Honestly, exploration is one of the weakest points for me in this game. I would keep EVERYTHING as is, including turn-based combat, but place our characters in a large open-world with hidden dungeons that require solving puzzles or perception checks. I honestly think this would be in line with what people imagine the world around them to be in tabletop.
That or keep the size of this map, but remove some of the bigger setpieces and scatter them over several equally sized maps.
That way they could have the Druid grove on one map, the goblin camp on another and, the swamp on a third.
Then fill in the setpieces that got removed with smaller encounters and maybe a small village, a farmstead, a small bandit camp etc... Would give the game a feeling of a living world not just an amusement park.
I imagine Larians writers taking a crack at rebooting the Lord of the Rings.
-You have to get the ring to mordor!
-What, that place on the other side of the river?
-Yes!
-Ohh man, that's like a 10 minute walk.
