334 réponses à ce sujet

[Andyk455]

I have a couple of points.  1,  when I asked a question about why me tatics show up as red letters when I am setting up reactions to enemy actions I was told that I needed to update my system drivers but I notice that i only happens with enemy listed as the first choice so it seems to me that you are simply use the red color to indicate a responce to a enemy action rather than a player character action.  Is this true  and why not simply say that in the book.
2.  I have a mage character who is a arcane warrior and every time I switch to another party character to have it do an action that is not in the tactical system the mage switches weapons to the sword and starts fighting with it rather than staying in mage mode.  There should be some type of command to keep the tactics static till a specific action is initated rather than randomly switching to the advaced skill.  When I switch back to him I have to manually switch him back to his staff.

[Franpa]

For #1, it was probably changed in a patch, hence the lack of a mention in the book/manual.

[rolnickr]

For the most part, the tactics system works well, though it lacks some flexibility. It does have trouble making use of certain class-based actions (like maneuvering your Rogues to backstab, or using a flame spell on grease traps, or even telling your mage not to aim an AOE spell right through an ally), though, and it REALLY needs Boolean operators. Right now, every tactic is a straight IF {condition A} THEN {Action B}. The ability to use AND, OR, and NOT statements, and maybe even ELSE, would make tactics far more useful. I can't count the number of times I've wished I could set up an IF {Condition A} AND {Condition B} THEN {Action C} tactic. I'd even be fine with a multi-conditional tactic taking up two slots, if that is necessary for game balance somehow.

[Brutus2]

I loved the tactics system and I felt it was really useful. I loved seeing Wynne heal people and restore stamina as soon as their health or stamina reached the set points so I didn't have to worry about it. Here are a couple of suggestions for improvemet:



I would like to see some more specific staus effects used in the tactics system so we can set tactics to use the special spell combinations. For example, I would like to set a tactic to use Stonefist when any enemy is petrified or frozen to shatter them or to cast waking nightmare on a sleeping target, but the only status effect I see is Immobile which could mean sleeping or frozen so how would the AI know which spell to use.



Another good example is that I would like to set my healer tactic to use the Revive spell to bring back a party member who has fallen in combat but I don't see any status effect in the tactics system that lets me cast a spell on a "dead" party member.



The biggest problem for me was having to adjust everyone's tactics when I switched "tanks." I would have all my party members set to attack the target of Alistar but if I wanted to swap him out for Shale, I would have to go through and change everyone's tactics to now attack the target of Shale.



The best tactic improvement of all might be the ability to set your party rogue to disarm traps or open locks when they spot them. I thought the purpose of the tactics system is to set your team's behavior so you dont have to constantly control them directly. Well, not having to swicth back and forth between my rouge and my PC every time I see a lock or trap would be nice.

[Brutus2]

rolnickr wrote...

I can't count the number of times I've wished I could set up an IF {Condition A} AND {Condition B} THEN {Action C} tactic. I'd even be fine with a multi-conditional tactic taking up two slots, if that is necessary for game balance somehow.

Like... If enemey is clustered in a group of at least three AND no party members are nearby THEN cast Fireball

That would be nice!

[Franpa]

Seriously, tactics don't work at all, it is like none of my characters have any AI what so ever. Only the character that is attacked, will attack back. everyone else sits by watching the fight happen. Sometimes/often my characters doesn't fight back at all and get slaughtered by the enemy.

I don't know what is wrong but they don't heal themselves, they don't use any special abilities themselves and they don't retaliate or defend other characters. No matter how the Tactics are setup nothing changes. I tried disabling tactics and changing my party members to freely move around as they see fit but still no change. They stand still waiting to get chopped into tiny meat pieces.

Has no one else experienced this before?


edit: I can provide a Save Game if you desire one.

Modifié par Franpa, 08 janvier 2010 - 04:32 .

[Franpa]

I'm putting this game away for a while if no one can help me with the complete and utter lack of AI for all of my party members including my character. I can't do the billion micro tasks required to keep them alive and I don't want to switch to Easy skill.

[BooPi]

I think that some of the failings of tactics have to do with specific class abilities and such.

For example, it's hard to get rogue AI to use stun attacks efficiently to get backstabs (for example, they tend to use Dirty Fighting on one target, then Riposte on another, or use them both on a target one after another without waiting for the first to wear off).

It's also hard to get AI to work together with tactics--for example, shattering enemies or comboing spells, which would be nice to get automated.

It would be nice to have more statuses (plural?) to use, and *not* statuses (I.e., not stunned) like the tactics mod that's out right now (but is not reliable).

Also, it would be nice to have a separate "Target" category. I.e., right now you can have a tactic that identifies an enemy and decides when to use an ability on that enemy, but it would be nice to have tactics that do not cause the AI to shift targets but instead evaluates only the current target and decides what to do against that target.

What I mean is, say you put in a "not status" and I make the two tactics [Enemy is not stunned -> use Dirty Fighting] and [Enemy is not stunned -> use Riposte], then the rogue AI would stun one unstunned enemy, then stun another unstunned enemy, because the AI would be looking for unstunned enemies, rather than chaining stuns on the same target. Tactics that choose targets and apply abilities would be nice, but without the ability to dictate behaviors independant of targeting means that the tactics system becomes pretty rigid.

It would be nice to have the ability to do something like [Current target is not stunned -> use Dirty Fighting] and [Current target is not stunned -> use Riposte]. So I could use higher priority tactics ("Enemy is...") to dictate target preferences and the priority application of certain abilities, and then follow with "Current Target" tactics to then narrow down the desired behavior based on the specific type and status of that target.

I've noticed that enemy AI seem to function in a similar way, so this type of thing could let you make enemies also be more reactive behaviors to the player's party as well. Did all that make any sense? I'm tired.

Modifié par BooPi, 08 janvier 2010 - 05:00 .

[Talonforge]

First off, I want to thank you for an awesome game. Kudos to you and everyone involved. You love what you do and it shows.



Now to the feedback:



* How easy or difficult do you feel the tactical interface is to use?

- I would say it's too simple and lacks good documentation/tutorials



* What would you improve in the tactical interface?

- Get rid of tactics skill (seriously, 5-6 extra slots?)

- Allow up to 40 tactics slots per character regardless of level (some of us can get pretty elaborate with our tactics at low levels, especially when trying to incorporate proper switching of melee and ranged combat)

- DO NOT SHOW blank tactics slots

- Add a "+" sign below the last tactic slot. If I use five slots and need another slot, I click the "+" to add an additional slot (up to maximum of 40). If I don't use the slot after adding it and exit the tactics window, then the slot disappears. There will be a "-" next to a used tactics slot that wil allow me to delete it. I also like being able to move around tactics slots like we do now. This will keep things looking tidy.

- When selecting abilities and such, I don't like the vertical scrolling. it gets cut off at the bottom by the quick bar for certain screen resolutions (like 1280x1024) and I cannot select spells at the bottom of the list. I suggest this: when we select "Use Ability", the action slot will say "Use Ability" and show an icon on the right of the first ability/talent available. We then just click the icon which opens up the talent window for us to select the spell or ability to use.

- Add more commands (I also recommend you look at the Advanced Tactics Mod)

1) We need commands to assist with AOE targeting so mages don't kill our tanks.

"Clustered with x enemies and no allies" (where x can be numbers 1 to 5)

"Clustered with x enemies and x allies" (where x can be numbers 1 to 5)

"Clustered with x enemies in Cone area with no allies"

"Clustered with x enemies in Cone area with x allies"

2) More Range Commands

"Enemy: In Range of Ability" - based on ability selected=true if in range and executes

"Enemy: Out of Range of Ability Goto slot"-true if out of range of ability selected and goto

"Enemy: Out of Range of Ability Move" - if out of range then move until your in range

3) Ability Use Commands

"Use Ability: Highest Damage Melee Talent Available" (if talent on cool down skip to next best damage talent; or allow us to specify up to four sequenced talents and execute first talent not on cool down)

"Use Ability: Highest Damage Range Talent"

"Use Ability: Lowest Stamina Melee Talent"

"Action: Pursue" - action tells character to pursue target

"Action: Pursue Ally X" - tellse character to move to Ally x's position

"Action: Hold" - hold position

"Action: No Hold" - character can move as normal

4) More Ally Commands

- Ally Casting Spell X - allows testing of condition for ally casting a spell or using a talent

- Enemy casting spell x - allows testing for enemy casting specific spells

5) Allow better management of switching to melee or range attacks and staying in the correct modes (I have no advice here as its currently terrible and I don't know if its just the game or script)

6) When a character is set to "Ranged" they should not run away from the main group and become an isolated easy kill for the monsters. They should be "tethered" and move back towards the nearest party member.

7) Allow us to save to "Custom" preset and allow that preset to be copied to other party members. Allow us to save to "Game Preset" which can be used when we start a new game and not have to resetup that preset for new characters.

8) Need more presets for those that don't like to tinker with details

9) PROVIDE IN GAME TACTICAL MODIFICATION TUTORIALS

* Do your party members react as you would expect them to under different tactical settings?

- They don't act right when I try to have them switch between ranged and melee combat

- When I see monsters in another room, sometimes a party member will run off and open the door to attack an enemy that was not previously visible.

* How responsive are your followers to different tactical conditions?

- In large fights, they have trouble focusing on the correct enemies



* Have you seen them behave unusually in any circumstances?

- when you are in a battle in one room and detect enemies in an adjacent room where the door is closed, your party member will sometimes run off, open the door, and start attacking mobs in the adjacent room.

- switching between ranged and melee, sometimes party member will just stand there after switching

- Line of sight - party member using ranged, mob is at short or medium range but there is a thin pillar or tree between the party member and the mob. The party member was attacking the mob, but as the mob closes in, it walks behind the pillar and the party member just stands there and will not move around it. The mob sometimes will also stop behind the pillar and bot mob and party member just stand there doing nothing.



* What kind of different ways would you want to control your party?

- Allow the selected character to execute their tactics script

- Please allow voice commands

Have Tactics voice checks for various words but allow us to define the resulting action for speaking that word. If multiple characters test for the same voice command then they all would execute whatever action was assigned to that command.

Some example voice tactic commands:

"VOICE: HEAL"

"VOICE: HOLD"

"VOICE: STAMINA"

"VOICE: ATTACK NEAREST"

"VOICE: ATTACK MAGE"

[iamjason]

I like the tactics system a lot. It has helped me focus on my main kicking ass and taking names while the AI is very helpful. Since I finished my first playthrough, my next step is learn how to set up the AOE spells around my AI.



This happened on several occasions my AI will set to default settings instead of aggressive or ranged where they will not attacked unless I highlight them to attack an enemy. It happened on the random battle with the blight spawns on the deep roads.



If my Arcane mage is equppied with the spellweaver sword, it will switch to melee instead of ranged when attacking an enemy, this usually cause my AW to die a swift death.



I think one good way is to have set coordinated points. For example like I would set two points or places for the archer be at. One at the higher place then to the tank when the enemies go after the archer. This would be set before the battle starts and automatically. Dunno if that is viable but its a good idea?

[sivant]

I think the major flaws in the current system have been covered, so I won't add to that. However, one serious weakness is systemic with the AI, and that is risk taking.



Characters move through traps, even if apparant to the party, move into range of additional fire, when taking a couple of steps back would allow them to hit their target, and avoid incomming fire.

They will walk into hazard zones (flame, ice, oil, ect) to engage enemies, when the absolute best tactic would be to engage the enemy with the enemy in the zone, and them just outside, or to back up and fight the enemy outside of the zone. Advantages that it seems the observant player should be able to take are lost in all of these circumstances, and it can make stratagies far too difficult to accomplish that should be easy (outside of timing, or being outmonuvered/performed.) It makes it not worth it to create a field of fire, when hastling with the AI could make it more dangerous for your own people than the enemy.



A feature to set basic risk taking and monuvering (whenever two people are engaging enemy, the rogues should always try to flank should be an option.) like avoiding known hazards (and which ones to not worry about) or ways to set real complex formations... like, "when there is a field of flame, gather at these x's at its nearest boarder, with enemies back to the center of flame, and your face towards center..."



The best way I cna think to do it is to closely mirror the way real combatants do it. The player draws out rough sceneriors in a sandbox like mode, or in a simple map view detailing where each participant should try to be, and which tactics mode they should be in, and the player can activate this "advanced tactic" during combat, just like a spell... select it, and highlight the focus of it (so if it is centered around an enemy, like how to take down an ogre... or on a hazard, like fields of fire, you would select the appropriet field of fire during combat) and the ai's could handle the rest, while the player can micromanage minor corrections... instead of rebuilding the entire plan each time.... very much like a play book from sports like football.



The current system is like mass effect with a tagged on tree to handle the larger skil list, but the larger party and more complex scenerios make this insufficient. Also, in mass effect, AI actively sought cover, because it ALWAYS made sense. You can't assume that in this... but to anyone savy, it is usefull to know.... if you can keep enemy archers running around trying to get a shot, by stepping behind a rock, any sane person would do it, rather reflexively.

[zerocavities]

I experienced a bug when I want my tank to use Taunt when an ally is surrounded by at least 2 hostiles. Instead of the tank using Taunt, he will just stand in his current position and do nothing.



Also, will it be possible to add a parameter wherein, when u set a character to attack the lowest hp hostile, it will attack the one with the lowest current hp instead of the lowest max hp of the bunch.

[rpgplayer1]

Victor Wachter wrote...
What would you improve in the tactical interface?

Well, I would add multiple conditions for single tactic slot. At least a two. That's kind a thng that I found lacking.

For example, if I let Sleep be cast on groups of 3 people, I would also like to not be cast on enemies at range farther then medium for example, to prevent mage from charging in battle, especially if smaller 2 man group is closer.

Same for Horror spell. I first wanted it to be cast on enemies with lots of health, but it was disaster, since mage was always charging in, due to its small range. At the end, I was forced to switch to "range: medium" as casting condition.

^In fact, in relatation to this, this "charging" behavior could be controlled by behavior settings instead. More cautios mage should try to keep distance, not seek enemies (even if it means not meeting tactics conditions), while agressive one would try to meet this tactics goals by going closer if possible.

^In relation to this, when characters with Hold Position can't make their tactics objectives, instead on switching to their next tact, they get stuck waiting. Please fix this.

Some status effects are missing. Most obvious one being frozen. Let's make it easier to automate spell comboes, by having all proper conditions present.

Single target conditions can't use clustered condition. in Makes sense is some way, but attacks like Scattershot do injure group of enemies, while only targeting one, so it's kind unfair that it is missing.

Make Jump tactics waste no skill points. Goto to another line is not really an action, so it's kinda unfair to lose tactic slot on that.

More tactic slots per tactic skill. 1 slot is not really much for losing skill point. Let it be somethings like 2/2/3/3.

Modifié par rpgplayer1, 08 janvier 2010 - 08:29 .

[Bogartan]

Maybe if there were more "default" actions (Defensive, Cautious, etc) -- I don't use the ones that won't allow the character to attack unless directed by the player. There's been too many times that a character is just standing around and I didn't notice because I was wrapped up in the battle.



This default action may be the root of the "standing around" trouble, a state of inaction I think should never happen. Maybe if there was another drop-down box that specified what default to do when attacked. Other than this, the default routine seems to work great.



The tactics interface itself is nice, though I did have a little trouble understanding it at first.



Oh, and . . . more slots please!

[Funker Shepard]

For some reason, when I was playing around with the Tactics, I always got the feeling that it wouldn't let me do what I was trying to do... The two things that come to mind off the top of my head were taking a specific action when enemy is frozen and/or petrified (or even just one of the two!), or targeting clustered enemies with scattershot...



So... more options for target states and able to target an individual enemy based on the fact that it's in a cluster of others... those seem like the one's I felt were actual omissions in the system. Frankly, after that, didn't look into it a lot more...



Not too crazy about tying the amount of slots to the skill. I kind of hate having to choose between in-game and metagame abilities... :/

[ArathWoeeye]

A continuous issue I had was the bard constantly switching to melee weapons eventhough I had no settings to set her to melee. This caused me to unequip her melee weapons and only equip them manually if she's forced in melee, which was tedious.



Other than that, I haven't managed to create two-condition actions. I thought "go to step x" thing to do that, but never worked for me. Maybe it was meant for something else. Either way, simple conditioning directly through the interface would be better.

Something like:

ConditionMenu LogicMenu ConditionMenu ActionMenu

Condition and actions are the current ones in the game. Logic menu includes AND and OR. So you can go

Target attacking Wynne OR Target is Elite Cast Crushing Prison

Just made it up.



*More slots could be better. I didn't bother using tactics because I never ended up with enough slots.



*On-the-fly tactics change could be good idea without going to tactics screen. For instance, wynne is down and you want morrigan to heal. Morrigan is currently set to "Mayhem" set. There is a button in the action bar, you click it and she starts using the "Healer" set. A minor update but I'm guessing it would be easy to implement.



*Positioning. Especially for rogues. I may have missed it, but there should be an option to stay at enemies back.



*An additional option for sustained abilities to be cast always. It's tedious to control everytime and it's just a waste of slot to have two slots to cast precision strike and threaten at all times (made up), esp if you dont have tactics skill high enough. Sustained abilities to be cast with triggers however, should be normal options.

[Proleric]

I prefer manual control.

[BitSypder]

I have to admit when I first saw the tactics screen I was a bit put off, thinking that it looked to compicated and there was no real guide on how to use. I generally prefered to turn it off and micro-manage.



Later, I did try and set up my archer to change to melee when being attacked by melee and then change back to bow, I changed the behaviour to keep a distance. but I couldn't get it to work, The character just stopped responding and stood there. So I gave up with it.



I only use it to heal themselves with health potions when its low. and i set the melee characters to attack anyone who attacks my main character who is a mage.



I tried to setup morragan to cast hexs and debufs first before casting damaging spells but never seemed to work in correct order and she kept freezinf my own characters with her CoC. which was funny at first, but so much now.



Perhaps a some visual feedback on what the AI is thinking might help me. like ( being attacked by melee) speech bubble, or something like that. then when I got the hang of it I could turn the visual feedback off.

[Daerdor]

How easy or difficult do you feel the tactical interface is to use?

The interface is very logic and easy to use. Especially the ease with which you can change the order of tactics, disable single tactics etc is very nice, two thumbs up!

What would you improve in the tactical interface?

Sometimes it's hard to find the actual condition, for example I want a warrior to use Overpower in case a target is frozen so the critical hit causes a shattering effect. The condition 'frozen' is not there so it took me a while to find that 'Immobilized' is the one to use. It would be nicer if the actual condition 'frozen' is shown.

This is just one example, there can be more.

Do your party members react as you would expect them to under different tactical settings?

The overall behaviour is a bit tricky to select. I mostly leave it on default for warriors/rogues and ranged for mages/archers. With tricky I mean that if I use any of the special behaviours my characters would rush into enemy mobs, keep following enemies through AoE effects etc.

How responsive are your followers to different tactical conditions?

As far as I can tell the tactics I used worked according to my setup. I have to admit I didn't try out all options.

Have you seen them behave unusually in any circumstances?

In 99% of the cases, when they did something unusual it was because I screwed up the tactics system

What kind of different ways would you want to control your party?

My only concern is the amount of slots available. In order to set up more advanced tactics several slots are needed which, especially in the early stages of the game, are not available. Mostly I want to invest my skill points into other skills instead of tactics slots.

[IGedit]

Franpa wrote...

I'm putting this game away for a while if no one can help me with the complete and utter lack of AI for all of my party members including my character. I can't do the billion micro tasks required to keep them alive and I don't want to switch to Easy skill.

The tactics DO work, if setup correctly. This is not really the thread to discuss it. But there are a few basics:

*Remember - the tactics turn off when you take control of the character

Start off really basic to see how it works - try the following on one of your mage companions (Morrigan, for example):

Set her to Ranged, then setup the tactics:

1. Self:Any Health < %50 ---->   Use least powerful health poultice
2. Enemy: Target of controlled party member -----> Winter's Grasp
3  Enemy: Target of controlled party member ------> Attack

This is good for focus-fire.

So what happens is:

Battle starts - you select a target with your PC, and Morrigan will do the following:

• Round 1: tactic 1 is false, so she will move to tactic 2 and cast Winter's Grasp on your PC's selected target
• Round 2: if tactic 1 is still false, she will try to cast Winter's grasp again. If it's still on cooldown, she will use her base staff attack
• Round 3: Let's assume her health is at 30%, she will drink a potion
• Round 4: If she's still below 50% health, she'll drink another potion, if not , she'll cast Winter's Grasp

And so on.... Each round starts at the top of the tactics list and works down through them until it finds a "true" condition

[huwie]

rolnickr wrote...
...it REALLY needs Boolean operators. Right now, every tactic is a straight IF {condition A} THEN {Action B}. The ability to use AND, OR, and NOT statements, and maybe even ELSE, would make tactics far more useful. I can't count the number of times I've wished I could set up an IF {Condition A} AND {Condition B} THEN {Action C} tactic. I'd even be fine with a multi-conditional tactic taking up two slots, if that is necessary for game balance somehow.

I agree with this. In theory we could build complex conditionals on top of conditional jumps like assembly-language programmers used to, but it burns slots, is hard to understand/debug, and can get messed up when you drag slots around (auto-renumber would be nice here).

Another thing I've missed: the ability to export/import scripts to/from text files. That would let players transport scripts from game to game and also share them with others, so if they've got Alistair behaving exactly as wanted, they don't need to try to recreate that each time. Obviously this might lead to the script calling for capabilities that Alistair doesn't have yet but so what? They could be ignored (and maybe greyed out in the script editor). For many of us, I suspect text file editing would be more comfortable than clicking and scrolling around the script editor.

An "icing on the cake" feature would be hover/popup help on abilities and spells within the script editor.

[huwie]

How about maintaining state (basically, remembering the action it took last time) between iterations of the tactics engine.



"if last action was a buff then do something more active..."



to avoid stacking so many buffs together before the fight begins.



I'll be asking for variables next

[Spell Singer]

Victor Wachter wrote...

• How easy or difficult do you feel the tactical interface is to use?
  
• What would you improve in the tactical interface?
  
• Do your party members react as you would expect them to under different tactical settings?
  
• How responsive are your followers to different tactical conditions?
  
• Have you seen them behave unusually in any circumstances?
  
• What kind of different ways would you want to control your party?

[*]The interface was fairly easy to use.  The mechanics of setting up the conditionals was clear, and re-ordering them was easy.  It was often not so clear which option was the best one to get the desired effect.  The behaviours were the most confusing part of the page.  Even though the descriptions were clear the actual one you wanted to select to get the desired effect was often not obvious.  The only negatives are that the defaults basically seem poorly chosen to me (missing basic things like drink potion if health is less than 25%) and that it is often a bit of trial and error to get the order right to do what you want.
[*]
[*]They react fairly well as I would expect.  There is a limitation that they can't read my mind and hence they may not follow the "plan" I have in mind but for the most part I could more or less get them to do what I want.  There were issues with the mages and the archers where they absolutely did not do what I wanted and I could never find a satisfactory solution outside of direct intervention.  The issue here was being engaged in melee.  I am still trying to find a setting for an archer which will get them to behave like the NPCs where they avoid melee if possible and if not engage their attacker.  Currently the archer will engage the last target often resulting in them running across the battlespace.  Mages are similiar but to get one which avoids melee while stil engaging targets with spells has proven equally difficult.  The rogues also do not automatically seek backstab positioning which is irritating.  The main issue here is the behaviour setting rather than the specific tactics.
[*]I'm not sure what you mean by different tactical settings.  The behaviours are not what I would expect in at least the case of ranged as the character will engage in melee with the last ranged target and not with the person attacking them.  Also setting up a chain of events often is not as straightforward as you might like, so you are left wondering if you have the ordering right.  This is something that happens with the mages most often since you have to worry that they will engage people close to them as opposed to doing something far away.  It is also hard to script in sensible buffing as opposed to healing and such.  And there were some serious questions about the behaviour settings in my mind.  I often swapped between ranged and default behaviours for lilliana to get her to behave as I wanted.
[*]They aren't responsive at all unless your scripting is good.  Though again I am likely far to much of a "micro manager" in the tactical combat sense to see them at their best.  They usually do ok if left alone but they aren't brillant and their choice of targets is often poor.  But I don't expect them to respond to changing tactical circumstances as that is what I am there for anyway.  The system does a good job of handling the routine combat stuff so I think it is acceptable.
[*]I have seen a fair number of unusual behaviours.  The NPCs have a total lack of awareness of AOE spell areas so getting fireballed by your allies is a fairly routine occurance.  Lilianna got stuck in a loop where she switched weapons contionusly and got chopped up.  The archer engaging the last ranged target rather than the current person attempting to attack them at close range.  Melee characters dropping out of combat even though there are lots of targets around.  I noticed this in the battles at red cliffe village, I think it might have to do with too many NPCs in a confined space (it was a big scrum).  I had to go in and manually assign a target.   Fighting near a doorway often is a mess since it is very hard to get the character to hold position at the door (other than using the hold position button) and then the NPCs just run between you anyway which is very odd.
[*]I'm not sure what you mean by different ways to control party members.  What is frustrating me at the moment is the fact that lilianna does not behave sensibly as in: if set up for missile combat do that till someone charges her, then first try to avoid them by moving, if that fails pull out the melee weapon, do a stun attack move around behind and backstab away.  Mages are much the same.  Avoiding melee attacks is just not so hard to do yet you have to baby sit them to get them to do it.  And if you are playing a warrior this is a lot less easy to do since you are more focused on the combat around you.
[*]Overall I think the tactics system works very well for routine stuff and it's easy enough to disable it for when things get hairy.  It does not seem suited to "complex" tactics though.  Doing anything remotely complex like say defending a doorway is usually difficult to achieve and most often requires using the hold position button and an unfun amount of hopping from character to character.