Dragon Age VI: Siege Harder

[Morty]

To be fair, the protagonist is always special enough that they could handwave away the negative effects of lyrium if they wanted to. Particularly in the Inquisitor's case - blah blah mark no withdrawal symptoms blah done. Or for all three protagonists - blah blah been taking it for less than a year blah done. Extreme effects like Samson and Cullen would therefore take much longer.

Possibly. We know of no one else who'd take lyrium and develop those abilities without being part of the Chantry at some point.

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If I had to guess, lyrium as anti-magic was known all the way back when the Elves and Dwarves fought and the Elves destroyed most of the Titans. The blood of the Titans then was used in one way or another since, just becoming part of what the world just ends up knowing without realizing how they know.

Fair point. Of course, we don't know when and how humans entered the picture.

SPOILERS!

I do know that one of Inquisitor Ameridan's companions was a Templar, so the techniques are centuries old, at least.

That is true. In fact, doesn't Ameridan's lifetime predate the foundation of the Templar order? It might be his buddy was one of the first to use lyrium this way.

[Giggling Ghast]

Sort of. When the First Inquisition signed the Nevarran Accords, they effectively split in two: the Templars and the Seekers of Truth. Ameridan was around for that, but disappeared shortly afterwards.

Haron does discuss in his notes meeting others like himself lost to lyrium madness, so he likely wasn't the first to use it. But his notes do suggest that the technique was still fairly new.

[Morty]

I watched a video chronicling all the reactions your companions and advisors have to your specialization of choice. Cullen has some interesting insights about being a Templar. He discourages the Inquisitor, but also says that it's not like magic, because the use of lyrium to deny it is instinctive, like wielding a weapon. When asked how he knows it's different from magic, he just says he does.

The one with the most reactions seems to be the Necromancer, while Tempest gets really shafted. All you get is one dialogue with the Iron Bull, who says it's almost as good as Gaatlok. Yeah, thanks a lot, dude. Artificer gets you some extra bits of dialogue with Bianca.

[Giggling Ghast]

Yeah, the Tempest doesn't get a lot of interactions with party members. I would have expected Sera to say something, at least.

However, you do get to mention being a Tempest in Trespasser during the scene where you distract Iron Bull from the Chargers' surprise gift.

[Morty]

Yes, my Knight-Enchanter mage also had a special dialogue option there. I can't remember if my Assassin rogue did. I also remember reading that a Rift Mage has a special dialogue option in Solas' personal mission, so there's more of those.

[Giggling Ghast]

Arise from the depths, thread, and haunt the forums once more!

FYI, Eurogamer posted an interview with writer Alexis Kennedy where he described working on some Dragon Age content.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ext-dragon-age

Also, the first issue of Dragon Age: Knight Errant came out recently. It wasn't bad.

https://www.darkhorse.com/Comics/300...night-Errant-1

[Morty]

A friend of mine and I believe that he's working on Kal Sharok content. Isolated from other parts of the setting, and they got a dude previously responsible for horror games? It fits.

[Giggling Ghast]

A friend of mine and I believe that he's working on Kal Sharok content. Isolated from other parts of the setting, and they got a dude previously responsible for horror games? It fits.

That was the first thing that popped into my mind as well. The only other possibility I considered was going to Seheron and learning more about this "Curse of Nahar" that apparently gives the Fog Warriors their power. But Kal-Sharok seems more likely.

As to what the content is, I'd guess either a substantial main quest, a DLC or another Last Court spinoff.

[Inarius]

That was the first thing that popped into my mind as well. The only other possibility I considered was going to Seheron and learning more about this "Curse of Nahar" that apparently gives the Fog Warriors their power. But Kal-Sharok seems more likely.

As to what the content is, I'd guess either a substantial main quest, a DLC or another Last Court spinoff.

First thing for me that came to mind was a DLC involving the Felicisima Armada though Kal Sharok does make more sense now that I think about it.

[Morty]

I'd say going to Seheron and meeting the Fog Warriors is still pretty likely.

[Giggling Ghast]

This thread is now moldier than a Nevarran crypt, but in case anyone’s interested, there was an extremely brief teaser for the new Dragon Age at last night’s Game Awards.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw3lrX...8wAOR1PZCyx4RA

No release date yet, though reports various suggest it's three years away.

[Keltest]

Am I crazy, or was that the Red Lyrium Idol from back in DA2?

[Rynjin]

Hopefully whatever they release is better than the trash fire that was Inquisition.

[Morty]

Am I crazy, or was that the Red Lyrium Idol from back in DA2?

It does look a bit like it. And... that's about all we can say at this point. That red lyrium would keep being relevant is hardly a revelation. My wild guess is that what we're seeing is...

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One of the Evanuris, trapped by Solas inside the Fade. Since it's a theory of mine that they first released the Blight by mining the Titans for Lyrium.

[factotum]

Hopefully whatever they release is better than the trash fire that was Inquisition.

I wouldn't call Inquisition a trash fire--it was entertaining enough for a full play-through, even if it wasn't quite up there with Dragon Age: Origins.

[Giggling Ghast]

Am I crazy, or was that the Red Lyrium Idol from back in DA2?

It looks the same, though it's likely a different idol.

For reference, here's the original deal.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20131108203120

[Rynjin]

I wouldn't call Inquisition a trash fire--it was entertaining enough for a full play-through, even if it wasn't quite up there with Dragon Age: Origins.

It has the distinction of being the buggiest game I ever played on release, and the game that completely broke my habit of preordering games just because I've liked all the company's other work before.

Even when I went back to it years later, once the bug where all the terrain would randomly turn intangible and drop me into a freefall forever (ruining a save file in the process; it never self-corrected in the same playthrough) was fixed, it remained an overall boring experience with little to no variety in ability usage (mages in particular were trimmed down to just being able to deal 3 different colors of damage, plus healing) and a lazy, busywork-filled open world that added nothing of value to the game's content.

I never managed to force my way through it, and I doubt I ever will.

[Dienekes]

Neat. Finally gonna get to punch Solas in his smug face. Racist git.

Anyway, hope it’s good.

As to the DA:I debate. I’m sorry your copy was so buggy. I had literally none of those problems. I think I had to restart the game once when it froze.

My issues with the game (which I liked, to be clear) where that the expanded mostly empty worlds were bad. And half the big maps did not have much of interest going into them. Nothing as varied or complicated as any of the big decision sections of the DA:O.

But the companion stuff was pretty good. And it actually allowed you to feel important with those sitting in judgment moments. So props on those.

Also the combat mechanics were boring. But that’s pretty much par for the course with DA games. I really wish Bioware would just pick what they want the game to be. Should this be a tactical squad game? Then make it a tactical squad game. Should this be a single player action game? Then have it be that.

Trying and failing to do both is helping no one and makes the game ridiculously easy to break.

[Morty]

Inquisition felt like it was optimized for multiplayer, so singleplayer combat ended up chaotic, messy and awkward. But looking back at Origins... eh. People have a real rose-tinted view of it, I'll say this much. I do agree the series needs to decide what it wants to be, mechanics-wise. Origins was a pretty janky tactical RPG; Dragon Age 2 was the same thing, better balanced but with some slight but weighty shifts towards action and unfortunate issues of padding. Inquisition is neither here nor there.

All in all, I don't envy the people making this game. There's a lot of expectations, hopes and resentment riding on it, from every direction. They can't please everyone. And that's without EA being EA and telling them to make it focus on co-op multiplayer or something.

[Aeson]

Origins was a pretty janky tactical RPG; Dragon Age 2 was the same thing, better balanced but with some slight but weighty shifts towards action and unfortunate issues of padding.

I'd be much more inclined to call DA:2 an action RPG with some light tactical elements than a tactical RPG with some action elements. To my recollection, most of the combat arenas were small relative to attack range and movement speed and lacked meaningful terrain features, half the enemies you face in most encounters don't exist until midway through the fight so even if you're in a situation where you could theoretically have a positional advantage going into the fight you'll be setting your party up more or less blind, and standard enemies were in general too weak for the cross-class combos to be worth the time to set up. Party-level target prioritization is about as advanced as tactics got in DA:2; map control was almost irrelevant due to lack of meaningful terrain features and reinforcing waves of enemies coming in from all around the combat arena, and the skill trees seemed designed for more all-around utility than for allowing any particularly heavy specialization into one role so it wasn't likely that any given character would end up fighting a particularly inappropriate target. Noncombat interactions beyond picking up quests and shopping for upgrades and consumables, meanwhile, were almost nonexistent (not that DA:O was - or, for that matter, most cRPGs are - much different in that regard). Also seem to recall the companion tactics scripting system being worse in DA:2 than in DA:O.

[Yora]

I didn't like DA1 and DA2 that much and found the world that interesting that I wanted to force myself through another open world game. I did it for the Witcher 3 because I do love the other games and the characters that much.
But from what I later looked up about the ending, it seemed like a big setup for a major story about the ancient elves and their gods, which is the one part about the world I find actually interesting. That they seem to pick up on that makes me at least curious about the new game.
Though I somewhere read that it's apparently open world again, so I probably won't play it either, unless they do something amazing with it. But since BioWare didn't make a good game since Mass Effect 2, I doubt their ability to do so.

[Zevox]

This thread is now moldier than a Nevarran crypt, but in case anyone’s interested, there was an extremely brief teaser for the new Dragon Age at last night’s Game Awards.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw3lrX...8wAOR1PZCyx4RA

No release date yet, though reports various suggest it's three years away.

There was news last night that wasn't Smash-related that I'd actually care about? Huh, didn't realize that had happened.

Though whether I'll actually care about it is a bit of an open question at the moment I guess. After the direction Bioware took things with Inquisition and Andromeda, moving away from their prior style of more focused narrative-driven games to try and do open-world stuff, I'm no longer confident I can trust them to make the type of game I'll be that interested in. Much as I've liked Dragon Age as a series... well, if I skipped Andromeda and don't regret despite how much I like Mass Effect, I can probably do that with the next Dragon Age too. All depends on what the details wind up being whenever we actually hear any.

I'd be much more inclined to call DA:2 an action RPG with some light tactical elements than a tactical RPG with some action elements.

I can't imagine how anyone would come to that conclusion. None of the Dragon Age games are anything like an action RPG, at all. Their combat mechanics just aren't remotely how combat works in action games, RPG or otherwise. Actions are qued up rather than executed in real time as you hit the buttons, attacks hit or miss based on RNG rather than hitboxes and hurboxes, if you're not in range when you try to attack you auto-walk into range rather than just whiffing an attack, hitstun isn't a thing at all, there's no mechanic for defending yourself against attacks beyond "attack back" or "cast buff spells" (i.e. timing-based blocking, dodging, or parrying) - it's just a totally different style of game altogether. After Origins they seem to have tried to capture a little of the more fluid look of action games' animation, but that's about as far as you could go with the comparison.

[Aeson]

None of the Dragon Age games are anything like an action RPG, at all.

While it is not perhaps definitive, Metacritic and Wikipedia both classify Dragon Age II as an action RPG, Steam classifies Dungeon Siege as an action RPG, and Blizzard Entertainment's page on Diablo III claims that Diablo III is a "genre-defining action RPG." Interestingly, neither Dungeon Siege nor Diablo III feature these elements of action RPG combat that you seem to regard as essential to the genre. Dark Souls-style combat is not required for action RPGs by any definition of the genre with which I am familiar.

The defining feature of an 'action' RPG is that its combat system is focused on, well, action while tactics are more of an afterthought, whereas in a 'tactical' RPG you get a much heavier focus on tactics - typically at the expense of the pace of the action. DA:2's combat system is very much a fast-paced system where you have little need to apply tactics - arguably very little opportunity, given how the combat encounters are constructed with enemies spawning in out of thin air in the middle of the fight and that most standard enemies die almost as soon as you look at them.

[Morty]

"Standard enemies dying as soon as you look at them" is the opposite of DA2's combat as far as I experienced it. For quite some time, most enemies just have too much health for the party to get through. Eventually you can catch up, particularly with cross-class combos. Much like Zevox, I have no idea how anyone could call it an "action RPG with tactical elements". The control scheme and party tactics are pretty much the same as they were in Origins, except there's more tactics to be had than "mages nuke everything". Warriors talk or deal damage to groups, rogues focus-fire targets, mages heal and do AoE damage. Seems to me like pointless quibbling over definitions. And it's not like Origins was particularly tactically deep and complex.

[Keltest]

"Standard enemies dying as soon as you look at them" is the opposite of DA2's combat as far as I experienced it. For quite some time, most enemies just have too much health for the party to get through. Eventually you can catch up, particularly with cross-class combos. Much like Zevox, I have no idea how anyone could call it an "action RPG with tactical elements". The control scheme and party tactics are pretty much the same as they were in Origins, except there's more tactics to be had than "mages nuke everything". Warriors talk or deal damage to groups, rogues focus-fire targets, mages heal and do AoE damage.

My recall is that unlike in Origins, a significant number of enemies only had token HP, being there to make the fight look bigger.

[Morty]

Yes, and those enemies that didn't took a lot to take down before you got cross-class combos and advanced going. Even the mooks didn't go down in a single hit. My first impression when playing DA2 was "those Darkspawn sure take a long time to go down".

[Keltest]

Yes, and those enemies that didn't took a lot to take down before you got cross-class combos and advanced going. Even the mooks didn't go down in a single hit. My first impression when playing DA2 was "those Darkspawn sure take a long time to go down".

My first impression was "wow, these fights are trivial. I wish they didn't artificially pad them out by dropping in reinforcements from nowhere like five times a fight."

[Yora]

Often dropping literally from the sky.

I actually liked the roleplaying parts of the game qute a bit, but the combat part sucked. I did have fun with some bigger fights involving mages, but that was despite the combat system, not because of it.

[Giggling Ghast]

I actually enjoyed the combat in Dragon Age 2 the most because it emphasized teamwork to the greatest degree with its cross-class combos. The tactics screen was also more customizable than the other games; you could actually direct a character to do X when condition Y was met.

There have been things I really liked and disliked from each Dragon Age game. I’m hoping DA4 picks the strengths from each game and comes up with something special.

I also have have no lingering anger over Mass Effect Andromeda, as I was never a ME fan. I am suspicious of EA and their emphasis on “live services,” however.

[Morty]

I actually enjoyed the combat in Dragon Age 2 the most because it emphasized teamwork to the greatest degree with its cross-class combos. The tactics screen was also more customizable than the other games; you could actually direct a character to do X when condition Y was met.

There have been things I really liked and disliked from each Dragon Age game. I’m hoping DA4 picks the strengths from each game and comes up with something special.

I also have have no lingering anger over MEA, as I was never a ME fan. I am suspicious of EA and their emphasis on “live services,” however.

Picking things up that worked from every game and avoiding what didn't work is definitely the idea, but the specter of EA hangs over it. I've heard rumours that they're going to make DA4 multiplayer focused and something like Anthem. Let's hope they're nothing more than rumours.