As a long time player of both TTRPGs and CRPGs I would like to suggest a solution to a problem faced specifically by CRPGs that is elegant and doesn't step on anyone's toes. First let's establish the problems, in TTRPGs you make dice rolls for skill checks to determine if you get what you want. In most cases, the situation is dynamic and you know that regardless of whether you succeed or fail the game will continue and the concessions for failure, at least in most cases, are limited. In some cases, failure can even be more interesting than success. The problem is that this is fine in a TTRPG setting because there is a person on the other end who reacts to your failure and builds it into the narrative. So, what does the situation look like for video game interpretations? Let's take an example from early in the existing content.
[[Minor Spoiler Warning]]
After the ship crashes you find a mindflayer trapped in the debris. You walk up to some civilians and a skill check determines if they fight you or run off. If they fight you then you gain some experience, if they run off then... you get to feel good about yourself I guess? Then you engage with the mindflayer itself and you have to make two checks back to back or your character dies instantly and you have to reload. The concept of this encounter, re-encountering the mindflayer and engaging in a mental struggle, is solid but the RNG makes it very frustrating, especially since you are too low level to really do anything to stack the odds in your favor. There is no dynamic or interesting outcome of failure, you die and reload if you fail and you keep doing that until you don't fail. In cases like these you are literally being forced to save scum or skip content, neither of which are good outcomes.
This is not a unique scenario, the game currently is full of situations that essentially boil down to "pass a check or get punished" or worse yet "pass a check AND get punished." (with less experience and loot)
There are really two problems here:
1) RNG for out of combat options, which some people love, can be incredibly frustrating for others. This problem is exacerbated by the long load times for a game of this magnitude since people who want a specific outcome will be seeing a lot of them.
and
2) Encounters that punish success with less experience and loot. (especially since the game appears to have a fixed quantity of both)
So, how do you solve these problems in a way that makes everyone happy? Well, here's how I would do it in a way that should keep the pitch forks at bay:
1) Add a setting for "take 10" and/or "take 20." (meaning that you automatically roll a 10 or 20 respectively on out of combat checks) This removes the RNG for players that don't want it but allows people who do to still have their fun as well. Power gamers are happy, RPers are happy, "let the dice land" people are happy, everyone is happy.
2) This solution is pretty straightforward and perhaps it is just the fact that the game is so early on that this hasn't been weeded out yet. In either case, if you succeed on a check that bypasses a combat encounter then you should get experience and/or some sort of reward. I realize that TTRPGs are notorious for not rewarding non-combat encounters mechanically, as a GM myself (Pathfinder mainly) I have grappled with this issue many times. There's a reason why adventuring parties have earned the dubious honor of being called "murder hobos." The secret is that nobody is going to bat an eye at being rewarded for success but they'll be pretty upset at being punished for it. I simply reward my players for success regardless of what the rules say and I've never once gotten any flack for it.
These changes would allow each player to play the game the way they want to play it without impacting the balance of the game in any meaningful way or hurting the experience of other players. On top of that, they don't seem like they would be too hard to implement.
