There are many things about this game that I like, which is what compelled me to post here with some of the issues I've had with it. I'm sure most, if not all of these have already been brought up in the past, but I'd still like to throw in my 2 cents. Keep in mind that there are many solutions to the issues, but my suggestions are meant to be simpler to implement, yet still attaining good results.

1)By far the largest, and most blaring issue with the game for me, is the fact that items scale the way they do. Every time I go through my shopping rounds, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth, knowing that I may only get 3 or 4 fights worth out of them before they are obsoleted by a level up.

But the issue is compounded by several other issues, which make it even worse:

The random items are RNG on top of RNG on top of RNG on top of RNG. First you have the RNG factor that the shop carries an item type that you need. Then you have the RNG factor of whether or not it is of a rarity you need or not. Then the RNG of whether or not it has a rune slot. And finally the RNG of what it looks like (including its color) which might make your character start to look like a clown.

The randomness of stats gets super out of hand once you have Divine items, and there are so many random stats on an item. Not only is shopping a massive chore that needs to be done every level, but keeping track of all your stats on all your characters is a massive pain.

It was such a headache for me that I switched to playing Lone Wolf to reduce the craziness.

Solution: Items should have less but higher bonuses. A ring should not be +1 Wits +1 Scoundrel +1 Dual Wielding +1 Hydrosophist. It should be +4 Wits (And nothing else). Or +4 Scoundrel, and so on. The bonus should be +1 more for each rarity level increase (Or + a certain % each rarity, with resistances.).

Shopkeepers could keep a large stock, covering many of the different stats and equipment types.

Or you could just have basic items with zero bonuses, and have an extra rune slot (Or slots). Then there could be a rune for each bonus that you just slot in (So your +4 Wits ring would be from adding a Wits rune.). This solution would allow for more adventuring based gear (Which is currently trash 99% of the time for me, due to random stats and low item levels.), and less reliance on vendors for gear.

Also, a dying system would be nice. There are already mods for this, in fact.

2)Multiplicative vs Additive stats.

Weapon bonuses are not equal to other bonuses. A 5% damage increase from dual wielding, is not the same as a 5% bonus from Warfare. Warfare is a greater increase because of the way it multiplies your damage.

Solution: Have ALL stat and skill bonuses be additive like weapon bonuses.

3)Damage types and imbalances.

Currently, physical damage is king. The CC's are easier to pull off, armor seems less abundant than magic armor, and magic damage is not as high. I have not looked into the mechanics that are causing it, but I have played extensively with a 2handed character that swaps between staves and 2H swords (Her STR and INT is identical, with stats poured into Wits for crit chance.), and the difference in damage is significant.

My guess is that it is due to elemental resistances. Though there are elemental resistances, there is no physical damage resistance (Other than evasion. But in the case of magic based weapons - they can also be evaded.).

Solution: Increase magic damage - especially magic weapon damage. Any other fix would require massive changes to the game.

4)Lackluster talents.

I get to a point in the game where it becomes very hard to decide which talents to choose for my characters. Not because there are too many good ones to choose from, but because aside from a small handful of them, the rest are useless. I can't help but scratch my head over 80% of the talents, because they are downright useless or actually more negative than they are a bonus.

Solution: Go over every single talent and make sure they actually have a use. A lot of them are easy to fix, because their intent is obvious, but they just need a boost to be useful. This topic alone could warrant its own post.

There are other issues and solutions I could go on about, and maybe I'll post some others if I forgot anything big, but for now I'll leave it at this.

1) This issue we already had in the first game, but they got even worse, because there are now even higher tiers and because the Armor system makes any kind of crossclassing like Sword mit fire damage pretty useless.

2) The worst part is probably, because the game does not really tell you, how which source gets taken into account.

3) Magic resistance is probably one part of the issue, als the fact that it is much easier to increase you physical damage, than your magical (Warfare goes for every physical class). And I would guess, staffs have in general lower raw damage than regular 2-handed. Magic in general is weaker than physical, because of other reasons as well.

4) Leveling in general feels pretty luckluster, talents are only one part of the issue, sadly. We had many huge topics about suggestions for new talents or about the improvement of current taleens.

I see ppl complain about the shopping and this seems really overblown to me just because if you play normal difficulty there is no need to optimize.
I am constantly using some garbage pieces of gear for various reasons and it is not any huge drawback.
I think the problem is one you create for yourself in thinking each piece of gear on each guy has to be perfectly efficient.

How about us WANTING a super character, which is not necessarily the same as NEEDING?

Min/maxing is a valid hobby / playstyle by itself, not just done out of necessity.

And yes, I'm at a point again (Arx, level 22, before the doctor) where I let the client run for hours just to wait for restocks so I can get rid of the last pieces of level 18-20 gear I'm still wearing. Which is super tedious, to be honest.

When I face the final enemies I want to be in full semi-perfect level 22 gear. And this will take the better part of the day.

Honestly, I think this is what most of us do. But even though I can get by with shopping less, when I have to it's still a chore. In fact I haven't played the game in a few days because my characters need their gear upgraded and I am tired of the chore. I'd literally be willing to play through the game several more times if not for this chore, but it's made me tired of the game, when I otherwise wouldn't be.

The problem isn't just the scaling. It's the RNG of gear, and how much of a pain it is to get the gear you want, especially once gear starts having many different stats. The scaling wouldn't really be a big deal if not for this, because shopping would be a breeze.

Interesting. I found myself closing the client right after level up quite often, too... because "oh, I don't want to do the micromanagement now".

Shopping in general is still a big issue, because the shopping UI is still pretty bad. You can't filter and if you sell stuff to a trader, it just means, it is even harder to look for the good and interesting stuff, because all the sold items are cluttering the traders inventory instead of having their own tab or something like that.

My friend and I though mostly role with the stuff we find, we don't steal so our money stock is still pretty low on level 12. Most money just disappears because of new skills we need to acquire. Though because of that, we feel it even worse, how much the RNG ruins the looting experience.

Yes, filters by level, type and quality would be great.

Use case: "show me everything with at least level 16 which goes into the head slot, has at least purple quality and a strength requirement".

Would help a bit, yes.

Being able to filter out sold items would make life somewhat easier although as a workaround I tend to sell only to vendors who I only buy skillbooks from (e.g. Ovis and Bree in Driftwood, later Gareth on the ship etc.) so that the inventories of the others don't get cluttered which is super annoying.

Then again, why do they even have to sell all that useless crap? Why does Arran sell 10 identical useless gloves? Who would ever buy normal gloves in Driftwood??? In fact, who would ever buy normal gloves at level 4+?

I finally just gave in and started using mods. There is one that instantly refreshes shop inventory. But even then, I'm still beyond sick of shopping. There's just too many bloody random stats to deal with! Once you get to Divine items it just becomes outright ludicrous!

Is there a mod that lets you craft gear with the exact stats you want? If not, can someone make one please?!

Yup, I think I will download some mods as well I have seen a mod which grant more rune slots to items. This might not be exactly what you're looking for (items will still have random stats) but at least it's a start, with many craftable mystical and power runes.