I personally like the initial setting of the game, with the battle between the mindflayers and githyanki. I could certainly skip the prologue on the nautiloid in hell, even though I love the opening cinematic. The mysterious saving from the Nautiloid currently seems very contrived and should probably be cut from the game.
I could currently care less for the Absolute storyline and most of the origin characters. I am not a fan of how the tadpoles are implemented. The tadpole powers seem kind of dumb and contrived. There isn't a good explanation for the suppression of ceromorphosis, so that also feels contrived.
The writing and dialogue is very similar to DOS 2. I feel like this hasn't been a strength for Larian and they should shake up the writing team. Hiring someone that was a lead writer for BG2 or D&D might help?
Larian's changes to the D&D mechanics have unbalanced the game and made it less realistic and resulted in a significant power creep relative to RAW 5E. While I like the tiered construction of their maps, the jumping/shoving mechanics seem very cheezy and unrealistic. The attack modifiers for changes in elevation are also quite cheezy. I feel like this should be a gritty, dark fantasy setting and the cheezy physics detract from that.
You must be some kind of purist that hates everyone elses enjoyment of the game
(I'm being snarky, because I agree with everything you said above.)
