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Notes from today's Developer Q&A, from the official BioWare Discord

Under a cut due to length.

Please note that these notes are mostly not directly-transcribed quotes! It was a live session, so these were quickly-written cliff notes produced at pace. So if anything sounds weird or slightly off, it's almost certainly because of that and not because of anything a dev said. Corinne Busche, John Epler, and Matt Rhodes were the devs that were there.

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The Antivan Crows have great fashion - Corinne said that we are going to love their threads. Corinne loves both them and the Mourn Watch.

Arlathan Forest is filled with monsters and giant anomalies.

John loves the Veil Jumpers. “Who doesn’t love a walk in the woods?”

The faction Matt would choose is the Lords of Fortune because "pirate-barbarian is such a great combination of elements"; he likes that they are related to treasure-hunting, palm trees and everything like that.

The game is a more intimate experience, and in this regard the camera has been pulled in. The devs want us to feel like we are a part of the place we're walking through at the time. They believe that as the narrative unfolds, this creates more immersion - an example that they gave was looking up at the tall buildings of Minrathous while walking its streets.

They were asked about the decision to only have two companions this time. They said that having two companions allows the companions to each have more visibility and presence. They did testing with their internal team and the Council of players as well [the Community Council] and found that when you’re playing in the combat system, when you’re planning strategies, two felt like the right number to manage. Rook has a lot of different actions, abilities and individual attacks available to them as the PC - more than ever before - and the number of actions we need to take when telling Rook and the companions what to do is also higher than ever before. Timing and position matter a lot in this game. With those things in mind, two companions in the field felt like the right balance.

Banter is still a core part of DA:TV. There is global banter that we will get in all spaces, as well as mission-specific banter. If anything, this game has the most banter that they have ever done in terms of pairings of companions. They have added some interruptible and resumable banter too this time. John said, “You could not stop the writers from [writing banter] even if you tried”.

“The way you’ll gather [the companions] around the kitchen table”.

They wanted to make sure that the companions had a life and relations of their own outside of the times when we take them out into the field.

They were asked about the customizability of Rook's backstory. Faction choice sets Rook’s backstory, before Varric recruited them. “[during the game] You can define what those events were, what they meant to you”. It will come up when Rook talks to companions and when they talk to [other characters from] their faction in the game. “There are a lot of opportunities to define who Rook” was and is in the game.

Q. Will crafting return? A. We can improve and customize our gear, but it is different this time around, and this apparently gets into spoiler territory so Corinne was being "a bit cagey" about it. Corinne said “But there might be a mysterious entity that assists you with that, that will be an important part of the narrative”.

Emmrich’s skeleton Manfred is not "kissable", however, they added - “not that skeleton, but we’re not saying no skeleton”.

They have taken a different approach on how we import decisions into the game this time around. This is now fully integrated into the character creator. The devs believe that this serves a dual purpose. Corinne said that she playfully thinks of it as ‘last time on Dragon Age’, though it isn't actually called this in the game. She noted that it has been ten years since the last Dragon Age game was released, so this aspect serves as a refresher on critical past events as well as allowing us to remake those decisions that are critical to us. The system for doing this is very highly visual and uses the familiar tarot card aesthetic. "It’s a very visual and playful experience." It was important to them that this system was built into the client, so that you can play this game entirely offline. No online connection is required, no linking to EA accounts is required – this was a big fan request. “I don’t want to spoil anything by revealing what decisions you can import, but I will say that this has been a really interesting creative intersection for us”. We’re in northern Thedas in locations we haven’t been to before. This affects what decisions might be relevant and which ones might not. “It’s no secret that the Inky is gonna show up, so that’s a factor”.

The game only begins in Minrathous, it doesn’t stay there. “I don’t want to get into too much spoiler detail, but getting to go to and work with the art and design teams, to build out” places where characters in previous games have come from and referred to has been really exciting. Minrathous is not the entire game any stretch. There is side content and we can go back and solve mysteries, not fetch quests, not grind content. It’s a very hand-crafted, curated experience. The side content is really great.

Q: Will the companions have unique specializations? A. “Yes, our companions will have abilities that are truly unique to them, but also they do fall into the archtypes of mage, rogue and warrior. You might be surprised to hear that Bellara is a mage, because she has a bow”. The bulk of the companions’ abilities is based on their own unique personalities e.g. Neve is the only mage that is an ice mage, so she has abilities distinct to her. But because she is a mage she does have access to skills other mages have, like Time Slow. They are really happy with this balance. “Each of these characters exists, have a story of how they became how they were. Part of that was finding the intersection between that and gameplay”. They want to allow the characters to breathe as their own people in conversations and out of conversation.

Healing spells return and this is part of the core mage kit.

Q. Will DA:TV have tactical combat still? A. Yes, combat gets quite tactical. They have a robust difficulty system, tactics are of increasing importance the higher up you go in these. “I wanna make sure I’m super clear in my answer. Our pause-time tactical mode is not overhead. It stays close to Rook. It does allow you to cycle between classes both out and inside combat, and there is a reason for that”. As the game progresses this can display information about enemies, e.g. what enhancements do they have. Elements matter a lot (like as in elemental resistances). Coordinating abilities between Rook and companions is important, they call this “detonation combos”. Examples of this: Bellara has an ability which is like a gravity well. Neve has a slow time ability. Then you could come in with Rook to do a devastating AOE or damage over time ability. Even better if it is a lightning ability, as Fade-touched enemies in Arlathan are vulnerable to this. It’s good to try and ensure you have a few possible detonation combo synergies in the team you bring into the field. The system will remind you of the combos available between companions.

Enemies in Arlathan are “Fade-touched”.

Veil Ranger, the rogue spec, is one of Corinne’s favorites.

Rook’s pronouns can be chosen, you can select both pronouns AND gender, as these are related concepts but not exactly the same thing. Rook can be nonbinary. There is she/her, they/them, and he/him.

CC is very detailed and very deep. There was a focus on hair and skin tones being done respectfully, full body customization. They’re going to show us a lot more on CC but at a time when they have the time and space to do that.

Photo mode: this is something they are actively looking into, they know there is a tonne of interest in this. It is a feature that they like the idea of internally, it’s helpful for them internally to have this when they’re building things. They will let us know about this.

On abilities: The Ability Wheel has a capacity. You have to choose which 3 you want to bring for Rook, and what 3 for companion A and what 3 for companion B. This creates emergent gameplay, and you have to do that strategizing, building the kits before you go on a mission. While there are 3 slots for Rook, there’s so much more than that. The Wheel has other things you can do from it. There is a type of item we will get that will function like abilities, like runes with buffs and enhancements. Rook also gets an ‘ultimate ability’ based on their spec on the Wheel. We can choose what enemies the companions will target.

Fireball and Cone of Cold don’t return as spells but their successors are, frost nova and meteor. These serve the same combat role and function as the previous ones, only with a glow-up, especially meteor. “So satisfying nuking a group of darkspawn with a well-placed meteor”.

Accessibility features: They have spent a lot of time thinking about this topic so that we can play the game in a way that really works for us. They will go into this in more detail closer to launch when the time is right.

Timeskip: “Timelines are always a little iffy. They change and morph over development” It’s been about 10 years since the events of Trespasser. As you may have noticed Varric has become a bit of a silver fox. Solas’ ritual has taken time to set up and we are coming in at the end of that hunt in the start of the game.

They can confirm that Solas is still bald. Matt: “I really like how Solas has turned out this time around”.

In Thedas, ancient elves go bald when they’re millennia old. Solas wasn’t always bald. “If you end up seeing what Solas looked like in the past”, we’ll see he looks a bit different.

Companions still have iconic colour palettes and things like that, but they do have a wider range of looks that they can have this time around (compare DA2 where they always had the same armor).

Kal-Sharok? “For what we can show of Kal-Sharok and other locations” [I didn’t catch the second bit of this quote] but Matt was talking about hints of things they can show.

Dialogue wheel has tone wheels, emotional wheels, and choice wheels. ‘Investigate’ also returns. They want players to understand as much as possible what it is they will be picking.

“Choose outcomes of conversations, choose how conversations unfold”. “For example, you may be taking to an elf companion. If you are an elf yourself” you may have different opinions on things that have happened, different perspectives.

Each of the 7 companions have full romance arcs and are all romanceable by all genders. This doesn’t mean playersexual. They don’t conform or twist their identities to who we as the player are, they don’t suddenly have a preference for men or woman based on what we are playing. Instead, they have their own fully fleshed out identities which they are authentic too. They are all pan, they have histories of romance, sometimes you will hear about preferences and things of that nature. If you don’t romance them, they will actually build their own romances with each other. Taash and Lace is one of Corinne’s favorite of these. She says that she has heard that the shipname in the community for this is "Laash".

Vallaslin are back in Character Creator. A couple of the characters have them but they are a bit more customized and a bit more specific to their personalities.

Learning about the companions, what they care about, their hard ships. “They all feel like my dear friends”. Corinne’s favorite thing is the CC. “The way you customize qunari horns and combine it with the hair”.

Art team worked very hard to make the story more visible around you in the game. They really leaned into this re: props, VFX, environments. Putting the story on screen so that we can see this unfold. Matt said DA:TV represents one of the best attempts they have made at that.

“The deepest companion arcs” they have ever done, not just on a DA game, but in a BioWare game.

There are moments in each companion arc that make you cry, angry, excited.

The way the companion arcs integrate into the story as a whole – John loves this.

“You need to put together a team and stop the end of the world.”

John said: “DA:TV feels like a mix of novelty and familiarity”.

DA:TV has been the highlight of John’s career.

There have been times in the companion arcs where even knowing exactly what’s going to happen, Corinne had to set down the controller, let out a heavy sigh and go, ‘oh my god, what am I going to do here?’.

Corinne: “Can we just give a big shout out to the dev team. I am so proud of them. The team has poured their heart and soul into this. To anyone from BioWare who is listening in, thank you so much”.

Q. Why does Varric have dark hair now? A. He has been adventuring for a while now, his hair is more gray than black actually, but he has been shown to us in very dark scenes so far. We will see him in more contexts.

Inquisitor appears in the game in the flesh. They know how attached we all are to our Inquisitors, they have seen our loves for our OCs. Inquisitor can be customized. “Yeah, they’re gonna show up and they’re gonna be your Inquisitor.” “The story of Solas and the Inquisitor is tied together, it would have been strange for us to not bring Inky into this one”.

Right now their focus is entirely on the quality of the game – all in, all attention on finishing the game and the quality of the game. They are 100% focused on making this game as complete as they can make it.

There are no microtransactions. There will be no battle-passes. You do not have to connect online. They want to make this the most complete singleplayer game that they possibly can.

Armor transmog is a thing in the game. Corinne is the kind of player that believes fashion is the real end game. She said that there is a transmog system and that it is sick.

Are any of the characters explicitly asexual or on the ace spectrum? Corinne shared she is gray-ace. “I will say though that none of our companions this time around are explicitly ace. When we look at the characters, their motivations, who they are, we always ask, is this the right time? This time it wasn’t. But for everyone on the ace spectrum out there, I would love to represent an ace relationship, some time in the future when it would be authentic to the companion and we can do it best”.

Blood magic for Rook? “This gets a little spoilery. Rook has some pretty good reasons to avoid blood magic. Rook is not gonna want to be interested in that. But the mage skill tree is packed with all kinds of” cool spells and stuff.

One of the 3 mage specs is necromancer. One is “elemental”. And one is more like “a combat mage”.

Davrin has already named the griffon Assan.

In DA:I we had Skyhold. In this game our headquarters is called The Lighthouse. More to be seen on this later. There are elements that change of it over time and some things about it that we can adjust. “It definitely does start to feel very much like home over time”.

Someone asked “Do pasta and noodles exist in Thedas?” Matt then geeked-out about world-building. “DA:TV for us is a dream opportunity for us” on that front – architecture, landscape, biomes, culture, costumes, food design. Food design was one of the many things they looked into to try and capture the feel of a place and make it believable. “At least one place does have pasta”.

Mabari are not nearly as big of a thing in the north of Thedas. Sadly in DA:TV we will not get a mabari. But to be fair, we have a griffon. And he can be PETTED. “I have actually hugged the griffon”. There is lots of opportunities to interact with the griffon.

We will see CC before launch. They have a roadmap to take them to launch.

Body customization can be done for humans, elves, dwarves and qunari. Qunari hair and horn options are rad. Lineage (human , elf etc) gives a lot of unique dialogue options. Depending on the background and lineage you choose, there is dialogue. If you play as a dwarf Mourn Watcher, obviously your experience in that faction would be different to if they were a human or elf – so there is specific combinations like that which are touched on.

Barkspawn is safely gnawing on a bone somewhere next to a fireplace in Ferelden, he is fine. Mabari live as long as you want them to.

Rook’s last name is defined by their faction, it’s tied into the backstory. You can choose your own first name but there is also a name generator, so if you always struggle and name all your characters “Bob” you’ll be okay!.

The VA cast are very talented, they are super excited to talk about them more over the summer, they are not quite ready to announce their names yet.

Q. Will there be a collector’s edition? A. They will talk more about the different editions of the game soon.

Q. Will tavern songs return? A. There are, and they are pretty great, so huge props to the teams that made them.

There is a tavern in Minrathous called The Swan. The song you hear in there is great and probably Corinne’s favorite.

More info on required PC specs to come soon.

They aren’t quite ready to talk in specifics about the music. But the process is the same, working with the composer, working out the themes, working out what they want to keep, what bits to tie to what characters, it’s a really in-depth and collaborative process. They have great audio people. They want to make sure the music feels like a cohesive part of the experience.

Game themes: “What you start with [when creating a game] aren’t always necessarily the same with what you end with.” “For DA:TV one of the biggest themes has been how regret shapes peoples lives, how people deal with their regrets.” Each character has this element to them.

The world reacts to Rook’s lineage and backstory, there are unique dialogue options based on backstory and race.

There are glorious fantastic dwarf beards.

If you go against a companion’s wishes or if you do something they don’t like, you can piss them off and they may take some time away / “leave for a minute”. However, they are always going to be willing to show up to defend Thedas because this is the biggest threat Thedas has ever seen. “They’ll show up to defend Thedas… unless… spoilers”

“The things that we have enjoyed, shaped us show up in these characters”.

Why is Harding a companion? “It was impossible not to see the love that people had in DA:I for our murderous girl next door dwarf. She is a fan favorite. She has a strong connection to Solas, Varric and the events of the past 10 years”. It just made sense to include her, she is one of the earliest-on companion decisions that they made. Her writer wanted it, and had a story to tell in this regard. Harding tends to be one of the people that has the most insight into Solas and who he was. “Who was Solas, what kind of character was he? Using characters to provide windows onto the world is one of my favorite things.”

They want to make sure each quest provides a perspective on the world and the characters, and feels relevant to what you are doing. We are trying to save the world. “We really wanted to make sure that these quests were something that you”, someone who is trying to save the world, would think is important or worthwhile to do when faced with the end of the world. Everything is hand-crafted and intentional. We aren’t going to be gathering shards in the Hinterlands, everything is built with intention and a dev lovingly crafting the experience.

Locations can fundamentally change based on decisions we make. Some of the parts of the world that we go to, the choices that we make have an impact on how these spaces exist and develop. “Your decisions do impact how the world shows up”.

If Rook gets KO’d, we will have to reload our saves unless we have invested in companions’ progression and what they can do (they can be progressed to be able to revive Rook).

Q. “Will Solas still occasionally dramatically speak in iambic pentamer?” John: “Solas is a returning character, it’s the same Solas you love or hate depending on who you are, same writer. It’s Solas”.

The decision of who was left behind in the Fade in DA:I is not important in DA:TV. That does not mean that it will be a decision which will never be important in future.

There are no mounts. “Mounts addressed a need in DA:I that we don’t have in DA:TV, you’ll see why when you get to play”.

Sidequest design – all handcrafted, storyfocused. “Narrative is so much at the core of DA:TV and anything other than handcrafted quests just felt like it would be a disservice to the game we were building”. There is no mechanic in DA:TV like Power in DA:I, no mechanic that blocks your progression until you fill a bar. “You have the autonomy to engage in these quests as you like, there is no grind-out gates before you can progress”. “We want to make sure that doing this content feels like it’s natural and logical” in the context of the story.

Q. War table missions? A. “We haven’t talked much about the player’s base, The Lighthouse. We will save that for now. The Lighthouse, your HQ so to speak, has its own unique purposes and functions this time. This is an area that we will leave for you when we talk more about The Lighthouse.”

Dual-wielding is back as part of the rogue kit this time. Warriors are focused on mighty two-handed weapons which have a real heft when you swing it. The amount of hits rogues can get in in rapid succession with rogues is really satisfying – dualwielding is the providence of rogues this time.

“Knowing just how much people care about this franchise, care about these games”, when people can see the fantastic work the team has been doing – this game is huge, John gets pleasantly surprised on a daily basis and is always amazed by the awesome stuff the team has done. Sometimes he spends hours at night watching the work come in, watching the cutscenes etc and is blown away by the work. Corinne said “Everyone is working so hard, putting so much passion and of themselves into it, this is a franchise the team really loves, seeing everyone’s support, has meant a lot to the team, I want to say thank you to all of you.” They are working on a way for the questions to be immortalized for us so that they don't disappear into the ether! John hopes this is was the first of many opportunities to talk to us directly. He's really excited, and Corinne noted that how much DA means to us is wonderful. "Thank you again, truly."

[source: The dev BioWare Discord Q&A]

#dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age 4 #da4 #bioware #dragon age

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