OI! [tactical/combat] PAUSE!

Uhg. I hate it when forums do weird shit.

Put the game on easy, problem solved

I should have quoted, but I was responding to mjalpha's post above.

Yes, I agree that lack of pause may strip out some of the tactical elements, which is concerning (setting up combos is fun). We won't know for sure until we play, however. I'm more concerned about the folks who are considering not playing at all because they are worried the gameplay may be too fast paced for them. ME3MP is a good training ground and it's "free" for those who have ME3. So for those people who haven't touched ME3MP and are considering not buying MEA because they don't think the gameplay style is for them I say "come play with me and try it out, because once you get used to it it's actually fun."

Once Andromeda comes out we can assess whether they compensated for the lack of direct commands by improving the squad AI. If not, we can lobby for the return of tactical pause in MEA2.

Oh, no, I totally understand some people's concern for not having the Tactical Pause (TP) in MEA.  I was mostly just stating to JayKay that if he was going to play some "High Octane shooter games" to train himself, the best option to train on and the most equivalent would be ME3MP.  I have no problem with people wanting the TP or using it a lot.  Like I said, I used to as well, but just altered my style of playing after playing ME3MP.  I'm assuredly not saying everyone should do that because it's "better" or anything.  Everyone plays their own way.  I do wish it would be an option for people who like that playstyle, as well as more ability to direct squadmates (I really loved Republic Commando for how you could direct squadmates to do very specific things, for example).  I think people should have the option of the TP as it has been a staple in the MEOT, but it appears that that option will not be available.  So just as a suggestion I would say to play ME3MP to get a feel for how MEA will more than likely play as in the SP.  I'm definitely not saying that one style is better than the other, and I agree with your points for the most part.  

I suspect for those that this is an issue for will be heavily reliant on their squad. We know there are squad commands. We know there are passives in the game which boost the power of squadmates.

If you have an issue with pausing; don't. It is literally a complete non-issue if you don't want to. I don't get people who feel the need to police the way other people play games.

But honey, you never had to pause anyway. Did the game force you to? I think you had a faulty copy, you should have contacted EA support.

someone feels offended, i guess.

Sounds like l2p imo.

I will carry them to VICTORY.

This, to me, is the most frustrating part. Why would you remove a feature when there is literally no upside to doing so? What, to streamline everyone into playing how you want, instead of how they want (and how they could in all previous games)? Unfortunately, this is something Bioware has done a few times recently, with DA:I and ME:A, and I find it vexing.

Here's the new radial menu:


As you can see, it is now used for consumables (ammo powers) and weapon-switching. Only. But why? Here are the ME1/3 power wheels:



There are tons of powers available there, so you can't tell me it's because there wouldn't be room for everything; there already was. The original trilogy actually had two radial menus, the other had weapon-selection. On console, these were accessed by holding two of the power hotkeys instead of pressing them. We know that some or all powers in ME:A have alternate effects when held, so obviously you couldn't employ this system again, but that's fine because ME:A also only allows for 3 active powers. That means you only need the space of one radial menu, which they already have.

I don't get it. Why not let us do what we could in previous games and let us command our squadmates' use of powers to allow for better synergy and tactics? What is the advantage of limiting us and ending up with something less strategic? I don't buy that it's because of MP, because ME3 still had the radial menu in SP despite not having one in MP, and people (including me) had no problem switching between the two modes. I know I probably sound like a broken record by now, but I really just don't understand.

For me, this problem also overlaps with the newly-imposed 3-power limit. Why limit us to 3 active powers when we could use more in the original trilogy via hotkeys on the PC or radial menu on console? I said the exact same thing after DA:I was released with an 8-power limit when previous games had no limit. If each series had a limit since the beginning, it would be an entirely different discussion. But they didn't, and now they're arbitrarily imposing one, which makes it a flat-out downgrade. If there's something I can't stand, it's regression.

Lastly, we combine these factors: Not only are we limited to 3 active powers, but we can't "borrow" from our squadmates to setup combos or synergize in general. So instead of going from controlling somewhere in the realm of 15+ powers (enough to cover any given situation), we get 3. Yay? I'm not a fan of this gradual removal of tactical options from Bioware games of late. I try not to be a downer, but getting rid of allocating attribute points and tactics in DA:I, limiting our powers in DA:I and ME:A, giving us almost no control over squadmates in ME:A... It's not the direction I hoped they'd go.

I used the radial menu all the time in the trilogy. Sure I didn't have to, but why remove an optional feature for no benefit? No benefit and some downsides. Not just for my playstyle, but for people with disabilities or who need to or would rather take the game at a slower pace? It's hardly fair to them

So again, I ask: Why?

As an aside, I'm not too hyped about ammo powers being consumables now. It's not nearly as irksome as the above, but it's just another thing to manage on top of limited-use powers such as grenades.

People read threads on BSN?