After some 40 hours, here is some feedback I have jotted down:
[1] Make items useful. It's silly to be able to obtain pliers and hammers if you can't do anything interesting with them (other than throwing them at enemies). Let's be able to use the hammer to remove nails from furniture to then be able to make or set traps, or use the pliers to pull some exotic poisonous spike from plants. As of now, they're basically junk stuff. Of course, this doesn't apply to just those things, but items in general (bones etc...). Think: what else interesting could use make use of this for? Otherwise, they're not items; they're junk. (FYI the uselessness of the rope is a big point of contention, to which I would have to 100% agree).
[2] More secrets. When I say secret, I don't just mean a secret cave or chest hidden in the bushes, but I mean in the most general sense. Some examples: (a) if you take certain actions (say, by playing an evil character), a witch may ask you for a favor and grant you additional powers; (b) using a hammer on a certain rock could alert a magical creature to come out and throw a silly / nifty, but useless, item to get you to stop making noise (a jester's hat, teddy bear, shuriken etc...). (c) Perhaps consuming a specific mushroom from a certain area will cause all sorts of weird, but temporary, hallucinations. (d) use real time dates/time to your advantage! On halloween, make the game darker than usual with ghosts flying around; on Christmas, have a very brief glimpse of Santa flying. On random days, have a UFO flying by.... There are all sorts of little cool ideas that one can come up with that would give the game so much more character. go nuts! As of now, it really feels like DOS 3, as others point out.
[3] Better inventory management. This particularly relates to stacking and grouping. it would make life so much easier if I could stack daggers with other daggers, long bows with other long bows etc.
[4] Easier to buy equipment for someone. By this, I mean, it's not always clear which character can use what item/weapon/armor. For example, if I talk to a merchant as Gale and want to buy a long sword for my character, it will show in red that I (Gale) cannot use the weapon as I don't have proficiency; but says nothing about my main character. This means that if I want to buy something for him, I have to exit the screen and have him speak with the merchant directly. This is cumbersome. Make it easy from the start to know who can use what items.
[5] Make using Hex less awkward. As of now, when I click on "Hex" to cast, I get a window with 6 identical icons, all for 'Hex'. Huh?? Only after reading them do I see that one is for CHA, one for STR etc... Make them easy to read on the spot.
[6] Let us skip cut scenes. Nothing is more annoying than to have to listen and watch the same 30 second video of a dialog you already heard/watched.
[7] Provide an option to skip the intro part on the ship. For the most part, it's nothing more than a tutorial of how to play the game anyway. Instead, let people start from the beach with some XP that they likely would have earned in combat anyway.
[8] Allow for heterochromia in character building. I've yet to see a game where this is an option. But would be cool to see, especially since I always wanted to give my character eyes of different colors. Would be a cool touch!
[9] Make characters more interesting. I sent this as an email, but worth bringing up. I like Wyll, Gale, and to a lesser extent Shadowheart. But Astarion and Laezel (sp?) are just plain jerks. There are plenty of ways of making characters interesting without resorting to the arrogant / angry stereotypes. give them some character!
Hope this helps
M
