This is a re-post of something I posted earlier in the Scuttlebutt section, and someone suggested that I should post it in the Feedback forum as a separate thread, so I'm doing that.
When I'm considering DAI as a story-driven rpg, I feel oddly reminded of Bioware's early work. I've read Mark Darrah's statement that Bioware has "returned to form", and that's at least partly true, though I would rather say it has returned to old virtues, but has yet to reach its old form. DAI feels like a really good start, in much the same way BG1 did in its day. It has many things that make up a good rpg experience, but it lacks a certain connectedness and refinement, as well as a balance between the things in it, as if the developers knew what to do theoretically but lacked the experience to implement it throughout the game in a timely manner. I'll outline the main three problem areas as I see them:
1. Isolation
Maps, characters and missions feel too isolated from each other. We have first-class ingredients - some of Bioware's best characters, fantastic maps, a richly detailed world and its lore to draw from - but what's done with them doesn't connect organically to - or combine into - the greater story, or at all, in some cases. instead, every character has its own little plot. Some of those plots tie in to the greater world at some key point, but they don't feel as if they're part of the greater story, just addenda. Every map also has its little plot, which works well in isolation, more or less, but doesn't really connect with the rest of the world. One example is the Exalted Plains. The plot plays out exactly the same regardless of whether you've been to the Winter Palace or not, and the token line you can add (can you? I don't even recall exactly) about the end of the civil war feels like what it is - a token, and doesn't change how playing the map feels in the slightest. Emprise du Lion, another example. This map's plot is about the Red Templars, and you'd think whether you played In Hushed Whispers or Champions of the just would have a significant effect on this area. In this case, there isn't even a token line, the map remains completely unchanged down to the last line spoken by anyone, in spite of featuring one of the major factions which should be affected by one of the bigger decisions you make.
As a result of this isolation, the world and the story don't come together. The maps are great, the characters are great, the story missions are great, but the whole package comes across as a collection of pieces rather than one complex work made of all these elements. The only thing that holds it together somewhat is the war table.
The next DA game, if its designed in a similar way, should use its companion characters more in story missions, rather than giving them their own little stories that stay isolated from the rest of the world. DA2 did this very much better, I'm almost embarrassed to say, but then storytelling was never one of DA2's weaker aspects. Also, someone should look into way for making maps appear less isolated. This ties in to the next point...
2. Locations that feel lifeless
In purely mission-based games, you can get away with static content. After all, people will only visit a location once, or maybe twice, and hub locations exist for not much more than their function. In games with strong open-world elements, one of their appeals is that you can revisit locations, do stuff you've missed earlier, talk to different NPCs and see, maybe, how your choices have affected them. The thing is, for that to work, the location needs dynamic AIs, AIs that move around, appear as if they have their lives to live, talk differently to you depending on various variables, some story-related, some maybe class/race-related. Bioware has spoken of the necessity to make the world responsive to your choices, yet exactly that is an area where DAI feels lacking outside of major decisions and some companion interactions. The only place that approaches a believable level of dynamism is Val Royeaux, but even there characters don't have their own lives - visit the place repeatedly in short order and you have the impression it's populated by advertising pillars.
Ironically, I get the impression that Bioware actually spent more resources on reponsiveness than in earlier DA games, yet I feel they were misallocated. They mainly affect companion characters, which of course is good and desirable, but it's the world which needed to be more responsive at least as much, especially since many companions didn't feel like they were part of the story. Also, the world needs to have more of its own life. The wildlife works great on most maps, the human life....not so much.
3. Overabundance of padding content
As I mentioned, DAI has great maps. They're so impressive that it's fun just being there and walking around looking at things, and so the amount of collection and fetch quests doesn't really feel like a chore the first time through, and maybe even a second time. However, doing them is also not very interesting, and almost none of the collection quests has a significant story element, to say nothing of being connected to the main plot in any way. They feel mostly - yet again - completely isolated.
Now every rpg ever made has such things in different degrees, and I personally don't mind that they exist, as long as I can rationalize doing them. However, in DAI two things turned them into a very noticeable flaw: The absurd amount of them, and the impression that they existed to mask the fact that there was nothing really interesting on some maps, except for the maps and their features themselves.
So this is what the next DA game needs:
(1) More dynamic world content
(2) Better integration of the companions into the main story.
(3) Generally, do more with what you have - i.e. with characters and locations.
As I said, I see DAI as a new start, with the DA team almost going back to the roots and implementing stuff they've been good at in their early days on a higher level. Add the new engine, and the way there was bound to be a little bumpy, and there are a number of small annoyances that recall my experience of BG1 back in 1998, when I was frustrated about things like the low stacking limit of arrows (which was then doubled for BG2) and "unpause on entering inventory" to prevent players from changing their armor during a fight. As it was back then, so it is now: there is a great deal of room for improvement, but the basic design principle has a lot of potential, and the ingredients of DAI already are great. It is something the DA team can build on. They don't need to change anything fundamental the next time, and perhaps they've gained enough experience working on DAI that they can create more content efficiently.
Edit:
Also, get rid of the damned paraphrasing! it destroys roleplaying. Yeah, I know I've said it about a million times, but a post about significant improvements wouldn't be complete without mentioning it.
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