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If you have auto-cast spell slots occupied by healing spells, those spells are getting cast already, even before the party member auto-drinks (or simultaneously, or soon thereafter), and those spells cost mana, which then results in the casters drinking mana potions, so there's even more waste.

This leads me on to other comments, in response to some of the other suggestions that have been made here. I do like the autocast feature (toss "Drown" in there and watch the low-level mobs drop while your party stands there doing nothing, which isn't too different from some of the "X-Armor of Greater Fireshot" or whatever, used along with "Shared Pain" and "Shock Armor" and "Orb of Energy" stuff from LoA), but if you've also got auto-drink, the two are redundant if any party members have healing spells in autocast slots.

I also don't think spellcasting in towns is a bad thing (and would be impossible in "The Kalrathia Rebellion," unless everyone in your party can use Ranged and Melée). After the earlier stages of the game, your mana should be restored fairly quickly after the autocasting to buff and summon, but if you don't want to wait and are concerned about the teleportation, you can do what I do: make frequent use the pause feature and click around to keep the other characters active till your selected character gets to the teleporter and selects the destination. Then all the autocasting happens after you've teleported. Alternatively, the game designers could allow summoned creatures to be teleported with your party, so there's no waste, and no wait --- as Darkelf said, this would be even better.

I agree with Sharkull about formations and Baldur's Gate. There should be some formation options, along with "Mirror," "Rampage," and "Wait." Isn't there one other one, something like "Protect" or "Guard?" I've never used it, and never even set up a hotkey for it, so I'm not sure what it is. But anyway, BG had parallel lines (both horizontal and vertical), wedge, circle, single file, and maybe a couple of others, which were very useful in the changing settings and changing situations.

But I think "Rampage" is sufficient for allowing the player to have control over his/her own character only (if that's what the player wants), and "Mirror" allows the idea of a "Party Leader" yelling "Focus on the boss!" Still pretty RPG-like, I think.

Regarding Summons. I like what Elys did in the DS and LoA Succubus mods, where you had Nature Magic spells "Call X" and Combat Magic spells "Summon Y," and could have one of each type active. After all, if the bosses can summon multiple allies (Gom, Valdis, etc, all summon way more than two allies), then why are their opponents restricted to a single summons? Yes, we can have other characters in our party, but some players like soloing, and in the case of a boss that summons 10 allies, what's a girl to do if she's all alone in the dark alley with the big bad guy and he calls his pals, too? I'm only advocating two summoned creatures at a time for each character, mind you, not an infinite number (though with a party of six, that means 12 more on your side, if everyone can summon two creatures). It's also possible, as Elys showed, to increase the difficulty of a foe based on the number of people in your party. That would probably be difficult with regard to how many summoned creatures your party has, for more than one reason, but the most challenging reason is that you and your party may not summon anything till after the battle starts (and once the battle starts, the foe's HP and MP are, usually, basically set).

I'm not crazy about having separate maps for MP and SP. I would like to be able to play the whole game I've paid for, whether I'm online or not. Just having separate maps is not a problem, but as I've already suggested, it would also be nice to have one big map that combines all the smaller maps, for those of us who would like to do a huge campaign (like, say, starting in Yesterhaven, moving to LoA, then on to Ehb, then UP, then DS2, and then BW, and then whatever comes with DS3).

As far as character classes, I'm of mixed opinions. On the one hand, I like being able to wear any armor, use any spell, and wield any weapon I find (as in DS1), but on the other hand, if the classes were a bit more flexible, more classes might be okay. In addition, Fist of Stone (Nature Mage/Melée Fighter) and Blood Assassin (Combat Mage/Ranger) are nice dual class options, but what about more, like Nature Mage/Combat Mage, Melée Fighter/Ranger, Combat Mage/Melée Fighter, and Nature Mage/Ranger, or even multiclass options, where you develop three or even all four classes simultaneously? The names are already in place (think of "Master" and "Grand High Siegemistress" and so on), so that much of the development shouldn't be a hassle.

The lift/elevator thing mentioned by Darkelf is something that does need to be fixed. It doesn't happen often, but it happens, and even once is an annoyance.

Personally, I like my weapons to glow, sparkle, and/or drip colored light, and the variety of effects is one of the cool things in the game, I think. Some of the new effects in DS2 are visually stunning. And after all, you're a legendary hero, aren't you? Shouldn't you have a weapon that is a legendary artifact/relic, and shouldn't it look the part?

I also like the special Powers. If it's a challenge in PvP, maybe they should not be usable in PvP (but that would only be workable if the setting were strictly PvP, and not a normal game in which PvP and Teams were allowed). Still, there are going to be ways to boost your character's armor, HP, MP, chance to block this or that sort of attack, and so on, by means of character editing, which will allow an unfair advantage in PvP to those who know how and are willing to do it. Some of this is a bit questionable in terms of whether or not it's "cheating" (you can make your character practically invincible just by editing, using the items already in the game in ways they were not intended to be used). I would not want to see that potential disallowed, even if it can be abused to some extent in PvP (the guilds all seem to have used these techniques for PvP on ZoneMatch, so it became a bit pointless to do PvP against someone who was part of a guild unless you also knew how to use those tricks, but then you might also wind up with two characters who could not kill each other).

The green outlines only mean "neutral," and the red outlines mean "aggro." You already know you're going to have a fight with the Morden Chief, but he and the other Morden in his room all have green outlines when you first confront them. If a mob is aggro, you'll know pretty soon, even without a red outline, but it does help you know when you've actually got the mob properly targetted.

The tutorial is okay the first time around, in helping you to learn some of the changes from the older game, but once you've played it once, there's no need to repeat it every time you start a new character (which you'll want to do if you've got several character options that are appealing, or character mods you want to try out).

Oh yeah, how about adding chain mail bikinis to the game? Okay, so maybe Sartan and Vix shouldn't wear them, but ...

~~~
Giovanna