318 réponses à ce sujet

[fuji7x]

Combat, love it or hate it will make getting to the next part of the story fun or a huge pain in the ass. Here are some ideas that I have for combat.

Types of Basic Attacks
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I liked Witcher's fighting stance system and think something like this would be great on DA. A strong attack that is either slower, or decreases DEF/Amour rating and a weaker, but faster basic attack would be great. The ability to switch attack types mid-battle should be instantaneous. If I have poison on my blade, I'd go fast attack for increased chance to proc (as an example). The slower attack is harder hitting but leaves me open for increased damage, something a full-plated 2H may not worry about.



Combat Rolls!
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Rogues should be able to do a combat roll (in the same vein as ME3 human characters). The jumping and leaping all over the place was used to give the rogue a feeling of quickness, however the flaw in it was that the player never did anything special to accomplish that move. If I clicked attack on someone far away, I'd jump in and begin my animation of quick slashes. However, if I had to press forward and spacebar to jump in, it would add to the adrenaline of playing a quick character knowing that if I didn't roll around, I'd be dead. It would allow a rogue to dodge the slower moving 2H sword guy by rolling out of the way. Stick and move, stick and move, no way a rogue should be standing toe to toe with anything. Rogues are usually very squishy so by not rolling out of harms way, you should end up dead. Come to think of it, Kindoms of Alamur had this mechanic and the big boss in the demo illustrated just how fun it is and how to utilize or highlight this feature. Just imagine DA:O's first ogre battle with the rogue's ability to dodge those charges.

The rogues are typically a "thinking" man's class. Combat rolls makes thinking in the heat of a battle encouraged. The Rogue also lacks any scouting or preparation of traps/ambushes, but that's already been covered in great detail by others.


The Shield Is A Weapon
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Skyrim showed just how devastating the shield can be and how much fun it can be bashing someone's brains in with a shield. Sword and Board characters are usually pretty dull, but I must admit, Skyrim made it really fun to play as! The feats shield bash and scatter are a nice start. Following the idea of 2 basic attack types, the shield could be the "heavy attack".


Archers Need Some Love
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I'm not sure what it is, but most games in a fantasy setting have trouble with archery. It's either useless, not fun at all (such as auto-aim) or completely OP. Making gameplay as an archer fun requires a lot of work. One suggestion is to have a scope of sorts. It doesn't necessarily scope in, but it blurs the edges of the screen so as to give the effect of an archer honing in on their target. That blur would not allow you to see anything but a specific radius around your reticule. The only way this can work is if enemies will actively try and flank you. If there's a chance you get flanked, and without your ability to see around yourself (situational awareness decreased), it should add some tension to an otherwise safe location. Make Archery more skill based, in that what you aim at, it hits. You can get time dialation with feats or some kind of accuracy boost to make shooting easier of course for the people who don't want to play a shooter, but want the role play of an archer. With this kind of mechanic, it becomes a "shooter" class and there's actually some skill in it, instead of just hitting "assassinate" every time you have enough STA. Make archery have it's own playstyle and when an archer, use the follow over the shoulder camera.

Alternatively make an archer the ultimate set up man for combos. It lacks that excitement during gameplay, but it provides a more tactical feel in that an archer may not output much damage, but having one and not having one could be the difference between beating the boss in 2 minutes as opposed to 5 minutes (with 5 health and stamina pots used up).


Set Piece Battles
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DA is full of set battles such as in act 3 of DA2 where you find a few guards on patrol pinned down by an archer and need to kill some bandits with their help (or without). It's these types of set battles that can illustrate the more tactical nature of DA. Positioning should be key to this and in order for that to happen, things like flanking need to become bigger parts of the game. I don't want isabella to attack that commander head on, I want her to run around the side a bit and flank the archers - not run right through the heavy fighting.

Along the same line, how about defence battles. I want to position an archer up high with a line of sight to everything and let that archer rain arrows down. I want my tank to plug a hole in the wall, set on some kind of "guard" AI.

For these types of battles, we need to be able to position and command characters like an RTS. Hold commands are a start in the right direction, and we saw that tactical playstyle available when we came out of the deep roads in act 1. That battle was tough, aggravating at times, and so very satisfying when I won because I led the entire team to victory. I told all my characters where to stand and when. No other battle that I can remember in DA2 had that kind of tactical requirement. Most others it's just ordering your tank up front, while your squishies tried to stay out of melee range (like the main dragon in act 3).


That's all for now... I feel like I could go on and on but I probably shouldn't as it's already a TL;DR length post.

[RonixisJK]

Relix28 wrote...

- More assignable slots for spells/talents (for Xbox360/PS3).
This is one thing that bothers me very much as a console player.
Having just 6 assignable slots is not nearly enough for a spell/power heavy game like this. In my latest mage playthrough I had at least 5 or more spells I would have been using constantly, if I didn't had to pause every time just to activate them. And even in my Warrior and Rogue games, I always sacrificed some "less important" talents for the sake of ease. Having to pause every time just to throw a Miasmic Flask is just not worth it for me. Anywayz, enough about me.

I think this could be solved by simply adding at least two more sets of assignables (+6 new assignable slots). And add a toggle feature for cycling through the assignable sets. Basically, instead of holding down your right trigger to bring up your secondary set of powers, you would just need to tap the trigger and your next set would come up and be ready to use. That way, you could easily switch between 4 or more sets of assigned powers, all ready to use without having to pause your game.
A simple feature like this would make the game a lot more enjoyable and hassle-free for a lot of us console gamers.

I like this idea. I think it would be pretty useful, particularly for a mage. It would also be helpful to be able to use the PC's top-down camera when targeting certain spells or items, and to highlight dead characters when targeting revival abilities (I often had trouble with this with DA:O Revival and DA2 Mythal's Favor).

[Xerxes52]

1. Include automatic closing with a selected target. In DA:O if I was out of range for a basic attack or using a power, I could still activate the ability or order the attack, and the PC would get into range to use that ability or attack (this is from the quick buttons on the 360, if I use the power wheel they don't have this problem). For example, if I was a SnS Warrior and I saw an enemy thirty feet away, I could just hit the A button and my PC would automatically run to the target and start fighting.

2. Fewer items in total, but more unique items. Also named unique items should level with the player. I remember in DA:O there were many unique weapons and items that were useful throughout the entire game, and there were so many it usually came down to personal preference. I'd like to see that return in DA3.

3. Possibly some "iconic" outfits for the PC. I'm in the minority with this, but I liked the iconic outfits for our companions in DA2, I just wished there were more (with different sets of stats for different builds and different looks for each), but for the PC I would like to see them have a couple one piece "iconic" outfits that are comparable in detail and stats to companion outfits. These would be optional of course (there should still be multi-piece armors in the game as well as the one piece outfits).

That's all I've got for now.

[JediMB]

It's quite possible -- likely, even -- that it has already been brought up more than once, but I'm still going to offer my two cents (or however many I have) on the Dialogue Wheel.

What I liked:

• It was definitely a huge improvement over Mass Effect's equivalent. Having more options than Nice, Neutral, Rude, (plus Charm, Intimidate and Investigate) was a step in the right direction. Especially the options to call in a companion or utilize special information you had retreived earlier.
• The icons and the sub-categories of the usual dialogue types (like how "nice" was split into "diplomatic" and "helpful") were a good idea, although the latter seemed too interchangable at times.
• No accidental romances. Granted, it hadn't ever happened to me in previous BioWare games, but still. It was also nice to clearly have options where the intention is flirting.

What I disliked:

• Like with Mass Effect, a huge problem with the dialogue wheel as it is is that it can easily take thinking out of the equation when the player chooses what dialogue option to go for. It can easily devolve into simply picking "the top one" or "the special one".
• While it can be fun to be a little bit surprised by what your character says (for some people), sometimes even the icons and the short line you get to read beforehand don't clearly convey what is actually being said.
• This ties into the wheel often not demanding the player thinks for him- or herself: Flirting and other special dialogue. If the option is there, it's usually impossible to fail.
• The available dialogue largely ignored what class (and thereby skillset) the player's character had.

What I suggest:

• More varied and less formulaic dialogue options. Who says you can't have both a Diplomatic and a Helpful option at the same time? It doesn't always have to be Nice-Neutral-Rude. Maybe the available options can change dynamically, depending on how the character/player has acted previously? (Like, a very nice character gets an additional nice option to choose from, while a clearly out-of-character option disappears? Or just write the dialogue options without having the wheel and its icons in mind, and assign those afterwards.)
• A way to see the exact line your character is going to say would be a good idea. Maybe through a toggle in the options menu, or by holding the shift key or right-clicking a dialogue option.
• Force the player to actually have to pay attention to a love interest by including multiple flirt options with different chances of success (including total failures). Also, not necessarily romance-related, return dialogue where success (and/or availability) depends on stat or skill checks.
• Unique class-based dialogue. Have not just other characters acknowleding your class, but also unique ways of solving problems/confrontations depending on whether or not you are a specific class (or even class specialization).

[GunMoth]

After seeing the PAX conference I got really excited for Dragon Age again. With a lot of the PR stuff going on and much of the Mass Effect community in a mess, I am impressed that the DA team was able to maintain level headed and discuss things they want to experiment with.

So I'll post in this every so often I think of something as I replay through Origins and DA2.

Many of my gripes have been covered with the gameplay / hud issues (weapon swap friendly fire) I will say I absolutely LOVE the idea of "scaling" difficulty. Maybe having adjustable presets for people who get overwhelmed by slide bars (similar to how Mass Effect 3 had different "modes" for the type of playstyle you like -- only difficulty settings. Then you can fine tune them in an option menu). I feel this is an issue in many RPGs out today. One ESPECIALLY being skyrim.

So for now I'm going to touch on aesthetics and cosmetics -- since that hasnt been touched on as much. Maybe some dialog and other junk.

1) Make one side of a slider mean "larger" and one mean "smaller". In DA2 some sliders (particularly depth options) aren't consistent with other sliders. For example: sliding the nose depth option to the right may make it smaller, but on width sliding it to the right will make your nose wider. Its really nitpicky, but its easily fixable.

2) The character creation screen, the menu screen etc are all too dark. You cant see your character or companions. I LOVE that you can fully rotate your character (in contrast to Mass Effect) but I also feel that the purpose is defeated if I cant see most of the things Im changing.

3) I would love to see the return of races. Not different origins if thats TOO much, but slight reactions from NPCs etc. (skyrim) :x Not possible for DA2. But for the hypothetical DA3. Cough.

4) less "good bad" morality choices and more choices that you can select that are determined by stats, certain "skills" you have, your race, gender, which companions you have. It makes your choices feel like it has more of an impact on the dialog. I can understand that voice acting can be an issue for this -- Witcher 2 is a game that does this wonderfully though.

Modifié par GunMoth, 14 avril 2012 - 06:27 .

[RonixisJK]

For the finishers, I'd like to see some option to turn them on/off if they're in the game. I remember in DA:O I thought to myself "yes, Alistair, that's very impressive and all, can we get on with it?" I guess it's just not the sort of thing that appeals to me.

Also, I think the enemies you encounter should vary based on your choices, even in the 'random encounter' bits. I wondered in DA2 why I'm fighting random apostate mages on the road if I am one myself. Perhaps I could fight some templars instead, or something like that.

[ianvillan]

I would like to see a shapeshifting specialization which is just one form but can be upgraded for different roles in combat.

[yetiawesome]

Quickly it would be

1)Finishers-they are cool. Be even better if each companion and weapon style got a unique one. Represent mages and archers please

2) Wave bye bye to wave combat. Look having a fight in a graveyard/battlefield where corpses raise up is fine. Having everyone being nightcrawler and teleporting is silly.

3) More of a sense of progression with basic attacks. Small thing but I really disliked who Hawk never seemed to improve his basic skill with his blade or staff, he was always great with it.

4) I like DA 2's faster combat but perhaps it would be better if everyone suffered damage easier, so the whole combat was fast and frantic, talents were used frequently and if the player messed up party members would die. Or make it slower. Because as it is it does feel a bit like I'm working in a meat grinder.

5) I am only suggesting this very very tentatively but what about cross class specializations like being an arcane warrior opens up some warrior talents for a mage? Really not sure on that though. Just something to make the player character feel unique. If not that then maybe giving the PC a unique skill tree based on their origin or whatever. Just something to stand out.

[Tsarapihelas]

If I could change only one thing about combat (and I'd like to change many things), it would be waves.

Who thought that was a good idea?

[Nyctyris]

Really small gameplay suggestion thing, but this REALLY bugged me. 
Put back the ability to mouse over minimaps/maps in PC versions! This was in DAO and is in most PC games that have any kind of exploration. The only reason I can think of for why it was taken out was that it's a feature that wouldn't get used if you're using a controller/console.

It wasn't so bad given how "familiar" some of the maps were in DA2 but if DA3 is going to use a bigger world, being able to mouse over the minimap (or some other similar console friendly feature which serves the same function) would be really helpful and timesaving. 

[Luciferious]

1) Bring back Arcane Warrior! - Playing a class in a completely different way than you'd expect is an amazing experience, even if you don't want to revisit AW giving rogues or warriors some different and unique spec would be brilliant.

2} Let me equip my party with whatever I want - This links with my next point but in short I want to build my character and the other party members however I want, this means I need control of the armour/ weapon stat bonuses. The easiest way I imagine would be to let anyone equip anything (bar class or lore-related character restrictions)

3) No unique specializations- Granted it was a very clever and fun idea but it also lead to multiple role restrictions (i.e. Anders or Hawke could be viable healers but not Merril), I would prefer to unlock specializations which would be available to all the characters with the correct class.

4) Magically spawning enemies - I know you're clearing this up but it really is worth a mention.

On a personal note I didn't have a problem with the story and exploration being restricted to only a few locations, it meant (to me at least) that you were more invested in the ongoings of the locations rather than forgetting about them as soon as you left. I did enjoy the more open area style of DA:O but I consider both viable. As long as there's no dungeon recycles I think its all fine.

[Cirram55]

     1) Combat
Get rid of waves, deepstalker raising from the ground are fine, it makes sense as they live underground; on the other hand the same can't be said for the dozens of abominations coming from thin air at sundermount (stupid and nonsensical: what are abominations doing hiding on an uninhabited mountain?).
And again, when Hawke said "At least it's not boring!", I thought "Please spare me, not another horde!" (just one of many examples of the disconnection I felt from "my" character based on Bioware's assumption that mindlessly killing everything moving is fun).
Remove the whole teleporting-enemies thing, it breaks the game's laws of physics (DA isn't high-fantasy), but, most importantly, it's just annoying. What's the point of having a codex that tells you nobody can "teleport" without endless loads of lyrium and tevinter slave's blood when everyone is doing that in front of you? Combat IS a part of the story and the world, not a system per se.
To sum up, let's have a combat system that actually makes sense, shall we? And yes, cool moves are cool moves, but please do not sacrifice coherence and consistency for the sake of "k00l"!
One of the things I liked were the combos. In DAO they were a little meh, whereas in DAII they were pretty useful. Keep them and make them more complex and varied, not only "super-mega-foxy-ultra critical damage!".

     2) About the dialogue system
As some others mentioned, make the dialogue wheel bigger, more than three options per time, unlock special lawful line for a good character, special chaotic ones for the more badass.
Expand the concepts of personalities, it was a good idea but don't limit us to chatty/witty/straight-forward. And take those damned colours out! Blue, purple and red are too schematic and they eventually have the player follow a mindless click-clickity-click without even reading the given options.

     3) Specializations
Bring back some of DAO's or merge them with the DAII ones. Either way, give them more significance within the story or the way people perceive us. Meaning also that you should really give us some sort of explanation of how our character came to be a blood mage when he has never been in contact with demons (silly Hawke I'm looking at you)

     4) Companion's customization
Absolutely go with the compromise for armour customization you described at PAX, I loved that (so long as I have at least a minimal visual change). As much as I appreciate player freedom, heavy-armoured Zevran breaks immersion and his class lore. Iconic looks is also a pretty good concept: I need to be in complete control of my character, not so much when speaking of the party. DAII made a good job in depicting characters that had a life other than being my lacqueys (it could've been done better though, Isabela passing every day and night in the tavern was weird), and sorting their wardrobe would've been a bit... you know... I am not their mother. I still want to tinker with their stats though. If you can give me boots, chest, gloves, shoulders and helm variations with colours and tiers but maintaining some sort of unique look, then it'd be terrific.
Speaking of unique or restricted skill trees for party members, I am fine with whatever you decide. I like companions' skill to be the more varied and personal possible.

5) No more quests spawning out of the blue in the journal.

     6) Bring back crafting as seen in DAO (with penalties for creating potions/runes/poisons/traps/etc. out of home/camp), the system in DAII was a little poor, but I liked the gather-the-resources thing.

     7) Reintroduce charm and intimidate and keep the lie as in DAO and DAII but give it weight.

     8) Also, when I order the party to stay still in one place, MAKE THEM STAY PUT, I understand camera limitations, but it was unbearable.

     9) Fog of war
Someone mentioned it already, and I agree it was one thing that I felt missing. I can see, however, that with recycled environments FOW is pretty useless (though, thinking of it, it may have tricked you into believing that that one wasn't the same cave you were five minutes before). So, if you're going for unique environments (better be), FOW would be a delighting old friend I'd be willing to meet.

     10) Lockpicking
Finally, in DAII lockpicking changed from being a skill to being a passive. Now, could we go back to having a skill but making it for warriors and mages too? I don't like rogues in the party all the time. I'm talking about putting in DA(3?) the lockbashing ability that DAO was supposed to have (and which was inexplicably cut out). To encourage bringing a rogue along, you could put penalties for bashing a chest or a door with weapons or magic. Is it possible?

So, you see, there's a lot to work on for DA:Next.




P.S. it is not a gameplay feature but it is worth mentioning: give me a bloody good tavern brawl with maidens pulling each other's hair. Viveka and Sabina (the brat's mother) in the Blooming Rose got my hopes all up, but nothing .

Modifié par Cirram55, 11 juin 2012 - 07:27 .

[Burnouts3s3]

Was the prospect of 'shuffling' or moving the character in a certain position such a big deal? Because to me, that was the main argument I heard for changing the gameplay into DA2's style. And yet, I still find myself having to position Hawke in order to attack a certain target.

What is the is thought process behind moving a character during combat? Is the priority to make it easier to move them (b/c I still get stuck in doors in either game) or is it the priority to position the rogue?

[Spedfrom]

I'll be very quick to the point and share my point of view, which is that from playing a mage in both DA games.

Speed wise: make it halfway between DA:O and DA2. DA2's combat is too fast, like they're permanently high on caffeine.
Animations: stop them immediately when I enter a command for a companion. It's annoying and serves no real purpose. We get to see those animations often enough as it is. Hawke doesn't need to twirl around for the umpteenth time while getting his ass kicked when I just want him to freaking cast Mind Blast and run out of harm's way.
Strategy: make it matter again, because most of the time in DA2 I had no reason to not throw a bunch of attack spells on enemies and just wait until they were all eventually dead. Whereas in DA:O I felt spells like poisons, weaknesses and all else were useful and would help me defeat enemies, since they weren't just easy to break porcelain dolls. In essence: support spells existed, mattered, were useful and often times necessary to win a battle in DA:O. In DA2 you could simply ignore them.

That's it really. Basically I had lots of fun with DA:O's battle system even though it felt a bit too slow. DA2 felt too much of a mindless hack'n'slash due to speed, fragile enemies and having no reason to use strategy or support skills. Tweak DA:O's battle system with only a few sprinkles of DA2's and you should have a winner on your hands.

[ianvillan]

I hated Hawkes Archery tree and felt it no options for different playstyles and was more magical in how the abilitys were presented.

Varrics Bianca tree was more to my liking and I would of liked for that to be the main Archery tree for Hawke.

It would be good if you could include a actual specialisation for archery aswell.

[JoltDealer]

Personally, I would like to see better combat animations. While DA2's combat certainly was much more "amped" than DAO, it looked unrealistic and even cartoonish at times. Also, I would prefer if it looked like there was actual fight between people, as opposed to my attack animation vs. their attack animation. Blades actually clashing against another's blade, shield, or staff makes for better looking combat.

Also, to echo someone else's idea from this topic, it'd be nice to actually earn the specialization classes. However, it should be different from how it was approached in DAO. Instead of dialogue, objects, or books that must recovered, how about offer a generic quest that gives you the specialization and teaches you some of the basic skills. Maybe even have mentor NPC's that you can visit to learn the specialization and further/strengthen your skills? No need to destroy Andraste's ashes or have sex with Isabela. Just reach a certain level and learn it from a mentor. And yes, please bring back Arcane Warriors.

I really like the new idea for companion equipment customization we've been shown. It seems like it works really well. Maybe introduce a similar concept that reflects a PC or NPC's specialization? Nothing huge in terms of design, but perhaps a warrior who chooses a Berserker specialization would have bits of animal fur on his armor. A Templar would have the sigil on his shield or chestplate, Reavers would have spikes on his armor, and so on for other specializations. An Arcane Warrior *cough cough* would have runic designs on any armor he wore. It could even just be a simple visual effect, like Spirit Healers give off a healthy green aura. Either way, it'd be nice if specialization classes were more than a stat change and some skills. A mild cosmetic change would be nice.

[soteria]

It's been ages since I posted, but assuming anyone is still looking at this thread....

I liked some parts of DA:2's combat. I liked the talent trees. They seemed more imaginative and interesting than DA:O's left-to-right progression. When things worked, combat could be a lot of fun, for example, lining up a chain lightning combo on staggered enemies. Unfortunately, I also saw a lot of problems.

One of the big ones was friendly fire. I've long been an advocate of making FF a toggle for every difficulty, but for whatever reason that's never even been on the table. Before I critique FF, maybe I should explain why I like it. With FF on, in past games you had to make tradeoffs. You might pick up spells like chain lightning or single-target spells to avoid the issue altogether, or you might go full-out with AOE and build your group around avoiding FF, or you might occasionally just take the hit and move on (maybe you have resistances or you figure you can eat a fireball).

The big problem with FF in DA:2 is that the player and the enemies have such dramatically different stats that there is never a tradeoff. If your warrior uses an AOE, he's going to wipe out his entire party because it does many times the max HP of any player character. Same thing with all the player abilities. You can't ever think, "Well, I'll let my group eat this one whirlwind because I can finish off the nearby enemies with it." Bonuses that normally would be good (extended range) are a liability because whereas extra damage makes no difference for FF (you'll die regardless) extra range can render a warrior a danger to his group.

Conclusion: I like friendly fire, but only in the context that it does relatively the same damage to the player as it does to enemies. Please, either tune FF so it does a % of full damage to party members or give players and enemies similar HP.

Another partial disappointment was ability combos. I loved the spell combos in DA:O; heck, I even made a video on how to use them. They were interesting. I want to like the combos in DA:2, and in concept I think they are sometimes an improvement. The implementation needs work, though.

Part of the problem is the inequity in applied effects. Warriors apply their effect (stagger?) on a large number of abilities in that they are likely to use often a variety of specs. Rogues and mages rarely apply their effects; in fact, you have to deliberately spec for them. Additionally, the way they are exploited is unequal. I haven't played in some time so I won't go into detail, but it's much easier to exploit some of the effects than others (again, I think warriors have the advantage here). The result was that I found myself frequently casting chain lightning on staggered enemies and rarely doing much else.

Another thing I would change about the combat is the enemies that don't have a good counter. Assassins were particularly egregious. Without a lot of tedious work, you're just about guaranteed to take a couple backstabs from them, and that hurts. Make their stealth less magical and possible to counter with AOE attacks or something. I don't mind dangerous abilities and enemies, but they need to have a counter or they're just frustrating. The other frustrating enemy was the Qunari mages. Yes, I get that they're supposed to be dangerous, but the teleportation and extremely high damage was too much.

My final complaint is the same that many have had. I don't care for the style of DA:2's combat. Although a tactical element remains, there's a very heavy emphasis on controlling a single character. I understand this is a matter of preference, but what I liked about DA:O was the tactical feel of controlling a party. Not many games do that any more. Lots of games--almost all RPGs, it seems--focus on single-player control, and frankly, a lot of them do that better than DA:2. (One of them is Mass Effect.) If you insist on making combat so fast-paced, I want to be able to queue up several abilities for my companions so I'm not constantly pausing or resigning myself to just playing my PC.

[Gimli444]

For lockpicking compromise, how about if you do 15 of a certain challenge level and succeed, you can then autopick if you want, as you have proven mastery of that challenge. people who like the minigame can keep playing it if they want.

As for lockpicking, I always thought a mage should have a spell that can open locks. it was less issue in DA2, but in DA1 playing through multiple times, I got sick and frustrated of always having to have Leliana in my party (I found Zevryn useless and annoying)- I thought she was great, but I wanted to play through with more variety. We are not forced to have a mage or fighter in the party in a comparable way.

If we are gonna have a set race PC, lets not make it always human. I vote Dwarf. But choice again was very nice.

Being involved in Tevinter vs Qunari war would be interesting- Tevinter as a setting seems very different as Mages are in control, and are what the Chantry always says would be a nightmare world. I'd like to see what it is like up close.

The ME mid-conversation options were really cool (right and left trigger on XBOX), made you feel like the conversations were more alive.

Blood Mage spells were more useful in DA:O.

I really loved the cutscenes with the mabari. The little things like that were much appreciated.

I found the difficulty setting a little wonky, the jumps in difficulty rather extreme- on normal, common battles were too easy, but on difficult, epic boss fights were impossible- the rock wraith crushed me even with a few cross class combos I setup and a good party selection- used items, tried about 25 times. On normal, it was a breeze, no danger of anyone falling in battle, 1st try. Manual says it should still be possible and a bit challenging, but it was brutal.