I just played like an hour of DOS 2 this morning. Ugh. All I did was item management and mess with skills. I spoke to Malady and Sir Squirrel and the merchant on the Vengeance. That's it And now my hotbars are all screwed up again.
Sigh. I think the issue with items, weapons and equipment, for me anyway, is there is just too much complexity with all of it for my taste. I have to look at each and every piece of armor for 4 different characters and ask myself "Is this better or worse or worth it?"
In D&D/BG3, at least I can look at armor and say, "Ah. This will increase my AC by 2. Done." I don't have to look at it and say, "Okay... um... this will increase Physical Defense by roughly 15 but potentially lower my Magic Defense by 5, but it'll also give me +1 to Huntsman and 10% Fire Resistance... ah but my current armor has 15% Fire Resistance, so that's actually a decrease... and my current armor also has +1 Pyro, so that will suck to have it removed..."
For EACH and every piece of equipment. It's too much. I REALLY don't want anything like that for BG3. Simple is better. PLEASE don't start making items all convoluted. I want to be able to look at an item and say, "Yes. That's cool. Done." I don't want to have to spend an hour pouring through tons of items trying to figure out what's good and what to sell. I want to play the game, not spend an hour shopping and messing with items.
The same is true for skills. My goodness. At first, I was like, "Yes. Lots of abilities and such. More! More!" But now I'm like, "Holy crap, Batman! There's too many of them. I... I don't know what to do with them all, and my hotbar's a mess."
I don't know. I'm not enjoying this game so much. I'm hoping that now that I've sold most of my crap and such and I'm finally in the new map location, maybe it'll be fun again. Thus far, it hasn't been, to me, what everyone's pumped it up to be. My love for BG3 is the only thing carrying me onward to try to complete the game. Prior to playing BG3, I wouldn't have even gotten as far as I have, to be frankly honest. I'm sorry, Larian. I truly am, but DOS 2 so far is not my idea of a fun video game. I WANT to like it, but I don't. Frankly, BG3 is 1000 times more fun even with all the things I've said need to be fixed and suggestions to make the game more fun.
Don't get me wrong. There are elements of the game that are great, but the stuff that isn't so fun is really taking the wind out of my sails.
Yeah, the bonuses are a mishmash. And you only get equipment with unique abilities by Acts 3 and 4, except for the Braccus Rex Armor in Act 1 and another armor that I think was added with the relics of Rivellon. And the abilities don't stop coming, and they don't stop coming, and they don't stop coming, and they don't stop coming. But that led to a lot of different strategy combinations, which was nice. If you're not into the story by the time you finish the boss at the end of the Blackpits Cave, then it might not be for you.
Also, inventory management in DOS games is absolutely terrible and tedious and the opposite of seamless.
Edit: Seamful. It's seamful. But pronounce it like Sean is pronounced Shean so it sounds like Shameful.