Ok, so apparently PoE II General Discussion board has only 3 topics PINNED. This is just sad and should not be acceptable for a game with so much depth. I'm here to get pinned, or to be forgotten entirely. Eothas be damned.
I do realize that a feature list is probably bloated to hell at this point. but this is something very close to my heart.
Make NPCs NOT STAND OUT in a crowd unless you have a quest related to them, or somebody actually mentions them by name!
If you are like me, you will be scanning each area for named NPCs, looking for quests, omitting anyone with no unique name attached, and frankly this has become way too predictable, imo. Basically, if an NPC has an actual name, you will initiate dialogue, and if it's a "commoner" you will not bother.
What if, using BG1 as an example, Tethtoril was just labeled as "a noble", or "a sage" until you get the quest from Firebead to recover the scroll from him? Sure, you still get the dialogue from him, but it's up to the player to engage in a conversation with a regular NPC. This way, a quest would be an actual reward, not something you receive just beacuse the NPC has a unique name attached.
Hope that makes sense. And thank you for reading.