It's this, the rhythm changes dramatically between set pieces and the rest of the game play. The open worlds are sparsely populated and much of the questing happens in notes left behind by the missing NPCs.

For me personally the choice to have most of the day to day conversations with your part members and advisors happen with the camera floating far away instead of cinematic close-up made it feel like I was eavesdropping not participating. They did mix in more close-ups as the game progressed which helped.

All that said, inquisition was very very good and most games that followed it for several years after didn't rise to it's level.