You can't choose which abilities your squadmates use, only direct who they should attack

Damn, I gotta say, that is thorougly disappointing to read. It's also a shame, just as I was gathering a little bit of hype for the game, this news pops up in addition to the removal of tactical pause. I'll keep an open mind but I really don't like this, removing established player control and freedom in a game is never a smart idea.

You explain it really well.

You know, the game could live or die by this. If you're in combat and a big (looks like atlas but isn't) mech drops and we need to deal with that armour, stat - but everyone who had incinerate or whatever other armour-stripping powers used it on goon #2 over there and now it's on a 30 second cooldown and we're stuck here behind a rock wondering whether it'll be the heat of the sun that does us in first or the mech... I mean, it's going to be a frustrating time.

And if it's frustrating enough - if it doesn't work as it should enough - well gamers haven't proven themselves very kind in recent years and I worry it could give the game a worse rep than it deserves (since I wholeheartedly expect everything else will be pretty good).

I'm pretty sure Shinobi confirmed there is no control over abilities whatsoever on GAF's ME Community Thread (lovely community it is btw), so that aforementioned hotkey won't be happening.  


What could possibly be in the works, is an AI dictator (like Dragon Age: Origins), which specifies what abilities they should use on who, and how often....maybe there's that?  I'll ask a twitter question, see if I get a response.

Well, it's not like MEs were famous for their fully-customizable and scriptable AI. The squad control had always been meh, imo. DA:Inquisition with its dead&lucklustre 'behaviour presets' had it better than any of MEs, actually.

I can live with this 'change', as long as I'm still allowed to control the leveling process and\or their weapon loadouts. That sould give us enough room for flexing their playstyle.

The kicker in that line of thinking is that Dragon Age combat is slow. Very rarely does one wrong move really bone you. In ME, one poor choice or unexpectedly good move from the enemy AI and your barriers are down and your health is depleting rapidly.

We don't know if the d-pad buttons are available for this, the game might be using them for something else already.

The problem for me it's not even about how good or bad is the AI. I mean, if the AI is awful, then fights would be harder, that's it, but even if the squadmates make good choices and set combos perfectly on their own and all, I still had fun doing it myself.

On the other hand, I have to admit that I enjoy playing without having to pause to micromanage everything. The ideal for me it's DAO's and DA2's system, and though in MEA we're getting at best something similar to what we had in DAI (favourite powers, defend/attack), well, at least we can now set more combos on our own, and there's always the challenge of trying to take advantage of what you're squadmates are doing, I guess

I don't know, I usually played controlling all the time my squadmate's powers, but I have had fun too focusing only on what I'm doing in pt where I decided to ignore them, and that was in games designed to take advantage of them, so I imagine it will be better in one desgined to be played like that... I can understand why it bothers other people, but personally I think I'd be ok

If we still have control over squad positioning and who they attack, then the dpad is available. Power mapping could be activated by holding down the direction so that the power is used either on the person they're immediately attacking or given priority to the enemy you're softlocked to.

This was always a TPS with RPG elemelents, not the other way around.

One aspect of this (and this would be pretty fucking cool if you ask me), is if the AI is good enough to spot a boss enemy out in the open who is vulnerable, and they somehow 'call out' an attack to Ryder, where we have a window of opportunity to detonate a primed target, so reverse teamwork if you will.

Cora: Get ready to blow up my target!

Ryder: Sounds good homegirl, let's do this!



etc.

No tactical pause, only 3 ''quick powers'', and now no squadmates powers usage, plus the AI looks stupid from that latest combat gameplay trailer (standing in front of big mech, Varric is that you? )..
I'm not going to lie to myself just to feel better - I'm disappointed with those decisions.. Still I don't play ME games only for combat, so maybe I will live

Just as capable, yes. Just as probable? Hell no.

While you are correct if the best game was always "working as intended". I remember arguing with you long enough on old BSN prime to know that you know Bioware games are not always working as intended.