I love DAI as much as the previous games (insofar as I can determine that after a mere two hundred hours of play) and I pretty much got what I was expecting. However, there's certainly room for improvement, as there was with DAO and DA2. Here are the things that could have been fixed to put it ahead of the rest of the franchise and BG2 and thus make it my favourite CRPG of all time:
1. They should have rebuilt the if>then tactics system from DA2. It was damn near perfect, and now it hardly exists
. This is the game's only really serious flaw, IMHO.
2. The UI is pretty bad in places, especially when it comes to the inventory and crafting systems. (On all platforms as far as I can tell, but it really fails to take advantage of keyboard and mouse on PC.)
3. There's a serious lack of proper autotargeting. Playing as a dual wielding rogue, I can't count the number of times I selected something, hit an ability and ended up stabbing thin air. Using basic attacks was even worse - a lot of times I'd end up standing there slashing at nothing even though I was pointed right at the enemy.
4. The tactical camera controls are terrible. Which is a shame, because the tactical camera itself is great. (In terms of the options and information it gives you. Although click to move should have been available in over-the-shoulder as well.)
5. The side quest content is not as good as it was in previous games. I don't hate the fetch quests and kill quests the way some players apparently do, but they're obviously not a patch on things like Night Terrors or Magistrate's Orders. (Yeah, I think DA2 was better than Origins in this area too.) Now, the trade off for this was dramatically superior exploration, so when I average it all out I enjoyed my time spent outside the main quest just as much as in previous games. There's certainly room for improvement in DA4, though.
6. Both the beginning and the end of the game had weird pacing issues. The opening plunges you into the plot without any opportunity to get used to your character or the world. I think this is the reason it took me longer to connect with my Inquisitor than my Wardens or Hawkes - with the Warden, you have the origin story, and with Hawke you've got your family to bounce off. It takes hours for the Inquisitor to develop relationships with the people around her and start to feel like a person. (That said, after that finally happened my 'canon' Inquisitor became one of my favourite BIoWare protagonists, and I love my qunari mage as well.)
7. Meanwhile, the end of the game is also strangely structured. I liked the race through the Arbor Wilds and the confrontation with Samson a lot ... only then you're back at Skyhold, have the resolution of the side plot with Morrigan and Flemeth, and after that the game plunges you straight into the final boss fight. I thought both DAO and DA2 handled the lead up to the end a lot better, with the fights through Denerim and Kirkwall respectively.
8. The game is kinda buggy. Not more so than DAO and Awakening were for me, but I guess my perfect CRPG would be less prone to crashing on release. (It's never going to happen, though, going on previous evidence.)
9. DAI is missing a couple of basic utilities that we had in DA2, like the ability to change your appearance after initial character creation .
10. And a storage chest.
11. Also, the lighting in the character creator is terrible ... again. Why does this always happen? I know the developers heard all the fan complaints about this after DAO and DA2, not to mention that the Mass Effect series has exactly the same problem! Why is it always so dimly lit?!
12. The Inquisitor's casual outfit is just awful. Beige pyjamas? Really? If they're not going to provide the option to change it like in Mass Effect, they should at least give us something less ugly to wear. Maybe this seems like a minor point, but so many important cut scenes take place with us wearing it that it really sticks out.
13. Obviously Corypheus is not a big talker (except when it comes to insulting you) but I wish we'd had the opportunity to learn more about his background, especially when siding with the mages. You get one war table operation to find out about his family history, but that's all. I'd have loved to hear some more detail about his trip to the Gold-or-possibly-Black City. I feel like not getting the player invested enough in defeating him is the story's biggest flaw - remember how much you wanted to kill Jon Irenicus by the time you got to the end of BG2? Destroying Haven was a good start, but there should have been more to him.
14. Exploration was awkward sometimes because the map doesn't show elevations. Sometimes I couldn't find a landmark or shard I seemed to be right on top of because it was above my head or under my feet, and then I'd have to walk around a mountain for ages trying to find a way up or down. Ugh.
15. I wish that BioWare would just resolve the stories of our previous protagonists and get them out of the way. We know a little bit more about our what our Wardens are up to now, but given that Hawke is either left in the Fade or vanishes when communication with Weisshaupt is cut off, they're still both out there being mysteriously absent. It's exasperating. If you want people to stop asking endlessly for cameos, either kill them off clearly and unambiguously or let them settle down. You don't have to show them on screen for that.
16. With all the characters who pop up in war table operations, it seemed odd to me that there's no mention at all of some of our Grey Warden companions. Where's Ogrhen? Nathaniel Howe? Velanna? Sigrun? Shouldn't some or all of them be at Adamant? I didn't need to see them in game, but with such a major story involving the Wardens it seemed weird to me that none of them were mentioned at all. Even if the resolution had been 'they're all dead, sorry' that would have been something. (If this is addressed in DLC and/or it turns out that the Hero of Ferelden took them along on her quest to cure the Calling, I withdraw this objection.)
17. The story needed MOAR DWARVES. We get Valamar and one side quest in the Hissing Wastes that deals with dwarven history in a really interesting way and ... nothing. Meanwhile, elf stuff everywhere! My ideal game would definitely have more dwarves in it.
18. Speaking of which, letting us flirt with Scout Harding but never go for that drink is just cruel. I've been waiting patiently for fifteen years for a dwarf romance, BioWare, why must you continue to torment me?
19. Given the absence of a dog, I wish we could have given our mounts names. Not that anything stopped me from referring to my mighty nuggalope as Ser Nuggington, Arl of Nugsleigh. But it would have been nice to make it official.
20. The hair textures are dreadful. OK, I would be lying if I said I really cared, but it seems to bother other people. And I wanted this list to have an nice round number of things on it.
... wow, that's quite a list. I should save it somewhere for future reference!
Now, keep in mind that I could make a list at least that long of things that are wrong with DAO or DA2, or BG2 for that matter. Also a list at least twice as long of things I loved about the game. There's certainly room for improvement in future sequels, though.