GamePlanet Interview with Mike Gamble Dec 22'16

I panicked a bit too before I read the article and now as confused as you are. Though, now I begin to think that he did in fact meant "different reaction from NPC sibling" and slightly different presentation of of the same dialog options adjusted to the gender. At least I want to think this   Because taking away character personality would be too much even for modern BW.   

Ah! I so called the different personalities for Scott and Sara. I'm glad. Having two supposedly different protagonists sharing the exact same personality would have been such stupid writing, and would have made no sense to me.
Somehow, I expect it might be a little based off on the VA's. Tom sounds like a generally steady, analytical kind of guy, and Fryda sounds a bit more outgoing. It is inevitable I will prefer one over the other, though I don't know which yet, but that will not mean the one I like less is bad (unless the writing is truly awful, but considering how enthusiastic Tom, a MET fan, was about it, I feel cautiously hopeful it won't be a narrative disaster).

Edit: I don't have much expectations it will be some grandiose narrative to begin with, I never do with video games. I admit I'll be happy if it's coherent and entertaining enough. At least with two different personalities, I already feel more compelled to do multiple playthrough. Something I don't see the point of with TW3, and most other SP games.

So two pieces of interesting news. First of all...I am very intrigued about this multi personality thing. On the one hand having a larger base to launch from sometimes helps out the role playing. The more solid the foundation, the better it is to actually role play a specific character I have found. At least in general...see Hawke. What I worry about is their ability to execute and pull it off, without pissing people off. Me included. They are playing a very interesting game and the balance is the key. On the flip side...replayibility frak yeah.

My read on this whole 'swappable profile thing' is...based on the information we know, if we unlock and are using various skills and powers through the game at any given time the profile will 'unlock' which will give the player the option to invest in those, likely three, particular skills and give them bonuses. So if you are a combat type person it'll likely give you Overkill, Adrenaline Rush, and Marksman, for instance. But then, if you unlock another profile by speccing into those powers at some point decide, "I want to be an engineer", and then run those specific skills and bonuses that gives you. It does not mean you "forget" the other skills. No more then logging off Microsoft Word and loading Mass Effect on my computer means its forgotten Word. At the worse you will have to temporarily "delte" those programs on your omni tool and then reload them at a later time. And, for more of a gameplay related reference, it does not mean Kara Trevelyan "forgot" how to use leaping shot just because I specced her into "explosive shot". She still knew how to use the former, but preffered the latter.

Which I wish they did something like this for the Original Triology. It made no sense to me that my Sentinel Cameron Shepard could use this amazing ability with his Omni tool known as Tech Armor and yet my soldier Abigail Shepard couldn't 'download' that program onto her Omni tool and use it. Especially when it matched her gameplay style a bit more then it did his. Granted it gets a little wonky when you introduce Biotics into the equation, but if we just assume the pathfinder is a biotic, then there is that explanation.

Sounds like Ryder=Transformer

Pathfinders!  Roll out!

Maybe the pathfinder stumbles on a bowling ball that makes his/her hand glow green and gives them these abilities?

I'm still disappointed about this, to be honest. I don't think "tactical pause" would be as intrusive as they think it is. This just feels more like BioWare is continuing their habit of fixing things that weren't broken in the first place.



Ehhh.

I don't honestly get why they don't implement something like the XCOM TPS or more specifically Witcher 3 where going to a wheel does not entirely stop the action just slows it down. If they are so worried about interupting pacing that seems to be the way to go.

One thing I hope is that - and I have confidence in Montreal on this one - that there will still be cutscene variations depending on your playstyle, so if you've unlocked an "adept" title by selecting the required abilities in the skill-tree certain cutscenes will show you using biotics rather than tech or weaponry, like in Omega DLC where it actually mattered a little bit. (Citadel DLC as well)

The approach they're taking sounds like Witcher 3 to be honest, where you have all talent trees available and you just have to commit to whichever one you like to unlock certain abilities and then once you have earned an ability you have to activate it to make use of it. It sounds like we'll have to unlock plenty and then select the few ones we want. There's no "pausing" apparently and all gameplay footage only shows 3 active abilities at once so I'm guessing that's how it works.

They commented earlier that this time you'd have to scroll through abilities instead of pausing and selecting, but the more I think about it the more I think they meant what I just described above, so you only have 3 abilities per combat scenario and then if you want to change it, you'll have to switch around your build in a menu.

Not sure I like the sounds of it. Sounds like established personalities for protagonists rather than player getting a say into characterising them.
getting prepared for reams of characterised auto-dialogue.

It's weird to read this after just having played the Asteroid X57 DLC on Mass Effect 1 and choosing not to fight Balak so people could survive, instead of letting him blow everyone up just so I could kill him.