@WizardGnome I overall agree with what you have written. Couple thoughts of mine:
1. Does Larian make good combat systems? Debatable.
Does any RPG have a good combat system? I think flexibility and player choice that is core to RPGs, goes against what I would consider a "good combat system" that would need to be tighter and more balanced.
However, like yourself I was looking forward to Larian doing a D&D as I thought them using 5e would result in flat out better combat experience. What they decided to do, is still beyond my ability to comprehend.
As such, I would rather see them pursuing their own game systems. D:OS combat has a lot of good ideas, and a lot of potential, but it needs to mature. D:OS2 armor system was abhorrent, making a lot of D:OS interesting aspects irrelevant, but in D:OSs Larian did a lot of things differently and I think it is worth exploring. After BG3 though, I am more worried Larian isn't interesting in creating a strong core gameplay loop, rather than them not being able to.
2. Does Larian make good worlds to interact with?
3. Does Larian have good plot writing...?
4. Does Larian have good character writing...?
As I see it, I don't think Larian figure out how to combine effectively different things they build. I don't think BG3 (and D:OS2) narrative design interacts well with the systemic side of the game. It tends to lean toward two outcomes:
1) you can do whatever you want and it doesn't matter
2) We have created a narrative, and you are free to discard it, but if you want narrative experience you will do what we want you to do. Otherwise have a less rich experience.
I just don't think narrative and interactivity support each other well. On a flip side, BG3 does have some great bits - killing goblin leaders is a very neat, open ended quest, that can be completed in multiple ways, and be satisfying on both narrative and emergent gameplay side. I think Larian needs to take a good look at stuff they created as well as Arcane and Tim Cains works, and figure out how they can create a narratively compelling scenario that will encourage and reward use of emergent gameplay without clashing with the narrative.
BG3 did feel like they tried to combine more scripted and linear Bioware style game, with their own systemic sandbox as those were quite often at odds with each other.
