Combat is a fucking left-over of old shitty games that couldn't do anything better for RPGs. It is NOT supposed to be the main appeal. Otherwise go play a strategy game, what the hell. I guess getting experience points is what a rpg is all about though, but this is silly. You gain power ups and stats to be able to do something - combat, or something else. Since I established very scientifically that rpgs are not about combat - then stats must influence something else. Combat is just filler. It can be fun filler, and hopefully it is, but it's not where the design is at. Role playing, playing a role, making choices that make a difference. This is what it should be about. Rpgs should be like interactive fiction. Most of the time they have a story, meaning a linear plot, and players will say that they're in rpgs for the story. But again story is meaningless, adventure games are supposed to be about a story not rpgs - story is just a crutch, because making a game that would be so non-linear it wouldn't require a main plot would be too difficult to make.
So yeah, 95% of the content of rpgs are not what rpgs are about. I know it makes no sense. Rpgs make no sense as a genre and should be dead by now. They're just adventure games with stats and combat and limited simulated dialog. Fuck it. Hopefully AoD will change that. Wait this is the developper of AoD asking the question... hmm... well we're fucked
Edit : I change my words, combat is not only filler, it can be a choice the player can make, but that's about it. The problem is making the other choices as involved and complicated as combat - not obvious. Clicking on dialog options is not all that involved. But then, this is really a question of killing the player's time in a fun way. It's still killing time. If you do it right it's a good game, if not you have a piece of shit like DA with some minor cool moments and then pain. Not a good idea. Needs some fucking revolutionnary thinking, and not Bioware
Edit 2 : Since 90% of rpgs didn't make the 'killing time part' any fun - what makes it fun is experience points. Who would play an old dungeon crawl like Wizardry if your characters didn't level up? It would be fucking tedious. I claim that it's still fucking tedious, because I don't care about levelling up, it doesn't bring me any satisfaction on an intellectual level. So rpgs are about levelling up, or choices. That's the two options. Gameplay is barely a factor. Most rpgs have shitty gameplay. Either you have a game with shitty gameplay or no gameplay and choices. I prefer the former. Fuck it. Well this is an extreme of course, Fallout had decent gameplay, some choices, it made a good game all around, so yeah. Still, could be better.