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

Liam was hot garbage. Holy shit. He made me miss Jacob.

The continued degeneration of dragon age magic system I feel is a example of the direction the series was heading. My Canon playthrough as a mage was on DA2 and I was looking forward to the fact going to Tevinter we were possibly going to get the most robust magic system we have seen in the game. But the direction the game is headed seems to careless about actual cultural connection or the world previously build to a large degree outside of the main conflict.

Origins has the most extensive magic system in the game setting the foundation for the 4 schools of Magic outside of specilizations. DA2 kept those schools to a degree but adjusted it as to note have 4 different glyph or hex options which is fine. Then Inqusition came and mages were only stuck to the Primal spellbook and dabbled a little into Spirit, with Specilizations such as Necromancer and Rift Mage gaining pieces of other spells with the Haste spell being a ultimate instead of a normal spell.

Now Veilguard while giving mages a second melee weapon and playstyle was a plus the spell book feels even more lackluster then all 3 games. They even tried to sneakly mention during their demo how our players wanted healing magic back but gave it to our parry members. Which to me was a slap on the face to the players request of the Creation tree back which had more then just health healing or some form of Spirit Healer. We Basically have 2 spells of each of the 3 elements and 1 specilization spell which favors a element also.

Elemental weapons use to be a option because you could build your weapons to specilize in other things. But it seems they relied heavier on elements this Dragon Age game as their core gameplay mechanic especially on harder difficulties. So every class will fall into some form of elemental build anyway making the elemental only mages feel even more lackluster. Walking Bomb, Mana Clash, Crushing Prison, Haste, Paralyze, Death Cloud, Hexs and Glyphs could have all made their way into this game to give mages a more diverse experience. I feel like all the other classes did somewhat get enhanced warriors especially and rogues to a degree too actually being able to mimic Leliana from the Ashes Trailer for Origins. But if the series moves forward I don't want them to take steps back to compensate because it's a easier route.

The easy route is to make the high dps mage that dashes everywhere. But in a fantasy rpg you can't look at your mages being the best when your magic system is bare bones. Even with a limit selection of skills to select that's still no excuse on why their is more excuses made to dumb down the magic system vs improve upon it. Improving Magic in Dragon Age takes more then just giving mages mobility. In Origins I could combo my own spells putting a Death Cloud on top of my Dex Hex making a Spell Combo called Entrophic Death, and this was all in game. So even their mention our use of team combos isn't something new to the serious it's just now being dumbed down repackaged and heavily relied on even more back in a Mass Effect way and not a Dragon Age way.

I just want the series to get better I'm not even asking for it to go back to it'd Origins format I'm fine with a series evolving but I want actual evolution that elevates the series by building upon foundations and systems that worked. I don't want pieces of Blood Magic and Necromancer scrapped together to make a Death Caller. Blood Magic is as unique ro the Dragon Age series as being a Grey Warden is. One of the few if not only RPG that just straight up let's you play as a Blood Mage. Instead of being afraid to tackle the narrative around it and actually flex their writing skills to make it work in the story they are writing it seems they would rather continue to take the easy route. And in the long run that route doesn't seem like it'll be as fruitful.