D&D is a bad game to play purely for the roleplay honestly, You'd be better with something like FATE/Fudge or maybe the Cypher system. Obviously, you should do you, but D&D mechanics are weakest when it comes to the social aspects, and if you refer purely to roleplay without the mechanics that support it, its another totally separate conversation lol.
Combat is one of the pillars of D&D, and a huge proportion of the games mechanics are tied to combat.
Equally, as you just outright stated you're going to dislike having to get into combats regardless, it almost feels like this thread is somewhat moot for you?
My experience of combat in BG3 has been that it isn't slow unless you're the sort of person to agonise over your options. Something that is as annoying in pnp as it would be in this lol.
I think the other thing is, you don't care about a bunch of the mechanics, which doesn't suggest you hate them any more than the overall combat itself, whilst lots of us DO care, which is why we are here.
Ultimately, I want a game with a great story and interesting characters and choices to make. I'd love it to have some strong ties to BG1 & 2, though I'm not holding my breath there based on EA build at least, Beyond that, I want a good D&D 5e experience within the realms of a CRPG, particularly because I hope they'll include the DM mode and controls like they did for D:OS2 which would potentially allow me to play D&D 5e in a whole new way with friends.
First off, I just want to say how refreshing it is in this forum that you seem to be someone who enjoys having a conversation with people you may disagree with, and a civil and interesting conversation at that.
Yes I myself have, after more than 25 years playing D&D, recently come to the conclusion that I don't much care for D&D mechanics, in particular its emphasis on combat, the combat system, and that it relies so heavily on random chance for pretty much everything. But at the same time, I did mention above how much I love the Forgotten Realms as an RPG setting. I am a huge FR lore fan, have almost all the 3.5e FR source books and also almost every FR novel written. And that's what keeps me tied to D&D, because I cannot get anything FR-related without also taking D&D. Furthermore, I cannot be divorced from the combat system of cRPGs either because if I'm going to play D&D cRPGs then that's going to come with combat, and likely a lot of combat. So this thread and its discussion are not moot for me as long as I want to play cRPGs in the FR setting. If the day ever arrives when WotC starts making D&D RPGs that are low in combat, THEN this thread will at that point become moot for me.
My hopes now rest entirely on what the head of WotC has repeatedly said in various interviews including at the beginning of this year, which is that he intends for there to be at least six or seven D&D video games between now and 2025, and that he wants to ensure they make a range of different types of games to cover all D&D fans. Now surely this will include games I simply won't play such as mobile/console-only games or card games. But also surely I would hope there will be classic cRPGs in there besides BG3. And hope fully one of those games will have a RTwP combat system while also being a good story-driven role-playing game. If I had my druthers, I would love for WotC to approach a studio like Obsidian and ask them to make a RTwP D&D game. That would be awesome. Then, I would also love for them to approach someone like CDPR and ask them to make a Witcher-like game set in the FR, perhaps using the Cormyr Saga books to tell the story of Cormyr where we get to play Azoun IV from his young days to his eventual death. That would be so cool. Playing any of the great FR characters in a cRPG would be fantastic, such as The Blackstaff or The Simbul or Erevis Cale. There is just so much potential available for D&D games beyond BG3.
