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[PsychoBlonde]

 I applaud the decision to bring more complex tactics and strategy into DA:I, but if you're going to do this there HAS to be better feedback to tell the player what's going on--and this is especially tricky in a party game because there are multiple things going on at the same time.

Some people want a combat log, but this isn't particularly useful DURING combat.  Too many visual cues and you get overloaded as the screen fills up with flashing lights.  Companions yelling "I'm hurt!" and "I'm out of mana!" over and over are annoying and rarely convey useful information.

Of course, everybody already knows all that stuff.  Here are my personal suggestions for better-balanced feedback (NUMBERED LIST TIME!!!)

1.  Put the 4 character portraits in the 4 corners of the screen with a little label beside them that indicates which function button (or whatever the equivalent is on a controller) you hit to select that companion.  

2.  Immediately around the portrait and the label, put all of their primary abilities (assigned by the player),  I'd assume that on a console you'd have to actually switch to that companion to use their abilities (lack of buttons) but there's no reason why this has to be the case for "primary" abilities on a keyboard/mouse setup.  We got buttons.  Let us use them.  The primary reason why I suggest doing this layout is that the human brain has beaucoup spatial memory and it is much. much. MUCH easier to remember what you have where on a given bar when the different bars appear in DIFFERENT PLACES on the screen.

3.  When a companion uses an active ability, have them yell something specific to that ability.  Even just "FIREBALL!"; no need to get fancy.  (And this will replace the meaningless combat barks.)  There was some of this with the taunt whistle in DA2, but  make it more universal and make it WORDS.  Maybe even have the words appear onscreen, preferably oriented toward their portrait so it's extra-double-obvious who's flinging the fireballs around.

4.  When something notably bad happens to a companion, do something visual to their portrait and ALSO increase the amount of screen real estate it takes up briefly.  Get stunned?  Put white glowing stars over their portrait.  Ice blocked?  Turn the portrait blue.  Seriously hurt?  Big red flash around the portrait.  Knocked down?  I dunno, put a picture of boots on their portrait or something.  Don't rely on us to be facing our companions in order to see what just went down with them.

5.  Enemy tells are impossible to see when there are more than 5, so even if you feel like bombarding us with a horde or two keep the number of special abilities at 5 or fewer per fight.

6.  KEEP THE BIG SPECIAL EFFECTS TO A MINIMUM.  SW:TOR is a nightmare for this--I watch my housemate raiding and nine times out of ten I literally cannot tell what is going on for all the neon-green and purple and orange and yellow flashing crap all over the screen.  DDO actually does this well--the special effects in that game are surprisingly modest, but in the middle of a fight they don't FEEL modest and you can still (mostly) tell what's going on even with 6 people throwing in everything plus the kitchen sink.

7.  Make the enemies "pop" more.  I'm not sure exactly what it is, but in DA2 in particular the enemies just really tended to blend into the background.  I think this was a matter of lighting contrast more than anything, to be honest.  DDO has serious contrast, but everything in DA2 was kind of autumnal/sunset and had little contrast.  Dial up the saturation a bit.

[Sister Goldring]

I agree with you, particularly with point 6.

I can't properly express my hatred of those god awful sustained effects. I found playing Awakenings with all the glowing, swirling stuff constantly obscuring everything so frustrating and don't even get me started on DA2s blood bag explosions, I could hardly see the frigging screen!

Also I believe there's a special place in hell reserved for whoever came up with that booming sound effect for warriors (Awakenings AGAIN), I had a raging headache for the entirety of the game.

OK, I've finished ranting now.

TLDR- in games as in fashion LESS is more!