BG3 Vs Dragon age comparison.

For me DA have the better CC, romance system and Story overall.

BG3 have better consequences but not a proper ending for that.

An area where BG3 is clearly better: lighting in the character creator! Between early access and the game I have made a dozen characters and not once have I been surprised by how they looked when I actually got into the game. More of this in RPGs in general, please. However, I do prefer having face sliders to the pre-set system BG3 has got going on. It's jarring to run into characters out in the world who have the exact same face as my PC. (Not to mention the same face as each other. I swear I ran into three of the same dwarf in one pub.) Not to mention that I'll never like having a mostly silent protagonist in games where everyone else gets to talk.

Other stuff Dragon Age unquestionably does better: companion and inventory management. Swapping party members in and out in BG3 is incredibly tedious and involves going back to camp and opening the dialogue interface twice. And inventory management is just terrible in general, especially since you have to have companions in your party to even see what they're carrying.

I also give BioWare the win on companion banter. The relationships between the protagonist and the individual party-members are well fleshed-out but other than the rivalry between Shadowheart and Lae'zel the relationships between the companions feel thin and underwritten. There's nothing like Blackwall and Sera's delightful bonding or Dorian and Bull's potential romance or the years-long development of Aveline and Isabela's frenemyship here.

I am tempted to also give BioWare the win on romances, but I don't know if I'm being fair since I've only played through a significant proportion of one of them so far. It's possible that some of the others are stronger than the option I picked on my first run, so it's going to take me a few more to decide. I do think it's hilarious that Larian claimed that romance would be more than doing a quest and picking some dialogue options when in fact I've had half the party throwing themselves at me without even having completed anyone's quests. I had to turn down four different characters in order to advance the romance I did chose, and that was without having recruited a full party! Can't imagine what it would have been like if I'd also had Lae'zel and Gale around.

The area where BG3 has it all over any BioWare game since BG2: choice and consequences. Things narrow slightly in Act III as you are forced to actually deal with the plot, but there are still a frankly astonishing number of ways of handling any given situation. Things also feel satisfyingly specific even if you're playing as Tav, since there are lots of background, race and class options that the pre-set characters and even the Dark Urge will never have access to.

On the other hand, I find Thedas much more engaging as a setting than the kitchen sink fantasy of the Forgotten Realms ever has been. It obviously has its advantages in being able to fit in anything and everything, but it's difficult to take it seriously when it's a mishmash of every fantasy trope that's ever appeared in any narrative. At least the Dragon Age team got to select which clichés they wanted to engage with instead of just throwing them all in the pot.

Going to argue here and I hope that’s ok

I played dai a ton so I’m going to have my arguments based on dai but I’m hoping BioWare is noticing what Bg3 has done. I’ve always thought dao was the best of the 3 (for its time in history)

Here we go
-dai has little to no clicking on npcs and most times there’s no closeup of them and then they are gone
-dai punishes you for not taking certain companions on certain quests. If you don’t take black wall on the coast for the hidden warden caches you lose out on positive points etc. same goes with the romance etc.
-inventory management. I play on pc but you have awful
Inventory control until you get to skyhold. Then you have a chest you have to filter through and you are limited what you can have your other characters hold etc as your build is what it is. Blackwell gets the sword and bull gets the 2 handed maul only if you built them that way
-enemy’s spawns. Just awful. Trying to get enough hide scales for armor is tedious at best
-fetch quests. Some are fun but let’s get real most are bad but you need the gold early on
-combat. Most times it’s damage sponges unless you know crafting and combos. Dragons can be easier to kill than bears especially the big ones

What I want from Bg3
-I want the interesting monster encounters. Without 2 much spoilers I was urged my one of my companions to attack a bad thing. I said sure. Next thing I know one of the bad guys moves to a war horn blows it and the place is crawling with bad guys. It was better than any combat in the dai base game and I lost!!
-I want the interesting loot. Loot was awful in dai. Bg3 I literally collect food in order to get what’s called a long rest at camp to recover. I got to camp whenever I want
-3d combat-I want what was originally promised in dai. I want tactics such as moving barrels and climbing buildings
-interesting locations that have interesting things in them. What is the most interesting thing in the hinterlands? For me it was that waterfall with the demon fight . I’ve discovered more memorable encounters in just a brief snippet
-multiple combat wheels and better trees. No more picking passives to get to level 2 or a level 1 ability which is just awful. Poor for new players
-stop and talk banter. Bring it back from previous games
-better enemies. Bring back the closeups of the enemies. Really put effort into the models. Almost every goblin is different in Bg3 while every level 1 evil dwarf was the same/bandit boss etc. huge departure from previous da games. Stop spawn pools of lizards etc
-better hair. No more excuses. Hair choices in Bg3 are not all great but there’s a lot! Face sculpting with beards needs a lot of improvement
-more freedom in weapon swapping and spell swapping. Once combat starts in dai you can’t do anything unless it’s on your wheel. Which is ok if you know you are fighting an enemy that you were ready for. No more your just an archer unless you go to skyhold etc
-Improve your environments. Nor more sliding down mountains or jumping like goats. Clearer paths to take in navigation
-bring back thievery. You are a rogue and yet there’s no stealing. Bring it back. Bg3 stealing is fun
-bring back the narrator/your thoughts. This existed in dao and I believe in da2. Dao was with the specialization contained in the vial or if wou wanted to throw the warden knife etc

The pre-sets are really bad though. I genuinely cannot play a male tiefling because damn are the faces bad. Well, muscular tiefling is workable, but skinny male tiefling? Nu-uh. Male drow faces are also pretty horrendous, you genuinely have to go for a half-elf drow if you want some decent options. 

Perhaps the preset faces for women are better?

I liked some of the female presets enough that I was tempted to play a female character for my first run, but I've actually only run male humans thus far, and I think they have pretty decent options. My Paladin kinda looks like Oscar Isaac 

Maybe it's just me and to be honest haven't played BG3 yet but have seen trailers etc.....and it feels like DA has a better sense of immersion/verisimilitude.

I love how lively the world and especially Baldur's Gate itself is. NPCs doing their thing everywhere with some really great dialogue to overhear. That is really lacking in a lot of RPGs, not just DA. The game is wonderfully non-linear, with all it's outcomes and different ways to approach things. I'm in the third act currently and have like 3 very different ways to get into a certain temple already.

Yeah, the pair bonding mechanic in Inquisition was better. The hug you get after defeating Cory if you romanced any of the advisers is like peak romance gameplay for me XD Screw sex scenes, I want hugs.
That everyone is playersexual in BG3 and wants to hit on Tav is a bit if a pet peeve. Lae'zel gets really salty about getting rejected too.

It's perfectly valid, suspension of disbelief is a hard thing to nail down and it differs for every person. I suspect the really obvious dice rolling would break immersion for some people also

The nonstop timeout error on this site ate my contribution yesterday. Didn't feel like posting it again and I can't remember exactly what I wrote but here goes again:

BG3 to me is the closest to a new Dragon Age game I've ever seen. The camp feature gives me nonstop DAO nostalgia. Both even have a dog!

There are so so many similarities. The companions are very reminiscent of BioWare too. And the game being a dating sim with horny companions and horny PC is also very much in line with BioWare. "We'll bang, OK?!" So far I find the romance content as cringe as most of the BioWare ones. Romance imo is NOT BioWare's best feature, it's friendship/team spirit. So romance so far is a wash for me. There are few BioWare romances I truly enjoyed tbh. But nothing will ever beat the Garrus "there's no Shepard without Vakarian" bromance for me.

Larian has replaced BioWare for me as arguably the best storytellers out there doing party based combat. DOS2 is one of the best RPGs I ever played.
No, it's not the same, of course, BioWare will probably forever be the king of party banter and friendship arcs. Larian's style is a little different and not as in depths. Each studio has a different style so nobody will make games quite like BioWare (used to) but it's damn close and good enough.

Larian's worlds are highly interactive and reactive. It's very impressive. I wish BioWare had that level of different approaches and outcomes. Although, in BG3 most situations boil down to kill everyone in this place or the other one. There's not much in terms of diplomacy that avoids bloodshed which is a surprising disappointment. BioWare is a lot more into this ideal path where everyone's friends at the end. At least in Mass Effect. It may be simplistic and super telegraphed so that you had to be brain dead to get a bad outcome. But it was NICE. Made you feel good. BG3 is more like Witcher 3 where everything is royally fucked up and there aren't really any good satisfying outcomes. I enjoy both but will always emote more with the ridiculous hero spirit of a BioWare game.

BG3 is an amazing game that has filled a void in many gamers. It's no coincidence so many BioWare fans are playing and loving BG3. It's been almost a decade since DAI, that's ridiculous. The BioWare influence is strong in this game and I love it for it. It's shaping up to be another RPG for the hall of fame.

That being said, I will always prefer non isometric games, it's just more immersive for me to experience the world like I would normally see it. Look at the sky. BUT if I had to choose between BioWare making another game with a boring dead open world or an isometric game with smaller maps focused on narrative and characters I'd choose the latter. Imo open world is partially responsible for BioWare's downfall. It has diluted their games. They don't know how to do open world right. DAI is the only BioWare game I haven't replayed even though I loved it. It was just too drawn out, didn't want to spend so much time again to see other outcomes. You can do speedruns of previous BioWare games in less than 20h and get a tight narrative. BG3 might suffer a bit from that as well. DOS2 already took 140h in co-op. About the same as DAI. I want to replay and make lots of different choices but I'm not sure I'll make it to the end. It's a huge time commitment. But maybe knowing how to play the game will make it possible to do everything in like 40h. We'll see.

BG3's combat is meh to me personally. It's more fun than DAI that bored me to death on Normal difficulty. My fav was DA2 after the shock of rogue acrobatics and the anime style wore off... Was really fun and challenging for me on Hard. I like action combat more than turn based. And even having played other cRPGs in the meantime, BG3 is not the most fun of those either to me. But that's on me being too dumb to appreciate everything you can do with the complex mechanics. I'm one of like two people who enjoyed the hell out of Witcher 3's combat that everyone shits on for reasons I'll never understand. I'm more into simple reflex 3 buttons combat even though as I get older I get worse and worse at it. ME3 was action perfection for me.

Aaaanyway, Lariam has stepped in and delivered great RPGs while BioWare can't seem to release games anymore. At this point I really don't care about Dreadwolf. However, peak BioWare will forever be my favorite gaming experience and the love of my life. But that love is a walking corpse now and I can't wait for the day somebody puts it down for good. I've been more emotionally invested in half a dozen games than I have been with a BioWare game in 9 years. BioWare has lost all relevance to me. And I don't think we'll see a comeback. It's Larian's time in the spotlight now until they too lose their edge and fade away. It's how all things go. Nothing stays amazing forever. Arguably CDPR's light shone too brightly with W3 too and Cyberpunk wasn't going to trump it. I have yet to play it though.

So in short: Larian is doing better work than BioWare has in a long time giving me the party based fantasy RPG fix with interesting companions and great storytelling. And yet emotionally nothing will probably replace how BioWare games made me feel.

Probably a good thing Dreadwolf is not coming out this year or BG3 would shit all over it most likely. Kind of like W3's open world shat all over DAI's beautiful but lifeless open world.
BioWare really needs to ditch open world and do 40h cinematic games again. Greedfall was old school BioWare-like and I loved it. I really miss those days. If I want this kind of experience again I have to go look at AA. Maybe BioWare should downsize to AA scope and rule there?

Too much rambling, sorry!

Ok I’m back for further updates

Camo feels a lot like dao but better. Way more interactions in camp. In the end of dai and dao there are celebration or funerals depending . This does it better. The immersion is far superior in every way. Guest npcs are beyond superior if at worst comparable to dao

Combat is blowing me away and will require me to replay. The bees ability in dai is way easier (not exactly the same but the same idea)to achieve and dropping a statue on them or when they drop on you is unbelievable

Making bargains with npcs is a lot like dao when you go into fade the help the nobles son but it’s just way more common

Inventory-out of camp or non combat trade away. Have 10 healing potions-fine divide them up into any combination

Combat is way more satisfying and once again haven’t had this feeling since beating the dao mini bosses and there’s more of it

Dai you are losing your hand and if feels like your on a timer. So far there are mini consequences for messing around with a similar idea

In dao you can lose sten if you don’t fo his opening quest correctly. It’s the same here (so far)

I’m bad this came out for da4 as I will be bummed if they don’t incorporate some of this

Its weird watching an LP now and it just struck me that this game pretty much has the same MP system that I was hoping they would incorporate in Dreadwolf. Being able to go around with another actual person, still having a party with you, making RP decisions with both of them (probably could've used a little tweaking and been like TOR in this aspect) but it really works and shows how much Dreadwolf MP can work.

And is the games major selling point for me. Granted since what I want to do with it requires me getting 2 copies of it and since I do not have the connection to Larian as I do BioWare and since the game still has those few bugaboos I know it'll take a lot for me to like that means its going to have to wait till it goes on a major discount.