Fair enough. I on the other hand enjoyed both games. I know you say that you felt like you watching Dragon Age but it's also a game about choices you make. It's not a game like Fable or Oblivion where you're told what to do in linear quests. Quests in Dragon Age were non linear and often had different ways to solve them. The fact you could make any type of character from a religious warrior to a ruthless mage is what made Dragon Age great to me.
You couldn't make any type of character in Dragon Age. You picked a class in the beginning, along with its own origin, and you were stuck with it.
I also disagree about the quests. They're just as linear as Fable and Oblivion, heck most of the sidequests you picked off a board and consisted of travelling somewhere and killing everything, or fetching 10 toadstools or other junk in exchange for gold. This is basic MMO quest design, and frankly pretty terrible for any RPG trying to fill Baldur's Gate's shoes.
Untrue. Classes could be branched into different specializations. You could have a two handed warrior champion. A sword and shield warrior Templar or a dual wielding warrior berzerker reaver. That's just for the warrior class and the expansion offered more ways to upgrade the warrior into something else with unique abilities.
Divinity 2 lacked the role playing of Dragon Age: Origins. Origins has more dialogue and allows you build a character through dialogue and choices. Yeah, sure there are those "go there and kill this guy" type quests but other quests had plenty of choices especially quests that were part of the story. In The Urn of Sacred Ashes quest, you could destroy the Urn of Sacred Ashes (resulting in two companions ATTACKING you if you can't persuade or intimidate them), battle the dragon, side with the dragon and its worshipers or you can kill the dragon and its worshipers and ensure that pilgrims get access to the Urn of Sacred Ashes. If The Urn of Sacred Ashes survives, you'll even get a side quest involving it in Dragon Age 2 where some guy is selling fake ashes but people believe because everyone knows Andraste's ashes are real now.
There's also the side quests you can collect from NPCs that don't consist of going to X location to kill X enemies. There's the quest you can get from the guard captain in Denerim where you must go to the Brothel to get some guards to stop causing trouble there. There are different ways to solve this quest and the outcome is different. One outcome even leads to an optional three quests awaiting you.
There's also the optional quest of Redcliffe where you must defend the town. I bet none of you realized that you could just leave it and let the undead attack. Upon return, everyone would be dead save for Bann Teagan. Saving the village results in rewards and further quests.
There's also the side quests in the Circle Tower where you accidentally summon a spirit. If you had saved Redcliffe, you would later get a quest (after summoning the spirit) about something attacking caravans. Upon arriving at the location of caravan attacks, you would find and fight the spirit you had summoned.
Hardening companions also influence their reactions to certain things you did or suggest. For example, if you harden Leliana, she won't turn around to attack you if you destroy The Urn of Sacred Ashes and you won't even need to persuade or intimidate her. Harden Alistair and you can convince him to marry Anora. Hardening companions is only possible by doing their side quests and choosing the right dialogue, before even checking the Wikia, I didn't even know there was such a thing as "Hardening" because such dialogue doesn't have something saying it hardens the companion.
There's also the side quests in Ozammar especially the one where you can help a dwarf open a Chantry. If you don't have the skills (intimidate or persuade leveled up) you cannot complete this quest.
Fighting alone isn't what makes an RPG. Larian themselves know that. Look at Dragon Commander where there's a GREAT influence on MAKING choices. Choices alone don't make an RPG either, leveling and upgrading your character - along with choices - does. Dragon Age offers all of these things whereas choices in Divinity 2 are only in side quests and not the main story which can't be influenced in any way. It's the same old same old whereas in Dragon Age: Origins, you can always influence little parts of the story just as you can spare Loghain at the end and have him become a companion who kills the archdemon.
