What would you like DA4 to keep from its predecessors?

Features existing in all three games:
Romance/Friendship: Whilst I would agree that we need to keep the romances, I'd rather like expanding on the idea of developing a close friendship that didn't involve sex. What I found rather annoying with the companions in DAI was how the conversation dried up if you weren't in a romance with them. For example, with Dorian, after we had covered his knowledge of Tevinter and completed his personal quest, when I returned to speak with him I just got a hi and goodbye until the next major plot point on which he might comment. Yet, the sort of things he was doing when we were in a romance, aside from kissing, seemed to me to be something he could equally have done with my female Lavellan because to me "hanging out together" can equally be done with a friend. This was also true of the others.

Now I may be remembering this wrong but it seemed to me in DAO there was still scope for developing the relationship with a companion even if you weren't in a romance. May be it is because they did divide out the dialogue options between general and romance, so not only could you avoid the latter if you didn't want to get into a romance but there seemed to be more assigned to the general than in later games. I found it silly that certain dialogue was hidden behind heart icons in later games, such as teaching Fenris to read but also having to pursue the heart icon in the Solas romance, or have it fail to trigger, actively meant losing out on other dialogue options that were not romance related. I'm pretty sure that would not have happened in DAO because the other options would be on the general tree and so I could come back to them.

The other thing I liked about DAO was that you didn't always have to return to the main camp in order to talk with your companions. It seemed to me to be only natural that after a difficult battle out in the wilds or the Deep Roads, we would take a pause and may be have a short chat to ease the tension whilst we recovered. Some important stuff was still left for the camp alone, which was also appropriate. Also, I liked the touch with Alistair at least, that if he got knocked out in the fight I was able to give him a quick kiss just to reassure both of us he was okay. It was little touches like that which made it work for me.

Character Creation: I think they have done a pretty good job with this in the past but I do agree that I would like a return to the greater variety of hairstyles we had with DAO and DA2. If we could have genuinely long hair in the future that would be a bonus but I'd settle for less examples of buzz cut/bald in favour of other options for hair.

Approval Bar: I would rather have an approval bar and not the constant flagging of disapproval on scene. Also, rather than having to guess why the companion disapproves, let's at least hear some sort of comment and have them broach the subject with us latter. Again, I seem to recall that was the case in DAO. Morrigan definitely made her opinion known, often before you made a decision but you definitely knew why you had lost approval with her. Zevran voiced his disapproval about doing any sort of deal with the slaver and Alistair would chew you out if you didn't take the "good" option over Connor. There also seemed to be greater chance of a companion turning on you if they disapproved "greatly" with what you did, even if you had previously been on good terms. Whereas in later games, if your approval rating was high enough then no matter what you do, it never affects their loyalty. I realise that in the context of the story, it made sense that people would stick with you because the priority was dealing with Corypheus but wasn't that also true of the Arch-demon?

Races/Background: There is not a problem with playing any of the races provided they can justify it in terms of the setting and the background they assign you makes sense. I struggled a bit with the justification for a Dalish elf or Carta dwarf even being at the Conclave and certainly being allowed free access to areas that should have been restricted. At least the Vashoth was a mercenary hired to be part of security at the event whilst the human had a family connection to the Chantry. I would like a return to the origin backgrounds of DAO but I doubt they will do that again. More likely would be either separate races with a background you have no control over, like DAI, or possibly choices about family history and early career like we had in Mass Effect with Shepherd but this would mean them opting for choices that would fit any race, which would be tricky but not impossible. Whatever they decide to do, I hope we do get some reference to it in game and not just in a single conversation tree (as with Josephine) or a War Table mission but relevant even to the extent of having separate customised side quests relating to your choice.

Day/Night Cycles: This is something I have long been arguing for. I found it daft that some area are continually night and other everlasting day. Crestwood was an improvement on this but was still tied to completing a particular quest. Why on earth can't they return to something they had even back in the days of Baldurs Gate? That was over 20 years ago and yet we had more realistic day/night cycles than we do now.

Magic Schools/Spells: Whole threads have been dedicated to this. I would definitely like to see a return to greater variety of general and specialist spell trees. With regard to the specialism they do seem to have chopped and changed aspects from previous ones to create the specialisms for DAI. I wouldn't mind having back the ones from DA2, particularly Force Mage (as Rift Magic would be somewhat difficult not there is no Breach) and Spirit Healer but Blood Mage should make a return if only among our enemies (we are heading to Tevinter for goodness sake). However, it was possible to argue in the DAO and DA2 for an ethical use of blood magic, which seemed to be ruled out by Hawke's enforced comments in DAI but I wouldn't mind bringing back that idea in the future. Also, a definite explanation of where it derives its power from. I'd also like a return of the Arcane Warrior as it was in DAO, although I did find the Knight Enchanter was great in DAI with its light sabre.

Warrior Specialisations: I'd like some more varied ones in the future. In particular I would like them to bring back and develop the Spirit Warrior spec from DAA. We never got to see it enough in that game and it could be interesting if they did it right. To some extent that is what a Seeker was really, someone who was given special powers through their relationship with a spirit, but then they just gave Cassandra regular Templar powers. It would be interesting to know how the relationship might differ according to the spirit you formed the bond with. There is so much they could do with this.

Rogue Specialisms: I would like a return of the Shadow rogue from DAA and DA2. I am also hoping for an Arcane Archer based off some of the concept art although it is possible that could be a mage specialism rather than a rogue.

I'd love a return of combat tactics from DAO. I'd also like to see the Rival/friendship from DA2 again. It made romance and friendships much more interesting, at least for me.
Night and day, and weather cycles are now a must. There's no excuse for Bioware to not be doing this in their games, when Bethesda and Ubisoft and other game developers have been doing it for years.

Anders wasn't a Templar. Or is there another character named Anders that I don't know about?

Let me edit that out.... embarassing. that's why we don't work 2 am hospital shifts and then post without sleeping lol

DAO: Tactics are a must! But I also really liked swapping between weapon sets, especially as a warrior so I could use a crossbow when needed. I get that crossbows are Varric's thing now - maybe warriors could throw spears or something like the Qunari have in the past? Also this is such a little thing but I loved how, when you went to look at the map for an area, it was all...parchmenty? Like your character has pulled out a real map.

DAE (yes I love the Exodus name too!): Every companion having a 'home' of sorts. It was nice to see where they lived and how the made the space their own. And also how your gifts sometimes turned up there! Like the Halla statue for Merrill and...actually that's the only example of that I can think of. But it was a nice touch! Or being able to gift companions special weapons that they would then use, like Sebastian's family bow or the Blade of Mercy for Fenris.

DAI: Jumping was handy for exploration purposes, although if we are exploring all over cities in the next game maybe being able to grab ledges and climb up would be a good next step. Camps for healing, stocking up and fast travel will also be good if we have large areas to explore. Being able to make armour should also stay, it was really fun mixing and matching pieces to get the looks I wanted. Would love a morph feature like some of the recent Assassins Creed games have had though!

- Companion relationships and quests
Dragon Age has never had a companion I didn't enjoy, I don't like all of them, but i don't need to to enjoy their character arc and contribution to the story. I've enjoyed the companion quests becoming a bigger part of the game since dao.

- Decision consequences
I really liked how the decision made during iron bulls personal quest had consequences in trespasser in a way that makes sense. I liked how who Hawke chooses to take into the deep roads has different results. That whether my city elf killed Vaughan affected whose in the dungeon in Denerim later, that you fought with different armies in the final battle depending on whom you recruited.
I love it when we have logical consequences of our actions in the same game (or its dlc) instead of in the epilogue. More please

- Visuals (dai)
The environments in dai looked great, whatever the size and number of the maps in da4 i hope they look similarly beautiful. The visuals is dai were generally great save for the hair, so hopefully they'll build on that.

- Side quest options
I like it when side quests involve choice, whether in how you complete them or what the results are. They are more memorable and engaging than linear fetch/kill quests.

- the Pause button
Even if they implement the dreaded active dodging, blocking and attacking - there's no excuse for not having a pause button. Greedfall has these things but it also has a pause button so you can activate them from a menu instead of relying on your physical and mental reaction times. Since pausing can affect how often and how long I can play a game, and make a big difference in whether combat is fun and enjoyable on hard difficulty or something to be endured for the story on easy difficulty, I really want the first franchise whose combat i genuinely enjoyed in of itself to keep the pause button.

- Fully controllable companions in combat
Andromeda removed the pause button and control of companions abilities and it's why it's the worse combat in mass effect and dragon age for me personally. With no pause button i didn't even have time to use the limited squad control it had much of the time. Felt like i may as well be playing solo instead of with a party but for squad banter. I want them to keep squad based tactical combat and i believe that is at its best when you fully control your companions.

- Tactical/overhead camera (Dao's version)
This allows me to see the battlefield for planning and aim area of affects correctly. Dai didn't work so great but dao's was really enjoyable.

- Large amount of ability action bar slots (dao, da2)
DAI didn't have enough space for all my powers, even less space if you slot focus powers that can't be used often. Andromeda's 'i can only access 3 powers at a time' thing was particularly annoying.

- Weapon switching in combat (dao)
This was just nice, being able to switch between melee and ranged weapons to suit the situation was great. I think all classes should have access to melee and ranged abilities, even if it favours one over the other.

- More types of ability/talent trees for mages (dao and da2 to a lesser extent)
There are different ways to play mages in previous games. Turning primal into 3 trees and only having one tree that wasn't elemental damage was boring. And two of the specialisations having regular spells from prev games instead of their own unique abilities like most specialisations was disappointing.

- Custom companion specialisations (da2)
Hawke and his companions never had exactly the same abilities even when she picked the spec that's similar to theirs. I really liked that.

- Mages switch auto attacks to bashing people when they come into Melee Range (da2)
This felt good and made more sense than continuing to shoot ranged blasts at the guy whose in your face.

- More weapon style trees for fighters and rogues (dao)
I like martial characters having more options for builds/fighting styles. I wouldn't necessarily pick the same ones from dao though, i have some other ideas i like.

- Programmable tactics/companion behaviours so i can control how my companions act. (Dao, da2)
Dai's wasn't up to snuff, I think it tried to incorporate common tactics set ups into the default ai, but I couldn't reliably make ranged characters stay out of melee, the hold command didn't work properly and the ai's choices for when/how it used the abilities you marked for use didn't always match what i would have chosen with programmable. Better to pause and fully control the party than rely on dai's ai outside of the simple, easy and quick fights. It would be great if da4 could bring back choosing default companion behaviour at least. (passive, aggressive, defensive, Ranged etc)

- Verticality (dai)
Being able to jump and climb ladders was good, made for fun things to do with maps. I'd like them to keep this and improve on it. Warriors could use the chain/grappling hook they use for pulling enemies towards them to instead pull themselves up ledges and across chasms, Mages could have a short range levitate ability (a bit like mea's jet pack/biotic levitate, mea did movement and Verticality in maps well), and Rogues could straight up parkour around the map. I think this would be fun and work well for breaking into buildings and traversing old ruins.

If I read it right I concur too much is too much I play BIo games for the 1. story and 2. immersion and not to waste my time for on hours for what I believe is nothing more than filler and time wasters.

I'd forgotten to mention this one. I found it really disappointing when they dropped the ability to toggle between ranged and melee weapons on screen. At least in DA2 I was able to swap by pausing and going to the inventory but then in DAI I couldn't even do that during the battle. In DAO, if you were predominantly a melee warrior then you could only use as simple bow or crossbow but at least you could use something instead of having to stand around doing nothing whilst we fired on the enemy from a distance and then could drop it in favour of your melee weapon if the enemy closed on you. I agree that since they introduced Qunari throwing spears, that could be the default ranged weapon for a warrior if they wanted something other than a crossbow. The repeating crossbow is Varric's thing since Bianca is a one off improvement on the standard crossbow but other people can still use them.

Whilst on the subject of weapons, I'd also like a return to warriors being able to train as dual wielders and rogues being able to dual wield something other than daggers. The reason I'd like the Arcane Warrior spec back as it was in DAO is that, whilst the light sabre was cool, you are able to use weapons other than a staff if you wish.

Some more that I forgot in the first post, but was reminded of by other people's posts

I want character customisation such as there is in dao and dai. Playable origins would be ideal but I'm not getting my hopes up for that. Regardless of the whether the backgrounds are playable or not, I would like multiple backgrounds to choose from, rather than race choice with one background. And I would like in game dialogue and quests reflecting it. In the likely event of background not being playable I would like more dialogue that lets us define our past then that one convo with Josephine we got in dai. And I think the ability to customise a significant event in our character history like mass effects CC does would be cool.

Also I too enjoyed the armour and weapons crafting systems in dai, being able to pick my materials/equipment bonuses instead of being stuck with whatever an item comes with was good. Additionally choosing which schematic and what dyes to customise my characters appearance with was also good. The only thing I'd change would be making the stats entirely dependent on the materials and their tier, rather than having tiers for the schematics aswell.

And of all the voiced dialogue systems that bioware has done so far that I have played (i don't know what anthems dialogue system even is) I've found Dragon Age Inquisitions to be the best. It's paraphrases and emotion icons combo caused less reloads because I didn't correctly guess what the paraphrases meant than other bioware games and less then the Witcher 3.
It of course still suffered from the problem of all voiced crpgs: wanting to pick the dialogue that's closest to what your character thinks/would say. But not being able to tell which paraphrase that is with more complicated responses, so having to reload repeatedly to hear each option. But it happened less with inquisition. (I don't care how boring and pace ruining they THINK an option to click on a paraphrase to see the full line would be, reloading over and over is worse)

I want to add, as someone else mentioned her earlier, that I love that the companions had more quests in DAE and I'd really like to see that in DA4 as well - I'm currently replaying DAE and really enjoying that the companions are very much in the center of the whole story and not just "helpers" to get to a certain goal (defeat the Archdemon/defeat Cory-face). Would like to see the same type of camaraderie in DA4!

I wonder if any Bio-dev will ever stumble in here and take notes, wishful thinking I know, but if all of these things mysteriously end up in DA4 we know who to thank/blame!

If you see this Bio-dev it can be our secret, just put a bunny in whatever homestead we will have and I'll know you visited.

From Dragon Age Origins: Tactical and rpg-heavy gameplay.

From Dragon Age 2: A story that plays out over a longer timeframe than usual in modern rpg's

From Dragon Age Inquisition: A diverse cast of companions.

Obviously there are many more things that I would like to see return, but those are the important ones to me

The bunny is cute so I'll bite. Some less common wishes than what you see here typically.


DA:O - Resource and money scarcity. Playing DA:I again, I'm struck on just how easy it is to get top level gear without spending much of anything in gold. A good chunk of that is the broken crafting system, but I've played the game intentionally avoiding crafting and its still not hard to keep the whole party well outfitted while still piling up gold like a dragon on a bender. In DA:O, your hoarded every bit of copper you could scrape together so you could get one top-end item. Those top end items (at whatever level) were rarities even as quest rewards much less in shops. Scarcity made quests more rewarding and monetary rewards for morally questionable end smore enticing. (remember that lyrium smuggler to Kinloch Hold?) Seeing a return of more scarcity (which would also fit the DA4 vibe that you're more of a shoestring hero) would make it more tempting to gather rewards for more questionable tasks and make rewards even for 'good' tasks that much more satisfying.


DA:E (I'm with the lepus on this one ) - Single discovery resource nodes. I actually played Exodus after Inquisition and this was one item I really wish the Inquisition team would have kept. Having resources that you can mark once and they are constantly in your inventory eliminates the worst elements of farming while still rewarding the Player for exploring the area for that hidden node. Simple but it's something that doesn't get the notice it should.

DA:I - The little side stories. My current playthrough, I'm concentrating on picking up all the little 'overheard' conversations in Haven, the Summer Market, Skyhold, various inhabited areas as I can. There's some obvious, jokey stuff (Overheard in Griffin Wing Keep. Sergant: "What are the chief weapons of the Inquisition?!" Troop 1: "Surprise and Fear!" Troop 2: "Surprise, fear, and ruthless efficiency!" What can I say, I'm an old geek ). There's also some serious one offs (like the Chantry sisters debating the impact that Corypheus' existence has on their own theology) and real stories there too (Chantry sisters next to the Haven Chantry door can go from serious, to thoughtful, to a hoot over the course of your first several levels. I liked that in addition to the usual repeated walla, you had real work. that stuff should be more part of and in quests of course, but our everyperson hero in DA4 should have lots of little stories that will sometimes bring her/him in and sometimes remain just someone else's problem.