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

Well yes it's reactivity, but it's still imo a good example of how gruesome the player is allowed to get in comparison to the average morality game if they choose to. I mean we already see Bioware is currently eschewing Blood Magic specializations. Also there are - especially if you know 5e's lore - very meaningful reasons for why these decisions exist. 

BG3 has a morality alignment system, so no disagreements there with Dragon Age -which draws alot of inspiration from D and D also- and I still have certain choices from the first game etched into my mind, especially regarding Redcliffe. I mentioned those things moreso because they are narrative angles the player can actively choose to engage themselves and aren't for the most part restricted or judged for how they respond to them or simply existing for cruelty's sake or spectacle. Just like a D and D campaign, they're an organic part of the story that you are specifically creating for those characters, especially Origin ones. Even the final solutions have important variations that can be unique to the character one is playing that extend beyond binary decisions and... primary color palettes lol. 


Speaking of BW's depiction I actually do remember there was a lot of discourse about it re: Dorian and Bull's situation based on how their relationship was handled if they began dating or the BDSM discourse as the writers did sorta mess up re: issues of consent with the player's first encounter with Bull. Then the issue with Femshep and James in one of the Citadel party resolutions.

That said, I honestly wish they were consistently brazen when it came to creative decisions personally. I guess we'll see once we actually get into the game narrative re: DAV since we still have only the trailers and whatever content spoilers they drop to work with. 

I’ve played both pathfinder games and all I’ll say is that I politely disagree. I don’t think paizo writes evil in a very compelling manner.

Edit: I’ll add that having more of something doesn’t necessarily equate to higher quality. Tyranny is a shorter game, but I found its main beats more emotional and impactful compared to Pathfinder. But that’s just me, to be fair.

Well your article says it: mutilation. Those old timey surgeries wouldn't leave neat decorative scars, they would give you massive and painful scarring. As a matter of fact, keloids are still a big problem with this kind of surgery. I doubt breast cancer survivors will feel represented with the CC option because a) I've only seen it for male bodies, the operations often just remove one breast, not both and c) I doubt many women would even want to have this facet of their experience expressed in their game avatars.



Not very thicc. You can find pictures on Twitter with the slider up to 100%. I'm not exactly a picture of femininity but even I am more ...er filled out than that. Has the female form become offensive all of a sudden?



Yeah, how dare we assume messaging when the main dev is a self proclaimed queerosexual gendermancer XD

Yes I don't like how 'safe' all the companions feel.

I almost NEVER recruit all available companions in RPG games.  In 20 playthroughs of the first three Dragon Age games not once did I recruit everyone . . . because I was roleplaying a character with a specific personality and there are always a couple companions that it doesn't make logical sense to recruit. 

We appear to be required to recruit everyone in Veilguard . . . and either one or two will be forced into my team even though I would rather not have them . . . or all the companions will be so 'safe' that they will feel boring. 

I return to find that gamers remain bothered that 1.) something wasn't about them for a whole second 2.) options they're not forced to use 3.) "real men" and hypotheticals of Dorian caring whether his partner has a penis or not

And the sound of crickets from certain people. "Offensive interpretation" indeed.

OT: I know some people are tired of seeing it, but as someone who was planning on playing one, Qunari are still looking like low budget Star Trek aliens. To the surprise of no one who was told "wait for the CC, it's not cool to judge based on what we've seen, guys ". I've seen some presets that do include some ridges but it's still looking like an uphill battle to make them look less like that.

I may never find out if my HoF was successful in finding a cure for the taint? Noooooooo!

And yet despite the Mass Effect franchise being a case study of risks and at times very strange narrative choices (ME2, parts of ME3, Andromeda's entire premise, etc) - Bioware seems determined to Mass Effect-ify Dragon Age and brute forcing the design philosophy of that game onto DA4. (Removing the companions from 3 to 2, removing the ability to control them, nerfing/removing healing, etc etc).

There are so many bizarre design choices for this game and I have no idea who Bioware imagines the target demographic for DA4 to be.

So?  What does that have to do with anything?  It wasn't a paying product being forced on anyone.  It was there to be picked up by those who wanted it and those who didn't could simply have ignored it.  Isn't that your entire argument about that silly top surgery slider?

The Nexus used to be be a hosting platform, not a court of moral justice. But like the Twatter, before Elon cleaned the place out, they've forgotten they shouldn't be anything more then a public utility, without personal bias interfering in its management.

I'm sorry you feel that way but quite frankly, nobody asked you to spill your guts. I have plenty of optical shortcomings but why would I want to make my character as ugly as me if I don't have to? I wear glasses, I would not make a character that has them. Not everyone expects a game character to be a 1 to 1 copy of ourselves. I'm happy I don't have to be myself when I play.

But that's the thing- it is a fictional fantasy world, and so there are a million perfectly plausible reasons one could come up with to make it fit. Unless you're determined to find it out of place, then you can sort of headcanon that too. 

But its like any customization option that you don't personally care about- it doesn't harm your experience in any way if you aren't interested in it, you can just, you know, not use it. And other people obviously find it important- people obviously care about representation, and there's nothing to lose by including it. So its probably the single silliest thing for people to be upset about. And holy smokes are there a lot of precious people out there upset at the tiniest whiff of any sort of trans representation. And if that's where you're at socially/politically, fine, but then why are you buying games from a developer whose calling card is inclusivity and representation? Its like buying Call of Duty games and complaining about the fact that they are violent. 

Not a Mass Effect fan, but my impression was that the problem with the ending of ME3 didn’t lie in it being “safe” (ie. sanitized and inoffensive). The problem was that it was unfulfilling and rushed.