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

I'll give you that the tadpole usage was disappointing, yes. I honestly thought it would have a major impact, resisting temptation had no payoff whatsoever. Larian let's you course correct and do the right thing at the literal last minute in BG3. One can absolutely criticize that.

No game is perfect. But I hope you're not suggesting DAV is a better roleplaying experience than BG3 or even close. Play dark urge and romance and ruin Shadowheart and tell me it's not a completely different experience than playing a morally upright character. Pushing SH to the dark side completely is one of the most fucked up heart breaking things I've ever been able to do. A truly memorable romance with a super messed up love scene entirely different from her good path.

I even went Selunite Paladin (modded to let us pick deity as Paladin). 

As someone who played BG3 from the first day of early access,the Larian practice of changing their story based on player feedback is not as good as it seems at first glance. Quite the opposite

I don't think they are even comparable. One is a relative sandbox with a silent protagonist and the other has a more rigid protagonist with a predefined characterization.

BioWare games have never been sandboxes in my experience. The closest was possibly DAO but unlike BG3 the evil choices typically were more psychotic than justified and arguably immersion breaking when taken as a whole. I did enjoy the murder knife playthrough though.

So you can't really compare them. They're different experiences.

Larian listened too much to fans. Halsin turned into hollow fan service. Shadowheart was better in early access...she needed less frustrating ways for her to open up but she's far too friendly in the release version. All companions even the evil ones can be turned into teddy bears who see the light.(minus Minthara) Not a fan of that either. Poor Wyll, Myzora steals the show.
The added epilogue was ubber fan service and bored me to tears.

But at the end of the day there's such a breadth of good interesting content in BG3..it's understood a big RPGs going to have flaws. Plots that don't quite land, characters that aren't that interesting etc..

But choices do matter you can end up ruining the world. Or saving it.

Why do I agree with everything you say always? Are you secretly me?

So why are you getting your panties in a twist for then?

Just enjoy the game and let others grumble about BG3 feeling more like a spiritual successor to DAO than DAV. You don't have to agree. Hell, DAO isn't even my favorite DA game.

I used to prefer BioWare's unique narrative style over any other studio for a long time. Every studio has a different style that cannot be replicated. Now I don't anymore. If you still do then I envy you in a way.

You're completely wrong about Astarion, you can totally make him friendly even if he doesn't bite you. Moreover, the "I can't justify not staking him" argument is... I'll put it this way, you criticise the fact there is an evil character in the game, not its quality, which is unfair since this character is still well written, and definitely better written than anything in the Veilguard by far.

Agree when it comes to Halsin, definitely shouldn't be a companion.

Minthara is completely fine I don't understand your criticism. She lacks content, but what is there is good.

Karlach is not for me, but again, better written than anything in the Veilguard.

There's also Minsc and Jaheira which while having much less content, what was there was superb actually

I loved Shadowheart before they ruined her lmao

Oh I'm not shaming people for liking BG3 more than DAVG. Sorry if it came off that way. I love BG3 too. Top 10 game of all time for me.

I have a lot of issues with DAVG. You roleplay as Link for some reason, smashing a lot of pots to get behind hidden chests. The curated mission paths are great but then there's a chest in a non-returnable area and the loot goblin in me wants it so it breaks immersion when we're supposedly in a rush, etc.

What bothers me is seeing people being forgiving about the same things they are critical about towards DAVG.

I played Oath of Devotion and had a lot of cool lines but I also had to make some pretty out of character things at times at launch. I can't even pick a deity though which sucks as it's right there in the cutting room floor. Just enable it!

BG3's performance issues at launch were atrocious. Act 3 was unplayable. A lot of quests are poorly done compared to DAVGs which are more straightforward (lol Oskar) Combat is just straight up D&D (which is fine but they didn't innovate much) and what they did innovate tends to suck and break game balance (I had to download a full action shove mod cause lmao). A lot of item combos were just trash or traps. You lose loot if you shove targets which sucks. Larian continues to shove terrain damage everywhere and it has no place in a DnD game. 

Anyway not going on a full diatribe, but my point is that it's a good game despite the flaws. People just won't extend the same grace to DAVG, and I just don't get it.

I'll leave you guys to it.

I don't really have anything bad to say about full game Wyll, but I still think early access Wyll was more interesting and unique. I think the only real problem with EA Wyll was that having a goblin as a nemesis was a bit lame