Finally built a new PC and caught up on Inquisition. I had a lot of fun, and made a lot of notes during my second playthrough. Probably too many (on preview: definitely too many). But I'm an armchair game designer and erstwhile hardcore modder, and I think there are a lot of little things that could improve future games and player UX. Hopefully the powers that be still browse through here occasionally.
Items and Inventory
- Start at max inventory. Expanding inventory is an outdated concept. Carrying 60 sets of plate armour isn't realistic anyway, why do I need to spend gold or "points" to carry another 10 sets.
- Loot cash instead of vendor items. Trash items don't add depth, and running back to the vendor isn't "gameplay" even if it does extend playtime.
- Remove level requirements in single-player mode. If I'm high enough level to get the item, then I'm high enough to equip it. Carrying it around for 3 levels isn't fun.
General Gameplay
- Allow uncontrolled characters to complete an action. Holding a button to turn a handle isn't interactive or interesting. When there are two handles, my lazy companions should be able to turn the second instead of waiting for me to do it twice.
- Loot pinging is not fun. Bring back highlight/sparkles and use pinging as an occasional function for secret/hidden items.
- Be consistent with the concept of ownership and crime. I'd rather have a crime system and lose approval for stealing/desecration all the time.
- In 99% of the game, we're encouraged to loot everything, pick all the locks - no one cares, there are no repercussions and there are frequently quest items.
- At the Exalted Plains, we're suddenly reprimanded and punished for desecrating an elven burial ground.
Graphics
- Static world objects should have high res textures and normal maps if they're in the foreground of cutscenes.
- Example: during the cafe scene with "human" Cole, the chairs and wine bottle look very flat and low res in the closeups.
- Triple-check clipping on high profile NPCs. There are some small adjustments that can make a huge impact.
- Morrigan's hair clips into her cheek.
- Flemmeth's headdress clips into her face.
- Iron Bull's shoulder clips through the chair at the "after party" in Skyhold.
- Josephine's sleeve and sometimes her fingers clip through her clipboard.
Level Design
- Use more variety in distinct areas, don't overuse unique geographical features.
- Giant's Causeway style volcanic columns just aren't that common - it's cool to see them at first, but they lose impact when you put them everywhere. From the Hinterlands to the Storm Coast, there should be more variation in terrain.
- Include more treasures/points of interest to reward exploration.
- The Hissing Wastes needed something besides endless sand dunes. TES:Morrowind had endless ash wastes, but there were weird things along the way that told an unwritten story and kept it interesting.
Dialogue and Quests
- Script NPCs to be at the location where their conversation takes place.
- Current: Iron Bull sitting indoors, I initiate conversation, then we're magically outside where he's sparring with Crem.
- Proposed: Iron Bull is outside sparring with Crem when that's the next conversation we'll have. Even if that means they're sparring for a while, it's more immersive than teleporting.
- Don't automagically teleport the group from a wilderness zone to base. The world is ending, we aren't riding hours back to the castle to chat about your personal problems before I close the rift that was right there.
- Good: when the companion is upset, they leave (Solas) or wait until we get back to base.
- Bad: we talk to someone and we're suddenly leagues away having a follow-up conversation (Dorian).
- Use interactable objects for collection quest chains.
- Bad: "A Healing Hand" - having the same conversation multiple times with the same NPC was silly.
- Good: "A Well-Stocked Camp" - reading the ledger and then clicking the chest was more reasonable, although still repetitive.
- Add more variety for player inquiries - there's more than one way to say the same thing.
- Current: "I'd like to know more about..." ad nauseum.
- Alternatives: "Tell me about...", "What do you know of...", "How did you learn about...", "Can you tell me..."
- Add "tone" indicators to player dialogue selections. DA:2 was pretty good for this. It doesn't have to always be the same personality choices, but it's nice to have an idea if I'm about to be sarcastic or snotty or actually grateful when I say "Thank you."
- Add more variety to NPC barks, or increase the cooldown.
- Do you know the soldiers in Exalted Plains are "tired of waiting around"? I sure do.
Cutscenes
- Ensure we're out of combat before starting a cutscene.
- At Caer Oswin, I didn't see an archer shooting at me before I looted a body that triggered a cutscene conversation with Cassandra... we spent the entire conversation with the archer shooting at us. Totally killed the moment. "As the Seekers of truth..." *thwack* "... have proven resistant..." *thwack" You get the idea.
- Camera positions should never be inside NPCs or world objects. Some specific occurrences:
- Initial conversation with Cassandra at Haven zooms through a target dummy.
- Conversation with Cullen & Chancellor Roderick after rescuing Mother Giselle can be half inside a nearby NPC.
- Conversation with Josephine at Val Royeaux at the end of "Of Somewhat Fallen Fortune" is through my character's shield.
Skills and Abilities
- An experienced character should have more abilities.
- Cassandra is the Right Hand of the Divine and Hero of Orlais with 20 years combat experience, but all she knows how to do is shield bash and taunt?
- Varric had 10+ years adventuring with the Champion, but he can only throw some caltrops and make a couple trick shots?
- Crossing worlds here, but why does N7 Shepard hardly know how to do anything at the start of ME?
- Lockpicking should be an opt-in skill for any class. My Dalish hunter has no reason to know how to pick locks. My sly human mage probably does, however.
- Bashing should have analogous skills for other classes. A mage can use stonefist, a rogue can kick. Anyone should be able to destroy that red lyrium or bust a door down.
War Table
- Allow messenger birds at wilderness camps to manage war table missions.
- 15+ hour missions are too long. As a weekend gamer, I was overwhelmed with the number of long missions that I couldn't seem to get through.
Crafting
- Sort materials according to bonuses and tiers. The current seemingly random sorting is a headache.
- Implement recipe research or purchase instead of random drops. This is a single-player game, so loot farming doesn't create a good dynamic.
Bells & Whistles
- Time of day! I refuse to believe the sun didn't move during 4 straight hours of gameplay.
- Travel indicators on the world map. I liked the "footprints" on the DA:O map, it gave me a sense of where I was travelling. Instead of a load screen with a codex entry that's usually too long or too short, show me the route I've taken. (The random encounters were neat, too.)
- Ladders should be ladders. Make all ladders climbable, or don't put ladders in places you don't want us to climb. Example: Caer Oswin stables have an un-climbable ladder to a loft.
- Screenshot mode. Gorgeous scenery, no way to capture it - implement a first person view with a UI toggle keybind.
- Hair colour "variegation" - hair isn't a solid colour, it has highlights and low-lights.
- Potential solution: paint each hair style in greyscale to give the variation, then apply the different hair colours.
- Advanced start: in my head, my characters and their companions have more experience in life/combat. I'd like to start them at level 20 to represent their experience.
- Allow a static level jump, or custom level selection.
- Include an achievement for starting at level 1.
- Level scaling: it's so disappointing when everything is 5 levels lower because I did things in the wrong order.
- Minimum level for a zone allows you to keep higher challenges/reward levelling.
- Level scaling up from the minimum retains challenge for players as they level.
- Game difficulty gives a break for less skilled players (they don't have to out-level the hard stuff).
One final ask... please don't ever use the ME:3 banshee screech sound effect as an ambient sound. It's almost like flashbacks, especially in the Storm Coast! 
If you made it through this - thanks! And please don't take it the wrong way - this is because I really enjoyed playing and want to see the next game be even better. 
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