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

Have to agree here.

True. DAO did have that annoying character comment every-time you attacked. BUT....not every attack you made against them connected. Enemies dodged, had debuffs and had a variety of interesting attacks and could easily compensate whatever damage your party dealt. You had to think (most of the time) in order how to defeat a pack of darkspawn or even a boss.

When playing DAO, I recall, my party never just ran straight into battle, I had to think as to how I wanted to do this fight. I'd pass out buffs and run the tank in first. I'd keep an eye on my party's health and toss out damage and debuffs.

DA2 combat was better. Though I did feel it come off as kind of arcade style.

In DAI, all you did was drop a barrier and let the party run in. The most "thinking" you did was to move a tank over to an archer or maybe a mage. Then all you and your party did was bombard them with damage until they died. Unlike the previous two games, guzzling down lyrium/stamina potions was not need for two reasons: One, the fights never lasted that long and two there was a ridculious amount of auto-powers that renewed your stamina/lyrium.

So, what sets the other two games apart from DAI?

Well, I've said this before and I'll say it again: healing spells.

When you completely remove healing spells and change it to an excessive amount of auto/activate buffs, it makes combat less intense. The enemies are less interesting and are basically bopping you over the head with an inflatable hammer; while they just soak up the damage until they die.

When I notice a mage, cleric or druid has the opportunity to cast such healing spells, I know combat is going to be a challenge. Those spells would not be present if it was not. When you remove said spells the challenge in combat is nonexistent.

"Well, you can make enemies be more challenging in the options screen."

Ugh. I should not need to switch on an option to make combat more interesting. That should be in the game by default. Furthermore, since Bioware added in an option for the enemies to be interesting long after the game came out, it should be obvious combat is not good.

I want my combat to be a challenge.

I want to be able to think before just rushing in.

I don't want enemies just to stand there and soak up every hit and then just die.

And I most certainly want my damn tactics set-up menu back so combat does not feel like babysitting.

Bioware should take the good with DAO combat bits and mix it with the good combat bits of DA2 . 

This whole MP/MMO style of combat should not be apart of a single player game -especially one with the RPG style.  RPG single player games (even ones with companions) should work together to defeat the enemy and/or enemies using your mind. Not this whole, party mob rushes in and just beats enemies with a rolling pin until they can take no more. What is this? Tom and Jerry combat!?!

Most of us here are adults and I doubt anyone of us appreciates having are hand held when it comes to combat. Whats next for DA4? Bioware going to wipe my character's ass?!?

(shakes head).

Nor was it actiony. You could aim while paused. You could do all of your decision-making while paused. You could trigger abilities while paused.

I paused and unpaused often more than once per second playing the ME games.

I have never played ME in real time. That's the big change in Andromeda.

As for DA, after DAO the one improvement I wanted was a properly free-roaming camera. I even suggested basing it on the battlefield camera in the Total War games, and that's exactly the camera we got in DAI. It's literally the first camera in a BioWare game I liked more than NWN's camera.

I played ME3 much the same way. Approached every fight like a surgeon, pausing & adjusting between nearly every action. So when I heard MEA was switching over to real-time-only combat, I certainly wasn't keen on losing that feature either. But having played it, it's a different feel - no question, but (IMO) quite fun actually.

In DAI, I'll use the tac cam for the tougher fights, laying down precise AoEs. The easier fights I'll typically just run 'n gun. Some I'll just pause to queue up the opening actions, get barrier going, that sorta thing. Then play it out in RT from there.

Your right about that!  Among a myriad of other things, I really didn't like the combat of MEA.  Too much was sacrificed for what we got in return.  For me, they gave up the core of what the ME series was about for open world and more MP style combat which I have no interest in at all.  DA is the only thing keeping me paying attention to Bioware or even EA for that matter and I have a really bad feeling that DA4 will be the MEA of the dragon age series.

Except it wasn't. You could aim while paused. There was no way to miss unless you chose to do so.

I like Origins' combat the most because of the enemy encounter design allowing for variable tactical situations, the bosses also having multiple approaches per play-style that reflected their own strategies, and the humble tactics menu. I didn't care for the second games combat because the encounter design was terrible and the bosses were lame damage sponges. If the 4th game is just Inquistion with the Tactics menu from ][, I'll be a very happy camper.

You had to select your target, but since you could do that while paused the only variable was whether you knew how to use a mouse.

I wasn't advocating for the ME1 system (though I did prefer it). I was just pointing out that there the action elements of the ME trilogy were entirely optional.

ME2 and ME3 combat was made much easier through the removal of stat-driven aiming. Then you truly could not miss unless you tried.

And yes, I paused to aim literally every shot.

If Shepard's a war hero, why can't he aim when being controlled by an unskilled player?

That's why I always oppose twitch elements in an RPG.
We'll see. I haven't played MEA yet.

If I can engage at range in open spaces, I'll be fine.

If I'm in enclosed shooting galleries all the time (like ME2), it will be dreadful.

One of the things I miss about Origins that both II and Inquisition did away with is the stat-based gear. So a rogue could wield a sword and wear medium armor if they used a strength-based build, or a warrior could use archery (or the Arcane warrior going at it without a staff).