DA2 had no tactical camera. You can't convince me that a game that barely let's you zoom out from one character with your view was designed to be focused on managing your entire party.
Because let's focus on that - managing your party. I'm not talking about checking your party's health and pausing to use healing or buff magic periodically. I'm not talking about making sure all the cooldown Attacks have been ticked off for all members at all times to make sure the highest DPS is active. These are things you do in Mass Effect and it doesn't make it a party-based game.
Let's review the word "tactics" to explain what I think you are missing.
Tactics
noun
1. (usually used with a singular verb) the art or science of disposing military or naval forces for battle and maneuvering them in battle.
2. (used with a plural verb) the maneuvers themselves.
Tactics is specifically dealing with unit placement and utilization of those units to achieve your goals. A game that does not let you see the battlefield does not allow tactical gameplay. Not to mention the unit speed and Attack of DA2 made unit placement TOTALLY irrelevant. Enemies will cross the entire screen in three seconds, so trying to divert Attacks or protect units or flank enemy forces all were next to useless endeavors. Not to mention the spawning waves of combat made any use of unit placement effective only for the first round, while completely disrupted and ineffective each subsequent wave.
The game had some STRATEGY, in terms of ability choice, level building and the application of both against different enemies, but the game is not an exercise in tactics. Hence, it is not a tactical game. Nor is it a party-based one in terms of combat, because the game is focused in nearly every way possible on controlling one party member at a time instead of issuing orders out to each unit in order to work as a cohesive group.
So if we can't convince you otherwise on a feature that doesn't exist in one game...what is the point of this conversation again?
Strategy and tactics are not the same thing, we all agree on that, but to call the companies focus on Strategy over tactics a mistake and all the other stuff you said...well, that's just sour grapes if you ask me when we knew that wasn't really the focus to begin with with a game like Dragon Age II. I remember the marketing focusing on things like strategy and action-combat over tactics, with many guys saying the 'dice rolling in the background' was tedious, so it was clear they were going a different way, and had ideas on how to do it.
And calling Dragon Age II not a party based game is also very misguided in of itself, when you have A.I commands that are designed for situations that the party does for you. No control over that is the same as not clicking people in Pillars of Eternity for a minute, they just stand there like a lump, removing any strategic value from them in the process. This is the up and downs of tactical games; but people tend to forget how difficult tactics are.
Hell, in the tabletop realms I can name only one game that tried to combine tactics into the gameplay aggressively, and it was 4th Edition DnD. For all of it's faults, it is the only game on the tabletop I remember playing recently where people actually have to work together as a cohesive party, and use their abilities tactically to get ahead. Outside of that and the old school versions of DnD and the massive war-games...most tabletop games are far from tactical, primarily because their mechanics tend to keep players individuals in the party without consequence at times, GM permitting of course.
As for the rest of the arguments made here...look I never had an issue with the tactical camera, but I also never really used it because I don't like the overhead view in Dragon Age. It is bad enough many of the other mechanics and abilities have been catered to the use of tactics and planning that way, some of which detriment the ability to implement actual strategies in the thick of combat. But to each their own I guess.
I will say this, I still don't understand the issues with the tactical camera in the end though. But I doubt I ever will, since I never saw any issues with it to begin with outside of how it affects the whole game.
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