Dragon Age: The Veilguard's First PS5 Update Out Now, Adds Mass Effect Armour, Fixes Bugs

First impressions...Damn good first few hours..Yes the dialogue can be intolerable at times, but I'd hardly call it a deal breaker... Technically though - not really seen anything to complain about tbh 🙂

I would love for the game to have ng+ with the option to pick a new class, background but keep the skillpoints acquired etc...

Definitely need a new game plus update so I can play this game on repeat. I did notice after the patch that the bugs look a lot better 🦀

I read several reviewers say the enemies get very sponge-y. So I'm hoping for a balance up date that changes health a little (and increases danger) rather than having to manually do that

Do we know if the Pro Enhanced patch has been added too; and what the changes are?

No amount of updates is gonna fix the horrible writing. Just remaster DAO and DA2 already and I'll be happy to play some actual Bioware classics on modern hardware. As flawed as DA2 is, it's a masterpiece compared to Veilguard.

Loving the game as an old Dragon Age fan. Definitely not understanding the complaints! Can we have more than just 3 character slots though Bioware? I don't want to delete my old Rooks

@ThomasHL they don't get spongey, it's matter of people learning to play properly and using combos effectively, I actually think enemies go down quick,.only enemies that take some time are the High dragons,.considering they are end game it's to be expected they don't die in 1minute.

The only thing I've come across so far is that changing vitaar appearance doesn't load properly, and Neve's skill points were reset at one point but it was fairly early on so no major issue. Sounds like this update targets those specifically anyway, other than that I'm loving the game.

@ThomasHL I thought the same but you're right @Uromastryx it's about speccing the right way and using the systems. Now I'm eating through most things because I'm targeting then the right way.

@JB_Whiting We don't know yet what the enhancements are for Veilguard on PS5 Pro, also am interested to know myself.

@ThomasHL As others have been saying, yeah, the game can definitely start off with enemies feeling spongey (for reference I've been playing on the second-highest difficulty) but this gets heavily offset over time. Between the skill tree, upgrades to your gear and their passive effects, and companion synergies, by the time you hit the mid-game (and with a clear-ish vision for your build) you can pretty easily melt anything outside of intentionally challenging side-bosses.

Let me reiterate my original comment, so it hopefully doesnt “bait” anyone…..

-> No patch will ever fix the horrendous writing and dialogue, so hard pass from me.

While I'm not exactly the sharpest bulb or the brightest tack, I really am not getting the hate for the writing. It seems perfectly serviceable. Words like "horrendous" get thrown about and I am just not seeing it.

Really enjoying this game love fantasy adventure with a bit of rpg.

Started playing but holding off for what I’ve named.
Pro Thursday.

They absolutey butchered Isabela in this. Awful, awful, awful writing.

Everytime someone mentions horrible writing you know they saw two clips online and didn't touch the game.

@symmetrian As someone who played through the whole game almost twice for the purposes of reviewing it, I don't think the writing is as bad as some people are making out.

Are there some particularly bad lines? Yes. Are some topics handed quite badly? Yes. But it's an 80 hour game and the vast majority of dialogue is either just fine or actually very good. The conversations with Solas, for example, are close to being peak BioWare.

But this is the internet, so everything either has to be utterly incredible or absolute dogsh*t. There's sadly no nuance to discussions like this.

@ShogunRok the dialogue is fine but the acting is kinda ass

@ShogunRok I've been a fence sitter, but on the playthrough's I've watched, it seems that a fair amount of dialogue uses contemporary American-English and colloquialisms that seem out of place in a game where people are using shields and swords etc.

As out of place as Aragorn shouting, "here come dat boi! Waddaup!" when he sees Frodo.

Plus that Marvel movie-esque dialogue where every other line is an attempt at a witty quip.

I've only seen half a dozen playthrough episodes though, so I'm curious given your extensive experience, if that type of dialogue/language is a small minority of the game in your view?

Or is it a majority, but it just doesn't bother you?

I guess that Marvel dialogue must be popular with a lot of people as the movies would alter it following focus group testing otherwise.

Plus Americans obviously speak American when sat around a board playing D&D!

So I get why the developers could have thought it was fine, and why many gamers and reviewers have no problem with it.

Dunno about you though, but even an American accent in a quasi-medieval fantasy setting is a complete killer for me, in the same way if everyone in Young Guns 1 and 2 had been talking with an English accent and Tolkien-esque dialogue, I'd have turned it off at 5 minutes.

Don't get me wrong, I know that if I had a time machine and went back to the middle ages, I wouldn't understand a word anyone was saying as it doesn't resemble 21st century English.

But those tropes and expectations are a vital part of suspension of disbelief to me, even if they aren't historically accurate.

I don't know if you know of the old kids TV series Maid Marian and Her Merry Men? It was basically taking a group of people from 1990's London, and placing them in the setting of Robin Hood.

It was played for laughs with how those modern people with their modern knowledge lived in the Robin Hood time period. That's exactly how DA Veilguard looks to me when I watch it......only they aren't playing it for laughs... It's meant to be as serious as Game of Thrones.

Totally agree about the lack of nuance.

PS5 Pro patch also drops on Thursday

@ShogunRok This is a wonderful response, and shares the same sentiment I do.

Better not nerf anything. Especially in a single player game. I want to try other classes. Warrior and rouge have been a blast.

@ShogunRok I love the moments with Solas. Easily one of the best characters in the series for me. I look forward to every conversation.

@EchoRange

I've watched an hour of gameplay. All the dialogue has been bad. It's ok to admit it sucks. Don't pretend that it gets better lol.

@ChimpMasta No I agree on this, Americanised dialogue often pulls me out of fantasy settings as well. I'm not against having American actors in medieval fantasy games, but there's a fine line between say, Geralt in The Witcher and some of the characters in Dragon Age.

You're right though, it's mostly about the tone and direction of the actors. And then it's hard to escape that tone if the dialogue is also written from an Americanised perspective, which I think is often the issue in The Veilguard.

But I will say, people are quick to forget that it's been a decade since Inquisition. While I don't think The Veilguard is quite as different in tone and atmosphere compared to past games as some people think, it's still a product of a different time and a mostly different team.

I think these kinds of tonal shifts were inevitable in places, although I understand why some people are disappointed.

And from my perspective, the game's writing does get better as the story goes on, and the stakes are raised. Criticisms still apply for some of it — especially when companion quests are involved — but particularly in the main story, it feels a lot like older Dragon Age.

@Cloud39472 I thought I was going to hate Solas in this game (purely because of what he did at the end of Inquisition) but I thought BioWare did a fantastic job of making him seem quite complex in his motivations and personality.

You also get a lot of meaningful dialogue options with him, which I think helps!

Honestly, it is times like these where I’m glad I ignore most of the discourse for a game and play it myself, and come to my own conclusions. I’m having a great time with the game, and it’s not as bad or “woke” as the internet makes it out to be. Is the writing perfect? No. But there are some great moments of dialogue, and great characters to be found. The gameplay is fantastic, with a wonderful skill tree, and plenty of abilities to customize your play style. The quests are great, and side quests are meaningful.

I’m not saying people can’t be critical. I have my faults with the game. But there is a fine line between critical and rational.

It’s a shame a lot of people can’t be understanding—it’s either “amazing” or “awful”; there is no in-between with some people. And it’s sad that gaming culture has become so toxic. Can you imagine if Call of Duty Black Ops 6 was bad? The discourse around it, the people who enjoy it, and those who are playing the game on Xbox (and Game Pass) would be ridiculed so bad. And for what? I don’t understand.

If you don’t like something, why associate yourself with it? I love sports, but I’m not a fan of baseball or soccer. You’ll never catch me reading articles about those particular sports, or make disparaging comments about certain players and teams. I just ignore it and focus on the things I enjoy instead of trying to make people feel bad for liking it. Sorry, I’m rambling, but I’m just disappointed by how negative the gaming culture has become in the past several years.

It's a very average game. Nothing more, nothing less. And yes the dialogue is terrible.

@ShogunRok I'd argue also that an issue with their use of some North American accents/actors is that they've handled it inconsistently here with regards to franchise at large.

Previously, they followed established rules for the accents based on culture and origin. The American accent belonged to the City Elves and the Dwarves, particularly from the underground (and later the Qunari?), English to Ferelden and the Free Marches, Welsh to the Dalish Elves, French/Spanish/German to Orlais/Antiva/Nevarra, etc. I'm sure there were slips here and there, but it mostly stuck.

For Veilguard, they've thrown the American accent in particular all over, and if you've come from the older games it feels quite jarring for it.

I’d like to see quality of life updates, most of which are minor and may be fixable in a menu:

• why do I need to go through three screens and two buttons to overwrite a save game - make it ‘x’, give me one warning, why would anyone want to rename the save each time?
• when I lock on to a target, and switch targets, keep locking on, don’t soft-lock suddenly so I have to swing the camera round manually
• Give us the option to switch classes somewhere in the opening, in case we wish we’d gone a different route when seeing it in action
• make Neve as interesting as she looks / interesting

I’m about 4 hours in. It’s been linear so far and I’m hoping it opens up a bit soon but I’m still very much enjoying it. The combat is satisfying, the skill tree looks super customisable and even though I wasn’t a fan of the art style in the reveal I think it really suits the game, it’s beautiful! I’ve always been a gameplay over story person so the acting and dialogue hasn’t bothered me all that much and it’s definitely not the worst I have seen.