#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.

#81: Persona Q: Shadow of the Pacing

There is an interesting thing about saying that I will not play anymore ATLUS games for a while. That is, “a while” is a relative term. In this case, it means “until another ATLUS game comes out that I want to play”. With the release of Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, that time came much sooner than I anticipated. This game represents an interesting new take on the Persona franchise. While it is a crossover between Persona 3 and Persona 4, it is also a crossover in terms of mechanics. The makers of the Etrian Odyssey and the Persona franchises co-developed Persona Q. As a result, Persona Q represents a synthesis of the two franchises' mechanics and design ideologies. In many ways, this improves upon the gameplay. In other ways, there were a few setbacks. One of these setbacks is what I wish to talk about this week.

The problem I am referring to is one that JRPGs frequently get wrong: The pacing. Far too often, RPGs do not know how to properly pace themselves out. As a result, the game begins to grow stale too early, making the rest of the game more of a test of endurance than an enjoyable pastime. Persona Q suffers this as well. Around the time of the 4th of the game's 5 dungeons, the game began to drag on. I found this particularly peculiar because I had played through the entirety of Persona 3 and 4, approximately 70 hours each, and enjoyed my experiences even to the very end. With Persona Q, I was getting tired around 50 hours in. Though the game is certainly fun to play, there can very well be too much of a good thing.

In Persona Q, dungeon-crawling is basically the only thing that the player does. As foreshadowed by the title, players must explore the various labyrinths, all based around specific themes, and beat the boss at the end of each one. Each labyrinth is composed of a series of floors. In each floor, there is some form of gimmick that must be worked around in order make it to the next level. Each gimmick is usually pretty simple on its own. The difficulty comes from the fact that the floor is typically fairly large. If the player is not doing any of the side-quests in the game, a typical level will take approximately one hour to fully explore.

On top of that, since the play is largely inspired by Etrian Odyssey, the player is responsible for drawing, marking, and maintaining the map of the current floor as they progress. Assuming the player's map was drawn with sufficient detail, solving the gimmick of the current floor should take about 10 to 15 minutes. Combined, this means that at a minimum, it will take approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes per floor, assuming that the player is only aiming for completion. Since the typical labyrinth is 4 floors long, followed by one last floor for the boss, it will take almost 6 hours to explore. That is six hours of playtime with little in terms of variance in scenery, enemies, or gimmicks in the labyrinths.

To contrast this statistic, Persona 3 and Persona 4 operate differently. Though the two games present dungeon-crawling differently, they are similar in their approaches. Persona 3 has one single dungeon, the tower of Tartarus, that players ascend gradually throughout the entire game. The tower is composed of six different blocks, each with its own decor. Further, each block is subdivided into smaller chucks of about 10 to 15 floor, with its own assortment of enemies and a mini-boss at the end of each level. The floors are procedurally generated. On each floor is a randomized assortment of treasure chests and monsters. Furthermore, there is a staircase that advances to the next floor.

Persona 4 does not use the imagery of ascending a tower, but the style is quite similar. There are a series of dungeons that the player needs to explore. Dungeons are approximately 10 floors in length. At around the middle floor of each, there will be a mini-boss, with the actual boss awaiting at the final level. Despite this difference, the rest acts much like Persona 3's Tartarus, with procedurally generated layouts for each floor.

A given floor of a section of Persona 3's Tartarus, or a dungeon of Persona 4, will take approximately 10 to 15 minutes total, including exploration, combat, and finding the exit. With a worst-case scenario estimate of about 15 floors per section of Tartarus in Persona 3, or dungeon in Persona 4, this means that it will take about 2 hours and 30 minutes to complete any one section. This is less than half of the time required to complete a labyrinth in Persona Q.

Having said that, it is crucial to note that while it takes less time to complete one dungeon, there are many more total segments in Persona 3 and Persona 4. As a result, the total time spent exploring these areas is, at the very least, comparable. The difference is in the pacing of the player's progress. Since the player is completing these individual segments faster, they get the feeling that they are making steadier progress. In truth, there is no real difference in the amount of progress afforded by a single play-session. However, the impression is that players are clearing areas in Persona 3 and 4 faster than they are in Persona Q.

There is another way that Persona Q failed at pacing out the game. At the game's core, there is only one activity: Dungeon-crawling. The game is distinctly lacking in terms of variety. Aside from exploring the labyrinths, the player can take Strolls around the culture festival where the game takes place in order to talk with party members and watch them interact with each other. Further, they can partake in Persona Fusion, a franchise staple. Aside from buying and selling equipment, items, and materials, there are also a number of side-quests that can be taken. These quests involve doing small favors for other party members, or locating specific areas and/or defeating specific opponents in the labyrinths. Since these side-quests often lead to players reentering the labyrinths to do further exploration, they add to that poor pacing. After all, since players are already in those labyrinths for several hours at a time, letting them take a break from this by sending them back in, often to the very floor they just advanced from, sounds a little silly.

By comparison, Persona 3 and 4 allow players to spend about as much time outside of the dungeons as they do inside. When not exploring these locations, players can, as in Persona Q, manage equipment and fuse personae. However, they may also spend time with other characters in the game world to build relationships, which can be drawn on to power their personae in fusion. As many of you know, this Social Link system is a mainstay in later games of the Persona franchise. Alternatively, they can spend time improving their social stats, like Knowledge or Courage.

Both games also offer a diverse set of side-quests. Though some of them require players to delve back into the dungeons to find specific items, most of them involve exploring the town. Some involve looking for people wandering around on specific days. Others involve finding an item in the area. Overall, since most of these excursions do not involve dungeon-crawling, they improve the pacing by giving players a way to take a break from the usual exploration, while allowing them to better prepare for the next time they enter a dungeon.

Ultimately, though Persona Q, Persona 3, and Persona 4 take around 70 hours each to complete, the former is paced significantly worse than the later two. This is something that only makes itself apparent after investing large quantities of time into each game. Otherwise, these pacing issues are much harder to pin down. Persona Q, while still a very solid RPG, is a difficult beast to recommend. It is only really worth playing if you are a huge fan of either Persona 3 or Persona 4, preferably both. Further, it feels much different than a typical persona game. Though I have not played Etrian Odyssey, I have been told that the additions and changes to the series formula were mostly taken from that franchise. As a result, the game is best for those who enjoy Etrian Odyssey, or are interested in the series. I believe that may be where I failed to meet the prerequisites, as those elements did not appeal to me. If you are not that interested in Etrian Odyssey, I would honestly recommend passing on Persona Q, as you are not really missing much in. It is nice, but hardly necessary, to see the Persona 3 and 4 casts interact in their respective primes.