My lasting impression is of the "close X void rifts" and the repetitive generic quests for each companion, the star sign puzzles everywhere and pointing telescopes hither and yon.

When I really root through my brain I can remember some fun areas - I seem to recall having fun with that deserty area where you storm that fortress with Hawke. I think I remember doing a set of quests for an elvish camp that were interesting.

However, that kind of outlines my point - there's a good game buried under all the mindless fat. It's the same problem Mass Effect Andromeda had - I'm sure there was a decent plot and characters down there somewhere. It's just that it's got a huge amount of busywork piled on top of it. Bioware needs to stop making single-player MMOs and get back in the business of making fun RPGs. For Inquisition, I was prepared to saw through the burnt-on crust to get to the juicy center. For Andromeda, I bent my knife on the crust. For [next Bioware game], I think I'll wait out the hail of broken cutlery before deciding if I want the steak.

[Morty]

I would love to see a game with a similar scope and scale as DA2, only with more polish and fewer rush-jobs. But it's extremely unlikely we'll get that. It's not about what BioWare want to make, but about what EA want to release. And between the backlash against DA2 and the current look of the industry, another open world, large-scale game is looking much more probable. Unless the backlash against Andromeda made it swing the other way, but I doubt it.

[PraetorDragoon]

DA2 did have good ideas with the Acts (which can make choices more impactful outside of the end slides) and the rivalry/friendship system instead of approval.

I doubt we will see more of that type of game though.

[Giggling Ghast]

I think the DA fandom has been very vocal about the fact that there was too much “fat” in DAI, and I would expect to see better quest design in DA4.

My major fear is DA being twisted into some unrecognizable mess by EA’s mandate of injecting LIIIIIIVE SEEEEEEERVICES into every game.

Of course, scuttlebutt around the water cooler suggests that Anthem is quite decent, so perhaps that worry is for naught.

[Morty]

Anthem may be good at being a co-op multiplayer shooter, but none of those elements are anything I'd like to see in Dragon Age.

[Dienekes]

Anthem may be good at being a co-op multiplayer shooter, but none of those elements are anything I'd like to see in Dragon Age.

Yeah, Anthem is in this odd space for me. Where I hope it does just well enough for EA to not take the meat grinder to Bioware. But not so well that this becomes their new direction as a company. I really like the classic Bioware method of game/storytelling. Nothing I've seen from Anthem particularly interests me.

[Inarius]

The only issue there, of course, is that it's not guaranteed to be any good even after three years...see Mass Effect: Andromeda for a fine example!

Yeah, though Andromeda spent like 3 years of its dev time trying to get the procedural generation holy grail to work. The actual game we got was slapped together in under 2 years which isn't really enough time to make a modern Bioware style game as DA2 and ME3 show (though the ending of ME3 was screwed no matter what once they decided it was going to be the final showdown with the reapers)

I do wonder a bit if you maybe spent too long in the Hinterlands? Because that place was, indeed, empty and soulless. The other locations you got to later were a lot more interesting, I found.

Amusingly enough the zones people complain about being empty and soulless in DAI tend to be the ones I like the best. Hinterlands, Storm Coast, and the Hissing wastes are all my favorite areas in the game because of the atmosphere they present. For me thats the draw of open world games, just picking a direction and wandering til I find something cool(or not).

[PraetorDragoon]

The Hinterlands were actually one of the areas I liked more of Dragon Age, it wasn't as one-note as the other areas.

[Morty]

As unimpressive as I found Inquisition's multiplayer to be, I did like that some of the kits broke the warrior/mage/rogue mould. Which here can mean a form for casting or an irritating fungus. We had characters who mixed and matched abilities from different classes, and in one case a warrior who nonetheless dual-wielded daggers. Some late kits introduced fresh ideas, like the Saarebas' stances, Zither's music or Isabella's combination of melee and ranged attacks.

This didn't really help the multiplayer much and there's a long way from that and making something like this work in single player... but I appreciate it all the same.

[Giggling Ghast]

I've seen this brought up on Reddit and I thought I might as well spread the flames to GitP.

https://kotaku.com/the-past-and-pres...e-4-1833913351

This was Jason Schreier's follow-up to the expose he published roughly a week ago about the state of Anthem. Here are some select excerpts:

Dragon Age: Inquisition was hampered by a host of problems, including the challenges of shipping on five platforms at once (PC, PS4, PS3, Xbox One, and Xbox 360), the addition of a multiplayer mode to Dragon Age for the first time, and the technical difficulties of Frostbite. Too many people were assigned to work on the game when it first started development, forcing the leadership team to spread themselves thin and make fast, questionable decisions in the interest of ensuring that everyone had work to do (work that they’d frequently have to redo later). Most notably, Inquisition was the product of the “BioWare magic” documented in our Anthem investigation. Much of the design and story was finalized during the final year of development, leading to stress and crunch throughout 2014 as the Inquisition team scrambled to finish the game.

By the time Inquisition finally launched in November of 2014, everyone was burnt out. Laidlaw and executive producer Mark Darrah told staff they would try to do things better for their next project, acknowledging that they had made mistakes and telling the staff they didn’t want to shoulder that kind of load again. They said they would focus on delivering an explicit, consistent vision and communicating that vision to the team in as efficient a manner as possible.

Following 2015’s critically acclaimed Trespasser expansion, the Dragon Age team split up. Many of the people who’d worked on Inquisition moved to the troubled Mass Effect: Andromeda, while a few dozen developers including Darrah and Laidlaw started spinning up the next Dragon Age, which was code-named Joplin.

You’d play as a group of spies in Tevinter Imperium, a wizard-ruled country on the north end of Dragon Age’s main continent, Thedas. The goal was to focus as much as possible on choice and consequence, with smaller areas and fewer fetch quests than Dragon Age: Inquisition. (In other words, they wanted Joplin to be the opposite of the Hinterlands.) There was an emphasis on “repeat play,” one developer said, noting that they wanted to make areas that changed over time and missions that branched in interesting ways based on your decisions, to the point where you could even get “non-standard game overs” if you followed certain paths.

A large chunk of Joplin would center on heists. The developers talked about building systemic narrative mechanics, allowing the player to perform actions like persuading or extorting guards without the writers having to hand-craft every scene. It was all very ambitious and very early, and would have no doubt changed drastically once Joplin entered production, but members of the team say they were thrilled about the possibilities.

One thing that wasn’t discussed much on Joplin was multiplayer, according to a few people who worked on the project, which is perhaps why the project couldn’t last. While BioWare’s publisher and parent company, Electronic Arts, tends to give its studios a fair amount of autonomy, there are still mandates to follow. By 2017, EA had not been secret about its desire to make all of its major products into “games as a service,” best defined as games that can be played—and monetized—for months and years after their release.

In October of 2017, not long after veteran Mass Effect director Casey Hudson returned to the studio to take over as general manager, EA and BioWare took (drastic action to get Anthem published), canceling Joplin and moving the bulk of its staff, including executive producer Mark Darrah, onto Anthem.

A tiny team stuck around to work on a brand new Dragon Age 4, code-named Morrison, that would be built on Anthem’s tools and codebase. It’s the game being made now. Unlike Joplin, this new version of the fourth Dragon Age is planned with a live service component, built for long-term gameplay and revenue.

So what does all this mean, exactly? How much of a multiplayer focus will Dragon Age 4 have? Is it online-only? We’re not sure about all the details, and in fact they’re likely still being decided, as the game is still very early in development and could evolve based on the negative reception to Anthem. Rumor among BioWare circles for the past year has been that Morrison is “Anthem with dragons”—a snarky label conveyed to me by several people—but a couple of current BioWare employees have waved me off that description.

Said another current BioWare employee about Morrison: “They have a lot of unanswered questions. Plus I know it’s going to change like five times in the next two years.”

Not entirely disheartening, but not very hopeful either.

[Anteros]

Built with the Anthem system and with a "live service" component? That sounds absolutely awful.

[JadedDM]

Unlike Joplin, this new version of the fourth Dragon Age is planned with a live service component, built for long-term gameplay and revenue.

Well, that destroys any hope I had that it would be good.

[Lord Raziere]

yeah, the Bioware that I knew is pretty much dead. heres hoping someone else takes up their torch for creating old bioware-esque rpgs in their stead, I want to fight and make meaningful dialogue choices at the same time someday.