Firts thing i'll like to said that overall i love the game. I made three full playthrought of it, taking different characters and aproachs and playing around 500 hours. I don't waste 500 hours in something i don't like so even i'm pointed here the things i don't like in the game, that things being here don't change my mind that it's a great game.
The combat setting for an strategic game is great, as well as the builds and classes and all the ways to mix it and the almost infinite options to aproach a combat, even the homeground rules fit the game most of the time. Certainly it lacks some challange and even tactician feels easy most of the time. But it's true that it's really difficult that you can adapt a system as open as D&D 5 to a non DM system. In that regards, i'll said that for me the challange get better when you start to be your own DM and limit the sheanigans the system itself allows.
The history itself is ggod and your companions are great in their quest and background (they all seens unfinished when comes to both romance and endings, more on that later)
But certainly the game should have benefit from more time to finish it. It's really amazing and something to be praised that larian have released 4 big patches in 4 moths, but the true is that most of the features on this patches should have been there from the start, and this four months should have been invested in finished the game.
Still there's thing that really should be an early game devolopment that they never look at:
-QOL: This is the main issue of the game. It lacks any kind of QOL features. Let start with inventory management. Why the game doesn't have a shared inventory? It have it at gameplay feature, you can literally telepord things from a character on one corner of the map to a character in the opposite, without any meaning they are in combat or not. The only reason for separate inventories to exist is to bother the player, literallly
Second big quality of life issue, party management. In a game that you can have up to 9 companions (ignoring hirelings). I can't understand why they don't implement a party selection screen. To change a companion you must go to camp, walk to them (in some camps it's a little trekking) talk to dismmiss them (with amazing, you need a two confirmation to this! seriously, is not like you are getting rid of they forever isn't just one time order enough?) after that walk to the other and talk to them to join the party. Just like inventory, something without any gameplay interactions as you can teleport to camp anytime, and in the few times you can't , just block the party selection as you block the travel to camp option
Another one that will be a litlle issue if the others two are adressed,but its a pain right now that it not having any means to change equipment or inventory of characters not currently in your party.
These are the big ones for me, there's still a lot of small QOL features I can think and probably some that i forgive like for example the default option for a container inside a container should be open, not take. Or the sorting optiongs for inventory working properly when you select "type" or even autostack many things that don't
-Main Character: Your character will be unfinished by any means (if you play custom/durge). they don't have voice (i don't buy that people don't like it, there's a minority of people that don't like it and they said it to save cost) but they also doesnt even have facial and body expressions comparable to the others characters. The end feeling for me is that the finished the game history but fail to put the character in that history, and isntead put a doll.
-Companions (or more specific, romance): Your party members are generally great, They fell lively and i like their historys and quests. I don't like the personality of some of them (lazel, karlach) but i also think that it's great from a narrative perspective, they are well made enough to have a persoanlity you can dislike. But all the great building of those characters go out the window when romance enters in scene. Romances are lame, they looks like cut content added by a modder (and i see cut content adding by modders in many games with ten times the quality of this) they are just a date sims minigame with no meaning in history and mission.
-Ending: Or better said, the lack of it. I want to make this spoiler free as the rest so my only comment is that finished the game feels more like a corrupt savegame than a real ending (again something that go along with not really finish the game)
