Dialogue Options/Rolls: I really dislike the feeling that the "main character or my character" being the protagonist of the story instead of being a part of the party. I would much rather go through the world as part of the group instead of being the leader and controller. When we enter the dialogue view I would prefer that the camera involve all parties involved in the conversation instead of focusing the camera on the main parties. This leads to the main pain of the dialogue view and options being unless you select the character to lead the conversation, the other characters of the party can't make rolls with their skills. I believe we have the options from the dialogue menu to "character select" which breaks the conversation, you have to select the character who you want to re-start the conversation with. It would be much better to just incorporate the whole party in the first place. This allows us to now use the highest investigation, perception, arcana whatever check that needs to be made to be made without an annoying sequence of events. This type of gameplay would be avoided all together by some people by creating a "face" for the party which is just frontloaded with very high int and cha and as many skills as possible to avoid going back and forth to characters who best fit a check. I can not stress enough that incorporating the whole party in the conversation would be a great help not only mechanically but also with the immersion. I am tired of being the main character and would much rather be along for the ride with the other characters.
+1 Absolutely this. In a tabletop game, the whole party tends to chime in depending on what their areas of expertise are. Things might be going smoothly while the bard talks to the NPC's, but if they then start explaining some arcane lore the Wizard will respond to that, and when the dialogue turns sour the dwarf intimidates everyone into calming down. Switching between party members in dialogue would be PERFECT.
Combat: I feel like there are two different conversations that could be had here. The combat is supposed to feel deadly and require long rests often or tune down the fights and make long resting not needed as often. If the combat is kept at this difficulty for every encounter it can be okay but I will not feel great about having to spam long rests after almost every combat. I would much rather be able to slog through a dungeon without have to go back and forth over the course of 4 or 5 days because 3 goblins where able to tax my health and resources to the point where it felt needed. The characters also feel incredibly weak compared to monsters. It felt as if we missed way more often, hit for less damage on average, and require reloading multiple times on anything slightly difficult because one bad round was almost always a TPK or to the point where too many resources where drained and I wanted to retry. Towards the end of my run I learned at how powerful aoe fire damage was, throw oil barrel, throw alchemist fire and win. Concentration spellcasters are almost always targeted and I avoided them completely towards the end of the run. It very much felt like they kept the enemy AI/strength from DOS and toned down the player power without adjusting the monsters. Melee users are underpowered a great deal compared to range. Many combat situations where it would take 2+ turns WITH dash to reach an enemy and with current difficulty is not possible.
I feel this is because they're trying to marry DOS combat where every battle is supposed to test you to the max, and D&D combat which is supposed to be an attrition on your
resources over time. It's going to be difficult to strike a balance, especially with reasonably easy access to long rests. I don't see any obvious way to get it right. Either they have to scale down difficulty and limit resting in some way, or give us super-easy access to long rests in DOS fashion. I don't think it'll be perfect either way.
