-Give some enemies ... thunderwave
Getting pushed off a cliff by imps in Raphael's basement is the most unfun antifun I had in the game so far.
Insta-kill buttons are rarely fun, especially so when wielded by the enemy but even when wielded by the player. Killing low-level mobs with words of death or similar stuff is ok-ish in some games but when it works on bosses it becomes really unsatisfying (except when it only works when he's weakened, then its good again)
It is especially bad since a push is a bonus action rather than replacing a normal attack. You can usually do your normal attacks and spells and still get your shot at an instakill on top of that. Assuming the terrain has some kind of chasm or steep fall, which many battles do.
The changes Larian made to both Jumping and Pushing are purely to the negative of the game, IMO. Jumping makes positioning much less important as movement is much much easier (ludicrously so) and you can't as effectively use your martial classes to protect your squishier dudes in the back, while pushing is just a very low-cost attempt to either insta-kill someone or put them prone.
Has larian offered any kind of defense or reasoning for these retarded choices?
Their environment design I guess. If you don't position pre-fight you kinda need the jump change because enemies often start in better position than you, up high. I think jumps should be purely vertical and not a replacement for horizontal movement which it often ends up being. I don't mind that change much because everything was designed with it in mind and enemies abuse it as well.
The shove one is a bit more of a problem as there are too many insta death chasms around imo (although getting rid of bosses this way does cut you of good rewards), but it feels pretty great if you just play with surfaces/cloud of daggers. Otherwise it would not be useable in most scenario as attacking with a weapon would be a better choice for the most part.
I am much more annoyed at stuff like the haste change for example.
By making it easier to get out of a bad starting position it also just makes positioning less important, period. And that actually weakens all their level/encounter design. When all it takes to get around the fact that an enemy ranged attacker is on high ground you can't quickly get up to is one bonus action, then that negates the value of having terrain like that in the first place.
Larian did a lot of beautiful level/encounter design. But the fact that jump brings us half-way to having both sides line up and take turns attacking whichever enemy they want to negates a lot of that.
And it isn't all just the player getting out of bad positioning. That also lets the enemy negate your goof positioning that gains you an advantage.
I would much rather deal with having to retry some fights where I make adjustments to the initial positioning of my party and keep the importance of the positioning to enhance the level/encounter design.
