Dragon Age Inquisition ? bringing the game down with a JUMP button

[zinho73]

Without a jump button, you can either have clutter in your gameworld that forces you to run around everything bigger than a pebble, or you can have a flat ground to walk on. Either way, it means a lot more invisible walls.

Honestly, a slightly inclined surface should not stop me dead in my tracks. A knee-high stump should not be an impassable obstacle. A ledge should not have a fucking force-field. Fuck not having a jump button. Fuck it all the way to heck.

Or you could just traverse all those low obstacles with your normal movement, like in Prince of Persia. Once again: the alternative to bad design is not bad design in the other direction.

If you have to press a button to move up a slightly inclined surface, that´s bad design. In Tomb Raider Lara moves around pretty well just jumping when doing something really impressive or when initiating a climbing movement.

In Dragon Age we have to hop around some areas like crazy monkeys.

You might say that DA is not an action game so it cannot be compared with Prince of Persia, Tomb Raider or even GTA. I would say that the developers should acknowledge this too and focus on making a more polished experience, less generic MMO and more Bioware. Going around obstacles is normal and that's how you will move on the game 90% of the time anyway.

A good sandbox game give players all kind of cool tools to navigate around.

A good RPG gives players a reason behind their actions. When Shepard jumps over an obstacle in Mass Effect he does it with a purpose - to flank or get closer to the enemy. He (or she) does not jumps around the Normandy.

DAI does not give us enough tools to make navigation engaging and interesting the whole game and what we have does not fit the rest of the gameplay: we literally use jump to just hop over small obstacles most of the time, which is lame.

Note that the alternative is not get stuck in the obstacle. The alternative is not having the obstacle at all, or just move over it with normal movement, but this requires design and effort and in a huge game like this they simply did not have the resources to pull it of.

To be clear: I am not against the jump mechanism. I am just saying it was poorly implemented in the game, and it was largely an unnecessary effort, since most of the terrain in the game can be traversed without it and the focus of the game is on dialogue, story and combat. The feature could have added a lot in exploration, but it is just really useful in that regard a few times

 

[zinho73]

When you facilitate player navigation you are not doing it to make better levels, you are doing it to get away with bad ones. Or, in the case of most open world games, to not worry about designing encounters at all and focus on building the world itself. To be honest, this is a noble purpose and often works on action games like GTA, in which you do a whole lot more than jump (you climb, use vehicles, breaks terrain, fly and so on), but if all you are gonna do to add to the navigation is a jump button and a horse you might as well re-think your game plan.

If your game's such that you have to remove the jump button to make it 'fun', your game has even worse issues. There are almost no excuses for non-RTS games to lack a jump button.

Not remove it. Make it useful or not use it at all. Design is focus. Adventure games do not use a jump feature, several great RPGs do not use a jump feature (and adding one would not make them better), strategy games do not use a jump feature, most turn-based games do not use a jump feature and I can say that warhammmer 40k (an RTS) uses a jump feature quite well to better position some troops.

The first Demon Souls did not have a jump feature and is considered by many the best game on the soul series. Heck, Dark Souls did have jumping, but it was a design element with a very specific intention,

I am not against the feature, I am against implementing it badly.

 

[DSK-]

I jump spammed the fuck out of the game - just like my explorations in Skyrim. Boy did that game (and Oblivion/Fallout 3, now that I think about it) train me well. A better name for the game would have been "Dragon Age: Bunny Hopping Simulator".

To be honest, jumping was not the reason the game was of a lesser quality. It was an inordinate size with very little substance to go with it. It was like buying a two litre bottle of cocacola and only having a small fraction of the drink itself inside it - at least that was the case for me.

The game took expected Bioware game traits and features - companion quests, loyalty, side quests relating to the main story, lots of companion discussions - and watered it down or made them not matter at all in the overall experience - again, at least that is what I experienced.

For example, I pretty much exhausted all of Varric's conversation options while I was at Haven. I kept going back to him and other companions many, many times for input or just general chats (as you do in Bioware games) and he had nothing new to say almost every time except after two main storyline missions 60 hours later - but even then both were rather short and lacking.

I can honestly say I prefer Dragon Age 2 to Inquisition, and I really didn't like DA2.

[Added]

Also funnily enough, jumping allowed my game to recoup a few FPS when it would randomly slow down and lag.

 

[zinho73]

Imo a jump button forces the developers to create a much more thought-out level design, since they can't just block your character's way with a knee-high fence and call it a day anymore, therefore I don't understand why there shouldn't be a jump button in DA:I and games in general.

On the contrary, you do not need to think about it when creating a level in which the character can go anywhere. It is easier to create scenery, but way more difficult to make it an interesting one, as, without restrictions, all the levels plays the same.

A Character covered in armor won't be jumping around, and you can easily make him navigate small obstacles with an animation (like climbing stairs).

I agree with this 100%, when you can go everywhere they level design has to be thought out to make up for it. If you are blocked off with invisible walls that is just lazy game design. Everybody asks for a jump button in most games I play, it gives the player more freedom of movement and allows us to do more with level design by adding vertical elements. Not having it is just dumb.

Tell me one place in which DAI used the jump feature to contribute to the verticality of the levels, Whenever we had someone on a high ground we had to use a lather.

Once again, I am not against jumping, I just do not see it as a good feature in DA. The way they used it in the game was not to contribute to level design - it was to facilitate the world building. The way jump is used in Dark Souls, God of War and Tomb Raider is something else entirely.

The little hops we do in DAI Inquisition do no allow us to go everywhere. It allow us to awkwardly climb some stuff and fall (which is the equivalent of a shortcut in skyhold), but I am starting to become overly defensive and I, of course understand and respect everyone that likes the feature - thanks for the opposing point of view, the post is here to be discussed after all.

 

[Scow2]

When you facilitate player navigation you are not doing it to make better levels, you are doing it to get away with bad ones. Or, in the case of most open world games, to not worry about designing encounters at all and focus on building the world itself. To be honest, this is a noble purpose and often works on action games like GTA, in which you do a whole lot more than jump (you climb, use vehicles, breaks terrain, fly and so on), but if all you are gonna do to add to the navigation is a jump button and a horse you might as well re-think your game plan.

If your game's such that you have to remove the jump button to make it 'fun', your game has even worse issues. There are almost no excuses for non-RTS games to lack a jump button.

Not remove it. Make it useful or not use it at all. Design is focus. Adventure games do not use a jump feature, several great RPGs do not use a jump feature (and adding one would not make them better), strategy games do not use a jump feature, most turn-based games do not use a jump feature and I can say that warhammmer 40k (an RTS) uses a jump feature quite well to better position some troops.

The first Demon Souls did not have a jump feature and is considered by many the best game on the soul series. Heck, Dark Souls did have jumping, but it was a design element with a very specific intention,

I am not against the feature, I am against implementing it badly.

Any game where you control the character with WASD/Left Joystick and Mouse/Right Joystick camera needs a jump button.

 

[zinho73]

I jump spammed the fuck out of the game - just like my explorations in Skyrim. Boy did that game (and Oblivion/Fallout 3, now that I think about it) train me well. A better name for the game would have been "Dragon Age: Bunny Hopping Simulator".

To be honest, jumping was not the reason the game was of a lesser quality. It was an inordinate size with very little substance to go with it. It was like buying a two litre bottle of cocacola and only having a small fraction of the drink itself inside it - at least that was the case for me.

The game took expected Bioware game traits and features - companion quests, loyalty, side quests relating to the main story, lots of companion discussions - and watered it down or made them not matter at all in the overall experience - again, at least that is what I experienced.

For example, I pretty much exhausted all of Varric's conversation options while I was at Haven. I kept going back to him and other companions many, many times for input or just general chats (as you do in Bioware games) and he had nothing new to say almost every time except after two main storyline missions 60 hours later - but even then both were rather short and lacking.

I can honestly say I prefer Dragon Age 2 to Inquisition, and I really didn't like DA2.

You are right. The jumping is a minor aspect, but one that I think reflects the lack of focus the game had pretty well.

 

[Augustine]

I am fairly sure that DA:I can be beaten without jumping a single time(hopping off some ledges here and there, shouldn't count - that's more like falling). So, what's the problem? entirely optional feature of a primarily singleplayer game.

 

[zinho73]

When you facilitate player navigation you are not doing it to make better levels, you are doing it to get away with bad ones. Or, in the case of most open world games, to not worry about designing encounters at all and focus on building the world itself. To be honest, this is a noble purpose and often works on action games like GTA, in which you do a whole lot more than jump (you climb, use vehicles, breaks terrain, fly and so on), but if all you are gonna do to add to the navigation is a jump button and a horse you might as well re-think your game plan.

If your game's such that you have to remove the jump button to make it 'fun', your game has even worse issues. There are almost no excuses for non-RTS games to lack a jump button.

Not remove it. Make it useful or not use it at all. Design is focus. Adventure games do not use a jump feature, several great RPGs do not use a jump feature (and adding one would not make them better), strategy games do not use a jump feature, most turn-based games do not use a jump feature and I can say that warhammmer 40k (an RTS) uses a jump feature quite well to better position some troops.

The first Demon Souls did not have a jump feature and is considered by many the best game on the soul series. Heck, Dark Souls did have jumping, but it was a design element with a very specific intention,

I am not against the feature, I am against implementing it badly.

Any game where you control the character with WASD/Left Joystick and Mouse/Right Joystick camera needs a jump button.

Fair enough.
I do not think Demon's Souls needed it, or neither Legend of Grimrock, for that matter, but I got your point.

 

[zinho73]

I am fairly sure that DA:I can be beaten without jumping a single time(hopping off some ledges here and there, shouldn't count - that's more like falling). So, what's the problem? entirely optional feature of a primarily singleplayer game.

Well, even playing the game is optional ; Discussing the feature is discuss game design, a theme that I like. It has nothing to do with weather I use it or not.

 

[Scow2]

Fair enough.
I do not think Demon's Souls needed it, or neither Legend of Grimrock, for that matter, but I got your point.

Isn't Legend of Grimrock grid-based? I guess that's also an exception, since the controls are closer to "Move to here" than "Move your character".

 

[Denamic]

Fair enough.
I do not think Demon's Souls needed it, or neither Legend of Grimrock, for that matter, but I got your point.

Demon Souls probably should have had it. You can roll off ledges and fall creatively, but it was frustrating to go back to no jumping in Demon Souls again after playing Dark Souls.

 

[zinho73]

Fair enough.
I do not think Demon's Souls needed it, or neither Legend of Grimrock, for that matter, but I got your point.

Isn't Legend of Grimrock grid-based? I guess that's also an exception, since the controls are closer to "Move to here" than "Move your character".

Yeah, that's Why I said I got your point, because if I nitpick I can find quite a few exceptions in the Left stick/WASD, Right stick/mouse thing (Valkyria Chronicles would be another example).

It is clear what you meant.

To me, is much more a matter of the game focus and not the game build: there is no recipe, but you need to know why you are doing things. DAI seems to me lost in a limbo of action vs tactical, story-driven gameplay. They should have scrambled the tactical view and focus on action - or made a gameworld more fit for tactical movement and combat.

The jump feature is clearly to me a byproduct of this indecision. It is there because every open world game has it, but they do not do anything meaningful with it and it got in the way of other things (the AI and pathfinding in the game is atrocious), and I think the exploration is boring. If I have to do little hops to climb a mountain just place a effing path there.

It is nothing like when you are playing GOD of War or Tomb Raider when you scout the mountain looking for secrets, it is just the old slow MMO navigation, full of empty spaces and goofy clipping and animation. Please, give me invisible walls (carefully hidden by crafty design) and a useful mini-map with plenty of encounters in which I have to plan my approach with the trade marked companion programming that made the original, well, original.

But that's me

 

[Vault101]

but Ive jumped over several fences and gotten up a few steep slopes!

 

[theevilgenius60]

Like several people said before me, every time I went to Skyhold, I'd climb as high as I could and jump off. Haha! Take that, game! Who's a badass? The invincible Inquisitor, that's who! Upped the old self esteem after some brutal early fights(yeah, bears).

 

[Crises^]

Imo a jump button forces the developers to create a much more thought-out level design, since they can't just block your character's way with a knee-high fence and call it a day anymore, therefore I don't understand why there shouldn't be a jump button in DA:I and games in general.

On the contrary, you do not need to think about it when creating a level in which the character can go anywhere. It is easier to create scenery, but way more difficult to make it an interesting one, as, without restrictions, all the levels plays the same.

A Character covered in armor won't be jumping around, and you can easily make him navigate small obstacles with an animation (like climbing stairs).

I agree with this 100%, when you can go everywhere they level design has to be thought out to make up for it. If you are blocked off with invisible walls that is just lazy game design. Everybody asks for a jump button in most games I play, it gives the player more freedom of movement and allows us to do more with level design by adding vertical elements. Not having it is just dumb.

Tell me one place in which DAI used the jump feature to contribute to the verticality of the levels, Whenever we had someone on a high ground we had to use a lather.

Once again, I am not against jumping, I just do not see it as a good feature in DA. The way they used it in the game was not to contribute to level design - it was to facilitate the world building. The way jump is used in Dark Souls, God of War and Tomb Raider is something else entirely.

The little hops we do in DAI Inquisition do no allow us to go everywhere. It allow us to awkwardly climb some stuff and fall (which is the equivalent of a shortcut in skyhold), but I am starting to become overly defensive and I, of course understand and respect everyone that likes the feature - thanks for the opposing point of view, the post is here to be discussed after all.

I jumped to get higher ground such as climbing boulders and other obstacles for my archer as it gave a bonus to damage using the higher ground perk.