Things I Think I Love; Things I Think I Hate

Let's hope you're correct on both accounts. If that's indeed the case that is definitely something to look to

Love/Like
- Harding
- The return of actual healing magic
- Frostbite (apparently that's still being used) got upgraded or they finally figured out how to use it without making everything look uncanny valley or wet

Dislike/ Hate
- Only two companions for the team
- Why three skills?
- Rook feels like the Inquisitor 2.0. I was never attached to the Inquisitor. I still feel they're gonna die somehow in this game, and frankly, I don't really care if they do. And the sad thing is, being better than the Inquisitor is a really low freaking bar to clear!
- Companions also feel like the Inquisition ones. Outside of Cassandra and Varric (and to an extent Dorian and Solas), the companions were very...dull. Bull just...undoes a lot of what made the Qunari interesting and compelling (it feels much more natural for him to be Tal-Vashoth in the end). Cole was incredibly forgetful (no pun intended). Vivienne just felt like Morrigan but with less personality (or at least slight mirror opposite). Sera tried...but, eh. Blackwall was also kinda dull. And so far, from what little I've seen (or lack thereof), these companions, save Harding, give me flashbacks to the Inquisition crew - dull, bland and boring.
- Can we please go back to how demons looked in DA 1?
- Same for Darkspawn; why the constant need to change them? And the lore behind them? God that original lore for them from Origins was wicked cool, as how they looked. They looked genuinely terrifying then. Now? I've seen scarier things in Animal Crossing...
- Not being able to control party members directly
- Losing the ability to access party member skills (combat wheel).
- The loss of the Keep being used.
- Choices being ignored in prior games (see above point).

Love
Nothing.

Like
The graphics look nice.
Hair finally looks like hair instead of plastic.
Picking backgrounds is I suppose a nice compromise for people wanting Origins back. Bonus that our character can be of different nationalies this time.

Neutral
Now, when it comes to the companions they're not making me feel anything at all but in their defense it's too early for me to judge.

Dislike
This game being turned into mass effect (2 companions).
The way the plot unfolds it's just Inquisition's except our character doesn't get amnesia about what happened.
Solas' role is just lame.
The possibily of the Evanuris just being discount Corypheus. Like right now I'm expecting Elgar'nan to be like Corypheus (the deluded tyrant) and Ghil like the Mother from Awakening (the unhinged currrazzyyy one). Honestly, when it comes to the main villains & antagonists of DA games they're usually a disappointment bar Loghain.
Enemy redesigns

Hate
The Combat. Hate that it's three abilities. What's the point of that fancy long tech tree?
No blood magic. The biggest blow to me, I know they've said that there's a reason for it storywise but it sucks. I can guarantee that the real reason was (like always) Bioware unable to write around our PC using blood magic.

Things I think I love:

The art style/aesthetic
the music
the dynamic combat looks exciting af
nerding out on lore reveals
the skill tree
the fact that capital-G Gamers already hate it (yes all Gamers)

Things I think I hate

Solas (fuck you egg boi, I'm coming for ya)

Pretty sure isabela could hook up with Fenris when playersexual so that's not true.
Difference seems to me just down to presentation. Playersexual characters sexuality can change between playthroughs whereas a Pan Character doesn't so can mention sexuality of past partners(no anders situation). I guess we'll see how hard they push this point.

Of course, it wouldn't be BSN without romancing complaints.

BG3 isn’t playersexual. All the love interests are bi or pan.

And for DA2, yeah BioWare has repeatedly rebuked calling it playersexual. Sebastian is straight, and the others are bi (or other orientations that allow attraction to male or female like how Merrill can be seen as Demisexual).

Something (I think?) I hate: mage companions being restricted or soft-locked to an element - Neve (Ice) and Bellara (Lightning), so far. Emmrich is probably Fire, or Spirit (if Harding's new magic abilities are Fire-themed, then Emmrich will probably be Spirit).

It limits things a bit as far as builds, and also I don't love that you might want to take X companion because of the enemies you'll be facing, based on their elemental weaknesses and your companions' proficiency with that element. I wanna take whatever companion I want and period. Dot.

^ That was implied a little in the last couple of news we've gotten (forgot where exactly, or I'd post the source here for discussion). What do you guys think?

OK, doing this after all:

Love:
- mission based/no open world
- no MP
- focus on the evanuris
- Tevinter setting

Like:
- Harding as companion/love interest
- faction backgrounds
- pansexual
- transmog
- inky back (so she can take down her ex)
- combat maaaaybe

Dislike:
- overly smooth and clean somewhat Disney-fied art style
- UI design, neon everywhere
- the Solas situation
- yet another horrible qunari companion design

Hate:
- no Morrigan probably
- most enemy redesigns

Sooo on paper it sounds pretty promising. My gut tells me to still have low expectations and prepare for lots of bad writing. BioWare hasn't produced anything I liked in 9 years.

We'll get to return to areas and explore, and they're big. It's a more "contained", but polished open world, which is what Ive always hoped for. Open world, while beautiful and cool on paper, takes up a lot of development time and resources. With Veilguard, it seems like they've found a sweet spot with that, and are prioritizing a polished product, story and characters.

I wouldn't call DAI an open world game at all, at least not in the true sense of the word. DAI consists of multiple large but mostly disconnected regions in a similar way to DAO and DA 2 and uses the term open world more to lure open world players in. Sure, some areas were large, even annoyingly so, but largely felt lifeless and static. In a true open world game the world itself feels alive, examples of this are TES and Witcher 3. That is simply not something BioWare has experience with, their focus has always been on the characters and the story.

Anyway, a couple more things I hate:

The glowing magic store signs in Minrathous. Sorry, but no ... just no, this isn't Cyberpunk. It just doesn't fit


And for the sake of the Maker and Andraste... redo the demons and darkspawn, they look utterly ridiculous and not menacing at all. You still have few months left, reworking the models to look closer to their established look should be possible.