In short, because D&D is poorly suited for video games, it's actually possibly the worst tactical combat system used in video games ever. Why?
- you have to rest between spell casts (wtf) - you have to prepare spells (why???) - you are extremely limited in what one character can do in one round (too slow and boring) - health pools and damage numbers are too low which takes away fine grain progression from the game, and they're low because the entire system is designed for a physical dice - in general combat is very slow and clunky
So, what's better? Any turn-based tactical combat that utilises action points, for one: Fallout, Fallout 2, DOS2, Jagged Alliance, Gears Tactics, XCOMs, Mutant Year Zero, Wastelands, and so on. Action Points are the golden standard *in video games*. Because it's the most fun and satisfying.
Now, I do realise that Larian is building a D&D game, which is a huge mistake in the first place, so deviating from D&D looks silly on their part. Because they go against their audience. But for DOS2 fans, BG3 will be a huge disappointment, not just because companions suck, but because of D&D systems. So maybe Larian is trying to not alienate the major part of their audience that comes from DA:O, DOS2 and other non-D&D games, because they realised their mistake, but I think it's about 5 years too late.
I guess people will have to endure D&D *if* the story is truly good *and* combat is smooth enough, but then there's the problem of companions, so I'm not holding my breath. Personal prediction: BG3 will be a bad flop in terms of gameplay hours (not in terms of sales), compared to how overwhelmingly good DOS2 is.
Oh and by the way, my guess is why they're making changes: they've got metrics over how long people that bought early access actually played. Something tells me if those game hours were high, they wouldn't be making these changes. So there you go.
