Baldur's Gate 3 II: The Urge for a Second Playthrough

[Psyren]

Then I do not understand what you're trying to say. I say that a game like BG3 needs a clear sense of progression (so, leveling up) for most of the game to be as engaging as it is for many players and that a lack of it would've led to lower sales.
I do not see Larian ever increasing the level cap given their own statements and I do not see Larian releasing a story-driven DLC where characters do not progress vertically (again, leveling up) since I believe that a D&D game needs that kind of progression in order to be successful; it's certainly not the only thing it needs to be successful, but I would say it is quite important.

I'm saying that you're conflating "sense of progression" with "more levels." You can in fact have the former without the latter.

Ugh, this game is just generous enough with the saves that I let my guard down, and then whoops I need to redo like 15 minutes worth of gameplay.

I've honestly been in the habit of saving before every conversation, every combat, and every few steps since my Black Isle days - never mind Bioware, Owlcat, and Larian.

In a way, that's a problem that a lot of newer games have... the specificity of choices, combined with everything being voice-acted, means that adding something like that is a far bigger endeavor than it was in games with more limited voice acting.

If I wanted to add Warforged and Artificers to the Infinity Engine games, I'd have to change the text of a few conversations, maybe... moreso with Warforged than with Artificers, since you might occasionally want people to comment on you being a robot. But that's just text, maybe with a few triggers in conversation trees (IF [charname] is warforged, THEN use conversation 1b). If I want to add a full NPC, I need a VA to do a few lines; an intro, some chatter if they're companions, that's about it.

Not arguing against the new version, by any means, just that it's a hurdle that makes some aspects of modding, either official or unofficial, more difficult.

Not that I'm advocating for official Artificers or anything, but I don't think Artificers are so different from Wizards in modern D&D that they couldn't just take their conversation tags. 5e Artificers don't have to be tinkers/engineers/machinists, flavor-wise they can just be "wizards who source their magic from objects."