loot and leveling

So, some more spoiler-free grumbling about DA2.

Other people have already talked at length about the problems with auto-scaling challenges which prevent you from ever reaching the feeling of being amazingly powerful. In DA2 you will *never* recapture the fun you had in the first five minutes of the game where they let you play yourself as a 'legendary' version and kill everything easily with your super powers.

But there's also this thing nowadays of expecting players to constantly cycle their equipment, and that's built into the level advancement systems as well. (4e does this and I whine about it there too.) What that means is that if you're bored with the game and cheat to give your characters extra levels? They become weaker, not stronger! Your equipment doesn't level up with you, but the monsters do, and suddenly your dagger is a butter spoon.

Which you will have to replace with another, equally nondescript dagger. For no reason.

Obviously they are trying to give you a money sink and loot is traditionally one in an rpg, if they hadn't sucked every possible bit of enjoyment out of looting. But the autoscaling and the fact that you are mostly facing the SAME ENEMIES that you were all along makes this feel extra artificial. Why could I cut this human with a knife five minutes ago but now it bounces off? What sense does this make?

Despite that people generally hate weapon damage, I would have been a lot happier if I could pay to repair/upgrade my existing equipment as a money sink rather than having to constantly swap out identical drab kit. Varric gets to keep his beloved crossbow and scale it up with him, why can't *we* have the option of developing attachments to our equipment?

Being able to patch up my own equipment would also have allowed me to pick things for style. They're so fixated on keeping the companions looking right that they won't let you change THEIR armor at all, but YOU still have to change what you're wearing all the time. Argh.