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One of my biggest gripes in 3.5/PF1 is that PCs gain progressively better bonuses to attack as they level, but increases in defense largely rely on magic items like amulets of natural armor and rings of protection. Not only are those items boring, but they also take up valuable slots for more interesting and flavorful alternatives.
It would be a step in the right direction to introduce something like a base defense bonus that scale with level. Not only is this good for eliminating "mandatory" items, but also paves the way for rolling "active defense" as reactions should the player want to.
If we get special defenses like raising your shield, active dodging and some form of parrying (the first is confirmed, the other two only posited) then there will be level-linked defensive options.