Going back and replaying older BioWare games.

But the XP tables are so steep that it shouldn't matter all that much when someone joins. Yeah, you'll get killed if you swap people in and out a lot, which is probably why Bio abandoned handling XP that way..

I can continuosly play Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age Origins. It has been about a year and a half since I played through DA:I (which I actually really enjoy). Probably a matter of opinion and subjectivity, but I find their older games more enjoyable and entertaining.

I liked Andromeda, I really did, but I just can't bring myself to play through it again...and that was before I or anyone knew there was going to be no more story content (or any content) added to the game.

I think I'm played out for a while now.

I may revisit Dragon Age games in the run-up to DA4.
And Mass Effect again ahead of its eventual sequel.

I put around 500 hours into MEA (and enjoyed it), but I'm taking a year off...

There's that terrible word called streamlining. It first came up with DA2 when they had little time at their hands and started catering to a new audience. DAI, much as I enjoy it, has the least strategic combat of the whole series. Even on the PC it's best played with a controller and combat is just a matter of focussing on one enemy and firing away. With DAI also the strategic presets for the companions have been dumbed down beyond recognition. Maybe it was just a logical step to not being able to control the companions at all in MEA. But it's certainly not something I support.

DAI did away with the ability to program combat behaviors, but still allowed you to control any party member, and even had the tactical option where you could pause, issue commands to each party member, and advance time at will.  You can also customize follower gear, and include some nifty bonuses available via crafting.  I'd certainly like to see a return of the programmable combat behaviors, but at least they still allow you to play tactically.

(Now if only they'd support NG+, so you wouldn't have to re-acquire everything every playthrough...)

MEA completely wiped any semblance of tactical play - 10 giant leaps backwards imho.

Baldur's Gate 2 is pretty good still, although it is looking weathered by now. The biggest problem is the tabletop rule-set itself is outdated (Advanced 2nd Edition and basing everything around alignment and such...) and were dealing with a level 9-20 campaign...its one of the many flaws I have with the Baldur's Gate series (including Dragonspear) is the fact that you need to really play both games and the Dragonspear expansion to "get it" if you will. To have a narrative cohesiveness. Sadly, one game is not really worth playing while the other is damn it's impossible not to avoid, outdatedness and all.

The original game is virtually unplayable without some mods to clean it up and an understanding of it's mechanics. I prefer the EE though because it does a lot more for your money, even if the transplanted new NPCs are weak.

As an aside, mods should not be needed to make a game better, that is a weakness on the company for that one. Same problem I have with Bethesda titles. AS cool as mods can be, if they are "fixing" the game it's a problem.

Of course. A lot of games are like that.

But it also doesn't change the fact of its age is my point. I enjoy playing old games a lot too, but we need to be able to point out it's flaws.

I wonder if tracking data showed that most people play the games like me. I never control NPCs unless I have to, in any game. In DAI that means just about never; your build and loadout are so determinative of your tactics in that game that adding programmable slots wouldn't give that great a return.

What tracking data? The best Origin can do is record how long, how often and when you play certain games. If you do MP sessions or if you already uninstalled a certain game.

DA:O predates Origin and had a separate data collection system. What it collected, exactly, has not been revealed. The ME trilogy games also transmit data on their own.

But even Origin can tell more than that. Achievements track how you played the game, right? Bio knew that only 2% of players got a dwarf character as far as Ostagar, for instance.

Its one of the reasons why I keep saying "I wish BioWare would ignore us" it just seems they are now focusing on fixing and updating the flaws the internet is pointing out instead of making the games they want to.

It's part of the side effect of siding with a massive corporation making games that look to rake in massive amounts of money. As a smaller company they had more freedom to do what they want, but if they ever want to top that 10 million sales figure, they'll have to appeal (and possibly pander to) as wide a range of people as possible.