I really like what has been done with the new tutorial dungeon. Having a miniboss battle really wraps up that dungeon, and I believe will make a newer player feel like he or she has accomplished something. It adds a nice pacing element, as well as making that dungeon feel complete. Very well done.
I agree, that last boss battle is fantastic and a great capper. The set design in that area is also good. Thanks, Larian for putting that in. It really does a lot for that dungeon and makes it much more satisfying.
I do feel however, that crafting is kind of left by the wayside (could be a bud though). I've only gone through it once, but I picked up all the crafting items at the "crafting table" and got no popup with regards to crafting.
Yeah, I also noticed the pop-up was missing too. Probably a case of the pop-up trigger not being moved properly when the crafting table was.
I also noticed the candles not igniting the oil patch. They specifically added that last patch, so I'm thinking that's more bug than intentional change.
I wouldn't mind the conversations back. The first one I can see being gone becuase it was referring to the trap being inactive, meaning the cultists didn't come back this way else they'd have tripped the trigger and it would still have been going. With the trap gone, it's hard to tell if the cultists made it down or not.
The second conversation would work with minor tweaking on the stairs up.