Posted this on the Larian forum, but since it's not like we have much else to talk about I may as well share it here, so I can (eventually) hear some other opinion on these things:
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Playing through Grymforge highlights so many problems with Ui and controls.
Well, I guess the title gives you a solid hint of what direction this will take.
I'll also throw a bit of generic feedback about minor things I noticed in the process.
As a premise, after an initial attempt I mostly ignored Patch 6 until just days before Patch 7 launched (I just wasn't interested enough to the stuff it introduced) and as a consequence I experienced Grymforge for the first time through both patches in the span of the last few days.
Let's start with the good: it's a gorgeous, very well made new area with plenty to explore.
Now the bad: the way some of the key areas (and the "final boss fight") are designed is an almost tragic mismatch between how much micro-management and party-splitting is generally required (or let's say "strongly advised") and how utterly painful the game tries to make that playstyle in practice.
Move characters through trapped environment (where they may also get ambushed by enemies at any given moment, so be ready to move others too when needed) split your group to operate levers and mobile catwalks, jump, climb, use featherfall or misty step, etc, etc.
The final boss in particular (that I have to admit I liked in principle, despise not being exactly the most standard "D&D-like experience" out there) highlights how terrible the current reaction system can be, not to mention it makes the absence of ready actions more annoying than ever.
Before finally dispatching said boss for good I experienced several cases where an autoattack/reaction triggered when I was trying to lure the golem in a specific direction, usually with consequent outcomes that forced me to a reload.
It's also worth noting that one downside of "new shiny UI" introduced in Patch 7 is that it makes circling between ALL your characters, selecting the "Passive" submenu and disabling their Attacks of Opportunity even more cumbersome than before.
And it's not even a "one and done" thing, since there are moments during the same battle where you DO want to take these juicy AoO, while in others you definitely don't, so it's a constant "cycling and switching toggles" that becomes annoying fairly quickly and makes me chuckle a bit when I think about the people (a minority, admittedly) that in the past months said "they would hate a Solasta-like reaction system with quick case-by-case confirmations because it would slow down the combat".
In one of my attempts, I also experienced a fight where I won but I had my party wiped seconds later, since the game went back to real time and every companion had the SPLENDID idea to improvise a cheerful stroll in a pool of lava in an attempt to RUSH toward the character I had selected in the moment the boss died. I had to reload once again and remember to UNCHAIN the goddamn entire party as soon as the fight started, so "Thanks again, toilet chain" I guess?
And now a passing comment on a minor detail I noticed across the entire build:
what the hell is going on with a lot of NPCs now having these random-ass and not-particularly-lore-friendly shitty facial tattoos as if every one of them was designed by a bunch of DeviantArt rejects?
Can we go back to designing NPCs that have a sensible and well-put together look, fitting with their role in the story, status, class and race?
Adding arbitrary details on top doesn't make them better, it just makes them more "busy". Leave the weird abominations to the players in these "Post your own character" threads all over the internet.
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