The original Baldur's Gate games gave you choices at every turn. Here is a list of things you can implement to satisfy pretty much everyone, while improving the options of the original games.
[quote=Vaell]
World Interaction
In the original games, you could run off and explore 95% of the entire game world after the initial intro. In this game large chunks of the world are locked behind forced conversations or world events unless you know they are going to happen and actively work around them. This game feels like you are forcing plot down our throats at every turn, leading to much of the resistance you are now getting from your player base. If we want to explore the whole world before engaging in plot, or wander into a cave full of CR8 mobs at level 2 that should be allowed without having to know about a forced conversation or cut scene and metagaming our way around it. Plot should not be gating most of the world from us. I don't want to see the "chapters" of the world we can no longer go back to like in divinity either. Let us explore the whole world from the start instead of locking out large chunks of it as we progress. If people want to rush through plot that is fine, but it shouldn't be placed in such a way that plot is necessary to explore the world.
Didn't the speedrunners already proved that you can do this in BG3 by completing the EA in 7 minutes? While there are certain set-pieces that will drag you into dialogue if you approach from the front, there are plenty of side paths that, with a little bit of stealth, will let you progress to the next area.
In terms of returning to areas, I too hope they will leave previous areas opened. The assumption that previous areas will become close stems from DOS, which isn't an unfair assumption until they've said otherwise.
