What improvements are needed for the second iteration of Dragon Age Multiplayer?

I'll provide my own critiques then.



While this was indeed the case when it came to EMS score in ME3, multiplayer additions afterwards no longer had an impact on the single-player games performance. DA:I MP was agnostic to the single-player mode, and was not required to earn a particular ending, or made you miss out on any story content. ME:A MP, on the other hand, actually benefited single-player. Playing ME:A MP gave you supply packages that included things like materials and weapons that could be used in the singleplayer campaign. I don't know how DA4 will turn out, since it is being mentioned as live-service, but based on BioWare's previous installments, they've been moving away from having singleplayer content be locked off by multiplayer.



The existence of multiplayer, in BioWare's franchise history, has largely had no impact on the single-player aspect of their games. For instance:

• SW:TOR is an MMO, but most players would agree that it plays like a singleplayer game to some extent. Deference was given more to the singleplayer-minded player in that case.
• In the case of Mass Effect 3, the multiplayer portion of the game was mostly (if not entirely) handled by BioWare Montreal, while Edmonton worked on the base game.
• With DA:I, we already got confirmation from one of the multiplayer developers here (Luke Barrett) stating that multiplayer for the game was given far less attention. As a few others here, including myself, would also attest to, DAMP received VERY little when it came to content. ME3MP received a host of new maps, characters, weapons, abilities, etc. The most substantial content addition that came to DAMP was Dragonskeep. Much of the other content additions were the pulling of assets from DA:I's singleplayer DLC's; like the Qunari and Darkspawn factions.
• ME:A would likely be the only game that meets your criteria of getting additional resources, but the games stagnation was not due to the existence of multiplayer, but everything to do with poor conceptualization, time management, and working around the Frostbite engine. Not only that, but those three points have been attributable to many of BioWares recent woes; as far back as DA:I.

If the sentiment is that their games shouldn't have multiplayer, then I would say that's up to them. Do I worry about this multiplayer modes being well-conceived or them gating off content? Yes. My own thoughts on this is, I couldn't care either way. If they don't do it, that's fine. If they do it, okay. But I expect you to give it the attention it deserves if you are going to bother with it. ME3 MP, as well as DAMP, showed us that they can balance SP and MP content.



Personally, I don't think it would of mattered if it was a multiplayer game (like Anthem) or not. BioWare wanted to make a new IP. That alone takes time and resources; far more than continuing a series. I promise you that nothing would have changed if their new IP was a single-player only game, other than the games perception. The same amount of time likely would have went into that new IP, and if the games development was as janked as Anthems, it would have suffered the same fate.



While I'll agree with you that EA likely value multiplayer more, due to how easy it is to monetize, much of DA:I's problems had a lot to do with the team running down the clock due to pre-production stagnation and them dealing with the Frostbite engine. DA:I using the Frostbite engine, a first for BioWare, meant that it came with a lot of bugs. The short production time the game had also likely contributed to them not being able to solve all the games problems. It probably also led to the sidequests being far less involved and more fetch quest based. We also know from Mike Laidlaw that the game being locked into last-gen also hurt the teams ability to do the player focused camera during dialogue; among other things they wanted to do. The game also suffered from a lot of identity issues. Mike said the team wanted to treat the game like Skyrim, given its popularity at the time, but that didn't mesh well with the narratively driven aspects of most of BioWare's games. It's why the open world spaces felt so much like an MMO.

Also, I can absolutely tell you that multiplayer in that game wasn't free of bugs either; I'd say it was even worse (at the start). There were a number of networking problems, maps sometimes would allow you to progress, enemies would bug out, etc.



As I've said above, if you're going to include multiplayer in your game, you should give it some T.L.C. It's just as much a part of the game as the single-player campaign, as much as I know some players only like one side; or the other. That being said, normally there's a live-team (Multiplayer team) designated to working on that aspect of the game. That's what BioWare Montreal was for in ME3. In addition, many of the multiplayer teams rely on content produced by the singleplayer team because they can port and remix the assets into the multiplayer side of the game. It's why a lot of character appearances in ME3 MP were copy-pasted.