Do You Want a CO-STAR Again?

The problem with Bioware is that they tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

In DA2 we had such companions: Anders had his thing, Isabella had her secret, Merill had an agenda that wasn't really a secret, Carver was a walking-whining inferiority complex
that hardly let you have a single conversation with him in party without interjecting his "uniqueness", etc.

Unfortunately, it also came as a package deal with the complete and utter neutering of the protagonist, the entire game was about Hawke running around putting out fires,
and (almost) always arriving too late to make a difference. Always reacting, and always failing (where it matters).

Incidentally, sarcastic Hawke is my favorite BW protagonist by far, so this isn't me just hating everything to do with DA2, on the contrary.
DA2 also had some positive qualities if you disregard the flaws (of which it had many).

Bioware needs to take a deep breath and stop jumping from one extreme to the next every new game, moderation is key to finding the best design.

And you don't really need to re-invent the wheel here, reality is a good guide for these things, you win some you lose some.

It's not really fun to play a messianic figure with a cast of cardboard characters that appropriately fold their fake opposition after two sessions of verbal jujitsu,
just like it's annoying to play a De-facto walking failure and complete an RPG adventure feeling no sense of achievement whatsoever.