[People who like shove] certainly are welcome to speak up, too.
They do speak up. Every time they play the game and use the shove feature and have a blast doing it.
They have no reason to come here and argue about it because they're not advocating for change. Let's face it, the enormous bulk of players of this game have never even logged onto these forums. Meanwhile, a handful of people (maybe two dozen, high end?) keep saying they don't like shove, as if the repetition of singular voices could somehow through illusory equal thousands of voices.
Players using shove in game doesn't mean they "have a blast" shoving or, if they do, that they agree that the current implementation is better than others.
For 1, they're theoretically EA testers, so they're expected to test out all the things in game.
2. It's a BA ability and many classes don't get bonus actions, so using it is essentially free. Ease of use doesn't necessarily equal enjoyability.
3. Even if players do like being able to shove, this doesn't mean they like getting shoved by enemies, especially into lava or pits
4. Even if players do like being able to shove, they might like it equally if it was implemented differently - less distance, different type of check, restricted to an action (this allows martial characters to shove twice when they get Extra Attack)
You have no evidence besides your personal experiences about how many players are "having a blast" using shove, so please don't use this unknown population as evidence for your arguments. The only evidence we have of what people like or don't like is from posts to these forums/reddit, and then Larian additionally has feedback given directly to them.
To add to this, how does ANYONE really know how many people like a mechanic and how many don't? You can't assume that just because thousands of people are playing and not speaking out that they like the mechanic. Many may simply not like discussing these things on forums and many may simply not have time.
I mean, until playing this game, I've NEVER been involved in forum discussions. I am only out here now because I love this game and really want it to be great. Right now, it's good, but my biggest issue with it is the exploits and gimmicks. The unbalanced nature of the game is really hindering it. I don't enjoy playing games where I have to save scum constantly because enemies can win initiative, get lucky and girl my characters into lava. Likewise, I don't enjoy playing games where I'm encouraged to do illogical things like long rest frequently in order to:
A. Have meaningful dialogue between characters.
B. Recover HP and spell slots just so I can complete a side story quest (like having to long rest after fighting ettercaps just so I can clear the whispering depths or just before the hag so I can actually beat her).
A game should be well balanced to start, and if players don't like it, THEN they mod it to their liking. Don't force players to mod a game so that it'll actually be balanced.
Again, like chess, it's like giving the queen free reign, and if you want to have an actual balanced game of chess you have to modify the rules yourself. Makes no sense. If you want Queen Supreme Chess, then modify the chess rules to make queens supreme and all other pieces lame. Don't start with Queen Supreme rules and expect players to modify things so they can play legit chess.
