Dragon Age The Veilguard Wishlist (Official Thread)

That isn't fair DA2 have only 1 race. Therefore you can't compare it to DAI and DAO.

I'm gonna be extravagant: Bards like in ESO. ESO bards rock. They just randomly stand in a street corner and sing some awesome lore integrated stuff. I know Herald's rest had something like it but the songs were neither so varied, tragic, funny or heartfelt as they are in ESO. To me at least. But hey, I'm even kinda partial to the Narm Charm singing scene in DAI. I wouldn't mind the companions mumbling some songs during exploration (as long as they don't sound like Sera). Deadfire had this sweet musical decoration where the ship's crew sang shanties during overworld exploration. Something like that.

I have two new wishes:

1. I'd like to get a male KISA character. Not a shy guy like Cullen or Alistair, but a total badass like Cassandra.

2. Elves need to go back to looking like this:


It bothers me that the books constantly talk about how elves have large eyes but it is never the case in other Dragon Age media.

I want the duelist specialization for rogues back. Or something similar.

Unpopular opinion here, but I would like to see our PC go back to being a silent protagonist.

Not only would it free up ~50% of the word budget, since you don't have to higher multiple voice actors to read off the same lines, just with different inflections, but it would also allow the rest of the NPCs and the world in general to be much more reactive to player choice.


DA:O having a silent protagonist allowed the game to have the widely diverse origin plot lines for example. Call those prologues exposition dumps if you will but what other RPG had six different opening acts, each showcasing characters from a wide range of backgrounds?

Meanwhile, DA:I only has a single prologue sequence and once you get into the game proper your choice of character background means little to nothing; with the exception of the human noble, which has the most development since I think it was all the game was originally going to have. My Dwarf and Quniari Inquisitors on the other hand get a grand total of around five or six one off lines thrown their way, mostly some variation of: "Oh, you're a [INSERT RACIAL CHOICE]."

If the game had been released with a silent PC I would imagine that the game would have allowed for a much more reactive approach to my choice of character.



Speaking of reacting to player choice, having a voiceless protagonist would also help save the writing from having to water all of your dialogue choices to being in a 'neutral' state. My Dwarf or Quniari character should have some basic grasp of their own race's culture and/or politics, but since the game had to use the same voice actor(s) for all possible player choices my character instead stands there slack-jawed while my human political advisor was the one explaining how my character's own race acted.

I was really satisfied with the Dalish experience, though. Your character gets to say lines in elvhen, discuss elven experiences and culture with Dalish and city elves alike, discover crucial info and even get a compliment from Mythal herself! Mind you, I'm still not listing everything that is specifically directed at your Dalish Inquisitor.

"B-But s/he asked who's Mythal". Yeah, they really dropped the ball during WPHW, but that's just one quest.

That said, I have to agree that the dwarven and Qunari Inquisitors survive on crumbs. There are a few moments, but it's like five of those during the whole game as you say.  Perhaps one could argue that the story doesn't provide many opportunities, but Cadash barely reacts to anything during the Descent and Adaar didn't have much to say while facing off against the Qunari invaders in Trespasser.

In the very least, the devs could have bothered to include dialogue where Cadash and Adaar get to talk about such things with side characters of the same race.

Another wishlist item I would like to see is the return of the 'other' perspectives like how Origins presented the setting.

Spirits that actually have motivation and personality, as opposed to being mindless monsters to kill for XP and loot.

Things like Sylvan, werewolves, and Awakened Darkspawn; intelligent entities rather than just mindless monsters to kill for XP and loot.

Dragons and Malbari that have a very high degree of intelligence and cunning rather than just being mindless monsters to kill for XP and loot.

Etc.

You can see where I'm going with this.



The world of Thedas in Dragon Age: Origins was a very diverse setting with wildly different perspectives that existed outside of the human, pointy-eared human, short human, and large human with horns way at looking at things. In playing the first game I felt that this was a place where our human way at looking at things was just a small part of a much larger whole.

By the time Inquisition comes around however and the world feels less expansive with hereto unknown possibilities and more a world in desperate need of an exterminator.

I'm probably repeating myself here - hell I may have even already responded to this thread in the past, I forget... but regardless here's my (possibly updated) list:

1) No open world, no semi-open world, and a return to the more linear narrative-focussed model of the first two games.
In retrospect I don't believe DA:I's huge semi-open world was entirely right for the series. Quantity does not always equate to quality, and while DA:I's zones were vast they often tended to be light on content. The balance was actually very strange.

The Hinterlands was absolutely stuffed to the brim with MMO-style quests, many of them in the form of fairly trivial fetch quests. This served the purpose of keeping us within this region for an inordinate amount of time while we ticked off our 'checklist' of tasks: 'fetch xx ram hides, fetch xx herbs, escort this Druffalo, banish that demon, find that NPC, find out who killed that other NPC etc. etc. etc.

But in weird contrast several of the other zones were actually quite light on quest content. If you removed all the filler stuff based around shards, puzzle thingys etc. there wasn't actually that much to do. I think that Crestwood was the one zone that did everything right. Everything tied in beautifully with the zone's main plot and your actions had real consequences.

I'd like a tighter, more focussed story, with side content that is an extension of the main plot, affecting it in a meaningful way.

2) A return of the tactics screen and deep programmable squad tactics. That one's a no-brainer. It grieved me to see this removed in Inquisition. Still no idea if this was down to limitations of the Frostbite engine, or to do with casualisation of the game and the belief that it was 'too complicated for modern gamers'.

3) An actual spell/action bar with actual functionality - yeah yeah, I'm being facetious, I know you could put eight spells on the Inquisition bar - whoopie do! This was one of my most despised 'features' of Inquisition. It made playing a Mage in particular a very lacklustre experience. All that stuff to learn, but using it meant having to sacrifice a bunch of other spells which, for me at least, made levelling up feel meaningless as by the time mid-game arrived I'd already had all the eight core spells I needed to finished the game and had already abandoned many of the utility or situational abilities I'd have otherwise kept on my action bar in reserve for those situation where they were called for.

Sure I could mix and match for specific encounters, but honestly that felt like a total drag. I wanted to have access to all the tools in my toolkit when I needed them. Once again, no idea if this was down to 'consolisation' or if it really was some kind of cack-handed deliberate design choice. Either way it sucked.

3) Timed missions need to stop FULL STOP!
Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts - I'm staring you right in the face! ENOUGH OF THIS! Same with you... you damned templars!

4) Mod support.
Though I'm probably more likely to be the first man on Pluto than get a dev toolkit included with the game. Still I can dream.

5) Spirit healing, healing spells and more.
Yes I want this back. Potion spam was not fun for me. It also goes entirely against established lore. Spirit healing is a thing damnit! I'd not mind passive health regeneration to make a comeback either. I know some folks liked having non-regenerating health on the grounds that it made it 'more badass', but for me it limited exploration. Having huge open worlds to explore, but being limited by the fact that taking damage forced me to keep on backtracking to camps to heal up or get more pots was not particularly fun for me. it wasn't such an issue in the late game when I had guard on all my gear and leeching items, but it sure hampers the early game.

For Dragon Age, I feel like the semi-open world style of game is a good fit, provided they can make good on some of their earlier goals of having more robust side quests.

I also like having spaces to wander around post-game, esp. if there's good content as well.

Having said that, I've heard there are linear spaces in DA:D, but don't know prevalent they are.

While I really liked the programmable tactics of DA:O myself, I've heard that most players either didn't use them or didn't know how to use them effectively.

Combat is getting a major overhaul anyway, so...

With combat evolving into a more action-oriented style, I don't expect we'll see a return to the early DA action bars.

Lol - Agreed.

I've heard the idea gets tossed around every now and then, but there are a lot of obstacles to having that happen. If the next game moves over to Unreal, then...

Personally, I don't like to be reliant on spellcasters for healing. I thought potions were a good way to go in a game like DA, where characters are more important than classes.

I like to have the most flexibility in my party makeup, and not have a difficulty spike if I don't bring X class along.

And if we continue to have limited spaces on our action bar (which we very likely will), then keeping healing to potions frees up slot(s) for other abilities. As you pointed out, this is especially relevant for mages.

Yeah, as long as the side quest is in some way interesting, it doesn't matter to me whether it ties back into the main quest or not. And if they subvert the players' expectations along the way? Bonus.

On a related note, world events (random & triggered) can also add just that little extra something to a game.

eg. AC: Origins - exerting yourself in the desert could trigger a number of relatively simple, but always interesting hallucinations. In AC: Valhalla, the rare random meteor strikes, rainbows (both of which you could loot), and burning statues.

Events that are not too expensive to add, but are certainly memorable.

I genuinely hope all races are selectable again. As much as I love Hawke in DA2 I was like "Human only in a fantasy RPG? The fuck?? I want horns!"

The Adaar ball dropped during Trespasser, but otherwise I've actually enjoyed playing an Adaar; There was sufficient amount of content for me to not feel like the choice was pointless. I like the conversations with the Iron Bull. The first one was kinda funny because my Adaar greeted him politely with a "Shanedan, Sten" and he went ixnay on the qunlatsay in front of his men. When he revealed he was a Qunari, my character went "Get the fuck away from me." with alarm (I know that response might be across all races, but it had a different context here) 

You also have conversations with him where, when he brings up Tal'Vashoth, you get to mention your parents. When you talk about both being mercenaries, you have the choice of what kind of group you usually hung out with (ex. diverse, mostly something or mostly other qunari) It's kinda interesting because he sort of goes from "Well, they're not the kind of Tal'Vashoth I'm talking about." like they're an exception to sort of grudgingly conceding something. There's also a conversation with Vivienne where she asks about your training (and naturally gets dismissive about your answer because you're contrary evidence to the Circles' confined method of education)  

There's definitely, without a doubt, room for improvement and the fact that you never meet a single character from your backstory is one of them. I'd have loved a personal quest, but the lack of even an appearance is annoying. It's also a bit weird because if you look at Shokrakar, there's so much detail in her description that it seems like it was in the cards originally, but never got past the early stage.