I finished Puzzle Quest and dropped NHL 06 because every game feels sickenly similar. Neverwinter Nights Platinum then found its way on to my harddrive, but after about 6 hours of that I got horribly bored with the pacing of combat. I also loaded up CoH and patched it up to make it work nicely with my SLI Nvidia, which is a game that I will finish this time, albeit slowly. So, now I'm going to play through DS2 again, but this time I'm going to mod in that change I have always wanted, to be able to have my full party right from the start. I hate the pick-up characters they have in the default game, because their personalities annoy me and some of their points are pre-distributed.
So, this brings me to the two things I want to see in a long overdue party based CRPG. The ability to have your entire party right from the start and to have defensive and offensive coordinated animations. After playing NWN, despite being frustratingly slow, the combat sequences are well animated. If a character misses a swing, the other character visibly dodges or parries. I'm sick of the offense only animations and having to go find the better half of your party.
Any other things that should be added to this list for the next CRPG?