Comparing D:OS2 with Rage of Mages or Space Ranger sounds for me like you are comparing a strawberry with an apple. Both taste delicious but they are far from tasting the same.
I am not comparing games, I am talking about concepts. There always should be either a good story, or an ability to grow powerful enough to win fights in seconds. I forgot to mention one import detail: in both RoM and SR your final boss would be tough as f* even if you have the best possible loot on your heroes. That is what both DOS1 and DOS2 missed (can't be sure about recent patch). But common monster would be very easy (that's minimising the routine).
Loot is surely not a reason to replay the game. Testing out different classes or different playstyles would be the thing.
Testing out classes is surely not a reason to replay. You already play 4 classes and learn 80% of the abilities in the game. Why on earth would you play it for the 3rd time, if you actually know the potential of your heroes? Storyline is a motivator, as I already said. But the routine, which is picking up loot, trading, making quests and fighting monsters must be entertaining enough, so that before the start of a new game the idea about wasting time on picking up trash and selling it to a merchant, which is a really boring experience (selling 100 items in order to buy 1), wouldn't prevent you from keeping on playing. This also refers to fighting the same monsters and reading the same dialogs.
You can't test a different class when items do not vary much. There are not many fights in the game, so you can't place too many unique items. They should be present, for sure, but they should be really cool so that you don't sell it to a first merchant. A wand with 4-5 poison damage and no enchantments. Wooow... In DOS you had that Braccus axe with fire resist, fire damage and some bonus attributes, which when you play without a two-handed knight is 100% sold. And a lot of items would be also sold. There should be minimum of these items. In RoM I would wait for every unique item, because it would be useful for quite a long time, it would be better than anything you can buy at the store at that stage, and it woudn't be sold, because I always had a hero that needs it.
One playthrough you slaughter everyone, the other you try to avoid killing at all. One time you go full mage other time full physical. You can also try it in different difficulties. Combat in Tactican will be different from combat in Classic, not much perhaps but different and harder.
I don't feel that avoiding killing in this game has place. Why on earth would you have skill and item progression, if you want to avoid killing? Going full magical or physical can't motivate me, because I already know all the spells and abilities heroes have. There is nothing new in it, I will just know that I will struggle against balanced enemy teams. If, for instance, there is some new team abilities, which can be used only if you have 4 knights or 4 mages or 4 rangers, that's better.
Also D:OS is about exploring, not about getting told what to do. It is about figuring stuff out by yourself, not following a plan. If you are not the guy who just loves to explore and test stuff out, probably it is not the best fitting game for you. I wouldn't even call something like 'picking a locked chest up' as something 'test worthy', more like something basic if you want to prevent backtracking.
DOS is a turn-based RPG. It is not about exploring, it is about fighting with different classes and having different outcomes at the end of the game. There is nothing about exploring in DOS since you are always limited in where to go and who to fight with and what quests to do. The game has it's scenario and making me wasting time on finding the solution, which is only one or two, isn't okay. You can't skip going to Fort Joy, so why don't you tell a player that that is his job. If he likes exploring, he won't go south, he will go somewhere else. In Skyrim you can do anything you want, so it is about exploring. You can go whereever you like and do whatever quest you like first, but the journal still tells you to visit the town from the start. In DOS you can't do anything. You always have pretty much same scenario, same monsters, same secret chests and same solutions. You either kill, or sleal or talk. But you have to do the quest. In Skyrim you can skip it and move to another town or village. Can you do it in DOS? So what exploration are you talking about? Fighting with different classes and reading dialogs of different heroes, these are main features.
