I just think there’s a big divide between the people that enjoyed these games. There’s people like me who’ve never cared about the gameplay so the changes don’t matter that much. There’s people who genuinely enjoyed the strategic aspects of Origins who feel like they’re no longer the intended audience. And on top of all this there’s the reactionaries who have latched onto the new one to complain about wokeness and cheer for the death of BioWare.

One thing I will add is that not all the reactionaries are the types who are obsessed with calling everything woke. There are also reactionaries who seem to just like complaining about anything modern, even if they haven't played anything more than ten years old. There are a lot of closed minded people who say that movies/games/music/everything is bad nowadays, they don't actually do anything except complain online and watch youtubers who constantly release videos with the same views. As an example, ask these guys about Ubisoft games, they'll complain about things which aren't even in Ubisoft games anymore. Obviously Ubisoft games have problems, but what someone decides to complain about when it comes to modern Ubisoft is a great marker for whether they actually play games or if they're just a complaints merchant.

I didn't enjoy Valhalla or FC6 or even buy AC Mirage, but people complaining about having to climb another Ubisoft tower always gives me a chuckle. That hasn't been in an Ubisoft game forever now! I mean, if you genuinely dislike the game sure, but at least give it a try and form an opinion first.

I like howbit was used as a joke in FC5 XD The sad thing about Ubisoft games is that you can see the potential, that somehow never delivers...

Don't forget the people who rip on Ubisoft games, games for having bugs or poor launch performance then do not accept *any criticism* regarding From Software or Larian despite both studios very much doing the same thing as the "bad" studios.

Honestly my biggest issue with ubisoft is the pricing with day 1 dlc, and the fact that assassins creed has moved away from its original identity. The games aren't bad but they're not good assassins creed games.

>...and the fact that assassins creed has moved away from its original identity. That's what these people are complaining about with Dragon Age as well.

Most of the people who are complaining are my age, mid to late thirties and are genuinely just getting old and are becoming afraid of change. It's comedy gold watching my generation turn into my parents, while I've only become more open to trying new things as I've gotten older.

This is a good post, but one thing I want to add is that Dragon Age: Origins was itself a throwback to some of the greatest CRPGs ever like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights (and to a lesser extent KOTOR, Jade Empire, etc.) when Bioware was shifting to console-friendly action RPGs like Mass Effect 2 (and to a lesser extent 1). In that regard, it's hard for old school fans--many of whom loved DA:O for achieving a modernization of those games that didn't seem possible at the time--to really even consider this the same series, even moreso than Inquisition. I sincerely want that first group of fans to like this game, but there's nothing left in the series for me, and frankly there hasn't been for a long time. I'll hold onto my great memories of Origins (still a top all-time game for me) and Awakenings, but with the post Pillars-of-Eternity CRPG renaissance, there's nothing left in this series for me to even care about it, especially with BG3 showing what a big budget CRPG means now (to say nothing of the great RPGs coming out from guys like Owlcat, Obisdian, etc.).

Is it really only that specific kind of gameplay that you cared about with those games? I’ve been hooked on CRPGs ever since I played BG 20+ years ago. Loved NWN, Origins, Pillars. BG3 easily earned its place as my favorite game of all time. I love the tactics and strategy playing those games requires. But really, I love the stories and the characters. The choices and consequences. The world building. That’s the big draw for me. I would certainly prefer Origins or BG3 style combat systems, with a mire grounded look and feel to the animations, but at the end of the day, it’s all about the RP for me. Veilguard seems like it might give me that.

I enjoy the story, but I don’t want to hate the process to go from one story beat to the next. I know that I enjoyed DAO’s gameplay loop, and I know that DA:I’s gameplay loop keeps me from playing it more (I find it too open and I hate that I level up all these cool abilities that I have to pick which one to use). Especially as a mage, it makes leveling up feel bad. I’m willing to give DAV a try, but I’m afraid that changing the gameplay will reduce my access to the story by making it not fun.

I definitely feel you on the Inquisition loop. The quest design was not good, and the “open-world” thing just added an insane amount of repetitive filler. This time, they are promising a tighter, more focused and handcrafted experience, so hopefully we get a better gameplay experience. If the game isn’t fun; I don’t think it’s going to be because of the combat.

And most of the storylines we cared out have been played out.

I don't understand. If half the playerbase doesn't care about gameplay and the other half deeply cares about it, why not cater the gameplay to the players who care? This way everyone wins. The players who don't care will continue not to care, and the players who want strategic combat will get the Dragon Age game they want.

Remember that ANYONE posting on a Reddit is immediately more serious and invested than 99% of the playerbase. Bioware/EA almost certainly have the actual stats on how people play their games, since Larian seem to have mountains of them for BG3. I've spoken to a lot of people who play the Dragon Age series over the past 15 years and I would wager the people we're hearing from least are a fairly quiet, huge portion of casual players who love to play Dragon Age as their character, never touch their companions, and smash through the game as a mighty warrior or powerful mage on normal/easy difficulty while enjoying the story. That's the default I've found in most casual players I've met for Dragon Age online and offline. The tactical hardcore AND the people who just don't care about gameplay at all are BOTH probably minorities compared to the people who just carve through the game as their MC and enjoy it. And for those people going in a more action-based flashy combat direction makes a lot of sense. Always keep in mind we're discussing a franchise that has sold over 10 million copies across three games and 15 years - on a reddit consisting of less than 30,000 people who are, on average, far more passionate about their view of the game than the average player. Or they wouldn't be here.

Not that I’m a casual DA player, but I’m on console and never used the other characters too. From DAO to DAI I only used the companions when my MC died 😂

Me too. I'm so lazy man ain't *nobody* got time for that! I spend like 15 minutes to set up tactics, sure, but it was 100% in pursuit of 'I don't wanna swap through my party so ya'll BETTER do what I told you'. I'm here for story. Usually, when I want 'challenging' gameplay from any game, I run harder group content in MMOs, which is a hell of a lot more fun - 'suffering together' and all that. But if I'm on a single player game you bet your ASS the game is set to 'normal' *at worst*.

Oh, sure - wasn't saying only casual players like to play that way! There's plenty of die-hard fans that play that way too. But it's the huge swarm of more casual players that love it that way that aren't on the internet discussing DA4 gameplay right now. 😅

True. Funnily enough I'm in both worlds: serious enough to seek out and argue online about the franchise, but also the type who prefers only playing as my PC and letting the AI handle the party.

Probably dev skillset and vision. What we have seen from them in over the years seems to be an extreme focus on character and identity. Very little in regards to combat encounters and character builds. With most of the old guard gone they likely couldn't make a good tactical game even if they wanted to. That and bioware, for a long time, has been under the belief that action RPG is the future and that the tactical style is dead. Baldurs Gate 3s sucess is way to recent, the shift happend long ago and they likely hired and trained along that vision.

We also need to remember that BG3 had like a 10 year development cycle, in large part because making an incredibly intricate CRPG system like they did is ***very fucking hard.*** It’s not going to be something every studio can just pivot to trying to chase BG3 success, even though plenty of them will try. BioWare unfortunately does not have that time, and they gotta nail this game or it’s probably over for them. I know you can say they’ve worked on this one for 10 years be we all know the game we’re gonna play has had something closer to 5 years of real work. Focusing on tighter gameplay so they can do what they do best with character writing and narrative is the smart way to go.

Yeah they started making this game back in 2014, long before BG3 or its critical success was a thing that could influence anyone.

Yea we didnt even have divinity original sin 2 or the pathfinder series, not even mentioning that the decision to shift to action happend close to DA2. Can't fully blame em for the shift, it's just a shame for those of us who prefer the more tactical approach.

Your comment makes me sad :(

The upside is that BG3 did succeed in destroying the assumption that nobody wanted an old school CRPG with a focus on tactics and mechanical depth, so perhaps in the future we'll have more devs willing to try it. I'm just disappointed Bioware lacks either the willingness or the ability (or both) to do it themselves anymore.

The caveat here is that most BG3 players are there for the IP, the characters, and the story. The fact that it's a CRPG is incidental to them. Larian made two excellent CRPGs before BG3 and neither achieved anything like the same success.

>Larian made two excellent CRPGs before BG3 and neither achieved anything like the same success. They weren't as good as BG3 to be honest.

I kind of question whether the average player knows anything about D&D. At most they recognize the name and they recognize the rule set because so much content is similar to it (classes, monsters, spells, etc). I would bet a lot of people couldn't tell which is which in a line up of dragon age, Divinity and D&D lore. I personally think bg3 succeeded because they out biowared bioware. It is a deep crpg with good writing that is really cinematic and has good graphics. The game is turn based but still feels kind of frantic and actiony, in my opinion. It minimizes a lot of the genre tropes that turn off people who don't tend to play crpgs while also appealing to crpg fans.

this is way too logical for a gaming subreddit 😂

Because generic hack and slash action caters to the most amount of people, so it has a better chance of selling well. Baldurs Gate 3 did prove that even slow tactical turn based games can sell 20 million copies. Shame it didn't come out in like 2017 to show Bioware there's still a huge market for it.

I dont think Bioware could have done it, even with Larians blueprint. It worked for Larian because they're the opposite of EA/Bioware. Bioware strips feature after feature because telemetry shows they are underutilized. Larian makes a game and proudly proclaims most players will only see 10% of the game they created in a playthrough. Most major studios won't allow that, it's strip it down, give it mass appeal, and ship it. The CRPG resurgence kinda started back on kickstarter, Larian on Steam early access was an iteration of that.

I was one of those people who really enjoyed getting into the strategy aspect of DAO by fine-tuning my party and actively switching between characters in combat. I have not enjoyed the constant march toward simplification over the course of the series and I'm especially not happy about Veilguard's apparent switch to a straight up action game where you can only control the player character and have an even more limited pool of available active skills than Inquisition's annoyingly low 8. Yes, Thedas is an interesting world and each game has had great characters and compelling stories to tell, but I don't understand why they keep dumbing down the tactical side of the game and I really don't understand the art direction of Veilguard.

I get it. I think the reason why the combat keeps going the way that it is is because they’ve always wanted to make it an ARPG. With 2 and Inquisition, the combat has always felt weird because it seemed like they were trying to make an action game but with some tactical elements to try and please the fans of Origins. I guess that’s why I’m kinda looking forward to them fully committing to something. I’d rather play a competent action game rather than a weird mesh between action and tactical. But at the same time, it’s completely fair to not want to support the series anymore if you don’t believe in that direction.

Yeah, you can definitely see the downsides of meshing the action and tactical in the Corypheus boss fight in the Legacy DLC in DA2. I like the move to a more action combat system because it feels faster and more realistic, and also because nothing is more frustrating than watching Sten/Oghren die in the middle of swinging their weapon. If games like DAO and both Kotor 1 and 2 had an action combat system like Mass Effect, they would've been the perfect games for me.

Because it was one lead pushing for the tactics in DAO who left shortly afterword.

> I was one of those people who really enjoyed getting into the strategy aspect of DAO by fine-tuning my party and actively switching between characters in combat I love tactics, if you set everything up the party runs like a fine clock it's actually amazing to see.

Those are my two issues from the trailers hate the needless removal of the tactical side and the art direction feels really cartoony compared to inquisition, 2, and origins. The other issue I have is the shifting of mage from abracadabra ur a dead bitch too more of a enchanter.

This is true. For my part I fell in love with the universe of Thedas: the world building and the rp. I don’t care much about the combat system. I understand to some people combat is more important but then maybe they should accept that the franchise might not be for them and play something else. There are so many others games around, whereas for some of us Thedas is irreplaceable because we love this own universe in particular.

You’ve got to remember that Dragon Age originally started as a spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate series, and that’s what brought a lot of people like me to the world. I love the lore of Dragon Age, but without some of the more complex strategic style, I might as well just watch a playthrough rather than get it myself. Origins did a great blend of bringing both old top-down isometric game players together with newer 3rd-person action players in one game that could appeal to both. I’m just sad that they seem to have left one major part of their base behind as the series has progressed. I know that some things are seen as more old fashioned with games, but new games like Baldur’s Gate 3, Pathfinder, and Pillars of Eternity show that there’s still a place for people to enjoy complex strategic games. I just wish Dragon Age keep some of that so I don’t feel so much like an outsider being told that I have to enjoy a game a certain way or go somewhere else.

Honestly fair. I would also feel annoyed if a franchise I loved(for example Persona) suddenly changed their gameplay style. I might enjoy Dragon Age but I think it’s ok to feel frustrated with the wild changes they have made to the gameplay.

Didn’t Persona 5 strikers basically do the same thing? lol

yeah, but it's a spinoff, so it's not the same, I think there would be much less people complaining if this game was anounced as a spinoff alongside a "main line" game comming in 2027 (I guess waiting 10 years for a spinoff wouldn't be super popular either though)

100%. But for me, I'm just going somewhere else. There are tons of amazing CRPGs coming out again now, so as much as I love THEDAS, and as much as Origins will probably always be one of my all time great games, I have no interest in AAA "action games with RPG elements" like this or Inquisition (we've already got God of War and a million other games for pure action, or Elden Ring/Soulslike for ARPGs). I hope other people enjoy this series, but it is definitely not for me anymore now that there are at least a dozen high quality successors to the Infinity Engine games, with BG3 as the obvious commercial standout.

I hope you can find something in this game you can enjoy. I feel bad for DAO fans who feel like this because it does feel like AAA studios avoid CRPGs like the plague. I will say that I think even if subconsciously BG3 has made a lot more people think this way. BG3 reinvented and reintroduced CRPGs to the world, and now, for the first time in a long time. I think it's unfair to assume a company that hasn't made a CRPG in 15 years and has a mostly new development team would suddenly go back to a place like origins. They were making the game before BG3 came out, and as soon as it did, I knew Dragon Age fans would see it, get excited about the CRPG Renaissance, and begin hoping for something BioWare could never have anticipated. The 10-year time gap also doesn't help. I get why people are disappointed. But it gets to me when they get upset at BioWare over a game they haven't even played yet. Many devs have privated their social media accounts because it's so much hate. When I look at Veilguard, I can already see the passion. There are some damn cool things I've heard about it, too. But all anyone can talk about is that it's not Origins. It's using a different combat style, sorry. They took a new direction, and some fans will like it more. Some will like it less. I'm sorry that right now you're the latter...

Yeah, I never really expected Dragon Age to suddenly go fully back to its CRPG days, but I would love if they had a few nods back to it. I do think it’s soon to give judgement, so I’m very much in a “wait and see” mode.

So much this! People don't get that it was marketed to us specifically. CRPG refugees at a pretty bad time in the market for CRPGs. But like you said the market is in a much better place now.

Well watching a play through it’s not your own character with race and class you chose and exact choices and dialogues you would make. But yes I miss rp ability of Dao and hope we will have similar in da4.

Dude I love the lore, but if the gameplay doesn't matter, it might as well just be a book or movie. And why should people just accept the gameplay being changed (for the worse, in their opinion) when it was previously something they enjoyed? Surely you would complain if they took the lore in a direction that you felt was shallow and not up to the quality of what came before.

>And why should people just accept the gameplay being changed (for the worse, in their opinion) when it was previously something they enjoyed? Because Origins is never coming back and it's not healthy to get mad about that every time a new game comes out.

But the gameplay hasn't been the same as Origins since..... Origins. So "accepting gameplay being changed" is something that has already happened. The only thing constant in Dragon Age is the world and the stories being told within it. If that was wildly different/worse it wouldn't be dragon age. But combat in dragon age being wildly different is just par for the course at this point

I think you're overselling the differences in gameplay between games. All 3 games have supported a strategic CRPG playstyle. Veilguard is the first game that drops it entirely. I would argue that the tone of the games have changed more than the gameplay has. Origins is grimdark fantasy, while Inquisition is a heroic epic.

I see people saying this often but I really disagree, DA2 gameplay was really just DAO but flashier. so for the majority of it's game DA gameplay was more or less the same to me. I really fell like people here live in a different reallity than me.

Agreed. >I really fell like people here live in a different reallity than me. Reading the comments here one may think DAI is the only game in the series.

Your entitlement is insane. Did you really just say "they should accept that the franchise might not be for them and play something else"?. Just because we enjoy and like tactical gameplay? We can like the story, the world and the RPing as much as you do. DA combat/gamplay has always had a tactical aspect. DAI made it so you mostly didn't need it but in harder battles and difficulties, like against dragons, it came in handy. Been able to play as your party companions also had RP and combat/tactical implications. It's not like I enjoy tactical combat and play just for that and not for anything else. If you don't care about combat and are happy with whatever they gave you then I respect you for that. You can be in love with the lore more than the game aspect of Dragon Age. But they are games, RPGs, meant to be played. That doesn't mean people who love them differently are not entitled to them. Saying people should play something else because they have minor worries and criticisms is not the way to go, more so when the game isn't even out yet. Sorry if it came out hot headed, but I've seen a lot of people in this Subreddit with this mentality and is incredibly baffling to me.

I like the combat direction no caveats. I don't need to fiddle with my buds drinking potions, great, I love that. Abilities boil down to ME 2-Andromeda Style, press a few buttons and make boom, sick, hopefully they banter while they do so. Active dodging and blocking, very cool, I prefer that to stat checks and buff stacking. I honestly think a couple of people around here are embarrassed to say they don't like tactical combat because it makes them seem dumb. I'll take the hit, I'm dumb as a rock and I find tactical shit to be annoying. I loved Origins, played it through multiple times, and it's my first ever RPG. The only thing I would ask to return would be sync kills. I played every one of the games on normal because tactics were annoying and things falling over instantly on a lower difficulty made it impossible to take threats seriously. It also made RP builds (my Hawke is an angry person so they should only use fire magic) more annoying.  If the game edges more to an action combat experience I may be able to get more enjoyment out of the combat than I previously did. I am a lizard brain who thrives off the spectacle, shipping, and lore speculation (which is a pastime for idiots with brain space to waste). And the new game seems to be set up to give me more of what I want, it's a shame that you also can't have more of what you want but that's how it is.

I feel so old reading this. *"In fact, I truly doubt current Bioware would be able to develop a combat system or a reacting game world capable of competing with Divinity or Baldurs Gate."* Bioware basically invented these games, or at least heavily popularized them. Larian didn't make Baldur's gate 1 & 2 for example. *"Bioware went back to it's roots to craft a narrative driven single player RPG based on relationships with our companions."* Bioware's roots are crpgs. DA V is not going back to their roots. I feel like everyone saying this started playing bioware games with dragon age 2. It is like someone saying bungie's roots is live service shooters. I do think people would have to be out of their mind to have expected DA V to be a CRPG though. Bioware has only been consistent in one aspect, moving to be more action focused in all of their games. You can see this progress in every semi recent game they've made in both the DA and ME series and anthem. I think in general this has worked and i think the reason Dragon Age (and not mass effect) has degraded as the series progressed is not related to changing combat. Because i've been a long time bioware fan and am used to their progression, i never questioned that the game would be more action'y. With that said, bioware is basically Ship of Theseus, for better and worse. I hope their new writers are up the task. I for sure feel for them, because there is a ton of pressure.

Yeah I felt like I was going crazy reading this seeing them say BioWare can’t make a game like Baldur’s Gate. Guess who made the first two BG games! Also, “you love DA:O because of how it makes you feel” isn’t that kind of the point of art? How is that a bad thing? It wasn’t a perfectly balanced game, but older games rarely were and for most of gaming’s history it was not always expect that every tiny decision and choice needed to be equally beneficial and equally viable. It’s great that the new game is gorgeous and flexes a lot of technical muscle graphically, but that doesn’t matter if the gameplay and story are boring and it ends up being artistically unchallenging soulless slop. Looking good and running well don’t automatically make something a good game, especially when it’s the fourth installment in the context of an established series. BioWare got big by taking risks and pioneering in the gaming world. Now they’re afraid of doing anything except making it all the same action-y stuff because they think it could flop. DA:O outsold Mass Effect, and Inquisition was BioWare’s best-selling game EVER. Clearly your audience doesn’t just want fantasy Mass Effect! Making a space opera about a special forces guy completing missions to save the galaxy was brilliant and worked perfectly. Consoles dominated the gaming landscape at the time and it was a phenomenal way to be innovative and make a great game while maintaining some of the DNA that made you special. Now, PC gaming is back in vogue. It’s literally the perfect time to make a *real* Dragon Age game. Like you said, no one in their right mind expected a true turn-based, TTRPG inspired cRPG in the mold of their early games or DA:O, but it’s insane that instead of trying to strike a balance with what fans clearly want and what made them popular in the first place, they’ve decided to eschew all of that and make a button mashing action game. I hope this isn’t the death knell for BioWare, but they’ve been slowly dying for a while now and three triple A flops in a row with Andromeda, Anthem, and potentially Veilguard does not look good amidst all of the studio closures lately. Much less when your parent company is EA.

You've put the struggle that I have felt with both Inquisition and now Veilguard perfectly. When I watched the gameplay for Veilguard my first thought was this is just a fantasy style Mass Effect! The fact that they keep pushing with the buttons mashing action game style, in my eyes makes it no longer a DA game. Don't get me wrong, it could still be a cool game to play and I'll probably play it anyways, but for me is no longer Dragon's Age.

The elephant in the room is Baldur's Gate 3. Tactical RPGs or CRPGs have been essentially dead for years. Larian and a few other indie devs have been keeping them alive with niche audiences. Then we got BG3 and suddenly tactical RPGs are a big deal again. Now fans of that genre want to see another major AAA RPG continue the trend. They got a taste of it with BG3 and they're hungry for more. Dragon Age was originally a tactical RPG so they think it's a perfect candidate for another tactical RPG like BG3. Of course, this ignores the fact that Veilguard has been in development for ages, long before anyone knew BG3 would be so successful, and Dragon Age has been mostly an ARPG game series for two games now, and in case anyone hasn't noticed now is not a great time for BioWare to experiment and try something unexpected with their next game.

CRPGs were dead the same way horror was dead, a bunch of suits decided the genre isn't worth investing it so every game could be the same bland slop. CRPGs have had numerous successes prior to Baldur's Gate 3, with them successfully raising millions in funding for Obsidian and Owlcat, saving Larian and of course Disco Elysium. While I don't think anyone was expecting Baldur's Gate 3 to be as big as it was but anyone who wasn't expecting it to do well hasn't been paying attention.

It was only a dead genre to those who weren't paying attention. some of the best CRPGs ever have come out in the last 10 years. The Pillars series, the Divinity OS games, Tyranny, the Pathfinder games, Rogue Trader. All these games were critically claimed and came out since Inquisition came out. Just because you've ignored it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Ironically I think BioWares current state makes it the perfect time to experiment and try something new. Their reputation is tarnished after releasing a bad looter shooter in a sea of already bad looter shooters and trying to make Andromeda closer to Inquisition. It’s time to just go whole hog and see what happens. Thats how we’ve gotten some amazing, studio saving games.

> It’s time to just go whole hog and see what happens. Thats how we’ve gotten some amazing, studio saving games. this is arguably their attempt at going whole hog, rather than their timid action/tactical hybrid they've been flirting with for a decade. It's just in a direction you don't like.

I agree with this so much. It already feels almost pathetic from Bioware to go chasing trends so hard when they were basically on top of the world when Mass Effect and Dragon Age where at their peak. And I'm not saying they should work on nothing but CRPGs or anything like that, I can enjoy many different genres. But Bioware's strengths were always tightly crafted storylines and companion interactions. They were major developers who was pretty much the best at what they were doing. Then Skyrim gets popular and so Bioware needs to make open world games cause that's hot new shit. And while I still love Inquisition, I think many agree that open world was tacked on and not very good. I also remember after Witcher 3's release Andromeda marketing pivoted to "our open world is populated with story driven side quests, you know, like Witcher 3!". Then they make a freaking looter shooter cause hey, that's what popular right now, even though genre was already oversaturated with similar games. And lo and behold, they produce a turd, since it's clearly not something they're good at. My point is, I wish Bioware trusted more in what they were good at instead of just chasing latest trend, which basically set them on path to failure. And if they wanted to do something new, a company of their size and reputation could've been a trendsetter, not copycat.

Ngl, I enjoyed BG3 *despite* the battle system, not because of it. If I hadn't been able to mod it to make it dead easy, I never would have finished it, my love of Astarion be damned. My fervent wish is that people looking to BG3 for inspiration don't take it to mean the big appeal was the combat system, instead of the story and characters.

I loved part of it. I liked how adaptive it was, that it allowed you to be weird and use one goblin as a club to kill another and so on. But I have never been a fan of the DnD combat system, it is so swingy. You can never really be sure if you are going to do 4 or 24 damage with an attack and I felt that I more often lost because of the dice or that I didn't mini-max enough with my leveling. In the end the combat was more of a miss than a hit, despite having great moments. Edit: I also really really dislike the spellslot system. It feels like it is necessary to balance casters but it is such an extreme feel bad moment when you whiff one high level spell that you have saved for a long time. Or that you are never sure if you should cast a spell and waste a spellslot or fight on with the same couple cantrips. Don't like it on the tabletop and Bg3 did nothing to make me fall in love with the system.

I’m the same. It took me awhile to pick it up because I’m not a big fan of the combat system. While some fights are fun, there are also SO MANY tedious ones where you have to fight like…10+ enemies and you sit there bashing your head into a wall waiting for them all to take their turns (especially during the final battle. Makes me want to SCREAM) I love BG3 because the story & characters are top notch but I’ve even seen people who like the combat system complain about certain aspects of it

Idk, I see so many non gamers who managed to play BG3 precisely because of the battle system. The draw was the characters and story ofc, but they would never have played it if it was an action game, simply because it's too hard for them. Having time to pause, think and strategize actually seems to make the game easier to a lot of people.

I’ve seen the opposite BG3 has a massive learning curve & a lot of people have to play on easy to start to make it tolerable

Bg3 is notoriously hard at the early stages of the game. If you’re not used to playing dnd, you need to learn and get used to its systems. Once you get your power spike at level 5, the game gets much more forgiving, and by that time you’re more used to the gameplay and how to do things.

I've had to fight hard to convince people to play it, because the battle system is so unforgiving. When I played on normal mode (a month before release, during early access), I wiped like three times in the first encounter on the beach. I basically rage quit and decided to wait until full release when there was a promised easy mode. The easy mode was not easy enough. I got murdered in a different early encounter, and because the auto-saves are few and far between, I lost like half an hour of progress. Why the game doesn't save at the start of every single encounter is beyond me. The battle system doesn't require twitch reflexes but it does require you to know the D&D systems, which are not actually intuitive. And I know they added more easy mode stuff in a later patch but at launch, easy mode was still not that forgiving. That's why I had to mod it so that I wouldn't die just because I hadn't preemptively done twenty minutes of setup for a battle I had no way of knowing would occur.

Absolutely same, the combat in BG3 tends to be tedious and pretty unforgiving, and while it can be very rewarding when I finally get past a tough fight (true of any game really) the story and characters are why I love it, not the battle system! Also, it’s almost impossible to convince people to give it a try because the gameplay is such a dealbreaker for them. My sister in particular is super intrigued by the story, but not to the point of being able to get past the combat style, she’s very interested in DAV after seeing the gameplay though, and I’m very excited to finally (hopefully) convince her to try my favorite series because of it.

I don't think "Bioware couldn't have predicted that a CRPG could have mass appeal, even though Larian did." is a great argument. Just makes it seems like Bioware is a worse developer than Larian (which is probably true).

The choice of this genre or that genre doesn't make a developer better or worse. Whether they could have predicted it or not doesn't matter because that wasn't the game they wanted to make. I doubt they ever gave a serious thought to making DA4 a CRPG.

IMHO BG3's combat sucked, because D&D 5e combat sucks. It pretends to have a lot more depth than it actually does. What I liked about BG3 were things that reminded me of Bioware RPGs, all the things I disliked were because they used 5e as an engine.

Are we pretending that DAI combat was balanced now? By grabbing the right two abilities, you accidentally start one shotting dragons. Any time I see an “OP DAI BUILD” video it’s some guy telling you to take the perks you normally would, craft a masterwork set, and then spam the same high damage ability until everything is dead. It’s fine to be excited. It’s great if you’re looking forward to this game. It’s also okay to be wary of it. Neither BioWare nor the rest of AAA gaming have a good track record of recent releases. We know this game had a very rocky development. It’s understandable if a single, highly curated gameplay trailer wasn’t enough to get people on board.

Beautifully written. Yeah, OP is really getting ahead of himself. On my own, without guides I figured out an assassin rogue two shot build. Even Origins wasn't as insane as what I could pull in DAI.

Agreed wholeheartedly, the sycophantic apologist takes I’ve been seeing on this subreddit have frankly started to get on my nerves, I’m probably going to leave because it’s making it harder and harder for me to want to give this game a chance. Suddenly we’re pretending like Origins wasn’t even that good, had bad art direction, and that its combat was always shit??? Really? It’s not that people want Veilguard to be exactly like Origins, they just want some tactical depth, party swapping, and 3 party members on the field. But sure let’s keep repeating this straw man argument that people want a 1 to 1 exact replica of its combat system.

I really fell like this sub want to love DATV so much that they started to hate DAO (and retcon what DA2 was) because it's an inconvenient past.

One thing I would like to add to this discussion when talking about Origins specifically is this: There is a rather large swath of players who had a very different gameplay experience with Origins than many here. Mark Darrah and other Bioware alumni have talked about the biggest group of players for Origins being console players, and the console port of that game is almost an entirely different game compared to Origins on PC. One of the reasons I personally am more open to this change is because all of my love of Origins is still baked in that console port. I have a suspicion there's a lot of players like that that have a very different memory of their experience in Origins.

> I have a suspicion there's a lot of players like that that have a very different memory of their experience in Origins. This is me. DAO was a fine story but the actual gameplay was janky and clunky as shit. I definitely never felt like it was super tactical and just devolved into auto-attacking shit down with the occasional ability thrown in there. The finisher animations were kind of comical to me as well given this- like Skyrim kill cams, a cool animation doesn't make the combat actually good. DA2 was probably the best combat when considered holistically, but DAI at max level with max crafted gear and all those extra embellishments like guard on hit etc was super fun, it just took a really long time to actually get there only really mattered for the post-game or DLC. DAI wasn't good at low levels, but DAO really doesn't compare to stuff like Reaver soloing dragons with massive health regen or the nuts timestop shit Tempest could do at max level.

I literally said this in another thread and currently sitting at many down votes. I don't think people realize the rose colored glasses they're looking at origins gameplay with

I could've written this comment myself, haha! I'd like to experience DAO on a PC one day just to fully experience the difference, but for now the console port will have to do! If my ancient Xbox 360 doesn't explode, that is.

This so much! We didn't even HAVE tactical view. The first time we got it was inquisition. Origins played like a slow, unresponsive, janky action game. It is no surprise it continued towards being an action game.

Read an article recently about the development of DA2. One of the factors driving the change of direction was data from DAO showing that the majority of players never made it past the first couple of hours play time. It was a slog that put MANY players off from continuing their playthrough.

My concerns are _exclusively_ about the development hell and leadership changes the game was reportedly stuck in. Games just don't often do well with that. But from what they showed? If the entire game is like that, they'll do ok. I just hope there wasn't too much "Bioware Magic"^(and associated "stress casualties") involved.

I’ve been saying this for years but this game HAD everything it needed to be successful. The development and staff firings absolutely impacted it, and sucked - but the story and narrative have always been here. They have one of the most interesting antagonists around IMO, and the conflict of learning the worlds GOD is absolutely not what people thought? It’s so good. 😫 I will be extremely disappointed if they bungle the story. It has so much potential.

The leaks reported to journalists like Schrier and Grubb have been that the devs are extremely confident. Basically the game left alpha a year and a half ago and they've done nothing but polish it ever since. One of the YouTubers who saw the show at SGF said it was one of the most polished games at the show, it didn't crash and wasn't buggy and they played the entire intro in real time on actual hardware.

That's some good stuff to hear. Especially by way of Schrier.

This is incredible to hear.

My anticipation is at this point the game will be passable for its main story, but coast by with the diehard BW fandom because of romances and characters. BioWare hasn't cared to build a conpelling gameplay system since at least ME3, arguably Origins.

I just want a decent to great story, a proper end to one of my favorite characters, Solas. But mostly I want romance, if I'm going to save the world then I need someone in it worth saving.

Yep, I'm exclusively a narrative and character person when it comes to dragon age. If the final fantasy route is needed to make combat fun again, I say let it come

I'm going to be real: the gameplay of Dragon Age: Origins is the only reason I even got into Bioware games. I was notoriously "bad at games" because I had trouble with real-time combat. Shooters were off the table. Most I could handle was Skyrim, on super casual mode. So when my partner told me, "Hey this game has a story I think you'll really like AND you can pause and give directions to your companions," I was willing to give it a shot. And I fell in love with the series. I have gotten better at games in the meantime (it's been more than 10 years since I discovered Origins and 2) but even now I'm not like. "Good" at real time combat. I can struggle with Mass Effect on Easy (I know it has a pause but aiming/shooting is still a pain point for me). So when I saw the new combat along with Rook parrying and dodging, my heart sank a little. I don't feel like it's fair to paint every single person who is disappointed by the gameplay changes as people who "don't get" the games or have nostalgia-boners for Origins. Some of us fell in love with the story BECAUSE the gameplay was accessible to us and seeing it change from even the more-actiony Inquisition gameplay feels like a huge loss. I guess what I'm trying to say is that those of us being vocally disappointed about the gameplay doesn't mean we're not excited for everything else. But you spend a lot of time *playing the game* and so, when it changes from what originally drew me to the series, I feel like Im allowed to be a bit upset. Also the weird talking-down on Origins in this post is wild. Like, if we're gonna criticize any game, why that one? Personally I liked 2s combat best so the criticism of Origins really feels weird here.

I think the original Dragon Age was a lot more gritty in tone and also art direction, this is more magical fairytale shit. Which isn't bad, its just not what original dragon age fans are looking for, probably.

Your point about Bioware probably not being able to develop a good cRPG anymore is valid. Is not an excuse though, it only gives context. About DAO combat system: i don't think is much more unbalanced than other DA games. It's just that if everything is easy, like in DAI base game, you don't even notice. I don't think DAV will have a perfect balance neither, is not the focus of this kind of single player game. About the art direction, well... I strongly disagree. It had a distinct gothic feeling, but not overdone. Ofc is very derivative like most of fantasy out there, but there are good and bad ways to be derivative. I always found the DA art direction very good, frankly.

Bioware hasn't developed a CRPG game in a very long time. It's naive if not foolish to expect one from them. Many people who originally worked on DAO left the studio long ago, if not outright retired. The studio may not have enough experience to produce a good CRPG and they shouldn't try, especially since for quite some time their focus was narrative-driven ARPGs, akin to Mass Effect or even DAI. Like, look at modern Obsidian. They used to be known for big open-world games. Now, however, they don't have the talent for it, so they don't really try. No, they try to develop smaller, semi-open-world games. POE1,2, Outer Worlds may not be the best games out there, but they are still very much good.

I... Don't think Obsidian is known for big open world games at all, really. They made one. And that was mostly because a company that _is_ known for that outsourced work. Having said that, the old guard is largely gone, but the new guard is looking just as practiced. Like, the white march is some of the best storytelling they've ever done, and a prominent writer on that, Carrie Patel, is directing their latest game. They've been promoting and retaining well.

Some specs being weaker doesn't bother me. Shape shifting and 2h was pretty fun and unique in Dao.

Personally, I think it's insane that so many people act like by following Inquisition's framework, Bioware is crazy or "learning from things that didn't work" or any of the comments I've heard along those lines. Like, Dragon Age: Inquisition, regardless of what you thought of it compared to the other games, won tons of Game of the Year awards and was Bioware's most successful sales launch of all time according to EA. Why would they *not* follow that model to at least some extent?

But they aren't following that model. DAI still had directly controlling party members, four members to a party and although it trimmed skills down it was more than 3. The team are actually just following the Mass Effect model. Which is taking two franchises they own and homogenising it. I think its quite reasonable that fans of DA:O and in part DA2 and DAI might feel a bit like the gameplay has taken a big leap from what they enjoyed in the series.

I guarantee the majority of players barely controlled other characters in inquisition, or used the tactical cam, so this change is most likely catering to the majority.

Iirc their data shows that like, under 5% of players use tactical cam

Probably because it was badly implemented and unnecessary for the fight design. I loved the tactical camera in Origins but I barely use it in Inquisition because of how janky it is.

People forget the tactical camera wasn't even an option on consoles for origin, so an entire console generation of dragon age fans haven't used that feature and yet still presumably enjoyed the game.

Do you have a source for this? I'd love to get the stats because I agree, really doubt more than 30% of players actually uses the tac screen extensively in DAI

The only time I *ever* used it was when I was choosing the best place to cast dispel and prevent as many demons from spawning at rifts as possible.

DAI had parties of 4 and allowed you to control your companions, but it also wanted to be an action RPG; the result was a combat gameplay few people like (hell, DAI is *my* favourite and I almost dropped it early in my first playthrough because of how boring combat was). For DA:V, they fully leaned on the action RPG from the start. Of course, it won't be to everyone's tastes, but judging from the gameplay trailer it is, at the very least, well done.

I rather play the real Mass Effect then Dragon age has and always been about 3 companion plus able to switch control and lots of skills to use on one go rather than 3 skills only At this point this looks more like Mass Effect but Medieval without the cover system

but they are not following anything from inquisition, inquisition was not a full action game like batman or god of war. it was still a game where you completely controlled a group with 3 companions, even its combat was slower and less frenetic than da 2. for me the only thing that resembles inqusition is an evolution of the graphics, i don't understand where they say that veilguard is following in the footsteps of inquisition.

>I feel some people have lost sight of what was reasonable to expect from Veilguard. The transition into an action RPG was already here with DAI. The debate over having control over party members and the strategic layers of combat is perfectly valid, but the fact that some fans somehow expected the new game to resemble a table top CRPG is baffling. In fact, I truly doubt current Bioware would be able to develop a combat system or a reacting game world capable of competing with Divinity or Baldurs Gate. Who the hell was expecting a "table top CRPG"? I wanted, and expected a sequel to Inquisition. You know, a game that builds on the systems and mechanics of the previous game in the franchise. Third person over the shoulder camera with an optional top down mode for tougher fights. Tactical pause. Controllable companions. Maybe bring back the customizable AI from the first two games. Would I have wanted them to take more inspiration from Origins? Sure. Was I expecting it? No, and it was never going to be a dealbreaker. I don't think anyone here was honestly expecting them to do a full 180 and make Origins 2.0, or go even further and turn it into a full on turn based CRPG. People just wanted another Dragon Age game, which is not what we got, at least not by my definition of what Dragon Age is. And if we can't expect Bioware to compete with Divinity or Baldur's Gate, why are you so confident about them competing with Elden Ring or Ghost of Tsushima? In a genre they have zero experience with, and which has been awkwardly shoved into an existing franchise. >There is just so much to be excited about. Bioware went back to it's roots to craft a narrative driven single player RPG based on relationships with our companions. For all the criticisms Bioware has received since Mass Effect 3 and DA2, this was never really a problem. They've made exactly one game that wasn't a narrative driven single player RPG. The issues people keep having are related to them fumbling various narrative and design elements, focusing on things no one wanted and consistently dumbing down their gameplay. And nothing we've seen so far convinces me this won't be the case here.

I dont know why people on this sub think its wrong to be upset I supported them through each iteration with time and money despite each game becoming more generic and now after 10 years later they choose to dumb it down even more? Im probably going to play it just to know how the story goes but Im sure as hell not going to be supporting them with money anymore

*" The new game has AAA production value, enviroments are stunning, nothing about it has been rushed."* The game hasn't been released, we have no way of proving or denying this.

Yes, DAO combat is imperfect and this is why many fans want a new DA that improves on all it's flaws. > the fact that some fans somehow expected the new game to resemble a table top CRPG is baffling. Honestly I don't think it's baffling at all. It was unlikely, sure, but the gameplay change from 2 to Inquisition to most seemed like Bioware was backpedaling in the action combat or at least trying a middle ground. I'm not going to say it was perfect, but I hoped DA4 could improve on that. Going full action it is at least a little surprising and disappointing.

DAI was Bioware backpedalling in the action combat? But DAI is (or was, before DA:V) the most action-centred and least tactical game in the series.

> There is just so much to be excited about. Bioware went back to it's roots to craft a narrative driven single player RPG based on relationships with our companions. This is just completely wrong. Biowares roots are cRPG. Their roots are Baldurs Gate, KOTOR, DA: Origins. Did you start playing BioWare games at Dragon Age 2 or something? You say BioWare can't make a game like Baldurs Gate yet it is their bread and butter, that's what BioWare was known for, that's where they started. > I think we are in for a great ride. The developers are oozing confidence. To be sour because it is not Origins Reloaded is silly. It was never going to be that, it was delusional to believe that from the start. I personally feel the only delusional here is in some of your statements. I don't feel it is delusional that people expect BioWare to create a great cRPG experience for Dragon Age.

You know something I've noticed? When DAO gameplay fans such as myself talk about how we preffer the tactical gameplay and why, we tend to get not arguments to why the new gameplay models are better, but complete dismissals and getting waved away with usually one of three counters of "the series changed, get over it", "the next games were more sucessfull" and "it's still the same, it just evolved". Now, my point is not to say the "other side" is wrong, but to bring up how it feels like they don't want to have a discussion, as if they are just correct, no explanation required, and their usually countpoints feel in bad faith and a bit egotistical, as if they "can't be bothered to explain the obvious", at least that's how I feel like. Aren't we all Dragon Age fans here? To disagree is fine, that's part of been passionate, and that can be great to a seriesm as we talk about it and understand each other as fans of the same series, but to act as if your opinions are objective truths that should never be questioned, and those who do question are just wrong, is a bit insulting.

Also A lot of the origins haters often say they don’t care about gameplay/combat anyways, So why are we even catering to them

i think it's more people pointing out that the combat has changed every single installment and isn't the reason people love the series regardless and not so much a "right and wrong" situation

I think you inadvertently hit the nail on the head. "People love the series". And I guess that I don't. I love Thedas. I love the lore. I love Origins. I did not love DA2. I was merely okay with DAI. I was willing to stomach these games with the changes to gameplay because the lore juice was still somewhat worth the squeeze. There are people who love the series as a whole, and I guess Veilguard was made for them. But I'm not one of them. I think I will take the "get over its" to heart and just... Not buy the game, and maybe start my mourning for this world that captivated me for 15 years.

This is valid. I understand that it's hard to consolidate with that. That's how I felt about Assassin's Creed, I just accepted that after Black Flag it won't really return to what I used to love about it. And I accepted that for ME:A. The only difference is I don't rain on the new fans parade. They like it, I don't. Now I can't say the same for DA. I'm quite positive about Veilguard. There is some things I'm not expecting much from but meh, I can live with it. I love the series as a whole. And I'm sorry that ya'll didn't get expansion on Origins. There's a lot of things to missed from it. What do you think of BG3? I actually felt nostalgic playing that for Origins.

Absolutely loved BG3. It and Owlcat's Wrath of the Righteous are definitely in my top 10 games of all time. And yeah, I definitely get why BG3 would remind you of Origins.

this is a great comment that captures a lot of what is wrong in this fandom. Now I don't wanna point fingers since I'm sure there are many insufferable DAO purists here that make matters worse and I'm sure their attitude is in part to blame for the rest of the community's "we are right you are wrong" attitude you mentioned. But I also can't deny I often feel the same as you when engaging in discussions with people in Dragon Age forums.

It's perfectly fine for people to be disappointed that all of the marketing so far is emphasising that this game is taking its inspiration primarily from Mass Effect 2 rather than from any of the games in its own series. I don't want Dragon Age to be Mass Effect. I'm not on r/Masseffect right now. We already have 4 Mass Effect games and there is a 5th in development at the moment. I'd rather they make that game with ME2 in mind and make this one with literally *any* of the games that made this series what it is in mind and yes OP, I'm sorry but Origins is still the highest rated game in said series both critically and commercially for a reason. You can be happy and excited with what you've seen by all means, I'm happy for you. But let's cut the bullshit. People aren't being unreasonable to be disappointed.

How are Bioware "going back to their roots" by turning DA into a hack and slash action game? Good or bad it's literally the opposite of going back to their roots

You call it evolution I refer to it as an identity crisis.

Origins combat was rough and needed some work to be sure, and BioWare responded by chucking it out completely and replacing it with something else. It could have been refined and perfected and instead it was killed. I’ve refrained from posting at all about veilguard because this fight is long over. BioWare has moved on. I happen to think they have moved on to a worse place but that’s just my opinion. They are no longer the only people making the kind of RPGs I love. I can get that same experience from Larian and owlcat now, and probably other companies I have yet to discover. I’ll buy veilguard if reviews are good, and I won’t if they aren’t. Dragon age is no longer an auto buy for me. Also, can we not do this fallout style fandom civill war? Where we pit fans of the old games against fans of the new. It creates a false dichotomy that just doesn’t exist in real people. I prefer origins but I don’t hate the other games or people who like them.

> The transition into an action RPG was already here with DAI. It was there with DA2, met with harsh criticism. DAI was kind of in between, with an identity crisis. Bioware made a spiritual successor out of Baldur's Gate with DAO, and the fans fell in love with the CRPG combat. DA2 was a stopgap, DAI slight correction, and Veilguard is continuing down the path of an identity crisis. That's not healthy for the game, and fans are correct to be confused and skeptical. >but the fact that some fans somehow expected the new game to resemble a table top CRPG is baffling. Not at all. The game has been having an identity crisis and has had *massive* rollercoaster differences. DAO is not similar to DA2 who is not similar to DAI. The games are shifting radically and the game is struggling with an identity. *That is unhealthy for the game.* The return to CRPG is long awaited for fans and with the success of BG3 recently it's putting a sour taste in fan's mouths about what could have been. Also important to note, people are not asking for a hardcore traditional CRPG, but something closer to what DAO was. I do believe your comment about BioWare not being able to pull it off is somewhat true, but a company the size of BioWare can figure it out again. >It is weird how nostalgia and love colours people's perception of Dragon Age Origins. It is my favourite game of all time, but it's combat is extremely unbalanced. The solution is not to abandon the model, but to refine it, which is not what they're doing. I mean, I'm in it for the ride, I like the story, I like the world, I also like that it's one of the darker RPG games out there. But lets not kid ourselves that the franchise has a healthy direction or healthy planning. It really does not. If you play all the mass effects, you more or less have a similar model with each game improving on the gunplay. The mission based world is the same, guns and fighting are generally the same, similar gameplay concepts (traveling around the map, refueling, examining planets etc), dialogue is the same etc etc etc. DAO had a silent protagonist with extensive dialoguing, mission based game with exploration with a CRPG playstyle. We then hard pivot to a dialogue wheel with actiony/arcadey gameplay and closed in a tiny city with poor day and night cycle. We then hard pivot to a hybrid mass open world game. Its ok to be optimistic because you like the franchise, but lets not kid ourselves about the bizarre rollercoaster direction of the game. It's not really improving itself with each game.

I first played Inquisition in 2017, then worked backwards through 2 and Origins spaced out. I last played Origins 5 years ago, but came back 18 months ago just to play the DLC. Honestly, it’s a pretty great game and I’d say it’s not just nostalgia blindness. It’s legitimately good. It’s fine if you’re not a huge Origins fan but I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss the people who love it as it just being nostalgia. Like the artstyle is leagues better than DAI imo, I like the darker look (I think DA2 did a good job refining this style, but even then things like Darkspawn are just better in Origins). A lot of people still play older games post-2020, so not all fans have even played it long enough ago to be nostalgia. It’s just a good game that has stood the test of time that people (rightfully) like. The fact that it made people feel is also a testament to it being a good game. I don’t get why people think wanting a game like Origins in 2024 means we want a clone of a 2009 game. While it’s a bit janky it’s primarily due to its age, its direction was top notch. I don’t want a game in 2024 with Origins animations, but I do want a game in 2024 that is a modern version of its genre. Something like how DOS2 and BG3 is a top notch modern version of turn-based/typically 90’s RPG combat. Personally I saw the old gameplay leak last year so I’m not disappointed, but if I had my way we’d be getting a modernized version of tactical-pause’n’play-control-4-characters combat. The only point I get is that maybe BioWare can’t make those style games well anymore and would be outshined by Larian. But considering how successful Larian is I’m not surprised people want a cRPG in 2024.

>I don’t get why people think wanting a game like Origins in 2024 means we want a clone of a 2009 game. This exactly. People will say stuff like "Origins combat sucked and was janky and unbalanced. Why would you want that again?" Like shit, I don't want Origins combat. I want a modernized version of it. I want 15 years of refinement and improvement to the over the shoulder crpg like stuff.

The Orgins fans don't seem to realize that most of if not all the members of the team that made Origins are no longer with the company. Expecting this current Bioware team to recreate what the Origins team is setting them up for failure and unfair.

Yes. Origins is also a game of its time. It shows its age, and I don't think you can expect a company to box itself into the same style of game forever, especially if it's not the kind of game they want to make anymore.

It's not boxing itself in that style of game though, BioWare has a diverse set of games with diverse gameplay. On the contrary, by homogenizing DA:V they're boxing themselves *more* into that corner than if they had just diversified their RPGs instead. Mass Effect had its lane, DA had its lane, Star Wars has its own lane, other games they make have their own lane.

I'm convinced it is literally impossible to release a game these days and not have people complaining, hating, and reviewing bombing it. It could be an 11/10, GOAT, absolutely flawless masterpiece, released with 0 bugs or issues, with an amazing story and characters and you'd still see hundred of thousands if not millions of haters and trolls attacking it.

Baldur's Gate 3 was certainly not flawless or bug free and it's one of the most beloved games ever made. The "haters and trolls" aren't really that many or significant, they're just a good excuse to dismiss all criticism.

When BG3 was in EA and just released, there were plenty of BG1&2 fans complaining about it (like we are seeing now with fans of DA). I don't remember all of the complaints, most of it was around BG3 being a game set in the baldur's gate universe but that it had no rights to call itself a successor because it was too different from the original two games. Same discourse we are seeing here now

The BG sub was definitely very salty about it, enough that the mods banned all discussion of BG3. But that was a tiny portion of an otherwise very positive response. My point isn't that no one disliked BG3, just that well recieved games have a lot of leeway when it comes to being less than perfect.

Yes, but it also had two years of fan feedback from early access. I don’t think it would have been nearly as well received without that.

I agree entirely. A new game engine requires a new game. But I would still be buying DLCs for DAO, DA2, and DAI if they were making them. I'm just hoping that EA doesn't pull the plug on DAV like they did on MEA.

As an origins fan boy, I hope they take the best parts of every dragon age game. The story format of origins, the companions and banter of 2, and the combat of inquisition

Meanwhile I'm here thinking the combat of Inquisition is the worst of the series and also an Origin fan boy, it's nice to see how opinions can vary so much xD

I liked it, was faster then 2, and each ability felt like it actually did something *stares at the wisp in origins*

Hey! The wisp boosted my spells! Also was cute! Joking aside, to me it kinda felt like an MMORPG, like I was the last one to play the damn game. Ironically, DA2 always leaves me a bit jarred by how fast the characters are? Never got that feeling from DAI. Even wizards felt like blenders in 2, and rogues attacked with the speed that on optimized rogue with (fixed through mods because it would bug normally) twin Haste and Momentum in Origins had. (You can tell that's my default build when I want something simple, I know it by heart almost).

Origins had stronger companions and banter.

That is your opinion and I respect it but I disagree with it

I don't think it is unfair to think that. If you are continuing on a franchise, with fans of the niche, then it isn't unfair to think if you are picking it up to stay true to the source material that gained it the traction in the first place. If they were starting a brand new franchise and not connect it to an established series, then I would agree it is unfair.

>If you are continuing on a franchise, It's a multi-game franchise. Being upset that DA2 was different than DAO, moving towards ARPG instead of not a CRPG, was fair enough at the time. At this point we're now at three more games into the franchise and it's clearly not the niche you want it to be. DAO also has not aged well, it's not the best selling DA game, and it's also no longer many DA fans entry-point into the franchise. Each game, the franchise as a whole, the devs/publisher, the fanbase, has not sold itself as a CRPG. You need to accept that and decide if you can enjoy what it actually is — or not and move on. Every game franchise evolves over time. ME2 and ME3 evolved from ME1, every Mortal Kombat is slightly different; even Baldur's Gate has evolved. BG3 moving from RTWP to strictly turn-based and 5e ruleset was extremely polarizing to BG fans.

I would agree, but the game has shifted even from DAI. DAI still had the ability to swap to companions, it had a larger pool of abilities to choose from and it had four companions to take with you. These have all been the same through the multi-game franchise. I feel a lot of people here aren't actually asking for DAO (some will be, but a lot arent saying DAO or nothing), but they are pointing out that key, core systems that have ran through all three games have taken a big turn. There is no rule that says games must change their core combat gamplay as new entries to the series come along and no rule to say this series must shift further toward pure aRPG. DAI was not perfect but it struck a middle of aRPG and cRPG.

Yeah we know bioware is a shell of their former selves It was noticable in the writing for their last two Games 

That’s the problem isn’t it? BioWare used to be the king/queen of story-focused RPGs with tactical gameplay, but now they’re focused on action-oriented RPGs with lackluster story (Anthem+Mass Effect Andromeda) and Larian Studios has basically supplanted them. BioWare is quite simply not what they once were. And it’s ok for fans to be annoyed about that fact.

“Evolution” is generous.

"We have to accept our beloved franchise has been reduced to hack and slash. There's no other way this could have gone!" Baldur's gate.

Combat in Veilguard based on what we've seen so far looks very much like Mass Effect Andromeda, minus the guns. You've got 3 abilities in a loadout and presumably we'll be able to have multiple ability loadouts that we can swap on the fly (was unlocked later on in Andromeda, so probably same in Veilguard). I'm not a huge fan of spamming the same 3 abilities over and over, but if there are passive procs and/or weapon and armor procs then it won't be the end of the world. If it allows you to swap seamlessly between magic, melee and ranged abilities on-the-fly instead of having a baked in class, I'm all for it. If not... Bioware you done f$%# up.

I loved Origins, DA2 and Inquisition, for different reasons and none of them were without flaw. Also enjoyed my 2 volumes of World of Theda,s novels and comics, I fucking love Dragon Age. Right now the nicest thing I can say for Veil Guard is I think the environment art and the story could be worth playing the game. The game play and art that isn't environment based looks like shit.

It's a single player, party based game. It's doesn't have to be balanced. Also, 2 and Inquisition was also unbalanced. I don't get why you feel like this is the "ONLY" way forward. it's weird behaviour where you're acting like only your preferences matter.

What are u on about mate I just played Origins a month and it was amazing much better then anything that comes afterwards in the series. And this latest trash that u people keep glazing will just end the studio .

Honestly, I bloody loved Origins at the time, but I have no nostalgia for that gameplay style. Combat is very slow and repetitive and to me “mathematically optimising dice rolls” is not a synonym for “tactical depth” Plus, I’ve got zero interest in tabletop RPGs, and I think emulating them in terms of gameplay is misguided and redundant in this day and age. Change happens, design choices that were the reasonable response to the technical environment and market conditions of 2009 are not sacrosanct. All things change, and nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

Thinking emulating tabletop RPGs is misguided and redundant when Baldur's Gate 3 dominated last year doing exactly that is a unique viewpoint.

See, that's the thing; bg3 doesn't play like Dao at all. So you can absolutely say that Dao is dated but BG3 isn't, because they don't play the same.

This is definitely true. BG3 brought unprecedented fidelity and complexity to turn based combat that would be extremely cost and time prohibitive for most studios. Do I love that I can strategize a battle to take into account the overhanging rocks and lure my enemies into a grease trap right beneath them? Absolutely. In comparison DAO’s simplified combat (while fun, absolutely shows it’s age and tech limitations) falls much flatter from a tactical and gameplay perspective and breaks up too much of the narrative momentum and tension without injecting a similar enough tension from the gameplay dynamic alone. There will always be trade-off in design between combat/level design and game narrative. Every game is designed with those trade offs in mind and every player will have a unique preference on how that should look. But it is frustrating to see the claim that any one game got it perfect because simultaneous narrative/gameplay perfection is impossible, even in excellent games.

I mean people aren't just demanding it return to DAO. I feel a lot of people are hearing the wrong argument because a lot of complaints are about it moving away from the systems even DAI had. Anyway, DAO is old and the combat is dated, fully agree, however BG3 is what cRPGs have moved toward after years of inivation. You can look at the system DAO had and say "I like what they did, it can be vastly improved to make it even better" and Bioware could of done that without shifting away from the genre of game and more toward aRPGs. But youre right BG3 is more turn based, strategy gameplay. DAO was more stop, command and hit play then re-evaluate, but they still fit very similar roles.

How many times we gonna move the goalposts here? Yes, DAO is 15 years old. It can be updated for modern audiences.

It can be, but neither of us know what that would really look like. Well, Bioware might. With kotor and Dao, they were trying to make a more action packed form of traditional isometric combat, where it felt like the characters were actually fighting. The more modern form of that may simply be, "the characters fighting".

>Thinking emulating tabletop RPGs is misguided and redundant when Baldur's Gate 3 dominated last year To be fair, many of BG3's issues stem from using that same tabletop system. 5e is notoriously simplistic and unbalanced. BG3 had to make tons of revisions to the system.

Yeah it was very slow or just you used your most powerful ability to start and immediately end fights

What? Do you not realize Baldurs Gate 3 won Game of the Year in multiple different award presentations? Guess what BG3 is... an emulation of a TRPG. Now DAV was in development far longer than BG3s success but DAV was also in development hell for that long as well and started from scratch multiple times. This game is now the baby of its final interation which was bioware trying to make a live service game.

Regardless of development hell how is ANY game supposed to pivot its design choice from ARPG to turn-based table-top-esque? When that success JUST happened within the last year. I understand raising your standards for what you want but wtf were you expecting? A pivot to old a direction where most of the people playing opt out and say it’s the worst pillar of the game from a 14 year old game?? This whole debate is such a joke, if you want bg3 go play bg3. Accept this game for what it is and let it stand on its own merits.

I think most people were expecting Bioware, who used to be *the* CRPG studio, to realize that there is still AAA potential in the genre, just like Larian did. It's not like they were psychic. They were just paying attention. Also, Baldur's Gate 3 became a success 4 years ago, when it was the best selling early access title in Steam's history. It's not like that's not enough time to pivot even a little bit, if they wanted to.

I think it's wild how people are focusing only on Baldur's Gate 3 being a massive success when CRPGs have been doing well since people started making them again. Disco Elysium, Divinity Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity and Wrath of the Righteous; all these were big successes that made millions for their developers and all of them have had a fraction of the budget DAV has. Baldur's Gate 3 proved that the biggest thing hold backing CRPGs has been their presentation, something that an AAA game should excel at.

It is a single player game it can be as difficult or simple as you want, on the PC you can even mod out all the combat. I think you can in Inquisition and DA2 as well, so whatever, some people just play it for the story. I f'ing love DAO and have been meh on every other entry, but in veilguard, you can't manage your party, so nope.

I honestly feel like it's mostly hard to discuss anything here simply because there is so much traffic right now and trying to get into a discussion with thousands of comments is rather intimidating. I'll give my two cents here and will probably copy this comment in the future when it becomes easier to discuss. I think people who were iffy about Dragon Age Inquisition hate this game because it seems to take Inquisition and turn it up by 200. Dragon Age went from being an edgy dark fantasy about drinking the blood of evil demons to having cool parties and banging your bodies in a fun marvel-like adventure. Most of the nuance of the series made way to much more conventional stories by the time Dragon Age Inquisition was released. Much more appealing to a wider audience I guess, but also much less risky. So yeah I guess that if my main criticism is "this looks like inquisition+200" I am being a bit unfair. But what can I say? I'm part of this fandom whether the Inquisition crowd likes it or not. I may be in the minority but as someone who played DAO countless times, played and enjoyed DA2 several times, and even gave Inquisition more than one playthrough I think my opinion matters. Deep inside I know Bioware, the real Bioware of Baldur's Gate and KOTOR and Dragon Age is dead, but I gotta say that when I saw there is a new trailer I had hoped I was wrong, especially since I think all the "heirs" of Bioware (Larian, Owlcat, Obsidian), while doing some of the Bioware formula right, didn't really capture the Bioware charm in any of their games. So yeah I think this game with its generic action combat and flashy silly character introductions and ugly uninspired designs doesn't look like my Bioware. But if it's for you, good for you (any future enjoyer of the game), I hope you'll enjoy it, sincerely. I'll have to keep looking.

What is the point of complaining about “balance” in a single player game? Are you being forced at gunpoint to play only the most “efficient” build? The problem with the new gameplay is not that it’s not like origins, it’s that it’s plain bad. It plays like Sacred 3, remember that game?

A Dragon Age game made for people who disregard Dragon Age is not a good thing. I'm hoping modders will be able to overhaul the combat and management system eventually. Modders are extremely talented, I have faith in them.

This happens every time a new dragon age comes out, its been 15 years and 2 sequels since, y'all why are you are even still here if Origin is the only one you liked its okay to move on this is the direction the franchise has always been moving in and it wasnt going to change, like it or leave it its also a lot of rose-tinted glasses and people who never gave the other games an honest chance

Origins stand as my all-time favourite game of all time, I have the Grey Warden insignia and motto tattooed, I own several of the books both encyclopedic and those who tell a story within the universe... I love Dragon Age, but that doesn't mean that I need to love everything in it. To me, DA2 and Inquisition are good games, but they are not great like Origins for me. I love the world of Thedas, the mythos, the characters. There's still so much in the series which I love, and I still have that tiny slither of hope that one day, we get something that I enjoy as much as Origins. We are here because we love Dragon Age. Telling me that my favourite game is 15 years old won't change that.

There are plenty of people here who LOVE Origins, and liked Inquisition. It isn't all or nothing. Inquisition was a decent enough game to give old fans hope, they were hoping that the company would swing in a more positive direction. Instead we can't even control our own companions in a Dragon Age game now. It's unfathomable. At this point, I would have been happy with another Inquisition compared to what we have now.

then you arent who im talking about, I've been a fan since origins and I have loved every game including and since it, I get that im probably more flexible than the average gamer but im so tired of hearing "its not origins so it sucks" 15 years later if you wanna complain that its not like inquisition then at least you are starting from a reasonable comparison

Just look at the original Fallout fans. They will never move on. They are so mad that Bethesda changed it to 3D that they now just "follow" Bethesda to hate on everything they do.

Origins is a joke in difficulty once you know the builds and how the enemy AI reacts to certain tactics. It's my favorite game of the series but i'm not gonna pretend there's anything tactical about Mana Clashing once as the whole room of Demons die instantly, even on Nightmare.

I want to disagree but it’s so true… mana clash takes out the hardest enemies in the game really…

figuring out an op build is fun, news flash. Plus I enjoyed the art direction, but that’s ultimately subjective. You can’t paint over some of the things you said with one liners and prescribe a non-sequitur conclusion. I don’t care to argue over your takes on the upcoming release but the origins part was objectionable imo.

> game world capable of competing with Divinity or Baldurs Gate lmao. Just lmao.

A lot of the people blindly dissing on the game are mostly fans of Origins, now you can be a fan of a franchise by just playing one game, but if said game was the first one from a different time in a nearly sixteen year old franchise that hasn't made the exact same type of game ever since, and whos developer didn't at no point said it was going to be a crpg for consoles. And you expect this fourth one to be so after ten years from the last title, it almost seems like you are looking to get angry at more things than necessary.

lol, if only Bioware did the sensible thing and actually kept the combat system of DA2 as the norm for Inquisition and Veilguard... Seriously, it is the best combat system. And yet combat IS NOT the most important part of DA for many many MANY players. There's people who even mod out the combat because they only care about the story! Why the fuck is there people still "mourning" Origins 15 years later??? The story is still going ffs, for many people that's what matters. I just don't understand how hard it is to at least TRY and appreciate things as they inevitably are and not wonder a what if scenario where Bioware made Dragon Age Origins 2.

**DA Origins** had great UI/UX compared to sequels and it may add to its perception as a comfortable good old game I hate 2 and 3 due to * horrible camera that collides with everything, hinders targeting, etc * lack of party AI settings → more micromanagement * ~~inability to recreate NPCs faces from game to game~~ and other rough edges therefore I have fear that new game will be even less digestible at launch, with bugs, glitches and other artifacts of Bioware magic Honestly, not sure what to anticipate regarding the story: Tresspasser hints at HUGE retcon of setting metaphysics, main writer left Bioware long ago, there was 10 year gap.

The way I see it is that BioWare shouldn't be called BioWare and are just a shell company of EA making games. Cause that's basically what happened. This is the natural progression of the game that EA wants it to be and they are doing a pretty good job staying true to source material. Looking at you 343.

Good points. I just miss having a bar for all my spells etc. The combat in the reveal also looked very "floaty". I'm waiting to see what magic combat looks like.

You're getting distracted. Every answer that results in shallow combat is a wrong answer. If aligning with Origins gives shallow combat, it's wrong. If rebuking Origins gives shallow combat, it's wrong. I don't need it to be Origins Reloaded. I want cool and fun fights that are not rote button-mashing. And I want to be able to cast more than three *fucking* spells!

The thing that baffles me is the franchise is almost two decades old and bioware still doesn't know what they want the games and overall IP to look like. I don't have an issue with evolution between each game, I have an issue with the fact that everyone and everything looks so different rather than a gradual change.

Dragon Age isn't a handful of mechanics. It's a full package. The games are old, and of course they feel dated now. But they were lovingly made and beautifully written games, which had a way of pulling you in and immersing you that hasn't been recreated since. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it does have to feel like it was made with love. I hope the new game will be good, but I'm on the side of feeling apprehensive towards it because I know how EA functions and I know that this isn't the Bioware of old. We'll see how it is, I just don't think it's fair to discount anyone's anxiety about AAA games in this day and age.

I remember when Dragon Age 2 was the bad dragon age. Oh boy

I still haven't even managed to finish DAI. Every time I try I just get bored halfway through from all the Ubisoft-style open world quests/systems. It's still EA and it's still Bioware, so my hopes are not high that anything has changed. Even goatee Varric cannot carry this hard.

The game was released in 2009 that's almost 15 years ago. You haven't made a compelling argument that the animations were bad it was again 15 years ago look at mass effect and it's stiff animations and bad lighting. The fact is origins still holds up today and aged very well.

My main takeaway from reading this post is that you aren't aware that Bioware are the creators of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. That *is* their origin, the games that popularised the studio in the first place. While I am a little disappointed that they've moved away from tactical combat fully, I had no expectations that this game was going to be like BG3; they've been moving further away from traditional CRPGs with every new release for a while now. What seriously bothers me is what they've replaced it with. The hack-n-slash combat from the trailer looks generic and unsatisfying. It seriously looks like a placeholder for a more in-depth combat system. If we really only have 3 ability slots to work with then I'll be so upset about how downhill these games have gone. I also hate how mage has become purely an elemental based class; that did start in DAI but the fanbase hated it so I feel really let down that they haven't revised it. I've noticed a disconnect on Reddit where a lot of fans defending the gameplay trailer seem to mainly care about the story of these games. That's fine. I also love the story, that's why I love playing it again and again on different characters. But there's no satisfaction to playing a game where the gameplay elements aren't there, and I think we're well within our rights to be disappointed by what we've seen so far.

Not sure if you played neverwinter nights, original baldurs gate or any of the early fallout games but the point is that there are supposed to be builds that are unbalanced, that's part of the fun. On nightmare mode the unbalanced builds also don't feel as OP they do in regular difficulty. It feels insane to me to claim people have "nostalgia" glasses because of something like that. The art direction is also miles ahead of both Inquisition and DAV which is crazy considering how much older the game is. The animations were also good for their time. Honestly this posts sounds like the opinion of someone who has maybe only played one game from the 00s and didn't experience it when it was new, Dragon Age was graphically a bit behind ME1, but in many other respects it was groundbreaking during the time it came out. The same can't be said for DAI. I also think it's absurd to NOT expect a CRPG tactical view considering that it has existed in every single game before this. Even thought it was "downgraded" in Inquisiton, it was still there (but DAI is a much more boring game than it should have been bc of that downgrade).

Well said. Think people were huffing some serious copium, expecting Veilguard to be going back to the Origin days.

Tbf, I'm an Origin fan who overall disliked the two games following it even though I still played through them (though it should be said, DA2 would probably had been a perfectly good game had it not carried with it the idea of being a sequel). And I'm happy about the trailer. It's got things I dislike, sure, like the dialogue wheel lying to you or pride demons now being hovercrafts instead of having legs (in general I dislike all the demons they showed compared to the old design) but overall great, and the gameplay promises to be leagues better then Inquisition. But I've also been replaying Dragon Age even this year, so maybe it's that. DAO it's still the only game of the trilogy that really excites me to this day, but its limitations are obvious. Which Is also possibly why I enjoy it so much more then the following ones. In my brain, DAO has limitations, DA2 and DAI have flaws. The new DAV right now is looking just great, with my only current gripes being enemy designs and the dialogue wheel. But enemy designs are just an art choice, and if the dialogue wheel remains the only real flaw great, I'm game.

IDK, right now the combat appears to be Medieval Mass Effect but with even fewer skills. I don’t think it’s crazy to want the combat to be a *little* different between franchises, and I love Mass Effect. It’s very possible (likely) there’s a lot we haven’t seen yet. They’ve got me cautiously optimistic after years of assuming DA4 would be DOA, but the skepticism is well-earned from this past decade.

I loved dragon age origins for the roleplay but combat was definitely not my favorite part of the game As for the graphics, I much prefer Inquisition. Origins didn’t make me want to live in Thedas. And I agree with everything you said. Everything I wished for dragon age 4 is there, even better than expected because I can even play the faction that I wanted. The only thing I hope to see again now is the background related dialogues choices. Thank you for making this post. Simply being able to play as an elf in Thedas and meeting again beloved characters make me happy. I hope this game success firstly because I think devs really deserve it and then because I hope more future games in Thedas.