with up to 4 players in a coop game, waiting forever for each and every character to plan
That kind of game would use lees than 5% of product owners.
Secondly, its possible to introduce a system for pre-plan in coop. In coop you can always have focus on your toon. Always have access to your skills and invetory. You could prepare what you want, at the moment its your turn, you just press a button. That way of semi-concurent turns gratly improve gameplay. And is handy for single player. In this case you always have focus of your next toon. So you can prepare in computer movement time. There is a lot of people quick people in single player who hates to wait for getting controls back. I can understated that.
Cut off current deep combat strategy is mistake.
Still, the game has been created with 4 players coop in mind, but I agree it's probably not going to be the main consumer base.
And while I find the combat system fun in DOS1, I also think it needed improvement. And I think a simpler, more intuitive system like the 1ap/action will ultimately make the game more fluid, more dynamic, and more enjoyable... And probably harder.
The only thing that may really suffer from the change is movement - previously, you could choose to side step a bit, launch an action, sidestep again, like 2ap move - 5 ap action - 2 ap move. Now, even moving 2 steps will remove 1ap. This is a tad less organic, but a lot, lot more strategic. Movement and good placement will matter a *lot* more, just like it does in Xcom. Placement means cover, though, and that's probably why they hinted at that possibility in some of the DOS2 videos...
