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

[/div][/quote]

I wonder what the reasoning behind giving everyone the head-body-ratio of a 12-year old was. The old golden ration is a body that's 7.5 heads tall, up to 9 for more heroic types.

-I feel that we were robbed of a game where we would take on the Dread Wolf as the villain; now we have to contend with the remaining Evanuris while depending on Solas’ hand-me-downs. What was the point of all that build-up with the lyrium idol? I’m also disappointed that they’ve linked the Old Gods and darkspawn to the Evanuris and reduced the threat posed by the former.

-The dialogue feels wooden (which even some previewers noted) and the voice acting for some characters is stiff (cough cough Neve Gallus).

-None of the enemies resemble their previous incarnations and have not been improved upon. The darkspawn in particular look comical.

-The reworked combat system has robbed Dragon Age of any identity it had. Every Rook is now just a different flavour of mage and you can no longer properly control companions.

-The removal of the three dark specializations (assassins, reaver and blood mage), as well as the general vibe of Rook’s dialogue in the previews, suggest BioWare only wants you to play as a purely heroic character. Even DAI allowed the Inquisitor some opportunities to be an asshole.

-The Qunari now look too human-like, which is spurring all the complaints about Qunari foreheads. I also noticed from the Skill Up preview suggests that the Antaam have been re-designed and given rather goofy bucket helmets instead of their formidable look in DA2.

-None of the companions appeal to me personally as romance options. In fact, I would happily not recruit many of them, but that is reportedly not an option.

Have you seen the fetishization of that tentacled aberration, the Emperor, by many of BG3's fans?  Let's just say some people have questionable tastes...

I don’t really care about judging others’ preferences, but even if I’m not attracted to men, I can see the appeal of an older, gentleman-like man compared to an aberration.

Is that in regards of their personalities? 

Eh, after all the revelations at the end of Inquisition and Trespasser, I can see the appeal of doing a playthrough to develop a tragic romance, at least. It's not really the same, but it shares some resemblance, appeal-wise, to making a tragedy-focused run in the ME trilogy, starting from Colonist/Sole Survivor for the background to losing loved ones and friends across the other games.

I actually have been pleasantly surprised by most of the dialogue so far. Although I am more worried about Neve than I was previously. (I thought she was fine in initial vertical slice, this has changed as I hear more.) However, what does annoy me about dialogue is constant need to intertwine it with action set pieces. I just want the game to feel okay with slowing down.

Honestly though, this game coming out and being competent feels like a miracle I barely dared to dream of, so it’s hard for me to go too hard on it.

Removal of playable companions. Reduction of companions from 3 to 2.

Take away the ability wheel, the combat is like MEA except with swords.

The overkill on the flashy colors. when in combat.

Inq not being playable. Meaning he/she will likely not have the opportunity to have the killing blow when facing chuckles 

I really don’t get why people think turn based games don’t sell well. Pokemon, Dragon Quest, Persona—all games with amazing sales. Larian’s DOS 2 was easily the best selling crpg that came out around that time, and it wasn’t close. Not to mention 5e is a juggernaut IP right now. It really isn’t hard to see why it was successful.

BioWare does not make turn based games, and I’m not sure how well frostbite engine supports it anyway. BG3 engine is built off bones of DOS engine and takes advantage of vertical maps and turn based systems in similar fashion. It has almost nothing in common with Bg1 and 2 combat systems beyond both falling under DND umbrella.

I actually listened to that Epler interview earlier today and had the same reaction as you. I wonder if they were watching too much Our Flag Means Death when they came up with LoF, haha.