The stronghold, at the very least. It was a major problem in the first game to have your base of operations be a thing that you had to return to with travel time, so it’s a significant course correction to have it come with you.

Sure but that’s a mechanics improvement that people aren’t going to realise because they never bought the game… because an Age of Sail / Pirates setting has never been popular in CRPGs. They should have stuck with high fantasy.

Having a turn-based mode as an option is always welcome especially with large parties but again… people need to play the game to get a feel for any potential improvements there. They didn’t buy it, didn’t play it, and still didn’t do either when turn-based was added.

Larian had zero reason to change a winning formula so I’m not sure why that factors in your mind? Literally a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

I agree that budget isn’t the defining difference, the setting is. DOS2 starts you off on a ship then dumps you on a tropical island. Did it suffer? No… because their game is clearly not a Pirates (Age of Sail) game. You even see a shot of the characters on a big ship during the trailer but then go straight back to combat on land.

There are many discussions on this particular issue and John absolutely refuses to acknowledge it because he likes the setting.