I know I am in the minority, but I really like the Origins. Tavs are boring to me and Durge lost me pretty quickly, but I enjoy my Origin play throughs greatly and don't feel like I am missing out on anything. (Well, in Gale's case maybe because he is Mister Exposition and the explanations he gives - about the shadow weave for example - do not get provided by a different source.) Each of our tadfools comes with their own mission which is just as important to them as dealing with the tadpole, which gives you a different perspective on the events and the primary mission for your game depending on whom you choose. To me, this is appealing and offers an experience that is sometimes even better than when they are my companions.
The issue is that in most cases, you experience the vast majority of these Origins from them being a companion.
You get a few special insights from actually playing versus simply having a companion (Even fewer if you have the companion take the lead in conversations - Not as easily done since the PC prioritization update, but still possible)
While what Durge provides is wholly unique to playing Durge.
I'll admit that Durge's actual story is not to my taste, the concept of having a unique Origin that can only be experienced as a PC is very much the sort of experience I'd expect from an Origin character.
I mean, you say it as if implying that I liked it in DOS 1 and 2... I didn't.
But it was praised by most even there, so I'm resigned to see it return in some form.
No I'm saying it as if it is what it is, which is an industry standard that is becoming more common.
More and more games are embracing having the ability to respec and having companions where you have more control over their growth.
AND you can't change their basic stats.
That's already more than enough, as far as I'm concerned.
I'm for having some commitment and restrictions, not for ALL of them.
Which is 1) Already assumed in the limitation for not being able to reset them back to level 0 which is when basic stats are decided and 2) Not even a "Commitment" since you didn't pick any of that and any of your actual decisions CAN be re-allocated whenever you want.
The only difference is allowing level 0 or not. Even then BG3 with its level 0 respecs still retains things like Backgrounds. With things like the Mirror in DOS (Added in as a bonus feature) still retaining Origin characters races and aspects of their appearance (But I could however, give Beast a nice haircut)
That's on you.
While I'd prefer for default companion to be at least SOMEWHAT competent (and ideally to have some unique ability on top of it) I'd rather deal with sub-optimal story-relevant companions that with robotic hirelings, if not as a last resort.
What people do with modding has no bearing on what's in the actual game, as far as I'm concerned.
And it's on YOU how much, if at all, you interact with respecs.
You can choose not to use it if you don't want to.
I, personally, like having the option. Even if all I do with it is fix a few of the more horrendous default choices, I'd rather than be in the base game than have to look towards mods to make certain companions actually playable (Given that I exclusively play on the highest difficulties, games like PoE/Pathfinder are very much revolving around min-max builds to do that successfully. To which horribad companion stats are non-functional)
Sufficient to say I very much disagree that any system related to managing limited resources is inherently pointless.
Systems for managing limited resources are not inherently pointless.
But the use cases for CRPG's tend to make them pointless. Case and point, why even have spell slots in the first place in BG3 or Pillars of Eternity when you can literally long rest and replenish them at will with no consequence?
But I do, because they do to me. Especially the non-automated variant -aka "innterrupts" (which "overwatch" in XCOM is very much NOT a part of.
Interrupts are still pretty automated though. It's literally just a question of "Is this worth the use of my Reaction?" which is usually "Yes" because of so few things that use it. Honestly the only actual thought provoking interrupt is things like Shield and Counterspell because they use spell slots (But the former tends to still be quite automatic given the worthlessness of Level 1 and 2 Spell Slots)
I very much rather do. Fully deterministic systems are very rarely done well enough to be as interesting as their vocal supporters claim them to be.
And while I've occasionally seen exceptions handling the concept well enough (i.e. I recently spent a bunch of hours playing WH40K Daemon hunters, for my moderate delight)I can hardly think of ones that could rank as "my favorite shit ever".
While fully deterministic systems are "Very rarely done well enough", dice based systems are NEVER done well enough. Especially D20 based ones that simply don't have the size to offer actually good variance (Which is the point for TT, the system its designed for)
D100 offers a much better avenue of variance, while proprietary calculations provides much better video game balance.
Oh, but I am. 30+ years of playing RPG and adventure games of any sort made me pretty confident on what I like and what I don't.
That's nice dear.
I like the reliability and thematic pertinence of hand placed loot, I like item systems that keep the stat bloat as limited as possible, I like finding items that can potentially remain useful for half a playthrough, if not even all of it.
Conversely, I don't like dealing with randomly generated trash I need to constantly compare with multiple variations of the same item "but with slightly different stats" etc.
I think you're equating with non-hand placed loot with "Looty Shooter Live Service Slop"
There can be variance in loot acquisition without any of that.
Stat bloat is irrelevant to such systems. As are "Multiple versions of the same item with slightly different stats". One doesn't have to bloat the game to make it so Dagger +1 can drop from any source where a weapon might exist during Act 1. No-one has to compare one Dagger +1 to another Dagger +1 to due to "Slightly different stats"
What you're talking about is not "Handplaced Loot" but "Hand GENERATED Loot". Of which random items can still be hand generated, they're just distributed in a more organic way.
On the second part you seem to forget or ignore that most of these "uniques" were level scaled to the moment you dropped them and/or comically outclassed in a matter of a couple of levels, given the way itemization worked in the game.
Except they weren't? Most of my statically found items I used for the entire Act if not 2-3 Acts.
It was all the "Randomly generated" stuff that was scaled when dropped and were comically outclassed in a couple of levels. Hence me never using them past level 2.
I'll take the "bane" of predictability in loot placement (which works great with rolling different characters and planning ahead what you want to do with them, incidentally) over the agony and the inventory busywork of having any place of drop feel generic and having to constantly compare them for trivial differences.
Again, this feels more like your issue is with the Generation of items rather than the placements.
(Also, planning ahead to what I want to do with a character would stem from what I can reliably obtain. This doesn't necessarily mean a static location. Maybe "Goblin Chieftains Staff of Sticking" drops in Goblin Camp A or Goblin Camp B. Such as scenario means I can plan ahead to eventually having "Goblin Chieftains Staff of Sticking" but it means I don't necessarily just bumrush Goblin Camp A in every run because that's where it drops 100% of the time)
