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

Yes what we've seen of the writing has not impressed me in any way. It sounds so bland. Even the voice acting sounds bad which was never the case in previous games, including most of MEA. No idea what's up with Neve's voice actress but she sounds incredible flat and bored. Even Ali Hillis, whom I adore, sounds uninspired. But granted, I heard like 3 lines for her. Still.

BG3 is gay AF and that's fine because the writing is great. Being super gay/progressive AND well written is not mutually exclusive. See previous BioWare games. The world reactivity is off the charts in BG3. Larian wrote variables that most players will never experience. Why? Because they actually care and appreciate their hardcore fans who will see these variables and be delighted.

There is no point in replaying as often as people used to if the choices don't carry over. Sure, you can have serious impacts on stuff happening in the game itself. And that is important. But it's the little things that are so important for immersion and feeling like this is the continuation of YOUR choices. I DO want to see or at least hear about Kieran. Obviously , since he doesn't always exist, they couldn't do anything interesting with him, which is the biggest disappointment of the franchise for me. So many choices that couldn't matter. So I do understand why the devs are tired of these variables that don't matter. But completely ditching what made their games special is so stupid. Imo the only good way to fix this narrative mess is to carry over again but in the future stop making quantum characters. Don't let people make choices that seem so important only for them to not matter because it's not canon. Resolve those diverging narratives within the current game. Ridding themselves of all these variables and trying to hide it and then trying to justify it with new players is a really bad look.

Just one throwaway line is better than nothing to me. Just give me some random NPC talking about the current divine in the south. It really doesn't have to be that big a thing. Give me that kind of fan service. Make me feel like you actually care about the nerds.

If their excuse is that most people don't replay, don't even finish the game, don't import savefiles, then you might as well also scrap the gay romances because I'm pretty sure the majority didn't see those either...

If running out of time to implement more choices is the reason it's still no excuse because DA2 was cobbled together in like 18 months, right? And it's my favorite game in the series that has more past choices than DAV will have.

Oh and the discontinuation of the Keep is cherry on top, of course. What a slap to the face of everyone who wants to replay DAI with a custom world state. Especially those like me who bought DAO and DA2 on console and can't directly import savefiles. Sure as hell won't be buying these games again on PC now if that's the angle.

If that doesn't tell you how little current BioWare cares about their old fans I don't know what would...

Interesting to see that even people who defended DAV are now considering not buying the game at all with so little choices mattering. Serves them right imo. 10 years for this...

But the Dalish love outsiders! Especially city elves. Just ask Briala!

To be honest, I expected this to happen at some pint. Just not so soon.

Wait, the keep is being discontinued? Is that confirmed?
Because if that is the case the only reason I have to play this series just died.

Yes. It looks like a few world-state flags are set in conversations,  but that's as far as imports go.

This is a multimillion dollar franchise that has had 10 years worth of potential time to develop and polish a story. If 2 could account for multiple choices from the previous game in a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of that time, DA4 doesn't have any excuse. At this point it's less about the wild growth and more about the incompetent gardeners tasked with managing it. 

The Dalish do love city elves. The storyteller from my Dalish clan in DAO even said that one day we might be able to learn a few things from them about co-existing in the human world when we finally got a homeland again. Then Weakes (presumably with the permission of the rest of the writing team) totally did the dirty on them in Masked Empire, making them out to be utter dicks. Then in DAI then did it again with the 3-mage rule, so instead of clans with a surplus of mages allowing other clans to adopt who didn't have enough mages of their own, because the Keeper always has to be a mage and they believe that every mage child is a blessing because it brings them closer to what they all once were (because they remember that much), instead the Keepers are so incompetent at training their young mages and they are so frightened of them they abandon the youngest mage in the woods if the number in the clan exceeds three. Boy did that tick me off. Yet to this day people still argue that there is nothing illogical about this and are happy to go with the in game explanation that the clans have grown apart over the years, to account for why your experience of the Dalish is different.

To be honest, that was when the rot started for me but I tried to ignore it for the sake of the enjoyment of the rest of the story. Now they are pulling the same stunt again with the Veil Jumpers and the clans in Arlathan Forest, plus Bellara's weird vallaslin. There is no longer any consistency in Dalish culture, just different practices depending on where you are in Thedas. Effectively, they do not all descend from the refugees from the Dales, mostly comprising the families of the Emerald Knights and the priesthood but it is simply a generic term that applies to all elves living outside human settlements, some of whom don't even have a problem with other races messing with their ancient artifacts.

One of the reasons they had to drop the semblence of "choice" after two games was they spent so much time dilly dallying around in ME2 on their recruitment tour they had to shoehorn the arrival of the reapers, initial devastation, fightback and ending in one game. Too much stuff packed into too little time. 

I will continue to choose with my wallet and prioritise games that give choice and control to the player. Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, Rogue Trader which just released an excellent DLC, Baldur's Gate 3 ... Tactical Breach Wizards And a different kind of choice - Morrowind etc. I understand they have techological limitations, but it's been clear going right back to Leliana that the devs didn't particularly care about this aspect of their games.

Bioware did say that if the Keep ever is shut down, they’ll introduce something that’ll act as a substitute so people can still make worldstates for DAI.