I think I agree with the implementation: although I'd like to see more silliness and humour in the game, I'm also appreciating the way that they seem to be making the core story darker and more serious: there is room for both, but I think there needs to be a respectful distance between them. Using the pigs as an example, their actual location is right in the middle of having just progressed through a major part of the MQ: perhaps they could be viewed as light relief, though I admit I thought they felt a little incongruous. I don't want to get rid of them, but they might be better off moved to a location waiting to be discovered rather than in a location that is the nexus between several more serious and sometimes nasty bits of storytelling. Plus they're just a bit of a pain to navigate around anyway.
And I feel the same way about durability. The implementation is tedious and annoying, but removing it altogether also feels wrong. It needs to be changed rather than scrapped. I'm generally uncomfortable with scrapping something altogether unless it really is entirely useless and has no potential to add anything positive.
I still want to keep the ladder animations, though. Even if not for their presence in ED, I like them.
The pigs would be a hilarious easter egg if they weren't easy to find. I'd accept that even in a brutally realistic game, and be happier for it (the cow level in Diablo, for example.)
And with you wanting the ladder animations so much, that's where it gets tricky. You're wanting something specific over wanting the game to be a cohesive experience, and I can't say you are wrong because it's not wrong to like something.
My best advice is to get a solid response from the devs on whether they want the game to be realistic or over the top, and if they say realistic then give up on the ladder animation because it's not going to help to hold onto something that's hurting the game.
And if they say over the top, then they have a lot of work, because the entire story right now isn't over the top. And I'll miss the amazing writing currently in the game, but like you should with the ladder if they say they want it to be realistic, I'll give up on my opinion about the writing if they say they want it to be over the top.
I'll always personally like realistic things more, but we should care more about the game succeeding than our personal tastes, since we aren't the ones developing it.
