New screenshot/concept art from the GI content:
Stolen for reddit but here's a more accurate analysis of the skill tree:
I'm very curious as to what Mage gameplay will look like since it sounds like the ranged magic attacks are separate from the light and heavy attacks which is easy to conceptualize for a warrior and rogue but it's harder for me to picture with a mage. The mention of daggers being one of their possible weapon loadouts feels like mages will have a lot more melee options compared to previous Dragon Ages. Screenshots of mage combat compared to rogue does suggest that perhaps their range attacks are infinite spammable while rogues have an ammunition limit so ranged mages are probably still very playable
I'm very curious as to what Mage gameplay will look like since it sounds like the ranged magic attacks are separate from the light and heavy attacks which is easy to conceptualize for a warrior and rogue but it's harder for me to picture with a mage. The mention of daggers being one of their possible weapon loadouts feels like mages will have a lot more melee options compared to previous Dragon Ages. Screenshots of mage combat compared to rogue does suggest that perhaps their range attacks are infinite spammable while rogues have an ammunition limit so ranged mages are probably still very playable
I'm happy this isn't open world. Hopefully means less bloat and plodding around doing nothing.
The combat is certainly different but considering I enjoy Character Action games, I don't mind what they are trying here even if uts a weird amalgamation of Bioware style and the Character Action genre.
We'll see, I'm not big on Dragon Age as a series(was always a Mass Effect guy) but I'm not screeching in hate over the sight of this. It could be good!
The combat is certainly different but considering I enjoy Character Action games, I don't mind what they are trying here even if uts a weird amalgamation of Bioware style and the Character Action genre.
We'll see, I'm not big on Dragon Age as a series(was always a Mass Effect guy) but I'm not screeching in hate over the sight of this. It could be good!
I like everything I hear except the combat. It doesn't seem like an RPG anymore to me, it's more an action game than an RPG now. I know past games were already bare-bones on the RPG side but this just takes an extra step. Every DA game goes further from what made DAO so good, meanwhile BG3 was basically an even deeper DAO and sold insanely well, but Bioware chooses to go the opposite way.
Yeah devs choose what they wanna do. The best selling DA isnt Origins but Inquisition. And well BG3 is kinda an anomaly not the norm for the genre.
I also think this has deeper RPG mechanics in terms of skill progression compared to Inquisition. Atleast based on what we see here. Definitely an RPG to me in terms of definition.
Reading this is only making me wonder how I'll be able to play through the all series before Veilguard comes out.
So excited to dive back into Thedas.
So excited to dive back into Thedas.
Real time combat with pause. Being able to directly control your companions and access their full movement so you could queue up actions in the tactical pause.
They definitely showed off more story stuff than I would have liked, even if it's all from the prologue. Might be time to go on blackout.
Otherwise the game looks incredible. The proof will be in the pudding, but right now it sounds like they nailed it.
God, it's so good to have Dragon Age/Bioware back.
Otherwise the game looks incredible. The proof will be in the pudding, but right now it sounds like they nailed it.
God, it's so good to have Dragon Age/Bioware back.
Interesting.
So this is what they meant by taking inspirations from Final Fantasy XII. Two weapons loadout sounds great as well.
So this is what they meant by taking inspirations from Final Fantasy XII. Two weapons loadout sounds great as well.
Same, but I also acknowledge that BioWare just dob't really make those RPGs anymore and they haven't for a long time.
I don't understand how action combat makes a game any less of an RPG. Is Witcher 3 not a RPG? Or Mass Effect to pull from BioWare?
Overall while I like party based RPGs a lot better than action RPGs. This game does seem to be sounding pretty good. I think all the choice and consequence and companions will make it feel a bit more "RPG" than something like modern FF. The switch to action rpg for FF made my interest fizzle. But there seems to be enough extra meat here to keep me interested.
One point I do find funny however is loadouts. DA announces weapon load outs and it's exciting. Another fall RPG has load outs and the comments were all "so just like Skyrim or any other FPS"
One point I do find funny however is loadouts. DA announces weapon load outs and it's exciting. Another fall RPG has load outs and the comments were all "so just like Skyrim or any other FPS"
Seeing as the overall UI is almost exactly the same from the leaked footage I'd say it's pretty likely this is what we're looking at for inventory, which also kind of makes me think that weapon loadouts will include different active abilities since that is part of the character equipment screen.
So pretty standard stuff here:
- Main hand slot
- Offhand slot
- Helmet slot
- Armor slot
- Two accessory slots
- Two ring slots
- Three active ability slots
What I'm most interested in and hopeful for is the quality of the loot and itemization. DAI was one of the worst games when it came to that. So I would really prefer a return to focusing on acquiring unique weapons and armor that we can upgrade and augment over the course of the game and that have real personality and effects that can complement or change up our combat style in meaningful ways. I really hated the crafting system in DAI.
Also worth noting that Guard is a separate stat from Armor so it looks like the guard system may very well still be a thing in Veilguard like it was in Inquisition.
Yeah this kind of framing always bugs me, like I love cRPGs. It's fun to dig into a really crunchy combat system and control your whole party and all that, but to me being an RPG is way more than just that. Like yeah the combat in here is decidedly different than prior titles and much more action focused, but at the same time the rest of the game is still looking to offer the same kind of actual role playing options that the series is known for.
Our background choices seem to matter more in this game than they have since DAO, they are really emphasizing how rich and deep our companions are and the interactions that we'll have with them, quest and world design has been repeatedly said to be handcrafted and curated which should make for much more interesting and meaningful choices.
Despite the major changes to the combat it does seem like there is a lot of room for expression here. It is certainly not the same kind of experience and much more focused on our player character, but between the large skill tree and hopefully improvements to the inventory systems and upgrades there will be a lot of customization afforded to us that really makes our rook feel unique and allow us to further role play via those mechanics.
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I am pretty sure I have heard some variety of this (how important choices are) for every RPG with choice I have ever follow d before release. I don't think we will know how true this is before release.
Based on the one video of gameplay they have put out it felt like they had deemphasized dialogue choices, so I am a but sceptical at the moment.
Yeah mass effect actiony gameplay isn't really what I'm wanting in my RPG, thanks. Those that are I'm sure will have a blast.
People that prefer that kind of game isn't their demographic anymore. They are trying to draw in the action crowd and have been for awhile. Press A to awesome baby, thats what its all about. It is where the money is though. You ain't getting a bg3 quality turn based game/rtwp from these cats ever again LOL.
The indie space and a select few of the big boys will give us these types of games. If you have pc, go check out Skald: The black priory.
People that prefer that kind of game isn't their demographic anymore. They are trying to draw in the action crowd and have been for awhile. Press A to awesome baby, thats what its all about. It is where the money is though. You ain't getting a bg3 quality turn based game/rtwp from these cats ever again LOL.
The indie space and a select few of the big boys will give us these types of games. If you have pc, go check out Skald: The black priory.
The story/lore stuff is what I'm most interested in at this point. That all sounds very interesting.
The combat and a lot of those design choices are just not moving the needle for me. If its a good action game, then I'm ok with that, but I always just associated Dragon Age with an actual party of companions not your 2 person Mass Effect squad. That slower more tactical kind of combat with party control would be more my preference. From the gameplay footage the combat just kind of visually looks like a mess- just way too many effects and stuff popping off all over. DA has always kind of been that, but its like they're doubling down on my least favorite parts of DA with some of these changes.
Even if they wanted to make a more action-y version of DA, I think it would have been more interesting if they took a slower action RPG route- think more Dark Souls or Elden Ring as opposed to Mass Effect.
Hopefully the story/lore is good. Cause so many of the design choices for the game seem like they're doubling down on design choices from DA2 that I didn't care for and that Inquisition seemed to temper a bit. We'll see.
The combat and a lot of those design choices are just not moving the needle for me. If its a good action game, then I'm ok with that, but I always just associated Dragon Age with an actual party of companions not your 2 person Mass Effect squad. That slower more tactical kind of combat with party control would be more my preference. From the gameplay footage the combat just kind of visually looks like a mess- just way too many effects and stuff popping off all over. DA has always kind of been that, but its like they're doubling down on my least favorite parts of DA with some of these changes.
Even if they wanted to make a more action-y version of DA, I think it would have been more interesting if they took a slower action RPG route- think more Dark Souls or Elden Ring as opposed to Mass Effect.
Hopefully the story/lore is good. Cause so many of the design choices for the game seem like they're doubling down on design choices from DA2 that I didn't care for and that Inquisition seemed to temper a bit. We'll see.
I'm curious to know what weapons each class can use. They haven't stated if they're locked, and considering how the weapon attacks are the same with each class... I Wonder
Me lowkey being happy with my assumption that they streamlined the combat and options so that I can focus on the story and dialogue and romances and..... 😃
Bioware said:
Sure every game says that these things are important but we also have to take into consideration that it's also in comparison to what came before it and not without a point of reference. They could certainly just be lying and things aren't as deep or important as they say they are, but it's also just a really dumb lie because we can very easily make a comparison to prior games and see if it's true or not.
And it's also not really a high bar to clear because there weren't background choices in DA2 beyond which class you were which occasionally opened up additional options in dialog, and in DAI while your background existed it barely ever played a role and also wasn't something that we got to explicitly choose but was basically decided for us based on other choices. Even then I think it is still promising that they're giving us this deliberate option to choose from and that it will play a larger role than it did in the prior two games which is ultimately a win for role playing even if it isn't incredibly robust.
I also don't get how the three dialog choices that we saw in the gameplay video can really be used to gage whether or not dialog choices have been deemphasized or not. It's the very start of the game and it's a very scripted start at that. Nothing about that really stands out at all to me. There's three dialog choices, two have three response options with varying tones, and the last has two choices to support or question. And what we could see from those first two convos is that they're using a similar system to what we had of tones in DA2 and DAI, which were rather good systems that provided players with a decent range of choices to define their Hawke and Inquisitor.
I'm replaying BG3 now and I'm honestly shocked at how few dialog options there are in almost every circumstance. There is honestly very little in the way of real role playing opportunities in this game because there's just so few real options to construct a consistent and unique personality. You can certainly make some pretty drastic and different choices at key moments but in terms of actually establishing a personality to your character it leaves a great deal left to be desired. It's a far cry from DAI even let alone something as robust and impressive as the dialog system from Pillars of Eternity which does an outstanding job of having a large variety of different response types with its disposition system, as well as having really great feedback and additional dialogue options from those choices.
Would be cool but I would say it's probably best to temper your expectations right now. I think the overwhelming likelihood is that each subclass will determine what our main and secondary weapons are and we won't just be able to pick whichever we want. So no sword and board mage or anything like that.
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My point about dialogue was not that there are few choices, but rather how little you actually got to decide things as opposed to your character acting and talking on their own. If that is just how the opening is they should have decided to show a better section. I can only judge based on what they show us.
As for BG3 let`s just agree to disagree since that is not really relevant here.
Even if that were the case, I'd hazard a guess that modding it would be pretty easy to do, every Dragon Age game has had a mod to unlock weapons for any class (and DAO did it at release). I definitely think not locking weapons opens up a wider repertoire of options, especially with dual loadouts.
I think the issue here is based on how the skill tree works, having fixed weapon options let's them have more specific upgrade options that don't just provide stat boosts to the base combat moves but actively augments and changes how the attacks work on an individual basis. A charged heavy attack from a mages staff versus a warrior's sword or a rogue's bow could all function extremely differently and upgrades to them could provide attributes that are very specific to those weapons types and their specific attacks.
I could see something like for a Warrior's charged heavy attack could be upgraded to include a shield bash that helps stagger an enemy, while a rogues charged bow attack could pin an enemy from moving, and a mage's staff charged attack could unleash a barrage and be upgraded to include an elemental aspect to it or such.
The Champion specialization looks to be a very sword and board focused specialization, while the Slayer is more about Big two handed weapons and then the Reaper is something in between. Same goes for the Dualist being focus on two weapon style, Veil Ranger is focused on bow, and Saboteur is a mix. And for mage It's a bit less clear whether the Death Caller is more focused on a staff or the Evoker, but it's clear that the Spellblade is focused on the magical daggers, especially given how it's associated to the Antivan Crows.
So I have a feeling whichever specialization you move towards it will be preceded by upgrades that focus more on that specific weapon type. Though it would be interesting if I'm wrong and instead of just two weapon types per class it was three and each of the specializations had a weapon type associated with them, rather than being two pure in one mixed, but at the moment I don't think we have any real indication of that.
On the other hand, creating weapon -categories- would make it easier to utilize any weapon type
- 2-Hand Weapons get +crit
- 1-Hand Weapons get +damage
etc
Oh trust me it doesn't matter to me either. But with how often people complain about trailers spoiling things. And some people even thinking that the amount of story shared in the 20 minute demo and the GI article was too much, I understand why they would be hesitant.
I don't fully agree with their marketing strategy thus far but clearly they're going for a much more drawn out approach and we're just looking to tease us to start with. They didn't want to put out too much information at the very start. I think they definitely misjudged public perception and how people would react to the footage and information we saw, but they clearly have a road map planned out with greater details to come. Hopefully they are amending that road map and making adjustments to address the feedback from the public, but we'll just have to see how they react to this first wave of marketing.
They certainly could have all upgrades be inclusive of all weapon types, but that would be quite the monumental effort I think. I think another problem there is that it becomes a little overwhelming for the player to keep track of which upgrade improves which aspect of each weapon. It's just a lot more information to parse out when making decisions about how to upgrade.
but seriously i'm curious if u just pull out a staff for a range attack like a bow, or it it more just like short pulses and then long range shots (will staff still be the main mage weapon or will get some wands? or will thier just be more sword that have magic damage etc)
eg the blade of triden in inquisition casts spells still but is a greatsword.
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Again, one way or another, from the devs themselves to a modder, someone will unlock more customization further than what is allowed, allowing for true freedom
Initial count was wrong and there are not 28 active abilities but rather 13, of which we will only have access to 11 if the specializations are mutually exclusive and we can only pick one. And if it's true that our weapon loadouts can have unique active abilities assigned to them that means we can use roughly half of them in a fight. Compared to DAI which had about twice that number of active abilities, sum more some less depending on class, and a max of 8 we could use at a time, or about one third of the total.
And then there are three times as many explicit upgrades for those active abilities, not counting how other major or minor passives might impact them. So all in all this system is looking to be quite robust in terms of customization despite an initially low number of active abilities. It's still not clear what the 15 Traits might be.
And then there are three times as many explicit upgrades for those active abilities, not counting how other major or minor passives might impact them. So all in all this system is looking to be quite robust in terms of customization despite an initially low number of active abilities. It's still not clear what the 15 Traits might be.
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Hell yeah, this actually looks really deep. Frankly, this looks like it's enabling more build diversity and interesting play styles than Dragon Age has /ever/ had before, just in a more action format. I'm down with it.
Yeah, from a purely mechanical standpoint, I'm really happy with what they've shown so far. It's a very solid framework for a fun combat system with a good deal of variety and diversity.
What we haven't seen and what I think are the four outstanding elements that will make or break this combat system are:
- The specific details on passive, ability, and trait upgrades and just how much or how little they augment and alter playstyles
- Enemy variety and AI. It's one thing to have reflex-based combat that allows for combo pausing and canceling and loadout switching and everything, but it doesn't mean a whole lot if the variety of enemies and the depth to their own tactics and move sets isn't engaging.
- And then related to that is overall encounter design. The intro did feature an unsettling amount of enemies teleporting into the area. I'm hoping future fights are a bit more realistic when it comes to enemy, positioning and reinforcements.
- Itemization and upgrades. The leaked footage was promising in terms of equipment but we need more details on just how loot and unique items will work as well as their upgrade paths and other augmentations we can make to them and how much that impacts our play style.
How it ultimately stacks up against other games combat systems that are similar. Who knows. I don't really care since DA also has a lot of other things going for it that all those other games simply do not have. So I'm fine if it's not exceedingly exceptional in this regard.
If we can get a solid combat system that's engaging and rewarding, coupled with solid role-playing options that allow us to interact with compelling and interesting companions within a larger narrative that offers up a satisfying story and choices with meaningful payoffs, then this will be one hell of a game.
I mean... Nobody thought BG3 would be that successful, not even Larian. I'm not sure how BW could be expected in 2018, when Joplin became Morrison, to look at a game that hadn't even gone Early Access and decide to go the route of an isometric cRPG - even more so as DA:I was by far the most successful entry in the DA series.
BW have said on multiple occasions as well that they have the data on the the use of the strategic top down view and the overwhelming number of players didn't use it. You can argue that's because it wasn't implemented well, and sure, but IMHO it's more because that top down combat style was optional and not the default.
I'd also caution against attributing too much BG3s success to its combat. I feel the breadth of role playing possibilities, and the quality of quests and characters are much more the reason for its success. And I'd also recall that BG1/2 and the D:OS games were hardly mega hits.
I'm sure BW knows now that a DA:O style RPG could be mega-successful, so it'll be interesting to see how DA5, if it ever happens, turns out. At the same time, maybe BG3 really was magic in the bottle and morphing DA in its shape would itself be trend chasing?
Let's be real, it's not like they have tried to go back to their RPG roots and see how it would end up, they just assume it won't sell and they have been chasing trends ever since with a diminishing quality of games. Also BG3 of course didn't sell because of it's combat systems, but it did sell despite it, proving that it's not necessarily the disaster developers expect it will be if they use such combat systems. Larian is basically the company Bioware was supposed to be right now and is making the games Bioware was supposed to be doing today, meanwhile Bioware is striding further and further away from their roots with every game they release.
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Dragon Age success as an RPG will not be in its combat, inventory, customization, character progression... it will be in the dialogue.
So do companions have access to the same specializations as the MC or does each companion focus on a specific specialization class? A lot of this stuff sounds fine, but the 3 active skill slots seems low and is going to lead to combat feeling kind of repetitive unless the game is on the shorter side.
Perhaps going in a different direction from the RPG and strategic aspects in combat was a wise choice, as it would inevitably be compared to Baldur's Gate 3, which sets a high bar. Matching that standard could have been difficult for BioWare; I am not trying to downplay the developer though, which has the talent.
I had similar thoughts with Mass Effect, which shifted towards more action-focused combat. In the end, Mass Effect 3 arguably has the deepest combat mechanics and choices in the franchise, especially evident in the multiplayer mode and later in subsequent DLCs
Simply put. The Writing has always been the strongest suit of the series.
Companions look to have their own unique classes without any advanced specializations as far as we know right now. They have five abilities, each with their own skill tree associated to them.
The game looks to be putting a lot more emphasis on the core combat mechanics and what we can do with that versus relying almost entirely on activated abilities like the past games which had very rudimentary and basic core combat mechanics via simple auto attacks. It seems likely that the skill tree will let us greatly augment both the core combat as well as the active abilities, evolving both as we level to our preferred style. From the gameplay reveal footage it was found that a number of what used to be active abilities in prior games are now part of the core combat mechanics as heavy or charged attacks, moves like Twin Fangs or Spinning Blades for Rogues, as well as things like Dodge and Parry being part of the core move set as well instead of as activated abilities. So some things will now just be part of our standard combat options while others will remain activated abilities.
Unclear right now but the load out switching mechanic may also allow us to equip six different abilities on Rook.
I was thinking about this, I think the rogue hasn't been shown yet having that weapon set dpad icon, so I'm wondering if they can't swap like mage and warrior. Their bow is integrated so not sure what the swap would be anyway besides just different dual wielding sets for swords/daggers, I don't wanna get my hopes up that they can have a 1h rapier, cause that would be my dream.