Dragon Age 4 - now The Veilguard

[pukunui]

The game’s been out for a bit now. What are people’s thoughts on it? I haven’t got it yet myself.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The game’s been out for a bit now. What are people’s thoughts on it? I haven’t got it yet myself.

My wife is on her third (maybe fourth) run-through, which is a pretty strong endorsement in my mind. (She had more than a dozen run-throughs of Baldur's Gate 3.)

 

[Belen]

The game’s been out for a bit now. What are people’s thoughts on it? I haven’t got it yet myself.

I feel that it is a bad Dragon Age game. It was not a bad game overall, especially if you like Good of War-style combat, but I found it boring. The combat was just the same grind over and over again and there was no meaningful choices or player agency to the game. You could not even interact with your companions unless the story told you too and the companions described everything you saw in the game and told you how to solve every puzzle. I played 20 hours and just stopped playing as there was nothing to keep my interest.

It is a great running, low bug game that looks good but has zero depth. Even when you choose how to act, the resolutions are largely the same no matter what choice you make. The player spends the entire time reacting to everything and if you liked being able to choose to be good or bad as if previous entries, you will be disappointed.

I may try to switch to story mode and just finish it as some point to see the whole story but I just do not care. It is boring.

 

[pukunui]

I feel that it is a bad Dragon Age game. It was not a bad game overall, especially if you like Good of War-style combat, but I found it boring. The combat was just the same grind over and over again and there was no meaningful choices or player agency to the game. You could not even interact with your companions unless the story told you too and the companions described everything you saw in the game and told you how to solve every puzzle. I played 20 hours and just stopped playing as there was nothing to keep my interest.

It is a great running, low bug game that looks good but has zero depth. Even when you choose how to act, the resolutions are largely the same no matter what choice you make. The player spends the entire time reacting to everything and if you liked being able to choose to be good or bad as if previous entries, you will be disappointed.

I may try to switch to story mode and just finish it as some point to see the whole story but I just do not care. It is boring.

That sounds awful. I will probably wait till it’s on a super cheap sale to get it then so I can experience the story.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

Sadly I haven't had a chance to get the game due to being very busy with work and holiday prep. Still excited to play though so I'll get it once my schedule becomes more manageable.

 

[zakael19]

I feel that it is a bad Dragon Age game. It was not a bad game overall, especially if you like Good of War-style combat, but I found it boring. The combat was just the same grind over and over again and there was no meaningful choices or player agency to the game. You could not even interact with your companions unless the story told you too and the companions described everything you saw in the game and told you how to solve every puzzle. I played 20 hours and just stopped playing as there was nothing to keep my interest.

It is a great running, low bug game that looks good but has zero depth. Even when you choose how to act, the resolutions are largely the same no matter what choice you make. The player spends the entire time reacting to everything and if you liked being able to choose to be good or bad as if previous entries, you will be disappointed.

I may try to switch to story mode and just finish it as some point to see the whole story but I just do not care. It is boring.

Can you tell me what meaningful choices/player agency was rife in Bioware/DA games in the past? I remember there pretty much always being an a) or b) choice (if that), or an "prick" / "less of a prick."

Anyway, I loved DA:V once I got past the frankly painful starting couple bits (it really picks up once you get the full party). The combat is ME:A but with fantasy action primary stuff instead of shooting, it was nice and fun and smooth all the way through for me even if it gets pretty straightforward for a warrior (for comparison, I despise every bit of tactical combat Larian has ever done and don't care for their games at all because I find them tedious). Most of the times I ran into issues were not swapping builds around to take advantage of boss weaknesses (I wish yo could save builds), or the Red Zones of Doom getting lost in all the effects. Ability combos are fun to pull off, and a big part of effective combat.

The story (and yes, this is a game that is Telling you a Story about Friendship Heroism that IMO feels like they were trying to tap pretty directly into the zeitgeist of CR style D&D play) has some pretty darn good notes, gorgeous vistas, and takes a really firm stand that intentions don't excuse evil & those who prop up evil deserve to get punched in the freaking face. Party interactions are probably teh most detailed I've seen from Bioware. Every companion has comments on every other one after they go through a significant companion quest line event, I know I barely scratched the surface of that. They figured out how to have companions go "so anyway where was I" if an exchange is interrupted by a combat encounter or such, and circle back to it (most of the time pretty smoothly!). There's always an impression that the companions are in fact adults doing crap when you're off doing something else; little notes hung up around the camp area, dialogues that allude to dinner dates/forest expeditions/breakfasts/etc.

I will say the weirdest thing to get used to for me was the fact that your PC is a snarky jokester pretty much all the way through (they do get called out on it occasionally). Some genuinely funny stuff in there that never felt cruel or mean to the party members though. I absolutely lost it at some of the dialogue (oh Taash, you Tumblr denizen you).

If you're the sort who needs your PC to be able to act like an prick (ME)/be a cartoon villain (BGII) to feel like the "narrative has depth" you're not going to like this; but it feels like it was pretty targeted towards the crowd that wants AAA game narratives to take a stance on sometimes evil is evil and we should work together for a better world.

 

[Belen]

Can you tell me what meaningful choices/player agency was rife in Bioware/DA games in the past? I remember there pretty much always being an a) or b) choice (if that), or an "prick" / "less of a prick."

Anyway, I loved DA:V once I got past the frankly painful starting couple bits (it really picks up once you get the full party). The combat is ME:A but with fantasy action primary stuff instead of shooting, it was nice and fun and smooth all the way through for me even if it gets pretty straightforward for a warrior (for comparison, I despise every bit of tactical combat Larian has ever done and don't care for their games at all because I find them tedious). Most of the times I ran into issues were not swapping builds around to take advantage of boss weaknesses (I wish yo could save builds), or the Red Zones of Doom getting lost in all the effects. Ability combos are fun to pull off, and a big part of effective combat.

The story (and yes, this is a game that is Telling you a Story about Friendship Heroism that IMO feels like they were trying to tap pretty directly into the zeitgeist of CR style D&D play) has some pretty darn good notes, gorgeous vistas, and takes a really firm stand that intentions don't excuse evil & those who prop up evil deserve to get punched in the freaking face. Party interactions are probably teh most detailed I've seen from Bioware. Every companion has comments on every other one after they go through a significant companion quest line event, I know I barely scratched the surface of that. They figured out how to have companions go "so anyway where was I" if an exchange is interrupted by a combat encounter or such, and circle back to it (most of the time pretty smoothly!). There's always an impression that the companions are in fact adults doing crap when you're off doing something else; little notes hung up around the camp area, dialogues that allude to dinner dates/forest expeditions/breakfasts/etc.

I will say the weirdest thing to get used to for me was the fact that your PC is a snarky jokester pretty much all the way through (they do get called out on it occasionally). Some genuinely funny stuff in there that never felt cruel or mean to the party members though. I absolutely lost it at some of the dialogue (oh Taash, you Tumblr denizen you).

If you're the sort who needs your PC to be able to act like an prick (ME)/be a cartoon villain (BGII) to feel like the "narrative has depth" you're not going to like this; but it feels like it was pretty targeted towards the crowd that wants AAA game narratives to take a stance on sometimes evil is evil and we should work together for a better world.

I completely disagree. The story is Dragon Age The Avengers. The lack of having the choice to be bad means that you cannot make the choice to be good. When you chose Paragon in ME, you are choosing to be good. In DA:O, you had real choices like mages or templars or elves or werewolves. Again, being good felt like it matters.

The companions in DA:V, after 20 hours, were boring and often annoying. My character was annoying.

I found no reason to care about the story of the game. It felt like it had no meaning.

 

[zakael19]

I completely disagree. The story is Dragon Age The Avengers. The lack of having the choice to be bad means that you cannot make the choice to be good. When you chose Paragon in ME, you are choosing to be good. In DA:O, you had real choices like mages or templars or elves or werewolves. Again, being good felt like it matters.

The companions in DA:V, after 20 hours, were boring and often annoying. My character was annoying.

I found no reason to care about the story of the game. It felt like it had no meaning.

In DAO/I, you always had a binary choice. Elves or Werewolves; Mages or Templars; etc. That's not really "agency," that's just "pick your final combat encounter of this quest line." DAV has decided that sometimes you don't need to say "haha, you can be gratuitously chaotic stupid" to tell a story.

Likewise, you were never picking "good" or "bad" with Paragon/Renagade, you were picking "am I a Nice Guy or an Donkey's Rear" as you got to the exact same final spot 99% of the time.

 

[Belen]

In DAO/I, you always had a binary choice. Elves or Werewolves; Mages or Templars; etc. That's not really "agency," that's just "pick your final combat encounter of this quest line." DAV has decided that sometimes you don't need to say "haha, you can be gratuitously chaotic stupid" to tell a story.

Likewise, you were never picking "good" or "bad" with Paragon/Renagade, you were picking "am I a Nice Guy or an Donkey's Rear" as you got to the exact same final spot 99% of the time.

I am happy you found fun with the game.

We’re just going to disagree. I found DA:V to be boring with every combat being the same and the conversation choices and dialogue bad. You could not even interact with most NPCs other than merchants.

I am happy you enjoyed it but if that is the type of game they will put out moving forward, then I am moving on despite being a BioWare for over two decades.

 

[zakael19]

I obviously can't make you like it, but I do want to point out to people that stuff I keep seeing around the internet about how "DAV has abandoned the BioWare ethos" or something is weird rose-tinted glasses at best. Like, you can actually get the same level of "interaction" you'd get from random NPCs in past BioWare games by standing next to anybody with a speech bubble over their head for a second - they'll speak some lines either to you or have a short conversation with somebody around them (and often your companions will weigh in if it relates to them).

Now I do think it's clear that they're firmly on the "pick 1 of 3 lines to progress the conversation" they started with ME and brought into DA:I etc - where you pretty much have to accept you're just listening to an audiobook with minimal impact. Which I agree is unfortunate, I far prefer text trees.