... I think I hated most of the Cool New Features that <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> added on top of Divine <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />.
For instance:
Summoning Dolls - When I received the first doll, I was fairly excited to have discovered a "new party member". Upon discovering that the poor skeletal sod was next-to-useless, had absolutely no personality, and couldn't move more than a few steps without poofing back into whatever poor hell he came from... well... I was a bit miffed. I splurged a couple points of my death knight's skills into "Add Summon Radius" (or whatever it's called) and still wasn't really impressed. Never used any dolls whatsoever after that except for the rather undignified purpose of being pack mules.
(The only dynamic I did sort of like was the rather peculiar course of events regarding the Act 3 doll, but even then it could've been a lot better. She needed lines, for instance, even if it was just something like "Ack, I am a doll, etc". I guess that with a very multi-national game like these are, more text equals more translation cost and is therefore bad, but... I guess I've never given up longing for another game with Planescape: Torment-style dialogue...)
Plus, the stupid skills are unforgettable, so I'm stuck with them. Poor death knight; now he's stuck with both stupid skills and bad acting. What more does he need?
Battlefields of endless... everything - Battlefields, while an interesting idea and a fun thing to hunt for the keys to, quickly became really, really repetitive and boring for me. Sure, it's kinda fun sometimes to deal with all the random crap you can stomach, and when you go into it at least being aware of what's in store for you, it's fine, but... (At least they didn't somehow try to tack the random stuff onto the "real" storyline, etc.) Also, I'd really rather have had the "good stuff" merchants be the ones in the real acts and have the BF merchants inherit the mediocre-at-best stuff I seemed to find in shops in the main game.
Shadow, Ethereal, Bone, Spiritual, blah, BBQ, blah, etc - Okay. One resist for each element, plus one for poison... got it. A generic "magic-like" resist... okay. A specific resistance for shadow and bone? Umm... A specific weapon skill for shadow and bone?! What the... What is the difference between spiritual and ethereal, anyway? And why bother differentiating them?
All non-funny attempts at humour aside, all the extra resists and weapon types (and especially the fact that I needed a separate skill to use them) just bugged me. I'm thinking that simple is probably better in regards to this matter.
What's next? A weapon skill and resistance specifically for weapons made out of pressed ham? Special resistance to paper cuts and lethal newspaper projectiles? Charms of +5 Resist Bread Products? Avoid the carbs! /shrug
Supar Combined Everything Window~! - Just kind of annoyed me, especially since it obscures a pretty good chunk of screen, even at high res.
Lockpick is still broken - Okay, so this is probably just a bug and not a design decision, but since I'm ranting about things, I thought I'd throw it in.
Super-Classless Skill System - Alright, another very personal gripe, but I seem to prefer class-based systems, or at least something that pretends to be one. It just somehow seems more fun to me to try and make the best character out of a given tree of skills (or whatever set of constraints you prefer) as opposed to being free to develop the combined tank-mage-thief of my dreams. In addition, some of the skills struck me as supremely useless, and that did really irritate me; why do we need separate skills for every damn type of arrow and trap? Ah well...
Things I did appreciate:
The ability to dictate more aspects of your hero's appearance: I was able to, for instance, make a fit and muscular paladin-type hero for my first game, a skinny mage the second (though the thin model is a tad too thin, I think), and then for fun, play as an overweight anti-hero who started out as the cook for the paladin camp and survived by sheer survivor's luck. (Oh, and she used a sharpened frying pan as her weapon of choice. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> )
The multi-character thing in general - Though poor Death Knight is saddled with some slightly substandard voice acting and a few goofy lines, I appreciated the chance to run around with two characters, though I'd still have liked the chance to vary his appearance (and maybe even gender/other characteristics). It always seems to make a game more interesting to have another perspective on things than your main character's. I'm not suggesting that <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> become another Final Fantasy with more character interaction than actual game, but eh well.
