1) maps are too small, and the 'walls' that hem us in are too obvious. Make them bigger.
2) archery and spell range (other than the burning hands and similar spell range) appear to be unlimited. They should have a more limited range.
3) add more terrain effects such as:
Well they should definitely add in #2. I could also see some more larger maps, although not too much larger. There are a few fairly large maps in existence but increasing the average size of maps by about 25% would allow for a little more maneuvering. Derek and the team have discussed #3 to death. In the end they decided they didn't want to add it in because it would make tactical battle success too important and diminish the strategic aspect of the game. Personally I think even very slight terrain bonuses would add a lot to the game without making them too important in the grand scheme.
Personally I would like to see more interesting tactical abilities in combat. Right now a lot of units have no abilities and the ones they do have are uninteresting. Look at some other games like Final Fantasy Tactics for inspiration here, they have extremely deep tactical battles based around interesting abilities. Awhile ago I posted a thread that listed some ideas for unit abilities, of which they have already implemented one. Other then troop abilities there needs to be far more interesting monster abilities, especially for bosses. Why do tough monsters have such uninteresting abilities? Some examples of possible good ones are:
Great Smash: Does normal damage and knocks back a unit 3 tiles.
Crush: Damages all unit within 2 tiles of caster but has a casting time of 1, can't be interrupted.
Shadow Rift: Does slight damage to all units within 1 tile of target location and summons a lurk there. No casting limit.
Wind Devil: Target unit is teleported to a random tile.
Entangle: All nearby units can't move for 3 turns.
Shrill Storm: All units take a small amount of random fire, ice, or lightning damage unless they resist. Summons 3 random fire ,earth, air, or water shrills to random locations. No casting limit. Cooldown of 3.
Earth Spike: Target unit takes mild piercing damage, is knocked back 1, and the target tile becomes blocked.
Large monsters should be acting like mini bosses that you want to fight because it's fun, unlike now where they all are just slow melee buffs. How about some fast moving ranged ones or summoners that sit back and throw waves of units at you? Even the melee ones should have cool abilities that require you to think and dodge.
