Yeah, the remaining melee classes simply aren't going to be released until Larian's answer to the reaction system is ready. The real window into the future of the game is not going to happen with this patch, it will be the one after this.
My thoughts exactly. With this release, Larian is essentially running out of excuses (regarding the reaction system, I mean). So the next patch... will tell us how good their engine's architecture is.
Can it really be THAT hard to program that?
Unless their engine has been designed with a remarkable extensibility in mind, it is. Introducing a completely new concept into an existing solution (without breaking anything that already works, preferably) is usually much harder than writing the whole thing from scratch. That's why Tactical Adventures had no problems with reactions, and Larian does have. It's called "victim of past success": well received and sold game creates a strong incentive to re-use its assets as much as possible - even if you get square wheels in the end.
P.S.: Oh, and game engines are rarely designed to be extensible to such a degree. Designing such a thing is expensive, you see, and C-level suits don't like spending resources on things that aren't absolutely necessary right now. Who could have thought they will need reactions?..
