No More 4 Person Parties

What do you mean by a "clear port"?

Anyways, I disagree. The four-man party is a staple of the series.

A three-man party would mean you would be undermining yourself if you brought along a party member who was the same class as yourself.

Haven't you learnt? Three member parties are bad, that's what got Frodo and Sam into all the trouble. No-one to watch gollum closely.

The key element here is for Bioware to create a more robust Custom AI tool, that allows players to set AI behaviours within more defined terms than we saw in DA:I, it's one of the areas I feel the series has been steadily regressing rather than progressing.

I suspect it's a tricky balancing act, with the gradual move towards more action focused combat, the increased pace, more streamlined abilitys (this is my covert way of moaning about the lack of abilities and the poor ability slots available ) getting an AI that can be effective both in combat and outside of it, can be challenging.

I think your right to point out DA:I's short coming in this regard, but suggesting the way forward is to remove the number of companions.... well, I'm with phoray! Aghast!

By allowing players a greater degree of control over companion ability usage, when to use certain abilities, range of attack, party positioning at the start of engagement, many of the issues you raise, go away. I know that some of this is present but in only the most simplistc terms and with a far lesser degree of control than in previous installements (well DA:O anyways ) We can more comfortably leave our companions to their own devices and focus on the action of combat for our main, while being assured our party doesn't get wiped.

As to pathing issues and certain actions requiring to-ing and throwing between different companions, that just needs a little tweek here and there. I'd be really pleased to see companions pick a lock (if they are able to) just from the PC interacting with the object in question, or knock down a wall etc.

As to the port issue, we have to accept that some concessions in design have to be made when your talking about a cross platform game like this. I too would like to see a more pc friendly UI, DA:I wasn't that bad, it showed that it was desgined primarily for console, but it took into account pc usage aswell. Menus could be awkward to navigate in comparison to some PC only titles, but then, if the game was tailored solely towards the pc market, the console fans would be having just as many, if not a hell of alot more, problems than we might see as PC players. The truth is, that without the console market, DA might not exist today, certainly not as a AAA title. I'll leave it upto each individual to ponder whether that would be a good thing or not, it's purely subjective and I'm just happy to be getting more Dragon Age.

Well, we already went from 6 to 4. And, back in the olden time, you gave each and every one of them something to do every urn.

I don't take 4 companions in DA as an invitation to continuously orchestrate all 4. I take it as an ability to control whichever one is crucial at the point. At all other times, the AI does fine. Sometimes one of them does freeze up. The other three pick up the slack, as they should, because they are a team.

I play on the difficulty level that makes the game enjoyable to me, a bit challenging but not frustrating and not boring, and 4M party works well, with AI doing its job. I did like DA2 more, because it was easier to play as a party, selecting everyone, and they seem to depend more on each other in terms of CC's and stuff. But DA:I style is not that bad and still works.

Nothing harsh about it. I made a suggestion. Its up to the poster to purchase the next game or not.

Fair enough, tone can be hard to interpret online, I read your post as being dismissive, in which case, why bother replying at all, but since you meant it as constructive advice, I'll take it as being how you meant it, hopefully the OP feels it was constructive too.

Both of their latest games moved towards more automated ones, ME:A and SWTOR. It is likely that's what we will see. I like the fairly sophisticated scripts in DA2. But I also do not mind that as a Main my role is not only to fight myself, but to continuously monitor the battlefield, and give orders to the other 3 comps when they are not doing what I, as a commander, like them to. That special awareness is a valuable skill in gaming. So, I am fine with both, and I don't mind pausing. And, yep, I like having 4M party. IMO, the game is set up for it, which is the main thing. If you could not pause or take control of your companions at any time. Then, yes, I would object.

Combat shmombat, more party members means more banter.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Should have six party members like the BG games. You don't need to control each member, the AI is smart enough to do the job for the most part. I think some of the fighter abilities are a little buggy because I have fighters just stand there as if the computer is over thinking on what to do next.

As I said previously, I think it's an understandable conclusion to come to, from a certain perspective. One I disagree with, I see the root problems being the same ones you mentioned. Hell, if I had my way, I'd have the party size be large enough that ALL of the companions are out with the PC at all times and adjust enemy difficulty and numbers to compensate, provide really comprehensive tools for controlling complex AI companion behaviours and tailor just about every aspect of combat towards such a model, so as micro-management isn't a concern and players still have some idea of what the hell is going on on screen. Its a pipe dream I know, but could you imagine the complexity of even the smallest conversations, when all of your companions are there to chime in at once and engage with eachother as a group. It would be phenominal! A supreme pain in the ass to design and code. But it would be soooo worth it!

I think DA:I did endeavour to overcome that inaccuracy, with certain characters expressing dismay, that they weren't on a given mission, but it was abit spotty. It's never made a whole lot of sense to me, why, when facing a super adversary like corypheus and the insurmountable odds, the inquisition faces, the Inquisitor would choose to leave the majority of his/her agents/companions behind on any given mission. I know its for game design reasons, but I would've hoped that a developer would have sought to find a way to bring everyone along by now and still have combat and scripting conversation work well, in doing so.

I also couldn't agree more with the the tactical camera, soooo zoomed in. The control scheme for the tac cam was also the chunkiest and least intuitive on my pc. It felt cumbersome. I also share your pain with the dragon fights lol I'd dodge the scorching fireball of doom, only to have my companions follow me, and get roasted, since they are now standing, where I was previously lol Ouch