Excellent points.
I personally feel the Origins system has no place in a BG game. I enjoyed playing an 'Origins' character in The Witcher and Mass Effect but have never felt this was a mechanic befitting of a BG game. I always associated BG type games with roleplaying your own character, not playing someone else's creation?
I have felt that the Origins companions stories seem to overshadow my own protagonist's and if to compel that fact, I recall one instance where my character responded in dialogue that he was 'also a Baldurian' but I do not ever remember choosing a background or other such mechanic to suggest my character was from Baldurs Gate? Perhaps someone can explain. Whilst I understand some will feel excitement at the prospect of playing as an Origins companion, I feel so far that it detracts from the single player role-play experience.
Regarding the map, it certainly feels like a theme park. There aren't any truly open expanses of map to explore that I can remember, it always feels like a series of corridors/pathways. In previous BG games the overland map conveyed a strong sense of travelling long distances by foot, rather than conveniently zipping around the map with magical way portals that apparently no NPCs in the game world have noticed or saw fit to use. The immersion is distinct lacking in Larian's rendition of BG.
My overriding concern with BG3 is that at present it does not seem to have a clear direction, it is something of a Frankenstein creation; part DOS, part DnD and it suffers for being this hybrid. Is it primarily a single player game or a coop game? Because when design decisions for a coop game are affecting the single player experience, then I have an issue with it (for example, apparently no day/night cycle in the game is because it is too hard to implement in a coop game). This has also been suggested as being the case behind the large map, rather than the series of smaller maps we had in BG2.
I agree, I didnt care as much about the Origin Characters in D:OS 2, tho it rubbed me the wrong way there as well, but this is Baldurs Gate a DnD game, its not Divinity anymore and as I wrote, I do not care if they use similar combat or if they have different style or whatever, but one place I do not want BG 3 to be just a reskin of original sin is in this department. And just like you, I do not mind playing as "other characters" in different games, I enjoyed witcher and Mass effect to death, but these are different type of games, differnet genre.
The map isnt particularly huge, but as you say its a theme park, its stuffed with things to discover and like someone above asserted its there for the coop players to have some lols while the other is in a dialogue.
I do think that the map should simply be made smaller and into separate parts, I dont mind the teleporting as much but it would not be neccessary at all if it was done like in BG 1 a 2 and it would make the game a lot better. This feels clearly like a decision made for the coop and the single player experience is suffering as a result, it simply doesnt flow well at all and like I wrote, I feel like the main plot is barely connected and coherent as it is because of this, its like a sequence of separate adventures despite me trying desperately for it to not be that way.
I doubt our words will be heard tho, it feels like BG 3 has even more emphasis on the coop multiplayer than original sin 2 had because a lot more people will want to play with friends. But I wish it was at least separated better.
