Ray

Its completely a cheat mode, and by zero means a"quality of life" feature. Apparently he has zero idea what QoL is.

That being said, I don't understand people's issue? Its completely optional, so if you don't like it, don't use it. However, I do feel using it should disable trophies (if the switch even has them?)

Ofc it can't have a world that bends around the party, there isn't a human running the game. When creating a video game, it cant account for every little choice the player makes, or have infinite maps to pull out based on something like, the party chooses to not goto Moonrise Towers, but instead Waterdeep. They limited the gameplay to level 12, because implementing spells like wish, require a human element, seeing as you can technically wish for anything. Also, post level 12, D&D's game balance massively falls apart. The most entertaining, well balanced, and engaging point is like 6-11.

Pretty much just the elemental surfaces, combos, and barrelmancy is the only things that really make it feel like Divinity 3: Faerun. The origin characters are basically just the DMs favorite NPCs, but since its a video game, they are controllable. You can literally do a 4 player Tav run, or even a solo run, that never recruits a single origin character, just like as in D&D you can just to ignore NPCs the DM tries to include in the party.

Is it a 1:1 perfect adaptation? Absolutely not. But it is a great interpretation, that introduces more people to the D&D system in a format that's easier for them to learn and absorb than sitting them down with pen, paper, dice, and imagination.

The game is more D&D for beginners, than it is Divinity:, Faerun.

At least on console, after you update a mod, the game warns you its a mismatch, might break it, and you have the option to roll back to update. Now, once you've saved, it stops asking, so if it broke 10 hours later then I see what you're saying.

Always keep a backup from when you updated, add, remove, etc mods just in case!

I fully agree here, but based on class choice, it does kinda throw off their story from an immersion side. Making him a paladin, makes all his weave, mystra, etc aspects feel off, because he's all about the arcane side of magic, while being a divine caster. I try to keep them into a class that fits their story. Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight could work here though.

Carla

Be careful with the durge run, there's a conversation option when first encountering him as durge you won't want to pick.

You can respec your companions into a different class if you want to take along a companion because you like them, but they are the same class as your Tav. In your first run, changing Gale to a Sorceror could have helped. Would have kept the arcane caster feel, while still being a different class. Also, could have gone OG Jaheria, as when BG first released, there was no druid class in it, so she was a fighter/cleric. It wasn't until the Enhanced Edition that they added more classes and swapped her to a druid.

I fully agree that having double classes (unless being just a dip for a specific build) can get stale, but it can also be fun.

While not exactly the same, I next to never use casters. I find them boring, and don't enjoy building them or playing them. The closest I get is a melee warlock that eldritch blasts only when they can't get into melee. I'm also not super fond of archers, so I typically end up with a full melee party and still enjoy the game. Every now and then I will throw in an archer of some sort, but still in over 700 hours, have not built a single caster, with the exception of the melee warlock.