Why did BioWare not do a good job with DA: Inquisition?

[BloatedGuppy]

In fact, you couldn't get past Velen without grinding the filler.

Absolutely, factually untrue. The vast, VAST majority of the experience you get in the game is from the story quests. I actually gained something like 5-6 levels through a two hour stretch of story, getting 300, 500, 1000 experience at a shot, sometimes minutes apart. Blow up a monster den? 25 exp. Get a sunken treasure? 0 exp. And on and on.

The teritiary/optional content is exactly that. Optional. At no point (unlike Dragon Age Inquisition) did you need to unlock story missions by grinding faff in the countryside.

I got stuck on level 4 because I was trying to avoid letting the game get boring.

No, you got "stuck" because you either ran into the xp bug or you fundamentally lacked understanding about how the game functioned. In the thread on the game, where we discussed it with you and tried to help you, it was attributed to the former. Now you're clearly just grinding an axe, so I'm going to assume it's either the latter, or you just have a burr up your ass about a game you don't like getting accolades.

Then I had to grind filler from 4 - 8 just to proceed

You didn't.

Yeah Velen was about 80% filler

No, it wasn't. Velen had more core story content in it than the entire running length of Inquisition.

...if you consider another generic bandit camp or monster den to be "quality" filler

No one is considering the clearly tertiary and entirely optional Ubisoft style "point of interest" content to be anything other than what it is.

I just think it's largely hypocritical that people would crucify Bioware or Ubisoft if they had even half as much nudity in their games as the Witcher does.

Who? What people? You're aware the world is full of individuals, yes? And not just a big mass of "people" that you can accuse of hypocrisy because you heard one person say one thing, and then another person another thing?

Please, show me Bioware or Ubisoft being "crucified" by "people". Support your argument. I can show you that wet towel Gies crucifying the Witcher for it. Maybe his articles are up your alley, I don't know.

Also... less buggy than Skyrim? Skyrim on the console had one bug that I noticed, it was funny, but it was just one bug. TW3 has so many it's ridiculous.

Absolute fantasy. Bethesda games are NOTORIOUSLY buggy at launch. Skyrim was no exception.

Witcher 3 is one of the least buggy large scale games in recent years. It's had a couple of serious ones, and they've been patched within a week of appearing. It's why it keeps getting lauded for being almost entirely bugless. Maybe you got the one copy with lots of bugs, where you absolutely HAD to do all the side content to progress.

Ah, I see what's happened. You found a highlight reel of bugs (almost universally the same bug occurring in different places, which is console only), and concluded that means a game you'd already decided to dislike "had so many bugs it's ridiculous".

Random article about Skyrim's launch, first thing pulled up on a Google Search:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-25-how-the-elder-scrolls-online-hopes-to-avoid-repeating-skyrim-bug-fiasco

As widely documented at the time, Skyrim launched with an array of serious glitches - some of them game-breaking, such as the notorious 'Rimlag' issue that hobbled the PlayStation 3 version.

It wasn't New Vegas bad, but it was an extremely wobbly/buggy experience.

 

[Nimzabaat]

snip

I dont play games on consoles. Never will. Faaar too expensive for my blood.

I obviously meant quests. Including the quests that unlock later in the game in Velen. Witcher contracts are nice, so are treasure hunts. But not what I had in mind.

Not really. Witcher is a polish game based on a polish book series. Considering how well Witcher 3 handles the two main love interests (even if they need more content) Id say it deserves people not "attacking it" over nudity. It handles it well.
Committee designed Ubi and Bioware games cant really match that.

Though I do find it interesting. On the Bulgarian and Russian forums I frequent, no one ever made any issue over nudity. I have seen for violence though. Here on such Western sites, people actually talk more about nudity ...

If TW3 were a Ubisoft title it would be "Americanized", have nothing to do with its source material and be safely designed by a committee. Maybe dumb down Yennefer so that your average gamer will like her more. And remove the little nudity it has. Also, no modding.

Yes. Less buggy than Skyrim. I did not have a single issue with the game, bar Tuirseach castle. Do you remember Skyrim on release?
CDPR does not leave the game buggy though. Unlike bethesda and their "lol funny bug".
Good thing on PC I can find community patches for their sloppy work.

I like how you completely forget about Keira Metz and various prostitutes. I do agree that Europeans are much more advanced about nudity in various media than we are in North America. Seriously they're just boobs guys. I was commenting more on how people will shit all over Bioware for their awkward bumping of digital models but they won't level the same criticism at TW3.

You did miss my point about if TW3 was made by Ubisoft. I meant imagine if the exact same game was released by Ubisoft. Exact same. No changes. Nothing different. If this game had come out under the Ubisoft umbrella the Escapist community would be having a field day and tearing it apart like rabid dogs. It's only because it was released by one of our fanboy favorites that it isn't. That is the only reason. Just like if Dark Souls had been put out by EA, people would be saying "big boss health bars do not equal good difficulty" (that's a criticism that DAI got, whereas Dark Souls was lauded for it, go figure).

I do remember that Skyrim had a reportedly crappy PC release. I also remember that Steam lost the platform wars for PC a long time ago so I don't complain about crappy PC ports anymore. Being on the losing side of a battle and endlessly bitching seems a little pointless to me.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Try to think of it this way, if TW3 had been a Ubisoft title, what would people be saying about it? I can tell you this. It wouldn't be a lot of "Ubisoft finally gets it right" comments.

Funny you should say that, because ever since The Witcher 3 launched one of the recurring statements I've seen is 'CDPR finally gets it right'. I've seen a good number of people (myself included) taking to this game despite hating the previous installments. As a matter of fact, before W3 got released there was a short period here on the Escapist forums when the first two Witcher games were getting criticized quite a bit for generally sucking at story, characterisation, and action gameplay.

The bias against and toward The Witcher series is pretty evenly split here.

 

[Nimzabaat]

In fact, you couldn't get past Velen without grinding the filler.

Absolutely, factually untrue. The vast, VAST majority of the experience you get in the game is from the story quests. I actually gained something like 5-6 levels through a two hour stretch of story, getting 300, 500, 1000 experience at a shot, sometimes minutes apart. Blow up a monster den? 25 exp. Get a sunken treasure? 0 exp. And on and on.

The teritiary/optional content is exactly that. Optional. At no point (unlike Dragon Age Inquisition) did you need to unlock story missions by grinding faff in the countryside.[\/quote]
That's completely, factually, untrue. DAI allowed you to level if you did the quests in some kind of order. TW3 requires grinding bog standard filler missions. I can say factually untrue as well, it doesn't make it so. And if you want to start just making up completely false stuff. I can do that to. I just prefer not to.

I got stuck on level 4 because I was trying to avoid letting the game get boring.

No, you got "stuck" because you either ran into the xp bug or you fundamentally lacked understanding about how the game functioned. In the thread on the game, where we discussed it with you and tried to help you, it was attributed to the former. Now you're clearly just grinding an axe, so I'm going to assume it's either the latter, or you just have a burr up your ass about a game you don't like getting accolades.

Actually I got stuck because I ignored the little filler quests on the notice board. Then one of my helpful fellow Escapists pointed out that each one of those opened up an optional filler quest that you could grind for xp.

Then I had to grind filler from 4 - 8 just to proceed

You didn't.

Yes I did. It was one monster den/bandit camp/guarded or sunken treasure after another until I reached a point where I could fight the Werewolf.

Yeah Velen was about 80% filler

No, it wasn't. Velen had more core story content in it than the entire running length of Inquisition.

I gotta give you that one. Some of the story is even pretty good.

I just think it's largely hypocritical that people would crucify Bioware or Ubisoft if they had even half as much nudity in their games as the Witcher does.

Who? What people? You're aware the world is full of individuals, yes? And not just a big mass of "people" that you can accuse of hypocrisy because you heard one person say one thing, and then another person another thing?

Welcome to your fist day on the Escapist where people complain about Biwoware's sex scenes every time a new Bioware game comes out.

Also... less buggy than Skyrim? Skyrim on the console had one bug that I noticed, it was funny, but it was just one bug. TW3 has so many it's ridiculous.

Absolute fantasy. Bethesda games are NOTORIOUSLY buggy at launch. Skyrim was no exception.

True. But TW3 was a lot buggier.

Ah, I see what's happened.

I would like nothing better than for this to be true but... you've just been proving my point about this site and rabid fanboyism. I wasn't even trying to trap you or anything.

Once again (because people seem to miss this) I LIKE THE WITCHER 3. It's a great game, but I don't think it would be on the pedestal that people here are putting it on if it was produced by a different company.

 

[Ishal]

Just like if Dark Souls had been put out by EA, people would be saying "big boss health bars do not equal good difficulty" (that's a criticism that DAI got, whereas Dark Souls was lauded for it, go figure).

Who would have been saying that about big boss health bars? I've been here for years and I've never seen anything like that.

What I have seen is people arguing against "bullet-sponge" bosses and enemies, and rightly so. Those bosses in Dark Souls can be extremely complex. Giving people and easy time or a hard time depending entirely upon what the player does. They act differently depending on where you are, and react accordingly to your inputs. If you apply a resin to a weapon and it happens to be a type a boss is weak against? That big boss health bar is going to disappear in large chunks. Then suddenly in five to ten hits, you're done.

Not so in games like DA:I. Where you have bosses that gate the encounter in arbitrary "phases," teleporting away and needlessly drawing out the fight so they can summon ads, not matter what you do. All while they cannot be damaged. That is shit and lazy boss design. While playing the Witcher I've seen this trope once. Can't comment if it happens more.

This whole "CDPR and FROM can get away with it because they are less funded darlings and not evil AAA" is a caricatured and lazy argument. People in this very thread have gone into gorey detail at to why one is superior and the other is lacking. All details are more nuanced than gamers hate the evil AAA devs and pubs

 

[Nimzabaat]

Try to think of it this way, if TW3 had been a Ubisoft title, what would people be saying about it? I can tell you this. It wouldn't be a lot of "Ubisoft finally gets it right" comments.

Funny you should say that, because ever since The Witcher 3 launched one of the recurring statements I've seen is 'CDPR finally gets it right'. I've seen a good number of people (myself included) taking to this game despite hating the previous installments. As a matter of fact, before W3 got released there was a short period here on the Escapist forums when the first two Witcher games were getting criticized quite a bit for generally sucking at story, characterisation, and action gameplay.

The bias against and toward The Witcher series is pretty evenly split here.

I haven't noticed a split myself but you seem to be on here more so i'll believe you. It really is a step up from The Witcher 2 though isn't it? I have a bit of a personal bias against Geralt simply because i've read the first book and i've also read some of the Elric of Melnibone books so he comes off as really derivative. I'm not sure about the characterization being better though. Geralt is still the most bland Mary Sue in existence, everybody else seems to be more fun to hang out with, but that's in all of the games really.

Loving the game though.

EDIT: Not to be critical or anything, but by reading this thread, the bias doesn't seem to be evenly split at all. Just sayin' [small]Unless you're saying I get to put on my Darth Vader helmet and bring balance to the Escapist... [/small]

 

[flying_whimsy]

Wow, so many Witcher 3 vs DA:I comments.

One point I haven't really seen made is that Bioware didn't do a good job because they didn't have to: you all still bought the game, right? So what reason do they have to put in the same amount of work they used to? EA in general seems to have the attitude that all it needs to do is put a familiar name on something and we'll buy it, and we usually do. Bioware specifically seems to think that we'll accept whatever they put out: ME3 still sold well despite the massive amount of broken promises regarding its story.

It just annoys me to see people overlook the fact that these companies don't need to do better because we still buy their games regardless of how disappointing they are, bad business practices, etc.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Ah, I see what's happened.

I would like nothing better than for this to be true but... you've just been proving my point about this site and rabid fanboyism. I wasn't even trying to trap you or anything. [/quote]

Yep, there's the standard dismissal, right on cue. Lie, and then when called on it, attack the other person by calling them "a fanboy". It wouldn't be the LIE that was the problem. It would be my inability to look past my blind love for the game. Whoops, my eyes rolled right out of my head!

Once again (because people seem to miss this) I LIKE THE WITCHER 3. It's a great game, but I don't think it would be on the pedestal that people here are putting it on if it was produced by a different company.

I know you think that. Here's another way of looking at it. Companies get good reputations by releasing excellent games, they don't get well received games simply because of their good reputations. You know who also had a sterling reputation until the last couple of years? Bioware. From Baldur's Gate through Mass Effect 2, they were the golden child of the RPG industry and could do no wrong.

 

[Redryhno]

I would like nothing better than for this to be true but... you've just been proving my point about this site and rabid fanboyism. I wasn't even trying to trap you or anything.

Once again (because people seem to miss this) I LIKE THE WITCHER 3. It's a great game, but I don't think it would be on the pedestal that people here are putting it on if it was produced by a different company.

You are probably right. If it was made by another company or AAA at all, it wouldn't get the praise it's getting. It'd still be getting the countless cherrypicking bullshit articles about it scattered around game sites, but also be getting the bull of forums not being happy with something other than pure "indie"(definition continuously shifts on whether or not they're doing kickstarters, jokes) "awesomeness".

Objectively though, the Witcher3 is a great game. It's an open world done very much right, you don't have to really look for anything and while I don't like getting forgettable amounts of xp from killing things when that's supposed to be your job(it is your job and Geralt is something like 150, so I understand that you really don't learn anything in-universe for killing them anymore), it works and it encourages you to move onto the next story area quickly if you don't care to explore. It's also got a good mix of the political and physical monstrosities. In the cities you've got serial killers and people needing you to go find out what happened to their shipments and the political machine chugging away that needs you to push someone to keep it running smoothly. In the wilderness you've got the monster dens and herbalists needing you to sell your monster parts for their potions as well as lift curses and bring about change for people.

You can say it's a generic RPG, and you'd honestly be right if you don't take into account the lore behind nearly everything you do. The side quests are their own stories most of the time and the simple can quickly snowball into a bullshit fest quickly. Not to mention how many of them also connect to the main story in some way. The wife of a baron is in the middle of nowhere and you don't even need to find her to complete the quest you get from him. The body of a beloved can be found in one of those monster dens when all you really need to do is find a necklace that fell off them when they were dragged in there.

 

[Nimzabaat]

I would like nothing better than for this to be true but... you've just been proving my point about this site and rabid fanboyism. I wasn't even trying to trap you or anything.

Once again (because people seem to miss this) I LIKE THE WITCHER 3. It's a great game, but I don't think it would be on the pedestal that people here are putting it on if it was produced by a different company.

You are probably right. If it was made by another company or AAA at all, it wouldn't get the praise it's getting. It'd still be getting the countless cherrypicking bullshit articles about it scattered around game sites, but also be getting the bull of forums not being happy with something other than pure "indie"(definition continuously shifts on whether or not they're doing kickstarters, jokes) "awesomeness".

Objectively though, the Witcher3 is a great game. It's an open world done very much right, you don't have to really look for anything and while I don't like getting forgettable amounts of xp from killing things when that's supposed to be your job(it is your job and Geralt is something like 150, so I understand that you really don't learn anything in-universe for killing them anymore), it works and it encourages you to move onto the next story area quickly if you don't care to explore. It's also got a good mix of the political and physical monstrosities. In the cities you've got serial killers and people needing you to go find out what happened to their shipments and the political machine chugging away that needs you to push someone to keep it running smoothly. In the wilderness you've got the monster dens and herbalists needing you to sell your monster parts for their potions as well as lift curses and bring about change for people.

You can say it's a generic RPG, and you'd honestly be right if you don't take into account the lore behind nearly everything you do. The side quests are their own stories most of the time and the simple can quickly snowball into a bullshit fest quickly. Not to mention how many of them also connect to the main story in some way. The wife of a baron is in the middle of nowhere and you don't even need to find her to complete the quest you get from him. The body of a beloved can be found in one of those monster dens when all you really need to do is find a necklace that fell off them when they were dragged in there.

Good points all around. I never said Witcher 3 was generic in and of itself though. My praise of the story quests seems to be getting swept away here in favor of attacking my criticisms. That is kind of the nature of the internet though.

I'm going to play some more TW3 now.

 

[Redryhno]

The companions are nothing above likeable, after DA2 had the balls to have companions that did actual wrong, bad things (Merril and Anders) and the fans complained, Bioware got spooked so every companion is just a glorified yes man to you. It's an "epic" satuarday morning cartoon.

With Anders though, I can understand it. He was the single best character in Awakenings and one of the only guys that you could say "yeah, he's our Alistair since we can't have Alistair for whatever reason we chose in Origins but he's still his own awesome character". And then DA2 came around and they broke some of their own universe rules to make him the way he is and he purposely misled you in what you were doing by blowing up that chantry, even if you'd shown as a mage of similar thought processes. He was turned from a lovable jokey guy that had his own down moments into a "crawling in my skin" caricature while still playing the rest of the world as serious as he was while you have things like some of your party members not knowing what to do in a romantic subplot, but asking for help regardless and just...the Chantry being the poster child for things that literally should still not work with their structuring and constant discrimination considering how "progressive" and open the world appears to be about certain things.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

League of Legends alone has more people online on it at this very moment than PSN probably has...
And WoT alone is bigger then most AAA consoles games combined.

The PC platform is winning the "sales" wars.
For what that is worth... it aint worth shit to me.

Just because there's some massively popular PC games doesn't really matter. The question how many people will be online on PC vs a console (PS4 or Xbone, not BOTH) for the next game that comes out like say COD, The Division, Battlefield, MGS5, Rainbow Six, GTA, Souls game, etc. The PS4 or Xbone community will probably have a bigger player base for all of those games vs PC.


http://attackofthefanboy.com/news/battlefield-hardline-ps4-player-count-much-higher-than-on-xbox-one/

Not that I care about Hardline but PC barely beat out the unimpressive numbers of Xbone. Point is one console platform beat PC yet again. Yeah, PC has some really dominant games with regards to player count but outside of those few games, console has the higher player counts with multi-platform games.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I haven't noticed a split myself but you seem to be on here more so i'll believe you. It really is a step up from The Witcher 2 though isn't it? I have a bit of a personal bias against Geralt simply because i've read the first book and i've also read some of the Elric of Melnibone books so he comes off as really derivative. I'm not sure about the characterization being better though. Geralt is still the most bland Mary Sue in existence, everybody else seems to be more fun to hang out with, but that's in all of the games really.

Loving the game though.

It's more that this time Geralt actually sounds reserved, instead of sounding like he's reading his lines from a sheet of paper while thinking of his grocery list. You can sense sarcasm and annoyance from his performance now. Ofcourse he's still kind of a bland character, but I can actually sense emotion from the guy now which I inturn can connect to.

EDIT: Not to be critical or anything, but by reading this thread, the bias doesn't seem to be evenly split at all. Just sayin' [small]Unless you're saying I get to put on my Darth Vader helmet and bring balance to the Escapist... [/small]

Well, this thread isn't about whether The Witcher series (the first two in particular) is any good, but why W3 was released to much more fan praise than Inquisition. So obviously this thread is going to attract fans of W3. That's not bias. Also, remember that the game was just released so the festivities are still going.

Yes. The Escapist is a gamers mostly site and is quite cynical. Not many book readers here.

Though I thought the "Take turns and hate on Witcher 1 and 2" were quite funny. Mostly BS though.

Hey, I took my turn. I HATED The Witcher 2. And I was all set on hating W3 untill it turned out to actually be really, really good. Just when I think I'm set in my ways and things can't pleasantly surprise me anymore...

 

[Casual Shinji]

Meanwhile in DA:I, there's no such thing sexuality as nearly every fucking person is bisexual (or only gay), so god forbid you won't be able to romance them (even if it's physicaly unlikely like a dward and quanari), there's a transgender and they shove him/her to your face so you get how "progressive" they are, Durian's quest is the worst though, it's a glorified PSA but apperantly we shouldn't complain because "some anvils need to be dropped". The companions are nothing above likeable, after DA2 had the balls to have companions that did actual wrong, bad things (Merril and Anders) and the fans complained, Bioware got spooked so every companion is just a glorified yes man to you. It's an "epic" satuarday morning cartoon.

Far be it from me to defend Bioware romances, but if memory serves me right only Bull and Josephine were bisexual. The rest just stuck to one team, with two of the characters being gay and others being hetero and/or only sticking to their own race.

I liked that you could actually flirt with anyone untill that character would take you aside and say 'Could you please knock that off, because I don't swing that way'.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Subjectively really good. To you.
I thought TW1 and 2 were good too.

Now... only to get the "gamers" to read the books.

Just saying that the people taking those turns weren't hating it for the sake of hating, but because they had legitimate issues with it. And that those same people could then also come around to liking the next installment in the franchise.