Played about 6 hours in the new patch. It's definitely harder, but so far, it seems less like the enemies are smarter, and more like they just deal a lot more damage. I've had party members go from full health/armor to dead in one hit. I've had fights end before I even got a turn.
The skyrocketed price of gear from NPCs doesn't help toward that end, since shopping is basically now "Is this really the only thing I'll ever need to buy? Because it's all I will ever be able to afford." I haven't bought anything yet, because now it's far more important of a decision and I haven't found anything that was a significant enough of a boost to warrant a purchase. Even that legendary cleaver couldn't entice me after I found a level 3 green that was almost as good (they really nerfed the hell out of that thing).
Right now, the sole deciding factor on whether or not I upgrade a piece of armor is how much physical/magic armor it has, because stats are meaningless if you're dead before you get a turn (although I guess defense is supposed to be the main point of armor).
I will say, though, that the AI does seem a bit smarter. I saw them using Tactical Retreat to get closer to my party rather than use it to teleport away and then walk back towards me. I still see them walk away, then turn around and walk right back, though, so, not a dramatic improvement (although I think that might be a pathing issue rather than an AI issue).
I'm also seeing enemies cheat. An enemy warrior hit my warrior with crippling blow from quite a range. After CCing that enemy, my warrior eventually recovered, and it took 2 AP of walking to get close enough to that enemy to use crippling blow on it. On the topic of crippling blow, what happened to the AOE reticle for it? It's not there anymore.
In closing, I like that the AI has been improved, but I really don't think enemies need to be dealing ~100 damage per hit or cheating.
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Suggestions for resolving the pricing issue:
1. Fix the Bartering bug. It still says it reduces prices by 10%, and it still reduces them by less than 4.5% instead. It seems like a much more significant bug now. It seems like it would be easy to fix. Are you guys intentionally ignoring it?
2. Reduce gear prices, and also reduce the sell prices of junk items to 0. So, candles, crates, vases, baskets, and such would have no resale value, and thus I wouldn't feel like I'd have to collect them all just to be able to afford one piece of armor (because there'd be no point collecting them). Picking up all that stuff and vendoring it is not fun. So, remove it as an option, and reduce the prices to accommodate the loss of income.
