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Dragon Age: Veilguard |OT| 'Oof': A non-buynary return to form

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
For the people playing the game:

Do enemies have ragdoll when they die or they use precanned death animations? (Already asked elsewhere but the user wasn't sure)
Ragdoll no? Pre-canned yes. But animations in general are really good.

Problem is that with all the effects on screen its hard to see those animations but its good stuff overall.
Does the game has even a little bit of challenge on max difficulty?

I'm not asking for gimme the god of war mode but no challenge would absolutely make loot, skills and progression completely worthless where in an hard game you smile even for that 3% more damage upgrade becsuse you die hundreds of times.
Playing on normal and most early missions were super easy. But once the game opens up and you unlock side quests you might end up facing harder enemies beyond your level with a lot of different moves and big health bars with shields and armors you need to take down first. its challenging enough but not hard.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
S
Ragdoll no? Pre-canned yes. But animations in general are really good.

Problem is that with all the effects on screen its hard to see those animations but its good stuff overall.

Playing on normal and most early missions were super easy. But once the game opens up and you unlock side quests you might end up facing harder enemies beyond your level with a lot of different moves and big health bars with shields and armors you need to take down first. its challenging enough but not hard.
Since you and me had different experiences with dogma 2, would you say this game is harder than the harder moments in d2?

Please don't tell me it's easier...
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Way easier than dogma 2.
Did you finished dogma 2 or you bailed out like me?

Because i died only 3 times in almost 40 hours of that game and 2 deaths were just me experimenting with skills like a moron, so i can't even imagine a much easier game if i try, it would be kingdomhearts 3 tier of cakewalky...
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Did you finished dogma 2 or you bailed out like me?

Because i died only 3 times in almost 40 hours of that game and 2 deaths were just me experimenting with skills like a moron, so i can't even imagine a much easier game if i try, it would be kingdomhearts 3 tier of cakewalky...
nah, i beat it then did all the end game content which was much harder since it reset your progress if you died, and had a time limit of sorts iirc.

this game is not elden rings. its a simple action adventure game. at least on normal. maybe on hard they give bosses more health and that could be more difficult.

i am enjoying the combat because its fun.
 

struggler_guts

Gold Member
Just finished that first village you go to with Bellara, decided to
leave
the mayor.

The dialogue is very simple, Solas remains the best character, and does anyone else hear this weird filter on Harding like she was recorded off an old black and white film?
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
Just spent an hour+ trying to make a good looking female elf... and no matter what I do and I shit you not, she looks like a transgender.

I mean, it can't be me cuz Dragon's Dogma "2" has no such problems for example and there I made the absolute best lookin' female character I ever created in character creators. Maybe it's a cartoonish style of the game, I don't fuckin' know. Anyway, I'll try with a human tomorrow but... FFS, I want this hour+ of my life back:messenger_weary:
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Just spent an hour+ trying to make a good looking female elf... and no matter what I do and I shit you not, she looks like a transgender.

I mean, it can't be me cuz Dragon's Dogma "2" has no such problems for example and there I made the absolute best lookin' female character I ever created in character creators. Maybe it's a cartoonish style of the game, I don't fuckin' know. Anyway, I'll try with a human tomorrow but... FFS, I want this hour+ of my life back:messenger_weary:
You have to play around with the head size. Go to the prism screen and bring it all the way down to the bottom of the triangle.

If you leave it center center you will have a bigger jaw line, bigger face, and bigger mouth which gives off that trans look.

Here are my creations. The first pic is after i brought the slider down to the bottom. The second pic is when I had it in the middle. The face just looks far more manly because of that jaw line.

nWaK28T.jpeg



PXfBVu9.jpeg
 

Zathalus

Member
Just spent an hour+ trying to make a good looking female elf... and no matter what I do and I shit you not, she looks like a transgender.

I mean, it can't be me cuz Dragon's Dogma "2" has no such problems for example and there I made the absolute best lookin' female character I ever created in character creators. Maybe it's a cartoonish style of the game, I don't fuckin' know. Anyway, I'll try with a human tomorrow but... FFS, I want this hour+ of my life back:messenger_weary:
You can make some pretty good looking woman. If you need some help check out:


Some pretty badass Qunari as well for that matter, almost as good as DA2.
 
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GymWolf

Gold Member
nah, i beat it then did all the end game content which was much harder since it reset your progress if you died, and had a time limit of sorts iirc.

this game is not elden rings. its a simple action adventure game. at least on normal. maybe on hard they give bosses more health and that could be more difficult.

i am enjoying the combat because its fun.
Fun for me is related to challenge (like it doesn't need to be extremely hard all the time but i expect to die at least 100 times in a 50 hours game), i have no pleasure in stomping everyone with ease just because a game feel nice to control, and it hugely impact my enjoyment of exploration and sense of progression\build making\skills.

I guess it's not the same for everyone but i almost always bail out from cakewalk games unless the plot\characters or other aspects are good (like in the case of rdr2 or yakuza)
 
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sloppyjoe_gamer

Gold Member
You have to play around with the head size. Go to the prism screen and bring it all the way down to the bottom of the triangle.

If you leave it center center you will have a bigger jaw line, bigger face, and bigger mouth which gives off that trans look.

Here are my creations. The first pic is after i brought the slider down to the bottom. The second pic is when I had it in the middle. The face just looks far more manly because of that jaw line.



PXfBVu9.jpeg

Billie Eilish Fashion GIF
 

proandrad

Member
It’s perfectly possible to address things like gay/trans/etc and not do it in a hamfisted way. BG3 does just fine on that front. You can change pronouns, it has a prominent gay couple, and one character referenced is quite clearly trans. The difference between this game and BG3 is the quality of the writing itself. Even Inquisition had a trans character in it that was handled in a far more subtle way. And that game still have all the offensive tropes associated with Dragon Age such as racism and the ability to be an asshole.
None of these criticism will be heard by a company as big as EA. They will take all the wrong lessons and assume all criticism is due to transphobia and people that are obsessed with the gender counting. Only hope is that smaller studios are smart enough to see through the bullshit and make better games. Having put a few hours in the game, the combat and story is mid to good at times. The game feels well optimized on my step up, with no stutters. The negative is, the gender identity dialogue is very poorly written and feels patronizing. I’m pretty liberal when it comes to social issues, but even I can see how it could feel infuriating for people on the other side. The game isn’t as bad as the criticism and it isn’t a good as the praise. I have enjoyed my time so far, 10 hours in, 6.9. I consider 5 out of 10 as average.
 
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DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
For those who like the game:

Is there anything that makes it stand apart from any other RPG of this style in a good way? I've seen several reviews and even for the reviews that liked it, it looks pretty run of the mill. Doesn't seem to do anything great even if it may not be absolutely terrible in any area either.
 

havoc00

Member
nah, i beat it then did all the end game content which was much harder since it reset your progress if you died, and had a time limit of sorts iirc.

this game is not elden rings. its a simple action adventure game. at least on normal. maybe on hard they give bosses more health and that could be more difficult.

i am enjoying the combat because its fun.
How long did it take to beat?
 

Mattdaddy

Gold Member
Does the game has even a little bit of challenge on max difficulty?

I'm not asking for gimme the god of war mode but no challenge would absolutely make loot, skills and progression completely worthless where in an hard game you smile even for that 3% more damage upgrade becsuse you die hundreds of times.

Im playing on custom difficulty at about 25 hours-ish and Id say its challenging in the sense that you do need to pay attention and cant faceroll, but its not overly hard.

- Ive got enemy health set 1 tick below maximum so they dont just fold, but they aren't too spongey either.
- Ive got enemy damage set 1 tick below maximum also so they do punish when they hit me, but Im not getting 1 shotted.
- Ive got enemy aggression set to max level. I hate it when I can see an enemies standing there do nothing or waiting its turn to attack me. With this setting, Im getting mobbed pretty hard so Im constantly having to block, parry, dodge, reposition etc. It makes the fights feel very lively and action packed, I like it.
- Ive got parry and dodge window set to normal so its not frustrating
- Ive got enemy resistances set to normal, just didnt want to fuck with it

I have died a couple times, but havent gotten stuck anywhere. I do end up using potions quite a bit on bigger fights and have had some really close boss fights.

Ive been pleased with the difficulty so far, I feel like I have to try but Im never frustrated. And Im noticing it does seem to be getting a little bit easier as I unlock more abilities and gear.

I have a feeling once I get the builds really figgered out with the combos, I'll be nuking people and then maybe it does become super easy. But we'll see.

Im just coming off Space Marine 2 operations, now those were fucking hard lmao. But by tweaking those difficulty sliders you can give yourself a little bit of an adrenaline shot.
 
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Mattdaddy

Gold Member
For those who like the game:

Is there anything that makes it stand apart from any other RPG of this style in a good way? I've seen several reviews and even for the reviews that liked it, it looks pretty run of the mill. Doesn't seem to do anything great even if it may not be absolutely terrible in any area either.

For me the only thing in this game so far that I would say is like "Holy shit" in a good way is just the overall technical presentation and maybe the environments. Its absolutely gorgeous to look at and runs like a top and seems pretty bug free. Lots of stopping to take in the scenery. The environments are so pretty Im excited to go explore them. Ive got everything set to max though on PC so mileage might vary with your system/console.

Id say:

Great:
- Graphics
- Performance
- Environmental art direction

Good:
- Combat
- Music
- Overall General Story (just the main story beats, not the specific writing)

Varying levels of Meh to Pure Trash:
- Character art direction (I absolutely hate the transition to that fortnite style from the more realistic style)
- Very cringey Writing/Dialogue
- Very cringey Companions
- Level design for Cities (feels like DA2, lots of empty or sparsely used spaces, feels soulless or something)
- WTF did they do to the Qunarii??
- DEI stuff is so shoehorned in and just feels so fucking odd.
 
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DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
For me the only thing in this game so far that I would say is like "Holy shit" in a good way is just the overall technical presentation and maybe the environments. Its absolutely gorgeous to look at and runs like a top and seems pretty bug free. Lots of stopping to take in the scenery. The environments are so pretty Im excited to go explore them. Ive got everything set to max though on PC so mileage might vary with your system/console.

Id say:

Great:
- Graphics
- Performance
- Environmental art direction

Good:
- Combat
- Music
- Overall General Story (just the main story beats, not the specific writing)

Varying levels of Meh to Pure Trash:
- Character art direction (I absolutely hate the transition to that fortnite style from the more realistic style)
- Very cringey Writing/Dialogue
- Very cringey Companions
- Level design for Cities (feels like DA2, lots of empty or sparsely used spaces, feels soulless or something)
- WTF did they do to the Qunarii??
- DEI stuff is so shoehorned in and just feels so fucking odd.
What about the quests and loot? Is all the loot same-y or is it unique? That's one of the things that bothers me in these style RPGs is when it's overloaded with loot and you either find the same stuff over and over or each armor suit and/or weapon looks totally generic.

And quests in these style RPGs are important to me. I want them to have good rewards and not feel like you're doing chores or doing them for completionist sake.
 

Mattdaddy

Gold Member
What about the quests and loot? Is all the loot same-y or is it unique? That's one of the things that bothers me in these style RPGs is when it's overloaded with loot and you either find the same stuff over and over or each armor suit and/or weapon looks totally generic.

And quests in these style RPGs are important to me. I want them to have good rewards and not feel like you're doing chores or doing them for completionist sake.

Loot so far as been a little bit same-y honestly.

Lots of finding the same couple weapon/armor types and then using them to upgrade each other. Like right now Im using just a basic longsword... but it has locked modifiers. I need to find more longswords and combine them to unlock those modifiers.

But you can transmog anything in the game so if theres a weapon that fits your build but you dont like how it looks, you can transmog it to anything else.

But yeah I havent found any like badass unique weapons yet... not saying they arent there. But I havent run into them yet.

Its also disappointing when I first saw the transmog list.... it looked like there were freaking TONS of armors and weapons. I was like holy shit, infinite loot. And while there are some cool variations for sure... a lot of it was like the same sword type but in 5 different colors or whatever. So not as many weapon variations as I thought initially.

Im probably about to get into mid-game if I had to guess... if I do stumble across anything unique and badass Ill report back.


And sidequests feel like its just regular basic sidequests for either leveling, getting basic loot or completing companion stories if you care about them. The loot you get from those so far just fits into the category above or something for a specific character (Hardings Longbow +3)

I will say on the sidequests, the companion specific side quests do try to do a lot of story telling via these moments, some are pretty short and used to just get 1 on 1 time with a companion and learn more about them. If you like any of the companions, these might be a nice break from the main story. Im just having a tough time connecting with most of the companions. Neve is about the only one I like right now honestly lmao. And thats only cause I think she has the most normal writing. Gonna be romancing ole pirate leg I guess.
 
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The Cockatrice

Gold Member
- Level design for Cities (feels like DA2, lots of empty or sparsely used spaces, feels soulless or something)

I think the level design is good. You're prolly judging just based off the city with the Crows which is oddly dead(maybe it opens up more later?), but the one where the Shadow Dragons are is pretty nice, feels more alive, a lot of areas and secrets to find. Crossroads also is quite well designed with lots of things to do and explore. The rest of the missions are pretty standard Mass Effect type which isnt really bad at all.

- WTF did they do to the Qunarii??

The good ones yeah theyre all ugly but the bad ones are all the same as in DA2. Im guessing different races of Qun/mixed races/etc.

What about the quests and loot? Is all the loot same-y or is it unique? That's one of the things that bothers me in these style RPGs is when it's overloaded with loot and you either find the same stuff over and over or each armor suit and/or weapon looks totally generic.

The loot system is hoenstly unique, I dont remember any game doing this. Essentially theres a good amount of weapons, armor,s and trinkets you can find, however, instead of just throwing them away for something better, they decided that whenever you find a similar version of said items they get upgraded in rarity automatically and unlock more stats on them. That is besides the fact that you can also upgrade their base stats as well. I like it.

And quests in these style RPGs are important to me. I want them to have good rewards and not feel like you're doing chores or doing them for completionist sake.

Quests are...debatable, but they're not mmo'ish at all if you're worried about that. All side quests have a unique story to tell and unique boss encounters.
 

Mattdaddy

Gold Member
I think the level design is good. You're prolly judging just based off the city with the Crows which is oddly dead(maybe it opens up more later?), but the one where the Shadow Dragons are is pretty nice, feels more alive, a lot of areas and secrets to find. Crossroads also is quite well designed with lots of things to do and explore. The rest of the missions are pretty standard Mass Effect type which isnt really bad at all.

Yeah I should have specified better, some of the more city areas specifically felt odd to me like the Crow area you mentioned. I do like a lot of the other areas like Crossroads, The Forest Area, some of the areas for companion quests I dont want to spoil :)

But I always disliked Kirkwall in DA2... the cities specifically in this game give me that same vibe for some reason.

The good ones yeah theyre all ugly but the bad ones are all the same as in DA2. Im guessing different races of Qun/mixed races/etc.

Lmao I noticed that too. When fighting them, they are like the good ole giant hulking tanks from DA2.

Then you meet one thats an NPC or characters and its just a blue human with horns lol. Wtf.
 
Here are some of my looks.

Yu9zXoL.gif


Its still a work in progress. I am trying to make her face a bit rounder and yet smaller.
Go to Head>Scalp and you can roughly set that with the ‘Height’ and ‘Scale’ options…lessen ‘gauntness’ in the cheeks and jaw menu to make the cheeks go out a bit for a bit of roundness.

They don’t look bad at all though. 👍
 
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Neolombax

Member
What about the quests and loot? Is all the loot same-y or is it unique? That's one of the things that bothers me in these style RPGs is when it's overloaded with loot and you either find the same stuff over and over or each armor suit and/or weapon looks totally generic.

And quests in these style RPGs are important to me. I want them to have good rewards and not feel like you're doing chores or doing them for completionist sake.
There's unique loot in this game, I found one from a puzzle. There's apparently quite a few that has unique effects that can change the way you build your character. For non-unique items, the game has this mechanic where if you find loot duplicates, it will upgrade the rarity automatically and that adds passive bonuses on the loot itself. It's similar to some Gacha games on mobile if you play any of those. Visually, I'd say the loot looks good, both armors and weapons.
 

Alex11

Member
Does the game has even a little bit of challenge on max difficulty?

I'm not asking for gimme the god of war mode but no challenge would absolutely make loot, skills and progression completely worthless where in an hard game you smile even for that 3% more damage upgrade becsuse you die hundreds of times.
I play on the 3rd difficulty, I really don't know exactly what that means and I died only once, but that was on a side Boss that was lvl 32 while I was 14, (I think that I could have beaten him with more patience) but I beat him at lvl 18 and I'm really not that good of a player.
It's really devoid of any difficulty or challenge, your companions have infinite HP, so if you give them the healing ability, you can just heal till your heart's content, while running around, waiting for cooldowns, never mind that there are also laying around pots with healing before/after fights and in the combat arenas.

Unless of course you play it on max difficulty, but IMO if a game doesn't have a bit of a challenge on default difficulty, it's poorly made, increasing difficulty by adding tons of HP, more damage to enemies while you are getting one shot is a poor and lazy combat design.
 

Neolombax

Member
I play on the 3rd difficulty, I really don't know exactly what that means and I died only once, but that was on a side Boss that was lvl 32 while I was 14, (I think that I could have beaten him with more patience) but I beat him at lvl 18 and I'm really not that good of a player.
It's really devoid of any difficulty or challenge, your companions have infinite HP, so if you give them the healing ability, you can just heal till your heart's content, while running around, waiting for cooldowns, never mind that there are also laying around pots with healing before/after fights and in the combat arenas.

Unless of course you play it on max difficulty, but IMO if a game doesn't have a bit of a challenge on default difficulty, it's poorly made, increasing difficulty by adding tons of HP, more damage to enemies while you are getting one shot is a poor and lazy combat design.
I think there's a custom difficulty option that allows you to increase AI aggressiveness but maintain the normal health pool. Haven't tried this myself but I may do so soon. Combat is getting a bit too easy for me too.
 

dmaul1114

Member
Put another couple hours in tonight and still really enjoying this. Did the Dock Town story bit, a companion quest with Bellara and a random sidequest.
 

MAX PAYMENT

Member
I did not pay attention to any pre release stuff, but bought this as an on and off DA fan. Was this game marketed as an rpg? I feel hesitant to even call it one. It feels, so far, like a linear action game with skill trees. Even the dialog "choices" just feel like different inflections on saying the same thing.
 
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hyperbertha

Member
I'm enjoying the actual playing part of the game. The combat, traversal etc is fun.

The dialogue and narrative is where it falters.

I still haven't gotten that Qunari character so I guess I haven't seen the full extent of it but at least it's not a bad game to play.
I don't intend to play the game. But I've seen hours of footage to know the dialogue makes it unplayable. To sum it up, 'rated E for everyone' would be what I would call it. How any adult can play this game with a straight face is beyond me.
 

Nankatsu

Member
I'll be honest: never played a dragon age game before, and because of the memes circulating around I'm kind of curious for this one :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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I just realized this game is Power Rangers.

Lmao, Ghil is Rita Repulsa, Elgar is Lord Zedd, Solas is Zordon, and Varric is Alpha 5.

The Veilguard are the teenagers with attitude.
 
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