I like the game a lot, let's get that out of the way. I absolutely loathed DA2 and loved DA:O and DA:A.
The first major problem I have with combat is the way rogues get screwed over if they're melee. 2 dagger rogues lose in a big way because there simply aren't enough tools to dodge hits. Avoiding strikes is all there is for rogues to do with regard to combat longevity, which in theory is fine. It's just that there either isn't enough threat reduction, or there aren't enough effective ways to avoid being hit when you have aggro, or both. In DA:O, duelist was the "stand in front and just attack without getting hit" spec, while assassin was the "shadows" spec. So far there aren't really duelist equivalents that I've seen.
As for "subterfuge," I'll go to stealth in this game and still get hit because the guy already targeted me and began the attack, which is basically game-breaking for balance issues. There is too much health loss per hit on rogues for the kinds of things I've seen, like guys getting hits off because they already started them, to be acceptable. This is particularly true in an action game where your own skills will routinely miss because of positioning, (I was assuming the game would put me into position automatically as did DA:O). The stealth option was the one true ability we had, other than standing 30 feet away with a bow and arrow, for not getting hit as a rogue. And it doesn't work as it should. Threat reduction then needs to go way up if stealth sometimes doesn't always make people miss.
Too often have I been taken out of stealth because I've been hit, after entering stealth soon before and during the guy's wind up, or sometimes when he's running at me to begin a hit. If there's a skill that makes NPC's able to do this, it needs to be fixed because it screws up balance. Had I not role'd as a rogue, I'd never bring a melee rogue anywhere. I also don't want to respec because I do find the idea of being a melee rogue fun, and there are enough satisfying moments that I still have hope it can be salvaged either later in the game or with some rebalancing by the devs.
Let me also say that this could easily be my own inability as a player because I'm still trying to get down all the aspects of combat. I play on hard, also if that is relevant to anyone reading, so I can't speak to normal difficulty and can only imagine this gets worse in nightmare.
Second is the barrier/guard/health potions issue versus healing spells. We simply need more potions. The limit of 8 is too small. Any truly difficult fight in this game, at least on hard difficulty. seems impossible to just spam potions through. There's a fight later with tons of mages which is ridiculously hard, but I got through it eventually regardless of the number of potions. Damage is done too quickly if you leave yourself vulnerable to it, which is really all the combat is; making yourself avoid being vulnerable.
The limitation should be that you can't take more than X in a row healing potions within a certain timespan (short). So you take 3 potions in a row, which have diminishing returns based on how spaced out they're taken, then you can't use them anymore. After a 45 second cooldown you can take them again. But the barriers are weak (which they shouldn't be) even with upgrades, and guard is a personal skill. Without this, I find myself constantly going back to camps, and it gets a bit tedious. I do understand that the maps were probably made with this balancing in mind, but it's getting a bit like a chore to keep going back. And again, this is related to the rogue issue because I'll find mages and warriors survive while my main character dies in battles without anything other than an imprecise dodge and a stealth mechanic which feels buggy. So I sometimes go back just because my rogue is taking potions, or I'll easily go through the 5 personal potions.
And it also forces you to take barrier or guard skills for characters you'd probably not want them to be on. I level'd Vivienne full frost prior to realizing that I was getting my face rolled without a barrier mage for the first few seconds of combat that didn't involve perfect positioning. I don't want to be forced to put skill points into this. It never felt forced to put skill points in healing in DA:O because you had so many skills available, but this now is a burden. Maybe it's that we're unfamiliar with this and healing is a familiar concept, but I think it's more than that. I like the GW2 idea of all the classes having some healing abilities if you really want healing specific characters to go away.
Third is the melee skills missing which I think I mentioned earlier. Why do melee skills miss? It should position itself automatically for the player. I understand charging skills missing if they're melee, or sweeping attacks, but a single-target attack should not be triggering unless it's a hit in the tactical mode. Even in 3rd person mode too.
Fourth is the lack of tooltips. I want to be able to look on the fly at how much time I have left in stealth and what skill descriptions are. Why is this not here? Part of making a PC port isn't just optimization, but also making it PC-ish. I'm fine with the poor economy of space in menus for it being a console-first game, but can we seriously not get tooltips? It just seems insane because there's a lot of information and I don't want to have to memorize my other party member's skills. That should come naturally from playing. It's especially relevant to know if a particular warrior skill adds guard, which is something I've forgotten plenty of times because I didn't choose warrior.
And lastly, can I enable helmets for just one character? I like the helmets for Vivienne. I wish we could do it for just her.
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