Totally agree with all the points you made Abits, even though I haven't yet played the Witcher series. I have all the games, just, me being Polish and having actually read the books and seen the movies/tv series (back in the early 2000 there was a whole craze about the Witcher books adaptations in Poland), I'm a slacker, mkay? Will get to playing the Witcher games one day.
Anyhow, I did give both DOS games proper tries and... I never finished them both. I play for the main story, for the characters and just like yourself, I noticed that there were so many weird ways the stories of Divinities could fall apart. In DOS2 the farthest I got was act 3 and then I got bored (I still have that save frozen in time, could go back to it anytime and finish the game, but eh). What I noticed was that, Larian is pretty damn good at writing compelling characters, but their world building could use some work. Again, it's my subjective opinion of DOS1 and DOS2, and I know a lot of people would hate my opinion of their number one game.
Now I've noticed that BG3 suffers from the same problems both DOS games did. Somewhat great characters, not so great world building and storytelling. Now I thought, Larian having to work with WoTC would mean that they could get an extra kick when it comes to world building. Being set in the FR, on the Sword Coast to be more precise, they don't have to build the entire world from scratch, just make sure that it feels like Faerun (they are somewhat successful at that, but not on the level of BG1)... but errr, it seems like most of their resources went into the combat systems and creating origin characters?
Meanwhile BG1 was all about world building (and storytelling: the entire drama with Sarevok as you uncovered your shared past and parentage), the combat was secondary, hell, even tertiary. And BG1 had a lot of flaws, but world building was not one of them, Bioware captured the feeling of dread as the iron shortage swept the nation perfectly, then came the BG2, in my book, that game is the holder of spot number one together with Planescape Torment of the greatest games ever made, great story, great writing, great world building. And I make it a point to replay BG1+BG2 at least once every 2-3years. As of now, I enjoy BG3 quite a lot but it could really use some work, at least tonally it's not as lighthearted as both DOS games were. Old Bioware found the perfect balance between seriousness and lightheartedness. Their timing when it came to jokes or some other funny moments was perfect. Minsc and Boo were used mostly for comedic relief, and I worry, if/when we get to see Minsc in BG3, all these jokes will be extra hamster-fisted into his very being. 'Go for the eyes Boo' ha ha so funny. Now hear that 20k times.
