Why did BioWare not do a good job with DA: Inquisition?

[Saetha]

TLDR : Why do you think BioWare screwed up with Inquisition? Don't list the game's faults, list why you think BioWare didn't do a better job.

Now that the Witcher 3's out, the general consensus seems to be that it's a better game than Dragon Age: Inquisition. I'm sure some people disagree on this point, that's fine, but I'm not here to ask which is the better game, or what DA:I's failings are. I came here to ask why you think it under-performed, whereas TW seems to have generally succeeded.

Whether or not you like Inquisition, you've got to admit it has some serious flaws. I've heard more than a few people say that it feels rushed and half-finished - which, while fitting (In my opinion) don't make much sense, considering that Inquisition's been in development for quite some time. So, I have to ask about Inquisition, not how it disappointed you, but why? Where do you think BioWare went wrong in their development? Did they rush the game? Did they get greedy? Did they simply not care?

I understand that the only ones who can really answer this question are BioWare themselves, or maybe EA, but I'd still like to get some general opinions on why people think it didn't come out as well as they were hoping.

EDIT: Changed thread title and moved the TLDR since people seemed to be getting the wrong idea.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Honestly I'd say they both have the same failings and before too long people will be saying Witcher 3 is a disappointment. Basically they're both way too long and padded to the point of absurdity.
For some reason their developers confused "Epicness" with "Lengthy". The logic seems to be: Epic games are long, you spend 10+ hours gathering flowers and craft-able/consumable items, 10 hours is a long time, therefore gathering flowers is epic gameplay.

They could have easily cut the length of both games in half without any major losses. Keep the plot but cut out the number of completely meaningless and bullshit MMORPG side quests. Collect 10 of whatever was only in WOW because it was a subscription game and it was a good way to drag out game length and thus earn more money.
Such quests are completely useless, maybe even harmful, in single player games.

And I never got the sense Dragon Age Inq was rushed; it just wasn't focused. For every worthwhile quest there were 10 bullshit game length padding quests. And the Witcher 3 looks to be the same way.

 

[totheendofsin]

When the generic characters you put in for multiplayer are more interesting than the characters that are supposed to be fleshed out in the story that's going to reflect poorly in my eyes

 

[DementedSheep]

I haven't played TW3 so I can't compare but for DA:I the biggest thing is it's too spread out with too much padding (something I worry TW3 will also have) and not enough fully fleshed out content. Most the bosses are regular mobs with more health. The side quest aren't memorable and everything starts getting repetitive. You kill so many demons, inducing pride demons even though they are meant to be one of the strongest and rarest classes of demon, that it de fangs them. They relied too much on text instead showing things in game.
They could used some more story missions especially since after Haven Cory just keeps losing at every turn which really didn't make him feel very intimidating. You don't really see much with his motivation or background unless you side with the templars and then it is just text again. He could have been replaced with anyone with how he was used.

The second problem is that tactical cam is bloody horrible, you can't set tactics beyond the very very basic ones like potion consumptions or que orders and your party seems to take hold position command as a suggestion. Classes didn't feel balanced (though this is a problem all the DA games have had).

 

[Saetha]

When the generic characters you put in for multiplayer are more interesting than the characters that are supposed to be fleshed out in the story that's going to reflect poorly in my eyes

I mean, maybe I wasn't terribly clear, but I'm asking about why you think BioWare screwed up. So, for instance, you think the companions aren't very fleshed out. (I don't really agree on this point, but whatever, that's not the aim of this discussion) Why do you think that, then? Not "Oh, well, Cassandra was really boring, she just prattled on about the Chantry." More to the tune of "Oh, well, I think BioWare just didn't care about the companions and only included them because they're a hallmark of their games."

It's not why you thought Inquisition was bad, it's why you think BioWare didn't do a better job. (If that's what you think to begin with)

 

[sanquin]

I think the problem with Inquisition is that it's a very generic game, for Bioware standards. I mean, I don't have to know who made it and still see that it's Bioware, as everything just screams "We made this!" It's like Bioware has now found a formula to make all their games by, and Inquisition is the perfect bioware game to come out of it.

Companions that have a backstory and show a bit of emotion, but don't have a lot of depth? Check.
Companions to romance in a very superficial way, with a certain companion intended as 'main romance'? Check.
Dialogue wheels that in between choices can vary a little, but when the choices 'matter', come down to good/neutral/bad? Check.
A very generic overall story that we've seen millions of times before, but IS told in a good way? Check.
Slightly wonky controls that could have been great had a little more effort been put into it? Check.
Giving the illusion of choice, but in the end it doesn't 'really' matter what you choose? Check.
Side quests that lack real depth? Check. (In huge abundance in this case)
Useless collectibles to sink time in to? Check.

This is me trying to put my chaotic thoughts into words. It's just the general idea. But I hope you know what I mean.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

So...we're not supposed to list Inquisition's flaws, but you want us to explain why it under-preformed in our opinion? Um...I don't think I can do that, so here we go.

As so many people have been saying, the game felt extremely padded. I'm playing through it again on Nightmare, and this time I'm just doing the minimum of the areas, because I just want to be done. I want my platinum. Why do I want to be done? Well, the padding isn't helping. A lot of these side quests feel half-finished. It's like BioWare went, "Okay, that's good enough. They got the exp. What else do they need?" Like the woman who jumped off the cliff. It's easy enough to tell that a demon convinced her to do that, but when you complete the quest, no one says anything. The mages don't explain what happened, the other characters don't react to the truth. Heck, even your character just reads the journal and moves on like nothing happened. That's...really underwhelming compared to past BioWare games.

But I think the biggest problem that BioWare ran in to is that they shifted gears in the story in the last ten minutes or so (I'm exaggerating a bit, but that's what it feels like). Throughout the vast majority of the story, we are told that Corifie-spit is the main threat. The characters harp on and on about him, and if you played Legacy, you understand. This guy is bad news. He is a threat that the world has never faced, and he is messing with forces that humans, elves, dwarves, and all the other races should not touch.
And then, on the second to last mission, the game makes a hard right. Cory becomes secondary as all this elven lore gets stuffed into your face. It raises so many questions and throws a wrench so hard and deep into the main story that the main villain, and his boss fight, feel like an afterthought at the end. It's like BioWare suddenly decided they wanted to tell another story, and it doing so, the sucked the 'feel' of the Dragon Age games right out of Inquisition.

Now, why did they do this? I think that's what you're looking for, right? I think it's because BioWare's eyes got a little too big for their stomachs. Ever since Dragon Age: Origins, I've always suspected that we're missing something. The Maker vanishing, the elven gods vanishing, the Fade, the Darkspawn, Flemeth, and many other things. BioWare has slowly been revealing little clues about all of these things, and I've suspected that they're all related since the first game. Something major happened that has been wiped from history, and BioWare is trying to clue us in with their lore.
But with this game, they tried too hard. I think they thought this would be the game where they can finally turn everything on its head and get fans really talking, but it wasn't. They wanted to drop as many hints as they could--I mean, have you seen that after-credits scene?--but they got carried away. They were like little kids in a candy shop, and instead of savoring each piece, they stuffed it all in their mouths at once.

I get it. The elf lore that we've been lead to believe is wrong. Terribly wrong. And they were much more involved in everything than we've been lead to believe (again, something I've long suspected), but this all comes so fast, and so close to the end of the game (probably because BioWare suddenly realized, 'Crap! We're out of time! Uh...screw it, let's do this!'), that it suddenly feels like you are playing a completely different game for the last hour or so. And because of that, the entire game deflates for me, and that's why I think it under-preformed.

 

[DementedSheep]

Fine, if you want why I think bio-ware did it wrong I think they tried to go for a epic large world feel but didn't pull it off. It was in development for quite a while but doesn't mean it wasn't rushed with what they were trying to do. If I remember right it was their first game using the frostbite engine. The main plot to me felt like it was filler so they could lay the foundations for a much more interesting plot with the elven gods which will probably be in the next game. With the combat they are still trying to have it both ways with awesome button action and party based strategy and it isn't really working. They streamlined but IMO cut out too much. I also vaguely remember it being mentioned they had some issues with frostbite and the tactical cam but I could have imagined that.

 

[Casual Shinji]

In a nutshell; The Witcher 3 has better writing and open-world design.

Something I haven't heard anybody really talk about regarding W3 is how it perfectly merges epic fantasy and fairy tale. There's kings, armies, and wars, power struggles, politics, and civil unrest. But there's also witches, curses, and folklore. There's not a focus on just the grandiose, but also on the smaller stories surrounding the big world-altering events. And a lot of them feel intertwined -- Smaller side quests can find their connection to the main storyline. This combination of both the big and small makes everything come together in a fleshed out setting.

Inquistion's focus was just on how everything was big; The big hero, the big war, the big villain, the big thing in the sky. It went for epic fantasy only and by comparison just comes across as less encompassing.

The Witcher 3's open-world, as opposed to many others in the genre, feels organic in its design. Apart from the indoor environments, the world feels alive and breathing. And this isn't just because of the tech, it's because of the architecture behind the landscape. There's a natural flow to the roads, and the villages, and the woods, and how they all interconnect. It's hard to find any spot in the environment that feels empty and lifeless. I could see myself actually living out a day-to-day life in Velen. Not that I'd want to obviously, but the game makes it feel within a practical reach somehow.

The environments in Inquisition, while beautifully rendered, just have a more maquette-like feel to them.

 

[The Madman]

Passionate developers.

Play both Inqusition and the Witcher and it becomes obvious that the developers of the Witcher series have always been passionate about the series and its source material. They're nerds over it, they love to include little details most people would never notice and it's clear that they're working on a game they genuinely want to see made. Sometimes like in the cases of Witcher 1 and 2 they lack the experience or funds to truly realize that vision, but nevertheless it's obvious they at least have one and a drive to see it completed.

Meanwhile I don't get that sense with most recent Bioware games. Maybe it's because of the sheer number of developers or maybe it's the project leads or the board rooms full of EA execs who get to determine which game gets made and how it should be made, but while Inquisition is unquestionably an impressive game it doesn't feel like a passionate one. I feel like Bioware made it because they were told to made it in order to make money, not because it's something they truly wanted to see done.

That's my theory at least. Bioware are playing it safe, they're playing things by number and doing what they need to do in order to make sales, not necessarily because it's the games they want to see made.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Madman hits the nail on the head. In one word "Love"

You can just tell that CD Prokekt Red absolutely love their work and creating good RPGs. That's not to say there isn't a element of customer/finance driven satisfaction checklisting going off too, of course there is - it's a business and we all have to earn a living. But the creative, fun, enjoyment aspects of TW2 & 3 really come across in their work. They've put care, attention, effort and as stated "love" into the game. The world lives and breathes, the people matter, everything is more than just a shell - we feel, hear, taste and live that passion and effort the creators have put in, like any good art form.film.music/media/etc. You can tell both TW2 & TW3 have been a labour of love. TW series remained true to it's roots and just improved on them every time.

Bioware however feel like a company which is sticking through a failed marraige just for the kids. Everything is by the numbers and souless. Simplify, number crunch, do what the survey's say etc. - where's the artist and passionate RPG-er driving them forward? Gone. Everything is so formulaic and half-arsed, with the primary focus being their checklist. The DA series betrayed it's roots, and watered down each sequal in various ways.

Brent Knowles was Lead designer on DA:O. He decided to take a back seat on DA:2 and eventually quit Bioware.
http://forum.bioware.com/topic/144799-brent-knowles-you-will-be-missed/

Baring in mind that was 2009, I think he saw what was coming. Shallow, target driven gumph with no heart.

 

[Saetha]

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Thanks for the replies. Sorry if the question is confusing or obtuse, it's just that I've read a thousand different criticisms on what Inquisition did wrong, but not very many explanations of why BioWare might've tried that or what they were attempting to invoke (Or attempting to gain, if your answer is that BioWare made a bad game because they got greedy and just wanted the most money for the least effort).

I know that no one can really answer what they might've been going for but I guess I thought some interesting speculation could be had about it, and a larger discussion on why, exactly, BioWare's been on the decline lately.

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I can see that. Inquisition needed a more personal element to ground the larger scale. Actually, that does a good job of summing up my biggest problem with Inquisition's plot. Yeah, the pacing was weird and the big bad turned out to be kind of pathetic, but Origins had those same problems for me. I guess the difference was Origins was camped more in your companions, with Alistair becoming King and Morrigan wanting the OGB, and even side characters like Loghain or Zathrian. The companions in Inquisition did feel like they were mostly disconnected from the plot, though. Only Cassandra and Solas are truly important, and Solas doesn't even really gain importance until the end.

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Ah, thanks, these are exactly the sort of replies I was looking for. I can see what you're getting at, too, although I'd argue that DA2 was pretty experimental, and probably would've been great if EA hadn't rushed it out after a year. But Inquisition definitely felt safe. Do you think that's a result of being part of EA, or a reaction to DA2's reception?

 

[Redryhno]

Like some said, love. Another problem would be half the staff leaving the last few years and the people that were under the previous leads just aren't(possibly won't ever be) up to the task of being heads of their departments. I mean, the founders retired, alot of their writers that people loved the stories of went off to just go write books and other games, some of their designers quit because they got bored, others because their choices were being ignored in favor of others that were personal friends with designers.

Essentially, Bioware just sorta hit their teens/middleage, they aren't interested as much in doing what worked for them for twenty years and they aren't the same company that was around even five years ago. Part of it is because they got the touch of EA curse, partly because they found a formula they like, but don't really understand why it worked the one time it worked amazingly, and partly(this is purely speculation and opinion) because they think they're at the top of the food chain still and it's contributed to their laziness. Origins was great because it combined the world building with the notes you could find for things that don't really pertain to what you do, but help with establishing what the rest of the world you're in is like beyond standard fantasy NOT!Europe. This is also why I'm hyped as all hell for Dishonored 2 that should be announced sometime within the next millennium.

Inquisition spent too much time on trying to be hip with the kids and just made a huge array of stereotypes that didn't get much attention, so it was made more clear what they were because normally Bioware gives you like half a dozen "main" characters, a couple comic relief characters, some stark reality characters,a couple flavor givers, and at least one "buddies for life" guy. All of them pretty well-rounded and given their own clearly defined arcs even if they too are stereotypes. What Inquisition gave you was like a dozen of mains, all of them potential love interests in one way or another, half a dozen comic relief, and just as many telling you how hard the world is. I'll admit I didn't play all the way through, I just got bored about five hours in because I realized I was playing WoW and quit. But it just didn't feel like Dragon Age, even 2 had that feeling of being in Thedas, Inquisition just felt like a generic RPG. They had too many characters, which is normally their strength, and it just diluted the formula they were going for too much. Because they aren't really masterful storytellers, they're decent at creating worlds and characters, but they only get one or two characters per game that flow with the world and story they build smoothly.

As for people saying it was rushed, DA2 was rushed, it came out like a year after Origins hit shelves and we saw what happened there. They got an extra three years and it felt like alot of the same, so I can't take "it was rushed" as a reason why it was this disappointing.

Edit: Also, when you're constantly fighting these hyped-up creatures that you only encountered like twice at sidequests if you looked hard enough in Origins and Awakenings that could actually kill you in them, they stop being anywhere near scary. Pride demons in Origins were "OH SHIT" moments(even if they were easy compared to the Flemeth fight if you didn't have the right set of party members). In Inquisition they became "oh...another one of you again."

 

[Elfgore]

I'll give my reasons why.

-Boring ass quest. Pretty much not a single quest in the game got me interested in completing in it for sake of learning what happened. I was more interested in getting the gear, money, or EXP. Not to mention, the quest where standard "fetch X" quests

-Too big of lands, too little to do. Most of my gave was spent wandering gigantic maps with nothing to fucking do in them. The game series never needed open world.

-They ruined the dialogue system. Who's idea was it to remove close-up dialogue conversations for 3/4 of the conversations. I leads me to be completely uninterested in what people are saying and just click the options to hopefully unlock some codex entry for EXP.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

TLDR : Why do you think BioWare screwed up with Inquisition? Don't list the game's faults, list why you think BioWare didn't do a better job.

1. Talent drain. Bioware doesn't seem to have the same spark or ability they had 5 or 10 years ago. The writing feels more hackneyed, the characters less compelling. Actual game design elements feel cumbersome and poorly thought out. When you're playing a truly well made game, you can feel the developer vision being realized on the screen. DA:I felt very much like a game designed by committee without any real passion or spark.

2. Really poor handle on how to implement an "open world". Open worlds are hard, and I worried very much about Witcher 3 and Dragon Age Inquisition. It's one thing to chase the Skyrim dollars by stuffing one into your narrative game, it's another thing to actually pull it off without killing your pacing. CDPR succeeded, Bioware did not. Absurdly, Bioware somehow did a better job with SWTOR, a game less dependent on narrative focus, than they did in DA:I, which often felt numbing and rote.

3. Poor choice of engine. Frostbite made for some gorgeous vistas, but it felt like an uncomfortable marriage with a large scale RPG. Compare Novigrad to the capital of Orlais and tell me how it is possible these two games came out within a year of one another. Why does it take me a minute of loading to bring up a single room, and then another minute of loading to get back, and in Witcher 3 I can run across a zone that contains 50+ hours of content in and of itself without encountering a single loading screen? And Witcher 3 looks and feels better as well...the world *moves*, it feels organic. It has dynamic day and night and weather and wind. DA:I is pretty, but comparably inert.

Seriously hard to do without listing faults. I ended up listing a few, but tried my best.

Ultimately I think Bioware's best days are in the past now. Nothing lasts forever. They had an amazing run that lasted almost two decades. It's possible they're off to join other storied studios like Origin, Looking Glass and Microprose in the great developer graveyard in the sky. Or they'll continue on as the zombie-wing of EA's RPG department, bearing a once storied name (like Maxis) but showing none of the energy or imagination that created the reputation in the first place.

 

[Asita]

Inquisition kinda fell victim to its own premise. On the one hand, they obviously wanted to show the Inquisitor rising to be one of the great powers of the world, like the Warden Commander and Champion of Kirkwall before him/her, and such a rise is certainly nice to experience, as many games can attest. On the other hand, their chosen method was very much based on establishing the Inquisition itself as directly representative of the Inquisitor's influence, and building that up necessitated a lot of busywork. At the same time, they didn't properly grasp the 'delegation' process, which meant that it repeated a major problem seen in Star Trek Online (ie, "Why in the name of Roddenberry is that away team filled with admirals???"), and the part that did grasp it (the War Table) deliberately padded it out with long completion times. They were trying to convey the creation of an independent power with incredible influence, but the methods they used to convey this ended up making the game tedious with some confusing fridge logic. It didn't help matters that this was almost the antithesis of Bioware's historical strength of character focus.

 

[zerragonoss]

Some of the doom saying going on about Bioware is fair. They lost a bunch of talent recently, and when combined with Dragon age 2 and mass effect 3 reception it probably lead to a bunch of safe by the numbers design. Those left were all working on finishing other people half-finished ideas and not a trusted yet. If the new team steps up and runs with their new leads they could quite easily recover, but it?s also fully possible that they now slowly continue downhill.

As for something that has not been mentioned I think they were trying way too hard to please everyone and it made some of their systems incompatible. The most glaring example of this would be the tactical camera mixed with some of their more actiony skill. For example the knight enchanter?s sword attack could be upgraded to parry projectiles, which is actually close to impossible to time or aim form the tactical camera. However it is also some of the most fun to use with direct control, almost nothing felt better on the mechanics side than parrying a giant ball of dragon fire. So their left hand was working on the tactical view, while the right was making abilities that felt good form the standard view, and in the end they both kind of neutered each other.

 

[Amaror]

What it feels like to me is that DAI was a product made to sell copies, the Witcher 3 was a passion product. This influenced which and why they chose to implement certain Features.
In the Witcher 3 the developers started out with wanting to create an experience. The experience of a Witcher and they chose their features based on what works best to convey that experience. Open World, Alchemy, Crafting, Riding and combat all serve to convey they experience of being a Witcher, a monster hunter. They all work perfectly together to create this experience.
Now in DAI i think the features were all done because they could sell a game. Open World is in, so we have to have that. Actioncombat is cool and i will bet it will sell well, but people have been complaining about DA 2 so we will push in a tactical camera to satisfy those guys and get their money. Gotta have riding in an open world, so that's got to make it in. Crafting's hot right now, so that needs to be in there, too. It's an rpg so it needs tons of loot and gathering. Base building sounds neat, so we need to get that too.
Basically i feel all the features in DAI are there to have these features in, not because they work to improve the overall experience. This leads to severall problems because the features just don't work well together if at all.
As examples:
- There's plenty of loot, but it's useless because the crafting leads to way better gear.
- There are war table missions, but their useless because everything they reward you with is gotten with exploration way way faster.
This is just were the various features of the game are activelly working against each other. There are others like that are either useless or just plain not work, like the tactical camera or riding.
So that's what i think the problem was. The game features were not created to provide an enjoyable experience, but to sound good in marketing campaigns and to sell copies.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Ah, thanks, these are exactly the sort of replies I was looking for. I can see what you're getting at, too, although I'd argue that DA2 was pretty experimental, and probably would've been great if EA hadn't rushed it out after a year. But Inquisition definitely felt safe. Do you think that's a result of being part of EA, or a reaction to DA2's reception?

No problem

A bit of both tbh. I definitely think EA impose their "this is what our survey says customers want, so you must work towards X template" to a certain degree. But I also think that the changes to Bioware's team over recent years have really weakened it, and that Mike Laidlaw's vision of the Dragon Age series is something which doesn't inspire the staff working under him.

Both DA:2 & DA:I feel like they've been created by folk saying "this is the checklist you gave me boss, all done, I'm off home now". Whereas TW3 feels like it's created by folk saying "I've got this mint idea boss, please let me try it/use it!!".

The Witcher 2 & 3 are an expresion of pure love for the genre and gaming, DA:2 & I exist as the embodiment of days at the office.