Dragon Age The Veilguard Criticism Thread (formerly Skepticism Thread) [Spoilers]

I can't make use of strategy, when enemies materialize out of thin air and potentially one shot my party members. It's not fun. It's anything but fun. In fact, it is the exact opposite of fun. It is the fun singularity, a black hole that sucks all the fun out of everything.

Since I was asked to express my reservations, by LukeBarrett and I do have a gameplay reservation, I think that the switch to more action based combat has been a huge mistake for the franchise. While Bioware is reserved from fully committing to either side, their combat system has suffered, when the DA:O one was great and could be improved with some tweaking. On the other hand, I don't understand this commitment to the middle ground, that suffers from the worst aspects of the genres, not being skill based enough and not promoting any thought being put into tactics. And I wish I could condone the shift to full on action, there are other games that do the action part far better, with a wide plethora of weapons at their disposal. If you want to turn it into Dynasty Warriors, do it, that's fine, but you'd also have to compete with the established Dynasty Warriors and the impossible number of spinoffs it has produced. And then that leaves us with the tactical combat, which I really do enjoy the RTwP aspect of DA:O. On that front, Firaxis, with the X-Com series and Larian with the Divinity games and now with Baldur's Gate 3, officially stepping into what once was Bioware territory, have shown that there is a market for that, a huge, untapped one, with great earnings, both in reputation and market good will, but also financial. I don't understand why Bioware would recede from that market segment and just hand it to the competition. Especially when Bioware could have their cake and eat it, too, with Mass Effect being the action franchise and Dragon Age the more tactical one. Just look how big Larian has got over the past decade, by producing good TBS RPGs, with a very superficial and mostly tacky narrative in their games.

And I understand that people can say "RTwP or TBS combat is the way of the past". If the way of the past is so incredibly successful today, that propels a mediocre studio to greatness, maybe these people shouldn't be listened to. And I'm sorry, but I've yet to see the fruits of that compromise to more action oriented combat.

Given the whole basis of RPG combat (dice rolls), it seems silly to claim that randomness in other areas of combat can't be accommodated for.

For as much as I know some here would say it was undeserved, DA:I was one of BioWares best selling games

For as much as I know some here would say it was undeserved, DA:I was one of BioWares best selling games. While - yes - Luke did inform us that the combat was kinda muddled in a lack of identity, the more action-centered focus of the gameplay is likely seen as a step in the right direction (for BioWare) BECAUSE of how well DA:I sold. This has probably given BioWare credence to continue said Action RPG mechanics.

I've never been quite sure whether DAI is truly the best-selling in terms of total sales, or just sold the most pre-orders. I believe the official statements about that had to do with pre-orders.

In any case - AFAIK, DAMP sort of laid an egg. I got the feeling that a lot of DAI owners gave it a whirl and then backed away slowly cuz they didn't like it very much. At one point, BioWare was offering free copies of DAI (licensed for MP and I think some trial quest), presumably to increase the MP player base.

If DAMP's reception is any indication of how well-received DAI's combat was (and it might not be), well... back to the old drawing board, eh?