yeah,.................. no......
I want to directly control one character, my character.... any NPC I team up with should act pretty much on their own.... anything to far beyond fallout style companions would make this game crap..
Ah, yes, it could work. I am still afraid of having dumb companions spoiling my plans though. It's pretty much the norm in games where you can't control other characters. Take Fallout 2 (or even 3) for an example. In the end I stopped taking "followers", because they ended up getting killed and were causing me more trouble than it was worth having them around.I found the NPC "scripting" function in Dragon Age worked fairly well. I know many hated it but for the most part once you got enough script options opened (and yes I thought making them a skill you had to buy was STUPID) you could pretty much ignore the rest of the party and concentrate on your character. If needed you could pause and give someone a specific action to perform but for the most part it was unnecessary.
People who claim pause being same as turn-based simply have no idea what they're talking about. There is no reason to concern yourself with them.I know I have a fundamental difference of opinion with some here, but I don't see a "pause" option in combat as at all a bad thing. Quite the opposite I like to start combat paused and look over the terrain and opposition and plan what I'm going to to, decide who's the primary target, etc. That is NOT ment to even remotely suggest I favor turn-based combat (because I know someone is going to claim anything less then non-stop real-time combat is turn based).
Didn't bother me really. With 4 companions in dungeon I got stuck occasionally when I couldn't get past'em, quick load fixed that quickly. But other than that they did nice job clearing the dungeon while I followed mostly looting. Sure they couldn't open locked doors or fix puzzles but let's be reasonable... actually rogues in D&D games often automatically open locks and disable traps.Companion AI in Skyrim was laughable, at best, until the modders starting putting out stuff.
It CAN be done reasonably well, but half-assed AI is WORSE then no AI at all.
Back on topic (is that allowed?).
1.The consensus seems to be CP2077 should be small (3 to 4) party-based rather then single character.
2.Most seem to prefer limited to no control over party member skills?
3.Most prefer limited control of party member (as opposed to main character) actions as total control almost necessitates turn-based combat because there's no practical way to control multiple people real-time?
4.An AI for party members with scripting options similar to Dragons Age. Because a single AI, no matter how good, can't take into account player variation in how they choose to play the game?
5.A "pause" option during combat is desired?
5 - A slow down might work but NOT timed. Just because one person can evaluate the tactical situation and issue orders during a 3 second pause doesn't mean everyone can. And those that can't are going to be more pissed at a too-short (for them) pause then they would be at no pause at all. As Dragon said in RL you'd probably have discussed basic tactics/reactions during the mission brief and you can certainly yell at someone to cover you or move up while you cover them during a firefight, I don't know about you but I can talk a LOT faster then I can type and hit a <Finished> button.
And just because a pause feature exists in the game is no reason you have to use it. If you can't resist the temptation don't blame the game design.
Or maybe eliminate the combat pause option in Ironman mode, so those that "need" to beat the game at it's highest possible setting can't succumb to human weakness (same reason you only get one erased-on-death save).
3 - You assume all game AI sux, it doesn't. Yeah, 90% does, but there's no reason (other then laziness on the part of the developer) it has to. I take it you never played Origins (and spent the skill points to get most/all of the scripting slots)?
Giggle.
After I'd run out of ways to play DA:O, I installed the mod to improve the scripting, and the mod to give you all slots from the start of the game, and the mod to allow you to script the character you were controlling. The challenge was to do ALL combat through scripting, and just sit back and watch the fights with no player input at all. Fun days...