Dragon Age: The Veilguard director talks RPG systems, skill trees, and inspiration from Final Fantasy XII

Dragon Age: The Veilguard BioWare came out in full force this week with a trailer, some gameplay footage, and lots of information. But since the promotional material was aimed at appealing to the mainstream with dazzling action shots and its characters, it certainly led to one major fan objection: is it still an RPG?

Of course, we were also interested in that. The hands-on experience provided insight into the incredible character creator, interesting dialogue choices, and some consequences for those choices—all roleplaying staples. But what about combat? What about good old-fashioned RPG character development and growth, which in many ways is the foundation of the genre?

After seeing the hands-on demo, we had a chance to chat briefly with Dragon Age: The Veilguard director Corin Bouche – who immediately says he’s a true RPG system geek. I get the impression that we could sit and talk about classic RPGs and their mechanics for hours; he is one of us. In our brief chat, he expands on how The Veilguard’s development, growth, and skill tree work – revealing details not seen in the demo so far. Here is our conversation.

RPG Site: So you can talk broad with me … we don’t even see the menu in this preview, do we? So can you talk to me about where the game sits and what this RPG is like going forward from a die-hard RPG fan’s perspective?

Corinne Busche: Incredibly deep! So if I had a contrast Mass effect against Dragon Age, for example… I really look at Mass Effect as an ARPG. Big action, little RPG. We are almost the exact opposite.

So in a few missions you instantly unlock a skill tree, with each level up you get skill points of course. The skill tree is absolutely huge and it’s custom for your class. So, speaking of specialties, we know that skill trees can be overwhelming for players as well. So, what I love – I will try to draw a picture for you ….

Visualize it almost like a giant spider web when unlocked. And if I’m a mage, at its core is the core of the Mage kit.

RPG Site: So I’m going to cut you off here and say something – this may or may not resonate with you – but when you say it, I think, uh… Final Fantasy X Sphere Grid.

Corrine Busche: It had a heavy impact! Absolutely. Final Fantasy X is one of my all timers. I will tell you that 12, especially the Zodiac edition, is my favorite. The level of skill selection, passives, traits in our case – I’d say the amount of customization is more like that. The organization is more like a Sphere Grid.

So Final Fantasy XII might be in my top three favorite games. I am very impressed with our progress. But if you want to paint a picture, the spear net is more … not exactly the same, but more similar.

What we’ve done to make it more accessible is that each of the majors are on the outer edges of the network.

RPG Site: So you start from the inside and work outward, but which direction do you choose to work?

Bushes: Yes. I know where to start. I have an idea of ​​what specialty looks or sounds the best – and that really helps players set their course so they don’t just lose to the wild.

RPG Site: That’s why you reveal it at the beginning – show not only the base classes, but also what the specialization options are in the character creator, right? Because you want people to know, “Oh, I’m a Warrior, I have this specialty here, this is down there,” and you choose your direction.

Bushes: And we even added some helpful tags along the way. Thus, in addition to specialties, it is divided into three sections. For example, in the case of a Warrior, you have a unit that is more defense-oriented, more weapon-oriented, and more ability-oriented. So, for example, what you can do to qualify Reaper is go… Rather than going from Defense to Reaper, I’m going to go down from Skill to Reader.

RPG Site: It’s a great, real easy way to sell it – if we’re talking about the license network, the sphere network… people, our audience definitely understands that. Can you talk about the breadth of skills within that and how often you’ll be getting new stuff?

Bushes: So skills are unique to each class. Every level you gain a skill point, there are other site activities to gain a skill point… We are multiplayer friendly; you can get the last one back, you can get everything back…

We have a level cap of 50. One of my frustrations with some other games that have similar skill tree systems is that getting into a specialty can take all of your skill points and then you have nothing else.

We are complete opposites. Mid-game you enter your specialty and then you can really branch out.

RPG Site: What about party members?

Bushes: They all have their own skill trees as well. Now those are – we don’t want to overwhelm the players. Thus, their skill trees are organized around their individual abilities. So when you unlock their full set of abilities, each one has a skill tree full of options where you can gain autonomous use, or reduce the cooldown, or add additional effects to the ability.

RPG Site: What is the actual range of active abilities for them? For example, are characters fairly defined by a few basic abilities, or is it more of a number that the player chooses from the ability wheel?

Bushes: So every follower, every companion has five basic abilities. There are decisions you can make along the way that add mechanical changes to each ability.

Now back to your question – Neve and Bellara are both Mages, so they share the two main Mage abilities between each other, right? However, the other three are unique in class or character. Neve is an ice mage, not Bellara – so Neve will have her unique ice abilities.

RPG Site: They tell me that we are running out of time, but first on this topic – elementary things. There’s a growing trend of some games turning elementals into something purely visual… but you’re talking about ice magic there. So are the elements a factor in combat? Or does it not matter?

Bushes: hell yes. Oh, it’s really important!

RPG Site: Good! Thank God for that. [laughs] Thanks for your time – hopefully we can get back up and running before we start.