Combat should NOT be a jack-of-all-trades.

I didn't really like Mass Effect's system.  You could play the game without any companions, and they usually only served to get in the way or distract enemies.  You could do the whole series as a solo sniper pretty easily.  I prefer DA's system where you manage your team as much as you want.  

Companions are meant to supplement gameplay in Mass Effect, but not be mandatory. I've certainly never relied on them doing an Insanity run in all four games, but they have their uses on occasion (largely for combo attacks). It's just a personal preference, but I'd rather focus on my character, rather than companions that are just tagging along for the ride. Not to mention, companion AI tends to be terrible and I find myself playing those characters more than my own, which is not what I had in mind.

Remove the hack and slash and it's already better than DAII and inquisition fir me. I'm in agreement that origins did it best.

I actually liked DAI's combat, relatively speaking. It only got tiresome for me after a 2.5 playthroughs because the enemy health pools were so big it became more of am endurance test.

If they could speed up the overall pace of the combat (not the animations), make combos more based on gratifying (I want to set them up manually instead of the AI doing it for me), make it easier not to miss, and make the companion less Leroy Jenkins, I would really, really like it (in theory).

I'd prefer this as well, even as someone who preferred DAO's combat. If they're not going to properly support companions with features like custom tactics then I'd rather they change the gameplay to reflect that.

That was mainly a problem of the default AI settings, Follow Controlled. Once I fine-tuned those settings and the loadouts of the party, I rarely had a Leroy Jenkins problem. In fact, part of the fun of combat in DAI was min/maxing the composition and settings of my party. Granted, I had to adapt and compromise to the system, rather than the system enabling me to have a free hand, but once you accept its limitations, there are enough degrees of freedom to turn a party into your preferred type of murder squad.

Here's a case in point. This is pretty typical of my approach to boss battles in DAI -- spend some time in initial setup (which includes gear, consumables, loadouts and a little Tactical mode), then just let the rest of the battle roll in real time, other than having to revive Dorian.



For comparison, here's a battle with no Tactical mode prep, just run-and-gun. Here I rely mostly on AI settings and loadout, and the party does pretty well, right up until the end where I do some Tactical mode positioning and one Attack My Target for the boss. Not bad for such a complex series of battles, I think.

It sounds like BioWare is looking at a much more engaging combat system, if they are serious about implementing an active block and dodge mechanic. His remarks remind me a lot of what we see in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, or more recently Assassin's Creed: Origins. My only question, which I think is an important one, is how will BioWare incorporate companions with that change. I'm all for a more engaging experience, but part of the problem with combat is the role of companions and how crucial or significant they should be. This is why I used Mass Effect as an example, as the companions are more so complementary, rather than mandatory.

While I'm certainly not opposed to using Rocksteady's "Free Flow" system from the Batman Arkham games, as I think it's one of the best action combat systems in the industry, I'm not sure if BioWare is going to make that drastic of a change. Not to mention, that system is built more so around counters and takedowns rather than blocking and dodging, which is something that has never really been present in Dragon Age. That's not to say that it wouldn't work, but again we'd have the issues of what role companions would play in that kind of system. Batman Arkham Knight had a scenario where Batman and Nightwing could do combo takedowns together, so there are possibilities I suppose.

If we were to go to a system similar to Free Flow, I think that would force companions to play a secondary role, much like they do in MEA. Part of the reason battles seemed "chaotic" in DAI was because of that micromanaging aspect of DAI with your companions. If BioWare places all attention and emphasis on just the player character, and lets companions do their own thing, then I think the entire process would likely be streamlined and more enjoyable.

To add to that issue of "a narrow selection of weapons," Dragon Age has different classes. The Free Flow system would be fine for a warrior or a melee-based rogue, but how would that function for a mage or a ranger-based rogue? The Free Flow system is dependent primarily on melee combat, so BioWare would have to come up with an alternative in order to accommodate range-based characters as well as melee-based characters. Even in games, such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Assassin's Creed: Origin, the main focus of combat is still melee combat.

This might be an unpopular idea, but DA4 could, potentially, use MEA for inspiration in this regard. Folks can say what they will about the story in MEA, but I think most will agree the combat was an improvement over the MET. I could see that third person shooter style of gameplay being attributed to DA4, where it's twitch-based instead of just locking onto a target. I think that would also make range-based characters far more interesting, as they can be boring and uninteresting to play in DAI due to the monotony of attacking at a far and cycling through a limited amount of skills.

Now that is very exciting news for action-oriented combat enthusiasts. Not so much for those who were advocates of Tactical Mode, but I can't say I'm surprised that BioWare would go this direction.

*weeps bitterly for the demo that never made it into the game and wasn't "real marketing"....apparently*

While I may not miss the timer , it would've been fun to defend a castle or town. I also liked the idea of hidden objectives, like burning the enemy ships, and that would impact the battle down the line, etc.