Dragon Age

I actually think that Inquisition has the ideal level scaling: minimal amount during the critical path, with the side content at a static level.

I never said setting camps. I said building tents. The endlessly repeating requisition mission.

Why the inquisitor HAS to build tents. Himself. By hand. While my quartermaster is telling me he's got so much supply he's practically tripping balls, is a mystery the game's stellar writing never feels the need to expand upon.

edited 28th Mar '15 4:41:07 PM by Ghilz

I'm pretty sure your Inquisitor is just giving someone the order to build those tents.

After the Inquisitor finds the materials him/herself. -_-

Cullen proposes to the Inquisitor. The troops approve. Bit hard to read though.

edited 28th Mar '15 7:36:30 PM by Spirit

Isn't it universally accepted that they're there for filler? In case you somehow manage to waste your power on doing nothing and can't advance for whatever reason. May as well complain about the milf that births bandits and venatori at an alarming rate.

For what it's worth, the only requisitions in "Jaws of Hakkon" are quest-related, like the amulet you have to make to recruit the Blades of Hessarian in the vanilla game. So it looks like Bioware realized that the requisition system is pointless.

Why do Inquisition mooks need authorization at the highest level to set up a base camp in the woods?

I don't know. But I really find it hard to believe anyone actually gives a shit about whether or not it makes sense.

IDK, I suppose Leliana would be the person who would approve the campsites, but it does give the illusion of power.

Gave the impression of abeyant milkmaid...it kinda fits in the beginning, when you're the Herald who the advisors must steer in helpful directions while they figure out what the hell is going on. It was frustrating the requisitions had no plot significance, aside from that Crest of Mercy. Y'all need me yer chosen savior to bag some deer so you can make special harnesses? Piss off ya jokers!

Why do Inquisition mooks need authorization at the highest level to set up a base camp in the woods?

What gets me is this. They won't make a camp without my personal permission, and they need me to do pointless geological surveys on my own. BUT the quartermaster and the barkeeper will be fired and replaced without me so much as being told about it - I learn of it when I go to Skyhold's bar and see Thedas' surliest dwarf instead of Haven's tavernkeeper - whom I rescued myself.

The Inquisitor needs to know of every camp we set - but who sets up shop in his fortress? Meh, it's no a "need to know" basis and he doesn't need to know that.

Extends to the rest of the war table "Inquisitor, we need you to collect bear asses!" "But there's a fortress ruled by a Venatori-supporting noble who is pouring darkspawn into the surrounding region? Do you want me to lead the siege?" "Nah, Cullen's got nameless NP Cs to do this. Geez. Someone's a micromanager"

edited 29th Mar '15 1:28:55 PM by Ghilz

All of the little filler sidequests like "Collect twenty bear asses to make coats for troops" or "Set up five base camps in the wilderness" would be fine if the Inquisitor was, and remained, a mook throughout the game. And don't tell me it shows that he/she is willing to get stuff done with the men—there are better ways to compartmentalize responsibility. Despite the increased scale of the game's overworld, it actually makes gameplay seem unambitious and unimaginative. Make no mistake, RPGs and MMOs are often filled with this sort of dreck, but giving the player control of an entire organization within the first third of the game really should free the player from the most menial quests. The game should have been filled with storylines like the Grey Warden, Mage/Templar, Orlais, and Elf stories, and they would have had the resources to do that if they didn't waste so much time on filler.

edited 29th Mar '15 1:40:04 PM by CrimsonZephyr

Its probably intended for those quests to be done before 'In Your Heart Shall Burn' and etc. The ones that appear after are just... odd.

The majority of them are after the destruction of heaven, since only two areas are unlocked then. all the other ones unlock after. Seems unlikely it was an omission...

The thing is, the Inquisitor has to go out there in the first place to close the Fade Rifts. Since the Inquisitor is out there anyway, they might as well make note of good campsites.

It's probably left over from when the game was supposed to be an MMO....can I just say how grateful that they decided to scrap that bright idea. After Dragon Age 2 one more bit of E Aification would probably have meant the death of the Franchise.

I wonder what that "create your economic/military/espionage fortress" was going to do.

Get people to buy the game

The MMO idea was, as far as I can tell, a very early development idea and I HIGHLY doubt most of that made it to the finished product.

Probably would have strengthened your Inquisition in that respective aspect, similar to how Agents do. Probably would have generated a larger decrease to mission times and maybe had other effects, like periodic gold gain if you had an Economic Fortress?

The infinitely repeatable requisitions are pretty clearly daily quests re-purposed to provide an emergency source of Power if you waste it all somewhere else. True, maybe they knew they weren't doing an MMO by the time they actually started programming, but the parallel is too clear to be anything else.

There's no way you'd be able to waste power. You get more than enough from regular quests alone.

Most of the hairier design issues in this game really stem from the folly in trying to ride Skyrim's coattails, rather than in trying to design an MMO. The requisition quests seem like more tedious versions of the repeatable "Go to Town X and kill a bear for 400 gold" guild quests

edited 29th Mar '15 8:03:10 PM by CrimsonZephyr

In my opinion, it was an attempt to color the Inquisition and its operations that just may not have been entirely thought though.

An attempt to color the Inquisition?

You give them too much credit. They aped the design choices of another work and made their own mediocre because of it.

I had a whole big thing typed out but my browser decided to crash so I'll put it out simply.

The similarities between Dragon Age and Skyrim stop at the 'Open World' Aspect.

Skyrim builds a realistic setting and knows exactly how that setting works, but is godawful at actually developing that setting or its characters. Outside of Serena from the Dawnguard DLC, I really can't think of a single character who has any significant character development or character arc. This is also evident on how Skyrim lays out its scenes; Skyrim sets its stage realistically rather than theatrically. It has NP Cs who work on a timed schedule and do x thing and y time and there are day night cycles rather than a specific lighting and time for each event.

Dragon Age builds its setting a bit less realistically and without the cold structure that Bethesda gives each of its series, but Dragon Age puts a lot more heart into it. Where Skyrim would be content to tell you that the Mages are in Cave Y, Templars are in Cave X, and tell you to go get them, Dragon Age builds up the conflict with small side quests that show how the war is interrupting an old man from visiting his wife's grave, causing a Templar/Mage Sibling to kill each other, forcing the player to walk though the burned out remains of the village, and having a ton of sidequests related to all the displaced refugees from said war.

Dragon Age, in contrast to Skyrim's realistic framing, has a much more theatrical and dramatic style to it. There are far larger number of NP Cs walking around and discussing things related to the main plot or its characters (and not mumbling about Cloud Districts) and the time of day is specific for each location you visit to accent the intended tone and emotional response of the scene. And very nearly every major character has some character development or arc to participate in.

That isn't exactly to say Skyrim is bad; its a very good RPG in many aspects, but I think Dragon Age at the very least tries to develop a setting and empathize with its characters while Skyrim is content to spout exposition at you for hours, throw hundreds of people on your blade every 5 mins, and very vaguely and lazily attempt 'love' and 'marriage'.

YMMV. Considering, for example the dwarven tomb quests consists of finding a series tombs who are all one room and deep and filled with identical vases and looting them all for loot and codex entry Wall Of Text detailing the most cliche story of two brothers turned rivals, DA:I is MORE than happy to just plaster you with exposition rather than visual story stelling (Compare to many of Skyrim's tombs whose literal lay out, design and location of stuff tells a story of what happened there).

Not that Skyrim doesn't ride the exposition train (Aforementioned Cloud District speech for example), but saying DA:I "Focuses more on world building while Skyrim just exposes at you" is disingenuous. Sure, DA:I shows you the effect of war on a man trying to visit his wife's tomb. But it also makes the aforementioned Mage HQ boring as hell and puts no effort in making it interesting in design. Skyrim would've at least made the mage's own hideout unique, it's design telling you how the people there live.

I will say DA:I focuses more on characters, while Skyrim focuses on exploration.

I'd give an example of Bethesda's visual storytelling from Fallout 3 - coz for me it's the most notable example. All the clocks are stuck at 9h47, That's when the bombs fell. Kids were in school (In fact on school was on a field trip to Little Lamplight caverns), people were at work. So we assume AM. Go to Minefield. One of the houses there feature two skeletons. Still in bed. Next to the bed is a vaccuum cleaner. The implication is that whoever owned that house stayed around and was having an affair with the maid when the bombs fell. There's no journal entry for this. No apocalyptic log. Just the set pieces speak their own story.

Character writing and plot writing (Except for Morrowind) isn't necessarily Bethesda's forte. But the world building through the set pieces, that's something they do well, and it's not just "expositing at you". I find that even more subtle than an old man saying he can't visit his wife.

edited 29th Mar '15 10:21:01 PM by Ghilz