Hi Silentsnake,
I was just thinking, perhaps you should start romancing a companion as a debut to "love" this game ?

The combat seems very long and, in all honesty, a little bit boring. I remember that I couldn't go back to TB after RTwP was introduced in X-COM: Apocalypse (1997). It simply took too long for my teen self, save for my boomer ass now.
I can't help with that one, I didn't exist in 1997. Was it in black & white ? And why try to comparable with a 2021 game ? The combat system back then might have been shorter because not enough memory ? Just trying to make sense out of your point ...
The point was that after I was introduced to having a choice between Real-Time with Pause and Turn-Based (which was the case for this 1997 game), the first one was much more enjoyable and simply faster.
At the end of the 90s, Real-Time with Pause felt like a natural successor to Turn-Based combat in RPGs and game companies were actively changing their games from TB to RTwP. Examples of this was Diablo 1, which was originally supposed to be TB, or Fallout Tactics, which also moved from TB to a choice between the two modes.
Of course, not every game has to have RTwP and some work better as TB, but my point is that since we already know that Baldur's Gate works well with RTwP, using TB for BG3 feels like a very unpleasant regress.
Combat in BG1 and BG2 felt dynamic and just fun, was a natural part of the game, allowing to enjoy both the story and the combat somewhat equally. I may be wrong on this (I haven't played the early access), but it seems like this balance is disturbed in the case of BG3 (usually if I go on a BG3 stream it features combat, maybe it's just coincidence, but it feels like combat is dominating the game because it just takes so long).
I will try romancing a companion, though, just like in previous games
