I liked the mechanics because the town part of the first game is exactly what I didn't like. I only beat the first boss post release and didn't play more after that.
Well that's it, you beat the whole game then. That's one of the problems.
You can't actually have much progression because they removed all of it along with the town. No more slowly leveling heroes into their niche roles that each named one can fulfill within their class, just the single best meta subclass with the same best meta comp every time repeated.
The town was basic boring busywork, but it was a necessary inclusion to keep the game from devolving into "the same 4 dudes, again, on the same exact path but slightly longer, again, until the end." There were other options between the two, instead they choose the worst one in just purely stripping it out into a boring talent tree system.
DD2 has far bigger problems than its romance system.
I liked the mechanics because the town part of the first game is exactly what I didn't like. I only beat the first boss post release and didn't play more after that.
Well that's it, you beat the whole game then. That's one of the problems.
You can't actually have much progression because they removed all of it along with the town. No more slowly leveling heroes into their niche roles that each named one can fulfill within their class, just the single best meta subclass with the same best meta comp every time repeated.
The town was basic boring busywork, but it was a necessary inclusion to keep the game from devolving into "the same 4 dudes, again, on the same exact path but slightly longer, again, until the end." There were other options between the two, instead they choose the worst one in just purely stripping it out into a boring talent tree system.