Dragon Age III: Inquisition

[Vintage Paw]

BioWare have just officially announced they are working on Dragon Age III: Inquisition, which we all knew they were going, but whatever.

It sounds very promising, even from so little information.

I'm intrigued by the Frostbite 2 engine info though. Intrigued and, well, concerned. I do not want realisms in mah Dragon Age games. I rather liked the change to a more stylised aesthetic in 2, and would far prefer them to refine that than attempt to make it all super-boring realism. However, I guess using that engine as a base could just mean utilising how it works with map generation and rendering and whatever, I suppose. I don't really understand these things properly.

I've always liked the way the DA team are open with their fans, so I expect there will be plenty more information coming out over the next few months. As ever, I shall be here as your official BioDrone to disseminate it in handy bite-sized (and occasionally long-winded) posts.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

i'd like a bit more of the PC style gaming of the first. i didn't hate 2's playstyle but as a mage i felt 1 suited me more

especially when trying to lay down serious AoE stuff

 

[Vintage Paw]

The loss of an isometric view was one of the things many people complained about. They've taken a great deal on board wrt players' suggestions, but tbh I'm not entirely sure we'll see that aspect return again. They are going to calm the combat down a bit, so it's not quite so 'splody chunks, but I think for the most part it will be similar to 2. I believe they are going to add more specialisations per class, and focus even more on synergy between certain types of skills (across the party). Hopefully it will make it easier-and more effective-to use actual strategy and the tactics menus, but retain the option of button-mashing for those who want it.

I preferred DA2's combat, incidentally. The 'click shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle thwack' method of Origins was clunky as hell.

 

[Epona]

I preferred DA2's combat, incidentally. The 'click shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle thwack' method of Origins was clunky as hell.

iirc, the speed of DA:O during combat was set at something like 0.8x the normal game-speed so of course it felt really slow because all the characters suddenly started to waddle with no real justification for it - I'm sure I tweaked something to make it run at 1x. DA2 went too far the other way, and completely removed any tactical considerations such as positioning, with its fast execution and abseiling enemies (which is something that is fine if the player can do it too, but that would be a different game entirely). Personally, I felt that DA:O (which IMO is a great game in terms of story, interesting NPCs to talk to, and plenty of areas to explore) suffered in the combat aspect by NOT being properly turn-based when it came to combat, it was as if it tried to take a middle ground between turn-based and real-time by simply slowing the speed which does not really work very well - at least in proper turn based combat everyone understands that it is supposed to be slow and tactical. DA:O combat was slow but without the precise control offered by turn based. Even old D&D based cRPGs had a clearer combat mechanism by allowing the player to set autopause at the end of each 'round' of combat, allowing for tactical decisions at each step, and everyone playing understood that it was a largely turn-based combat mechanism. DA:O should have gone fully one way or the other (turn-based or real-time) rather than just offering slowed down real-time combat. Plenty of older games offered more player choice in terms of combat speed - you could set it to suit your playstyle, either fast and furious or turn-based and tactical, or fast turn-based if you wanted something in between, and this is why I think DA:O is often criticised for the combat as it fully met neither turn-based nor real-time expectations.

I'll take DA:O combat over DA2 any day though, I'm not a 'twitch' gamer, I prefer to have a tactical element however small it is.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

i think part of the problem is that magic combat is often totally different from the physical stuff. you kinda need two different control schemes.

 

[Vintage Paw]

I think we've had this discussion before, Epona. I felt the complete opposite about DA2's combat. I found it adequately tactical. I pause before every single attack and issue commands to all of my group, so our skills synergise and everyone is doing what I want them to do. I set up freezes or stuns, I get someone else to complete the combo, I take my time while I'm paused to see where everyone is, move them to attack where they are needed, and I make use of the tactics menus for when I want the game to take over that side of it for a while. I would have rather there had been more depth to the skills and specialisations, but I didn't find the speed any hindrance. I think for many people, because it was faster and you could just button mash if you wanted, it gave the appearance that that was all it was. But the pause function didn't disappear, it worked exactly like it did in DA:O, nothing in that regard had changed other than once you came out of pause the actions resolved faster than in Origins - it just made it easier to enjoy the combat if you weren't the pausing type (which is fair enough, the more people who can play their games the better - they've long passed the stage where they are a niche developer, and they aren't going to start developing for the few any time soon, so I hope that what they do develop is as successful as possible for them, even if I won't get a game that caters 100% to my tastes).

 

[Cid]

But the abseiling enemies screwed up any tactics you were going to use... It was fun, but it definitely lacked the element of having to hone your response to each situation that you got in NWN, DA:O etc. Also the dungeons were fucking woeful. A good game let down in some bizarre ways really. Hopefully it was EA exerting early control, but they've now learned to give a more free hand to them or something.

 

[tommers]

 

[tommers]

The 2 people who started Bioware resigned just after this announcement. Not saying that's related but it'll be interesting to see which way the company goes.

 

[Vintage Paw]

But the abseiling enemies screwed up any tactics you were going to use... It was fun, but it definitely lacked the element of having to hone your response to each situation that you got in NWN, DA:O etc. Also the dungeons were fucking woeful. A good game let down in some bizarre ways really. Hopefully it was EA exerting early control, but they've now learned to give a more free hand to them or something.

They didn't have the chance to spend nearly as long on the game as they had wanted. They've already spent 2 years on DA3, and are tentatively aiming for late 2013 for release, which is double what DA2 got for dev time. The reused dungeon maps were a symptom of that, as were a few other things.

You're right about the magically-abseiling enemies, of course. And, that's something they are addressing. They have been very open about taking people's criticisms on board. They want to make a game people like, after all.

 

[Epona]

I know, we have discussed it before and no doubt will do so again - if gamers can't argue over the tiniest bit of game mechanics then what's the point? Besides which, it's also great just to chat with another female gamer and hear their opinion - even if we disagree sometimes it's even today fairly rare that I get to chat with a woman with similar interests to my own, and I admit to looking out for your posts in the gaming forum and responding to them, because it's a refreshing and much-needed change from discussions about Serana's tits on the Bethsoft forums.

I understand about wanting to attract more gamers, competitive market and all that - the issue for me personally, is that I've not bought a single new release since Nov '11 because nothing appeals to me. It's all very well every game developer becoming more mainstream, but what that means is they are competing against big very popular games such as CoD and losing a sale to me, and I'm left with fuck all to play - which is why I tend to favour games with upwards of 100 hours playtime and large replay value, because I know damn well there isn't going to be another bus come to my stop for a verrrrrrry long time and why I am now looking more towards indie developers to come up with the sort of game I like. I'm not expecting Bioware to do it, more hoping against all hope that some developer somewhere makes a game of the type that I like to play. I may be a niche market, but I'm not the only one in that market, and just have my fingers crossed that at some point developers are going to realise that directly going up against the big FPS money-makers is losing them sales in the long-term, because they aren't fully satisfying any particular group of gamers and entering a very busy market with lots of competition - yet there's a bunch of us here just desperate to have a new game to play, and spend our money on, that are not being catered to at all.