I'm also retuning the inn bonuses so they almost all grant multiple benefits at lower value.
e: And not only skill/attribute bonuses.
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There should be a trade-off between the different types of resting locations/mechanics. Camping in the wild requires supplies and doesn't grant bonuses but it has the benefit of convenience and immediacy. Between resting at the stronghold and resting in an inn, there should be some sort of relative trade-off or eventually one becomes irrelevant and the player doesn't consider it at all. With +3 Attribute bonuses and +2 Skill bonuses [in 2.0], the stronghold grants the highest bonuses relative to any inn (The Noble's Rest is getting knocked down from +4 Int to +2 with an additional benefit). The inns grant multiple bonuses and bonuses that are not covered elsewhere.
E: The bonuses from the stronghold also (currently) last for 3 rest cycles, which I think is longer than most of the other ones.
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Inns are always located in urban areas, so sometimes they are convenient, but often they are not. In my playthrough, it was pretty rare that I rested to gain a specific bonus for a check. Usually I rested to gain a specific bonus for the gameplay benefit (e.g. increased damage/healing or making everyone extra-sneaky).
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Many rest bonuses actually last for multiple rest cycles. Unfortunately, the UI does not display this anywhere, so most players miss it. BMac has a bug to fix this for Patch 2.0.
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[after someone asks for the Weapon Focus talents to be removed]
A huge number of players want proficiencies and even more specializations. Even if people don't like how the subdivisions of weapons are laid out, a lot of players really want their character to excel in one or two specific weapons.
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There are a non-trivial number of players that absolutely loathe strongholds as a concept and never want to interact with stronghold mechanics. It's difficult to make something feel robust and rewarding but also completely optional.
And yes, the stronghold is a money sink. We have virtually no economic drains in the game. Purchased items, crafting, and the stronghold are the only three and they're all things you don't actually have to interact with (though most people buy a decent number of items).
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based on observations and conversations, a lot of players buy at least a few uniques from stores. As for the relative power of items, some of it is subjective and a lot of it depends on when you encounter the item. Some people don't stumble across a store until far later than they are expected to and the items don't seem as appealing.
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And if we gated a bunch of quests through the stronghold, there would be complaints about that. It's not really an "everyone wins" decision since some people hate stronghold-gated content. That said, if we had spare area and narrative design resources during development, sure we'd make some stronghold specific content. That was never the case and it still wasn't the case on the expansion. Whatever work is done on gated content is work not being done on content available to everyone.
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Azzuro sells 9 uniques, which isn't quite the same as the vendors selling them, but it works out to the same quantity. That could be bumped up, but then you're back in a position where if people aren't interacting with the stronghold, there's a significant chunk of goodies that simply aren't available to them.
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You're downplaying the aversion that people have to strongholds, specifically. If there's a "I hate big dungeons" bloc of significant size, I'm unaware of them. Stronghold aversion seems more comparable to romance aversion.
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I would hope what people take away is that all content costs something to make. If a bunch of people are asking for new dialogues and quests in the expansion, I have to ask how many characters and quests they want cut from the expansion areas, with the understanding that at a certain reduction of quest density, associated maps disappear with them.
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"when I think of what my expectations are for a stronghold in PoE were, I thought maybe a total number of quests (with similar depth) to the multitude of Strongholds in BG2."
Do you want us to cut six quests and ~20 characters/dialogues from the expansion areas for the stronghold?
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Content does not burst forth from our foreheads fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus through desire and good intentions.
