I didn't like the lack of front line ability in D:AO. That is a warrior had no real means or method to protect a caster or archiver from an attacking warrior. There was no method to establish a line or area of control.
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I do not remember this being an issue in older games like ice wind-dale and BG 2; but maybe it was and I just didn't notice ?
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I really liked the presentation in D:AO (story telling/cut scene - which is not quite the same as the story itself).
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Also many of the dungeon/maps I felt were really simplistic/poor. I never felt like it was an epic adventure of exploration.
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So to sum it up I dislike D:AO combat mechanics and maps.
Aggro mechanics in IE games were rather simple, iirc enemies tended to just aggro in this order:
- whoever they saw first
- whoever did the most damage
for me that basically meant Korgan was usually tanking and tanks were basically melee damage dealers since there were no specific aggro skills (though in the case of Liches and the like it was preferable to have a Wizard tank, something that's pretty much out of the question in DA:O). This, as you mention, worked surprisingly well.
The usual tactic as far as I recall was to send in the clowns, err, fighters, have them whack the enemy while the casters are busy doing useful non-combat stuff (buffing, stripping hostile defense, blowing up fodder with AoE nukes), this allowed the melee to build up an aggro buffer so when the casters focues on the enemy they had a good lead.
This all sounds pretty primitive and convoluted in writing I'll admit, but it came pretty natural and worked (imho) very well.
In DAO the way hostiles pick their first target is already different. Theoretically (iirc) they go by how threatening characters are, meaning that rogues and casters often get the short end of the stick. There also seems to be a preference for attacking the player character, regardless of where he is relative to the other party members (assuming he's in their line of sight).
As for the aggro mechanics, they seem completely different and more based on "threat", which is only partially related to damage output. The net result is that your "tanks", like in MMOs, have specific skills to maintain enemy attention and is weak in the damage dealing department compared to the "nukers" (wizards, rogues, fighters).
This makes especially big fights (lots of enemies) when having few skills a pain as properly maintaining enemy aggro becomes a real pain as it is no longer a case of just sending in your designated punchball first because as soon as your mage start throwing fireballs every other enemy (not necessarily ones that have been hit), starts to perceive said mage as a serious threat, with predictable consequences (since mages in DA:O have a lot less means to keep themselves from harm than in the IE games)
Anyway, that's how I remember things to be. It's probably not entirely correct, but yeah, I basically agree that controlling the battlefield in DA:O was a lot more hit & miss (and more often than not: miss), than in the IE games.
I hope Project: Eternity does get this right. Thankfully I don't foresee this to be such a big issue in D:OS as it will be turn based. (there's really no need to try to prove me wrong Larian ;))
