Let me first say that I'm not "up in arms" about this, nor do I think these things will have a significant adverse effect on my enjoyment of DAI should the other aspects be fine. Also, there may not be a significant loss in the overall degrees of freedom. However, the plain fact is that customization options have been moved away from the character, and we no longer have the option to walk unarmed or to be inconspicuous by appearing to be "civilian" (compared to DAO). To illustrate how this impacts the way we relate to our characters, and thus how this may feel while playing, consider the combination effect of these changes:
*In their intrinsic ability to convince people, all characters of the same class and race are identical.
*in intrinsic character traits traditionally seen as fundamental, on which many other traits used to be built, all characters of the same race and class are identical.
*In the type of weapons and armor they use, all characters of a class are restricted to one or two archetypes, and in the decisions about where to go armed or unarmed, all characters are identical.
The combined "felt" effect of these changes is unfortunately rather drastic. There may be things that make up for it, but the first impression is one of loss. In order to evaluate this further, let's go into the details:
(1) Attributes
As I mentioned, attributes have been traditionally used as a fundament for other aspects of character customization. In early tabletop RPGs, they determined what class you could play, and later, they were chosen in order to benefit a specific class. Either way, they were an important way to make our characters unique. Even in games as late as DAO, they influenced what you could learn in many different ways.
In DAI, they do not have that role anymore. Basically, attributes are irrelevant except as they influence combat. In that, we may now even be more variable than before, because attributes are now more influenced by equipment and we can change equipment to create different configurations. Since learning of skills does not depend on attributes any more, this results in an overall increase in the degrees of freedom when playing the game. However, equipment is not a part of our characters, and now that all variables are external to the character and all characters remain unrestricted by individual attribute allocation with regard to what abilities they may learn, this results in a net loss of ways to make our characters unique.
I find it hard to evaluate if these things have ever really been that important in the past (speaking only of DA games), or if this was an illusion and my choices were so much determined by my class that this new system just canonizes what people did anyway, except for minor variations. I don't know how this will feel in the actual game, but it feels different from here and requires a significant mental switch to adapt to from the old mindset of "attributes are the fundamentals of your character". Also, that customization options are moved from character to equipment creates an unfortunate vibe of "what you have is more important than who you are".
(1) Persuasion / Coercion
This, too, is not part of our character anymore. Instead, we get Inquisition perks that serve the same purpose in addition to a few other things. Now, I'm absolutely thrilled by the perk system and the ways we can shape our organization, and yet again, this may result in an increase of the overall degrees of freedom for the player. However, again a customization element is moved away from the character, creating a rather odd mixed impression of "the player's gain is the character's loss".
From a design point of view, not having similar options for both the organization and the character makes sense because this would reduce the impact of either, and Bioware has made the decision to give the organization customization at the character's expense. I tend to think we'll be fine with it, but it is still a net loss for shaping the character as a person, and people have to adapt to the fact that they're roleplaying the Inquisition as an expression of who their Inquisitor is.
(3) Fixed weapon configurations and the inability to unequip
What is a mage? DA2's and DAI's answer is clearly "the people with the twirling staffs". The rogue is "the one with the bow" or "the one with the twin daggers". About the decision to implement such a restriction, I would like to know the rationale because unlike the abovementioned aspects, there isn't anything that can make up for it. We walk everywhere as the same archetype and can't even choose to appear "civilian". There is no way to spin this as being in any way desirable.
This may be a case of "people never do this anyway", but as a Bioware representative has said about dialogue options, even an option only used by 1% of all players increases the degree of freedom for everyone. There may be technical reasons for the restriction, in which case I'd like to know of them. Whatever the reason, this was a medium-level annoyance for me personally in DA2 because it creates the impression that gear is an inseparable part of your character. My preferred playstyle, especially as a mage, is to be as independent of equipment as possible. About the inability to unequip, I'm likely to forget about it while playing.....until some minor detail reminds me that a mage shouldn't be married to their staff, or the next time I visit a town and don't want to walk around as if everything was a threat. Also, since in reality, characters do remove their weapons occasionally, this is also an immersion-breaker. In DA2, Hawke was appropriately unarmed while in their house. So why can't this be a choice anywhere else?
As I said, none of these things are critical flaws in my view, and some are made up for by added options in other areas. I understand, however, that people are slow to accept them because they're a net loss in an important aspect of roleplaying, even as they're possibly a net gain overall with the exception of the last point.
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