Different elemental damages are an important system. It allows your mage to spec in a certain element, which will get them advantages in some encounters and disadvantages in others. Not to mention, the elemental damages usually cause other side affects, such a burning, freezing, shock, etc, which is suited to different playstyles. These choices allow you to further define a character (i.e. of course Morrigan would be an ice queen) and also balance your party's abilities.
I would not call them important distinctions, at least not in DAO. It has been years but I can't recall it making much of a tangible difference - I believe it does technically (under the hood) have an effect but suffice to say it was not something I felt the need to take into consideration. Though I think I only ever played on hard, maybe it's more meaningful above that.
Further, while the side effects aren't worthless at the end of the day those spells aren't cast for the side effects - that's why they are "side" effects - what's more relevant (and what I'm comparing) is the core purpose/function of said spells.
What, no they aren't. Mana drain absorbs mana from a single target without costing you any yourself. Mana cleanse costs the caster mana and simply nullifies the mana of enemies in an area without gaining you any. Mana clash on the other hand costs mroe mana but damages enemies along with nullifying their mana.
Not only are those all different effects, but they each have different mana costs and cast times associated with them. That isn't bloat. Those are options.
Technically a stun, confuse, knockdown, hold, daze, etc are 'different' but they all accomplish pretty much the same thing, disabling your opponent. On a micro level (which, as I said, works in some games where that level of granularity is really meaningful like NWN. In DAO it's all already "dumbed down" as you like to say to nothing but mental and physical resistance) - of course they aren't exactly the same spell. But on a macro level, they all reach basically the same net result. Removing your opponents mana.
Hexes are:
Lower resistances of single target
Lower resistances of enemies in an area
Lower hit chance of single target
Raise critical hit chance on a single target
Again, I said 3/4. And again, micro differences, same macro effect. It's not disingenuous, it's just looking at the ultimate result of that action. One suits casters, one suits melee, sure. But the net effect? X takes more damage. Suppose those spells were combined into one that said "Target is weakened and takes 10% more damage". I don't think that really hurts or helps the game at all either way EXCEPT there is definitely such a thing as too many buttons. MMOs and games with MMO-like combat (yes, DAO plays like an MMO) suffer from this a lot in particular where you have row after row of abilities and items and shortcuts.
Realistically I can handle something like 40 hotkeys (counting a shift mod generally). But frankly I don't really want to - it gets tiresome and a lot of those are de facto devoted to things like targeting, menu shortcuts, mounts, macros, etc. In that sense, hotkeys are a limited resource to me - so when I choose what has to go where on them, I look at the overall purpose of that key and what is bound to it.
I guess you can excuse that somewhat due to the ability to pause and queue actions, but that really takes me out of the game and I think managing it on the fly is a much more engaging, immersive experience.
It provides a 'legitimate decision" but still "artificially inflates the number of options"? No, that not how it works. It is a legitimate decision, and is therefore a legitimate option.
This was more specifically referring to the graph alleging DA had 70 some spells. To me, making that distinction between "Mass X" and "X" is like saying NWN had 4-5x as many spells as it did because you can technically count the metamagicked version of each spell as unique. To me, that's disingenuous.
Riiight...
Why have swords, axes, hammers and daggers, they're just a melee weapon. Why have rogues if they use the same pointy things? So basically the game should be a choice between using a sword, using a bow, or using a caster that can only do AoE, oh but wait, why have bows if they're basically the same thing as casting single target damage. So let's eliminate bows too!
If you want to misrepresent what I said and take it to the point of hyperbole, sure, knock yourself out. Variety is great. Variety for the sake of variety can be aesthetically pleasing but also doesn't really serve to enhance how the game plays. Look back at NWN again, something like 45 different base weapons. But you can count on one hand how many were in regular use on almost any server - kama, rapier, scimitar, longbow. Take the other 40 out and the game still looks and plays pretty much entirely the same. And it's still a great game either way.
THey're not even remotely the same spell. They're different spells from a different elemental school. They also had different effects (freezing, burning etc) and graphically looked completely different. How you think they're the same spell boggles the mind.
Except the element doesn't really matter, the damage calculations for them are very similar (tempest and blizzard
are identical, inferno does deal a fair bit more), the side effects are just that - "side effects" and the graphics don't change what the spell actually does. They're all ground targetable, damage dealing friendly fire AoEs all with a range of 25m, 10m radius, 2s cast time, 30s spell duration, and 30s effect duration.
There's a reason each branch of the primal tree gets a relatively equal complement of spells - to keep them relatively equal in power. As a consequence, they're not very different.
Addendum, EQ actually doesn't deal damage. So it's not the same. Just worse, lol.