#86: Dragon Age: Inquisition (A New Design)

As someone who normally balances college, a part-time job, and a hobby as a game critic, it has become more and more difficult to dedicate large chunks of time to long, hundred-hour epics. Time is a precious commodity, so signing onto lengthy campaigns can be a lot to ask for. When Dragon Age: Inquisition touted a playtime of over 100 hours, I was not too happy to hear it. After buying, playing, and beating the game, my opinion more mixed than I was expecting. It makes an interesting series of design choices, demonstrating a new philosophy for Bioware; one that I am still unsure what I think of.

One of these choices was to utilize mechanics typically associated with free-to-play, microtransaction laden game, without actually including said microtransactions. As the head of an organization dedicated to restoring peace and order, the player character has several advisors. Each member of this war counsel has their own specialties: They consist of the chief ambassador, the spymaster, and commander of the army. At the war table, each one can be assigned a mission to undertake in the player's stead, which they will accomplish in a given period of time. The trick is that these missions do not take game time, instead relying on real-world time. Many of them take only an hour or less to complete, which fits perfectly into what should be a standard session. Others take several hours, even a day to two in the most extreme case. Assigning these operations fits neatly into the average person's schedule, subtly encouraging the player to take a break and/or do something else for a time.

On top of that, quest design has been noticeably simplified. Previous entries in the franchise had fairly involved missions, with their own more personal tales from ordinary people. While some of them could be quick, many could take an hour or more. This is not the case in Inquisition. Eschewing the questing philosophy of the other Dragon Age games, Inquisition aims for conciseness more than anything else. Any one side-mission is designed to be completely quickly, within the span of about 30 minutes or less.

Even the dungeons in Inquisition seem to be made with this shorter running time in mind. Dragon Age: Origins included old temples and ruins that would take several hours to explore, up to 6 or 7 in the most extreme cases like The Fade or The Deep Roads. Although these places took a long time to explore, so much of that time is padded out with long corridors and endless fighting, without much in the way of meaningful content, making it difficult to keep the player's interest. Often, it would take several play sessions to complete one of them, whereas Inquisition's various old manors, ancient sanctuaries, et cetera, were compact in their layouts. Taking no longer than 30 minutes to fully explore any one of them, the locations were just big enough to have something interesting occur, but not enough to spend large chunks of time.

Another appreciable change that occurred in the making of Dragon Age: Inquisition is the new “open-world” structure. Unlike games like Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto, Inquisition does not have one large, complete and dynamic area to explore. Instead, there are almost a dozen distinct, yet massive, zones of operation in which players can explore to their hearts content. Populated with the dungeons and quests mentioned above, along with a myriad of collectibles, these fields of play offer tons of things to do. Though it takes a lot time to complete everything in an area, one can quickly enter an area, find something to do, and complete it.

Lastly, character progression is not as fast as that of previous Dragon Age games. Unlike previous entries, Inquisition grants only a minor amount of experience when dispatching normal enemies. For example, at level 19, with a required 50000 XP to level up, a single soldier will only offer about 10 XP. Significant experience boosts, of 1000 XP or greater, will only be awarded when defeated strong monsters or completing quests. As a logical consequence, players advance more slowly than they ever have before in this series.

In a rush to play catch-up with everyone else, I binged for several days on Inquisition. However, as I sat on my notes and reflected upon the choices Bioware made for the game, I realized something: Bioware did not want me to squeeze 95 hours of play into my week off. In the context of the war table's subtle nudging to stop playing, bite-sized quests and dungeons, open-world design, and slow progression, it became clear that I was supposed to only play for an hour or so per day, over the span of months. In theory, I should be okay with this, since time is so hard to come by for many people who, like me, keep playing games as they start to mature into adulthood. To the game's credit, it largely succeeds at what it sets out to do. However, there were consequences to using this methodology, and I am not sure that Bioware's games are equipped to handle them.

Because of the focus on many faster, more compact quests, very few of them have the chance to leave an impression upon the player. Missions in Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 all told stories about the people and places involved in them. Even if they did not tie-in to the main story, each one says something, however minor, about what life is like in the world of Thedas. It is only because Bioware decided to give each quest enough time to develop, no matter how long that way be, that this was possible.

Inquisition changes this dynamic. With the more streamlined quests, there does not exist enough time to fully develop any one in particular. The result is that there is a lot of surface-level content, tasks meant only to serve as a minor distraction. This lack of deeper content, which tells its own story and connects with the player, makes it much less likely for one to become invested into the world and the plot. I barely connected to the people I was meeting when roaming through these large areas. Like a Diablo game, they did little more than give me an opportunity to find more loot and crafting materials. Rather than people, they felt more to me like bulletin boards telling me where I can go get a new shiny sword and/or what I can find in order to make them give me a new shiny sword.

Bioware also failed to realize that style also ruins the pacing of the main campaign. Many people report spending significant amounts of time, typically around 10 to 15 hours, in the Hinterlands before moving on with the story. In fact, these anecdotes are so widespread that leaving the area as soon as possible is one of the most common PSAs to new players. It is very likely that players will end up working on completing places like The Hinterlands nearly to the exclusion of the main quest. Since many other such locations open up once the main plot gets underway, this temptation is always looming over the player. For my playthrough, I went over 20 hours without advancing the campaign by even a single quest, and this happened to me on two different occasions after my experience in the Hinterlands. My old completionist instincts, honed after years of gaming, worked against me. Even though I was fully aware that these quests were unimportant, and that I was beginning to grow disinterested, I kept plowing through the optional content. Sadly, my experience is far from unique.

I once wrote that Dragon Age: Origins did not respect my time, especially given the context of Dragon Age 2. Inquisition makes a different mistake. Although it clearly acknowledges that I have other things to do with my life, it does so without addressing the issue of undue focus on raw game length. Because of this error, the content is on display here is purely surface-level, lacking the depth that Bioware was known for even at their worst. Despite my Inquisition playthrough lasting nearly twice as long as my nearly complete journey through Origins, it was not anywhere near what one could consider to be comprehensive. I cannot claim that I was “burnt out,” but nor can I say that much of the what I experienced was particularly interesting outside of the decidedly few main missions. Inquisition is not Bioware's worst game, but nor is it memorable.

#84: Dragon Age 2: Pacing and Plot Structure

Some time ago, I played Dragon Age: Origins. Back then, I expressed issues with how it was paced, citing The Fade and The Deep Roads in particular as two segments of bad filler content. Recently, I have revisited the franchise with Dragon Age 2. Despite being in the same series, the two have quite different forms of pacing. Because of their differences, I think that taking a moment to compare the two of them and their structures should be interesting.

With Origins, the plot structure was modular. After the initial tutorial missions, the player is given free reign to take on the four plot branches that compose the middle of the game in any order they choose. Each of these modules has its own plot and locations, separate from the rest aside from one or two instances. At the end of the game, the player's actions in these individual segments will be reflected back in the form of how each faction thinks of them and how much they are willing to help in the grand finale. The result is a fairly free-form gaming experience, within limits.

This structure allows Origins to give each module its own feel, but there is a drawback to this classic role-playing approach. When these sections can be so thoroughly quarantined from the others, it grants the developers freedom to make each part longer than it should be. In particular, the designers have the leeway to create overly long exploration and dungeon locations. Dragon Age: Origins had this problem in spades. Often, any single area could take several hours to complete, more-so if the player is going for total completion. Players could spend entire game sessions feeling that nothing was accomplished in that time. Obvious padding like The Fade and The Deep Roads, during the Circle Tower and Orzammar scenarios respectively, are chief examples of how this structure permitted Bioware to do this.

On the other hand, Dragon Age 2 manages to skirt that pitfall with its narrative structure, yet introduces new ones all the same. Rather than expand on Origin's modularity, DA2 takes a different approach. Players spend all of Dragon Age 2 in the city of Kirkwall, watching it develop over the course of years. Each of the game's three acts details key events of a particular year in Kirkwall's history through the eyes of Hawke, the game's customizable, yet constant, protagonist. With a distinct beginning, middle, and end, these acts serve as the way Bioware chosen to divide the story.

What is neat about this structure is that it forces a more focused plot. Since any given act has to feed into its successors, it cannot afford to tarry around with plot points that may never be touched on again in the future. Gradually, they all, by necessity, get woven together as the story progresses. Combined with the obvious signs of a limited development cycle, this focus carried on into the dungeon-crawling as well. While a single area could take hours in Origins, DA2 takes a more succinct approach. Locations will rarely, if ever, take over a half-hour to complete, which gives a much greater sense of accomplishment when checking the quest log after a long session. Individual plot elements and their handling can be debated on, but there is no denying that the plot structure for Dragon Age 2 lends to a faster pacing than its predecessor.

Having said that, pacing is in more than just a game's narrative structure. Combat also tends to have its own tempo in RPGs like Dragon Age. Origins in particular had a slower, more methodical system. Enemies tended to have a fairly high amount of health, so even fights against small parties could take some time. Unfortunately for Bioware, since skill and equipment setups mattered significantly more than tactical planning mid-battle, conflicts were often decided from the outset.

Rather than go the route of its direct predecessor, Dragon Age 2 takes inspiration from its contemporaries, most notably the likes of Mass Effect 2. As with Origins, equipment and skill setups are important to one's quality of life when going up against enemies. The difference here is that the moment-to-moment action has become equally as important, with an emphasis on faster combat. It can still be said that the player will steamroll most encounters in the game, but it feels more smooth than than of the previous game in the franchise, largely due to its accelerated pace.

Even if the overall combat's pace is improved, there is problem that adversely affects it: Foes have a strong tendency to spawn in waves. When playing Dragon Age: Origins, the types and number of enemies in a given location was usually set in stone. Because players could see what they were about to fight, they could better plan their attack. Even if a single target took some time to beat down, it was possible to guess how long it will take to win.

This is not the case in Dragon Age 2. In most engagements, players will clear out a given set of enemies only to find that another group has spawned in, ready to fight to the death. Typically, any one fight will be composed of three waves in total. Though individual foes, and sometimes enemy groups, can be felled quickly, the fact that more will inevitably appear immediately afterwards makes it more difficult to anticipate how long a given encounter will take to complete. As a result, even if a fight is not long, it can be made to feel long thanks to how many mooks participate in a single battle. Even if Dragon Age 2 is better paced than Origins, this misstep starts to agitate after playing for a long time.

In terms of both story and combat, Dragon Age 2 drastically improves on the pacing of the game that came before. Enhancing the original structure by focusing the overall plot line and streamlining the fighting resulted in a much smoother flow. Though certain elements like the ending and obvious, blatant reuse of assets can be rightfully criticized by detractors, Dragon Age 2 is certainly worth defending in how it gives the player a strong feeling of progress.

#72: Narrative Pacing: The Oddity of Games

It has been some time since I finished my adventures in the world of Dragon Age: Origins and its various DLC packs. To that end, I have been comparing my experiences with that game to others that I have played. What I was pondering through this introspection is the question of narrative pacing in the world of video games. As with most properties of storytelling, the general rules governing narrative pacing undergo changes when applied to this new realm of media. Since a lot of my problems in Dragon Age: Origins came from its pacing, and Awakening felt better because it improved said pacing, it would be pertinent to contemplate the topic in this week's post.

One of the things that stands out most to me with regards to video game pacing is how players are willing to wait a little longer for the plot to advance, in comparison to consumers of other media. In a book, if the plot was about solving a murder mystery, and then the author spent an entire chapter discussing the philosophical nature of crime scene investigation and criminology, people would wonder why that decision was made. While that information may certainly be tangentially related to the plot and interesting in and of itself, it would not be relevant to the mystery and the main plot of the book. Film also has this kind of problem. If a movie character in a spy movie was talking to another character, then some random bad guys step into the scene for the protagonist to beat up for five or ten minutes, followed by the protagonist resuming their conversation where they left off, the audience would be completely confused. They would think to themselves what the point of that detour was, why it took so long, and why it was not cut from the final product.

However, this is demonstrably not the case in video games. As players, we accept when a conversation in a video game is interrupted by an attack by random gang-bangers. In fact, that tends to be fairly normal as far as games are concerned. The reason is pretty obvious. People purchase video games so that they may play video games. It is okay for the story to briefly take the backseat, because more often than not it is not the reason players are sitting on their couch with a controller in hand. We can comfortably go dungeon crawling for about an hour or so without any advancement of the main plot until the end. The model of story->gameplay->story->gameplay has been a mainstay in gaming for as long as games began to focus on their narratives. Most other mediums would consider it weird for the plot to go so long without advancing in a meaningful way, but that is so common that it still remains a very ingrained model for game designers.

Less, but still fairly, common is when the story of a game takes a detour in order to prolong the length of a game and allow for more gameplay. These kinds of additions can be hit or miss, depending on their context. For example, Fort Frolic is one of the most loved segments of the original Bioshock game. In terms of the central conflict of Atlas vs. Andrew Ryan, nothing major is accomplished in Fort Frolic and the plot comes to an overall standstill. Having said that, both the environment Fort Frolic and the madness of its master, Sander Cohen, are so interesting that most players either would not notice or would not care. Though it adds nothing to the narrative, the game is richer for the existence of this content.

By contrast, The Fade in Dragon Age: Origins is one of the most reviled example of this going wrong, for good reason. While attempting to rescue the mages in the Circle Tower, the player party is ambushed by a Sloth Abomination and forced into a deep sleep. In the world of Dragon Age, a person's soul is in a spiritual realm called The Fade, home to both divine and demonic entities alike, when sleeping. This sets up a three hour segment where the protagonist needs to break out of The Fade, rescuing his/her other party members in the process. Like Fort Frolic, it does not serve any real purpose beyond adding length to the game. Unlike Fort Frolic, it is not interesting enough in its own right and drags too long to hold the attention of the player. Along with the Deep Roads, The Fade has a major negative impact on the pacing of the game. It is so reviled that there are mods whose sole purpose is to remove that one section from the game. Regardless of the rest of the game, the mere existence of this content does make Dragon Age: Origins lesser.

There is also the fact that gaming is a unique medium in that the skill of the player can also have a direct impact on the pacing. A skilled, or veteran player will have an easier time completing individual sections of a given game, resulting in an overall faster pace than a newcomer/novice player. Books and films have easier times in pacing themselves because they do not require such skill, thanks to their passive natures. The game has a tougher time because the mechanics need to be paced as much as the plot or any individual gameplay section needs to be. Even then, there always exists the possibility than a player will never finish a game because they just cannot complete a difficult mission. It is a unique challenge that I truly do not know how to overcome.

In the end, it is hard to determine if there is a specific pacing that can appeal to the most people. Like many things in life, it comes down to the individual to decide if a game's pacing is fit for them or not. Movies and books tend to have very specific formulas for the way they are paced, but that is something others have discussed before. Because each game is so radically different from the next, they call for different structures and styles. Each such structure requires its own unique pacing to best take advantage of that. I do not profess to have concrete answers as to how games should be paced or how developers should consider the type of game they are making when considering pacing. However, I do think it is an interesting question to ask after playing a game like Dragon Age: Origins.