I think you’re coming up against the genre there. Folks who love the themes enough to make an entire game out of it aren’t going to dump them for mass appeal. Much like how Lovecraftian horror ends in the madness or death of pretty much anyone involved, or how in high fantasy practically no major “good” characters die at all, unless it drives the plot (the classic “plot armour” that sours my experience of such stories).

In what I’d consider the happiest ending, you’ve bought V time to enjoy the remainder of their life relatively stress-free, surrounded by family, their love, with all escaping Night City with the distant hope of a cure. That’s about as peaceful an ending a Night City Merc can hope for, and I find it hard to believe that it was pointless fighting for that.

I went all in with Glut because his story would have resonated with my PC, but all you have to do is finish off the other Sovereign and the fight ends - Glut takes control and only one myconid goes down, the rest all start hailing their new king.

It’s odd, because what he described in the answer to the question in the linked article was exactly how multiclassing spellcasters works in 5e

It feels like there’s some miscommunication going on - my gut feeling is that spellcaster multiclassing is going to be very similar to 5e base.

I can agree with you if I put myself in a “min/max” mindset, where you’re trying to get the best possible option in every situation - but in a roleplay sense, a tabletop sense, a story sense - it’s far more interesting if more than one character engages in conversation with the world around them.

Having played loads of tabletop, emergent narrative often pits characters against challenges they’re not well-equipped for - which drives the story in interesting directions. The Barb might have a higher chance of failure in persuasion checks, but does that really matter? I guess it comes to the higher level question of whether you’d reload a save if you failed a speech check - if so, I’d argue that it doesn’t matter who talks if the player is just gonna reroll (as low rolls occasionally plague even the most erudite).

I’m happy for mods to have a fix for the “No one talks but me” crowd, but my thoughts are that Larian has thrown in so many contextual responsiveness for each character/race/class that it’s honestly going to be interesting to see how different characters lead a conversation.

Speaking as someone who really enjoyed DOS2, I do have plenty of issues with its mechanics, with the movement ability problem you mention right in the thick of it.

Once you learn the game systems a bit, you will always gravitate towards a similar set of skills. Mobility is so important in the game that you will frequently find yourself in situations where your character’s survival depends on it (and the AI abuses these skills constantly). So everyone gets a jump skill, two if it fits the build - and many of the jump skills are just teleports with rider effects, so everyone’s teleporting around. All builds tend to gravitate towards more damage, because you can’t apply CC without nuking their armour down first, and CC trivialises fights when it comes into play. Optimisation isn’t straightforward, and skills aren’t really on an equal footing. Maximising Warfare is how you become the best Necromancer, and the best Rogue, and the best Warrior, and the best Archer. Meanwhile, all the other skills (with the notable exception of Summoning) you can generally just leave between 2-5 to unlock their respective abilities, regardless of your build.

The ultimate end-game of this is that loads of characters end up feeling very similar, even if they appear to do very different things on the surface. Once you get past much of Act 2 there’s very little variation in how you play the game and approach combat, and the story becomes the main driver for completion even as the core gameplay loop stagnates. I think I completed the game on my fourth attempt, but that was largely through my stubbornness rather than other factors.

I think the main concern I have is that we’ll have all the tools to make a great looking gruff half-orc or ancient witch, but still be stuck with the option of two soft-spoken voices that sound pretty much exactly the same.