Leaks about game direction and pre-alpha (combat and design spoilers)

It's also worth noting that at least imo while the new GoW wasn't the best combat wise it did nail the tone expertly and represents an interesting case study on how a series can go from 'mature' to mature. So bioware looking to it for inspiration may have more positive implications then just gameplay.

not sure if I've said it yet in this debate but that is also the thing. Bioware took skyrim and grafted it onto their formula. Inquisition wasn't Skyrim. Inquisition just adopted some of the exploration elements to make things feel grander.

Something similar will undoubtedly happen here.

That's true. Also I don't know if it was just me but I caught some Fable vibes from DA2, like with the whole story through time thing going on for example.

Yeah, if you went into Skyrim looking for an Elden Ring experience it is and was kinda bad. I mean people would put up with it but the combat even for a decade ago was horribly clunky. A lot of people use it to roleplay, like sims in medieval land. I mean it's a 13 year old game and has currently half the concurrent players as Elden Ring does, which is really good, so it must be doing something completely different and their own thing to still have hundreds of thousands of players still playing every day.

yeah. It's really a war with game design at this point.

On the one hand you're right. I feel from what I've seen this was precisely the problem with Cyberpunk. They tried to be too many things to too many people. And like as much as I dislike how the series handled stealth and want them to adopt an Ubisoft or Horizon like system, but not at the expense of the rest of the game.

On the other hand they should look at and learn from their competitors. If they have a better idea that they can then plug into DA without breaking the game, or loosing their identity, then great.

"The Lump of Stone", if they stay true to their established lore.

I don't remember a mention of Morrigan taking the Eluvian from the Dragonbone Wastes to Halamshiral then to Skyhold. Was this in Masked Empire or in a codex entry I'm not remembering?
I always thought that the Eluvian she had brought to Skyhold was the one from Witch Hunt and she had it brought there directly.

There was an eluvian in Halamshiral in Masked Empire but no explanation how it got there. WoT2 says that Morrigan brought an eluvian covered in "rust and mud" to Celene in Val Royeaux, which is where the Court was located. Unless, we are to imply that this was only after the start of the civil war, when Celene was based in Halamshiral, but in that case it could not have been the one that Briala sent Celene back to in the book. Also, I've just recalled that the eluvian was located in the Winter Palace and this was only constructed after the fall of the Dales, so it had to have been taken there rather than simply something that had always been in that location.  I seem to recall that Morrigan and her eluvian were also mentioned in that mini game the Last Court. So, if the eluvian in Skyhold was the one she had been using in Witch Hunt and had remained in the Dragonbone Wastes, that could potentially mean 3 different eluvians in various parts of Ferelden/Orlais. Not beyond the bounds of possibility considering there was also one in the Brecillian Forest and the ancient elves would have had them all over the place, until perhaps the mages of Tevinter moved them.

But they have, they are making a game, and in relation to my other points, particularly the previous one.If you're specifically referring to this game, we have not only leaks but also gameplay from the early development phase. All of which looked much more action-oriented in gameplay than previous games, being closer to hack-and-slash games with RPG elements like God of War (which someone invoked).


In this game, combat will be the majority of relevant gameplay (certainly not walking around and picking things up). Visuals are often overlooked, and if you want to look them up, simply watch another video on YouTube.When it comes to choices, all will be available sooner or later on YouTube, and you can easily skip those or change between those. It would take much less effort and time than going through poor combat mechanics.

Nope. The first two games were definitive TRPS, as you wouldn't be able to beat the game (probably even on the easiest difficulty) without using the pause button and using some tactics while in it, and on higher difficulties you will have to rely on tactical mode. Inquisition was where it actually started going into hybrid, which, as I've explained in another comment, had a tactical mode, but at the very least on lower difficulties you could play without it and be just hacking and slashing (unless your build sucked), while on higher difficulties you still needed to rely on the tactical mode. Except for the visual implementation and the lack of balance of certain classes, specs, or builds (which could be seen as a pro in some cases because it integrates mechanics somewhat to the lore as mages are supposed to be OP), combat design in DAO was fairly decent. 

Ah, so that's why I was confused. I have WoT2 but haven't actually got around to reading it and I didn't play the Last Court.
I hope we get a good accounting of stray Eluvians in the game because at this point I'm tired with the Marvel way of needing to consume other products to have an idea of where stuff is in the main property. I don't have the patience anymore. 

Wait, wait, wait, what do you exactly mean we are talking about them marketing the game? You mean advertising it or developing it in a specific genre for a specific target audience? My argument was never contingent on Bioware making an official declaration and commentary, this was once again an argument put forward by another user that they were planning and saying they were going to do it for years. So far, we have leaked and officially released footage, to which I initially commented that it didn't look good as they're deviating (based on the footage) even further from the series' tactical elements and more into ARPG than even Inquisition. If I recall correctly, we never had rolling mechanics in the Dragon Age games; we had jumping mechanics introduced first in DAI; we had activating abilities that allowed characters to move closer to enemies (one example from what I recall was Varric's ability); but those were allocated to abilities that the player had to select. The rolling mechanic (unless it's an attacking enemy) will almost certainly be something the player does dynamically and manually to navigate away from combat/attack.I don't think I've ever played a TRPG where the rolling mechanic was used for something other than perhaps an animation of rolling in the form of an ability to attack an enemy. Mechanically, this game looks more like fable combat than previous Dragon Age, and given what was shown, I doubt they will "adjust" combat to be a tactical RPG.Game footage in leaks and officially released footage is more dynamic in terms of combat than DAI, and at this point in time it would necessitate restructuring combat mechanics (minor adjustments or something you can implement on top of another relatively quickly, yes, major changes in combat mechanics, probably not). As a result, making claims about the game's direction based on footage (whether leaked or officially released) is valid. Especially since the footage released or leaked was from gameplay, and we spoke, is it possible that the gameplay would be drastically altered? Yes. Is it likely it will be? I doubt that. It's not even just that we account for what's written in leaks but also what's shown, and it's highly unlikely someone would take the effort to fake footage of the game. My comment was valid because I did not make a definitive claim that the game will not be TRPG but heavily ARPG and only made a judgement about the direction the series appears to be taking based on available evidence.

     

A tactical RPG game doesn't need to be turn-based; there are real-time RPGs. Even their earlier TRPGs like Baldur's Gate were never truly fully turn-based (be it overall or in combat). If I recall correctly, the only turn-based element in BG was "initiative" when it came to attacking or using abilities in combat per "round," i.e., a couple of seconds; you could move freely within combat without waiting for your turn. And outside of combat, you could additionally use abilities and spells freely without any turn-based mechanic. This was not really that distinct from DAO attack speed, and I think DA 2 used a similar mechanic. The first two Dragon Age games hardly deviated in terms of genre (both fantasy, except DAO was closer to dark fantasy, and both TRPG). It wasn't until DAI that it strayed from the franchise's established genre and became a hybrid of ARPG and TRPG (where you could sort of play both ways, but it was mediocre at best in both aspects). I'm not sure what you mean by the game forcing you to take certain party combinations. The only companions you are forced to have are temporary companions or Alistair (in Dao); the rest, you can do without. If you're referring to specific segments where you're forced to take companions, there's a reason for those within the plot (except for Alistair, whom they require to remain in your party even if only in camp). To my recollection, outside the origin story and prologue, only Oghren gets forced into your party during the mission. If you mean that the game forces you to take certain party combinations to perform well, then that's pretty much every good TRPG with companions, as if they made every party combination equal, that would be a major deficiency in terms of preparing for combat. Typically in TRPGs, you have tanks, DPS, healers, etc., and if you're not smart with how you build your party, you get destroyed (at least on higher difficulties). or perform just about adequately to pass through the game (on normal difficulty and/or lower). I'm not sure what you mean by "imbalance" between experience on PC and console, as I didn't play on console, so I'm not aware of the shortcomings of DAO on console.



Unless you were just spamming healing potions during boss fights, I doubt that even on casual you didn't use the pause button. If you played on casual, you could naturally reduce (but not eliminate) your use of tactics and the pause button because you are essentially playing on a difficulty that is supposed to be a stroll for casual players, and there is no even friendly fire on that difficulty. I don't have much hope, as this would be borderline delusional at this point, but I'd prefer to see this series return to the TRPG genre as I've said if I wanted ARPG then I've plenty (much better alternative mechanically franchises already established history of being ARPGs), so I focused on this franchise in significant part due to combat mechanics that made it distinct from other RPGs (which often noways at least are ARPGs).

"I'm bad at tactical gameplay and play at the lowest difficulty because I can't be bothered to learn more or just don't like this type of combat so I want to take away this type of combat from people who like it and are good at it." You're not making a good argument for yourself here. If anything, you sound kind of petty.

It's not a bad thing for you to not like or not be good at this type of slower and more thought-out combat. It is a bad thing to revel in your dislike and constantly make people feel bad when the thing they like is being reduced and actively want it to be even more reduced.
There's a plethora of action games out there that are also a lot better than even a more action focused DA is going to be (let's be honest, we all agree Bioware's strength was never combat, regardless of what combat style they went with). On the other had, there's not that many games with a more methodical, actual RPG combat that had the funding a AAA game gets on the regular. Wanting to minimize that pool even more is what is leading to homogenization and studios throwing away what made them stand out in the industry. Innovators just become followers, with the cycle of trends changing every 5-6 years. Everyone wants to be Souls-like, everyone wants to be GoW-like, everyone wants a live service. And creativity died with corporate charts.

The point of RPG combat is to have different party combinations. You have multiple classes, each with their own advantages and disadvantages and you're supposed to mix and match to find a way to offset each other's weaknesses and strengths. If they all function the same, what is even the point of having classes in the first place? You needed to have 2 mages with you most of the time, even on Casual? Sounds like you were just not that good at that type of combat. Which, again, isn't a bad thing (bringing this back to when you said that maybe I was just bad at MEA's combat because it forced me to be passive instead of proactive and have more control over the combat, so your argument from back then goes both ways). Being bad at a certain type of combat isn't an insult, especially if it isn't the best combat, but the solution to making clunky combat better doesn't have to and should be completely changing the genre.

To be fair, I understand that long form media does eventually have a need of retcons. It's just a case of how open was a thing left back in the past and how easy is it to incorporate it in what is currently being written, years and years apart, with multiple writing teams and writing leads contributing to the evolution of the lore and plot throughout. I suppose this is one of the reasons why I don't take what's in the WoT books to be gospel (another reason is that there were errors in the books concerning things that didn't need to be retconned, anyway  ).