Two other things that bother me are seemingly lack of strong smart spellcasters and good items
I loaded Dyna with various dueling spells since I played BG1 with Stratagems (and there without spell thrust & secret word you just can't touch wizard who is protected with Globe of Invulnerability), but isf (up to underground river) spellcasters were not a problem at all
I also dislike how game constantly throws at you some obscure specialist items aka +1 thac0, +4 thac0 if you're kensai (not an actual item, but you get it), or an armor only for a goblin companion
I lost count how many items for bards I got. But where do you find a kensai companion, or why would you carry a bard in BG?
Meanwhile, game can't import your old party and throws it's own set of characters at you, may take your items away not once but twice, and even does stranger things (after I asked Dyna to wait at camp once, when I recruited her again she lost all her spells... what?)
I'd rather prefer a bunch of good new weapons since SoD companions come with underwhelming equipment and (of course) game takes away all your gold. Like there's much to buy at stores anyway, meh.
One of examples of strange loot composition (which leads to strange choices at what you do with your party) is that I already have 3 items that raise dexterity. Um, hello, maybe I could have something else, game? 3 items for +1 to DEX each is ok but I'd rather have something for STR or maybe my ring for extra level 1 spells for a wizard, or belt with extra hitpoints which would work on anyone not just on dwarf? How about those things, game?
Then there are problems with party composition, as it always happens with BG, there is like 1 pure thief (Safana), or you have to take their own new companion thief (multiclass). And I had to switch and match companions for good party for a while until I liked the setup (still no thief lol) and ended up with p. stock plot party (minsc&dyna, khalid whom I made archer & jaheira on steroids like spells/strength potions, and Baeloth because he's so OP it's just foolish not to take him).
Part of this comes from the problem of old companions that people probably want to play with instead of Beamdog's companions who are fairly dull (at least I want my BG1 companions) coming in 2 pairs (Jaheira+Khalid & Minsc+Dyna), although maybe you can carry Jaheira solo, I am not sure.
And that's good party. For evil party, there isn't even a good fighter until you beat about 25% of the game I think (Dorn again, yeah).
Banters also seem underwhelming. They are mostly flavor like in Dragon Age 1 add-on. I was hoping for more interaction between bhaalspawn and companions, like in the tutorial between you and Imoen. The themes are recycled a lot (Minsc just won't shut up about his hamster cause it's his thing, eh?). After fan made NPC project where Jaheira would try and teach young Charname something about surviving in the world ("insects and maggots are best source of nutrition in wilderness!"), new vegan modern Jaheira is just dull and one-dimensional.
I can't say there are many cringing sjw moments in the game however, at least I haven't noticed anything really awful.
But the locations are very very pretty (even if UI is very very ugly). Special encounters are also above average, but best from BG2 EE and ToB EE are still better, even if we take lower level adventuring into the account, Stratagems does better job often with simplier encounters than SoD with it's larger ones.
And the most difficult ones are often 1-trick ponies which you can win like Kangaxx or by just doing enough damage quickly (Green Dragon, for example, can be cancelled with a bunch of scrolls or simply powered through with a use of 1 Breach spell).
Huge battles (breaching the seige of a fort) felt too chaotic to me to say that they require thinking or positioning, it's mostly blindly blasting things and moving forward and backwards between choke points (a-la PoE).
I'll reserve judgement on that for later however, since at face value on Hard and higher encounters are not easy (meaning, if you just try and left-click through some of the even simple recycled encounters, you probably will die in a few rounds), and I haven't seen the actual megadungeon yet.
Overall for encounters my opinion is mixed so far: it's not that I don't die or get TPKed, it's more like I know beforehand how to win any of them anyway, which gives me that familiar PoE vibe (but it should be forgiven here more since hey, it's Baldur's Gate, what new can you actually do with it?).
Sounds like a faithful Baldur's Gate 1 expansion.
There already was a faithful BG1 expansion, with tightly packed content - it was about exploring forgotten dwarven keep full of traps and doppelgangers.
Also, SoD is fairly linear when you look at it from either BG1 or BG2 perspective, so there's little reason for these copypasted hobgoblins, ogre mages, wyverns and displacer beasts to exist. It could have been a better version of Icewind Dale or something like that, since it's already on the rails a lot like IWD anyway.
Will Carl Batchelor be the next Lesifoere, or just the next Volourn? Stay tuned.
