I have to say I agree on the tactics part. I really liked being able to automatically prioritize certain things. Like having a tactic for 'being attacked by ranged' -> attack/use shield wall/whatever.
Hell, I'd even consider having the AI behavior styles an upgrade at this point. The ones that decided what kind of playstyle the AI would use? Like if you set it to ranged, they'd run away when being attacked by melee and stuff. Now they just stand there. Hell, sometimes I'll catch Varric running into melee range because the angle's a bit awkward and he can't line up a shot. In Nightmare, I have to pop into the tactics screen like every two seconds. I have to micromanage almost every aspect of the fight. It's to the point where I'll have all their abilities disabled and will just use them manually. I'll probably switch down to Hard since I can't be arsed to do this for every encounter. Having at _least_ the behavior types back would be a huge improvement, IMO.
The 'defend' thing pisses me off; don't even get me started on that. Used to be you could set a tactic for your mage being attacked, and you'd go attack, taunt, or CC whatever was attacking them. Now the defender just sits with their thumb up their **bleep** until a stray arrow hits their defend target. IMO, defend could be significantly improved if when set, the character with the defend behavior defends ANYONE who gets hit but prioritizes their defense target. So if THAT person gets hit, they'll drop everything to help them, but they won't sit there like idiots for 50% of the fight.
As for healing, I'm not sure I completely agree with you. It's true, you'll have to use almost everything at your disposal to survive, but that's sort of a good thing. I'd wager you can still get around with a full DPS group with smart use of guard, tonics, and grenades. I'd probably still bring a mage with barrier at the very least, but it sounds doable.
IMO, tweaking tactics was one of the fun parts of playing DAO and DA2 at higher difficulties(that and solo runs). The best thing is that if you didn't like the system you didn't have to use it. You could easily do NM solo or play at a lower difficulty. It had something for everyone and I don't know why that was changed. ☹️
