the original combat in Gothic 3 was a vast improvement over the predecessors
Haha.
Worst UI in gaming history? Yessir.
Not really. It sucks for sure, but items have quite big pictures and rolling through inventory and barter interface is fast so you don´t really spend that much unnecessarily surplus time in these.
Skyrim´s, Oblivion´s and likely KoA´s UIs (at least on PC) are more unwieldy in the long run.
Gothic's controls are not complex - they are bad. Everything else is fanboy thinking.
They´re neither complex nor bad, they´re some of the most effective when it comes to action RPGs - allow for a very good degree of pc control and performing wide variety of actions via few keys (+mouse). They contain one clearly redundant element (action key needs to be accompanied by "up" key to talk to people or pick up items), but that alone does not make them bad.
IIRC, some of the functions are not well communicated in-game, but that´s a problem external to the controls themselves.
Everything else is just unadaptive mentality.
As for the "slow starts" of G1 or G2, if anything, these games start too fast by today´s unfortunate standards.
Neither has an hour long pop-up ridden tutorial and in both it´s possible to encounter enemies way over the pc´s head very early.
Not controlling a badass right from the start does not mean a slow start.
That some players may have problems accommodating to some aspects does not constitute a slow start either. By this logic we could say that Betrayal at Krondor starts slow because it takes some time to get used to its graphics, or Fallout starts slow because it´s isometric. These aspects are not inherent to the pacing of the respective games.
Also, I fail to see how all this I´m-playing-games-since-1900 stuff is relevant.
People who played games in 1983 are different people now.
Even debating their weak spots is considered heresy.
You were not really debating anything.
I haven´t played the games above, but it´s quite obvious both are (or at least attempt to be) adventure/RPG hybrids, similarly as Quest for Glory games are.
I´ve googled Fifth Disciples and two entries I´ve checked say: "features elements from point-and-click adventure games and fantasy role-playing games" and "an odd blend of adventure and simplified RPG-style turn-based combat".
Seems like you did not close the case at all.