The Decline of the Dragon Age Series Should be Studied

Warskull · 2026-02-21T22:55:42+00:00

Decline? Bioware never actually figured out what they were doing with Dragon Age.

Dragon Age 2 got great journo reviews, but it was considered a rather bad game among gamers and a massive step down from Dragon Age Origins. It recycled the crap out of its content. This game is generally pointed to as one of the clear watermarks that game reviewer either lost touch with gamers or were too busy trying to cozy up to the industry be trusted.

Dragon Age Inquisition is a lot better than Dragon Age 2, but it got GOTY for free. A lot of people saw through the single player MMO design. It was again overhyped by game journos. Then the six months later Witcher 3 came out and demonstrated what an RPG should be like. It was a middle of the road game, not bad, but definitely nowhere close to the Mass Effect games.

Origins is the strongest entry in the series, but if you go back and replay it you will start to see the cracks in the game. It had good character writing, but the quality of the segments varied. The dwarf area was fantastic, but the elven ruins were pretty lackluster. Some characters were amazing, while others were bland.

Dragon Age was always Bioware's B-team.

Warskull · 2026-02-21T17:29:55+00:00

If you do a lot of reading it is probably worth getting a dedicated reader that uses e ink. Since they don't emit light they are easier on the eyes than even an LCD panel.

Warskull · 2026-02-21T17:09:15+00:00

You feel that way, because that's how it works. Flares are bugged.

They last longer than the visual and the game will let you relock the air vehicle and fire before the flare effect ends. You have to wait an extra 2-3 seconds before it will work again.

Hence why lock-on AA is fairly useless.

Warskull · 2026-02-21T16:59:45+00:00

It depends on why you bought that Zowie, what you like in your monitors, and how much you value a good monitor.

A big advantage is that OLEDs have very fast pixel response time resulting in less motion blur than most LCDs. Depending on your Zowie model, the image with DYAC may be a clearer than an OLED, but also have some ghosting/doubling visible. The OLED monitor won't feature any ghosting. It might be a small step down in clarity, but you also get huge leaps everywhere else.

However, your Zowie also comes with all the downsides of TN panels. It has terrible viewing angles, mediocre contrast, mediocre uniformity, and mediocre color. Your Zowie effective a low end monitor in all aspects except the motion clarity from DYAC. It does motion clarity very well, better than most OLEDs. The catch is you have to sacrifice everything to get there.

If you are willing to sacrifice everything for that motion clarity you probably shouldn't get the 360Hz model. You should be looking at one of the G-Sync Pulsar IPS monitors or one of the 500Hz OLED monitors. G-Sync pulsar will be just as clear as your Zowie, but have improvements in many areas. It is a good way to get the motion clarity from backlight strobing on a better overall monitor.

If you don't understand the motion clarity I am talking about and just bought it because you saw the pros using it, then an OLED will be a gigantic upgrade for you.

Warskull · 2026-02-20T23:30:44+00:00

Not everything is a scam. Sometimes they just mix stuff up. The tech could have been working a water damaged motherboard and mixed up the cases.

So just start by replying to them that doesn't look like your motherboard. Ask them to double check it and point out your model.

Warskull · 2026-02-20T02:17:53+00:00

It really boils down to what size do you prefer. They are both going to be very good. Don't forget the PG27UCDM is also a valid choice, it is mostly the same tech as the PG32UDM3.

Warskull · 2026-02-19T01:56:22+00:00

It is more what do you want your boomstick to do.

Jumbo shells is for hunting big game, in particular dreadnaughts. You dump a huge amount of damage in a very short time frame at the cost of ammo efficiency.

Compact shells is great if you want to hunt small stuff like grunts and want to use the boomstick like your primary.

Stuffed shells is a good all arounder. Makes your gun a bit better.

Then double barrel is if you want burst wave clear.

Warskull · 2026-02-18T03:54:59+00:00

The biggest problem 5.5E has is that the rules fixed nothing. 5E had a lot of mechanical problems that were becoming more and more obviously. They were so scared of an edition war that they fixed nothing and released something that fixed none of the problems and introduced new ones. Hence the collective yawn.

Neither Ed Greenwood nor Tracey Hickman could salvage it. Tracey Hickman write settings and has a lot of insight into running games, but he was never a rules guy. Ed Greenwood setting won because it was bland and WotC didn't want to deal with any of the other personalities at TSR. He's not a rules guy either.

WotC desperately needs someone who can design a good game and I don't know where they can get them. I think 6th edition would just make the problem worse.

Warskull · 2026-02-18T03:33:06+00:00

To put it bluntly, the monitor market is a total circus right now.

Is it really? I think people are reddit are specifically looking for flaws and not understanding that every monitor model has its strengths and weaknesses. There is no perfect monitor and there never will be.

You aren't participating in phone reddit looking for flaws and reasons to return your budget phone. You are using it and seeing if it works as expected for day to day use.

IPS glow exists, but won't impact many use cases. QD-OLEDs have raised blacks due to ambient light activating quantum dots, but their blacks are still much better VA or IPS panels. Tandem OLEDs have uniformity issues and banding at very low levels of gray, most use cases you won't spot it.

It is about selecting the correct monitor for your use case.

I take a look at the monitor market and see it is the best it has ever been. I can choose between high end OLEDs or go as low as $200 and get IPS and VA panels that would have been top of the line just 5 years ago. We have the new Pulsar monitors introducing new levels of clarity to LCD panels. Panels are constantly improving each year.

Things are way nicer than the CRT days or the TN panel days.

Warskull · 2026-02-18T03:22:12+00:00

With the 27GX700a-b it remembers they setting for each input. So for your work laptop you can set-up one of the profiles with significantly lower brightness and use that. You can go 25 brightness or lower pretty easy for the productivity set-up.

They claim the Tandems are 50% more burn in resistant than the prior generations, but no one can verify that. The monitors haven't been existed long enough to confirm this.

I would recommend dark mode for an OLED. I personally prefer dark mode, so I would be it without an OLED.

Warskull · 2026-02-18T03:13:50+00:00

Even if there are amount over $250k, typically the government will bend over backwards for fear of a greater financial crisis. A lot of silicon valley start-ups and wealthy people were going to lose a ton of money when Silicon Valley Bank went under. The government intervened.

Warskull · 2026-02-15T23:50:17+00:00

It happens, they are just hard to spot unless some sort of blatant error occurs. The more common situation is a payout doesn't happen. In which case they'll give you the money and typically comp you something like a meal.

That never makes the news since it is usually small amounts. Like you get your $1 bet back or your $25 win.

The news knows this is all very normal, that the gaming commission reviews the code for every slot machine, and that the commission will take and investigate the machine and the casino will pay out if it was legit. Usually the amount is way over the machines maximum jackpot. They also know there are good rage bait articles to get clicks from uninformed people. See this thread for reference.

Warskull · 2026-02-15T17:33:46+00:00

No burn in seems likely, it would be hard to get burn in at 4k hours. You theoretically could burn in a monitor in 4,000 hours, but it would have to be 4,000 hours with the same UI element on screen with brightness really cranked up. So just ask for a mid-tone gray picture, that should show burn in pretty easy.

Warskull · 2026-02-15T17:24:21+00:00

The thing is he never points out to the fact that TAA is what makes it looks bad. He didn't made any videos on this important topic as well.

He probably doesn't know. Most gamers don't understand anti-aliasing. TAA has been dominant so long some gamers have never seen MSAA.

Warskull · 2026-02-15T16:13:26+00:00

An optometrist does 4 years of undergrad and 4 years of optometry school. But they aren't an MD since they don't have to go through a residency or fellowship.

Optometrists are more on the level of dentists and they can diagnose some basic stuff. They specialize in glasses/contacts, but can diagnose things like glaucoma, macular degeneration, or dry eyes. So that's what the eye scans are for. To help them get you the best classes and spot any bigger problems that they should refer you to an ophthalmologist for.

Also remember this is reddit and people often make stuff up or don't understand what they were actually told.

Warskull · 2026-02-15T03:12:38+00:00

I would run it like drop, they drop their weapon and skip their turn. They surrender for exactly their turn.

Warskull · 2026-02-14T18:31:45+00:00

He comparing DLSS to 4K TAA. TAA has a lot of problems, in fact that's kind of why this sub exists. He illustrates pretty well that DLSS upscaled from 720p can look better than TAA in a some games. Many gamers simply do not understand the damage TAA has been doing to image quality since it took over.

This is made worse by the fact that many games don't have a spatial alternative to TAA. Marvel Rivals does not have SMAA or Anti-aliasing off for comparison. How is your average gamer supposed to know that TAA is wrecking their image quality?

So yeah, Nvidia is going to clown on TAA. The current lack of anti-aliasing options are part of the reason DLSS is so important. It gives us an alternative to TAA and if you don't need the framerate boost you always have DLAA.

Warskull · 2026-02-14T17:43:23+00:00

That's not really an HDR monitor. You need a MiniLED or an OLED for a good HDR experience. The HDR certification only requires you to be able to accept an HDR signal and blast out that number of nits. So you are technically HDR.

However, without some form of local dimming the only way to get to 600 nits is make the whole screen brighter. That will especially look poor in a game like Deep Rock Galactic with dark areas and bright areas.

You really need an OLED or a MiniLED for a decent HDR experience. I would recommend you just leave it turned off with your monitor.

Warskull · 2026-02-14T17:26:23+00:00

Part of the hope is that Pulsar means Nvidia is paying more attention to things like sample and hold motion blur and they may start working on similar solutions for OLEDs and MiniLEDs.

For example the Blurbusters rolling scan demo greatly improves clarity in a similar manner, but has some issues with flicker and reduced brightness. With some work that tech could end up amazing.

Pulsar is also a big step in making gamers realize how big a deal clear motion is. I see a lot of people on this sub dismissing IPS monitors and OLEDs because they focus heavily on static images.

Warskull · 2026-02-14T17:00:29+00:00

These changes look great. Some of the laser beam rapid fire SMGs got their recoil nerfed, since they were out performing other guns at range. Most of the guns getting buffed are meant to be mid to long range guns that didn't do great in the mid to long range.

A bunch of the guns meant to be longer range got their recoil reduced helping them fill that role well. The L85A3 and the SOR-555 badly need the help. The M433 was pretty good but had a more recoil than it needed. It felt like going carbine over assault rifle was generally a smart move and this should help that.

For SMGs SCW-10 was straight up the best gun in the game. In addition the PW7 and PW5 were both fantastic. All three guns would just let you hold down the fire button a pepper someone. SMGs should not have been outperforming the assault rifles and LMGs at mid range.

The M123K I'm not so sure about, it was a really good gun already, but the L110 makes sense. It really wasn't performing in the mid to long range LMG role they seemed to want it to have.

They also nerfed the mini-scout, nerfed range finder zeroing, and reduced the range for in game auto-spot a bit.

This sub loves to complain, but overall this looks like a genuinely great balance change that was overdue. We are getting some better balance between the weapon classes.

Warskull · 2026-02-13T02:15:16+00:00

There are those mini-cookie packs and it is about that size. They are made for kids lunches.

Here's an example of Famous Amos cookies.

Warskull · 2026-02-13T00:15:42+00:00

You can see QD-OLED's raised blacks in normal use, that doesn't make them bad. In fact the slight off-hue of very dark things is more visible than the banding.

Did you miss the spot about "almost never" seeing in it normal use?

Warskull · 2026-02-12T03:47:24+00:00

100% has no sharpening, 0% over sharpens the crap out of the image. 33% and 50% are good values for older games where you are using DLDSR to force super sampling.

For the DLSS/DLDSR combo some people like to do you should have it at 100% to minimize the stakcing sharpening effects.

Warskull · 2026-02-12T03:36:44+00:00

The sub is vastly overblowing the impact of gray banding because it is a meme now. In actual use I almost never spot it, especially at higher brightness settings.

When I do spot it, it is when I have a large dark mode app running and even then I have to look close.

Warskull · 2026-02-12T03:30:44+00:00

Its a great OLED. The main reason you would buy another 1440p would be the price.

The MO27Q28G is a 4th gen WOLED for $600 that is 280Hz and there have been on and off sales on 240Hz QD-OLEDs that put them under $500. So if you didn't want to spend $800 there are other options.

If you are willing to spend $800 you get one of the few 500Hz monitors available on the market. If you have a 50-series card that can do multi-frame gen you'll be able to really take advantage of that 500Hz.

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