I guess no one asked them to copy/paste anything from the 20 yo BG games... But they did nothing for BG3 to looks like BG. That's a fact and according to me, even if I like BG3... it's a shame and I really understand those that are strongly dissapointed.
That's exactly the problem. I'm A-okay with BG3 being a game that makes use of all the modern tools and it's more than appropriate for a Baldur's Gate main entry to set a new standard for cRPGs and push the genre forward. However, more than anything, it should still be BG in more than name and a couple of story connections. But people are quick to dismiss such concerns with "you just want a copy-paste of 20 year old game". No. That's not it. Please stop using this "argument".
+1 and very much this.
OK, I'm legitimately confused... what *exactly* is it that you want then? Because the points that have been raised have also been answered, which basically leaves 'they must want to play an expansion to BG1&2 then'. It's set in the same world, it's a continuation of the BG2 story, it has characters coming in further chapters from the last two games, it's based on D&D 5E, etc etc etc. It's got many of the same raw gameplay mechanics, and the story telling style is a modernised version of BG2.
I seriously can't figure out what you guys want if not a copy pasted version of the last games. I'm trying to get it, but I just don't understand what you actually want?
Short answer: the "feel" of the game. And yes, this is
extremely subjective and hard to capture. But BG3 could be any other IP if you hid the obvious things like the title and so on. If I didn't know this is supposed to be a BG game, I'd guess it's some new IP set in Faerun that's a cross between D:OS2 and DA:I with 5e rules. I don't think it would ever cross my mind "hey, this really feels as if BG was made today". Just "a nice if flawed modern RPG".
From the things you listed, only the story and characters matter for making this a BG-feeling game, and this is a point I have no major issues with, except maybe... one character and its place in BG3. But the same world? A game just being set in some place doesn't really automatically make it feel a part of the series. See Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance games - set in BG, have story connections(?), but VERY much spin-offs and not parts of the main series. Of course, it will be nice to have a BG game that actually has a big chunk of it set in the titular city... Being based on 5e doesn't matter at all, it could be said for any D&D game and they can come in a wide variety of flavours. (BG3 and Solasta are also the ONLY 5e games, I believe, so it's just another difference if you judge by edition rather than D&D in general.)
Speaking of which: let's take a look at the Infinity Engine games, since people like to say "you want Infinity Engine, admit it". But here's the thing: Infinity Engine would not automatically make a Baldur's Gate game. All three IE series have their own specificity, their flavour, their "feel".
Icewind Dale is a dungeon crawler where you make your own custom party. It is very much on the combat side, and is regarded to have amazing encounter design, as well as good exploration and great atmosphere. There isn't that much focus on the story (although IWD2 has been praised in this regard) and you can't recruit NPCs to your party. (If anyone wants to correct me on this, please do, I'm going by what I've heard, not having played IWD myself yet.)
Planescape: Torment is the opposite: its focus is on the story and characters, with very strong narrative, and the combat is an afterthought. The setting is pretty non-standard. The game features lots of dialogue, includes quite a lot of philosphy and, uncharacteristically for a D&D game, you have a set protagonist with his own story, which is also pretty much the main plot.
And then you have Baldur's Gate: it sits somewhere in the middle, with all three pillars (combat, exploration, social) being quite strong. It has both a guiding narrative/structured chapters and freedom of exploration. A big part of the games are also memorable companions, as well as the ability to craft your own main character, which is also very much central to the main plot.
Still, those short descriptions don't really convey the aforementioned "feel" of the games and serve only to demonstrate that the superficially similar IE series are all their own entities and differ from one another. But I've been talking about the elusive "feel" of a BG game: what is it? Imo it's a fine mixture of many different factors. Removing one will weaken the "feel", but won't ruin it. No one of them makes BG BG; it's the sum of the parts that make a greter whole. You can make a BG game without a couple of these ingredients and it will still "feel properly BG". But remove or change too many and you end up with something that doesn't really resemble the original games; you're told it's BG, but you don't see or feel that it's BG. You know - if you have a certain dish and replace one ingredient, it's usually still that dish, just a variation. Replace most of the ingredients and you end up with an entirely different dish. It can still be good, but you'll be calling a pancake an omelette.
And this is also why, imo, it's so subjective: for different people, different ingredients have different "weights". One may say "yeah, the combat is not the most important aspect" and for another it's going to be crucial. And so if you keep most of the aspects the same, most people will recognize the game as "BG-like". If you change most aspects, most people will not feel the familiarity. Depends on what a person deems the "important" ingredients, and therefore... YMMV.
So what are some of those ingredients? In no particular order:
Possibly the biggest one: turn-based combat. BG1&2 had enough of a combat focus for the combat system to matter. Be in the TB or the RTwP camp - this change is huge for the gameplay. It's more of a change than anything in the DA series, for example, and those games suffered from game style shifts across the series. Still, as much as I hate TB, I think you can make a proper BG game that's also TB. Won't elaborate on this, since, as vometia reminded us, there is the dedicated thread for such discussion.
4 vs 6 party members. Another big one, though less dramatic. Also a matter of heated debate.
Also a huge one and perhaps the most obvious: shift to (non-top-view/isometric) 3D, more than that, with cinematics.
The UI/2D art style is completely different. Not just a matter of modern UI/prettier graphics, it's the art direction.
Time. BG3 is timeless. BG1&2 had day/night cycle with the world changing dynamically, as well a weather system.
The music is different. Good, but different.
The origin system: it results in two "alterations" in comparison to the classic games. One is the dramatically reduced companion count. Part of the companion appeal in BG1&2 is their variety and ability to choose just the right party. Another thing is that if you have companions-as-protagonists, you can't have plot focused on your custom character, like in BG1&2.
Those are just some high-profile examples off the top of my head. Again: it's not that you can't make a BG game without changing any aspect of it or that it's ruined when you introduce one of the above. It's not that those things are inherently bad, either. I've actually praised some of those, some I'd love to see built upon in another game. But every change you make shifts the game further away from resembling the original games, diminishes the "BG feel", subjective as it may be.
Most of the things that the old games and BG3 have in common are generic: a party-based D&D cRPG with recruitable companions. You could make pretty much any D&D game out of it. Again, title, location and some story connections can't carry the series' identity on their own.
