Things feel too close together in this game. Going to the Underdark shouldn't be like walking around the corner to go to the store - it should feel like going to Mars. They did a good job of making the visuals of the Underdark feel very otherworldly and the initial approach is pretty substantial, which is good. But once you get there and find a waypoint, instant teleportation trivializes that distance and it doesn't feel right; the Underdark quickly loses its magical otherness. It really should not be worth it to leave the Underdark every day to go sleep and then return. Getting to the Underdark felt like a monumental task - leaving should as well.
So, this is separate from the issue with supporting characters not having wills of their own, but both point to the suggestion that having a semi-permanent camp in one location (even just for a single act) doesn't make any sense.
Precisely this, it totally trivialises the sense of going on a perilous adventure, even more so when you can just teleport back to basecamp at will. You really should just have to find a safe space to camp where your party currently is. The game is made more accessible/easy at the expense of any real kind of immersion and I feel suffers greatly for it.
