Okay so I have finished my first playthrough (an All mage chain from my elven Mage in origins to mage hawke to dalish mage). So I guess I will throw my feedback to Bioware in chunks. This will be about the crafting system.
PROS:
Fun
Loved the Various materials vs effect and looks
Loved the socket system
I liked the system for the most part. I enjoyed collecting the materials and really liked how they not only altered the color but also the effects of the items. I found myself outfitting my party as I could make better stuff than I could find (and that included the rare purple stuff, I always had better crafted gear). The way the material would allow for a boost in effectiveness tended to make anything I found to be obsolete and used for vendor trash. I must admit that once I got the armor or damage I wanted I chose other components more for how they looked vs what they did though. The "socket" system was nice. I liked how mixing arms/legs and hilts, etc. all created a slightly different look. Nice stuff for the most part.
CONS:
No preview of schematics at stores
Randomness in finding schematics
Lack of really different looks.
Lack of 'reverse engineering'
So the Cons are pretty big to me. I spent lots of money on schematics only to find that they were either for the wrong race (Dalish elf remember? I kept getting human or human trained only stuff) or looked crappy (this is a matter of taste I know). For a Male Elf the lack of Shoulder Pads makes the character look bad to me. It was bad enough I had to wear the Inquisitor Pajamas when at skyhold and thus my lack of shoulders was eyebleedingly in my face, but for my armor to accentuate the same thing was really panful. I finally found some warden mage armor and wore it until I found the schematics for it (I think around level 16ish). I ended up just taking what I could make vs what I wanted to have as I never could find better schematics. And I looked.
The randomness of the schematics was also a pain in the ass. Often times I would get a schematic only to find I could not use it (Human only) or it was just a different version of one I already had (IE the 3 main armor types the Inquisitor gets, trench coat, coat and jacket look). Weapons were even worse. I got a keeper staff schematic WAY after I had found a Witch Staff one. Since the Witch Staff did a lot more damage - I never made a keeper staff. The same went for two handed weapons and daggers. I finally found Cole some nice daggers around level 20, until then he used the same ones I crafted from a schematic I had since 6th level. Two handed weapons? I found axes. No swords, just axes. I purchased some sword patterns before act 2 but never found more.
The biggest issue I had was the total lack of actual different looking stuff. It seemed as though nearly everything I found defaulted to the jacket, coat, trenchcoat look. The companions were able to look quite different depending on what you equip them with, but the inquisitor was stuck with the same thing almost all the time. I remember getting excited when I saw cole in a cool jacket, baggy pants and boots outfit thinking 'My rogue will be badass in that!". I have a 10th level Rogue and I am sad to say - that was a cole only look. It is like everything for the inquis is designed to be unisex/metro. Thigh high boots or skin tight pants, etc. Really sad. I was lucky to find the warden mage armor in the swamp and used it until I got to silverite and made the heavy warden armor that I wore for the rest of the game. Sad really that I never did find the inquisition armor (I did kill 6 or so dragons and got a few purple warden armors but never the Inquisitor Armor).
Where was the option to deconstruct armor I found and get the patterns for them? Why could I not strip that cool looking purple dagger and make my own version? What about that neat Keeper Robe that Was way below my stats by the time I found it? I could have made me one of better stuff and wore that. I even invested in the combat part of the perks to get 'reverse engineeer' only to find that was not what it was. It just gave a few more robes (That looked the same as all the other ones). When I found that warden armor in the swamps - why not allow me to reverse engineer it to make my own? And hoods! Where are the schematics for HOODS?
So while the crafting was fun, it was also very frustrating to me. I hope there is a DLC or something that will fix these issues so in a future play through I can actually look cool and have neat weapons.
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