General Gaming Dragon Age: The Veilguard (f.k.a Dreadwolf/a.k.a "Dragon Effect" | All Hallow's Eve 2024) - Information Thread, update (09/12): "Hands-On Preview" (IGN First)

[Greatoneshere]

BioWare has been doing this pivot to action game first, RPG game second for a long time though, so it's no surprise that the fourth Dragon Age game looks far more like an action game than an RPG. That can be done well, but I also preferred DA:O out of all the Dragon Age's. In some ways, I prefer Mass Effect 1 (on PC) over Mass Effect 2 and 3 (though all three games are great except the last 5-10 minutes of Mass Effect 3). 

 

But in terms of gameplay, BioWare used to be a PC game developer first (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, etc.). Yes, KOTOR came out on Xbox and PC at the same time, Jade Empire was Xbox first by two years, Mass Effect 1 came out 6 months ahead of time on Xbox 360 before its PC release, and Dragon Age: Origins released on PC and Xbox 360 day and date at the same time. But if you play the PC versions (as opposed to the console versions) of KOTOR, Mass Effect and especially DA:O, it can be like playing a completely different game due to the UI and HUD differences and playing with KB/M as opposed to a controller. Clearly their games were still optimized for more in-depth gameplay PC play, BioWare was still clearly a PC game developer first and foremost. But then Mass Effect 1 was a huge hit on Xbox 360 and Microsoft made it one of their premiere console exclusive franchises against Nintendo and Sony. My assumption at this point is BioWare simplified Mass Effect 2's gameplay (because it was much simpler than Mass Effect 1's) to play simpler/better on Xbox 360 and have that be their primary version of the game and the PC version would follow suit as opposed to the other way around like it was with KOTOR, Mass Effect and DA:O. Simplifying the UI and HUD for Mass Effect 2 for consoles resulted in a more action-RPG game as opposed to something like Mass Effect 1's more in-depth RPG systems (both good and bad), which was easy to play on PC but could be unwieldy on a console like Xbox 360. This was probably done to appeal to a wider audience to bring in more people (casual gamers, etc.). 

 

And BioWare never looked back. Dragon Age II was stripped down as well (for a number of reasons), Mass Effect 3 tried to be a hybrid of 1 and 2 but is still very much an action game first and not like KOTOR's old-school skill checks and we all know what DA:I (good game though) and ME:A turned out like. BioWare gave up its more complex gameplay systems of its PC roots long ago and that was the transition period. 

[Bacon]

@Commissar SFLUFAN add "AKA Dragon Effect" after (f/k/a Dreadwolf)

[Mr.Vic20]

[Bacon]

2 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

-trim-

Sounds good to me. Tired of needless open worlds.

 

And thanks @Commissar SFLUFAN 

[Mr.Vic20]

I don't like the sound of "mission based" RPGs, but whatever, at least it looks competently executed so far. Why must everything be bite sized, action packed, and brainless? Oh right, the general public. 

[Bacon]

I'm just tired of open worlds. DA:I and ME:A were far worse for their open areas.

 

In a perfect world, the games would go back to whatever DA:O was. A sectional world?

[Mr.Vic20]

5 minutes ago, Bacon said:

I'm just tired of open worlds. DA:I and ME:A were far worse for their open areas.

 

In a perfect world, the games would go back to whatever DA:O was. A sectional world?

I love open worlds, but I don't always love what is done with them. I love exploring, crafting gear better than those found in shops, puzzle secrets, random encounters, world traversing chain quests, etc! The issue I see is that most developers can't craft worlds on that scale without cutting corners. With an even higher expectation for graphic fidelity, most companies have scaled back to control costs and focus on character first story telling. Its not great for CRPG fan, but its good news if you like adventure games with moderate to light RPG elements. 

[Brian]

15 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

That can be done well, but I also preferred DA:O out of all the Dragon Age's. In some ways, I prefer Mass Effect 1 (on PC) over Mass Effect 2 and 3 (though all three games are great except the last 5-10 minutes of Mass Effect 3). 

 

[legend]

Still watching... This might be fun but I continue to mourn DA:O.

[Air_Delivery]

At least we still have Larien.

[Mr.Vic20]

With Veilguard, Dragon Age becomes what it was probably always destined to be: A Mass Effect game | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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Thedas is more beautiful than ever in the hour I spent with Veilguard, but I'm left wondering if Dragon Age has shed its RPG heritage.

 

[Bacon]

4 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

With Veilguard, Dragon Age becomes what it was probably always destined to be: A Mass Effect game | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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Thedas is more beautiful than ever in the hour I spent with Veilguard, but I'm left wondering if Dragon Age has shed its RPG heritage.

 

Wade already posted that

 

L

[Air_Delivery]

I don’t see how the combat is anything like Mass Effect.  Mass Effect 2/3 was very much tactical ARPG shooter with a cover system.

The combat in this just feels very dodgy, button mashy. Like Baby’s first Elden Ring.

[legend]

Okay, I watched the full video.

 

In general, I like what they're doing. As I mentioned, I mourn the loss of the DA:O and I wish there were more high-budget strategic party-based RPGs like DA:O was and like BG3 is. I'll probably just have to hope that MS gives Obsidian some money so that we aren't limited to Larian being the only show in town.

 

Some concerns.

1. The combat looks exceedingly easy where it doesn't really matter what you do. I hope that's not the case and is just a symptom of it being early in the game and it being a demo.

2. I'm a little worried to see saddowns (time-based cooldowns that can last for many seconds). I hate them so much. I much prefer resource or action point based systems (ala FF7R). I couldn't tell from the UI, but it's possible some of the abilities are action point based while others are saddowns. They had a bar with two notches but I couldn't really tell how it worked. The thing FF7R nailed is that fills up quickly and is filled up by different actions (attacking, perfect parries, etc.) If that's how it works, great, could be fun.

3. I'm guessing no party switching, which sucks, especially when the focus is supposed to be how compelling your companions are. Another thing FF7R nails is you can switch to your party members and the systems and encounters are designed to encourage you to do so.

 

[Air_Delivery]

The combat just looks really, really boring to me. Just dodge, button mash with nothing feeling like it had any real impact or weight behind it. And the dialogue while not as bad as the trailer made it out to be, still has that MCU/Joss Whedon stink on it. 

 

 

[Keyser_Soze]

26 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Wade already posted that

 

L

 

 With that post @Mr.Vic20 becomes what he was probably always destined to be: A double poster

[nublood]

Just watched the gameplay trailer. I'm skeptical yet somewhat intrigued. But it still looks nothing like a Dragon Age game like, not even a little bit. Maybe some fun could still be had, we shall see.

[Dexterryu]

Gameplay trailer did little to sway my opinion back to interested. It appears it's basically just a button masher with the character doing a bunch of flippy moves now?

[skillzdadirecta]

Looks like is going to play more like Dragon's Dogma except that you can give your companions orders to trigger combos. The rogue in this even plays like the strider from the first Dragon's Dogma game switching from melee to ranged (they took that way for the second game ) I'm thinking you won't be able to switch characters at all, but just give the other characters orders on when and what ability to use at a certain point. Kind of like how Mass Effect two does it. The other thing I noticed was them incorporating choices fairly early like when you had to choose who you would take with you to stop Solas in the demo and who would stay and fight the demons. Hopefully those choices pay off. The game not being open world and being mission based is cool with me. The Dragon Age games have never been truly open world and I think the way these games work suits a mission based structure better. As long as the areas are big enough to explore and discover shit, I'm good. As far as the story and writing, it sounds like Dragon Age to me... all of the hysteria about the tone of the trailer seems like a typical gamer overreaction. Varric sounds like Varric and the banter seems like typical Dargon Age to me. Hopefully there's enough interaction and strategy with your companions to give us some tactical element to the gameplay. I'm optimistic and will be marathoning the series like I always do when a new installment drops... maybe I'll record this playthrough 

[Kal-El814]

This is going to sound critical even though I don't mean it that way, but this looks like a PS3 era game with current gen graphics (thought it's much less of a looker than the Gears or Ass Creed trailers from a technical POV from what I can see).

 

I just kinda don't know what this series is going for. We know the combat isn't going to be as good as action games and what we've seen in these trailers doesn't hang with the FF7 remakes, either. These characters have the flair of a character action game but not the actual action.  I don't think we have any reason to think that the story, RPG elements, or characters are going to be as good as BG3 or even Wild Hunt.

 

So that's not to say that this is going to be bad or anything. It doesn't LOOK bad at all. But I absolutely do not get the BIOWARE IS BACK takes. Back to what? Their post BG / BG2 heyday is probably ME2 and this isn't giving that off at all. None of this looks as ambitious or as polished as what smaller studios have done in this genre.

[Bacon]

42 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

This is going to sound critical even though I don't mean it that way, but this looks like a PS3 era game with current gen graphics

Yeah, I said as I was watching it that this looks like a 2013 game.

 

43 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

But I absolutely do not get the BIOWARE IS BACK takes

Yep.

[legend]

Watching it a little more closely, every ability does have its own independent cooldown in addition to the AP cost. It's not very long -- at least for the low level one -- but I still hate that. Just let me use what I want to use if I have the AP stored. Why are we artificially limiting my choice?

[eventide11]

So.. It's a hack and slash..

[Dre801]

Meh.

[jaethos]

The combat/party reminds me of Scarlett Nexus, where your companions are just there for dialogue and special moves. The other party members do almost no damage with their attacks and seem to pull little to no agro. It's really just the protagonist doing everything. I liked Scarlett Nexus, but it's not what I want from Dragon Age.

[legend]

The inability to take control of party members and only issue them commands, coupled with the fact that it looks like you only get to give them one of 3 ability commands has me nervous. FF7R (as in Remake -- I can't fault them for not copying all the cool extra stuff Rebirth added) already showed how to do this. Why is this hard?

 

[Mercury33]

8 hours ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

I don't like the sound of "mission based" RPGs, but whatever, at least it looks competently executed so far. Why must everything be bite sized, action packed, and brainless? Oh right, the general public. 

Baldurs Gate 3 was literally the biggest game of the year last year. 

[skillzdadirecta]

14 minutes ago, jaethos said:

The combat/party reminds me of Scarlett Nexus, where your companions are just there for dialogue and special moves. The other party members do almost no damage with their attacks and seem to pull little to no agro. It's really just the protagonist doing everything. I liked Scarlett Nexus, but it's not what I want from Dragon Age.

I'm thinking (hoping) that this is the case because it's early in the game and that later on, the companions will have more importance in gameplay and combat. I can't see Bioware moving THAT far away from what longtime fans in the gameplay department. Also that was a rogue, we haven't I'm curious to see how the other classes play particularly the mage.

[Mr.Vic20]

2 minutes ago, Mercury33 said:

Baldurs Gate 3 was literally the biggest game of the year last year. 

Your not wrong, but I can promise you that no big publisher will follow up with anything like it. BG3 was/is a one off. A beautiful thing that the likes of MS, Sony, BioWare, etc. will not be able to replicate or improve on. There is a limited market for grand RPGs. Frequently I read that people’s number one complaint with big RPGs is that they are “too long”. That a common opinion amongst said public and publishers are all too happy to support that view as it will drive down costs on games. So instead we get “highly curated” or focused linear RPGs instead. Add games as a service and the appetite to create large western style RPGs goes down even more for publishers. That why I think the only true hope for the genre will come from indie devs as passion projects. 

[Brian]

Bloodworth from EZA said he thought the game looked really good. He saw it on PC (probably a 4090). 
 

I won’t know how good it can look. Fuck you Nvidia

[skillzdadirecta]

1 minute ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

Your not wrong, but I can promise you that no big publisher will follow up with anything like it. BG3 was/is a one off. A beautiful thing that the likes of MS, Sony, BioWare, etc. will not be able to replicate or improve on. There is a limited market for grand RPGs. Frequently I read that people’s number one complaint with big RPGs is that they are “too long”. That a common opinion amongst said public and publishers are all too happy to support that view as it will drive down costs on games. So instead we get “highly curated” or focused linear RPGs instead. Add games as a service and the appetite to create large western style RPGs goes down even more for publishers. That why I think the only true hope for the genre will come from indie devs as passion projects. 

I'm inclined to think that with the successes of Skyrim, Inquisition, The Witcher 3, Elden Ring, Ass. Creed games etc. Devs actually have been moving in the OPPOSITE direction and games have gotten bigger and bigger. One thing I'm actually happy about with this game is decision for it be more mission based rather than open world. Dragon Age has never really been an open world series any way 

 

I love open world games but I hope we get more deliberately paced, structured games moving forward.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

I just watched the gameplay video and my immediate reaction is that the gameplay seems very similar to Final Fantasy XVI.

[Mr.Vic20]

18 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I'm inclined to think that with the successes of Skyrim, Inquisition, The Witcher 3, Elden Ring, Ass. Creed games etc. Devs actually have been moving in the OPPOSITE direction and games have gotten bigger and bigger. One thing I'm actually happy about with this game is decision for it be more mission based rather than open world. Dragon Age has never really been an open world series any way 

 

I love open world games but I hope we get more deliberately paced, structured games moving forward.

Games in general , yes. Western RPGs, not so much. Now action RPGs with light classic RPG mechanics, yes there have been a few of those. But let’s be real, an AC game isn’t a real RPG. And the rest for the games you mentioned came out years ago, except Elden Ring. guess what the number one complaint was about Elden ring? The world was too big… sigh. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The mission-based structure is probably a remnant of the period in the game's development when it contained a significant live-service/multiplayer component.

[Bacon]

The first time I watched the Gameplay Reveal I was focused on viewing it as if I was playing and I missed some stuff. On the rewatch, wow did they make a mistake playing this on what has to be easy mode. Enemies are just standing there waiting their turn. Enemies don't seem like a threat. The player also isn't styling on the enemies so it makes the enemies seem bitch made dying to a 3-hit basic combo. Another mistake is showing early-game combat. It rarely ever looks good. They needed to display the full capacity of combat and they didn't. During the Pride Demon fight, a big problem for me is how often the player was totally disengaged from the boss. How often they kept to a distance and weren't then actively firing arrows like a machine gun. Doesn't matter if I'm playing Dark Souls, FFXIV, FFXVI, DD2, or The Witcher 3. You only dodge just enough to avoid the attacks so you can follow up immediately. Always Be Casting.