Doesn't that just about apply for almost any large world RPGs ? 

Nope. Dragon Age just tells you to do chores. pick 10 things, find 3 hidden skulls, defeat 20 monsters of one type. loot a specific item. all to get EXP and money. 

Its just like a single player MMO. Far Cry/ Assasssins Creed games have this same issue and they're not RPGs. GTA V for example doesn't (at least not the online portion) it has a lot of variety.

Tell me what RPG DOESN'T do that ...

Yea, that's pretty much every RPG.

Any single player RPG aside from Diablo and other loot based games.

Yea but which ones? I can't think of any. lol

"This is one of the biggest flaws in DA:I. It's just jammed with side missions that add little to nothing to the story. DA was a different experience from MMOs and Skyrim but they took a lot of inspiration them so their interpretation of the open world gameplay is quite weird when the main Story quests progress in a semi-linear space. Exploring and doing side quests might give you some rewards, but the equipment is bad and there's no worthy story behind any of them"

I'm too lazy to rephrase so here's a copy/paste of my opinion about this from an older post.

Edit: I actually like the game and I was really being nitpicky.

Like ?

I preferred other games from 2014, personally. That's normal, though, I actually prefer action titles, shooters, platformers, etcetera over action-adventure games.

I love the game. It's absolutely fantastic, with plenty to do and lots of places to explore. The characters are all very memorable as well.

My only complaint is that many of the character models are bland and the romance options are really meh, but other than that it was one of my favorite games last year. 90+ hours and no regrets.