Alright, so one thing you'll learn about me, is that I actually have what doctors call a "severely impaired" memory, which means that I'm actually in the bottom .1% of the population, routinely forgetting things that I've just done. Can't do much to help that.
But yes, I would be all for giving this system a try. That doesn't mean I think I'll like it, though.
The problem with your suggested solution for making mages useful is that it revolves around things that can no longer be done, unlike in the first game. Field control is nigh useless between the prevalence of Phoenix Dive, the added range on archers, and the fact that Battle Stomp exists, and easily cleanses surfaces. Dropping mad combos in the first game was a matter of simply having enough AP to do so; in this game, you have enough AP to cast 2 of what I would consider reasonably costed 1 memory CC or damage spells per turn, and if you say you think a high level air spell will do potentially rip off their armor and CC them, let me remind you that memory costs, AP costs and cooldowns are all going to increase with spell level. So a spell that does this would probably cost 4+ AP, and would be too powerful to be multiple target. So theoretically, this very powerful air spell could rip of their armor and stun them... could. Or a warrior could dive them, rage, and use [insert overpowered replacement for the nerfed crippling blow here]. I don't have to get lucky to kill something in one turn with a knight, and so far, I've yet to see anything otherwise in any divinity game that I've played. Specifically, when you say things like
In this EA they simply made warriors too powerful to make up for the difference in past games.
it confuses me, and runs counter to my own 500 combined hours of experience in DOS and EE.
In DOS, warriors were known for one shotting the last boss.
In EE, they were known for outdamaging Mages to the point that the latter was overshadowed and rendered nigh useless by comparison. Where are you getting the impression that this has ever not been the case? What causes you to think that this will change in the second game, despite the current appearance that the trend is meant to continue?
It's fine, man.
And yeah, there's plenty of issues with game currently. Remember that they plan to play around with other version of AP, Abilities, Skills, Stats (especially memory), and AP costs.
I don't have a perfect answer for everything, but I hold out hope that during this extensive EA they'll get it all right.
Warriors could one shot the last boss.....and Mages could simply deny the boss ever having a turn. Generally, finishing the Void Dragon in one turn consisted of a Mage using Hail to freeze it and then a warrior to finish it off. It played to their strengths. A warrior dealth the damage but had to warrior about CC, runninfg into enemies couldn't just bash and so on. Mages basically had God Tier field ontrol in the end. Blind everyone and set the on fire turn one. Poison and mass weakness and thunder jump turn one. Smoke screen to force all enemies to, including ranged, to move in close range and bunch up. Attack and go invisible and rinse and repeat....
Don't even get me started on glasscannon lonewolf mages in Classic: 16AP a turn......And in that one turn I could have frozen three enemies, stunned the rest, and then follow up with poison. Next I just start sporing and firballs and blind. One minmaxed wizard could effectively fight all the enemies at once without ever being hit.
The only thing warriors did better was single target damage. And in te turn he killed one or two, I basically CC'd and half killed two to three times as many. This isn't bringing in the all the summons
This dynamic didn't change overly much in EE. Dual Mage runs are still one of the easiest ways to beat the game.
You can ask around about that though, if you want other opinions.
EDIT: And in the few times a mage couldn't outright CC and AoE things, we had invisibility and four different overshields (basically second health bars) and teleport, all the different summons, and featherfall. We had a skill to negate any enemy ever harming and/or reaching us and bringing more and more allies to the field.
Also, God's did I love 1 turn cool down on things like teleport and stuff.....I essentially had no cooldowns for all my best combos and spells so I could just keep spamming them in classic it was horribly horribly broken
