Witcher 3 quest designer: DA Inquisition is a good game, but too many fetch quests

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I felt like DAI had plenty of content in terms of "side quests" that were interesting and not just boring fetch quests. The fact that it also had stuff I could do with little thought while I was wandering the world exploring is, IMO, a good thing, rather than a bad thing.

I'm not saying this isn't a legitimate view, because of course it is, but I'm honestly baffled by how many people seem to think DAI has only two things: story missions and fetch quests. I maintain that DAI's biggest screw-up was starting you in the Hinterlands, rather than in a much smaller, more-directed zone, and then open up the huge "do what you want"-type areas later.

None of the side quests in Dragon Age Inquisition were good.
 
Can't imagine why google translate would have trouble with a common German world like absammelresistenten.
 
Why do people keep saying they are optional?

Sure you don't have to complete them all, but the horrid mobile style "power" system ensures that you at least have to do some of them to unlock main missions.
 
Half the PR for this game is just trashing other RPGs.

I remember when it was first announced, the only media that came out would be accompanied with "This is why we hate Skyrim" or something.

Get your game out then you can talk about what makes yours better.

I knew there would be posts like this if I didn't include the disclaimer in the OP:
(they asked him, so it is not him shitting on other games for no reason)

I included it, in bold, and we still get this kind of shit. And it is not even true - their PR is not trashing other RPGs. They get asked about them, and they provide their (actually correct) opinion.

The first part of that statement makes me concerned for Witcher 3.

Then again, at least CDPR never even claimed to deliver tactical combat.

I don't understand what you mean here. What makes you concerned ? And where is he talking about combat ?
 
I was prepared to enter this thread screaming "NO! DAI IS ALMOST A GOOD GAME!" but then he put Fallout: New Vegas above it so I'll let the error go.

DAI would definitely have been improved without all the bloat, he's not wrong about that.

Edit: Oh! And he's the Quest Designer! This bodes well for Witcher 3 - FNV did a great job with open-world quests, and hopefully W3 follows suit.

This is exactly how I feel. DA:I is *almost* a good game. Tons of good ideas and good plot lines, but all of it bogged down by too many bloated quests without meaningful outcomes. (That and the characters are on the whole weaker than DA:O, even if a couple are very strong.)

Loved NV, so I hope it all bodes well.


Why do people keep saying they are optional?

Sure you don't have to complete them all, but the horrid mobile style "power" system ensures that you at least have to do some of them to unlock main missions.

Agreed. It's a dishonest deflection. Sure, you don't need to do them all, and you absolutely shouldn't since the game actually makes up needless fetch quests. But you still have to do many of them to unlock missions and new areas.
 
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(Thanks RPGCodex review)

I don't understand what you mean here. What makes you concerned ?
"DA Inquisition is a good game"
 
Why do people keep saying they are optional?

Sure you don't have to complete them all, but the horrid mobile style "power" system ensures that you at least have to do some of them to unlock main missions.

Not really. Not unless you have a rather expansive definition of "fetch quest", anyway. Power is handed out like candy.

(Though you do need to do an annoying fetch quest to get your Specialisation, which is dumb)
 

There are MMO-esque regional questlines that involve such things as: killing x enemies, going to x location to do y, killed named enemy x, etc. There are actually a couple lines of non-interactive dialog for these quests, which makes them stand out from the usual no-context stuff in DAI.
 
12241.jpg


(Thanks RPGCodex review)

"DA Inquisition is a good game"

HAHAHAHA

Ok, that is fucking terrible. But he has to be diplomatic anyway, Bioware did help them in the beginning after all. Plus even with this kind of shit, there are good aspects to DAI. I like its world design and exploration, for example.
 
There are MMO-esque regional questlines that involve such things as: killing x enemies, going to x location to do y, killed named enemy x, etc. There are actually a couple lines of non-interactive dialog for these quests, which makes them stand out from the usual no-context stuff in DAI.

I stand corrected!

;)
 
I was just joking about that part making me concerned, I fully realize he wouldn't just go right out and say that it sucks, even if he thinks so.

I wouldn't either if I was working on a competitor product, that's just bad form.
 
HAHAHAHA

Ok, that is fucking terrible. But he has to be diplomatic anyway, Bioware did help them in the beginning after all. Plus even with this kind of shit, there are good aspects to DAI. I like its world design and exploration, for example.

I'm still shocked CDProjekt managed to use Neverwinter Nights' creaky Aurora Engine to make something as great as the Witcher 1.

If you've played Neverwinter Nights, pre-EE Witcher 1's problems are a lot more understandable.
 
Good thing those quests are optional, right?
I hate this excuse. Just because a part of the game is optional doesn't mean it should be lazy. Especially in an RPG where those "optional" quests are a big component of the game.
 
So apparently I need to play Fallout: NV. Have owned it from a steam sale a while back but never even installed it.
 

let's take one area such as the emerald graves:

there's going through the ghost mansion, taking out the freeman of the dales, conquering the keep from the crazy chevalier, a dragon to slay, prisoners to save, a corpse to "investigate" and 2 secret elven ruins to explore.

I thought most of those were pretty good!
 
Stoped playing Inquisition because of the horrible quests. Theyre almost as bad as Dragon Age 2's quests.

"Hey, I found this thing, I heard you needed this thing, here you go"

The game is filled with fluff. Maybe they could've gotten rid of the horrible multiplayer game and had people work on the quests a bit more.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas are still the best RPG's in this aspect.

Have high hopes for the Witcher.
 
It's funny the amount of rationalization that's in this thread to reconcile his comments. Over half of those items pictured in the "fetch" quests appear naturally as loot from normal combat in a given area. The items often double as things to sell for more cash (to buy stuff you do care about), to make potions, or to get stat boosts against enemy types.
 
So apparently I need to play Fallout: NV. Have owned it from a steam sale a while back but never even installed it.

Oh yes you do. NV is probably the best game of previous generation. The PC version with all DLCs and some delicious mods (jsawyer, enb etc) in particular. I replayed it last year, some 90 hours in total...amazing experience.

I'm still shocked CDProjekt managed to use Neverwinter Nights' creaky Aurora Engine to make something as great as the Witcher 1.

If you've played Neverwinter Nights, pre-EE Witcher 1's problems are a lot more understandable.

From what I remember, they had to rewrite around 80% of its renderer. Witcher 1 looks stunning, considering that engine :)
 
I hate this excuse. Just because a part of the game is optional doesn't mean it should be lazy. Especially in an RPG where those "optional" quests are a big component of the game.

It isn't even a valid excuse . You absolutely have to wade through that nonsense to get farther in the game. I am doing it right now and it is horrible.

Oh look, side quests.

Even put in a repeatable quest with that Hinterland Requisition quest. Maybe put some context into that picture before posting it because it's bullshit.

Please give me some examples of anything remotely interesting from a side quest perspective in this game. I would like to have something to look forward to from Skyhold. It is sad that the best part of the game for me so far has been meeting Hawke and I didn't even god damn like Dragon Age 2.
 
rough translation of some direct quotes:

Witcher 3 allows you to do a lot. But ice skating? Nope.
Even a open world has borders.

"We had planned ice skating, but that didn't make sense in the general context. It was a really expensive feature in terms of animations and controls. It also didn't work so well because ice skating has totally different mechanics from running or horse riding"

"It isn't like we cut something existential"

[...]

"We wanted to design the main mission where Geralt infiltrates the Wild Hunt", but changes to the main story made that impossible. "You yourself would have been amid the Wild Hunt"".

"In the beginnings of the development the folks are keen as a mustard. They had a lot of ideas, loved to formulate them in all their facets, creating design documents. Everyone hoped that all their ideas made it into the game." Sometimes it is agreed internally that a feature is nice to have, but nothing more than that - and therefore dispensable.
"It happened that quality assurance wasn't even able to find it".

In total Tomaszkiewicz estimates that the proportion of cut content is more than 20 percent.

[...]

"As we begun to work on quests problems started to pop up that we didn't have in the smaller hubs in the first two installations. In an open world the gamer can come to start a quest from any angle. We wanted to keep the pacing within quests dynamic, but how can you do that with the sometimes long distances that Geralt has to travel? In addition we needed to remind the player of the main mission in light of side content. Along the lines of 'Who is this girl Ciri again', when the player comes back there 20 hours later"

[...]

"We tried to design the open world in a way that doesn't break the pacing of the main story and supports its structure. For me it is a tool to create immersion. As a player I don't want to just stand there and think 'Hmm, that looks like a stage that was artificially prepared for me' he should feel like he is in the world. Not like a world capital with five houses."

"Now, my favourite open world game is Fallout:New Vegas. The monsters .. there were those mines with those beasts, that have always torn me apart ... how were they called?" Deathclaws. "Exactly ... dreadful creatures. You couldn't just rush through. Or Gothic: A open world in a much smaller scale, sure, but very nice and strong monsters, no scaling"

(On Inquisition)
"I've liked the play-through ... but I think for my liking they could have managed with less fetch quests. But it is a good game nonetheless. Ultimately it increases variety, which can never be a bad thing for role playing gamers"
 
It isn't even a valid excuse . You absolutely have to wade through that nonsense to get farther in the game. I am doing it right now and it is horrible.

No you don't.

Please give me some examples of anything remotely interesting from a side quest perspective in this game. I would like to have something to look forward to from Skyhold. It is sad that the best part of the game for me so far has been meeting Hawke and I didn't even god damn like Dragon Age 2.

Side quests like your companion storyline? Wait til you see Blackbeard's storyline. It's one of those listed in Durante's shitty screenshot.
 
Not if you want to advance. I need 30 power to advance right now. Have 8. Time to scour those zones for shards, rifts to close, camps to set up, points to capture and a whole host of " I need butter for my biscuits".

Yeah, this is why I stopped. Loved it until I realized every zone was the same thing with a different backdrop. Once I'd seen and explored everything (which was great), not much diversity in the gameplay.

Still, felt like I got my money's worth. Wouldn't say it's a bad game, just got burnt out really quick on it.
 
He's not wrong, but it was still cool that they actually made me feel like I was finally in the history of Dragon Age. You didn't really have to do them anyways and it didn't bother me to pick them up here and there.

I really hope that Witcher 3 matches DA in terms of characters. W2 was ok with Roache and Saskia, but I hope there are some more memorable ones in W3.
 
I like how the guy gets shit from Dragon Age fans even though he's trying to be as Politically Correct as possible.

Witcher 2 quests were quite good, if they can build on that and adapt it to the open world style, then it will be a success in my eyes in that regard.
 
I love the game, but I agree that its quest structure is often too simplistic. Granted, the vast majority of them are optional, but that doesn't take away the sting of having fully-voiced sidequests with storylines that even DA2 had in spades. It's not the presence of the fetch quests that bugs me so much as the absence of meaningful ones that intertwine with the storyline. I can only think of one or two in Inquisition that do this. CDPR are masters of interlocking the main quest with side content. Even The Witcher's fetch quests (most monster contracts) don't feel like fetch quests because you're doing what a Witcher does. The diversions in Inquisition often felt too petty for your lofty organization to stoop to.

So apparently I need to play Fallout: NV. Have owned it from a steam sale a while back but never even installed it.

Yes. It's the best RPG of last gen, IMO.
 
Yeah, this is why I stopped. Loved it until I realized every zone was the same thing with a different backdrop. Once I'd seen and explored everything (which was great), not much diversity in the gameplay.

Still, felt like I got my money's worth. Wouldn't say it's a bad game, just got burnt out really quick on it.

It is not a bad game, but it is wildly overrated. Especially when you take Biowares pedigree or the fantastic RPGs that came out last year into consideration.

Side quests like your companion storyline? Wait til you see Blackbeard's storyline. It's one of those listed in Durante's shitty screenshot.

I have been doing those and as of yet they all involve me going to zones and finding spellbooks or wine or some shit. The only one that has been kinda different is Cassandras in that they are bounties, basically.
 
I really hope that Witcher 3 matches DA in terms of characters. W2 was ok with Roache and Saskia, but I hope there are some more memorable ones in W3.
I don't think that is a difficult bar to exceed.

Dragon Age: Inquisition, in particular, has a huge amount of dross characters.

Black Bull is the only one I see as being memorable.
 
Side quests are a huge part of that game. Saying "just skip them" is a horrible excuse for shitty design.

Uuuuhh, I didn't skip them and DA:I is my GOTY.

Some of you have zero tolerance for fetch quests, but probably played a few dozen games that could garner the same complaint. You want me to put out a huge list of fetch quests that are from Dying Light, Far Cry 4, Shadow of Mordor, and obviously World of Warcraft?

There's plenty of context, I linked the review. Read it.

Sorry brah, that review is shit. Maybe actually play the game next time. Oh, but you just listen to shitty media reviews instead.
Do you even know what a Requisition quest is?
 
I really hope that Witcher 3 matches DA in terms of characters. W2 was ok with Roache and Saskia, but I hope there are some more memorable ones in W3.

Same. I don't expect them to, but I still hope. Geralt's an excellent character, but by and large side characters aren't one of the series' strengths. Even characters who are great in the novels like Dandelion are ruined by terrible voice-acting. Even Roche, who GAF insists is the greatest bro in all of gaming, felt kind of flat to me compared to even the most bland companion in DA:I.

See? Different games can have different strengths! Weird...
 
I don't think that is a difficult bar to exceed.

Dragon Age: Inquisition, in particular, has a huge amount of dross characters.

Black Bull is the only one I see as being memorable.
Nope, Dorian was great as was Cassandra.

Actually, l thought all of them were pretty fun in their own ways. Well, with the exception of Cole, wasn't super big on that guy.
 
I don't think that is a difficult bar to exceed.

Dragon Age: Inquisition, in particular, has a huge amount of dross characters.

Black Bull is the only one I see as being memorable.

Heh. I'm not sure if you mean Iron Bull or Blackwall.
 
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