Active abilities in ME:A (Updated)

They're also really pushing fast action run 'n gun, no camping allowed sort of gameplay.

You could pretty much play through the entire trilogy without ever firing a shot - relying mostly on powers, pets, combos, and sitting in cover.  Dunno whether that'll be possible in this iteration, but it might be - these gameplay demos are designed to show fast-paced, dynamic action.  Shrug.

I do like the fact that Ryder won't be magnetically drawn to and stick to cover like Shepard did, so there's that.

This sounds annoying in theory but once I actually think about it I only use 3 abilities or so anyway. (Cloak, Incinerate, and Energy Drain, namely). It's even less of a problem when you consider a lot of abilities are really just kind of repeats of each other (Incinerate and Carnage, say), some are grenade based which you don't need if you have actual grenades, and others are basically special "bullet" powers which could just as easily be a weapon mod.

1: Not really, due to the fact that Shepard has a lot of redundant powers, &/or useless powers on his classes, you'd be better off using bout 3 powers most of the time in ME3, so in ME:A it was changed so you could do different setups based on the level layout, & playstyle without having redundant, &/or useless powers, they "trimmed the fat" so to speak.

2: I don't believe that you have to synergize with your team to make the most of your power setup, unless you built it around your teams powers, I.E. a standard Sentinel build with Warp/Overload which can fit into any team comp, & you can take anyone with you.

3: No, all the classes you named there, at the most have 2 powers in MEA terms, ammo is no longer a "power", & the adept in ME3 could just use AoE reave, Double Throw, I don't think ME:A adept is gonna change all that much. Melee (not a power) inf(cloak) with high powered guns(not a power) and anti armor powers(incinerate &/or Sticky grenade), But why would you want all that anti armor stack tho?

4: It's a game in space where you shoot/ spam powers at things till they're dead, of course DPS king. Again, Adept/Sentinel in ME3 with AoE Reave/Double Throw can play without shooting, & they're many other combos out there in ME3. & with independent cooldowns, Adepts, Sentinels, & Engineers in ME:A probably won't even need their gun, with the right setup. The rest of no.4 is over dramatic non-sense.

5: (see number 1)

6: (see number 5)

1) Redundant? WAT? I don't know what game you've played, but redundant really not, nor never.
Maybe you can use powers to obtain the same thing: enemies dead, but between biotics and techs powers you had the power to choose among a vast variety of different solutions and to choose what powers suit you best. A richness I wouldn’t like to lose in the name of simplification and or to make single player like multiplayer in ME:A. Why even aim for something like that?

2) Different of opinions here: I’m playing again ME3 single campaign, and I actively use 6 powers all the time as a vanguard class (charge, nova, pull, flare, shockwave and ammo powers). Which can be an example of why I think vanguard class, for example, isn’t necessarily a dumb faceplant of charge nova charge nova charge nova ad libitum. SURE, you can play it like that and I do from time to time, but I’ve also the possibility to deploy artillery biotic strike, to mix and match and then go to town. And to synergize quite well with any squad mate I choose to pick with me.
I would like for this difference, for this possibility, to stay: otherwise it’s exactly as I said. One or two combination of powers as powerful as possible to faceplant combat. Something that grows boring after the second battle: zero variety. Less and less fun the more the adventure goes on.

3) As above, it’s not really true all the classes have at most 2 powers. You can limit yourself only to 2 powers and win the game with those two, but as I’ve said, it’s not really a necessity, nor I think it should become one. Otherwise, why have 50 powers to unlock (random number)? At this point, make fewer powers with more branching trees.
I.e. a turret power with a branching to heal, a branching to deploy a flamethrower, a branching for a missile launcher and maybe add another branching for a short-range overload.
Simpler, more likable, less confusing and way more customizable to your taste and / or missions: let’s say the Kett are very armours reliant, I can deploy an ammo piercing build. Remnants robots heavy on shield: switch powers. It is a matter of prioritizing, customizations and the simple joy of experimenting, trial of combat and success.

4) Calling bull on this. IF the player experience of ME would only be DPS oriented, I would see only geth infiltrators with javelins X wallhacking and trick reloading in multiplayer lobby. I don’t. Why? Because even the multiplayer of ME3 allows for some customization. And the experience is better for it, imo. Adding possibilities to solid gameplay mechanics is rarely a wrong choice. Lessening them often is: I fear this could be the case.

Again, I really don’t understand the purpose of having a random number of powers and at the same time force the use of a very limited number of them. 3 powers can’t be possibly motivated by balancing issues: why bother at this point? I mean, I suppose that implementing powers can be a programming hassle: why set such an harsh arbitrary limit then?
AT LEAST I hope there are some passive in ME:A that allows to pick more slots the more you invest in them, and if not they should implement them asap.

One of the previous problems with 3 powers only was taking up slots with ammo powers, grenades and passive "powers" which kind of devolved gameplay into a simple TP shooter.

At least ammo modifications won't be a part of that anymore. I would hope grenades too are back to ME1 style separate resource.

That is true; now that ammos are no longer powers again, that should alleviate some of the issues. But it means I can run around with a combat drone with Warp, Charge, and Carnage like I was expecting to.

Unless we can swap between some profiles mid-combat, at least. I'm still holding out hope that you can do that with the dpad.

-Tech-armor/tactical cloak
-Warp/Overload
-Throw/...?

You're ignoring the fact that they're currently using flashy transitions to captivate people in two minute snippets. They did the same thing in the promo materials for all three games.

They did run and gun and used abilities that used that kind of playstyle because watching someone come close to death and sit in cover to recover doesn't make exciting trailer fodder. That's the kind of stuff better suited to the 10-20 minute playthroughs where they actually bother to show off gameplay mechanics.

Every game does it, I don't know why you're surprised when Mass Effect 2 and 3 did it especially.

That doesn't really have anything to do with fun or variety though, does it? If the complaint were that you couldn't do enough damage, or couldn't do combos, then that would be an appropriate counterargument.

The problem is a total lack of attack variety in a given combat. With only 3 active powers, most likely you'll be in a situation where you have 2 powers for combo priming/detonation, and 1 utility power, like Tac Cloak. Gameplay-wise, this means you're basically just going to be repeating the same button combos over and over. There is no thought, no strategy, because you have no options with which to utilize alternate strategies. This makes each combat samey. This is fine for 20-30-minute MP matches, for which it was originally designed, but it's an unnecessary and limiting pain in SP.

Now the natural counter to that is "Well, we have profiles and can swap abilities in and out anytime." And this alleviates it some, but...

To have any combat variety, you now have to keep bringing up the menu and swapping abilities in and out, which is an exceedingly tedious way to add combat variety after artificially curtailing it. And it still doesn't resolve the core issue, which is that each combat will boil down to a couple key combinations repeated, with little opportunity for on-the-fly strategic adaptation in power use. Maybe your a novaguard with a drone, because why not. Your key cycle is drone, charge, nova, fire, repeat for the most part. But lo, there are some nice explosive crates that could be overloaded for an extra-large explosion. Overloading those crates sure would be fun. Too bad all you can do is drone, charge, nova, fire. All the mechanic to swap powers between combats will do is give you a few different sets of simple key loops to alternate.

Individual cooldowns are just not worth that cost in flexibility imo. Now that I've considered it more, I think that's what they were trying to balance: Limit the number of active powers so you can't just nuke the battlefield by firing off all your abilities at once. Which you could do in ME1, but powers were more limited, their damage more modest, and their cooldowns long and not conducive to faster-paced firefights. For me though, the cost is too high. So many tantalizing options for combat, all kept just out of reach. And it's not as if there is a control-mapping reason to limit powers so much. All they need is to be able to dedicate a single button to swapping through sets of three powers on the fly, a la DA:I.

I think what might have been better (though more complicated on their side than individual or universal cooldowns) would be to have different "categories" of powers. Each of these categories would have a separate cooldown, so if you had two powers in the same category active, then you couldn't use both at once. You would, however, be able to use powers from a different category. That way you couldn't, say, use Overload and Energy Drain at the same time and melt a mech's shields instantly. You could, however, detonate Overload with a Throw, have a drone, and throw up a biotic shield, all in one combat. Can't be sure without playtesting of course, but I feel like a system like this, carefully applied, could maintain game balance while still leaving players with as many options and as much flexibility as they desire.

All this isn't to say that the game and combat won't still be fun, but it won't be as fun as it easily could have been.

Since it was a screenshot, it would've easily been a before/after thing that wasn't depicted because it was a screenshot.

That's if there's a mechanic as I described, of course.

~ticks another box in the not-great column~