They won't. BioWare makes games that fit in with their time period.
The Baldurs Gate series was made in a similar manner to other RPGs of the era. Mass Effect 2-3 and DA2-DAI are all considered "action" RPGs, which is the way RPGs are currently being made. Origins and ME1 are anomalies. Even Bethesda is "guilty" of it.
I have a feeling it has something to do wiith the changing demographics of people that actively play video games, but unless someone far more qualified that me actually does some research on it. Ideally, it isn't for a headline on some website, which is unlikely.
I would consider ME1 just as much of an action RPG as the other two. It's simply more "action" and less "shooter" with stuff like the biotics.
I vehemently disagree about DA ][. Vehemently. DA ][ has the same combat system as DA:O. You don't have the tactical camera, but you have everything else.
But I understand your point.
Them saying it will result in criticism and potential lost sales. So they won't.
They may try and make improvements to the tac cam for DA4, but that's only because its one of the most loudly decried aspects of the game currently (outside of the large amount of static fetch/delivery/murder quests). I'd be less than surprised, however, if the action side of the combat also got more of a boost, maybe with QTE or button combos activating powers (X, X, A, B unleashes Mighty Blow).
Then again, maybe I'm totally wrong and the team had an amazing, awesome vision for DA:I that just couldn't get out of the gate due to technical limitations and challenges. Maybe the tac cam couldn't work as intended with Frostbite, or maybe the pulled back nature of the tac cam mode ate up too many resources, which is why time can only be moved forward slowly, or why commands issued in tac cam get cleared out of the "queue" whenever the player goes back to "action" mode. Given how much Bioware tried to do with this game from strictly a technical standpoint, I could see this being the case.
My problem is then that they not only decided that the game was okay enough as it is to be considered a good tactical experience (which I can understand - its not well designed, but it IS functional), but that they went on to HYPE this pre-release, even as recently as a few weeks beforehand with the whole "PC games by PC gamers thing." THAT to me shows that they didn't see any problems with the system, that it wasn't an incomplete, rough product from what they envisioned, but that they really believed the system was exactly as they designed it. And that means they just aren't that involved with that type of mechanic to be critical enough to say "can someone play the whole game like this?"
Either that or their PR is INCREDIBLY stupid. Given some of Bioware's previous PR gaffs, I can buy this being the case.
Yeah, that's true.
EA, I wanted to go back and touch on a few points I don't think I addressed fully.
It wasn't just Laidlaw that said that, BTW. For instance, John Epler had said in his Twitter feed that DA:I was finally the game he went into video game development to make. John Epler - the cinematic director - said that about a game that removed cinematics from every conversation outside of the main quest.
Mind you - I'm not against Bioware dialing back their cinematic focus, but the reason why is that some older games allowed for much more nuance and variance to accomplish things or have events play out differently. DA:I eschews that for more quests, more areas and more NPCs, all of which are flat and have zero variance.
Still - for the cinematic designer to say that makes me scratch my head... it sounds like the game he wishes Bioware made was more like TellTale, where main story cinematics are of high quality and there is NO side content. Which, to be honest, might not be a bad move for Bioware to make. Then again, they have changed the DNA of every DA game to date in each installment not to mention sunk a lot of resources into making this whole open world RPG thing work, so the ship on changjng DA in a new, radical direction has likely sailed at this point.
That makes me scratch my head too. But your conclusion doesn't make sense to me at all, because DA I was literally the opposite: it was overflowing with trash side content. So it's a weird statement. I don't know what to make of that.
In terms of story and tactics, Divinity: Original Sin does a good job of making your party of two mechanic interesting. I'm not a huge fan of the Rock/Paper/Scissors persuasion system, but fighting with yourself (so to speak) made for a rather interesting feature. Not to mention the additional companions you can recruit on top of that (or the fact that you can play co-op, although I haven't tried that and don't know of anyone else who has outside of just a few minutes as a novelty).
Also, I think Banner Saga did a really stand up job making a turn-based, tactical system that was easy to learn and yet still challenging. And it's story, as well as development of characters, is pretty gripping.
And, of course, there is Pillars of Eternity. Which should just be named "Kickstarter's Litmus Test," since, while it hasn't garnered the highest dollars or amount of backers for a video game, it still seems to be the Golden Child of the indie video game circles, especially for RPGs. There will be companions and definitely tactics, although the beta-testers I've talked to seem to not think HUGELY high of some of the design decisions, it still is RPG down to its bones.
ShadowRun may not be story or party based the way a DA game is, but I can hardly say it doesn't fall into the subset, despite the overly easy nature of ShadowRun's power leveling. And Wasteland 2 plays like an old Fallout game, but with four controllable PCs instead of one, which is exactly what I think they were going for. It's not perfect and the game traded a feeling of openness and freedom (which fell flat in the Nevada section, but came through strong in LA) for a story that has some stumbling blocks to engaging the player.
So I don't think a game has come out that fits DA's exact spot in the industry, but that's just a little unfortunate and may even be just a matter of time.
I haven't played D:OS yet (I'll get it when it goes on sale for $20 or $15), but while that two-PC system sounds interesting, it doesn't sound like Bioware at all. And I suspect the combat is less like DA and more like BG (just a hunch, I have no information).
Never played the Banner Saga, honestly have no idea what it's like.
Pillars I imagine will play like an Infinity Engine game. Does DA:O play like an Infinity Engine game?
I definitely agree that Shadowrun is within the same category of "tactical RPG." Better in some ways because it's real turns, and has an AP system. But it's very simple. It doesn't scratch the Hammer & Sickle itch as much lightly rub it (no, nothing weird meant here).
I had hopes for Wasteland 2. But honestly, after playing like an hour and my first two enemies being a gigantic roly-poly bug and a deformed rabbit with fangs, it's hard to take that game seriously.
I'd agree that they're all subsets of tactical RPGs, and it's great that we've got more tactical RPGs out there. But none do what DA does, which is have an AI-based combat system where you can take as much or as little control as you desire (technically it still has this, though it's deviating into action territory, requiring more user control).
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My gal has 0 points in charisma while his has several. I still often win. XD The system still sucks, though, agreed. If I miss two guesses he will win the argument due to his character's sky high charisma. I understand why they went with a quick and dirty way to resolve conflict resolution, but the system is hardly fair.
