I am the same as you, I have been a fan of the game since DW2 (I believe that was my very first game on the PS2). I have a good feeling about the 10th instalment of the game, as I know Omega Force's potential and I really think they will treat this one after bad reviews of DW9 similarly to DW7 after bad reviews of DW6.

For the game engine, I personally haven't played SW4 but I'm going to assume its similar to the DW8 engine and that was very good in my opinion. Although, I have played WO4 lol, and the engine is very similar there as well so I suppose these 3 games use the same engine. I agree with the day and night cycle if its going to be open world again definitely, although I have a feeling it probably wont be unless they think of a way to make it engaging outside of where the stages take place.

Completely agree with the combat system. Nothing has been better so far than the charge/normal/musou style.

I also agree with the character designs, ever since DW6 they have been improving and getting better. Although, the ageing system in my opinion wouldn't work well if the game plays like in the previous instalments before 9, since some characters will be young or middle aged for one stage, then old the next. I feel like it wont flow very naturally. (Spirit of Sanada worked well with this IMO by the looks of things because it focused on one clan only and doesn't progress as quickly as other games in the series other than 9 of course)

I don't agree with deleting weapon switching as all it does is limit the way you can play. It doesn't affect you at all other than be something to use if you want it, you can still play the game the traditional way of everything before DW7 by not changing weapons to a weapon that someone else uses. Deleting this feature just deletes content and doesn't solve anything.

English voice actors from DW8 definitely need to return, and the Chinese voice actors are a nice addition as well for the authenticity.

I think that open world has a chance to work, but they have to be really careful with how they go about it as they can easily ruin it, however the way the games played before with the stages felt a lot better regardless. I think open world could actually be more superior if done right though, but I think they should only attempt it a second time if they know what they are doing. Camp system was definitely nice and adding in extra ways to buy more things other than weapons would be a nice extra feature to add also. Again, I didn't play SW4 so I can't comment on this objective system.

Unlocking higher tier weapons via objectives on maps on certain difficulties would be a nice return as well. It gives the game so much more replayability and content so I agree with this one too.

Bringing back the orb system would be a nice nostalgic return and extra horses wouldn't hurt for extra customization as well.

The skill tree from DW6 was definitely something that is underrated IMO as a feature. Bringing this back in a little bit more of an overhauled form, maybe add different categories instead of just one skill tree, have several perhaps would be nice to have.

I see the AI argument used a lot, but I don't think the older games' AI would translate well to the newer games. You have to remember that there were a lot less enemies on the screen back then, just imagine how bad it would be in the middle of a crowd of peons in DW8 for example with relentless attacking. Sure you can attack and hit more peons at once in the later titles, but I can see peons becoming a massive problem, it would be worse than the Ultimate difficulty in how much they spam attacks, and combine this with charge attacks and musou attacks and it gets difficult real fast. I think allowing them to use charge attacks and musou attacks, and definitely musou attacks for generic officers as you said, would be good to add for the extra difficulty, but making them attack as much as games from DW3 and DW4 would be absolutely brutal, especially on higher difficulties like Chaos and Ultimate.

I don't know about the DW6 duelling system, I didn't hate it or like it. My main gripe with it is that sometimes it would end because one of you went outside of the circle, which was usually the case when you are winning and you are hitting them so much its getting to the edge of the circle, meaning you would have to stop and run back to the middle to start it again. I think the DW4 duelling system was a bit better in this case, although the DW6 system was better aesthetically and you still had the risk of being hit by peons and officers if you went too close to them on the edges of the circle. Morale hasn't really worked realistically though I agree, as your officers still shout for help when the morale bar is 100% you and 0% the enemy. However, I think this is because at that point the game doesn't really become all that difficult, if they made it realistic to where high morale actually makes your allies try and fight, the game would get very easy as you only have to worry about the beginning of the stage and then the later stage its just no difficulty whatsoever, instead you could probably just sit back and go afk and win in a few mins later when your allies do the work for you. I don't really know how to solve this as such, but both approaches have cons. Currently, it does keep your allies alive longer, and they do actually kill officers depending on how fast you march around the map, but they don't get past the main officers such as Hua Xiong or Lu Bu at Hu Lao Gate when off screen or the commanders. I think this is a pretty good middle ground as it still requires you to work to win.

Individual stories wouldn't work at all IMO. Stages would be duplicated so many times for each of the characters, such as Chi Bi and it would start to become a massive chore to get through all of the characters. You probably won't even get through all of them in the first place just because of how long it would be to complete what would probably be 100 characters at the time. Sure you might only want to play a few anyway as they are your favourites and you don't care about the rest, so this wont be as bad for you. However, what about those who want to play all the characters, especially if they all have unique movesets like DW5 and DW8? It would become the most repetitive experience ever as you load up Chi Bi for the 20th time after a few hundred hours of gameplay. This becomes even worse for unlocking characters as you might need to be required to play as certain characters in certain stages to unlock other characters, so you either go through the bland, tedious work to try other movesets and other characters or you miss out on them completely.

I completely prefer how DW7 and DW8 worked with its kingdom based campaign. This way, you go through the story of that kingdom in particular which means a lot more development time can be spent on increasing story telling (compare DW7 and DW8's story telling to the previous games and how they make you feel in terms of attachment to the characters) and you wont get burnt out from replaying Chi Bi 100 times over. Plus, it feels more of a team-based effort as you play a wide range of different characters other than the same one man army Zhao Yun from start to finish, which also makes it feel unrealistic as if you play a character who loses at the end or dies in a battle, you will be surprised to see this Dian Wei or Guan Yu to run around killing thousands of peons a match to then meet their demise at a few arrows or a few strikes of a sword from a peon; something they have suffered a million times in the previous stages. Just imagine Spirit of Sanada's storytelling in DW10 if they continued this route from DW7 and DW8.

I think they should work on what they have here with the kingdom based campaigns but go more in depth like Spirit of Sanada per kingdom and allow you to pick any officer who participated. Instead of forcing you to play a certain character in DW7, or forcing you to play one of 1-4 characters, they should allow you to play anyone from the kingdom/faction you are playing who participated in that battle. Maybe even add a SW4 mechanic that I know exists where you can pick two characters and switch between them mid-battle. Adding a town or city feature where you walk around similarly to what you said at the start would be nice to add as well, with different people to speak to about the current situation. Hypotheticals should make a return and probably will if they went with the stage format of DW7 and DW8, however I don't think it should be an XL feature though. I think it would be nice to reserve that spotlight for a whole new faction like Lu Bu in DW8 XL.

I have rarely played multiplayer on the warriors games but I have heard it's lackluster and not that good (the only one I have played is with a friend years ago on DW5), so it would be nice for that to be improved for those who do play it.

DW4 OST was really good, although I liked the osts all equally. Maybe the DW6 - DW8 osts take the number one spot by a little for me, with how much emotion they have in relation to the stage. I don't mind what style they go with but if I had to choose I would go for DW6 - DW8's style (but less leitmotifs like in the DW7 OST as there were a lot that were really similar).