Dragon Age: The Veilguard - A woke disaster? Yep!

[God of Nothing]

Based Arcane Warrior.

I can still cast with blood magic and rejuvenate/regeneration or whatever doesn't count as a healing effect
Only downside is the lack of damage but autoattack outpaces most spells in the endgame anyway and CC is much more important with those fucking scattershot spammers.

 

[Observotron]

I can guarantee EA had expectations beyond "almost sells as well as FF7: Rebirth." FF7 is more of a niche product at this point than DA. I don't care how they're trying to soften the blow with these vague non-answers about sales. EA is fucking pissed right now.

I also keep seeing people parrot that "Dragon's Dogma is not a niche game" when it really is. Or at least the first game was. Lets not pretend that there was any real buzz or excitement around the game from the mainstream before Dragon's Dogma 2 was revealed.

If anything, I used to only hear about how the first game was an "underrated gem".

 

[SmugAutist]

Finally, a semi-solid update on sales numbers.

View attachment 6635493

Only limited to Physical UK Console sales.

I see some Biodrones taking this as a victory, but I really don't think it is.

The game definitely didn't have the PC sales of DD2, It didn't seem to sell well on Xbox in the US, and I doubt that outside of the western sphere that the game is selling much, unlike DD2 and FF.

FFVII: Rebirth's sales were considered by Square to be a disappointment and Dragon's Dogma 2 is niche.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

Holy fucking Redditnigger batman this is even worse than I thought, how could it be worse than I thought? Nice see positive reviews "zipping Bioware's pants up when their done" getting clown bombed.

 

[Love Is Blue]

that elf took the call

 

[God of Nothing]

that elf took the call

another argument for TED

 

[namelesstacotruck]

FFVII: Rebirth's sales were considered by Square to be a disappointment and Dragon's Dogma 2 is niche.

Ff7 made Square say no more playstation exclusives. They are hoping the steam release will help in the future.

Veilguard was multiplatform day 1.

 

[SmugAutist]

Ff7 made Square say no more playstation exclusives. They are hoping the steam release will help in the future.

Veilguard was multiplatform day 1.

I'm actually waiting for the PC release of Rebirth. Won't preorder but I'm willing to pay full price for it, and I'm probably not the only one. PS5 is not exactly the best selling console ever.

 

[Ishtar]

Even people on tumblr(the audience this game was made for) are disillusioned and not pleased with this.

It’s honestly amazing EA keeps BioWare around.

 

[Baraadmirer]

This is what passes as hot and heavy flirting in games for the modern audience:

 

[God of Nothing]

what the fuck kind of dlc adds new skill trees and doesn't import them into the main game?
i feel cheated
didn't buy physical tomes for my warrior either so i'm out 3 extra talents to play around with, granted i have six of them from leveling up because so many of the two-handed ones are trash

 

[Mola Ram]

what the fuck kind of dlc adds new skill trees and doesn't import them into the main game?
i feel cheated
didn't buy physical tomes for my warrior either so i'm out 3 extra talents to play around with

The Awakening skills are intended to be high level skills and are, for the most part, ridiculously OP. Seriously, build one character (for me it's usually Nathaniel) as an archer and watch them do hundreds of points of damage per shot. They reflect a general lack of playtesting from which the base game didn't seem to suffer, Mana Clash notwithstanding.

As for not buying tomes, well, that's on you, but you should still have plenty of talent points by the time you hit level 35.

 

[God of Nothing]

The Awakening skills are intended to be high level skills and are, for the most part, ridiculously OP. Seriously, build one character (for me it's usually Nathaniel) as an archer and watch them do hundreds of points of damage per shot. They reflect a general lack of playtesting from which the base game didn't seem to suffer, Mana Clash notwithstanding.

As for not buying tomes, well, that's on you, but you should still have plenty of talent points by the time you hit level 35.

didn't seem like i'd ever really have a use for them other than rushing berserker and champion abilities

 

[Prokhor Zakharov]

hat’s an interesting hypothesis. We might say that without any filter, without any curation mechanism, the jetsam floats to the top.

However, this seems to me to be something more like a core competency issue.

It's funny how over time people bitched about the output of the self-titled "greatest generation", then the boomers, and now the millennials. However, in comparison, the output of those two previous generations was golden. It decreased between the two, but it is literally diamond encrusted compared to the garbage being pumped out by my generation. The output of millennials is complete trash in quality and quantity and it should be rightly criticized for being the utter dreck and slop that it is. If the output of the zoomers is even worse than the millennials then its basically a guarantee that we are terminally fucked with no hope of recovery.

 

[UCT]

I also keep seeing people parrot that "Dragon's Dogma is not a niche game" when it really is. Or at least the first game was. Lets not pretend that there was any real buzz or excitement around the game from the mainstream before Dragon's Dogma 2 was revealed.

If anything, I used to only hear about how the first game was an "underrated gem".

Yea don’t know what crack people are smoking to try and trick themselves that Dragons Dogma 2 isn’t niche, it is. The only reason it got any sort of wider appeal was because of streamers, but even then it wasn’t a mega hit and has pretty much faded just like the first one did. Fuck I love Dragons Dogma 1 but for years the only thing most people knew it for was that it came with the RE6 demo… considering most people’s feelings on that game also probably didn’t help.

 

[Tanner Glass]

Finally, a semi-solid update on sales numbers.

View attachment 6635493

Only limited to Physical UK Console sales.

I see some Biodrones taking this as a victory, but I really don't think it is.

The game definitely didn't have the PC sales of DD2, It didn't seem to sell well on Xbox in the US, and I doubt that outside of the western sphere that the game is selling much, unlike DD2 and FF.

FF7 is locked to PS5 - so DAO doing the same with the multiplatform advantage is embarrassingly bad. They have another ~15,000,000 people that could buy the game and didn't.

EA's expectations weren't to lose a bunch of money - although they're probably happy it finally released and they can wind down operations for it.

 

[Mola Ram]

they're probably happy it finally released and they can wind down operations for it.

I'm reminded of Alpha Protocol, which spent years in development hell until Sega finally lost all patience with Obsidian and told them to release it, now, just so they could be done with it.

And amazingly, from everything I've seen Alpha Protocol, for all its flaws, is vastly superior to this trainwreck.

 

[Prokhor Zakharov]

Null is another good example, hes undeniably talented to keep kiwi farms up, but hes also the type who will criticize ANYONE.

Null's big flaw is that he takes actual constructive criticism as well as a toddler that is told "No".

I heard the whole "I will harm them" claim, but is there any evidence this was ever said? I even watched a video about his downfall but this is never substantiated as proven to be said by him in what ive seen
Also I found this gem.

That was extremely satisfying.

DA2 is honestly kinda radical for BioWare games. In that it’s stakes are so small, relatively speaking.

Mass Effect-save a galaxy
DAO-save a country
DAI-save multiple countries/the world
DAV-the same as above
KOTOR-basically the same as ME

DA2-save a city, fail. Save your family(fail). Achieve wealth and power(temporary, lost). Free mages/suppress mages-fail.

Hawke’s entire story is about someone being cast into history’s churning waters. They can kill loads of people and rise high, but they can’t change the course of events. Influence them, yes. Stop them? No.

It’s honestly very different from most bioware games where the protagonist saves everything. Or otherwise changed the world with zero lasting defeat.

Hawke ultimately loses. Not because they’re incompetent or weak or stupid but because one man or woman can’t stop a river on their own, no matter how charismatic or skilled at violence.

If they'd been smart they would have changed the order of how they did things in Dragon Age. DA 1 - save a major city, DA 2 - save a country, DA3 - save the south of Thedas, DA 4 - save the continent of Thedas (make this the game where the Quanari invade across the continent, essentially make it into a World War scenario), DA 5 - save the entire world (cataclysmic event, similar to DA:V, involving the fade, will destroy the world as we know it) and that is the capstone of the game. Each time you up the stakes. This would even allow you to keep bringing in previous characters from old games, how major decisions from that game influenced the details of the next entry, while bringing in new characters in each game since the scope is larger. To me, at least, it makes a ton of sense. In DA 5 don't make the same mistake they did with ME3 and actually add new characters where they there is no opportunity for development of their personality and story. Make DA 5 where you bring back all the major protagonists and favorite companions from each game, coming together to stop the cataclysmic event that may end the world. People would go nuts for it. You could easily take the most major choices from each game and show how it impacted the characters from each previous chapter and how they it changed them for the last game, and how it altered their outcome for the better or the worse, will impact how effective they are in the final game in the series. In the end you can easily demonstrate how every major choice you made through 5 games changes the outcome for the entire world. It would be truly epic.

You could even make a point of making sure that you updated the old titles to keep up with compatibility for current platforms and each time a new entry came out. You keep it simple, just to update compatibility and squash any major bugs that either lingered or were created by keeping it compatible with the current platform. You sell a bundle of all previous entries at a decent price, as well as each entry individually at a discount, with a steeper discount for each successively older title, so you pull in new players each time and people can catch up easily. Not only would it push sales of the current title, but the cost of keeping the old titles compatible would be paid for by the surge of interest each time you sold a new bundle or discounted single chapter.

"Not earthshattering, but it isn't terrible" sounds ... oddly familiar.

View attachment 6635540

3.6 Roentgen is ~3.5 dental x-rays, so, about 1/10 of a chest x-ray.

 

[Mola Ram]

3.6 Roentgen is ~3.5 dental x-rays, so, about 1/10 of a chest x-ray.

I don't pretend to be an expert, but it seems to be a lot more than that. Anyway, the gag is from the Chernobyl miniseries, where everyone who was trying to lowball the disaster kept repeating "3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible" because 3.6 was the highest they were able to measure with their lousy equipment ... while in reality the dosage turned out to be 15,000 roentgen.

 

[The Great Ape Escape]

The huge time leap makes the game feel like Dragon Age 5.