Magnificate

Good to hear. Still, I'm of the opinion that there should be more companions. Namely, 11. 5+5+1. With 9 companions, there are only 4 left to reject if one wants to play with full-NPC team.

I don't have access to Backer Beta and I'm not entirelly clear on the mechanics of ranged weapon reloads. Does the game assume the characters are carrying pre-loaded weapons? Is the action sequence Fire-Reload-Fire-... or Load-Fire-Reload-Fire-...? Does it depend on the weapon type? It wouldn't be very realistic to pre-load bows. On the other hand opening combat with firearm volley is definitely something I'd like to see.

Yes! To me, the original skill system was basically fine. It's most important aspect was that it decoupled combat and non-combat level-up choices.

I agree with the suggestion to remove backer NPC icons. I'd also remove the green/red lines from AoE indicators. The fact that the cone or circle is larger/smaller than it would otherwise be is not an useful information.

Ah, so there is an in-story reason. That's OK.

Some dialogues options are locked behind attribute or skill checks. Do these dialogue qualifiers check for base attributes/skills or current attributes/skills? Are magic item bonuses included? Are resting bonuses included?

Why?

I've reading the PoE wiki and saw: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Woedica. Woedica would've been an ideal deity for my character to worship. I've also been watching YouTube Backer Beta videos and saw that Woedica was not available during Priest character creation. Why is that?