FreeKaner

Since DR is no longer a concern and penetration is the main mitigation, the advantage of more flat damage per attack is diminished against the more sustained damage of using two weapons. The damage of two-handed weapons should be upped or their penetration values increased even more to compensate.

Sounds like a leftover from the days of Pillars I where modals were more specific and were alternatives to class-modals. I think class-modals and weapon-modals should stack with each other but not with themselves.

The walking animation of your party members syncing together makes the party look like they are mass-produced puppets.

The numbers for both standard and empowered spells is way too low, that's the issue not the casting times themselves which I think makes the combat interesting, protecting your casters and interrupting the enemy ones becomes an actual concern but only if the pay-off for such long casting times are kept up.

I do also think guns should keep their niche as a burst and an alpha strike weapon with high damage, they should also perhaps also get high interrupt and interrupt rate over PoE1. I don't think tuning them down to bow standard is a good change, I don't think guns need to compete with bows DPS wise if they have a clear purpose.

If there is no longer a limitation to healing, then the injury system should stay brutal and increasingly punishing, or else the result would simply result in no necessity for resting and food resource management.

I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with penetration being an important core aspect of the combat and penetration being designed around either penetrating or not. It will likely require adjustments to weapon use and very likely the need to switch weapons according to the enemy, which is a good thing.

I am fairly certain this is a mainly sound design issue. The UI, the gameworld or the controls don't have any console design issues in them however sound design has a bit of a hint of modern action game design, in fact I thought it sounded to Dragon Age: Inquisition even in trailer. The sound design is not bad however, it just gives that action game vibe.