I wonder what Mark would've done if Frostbite wasn't mandated? I got the impression the old engine wasn't really going to work going forward.
I know they were considering Unreal, but licencing fees get expensive for high selling games. So I can understand why Frostbite could look attractive by comparison.
And yeah, their old engine just wasn't going to cut it after DA2. As Mark put it, it was being held together by binder twine and dreams at the end. 😅
At that time I posted to the effect that EA told Bio to use the FB engine and sometime later a Bio rep (can't remember the name) (in an interview ?) said that Bio had a choice. Mandated and choice are two words at the opposite ends of the spectrum. So, I'm somewhat confused as to what actually occurred.
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I remember the discussions here regarding the licensing fees as a reason to use FB.
Morpheus: "know what happened happened and that it could not have happened in any other way".
I do wonder what will be the original starting point for our PC. Will defeating the Dread Wolf be the driving factor from early on in the game or will we only discover the danger he presents as a result of getting involved in other plots that turn out to be connected with him? To be hunting for the Dread Wolf from the outset would mean us being closely connected with the Shadow Inquisition, whereas if it only becomes apparent later, that could be the point at which we make contact.
I want it to start. I want Solas in the prologue doing what he does best (messing things up) and I want Varric to come in and do what he does best (tell us a story), and then I want him to give me his contacts and let me go explore Northern Thedas to gather dirt on The Dread Wolf. Varric falls in love with me The End.
Aaargh....!
I hate baldy. That DA:I char simply was uninteresting (to me). Maybe he pushed my buttons or something. If he's not in the game, I won't lose sleep over it. If baldy is in the game, I'll do my very best to smear him "into tomato paste" <== this line is from Buffy the vampire slayer tv series.
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Morpheus: "know what happened happened and that it could not have happened in any other way".
Can you give me a compelling reason for not including 'time savers' in SP games without resorting to really generalized and arrogant statements?
Ouch, did I strike a nerve?
If you are playing a SP game, generally you are playing for the experience. This means that you don't skip time, because you are enjoying yourself.
There is no compelling reason to exclude them, because there is no compelling reason to include them. You are asking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. There are very few SP games where grinding is a major component of the game. Sure, every game grinds us - they want us to keep playing, always have. In PC gaming, we have mods for that. Low low cost.
Again, if you are in a rush to finish your SP experience, save more time and find a new hobby. If this is arrogant to you, can your own arrogance and stare at my point for a few. People that enjoy playing games, aren't in a hurry to finish their SP experience. Usually the opposite.
Sanunes said:
All this hand wringing I don't fully understand instead of thinking at everything that EA could do because its the worst possible thing in your imagination look at what they have done since the time of Jedi: Fallen Order. Even Anthem didn't have anything that you mention here it was just MTX for cosmetics. People seem to want to vilify EA and everything they might do, but ignore the other publishers and developers when they are already doing those "worst case" situations. Ubisoft has had some variation of those things with their "time savers" packs going to at least the time of Unity, but you never see all the headlines or other outrage about them being in those games. Even when it does happen there is no consistency such as with Odyssey Ubisoft had a $10 MTX to give +50% experience and gold, but since they waited until a month or two post launch with Valhalla before adding them nobody really paid any attention to it. I didn't see the big articles decrying how evil Ubisoft was because they did such an insidious feature from reviewers before adding it into the game to take money from players.
Not sure if you meant this for me, but I already answered this. For EA, they seem to have JFO as the SP model, so hopefully we're fine with this game.
You haven't been paying much attention to gaming news, if you haven't seen Ubi getting roasted constantly the last few months, and deservedly so. Their workplace issues dwarf anything that has happened at BioWare, and their games have been a samey-samey pile of shit for several years going if you ask me. I haven't bought a Ubi game in years, got Watch Dogs free and played a little, but having to use their launcher and then find BS mechanics in that game, I just uninstalled the game and the launcher. If I want to play AssCreed, I'll fire up the PS3 and play the originals.
If this is the model that some people want, then Sanunes I agree that is a shitty model and I wish they could just see it. Unfortunately, consumerism.
Yeah I don't think there's any tight relation between the number of "deep" quests vs. "fetch"-type quests, so its not as if cutting out the fetch quests will result in more deep quests. So we're probably getting fetch quests regardless, that's sort of why they exist in the first place- they're the very definition of "filler", as they require relatively little effort to include. And just think of the Bioware canon- how many games do NOT have fetch quests? Every Bioware game I've ever played has had them, the best case scenario is something like ME2 where you have a bare handful of "fetch" quests (e.g. buying Serrice Ice Brandy for Dr. Chakwas, or Normandy parts for the engineers) that don't really effect anything.
One thing that makes a big difference, at least for me, is having the quest log better organized to differentiate between real quests and the fetch quests, so you can easily ignore the latter if you're not interested (which, most of the time, I'm not).
ME2 was different because instead of fetch quests they had all kinds of companion quests that weren't related to the main story so had the same level of impact on the critical path as a fetch quest in the other games. I also don't see them labeling a quest as less important unless its a pinned quest at the top that is the critical path quest and everything else is below it. Otherwise they are just opening themselves up for criticisms.
Sure, companion quests largely play the role of the "side" quests (as opposed to the main story quests). But they also had a few pure "fetch" quests, in the sense of literally just going and getting something- not only the personal quests for Chawkwas, the Normandy engineers, and the Normandy chef, there was also "Packages for Ish" and maybe one or two other quests where you were literally just "fetching" something.
And that was a good balance to have; fetch quests are fine, but they should be few and far between, and the non-main story quests should have a little more substance and relevance, just like the companion quests in ME2. So I think ME2 is sort of an optimal model for them to follow- great main story quests, engaging side quests, and a bare handful of fetch quests.
Can you give me a compelling reason for not including 'time savers' in SP games without resorting to really generalized and arrogant statements?
Ouch, did I strike a nerve?
If you are playing a SP game, generally you are playing for the experience. This means that you don't skip time, because you are enjoying yourself.
There is no compelling reason to exclude them, because there is no compelling reason to include them. You are asking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. There are very few SP games where grinding is a major component of the game. Sure, every game grinds us - they want us to keep playing, always have. In PC gaming, we have mods for that. Low low cost.
Again, if you are in a rush to finish your SP experience, save more time and find a new hobby. If this is arrogant to you, can your own arrogance and stare at my point for a few. People that enjoy playing games, aren't in a hurry to finish their SP experience. Usually the opposite.
Sanunes said:
All this hand wringing I don't fully understand instead of thinking at everything that EA could do because its the worst possible thing in your imagination look at what they have done since the time of Jedi: Fallen Order. Even Anthem didn't have anything that you mention here it was just MTX for cosmetics. People seem to want to vilify EA and everything they might do, but ignore the other publishers and developers when they are already doing those "worst case" situations. Ubisoft has had some variation of those things with their "time savers" packs going to at least the time of Unity, but you never see all the headlines or other outrage about them being in those games. Even when it does happen there is no consistency such as with Odyssey Ubisoft had a $10 MTX to give +50% experience and gold, but since they waited until a month or two post launch with Valhalla before adding them nobody really paid any attention to it. I didn't see the big articles decrying how evil Ubisoft was because they did such an insidious feature from reviewers before adding it into the game to take money from players.
Not sure if you meant this for me, but I already answered this. For EA, they seem to have JFO as the SP model, so hopefully we're fine with this game.
You haven't been paying much attention to gaming news, if you haven't seen Ubi getting roasted constantly the last few months, and deservedly so. Their workplace issues dwarf anything that has happened at BioWare, and their games have been a samey-samey pile of shit for several years going if you ask me. I haven't bought a Ubi game in years, got Watch Dogs free and played a little, but having to use their launcher and then find BS mechanics in that game, I just uninstalled the game and the launcher. If I want to play AssCreed, I'll fire up the PS3 and play the originals.
If this is the model that some people want, then Sanunes I agree that is a shitty model and I wish they could just see it. Unfortunately, consumerism.
More of a general comment about how people seem to be laser focused on EA and predicting what bad things they are or can do, but at the same time ignoring other developers. My opinion is that if you want to see real change is to either not buy that kind of transaction or hold all developers/publishers to the same level and not just when its a company/game you don't like. While also understanding that piracy doesn't mean anything to them aside that they feel they need more DRM in their games and all the systems and such in the game are fine.
More of a general comment about how people seem to be laser focused on EA and predicting what bad things they are or can do, but at the same time ignoring other developers. My opinion is that if you want to see real change is to either not buy that kind of transaction or hold all developers/publishers to the same level and not just when its a company/game you don't like. While also understanding that piracy doesn't mean anything to them aside that they feel they need more DRM in their games and all the systems and such in the game are fine.
You have my sincere agreement.
This is an industry issue, not an EA or BW one. It is Ubiquitous (couldn't help meself).
I will never be convinced that someone needs a time-saver in a SP game, unless that SP game has been poorly and intentionally designed to waste the players time without said time-saver. This is upside down game design, and it is as plain as the nose on any face. Not seeing it is willful ignorance or things more sinister.
A new EA patent has surfaced online, and the technology it protects could play a substantial role in shaping future games from EA and its studios, particularly BioWare, which is currently working on a new Mass Effect game and Dragon Age 4. The patent in question involves NPC behavior, and, more specifically, equipping NPCs with the ability of self-learning, which in turn would permit NPCs to adapt to the decisions the player is making. Of course, NPCs reacting to the decisions players make isn't a revolutionary idea nor a new one. If you play a Renegade Shepard in the Mass Effect games, NPCs react differently to you compared to a Paragon Shepard. They do this though because of precise scripting on the behalf of BioWare.
Apologies if this is discussed elsewhere, and no this is not a tweet... but maybe I missed some tweets about it? It seems like a pretty neat idea, but if it isn't already well on the way to working, it could just be something tossed at a wall to check stickiness. This seems like a natural evolution of the Influence system that was used by Obsidian in TSL, which was their improvement from simpler booleans that were used in KotOR. These I think were the inspiration for DA friendship/rivalry and the Paragon/Renegade systems. The limitation would be dialogue, at least initially. This is where deepfake tech could come in handy, although the downsides and risks are massive. Using AI voices to voice AI written dialogue is something technologically we are still miles and miles away from, but I find it fascinating that they felt they had something enough to patent.
And while I cannot imagine a good reason for utilizing and buying such MTXs I can imagine there may be some value for someone who is really enjoying the game but yet is really busy with something in life which makes their playing time a bit limited. Single parent, busy work schedule, that sort of thing, so they are more apt to maybe want to power through it.
This doesn't really make sense. How can you enjoy a game but not want to play through it? If you enjoy a game, why would you need to force yourself through it or find alternative ways of enjoyment that are not part of that game's DNA? No matter how much time you have to play, if you like the experience, it can even take you 2 years to play a game and you'll still play it - because the point is to enjoy playing it. Not wanting to do it is maybe because the mechanics of leveling and progressing aren't implemented well? Maybe because they were made like that to begin with? To keep you going with the game a long time by design, not because you have limited time with it, and if you don't want to go with it a long time, either give up on it or shell out the cash to make it go faster? Like mobile games? That's the very issue and it's not a compelling argument. Just because you're the kind of person not bothered by this sort of thing, doesn't not make it an issue.
OK. Can you give me a compelling reason for not including 'time savers' in SP games without resorting to really generalized and arrogant statements?
The point of a singleplayer game is to be entertaining and offer an enjoyable experience. You go through the game and do the story as it is presented to you. Then, imagine, as you're going for the next chapter of the story, it all comes to a screeching halt because you're not high level enough for that next bit of content, even though you did everything the game presented to you to do from a narrative perspective, so you're forced to grind. Didn't Assassin's Creed Odyssey do this? Force you to grind out levels periodically, stopping your flow of the story, because the enemies could oneshot you? That is not compelling or fun, and no amount of time savers excuses that kind of game design, just to pad out your "engagement time" with it.
I mean I agree with you but who are we to tell other gamers what they can and cannot buy? Aren't mp games meant to be enjoyed to? If that was the main factor then what's the justification for having time savers in mp games?
And Odyssey is one of the games I referenced above. Least grind I've ever experienced in a game, at least on the first PT. As to your point about having to level up yourself to take on challenges this is a fairly common feature. Games like HZD or, my favorite example Inquisition, includes level markers and very challenging fights. The best example was there was multiple areas of the Hinterlands, the very first level which was almost ten levels higher then a new player. And I was almost had an entire party wipe when I accidentally stumbled upon the dragon there. Only one party member survived the first attack. Meanwhile all those bosses in Odyssey you could pretty much build your character to one shot them with enough skills, gear, and levels. Something you can't even do in Inquisition.
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I wasn't suggesting this in terms of Origins per se, though that could be a nice side benefit, merely demonstrating that a player's main line involvement does not have to be with the Shadow Inquisition...at the start. Information from Solas is out there, a wide variety of organizations has some knowledge of him so it is not beyond the realm of possibility that a new PC would come into contact with that information for them or get involved in their own way which would kick start involvement into the larger plot.
No I understood your point and I then made my arguments against it. This is only in terms of being involved with the hunt for Solas from the outset. Naturally, you can be involved with any of a number of organisations through which you get to hear about Solas but that would not be something they would be instructing you to be involved with from the beginning unless it was one of the specific organisations I highlighted, for which I gave reasons why this would not fit a neutral PC. So unless they were going to give a choice of backgrounds, as with DAI, that may or may not be connected with your race, it seemed unlikely that they would use being part of one of them as the starting point for your story if they wanted to plunge straight into the hunt for Solas.
To be honest I think it far more likely that the PC is going to start off in ignorance of the Solas threat but is going to become aware of it as the game progresses, may be at the end of an extended prologue that will ease the PC into the setting before hitting them with it. Bear in mind they have to cater for new players as well as established fans. With DAI we only knew about the hole in the sky at first and it was only later we discovered the identity of the person who created it.
Aren't mp games meant to be enjoyed to? If that was the main factor then what's the justification for having time savers in mp games?
That's a little bit complicated but giving one example, a lot of MMO players are in a race to and through end game. And usually the monumental, HUMUNGOUS grind starts at endgame (looking at you WoW and Lost Ark) to get better gear and more gold so they can raid or PvP. And sometimes if people don't have enough time in the day to grind they can find themselves getting very behind everybody else. With single player games you don't usually have that fear of falling behind and that huge amount of endgame grind you need to do to gear up so you can actually start playing the game again.
But that's not the only reason of course. There's probably people out there that will buy time savers in a single player game, I actually know a couple of people who probably would just to streamline the experience and make it more relaxing for them. It's just there's far more reason to in a multiplayer game. Multiplayer games have more of that competitive aspect to it.
I wasn't suggesting this in terms of Origins per se, though that could be a nice side benefit, merely demonstrating that a player's main line involvement does not have to be with the Shadow Inquisition...at the start. Information from Solas is out there, a wide variety of organizations has some knowledge of him so it is not beyond the realm of possibility that a new PC would come into contact with that information for them or get involved in their own way which would kick start involvement into the larger plot.
No I understood your point and I then made my arguments against it. This is only in terms of being involved with the hunt for Solas from the outset. Naturally, you can be involved with any of a number of organisations through which you get to hear about Solas but that would not be something they would be instructing you to be involved with from the beginning unless it was one of the specific organisations I highlighted, for which I gave reasons why this would not fit a neutral PC. So unless they were going to give a choice of backgrounds, as with DAI, that may or may not be connected with your race, it seemed unlikely that they would use being part of one of them as the starting point for your story if they wanted to plunge straight into the hunt for Solas.
To be honest I think it far more likely that the PC is going to start off in ignorance of the Solas threat but is going to become aware of it as the game progresses, may be at the end of an extended prologue that will ease the PC into the setting before hitting them with it. Bear in mind they have to cater for new players as well as established fans. With DAI we only knew about the hole in the sky at first and it was only later we discovered the identity of the person who created it.
OK, forgive the confusion.
But then there still seems to be a disconnect somewhere. Consider that I have been arguing this entire time that is not in itself a given that such an organization could be ordering us to look into the Dread Wolf from the beginning. Such an organization might consider it a waste of time we, for whatever reason, may disagree, so we go off to hunt him even against the wishes of our own order. Or maybe not. While the Antivan Crows may not be that concerned about him they could still dispatch us to into it on our own time, they wouldn't take the problem seriously but maybe us oh lowly junior agent could be expendable enough to look into it and off we go.
As for your second point I agree whole heartedly. Whether this is the Origin Story, or part of the Origin, or just the common place we all start I really don't think we will be starting off hunting for Solas from the beginning. I do wish for a day in the life experience, preferably like Odyssey handled Kepholonia, in order to ease us into the plot and get us into things. Whatever else happens with the origins or anything else I am very desirious of this kind of story rather then something that starts en medias res just like Inquisition.
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Aren't mp games meant to be enjoyed to? If that was the main factor then what's the justification for having time savers in mp games?
That's a little bit complicated but giving one example, a lot of MMO players are in a race to and through end game. And usually the monumental, HUMUNGOUS grind starts at endgame (looking at you WoW and Lost Ark) to get better gear and more gold so they can raid or PvP. And sometimes if people don't have enough time in the day to grind they can find themselves getting very behind everybody else. With single player games you don't usually have that fear of falling behind and that huge amount of endgame grind you need to do to gear up so you can actually start playing the game again.
But that's not the only reason of course. There's probably people out there that will buy time savers in a single player game, I actually know a couple of people who probably would just to streamline the experience and make it more relaxing for them. It's just there's far more reason to in a multiplayer game. Multiplayer games have more of that competitive aspect to it.
Granted my experiences with MMOs is far more limited then they are with SP games and even SP RPGs. I think the only online/MMO type games I have played are EVE, Anthem, and a very small bit of TOR and STO. Now I suppose I should also include Breakpoint that counts as well even though its hard to imagine it being one considering I basically treated it as SP
Even still I wonder how much of this problem is cultural rather then mechanical. The closest I came to this sort of thing was since TOR had different levels of gaining XP depending on the subscription model you were using and even then I just ended up quitting the game rather then partaking any further. While such a system can exist for these games I really didn't feel more of a need to keep up with anyone else then I did in any SP game.
Patreon (for my writing, posting chapters of my novel)
That's a little bit complicated but giving one example, a lot of MMO players are in a race to and through end game. And usually the monumental, HUMUNGOUS grind starts at endgame (looking at you WoW and Lost Ark) to get better gear and more gold so they can raid or PvP. And sometimes if people don't have enough time in the day to grind they can find themselves getting very behind everybody else. With single player games you don't usually have that fear of falling behind and that huge amount of endgame grind you need to do to gear up so you can actually start playing the game again.
But that's not the only reason of course. There's probably people out there that will buy time savers in a single player game, I actually know a couple of people who probably would just to streamline the experience and make it more relaxing for them. It's just there's far more reason to in a multiplayer game. Multiplayer games have more of that competitive aspect to it.
Granted my experiences with MMOs is far more limited then they are with SP games and even SP RPGs. I think the only online/MMO type games I have played are EVE, Anthem, and a very small bit of TOR and STO. Now I suppose I should also include Breakpoint that counts as well even though its hard to imagine it being one considering I basically treated it as SP
Even still I wonder how much of this problem is cultural rather then mechanical. The closest I came to this sort of thing was since TOR had different levels of gaining XP depending on the subscription model you were using and even then I just ended up quitting the game rather then partaking any further. While such a system can exist for these games I really didn't feel more of a need to keep up with anyone else then I did in any SP game.
That's actually a really good question and it probably differs from game to game quite a bit. Lost Ark's example is probably more cultural, MMOs from South Korea tend to be very grind heavy and pay to win things are culturally much more acceptable in the East. In WoW's case, well, I think it's more mechanical. Their race to world first for example tries to promote and encourage this sort of race and by trying to turn it into an ESport. The world first guilds go into a huuuuuuuge amount of gold debt (three or four hundred million gold) racing to compete and they repay this through various methods but also through shady real money transactions or they purchase a WoW token from the WoW store and sell it in the in game auction house for gold. The top couple of guilds go into a gold debt that's equivalent to about 20 thousand dollars easily and have to do all sorts of activities to pay it back. You can't run a top guild in WoW without being involved in real money transactions. Then there's other things like mythic plus and raider io just promoting a really elitist atmosphere in the game imo. I feel like WoW's mechanics promote this sort of racing, you go to FFXIV and it's nowhere near as prevalent.
So probably a combination. I guess it would depend.
I mean I agree with you but who are we to tell other gamers what they can and cannot buy? Aren't mp games meant to be enjoyed to? If that was the main factor then what's the justification for having time savers in mp games?
And Odyssey is one of the games I referenced above. Least grind I've ever experienced in a game, at least on the first PT. As to your point about having to level up yourself to take on challenges this is a fairly common feature. Games like HZD or, my favorite example Inquisition, includes level markers and very challenging fights. The best example was there was multiple areas of the Hinterlands, the very first level which was almost ten levels higher then a new player. And I was almost had an entire party wipe when I accidentally stumbled upon the dragon there. Only one party member survived the first attack. Meanwhile all those bosses in Odyssey you could pretty much build your character to one shot them with enough skills, gear, and levels. Something you can't even do in Inquisition.
I'm not telling people what to spend their money on. Everyone should be capable of taking care of their own finances. My issue is with devs (or publishers making devs) cripple their systems in order to make the experience of a game so unenjoyable that people would rather pay more money to actually not play those games.
Since you brought DAI as an example, your experience with the dragon in the Hinterlands isn't what I'm talking about. The keyword in your post is you "accidentally" stumbled upon it when you were exploring. You weren't supposed to be there based on what the story progression was at that point in time. What I'm talking about are moments when you actually have to be somewhere and do something but it's more difficult than it needs to be (and that difficulty isn't a standard for the game like a Soulsbourne game) because you didn't grind or didn't get an XP boost. If you were supposed to fight that dragon right then and there, got wiped (not because you're bad at video games) despite the story and progression being very clear that you should be able to clear that fight, it would be very frustrating to just not be able to clear it unless you did a few more hours of grinding or bought an exp boost from the start to over level the fight. To be clear, I'm not talking about there should be no challenge, I'm referring to the challenge being reasonable for your progression. If I'm level 10 and fight a level 12 boss, that's fine. If I'm level 10 but have to fight a level 20 boss because the game progression didn't account for endless grind or an XP boost, that's not fine. The only way that would be fine is if I purposefully went to or accidentally stumbled upon that level 20 boss when I wasn't actually supposed to. In that case, I get my just deserts and come back when I'm supposed to.
River mentioned what WoW does, I can talk a bit about FF14. Everyone I know who bought a booster/skip gave up on the game after a week or two. That's the equivalent of buying a SP game, paying some extra money to skip everything, doing the final boss fight, then saying good bye to the game. Why would anyone do that? There's obviously other factors here, like wanting to do endgame stuff and not caring about the leveling experience or the story, and if Square Enix wasn't perfectly happy with getting people's money like this, they wouldn't be selling those boosts. But FF14 is closer to a SP game than other MMOs, it's very similar to SWToR, the story you do alone, it has solo duties, there's a system in the last 2 expansions that allows you to do critpath dungeons with NPCs instead of other players and they're introducing a similar system retroactively for the previous expansions starting with patch 6.1 to allow a better solo experience. There's also no official race to world first, no real money transactions (Square are constantly on the lookout for anything of this sort), it's very easy (at this point in time) to level 2 separate classes by doing only the main story without any sidequests, they're streamlining the quests for 2.0 even further with patch 6.1, there's a lot that they've done in the past and are continuing to do to improve people's experience while playing the game and to show that they value people's time.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust Life's a b***h and beer's a must
I mean I agree with you but who are we to tell other gamers what they can and cannot buy? Aren't mp games meant to be enjoyed to? If that was the main factor then what's the justification for having time savers in mp games?
And Odyssey is one of the games I referenced above. Least grind I've ever experienced in a game, at least on the first PT. As to your point about having to level up yourself to take on challenges this is a fairly common feature. Games like HZD or, my favorite example Inquisition, includes level markers and very challenging fights. The best example was there was multiple areas of the Hinterlands, the very first level which was almost ten levels higher then a new player. And I was almost had an entire party wipe when I accidentally stumbled upon the dragon there. Only one party member survived the first attack. Meanwhile all those bosses in Odyssey you could pretty much build your character to one shot them with enough skills, gear, and levels. Something you can't even do in Inquisition.
I'm not telling people what to spend their money on. Everyone should be capable of taking care of their own finances. My issue is with devs (or publishers making devs) cripple their systems in order to make the experience of a game so unenjoyable that people would rather pay more money to actually not play those games.
Since you brought DAI as an example, your experience with the dragon in the Hinterlands isn't what I'm talking about. The keyword in your post is you "accidentally" stumbled upon it when you were exploring. You weren't supposed to be there based on what the story progression was at that point in time. What I'm talking about are moments when you actually have to be somewhere and do something but it's more difficult than it needs to be (and that difficulty isn't a standard for the game like a Soulsbourne game) because you didn't grind or didn't get an XP boost. If you were supposed to fight that dragon right then and there, got wiped (not because you're bad at video games) despite the story and progression being very clear that you should be able to clear that fight, it would be very frustrating to just not be able to clear it unless you did a few more hours of grinding or bought an exp boost from the start to over level the fight. To be clear, I'm not talking about there should be no challenge, I'm referring to the challenge being reasonable for your progression. If I'm level 10 and fight a level 12 boss, that's fine. If I'm level 10 but have to fight a level 20 boss because the game progression didn't account for endless grind or an XP boost, that's not fine. The only way that would be fine is if I purposefully went to or accidentally stumbled upon that level 20 boss when I wasn't actually supposed to. In that case, I get my just deserts and come back when I'm supposed to.
River mentioned what WoW does, I can talk a bit about FF14. Everyone I know who bought a booster/skip gave up on the game after a week or two. That's the equivalent of buying a SP game, paying some extra money to skip everything, doing the final boss fight, then saying good bye to the game. Why would anyone do that? There's obviously other factors here, like wanting to do endgame stuff and not caring about the leveling experience or the story, and if Square Enix wasn't perfectly happy with getting people's money like this, they wouldn't be selling those boosts. But FF14 is closer to a SP game than other MMOs, it's very similar to SWToR, the story you do alone, it has solo duties, there's a system in the last 2 expansions that allows you to do critpath dungeons with NPCs instead of other players and they're introducing a similar system retroactively for the previous expansions starting with patch 6.1 to allow a better solo experience. There's also no official race to world first, no real money transactions (Square are constantly on the lookout for anything of this sort), it's very easy (at this point in time) to level 2 separate classes by doing only the main story without any sidequests, they're streamlining the quests for 2.0 even further with patch 6.1, there's a lot that they've done in the past and are continuing to do to improve people's experience while playing the game and to show that they value people's time.
There's two seperate levels here:
1. It sounds like the issue you are talking about is one of balance more then anything and games and game devs being able to properly balance their game, not only the moment to moment gameplay and combat encounters but the overall game as a whole, and the experience. And games can be improperly balanced all over the place seperate from their status and their inclusion of MTXs. As an example, though in the exact opposite direction, just finished Far Cry 6 a little while ago and the game was so poorly balanced...it was so stuffed to the brim with side content...that much of it became unneccessary to do. I was already well above the max level I needed to get anything, all my weapons that I wanted was upgraded so I didn't have to grind for resources...but yet there was a lot of different tressure hunts and bases which still needed to be cleared. But in the end, going back to a previous point, and to your story about FF 14 game devs have zero reason to intentionally make their game boring for grind. That'd be stupid. (not saying there aren't people that stupid just saying that time savers shouldn't be treated as an automatic assumption)
2. As for your counter story with DAI I fail to see that there is a distinction in there, especially since most games that having levelling include at least some level of grind in order to level up your character to take on final challenges. But more specifically, to the two examples I brought up earlier...in HZD on my first play through there were several times throughout the main quest that the next quest was much farther above my level. This forced me to partake in the side content or hunt down machines and effectively grind through the really annoying machine fights in order to progress the story. Same thing with DAI. When you first start the game to get to the first actual story quests you need to grind for A. level. B. power and C, at least if you artake in the crafting system...resources. These are three things that often makes it impossible or difficult to deal with any future quests and advance the story. Indeed without the right amount of power it is actually impossible to advance the story uuntil you meet those requirements. (Though yes those levels are often quite easy to obtain). And neither DAI nor HZD had the kind of 'time saver' MTXs in them and both required a significant amount of grind to advance. Though if you were grinding through a lot of the side content there is a breaking point in DAI when the final battle with Cory becomes a cake walk.
Patreon (for my writing, posting chapters of my novel)
Christian Dailey @christiandailey Last day at BioWare. Thank you to my friends and teammates for being amazing people with crazy talent, making some crazy cool games. #Anthem and #DragonAge please follow my friends @corinnebusche @eplerjc @macwalterslives for all the latest and greatest 💜 Cheering for you... 💜
Blair Thorburn @oiblair My day to day hasn't involved much direct interaction with Christian, but over the last few years that I've been with BioWare, his positive impact has been hard to miss.
I've never met another EP like him in 13 years, and I wish I had.
Thank you for setting us up so well 🙌🏻
Corinne Busche 🏳️⚧️ @corinnebusche I want to offer the most heartfelt thank you to @christiandailey. What you may not realize is his impact in championing the single player #DragonAge you’ve been asking for, and allowing us to build a team focused on safety, creativity, and respect.
Crystal McCord @mrscmccord Milestone planning + end of year feedback reviews + end of year self summary + Women’s History Month event planning + Coverage for sick team Leads = the absolute most difficult last two weeks. Can I sleep for the next two weeks please? #gamedev #production
Okay, to be fair this time last year we were finaling the Mass Effect Legendary Edition. That was difficult but in an entirely different way!
Crystal McCord @mrscmccord Milestone planning + end of year feedback reviews + end of year self summary + Women’s History Month event planning + Coverage for sick team Leads = the absolute most difficult last two weeks. Can I sleep for the next two weeks please? #gamedev #production
Okay, to be fair this time last year we were finaling the Mass Effect Legendary Edition. That was difficult but in an entirely different way!
awe:(
Patreon (for my writing, posting chapters of my novel)
It's a surprise to me that Christian Dailey was the one championing SP. I thought he would prefer developing MP.
I'm not sure its that much of a surprise to me or at least would be indicitive. Sometimes you make the game you are assigned to make by the other people around you or by your superiors and you just have to soldier on. Either at BioWare or EA. Now I'm not saying that anyone who was leaving was responsible for or pushing for the game to be MP but it is also telling that when he came on, shortly afterwards, suddenly DA 4 was announced to be SP. It is likely, if nothing else, he was apart of that decision.
Patreon (for my writing, posting chapters of my novel)
1. It sounds like the issue you are talking about is one of balance more then anything and games and game devs being able to properly balance their game, not only the moment to moment gameplay and combat encounters but the overall game as a whole, and the experience. And games can be improperly balanced all over the place seperate from their status and their inclusion of MTXs. As an example, though in the exact opposite direction, just finished Far Cry 6 a little while ago and the game was so poorly balanced...it was so stuffed to the brim with side content...that much of it became unneccessary to do. I was already well above the max level I needed to get anything, all my weapons that I wanted was upgraded so I didn't have to grind for resources...but yet there was a lot of different tressure hunts and bases which still needed to be cleared. But in the end, going back to a previous point, and to your story about FF 14 game devs have zero reason to intentionally make their game boring for grind. That'd be stupid. (not saying there aren't people that stupid just saying that time savers shouldn't be treated as an automatic assumption)
2. As for your counter story with DAI I fail to see that there is a distinction in there, especially since most games that having levelling include at least some level of grind in order to level up your character to take on final challenges. But more specifically, to the two examples I brought up earlier...in HZD on my first play through there were several times throughout the main quest that the next quest was much farther above my level. This forced me to partake in the side content or hunt down machines and effectively grind through the really annoying machine fights in order to progress the story. Same thing with DAI. When you first start the game to get to the first actual story quests you need to grind for A. level. B. power and C, at least if you artake in the crafting system...resources. These are three things that often makes it impossible or difficult to deal with any future quests and advance the story. Indeed without the right amount of power it is actually impossible to advance the story uuntil you meet those requirements. (Though yes those levels are often quite easy to obtain). And neither DAI nor HZD had the kind of 'time saver' MTXs in them and both required a significant amount of grind to advance. Though if you were grinding through a lot of the side content there is a breaking point in DAI when the final battle with Cory becomes a cake walk.
Everything you just said is what I've been saying I have issues with, too. Not just store bought boosts and time savers, but grinding with extra activities to the point that playing the game gets tedious and unfun. I'm aware a certain level of grind exist in any game, either in random mobs in the world or just side quests, but there's a difference between doing side content that is interesting and fun even though it's on the side, and content meant to eat up your time with the only added value being that you get more XP numbers. Of course it's a balance issue, grind exists because the progression systems aren't balanced properly. If a company is particularly scummy *cough* Ubisoft *cough* they won't add MTX at first to avoid the initial bad publicity, then add those MTX later on, saying stuff like "our player base is asking for these because they just want to get over the tedium of leveling and simply progress and see the story", giving a solution to a problem they themselves created because the game they made is tedious on purpose, but the somehow they act like saviors.
DAI isn't any better, even though "technically" you can get everything in game, if you just "diligently grind" (to borrow a meme-d declaration from Blizzard). I haven't grinded for materials and gold in DAI since my second playthrough, I just use cheats. Even though there are 2 options of getting materials, either picking stuff up yourself on the overworld or having your advisors do it through the war table, the systems of getting those things is unfun and boring, and in the case of the war table, ineffective. Doing it yourself extends your playtime doing stuff that maybe you don't particularly enjoy because it's just picking up flowers and rocks instead of interacting with the story in a story driven game, while the war table gives you so few materials it's a waste of time to do it through there so you may as well not interact with that option at all and just do it yourself in the overworld anyway.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust Life's a b***h and beer's a must
1. It sounds like the issue you are talking about is one of balance more then anything and games and game devs being able to properly balance their game, not only the moment to moment gameplay and combat encounters but the overall game as a whole, and the experience. And games can be improperly balanced all over the place seperate from their status and their inclusion of MTXs. As an example, though in the exact opposite direction, just finished Far Cry 6 a little while ago and the game was so poorly balanced...it was so stuffed to the brim with side content...that much of it became unneccessary to do. I was already well above the max level I needed to get anything, all my weapons that I wanted was upgraded so I didn't have to grind for resources...but yet there was a lot of different tressure hunts and bases which still needed to be cleared. But in the end, going back to a previous point, and to your story about FF 14 game devs have zero reason to intentionally make their game boring for grind. That'd be stupid. (not saying there aren't people that stupid just saying that time savers shouldn't be treated as an automatic assumption)
2. As for your counter story with DAI I fail to see that there is a distinction in there, especially since most games that having levelling include at least some level of grind in order to level up your character to take on final challenges. But more specifically, to the two examples I brought up earlier...in HZD on my first play through there were several times throughout the main quest that the next quest was much farther above my level. This forced me to partake in the side content or hunt down machines and effectively grind through the really annoying machine fights in order to progress the story. Same thing with DAI. When you first start the game to get to the first actual story quests you need to grind for A. level. B. power and C, at least if you artake in the crafting system...resources. These are three things that often makes it impossible or difficult to deal with any future quests and advance the story. Indeed without the right amount of power it is actually impossible to advance the story uuntil you meet those requirements. (Though yes those levels are often quite easy to obtain). And neither DAI nor HZD had the kind of 'time saver' MTXs in them and both required a significant amount of grind to advance. Though if you were grinding through a lot of the side content there is a breaking point in DAI when the final battle with Cory becomes a cake walk.
Everything you just said is what I've been saying I have issues with, too. Not just store bought boosts and time savers, but grinding with extra activities to the point that playing the game gets tedious and unfun. I'm aware a certain level of grind exist in any game, either in random mobs in the world or just side quests, but there's a difference between doing side content that is interesting and fun even though it's on the side, and content meant to eat up your time with the only added value being that you get more XP numbers. Of course it's a balance issue, grind exists because the progression systems aren't balanced properly. If a company is particularly scummy *cough* Ubisoft *cough* they won't add MTX at first to avoid the initial bad publicity, then add those MTX later on, saying stuff like "our player base is asking for these because they just want to get over the tedium of leveling and simply progress and see the story", giving a solution to a problem they themselves created because the game they made is tedious on purpose, but the somehow they act like saviors.
DAI isn't any better, even though "technically" you can get everything in game, if you just "diligently grind" (to borrow a meme-d declaration from Blizzard). I haven't grinded for materials and gold in DAI since my second playthrough, I just use cheats. Even though there are 2 options of getting materials, either picking stuff up yourself on the overworld or having your advisors do it through the war table, the systems of getting those things is unfun and boring, and in the case of the war table, ineffective. Doing it yourself extends your playtime doing stuff that maybe you don't particularly enjoy because it's just picking up flowers and rocks instead of interacting with the story in a story driven game, while the war table gives you so few materials it's a waste of time to do it through there so you may as well not interact with that option at all and just do it yourself in the overworld anyway.
The issue here is that you have been saying this is somehow worse in games with time savers where my point is that this is a problem with bad game design regardless of whether they have time savers or not.
Also it makes a lot of sense to add different MTXs, including Time savers, to your games as their live service/ post launch content progresses or the game just generally evolves and changes. Nothing scummy about it there.
Patreon (for my writing, posting chapters of my novel)
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition PSN: InquisitorBunny Prime Posts: 430 Prime Likes: 1114 Posts: 2,646 Likes: 10,071
All hail Christian for saving such an important part of the Dragon Age experience! A multiplayer Dragon Age might have killed off my interest in the series completely...
"He is the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on... He has got huge, sharp -- eh -- he can leap about -- look at the bones!"
The issue here is that you have been saying this is somehow worse in games with time savers where my point is that this is a problem with bad game design regardless of whether they have time savers or not.
Also it makes a lot of sense to add different MTXs, including Time savers, to your games as their live service/ post launch content progresses or the game just generally evolves and changes. Nothing scummy about it there.
It is worse because they nickle and dime you for the issue, on top of wasting your time. An issue that, again, they themselves created, in order to slowly break down your patience. And it is in fact very scummy. Time savers and exp boosts make sense when the game progresses? I'll point back to my story about FF14, people who stopped playing soon after they got those boosts. Also, let's ask WoW players how much they appreciate an expansion booting them out into the next one once they reach a certain level, regardless of whether or not they finished the story, and what impact that has on their understanding of events and on their gaming experience. It just looks like you don't understand or don't care about how this is a bad thing for game design and for consumer practices, even though you'll acknowledge the grind in a game that annoyed you but not look at the larger picture, even going so far as saying stuff like "more power to them" for charging for stuff like this. Mobile games, at first, had such potential for interesting and imaginative ways to propel gaming into the future. Now they're 90% just MTX fueled time syncs that barely anyone takes seriously because of scummy business practices. What else can I say except happy gaming.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust Life's a b***h and beer's a must