Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The next patch?

Has Larian indicated when we will get the next major update?

It just seems like we were getting new patches about once a month or more, but it's been a month and a half since the last hotfix... kinda has me worried... Larian has never been great at communicating combining that with a lack of patches and hotfixes feels worrisome...

There is little point of releasing too many hotfixes for each build of the game - it is a build of a game which is likely already outdated by the time it is released (content will get locked a significant time before patch's release, and then it will be playtasted and polished so player base can play it, while the game development continues forward - at least that's how it worked in other early access RPGs like that. I have no experience in software or game development but that's more or less how it was explained in PoE2 alpha testing). Unless there are issues that prevent players from testing what they are supposed to test, there is little reason to invest into a build that won't contribute into building 1.0.

Larian has been releasing a patch every 2-3 months though recently the progress has slowed down - my guess would be that Larian gathered a lot of feedback they were looking for and now focus primarily on finishing the game.

There has been a mention some time ago by one of the dev that they are planning Pannel from Hell, but it is difficult to say when the patch will be finished - that they are working on PfH only indicates that they know what will be in the next patch, not necessarily that the patch is around the corner - clearly their pFH aren't organized in a handful of days. It is also possible that they discovered a major issue while playtesting the build and had to postpone release.

Either way there should be something coming up soonish.

Without wanting to derail the topic into politics, it might be relevant that Larian had a studio in St. Petersburg, not sure if, how and what they had to change to keep working in terms of sanctions and stuff, but I would say that the war could have messed up their dev cycle if not compromise their studio in russia as a whole, minimally forcing them to into organization-practical changes leading to delays.

time to go to moonraise towers

by the way, one of my feedback, I think the plot trigger should always be our player character, not the companions.

+1 To whole

If you exclude the first couple months after EA released, Larian has fairly consistently released a patch every 4 months.

The most recent patch (#7; Barbarian) was on Feb 15, so right now they're only a ~week later than their past schedule.

Larian typically makes a Patch and/or PfH announcement 1 week before it happens. They don't offer much more warning than that.

i hope their real issue isn't the permutations. i have alot of fun with solasta. now on the 4th playthrough (with DLC of course). the fun i had in solasta were obviously the combat. so i'm not quite sure Larian focus with baldur's gate 3. is it a heavily story based game or a dnd5e game.

Larian's focus is to do as much as possible. It has a lot of story but it is also a systemic sandbox, it is singleplayer and coop, it has D&D5e but also D:OS2 system, it has a lot of neatly designed combat enouncters, but also "lolz!" homebrew mechanics to trivialize a lot of encounters.

They are trying to do both and more. Two obstacles have been the engine and the development team.

The engine has evolved into something that is absolutely gorgeous visually. Somewhere in the code, it was not suited to implement 5e as it was written. They encountered a mountain and made the poor decision to go around. They should have updated the code and blasted through.

The development team are trying to make this story driven (as one aspect). They have made great decisions to be fully voiced and engaging, unfortunately they have never been great at telling stories. They have driven full speed into a muddy road. This is the history of this company: They envision something grand, miss the mark, then backtrack and try again until they get it right. The later is what I admire about them.

I keep saying that I am impressed with their work. It's an improvement over what they have done before and it is fun. It has the potential to meet expectations and more. I was checking back to see if there was an update to see something tangible...back into wait mode I go.

i think larian probably repeat the DOS2 system again which i hated the most. The "finite" number of combat encounters. That poses a problem especially on the gearing/itemization/loot where they are random. When a combat encounter finished there are no more fights that you wished for anymore. You end up with subpar weapons/items where the only way is to "grind" the vendors. This could be resolved if they did what Solasta did. The random encounters. However Larian doesn't want that. They like to stick to their old DOS2 formula. So we can only see that combat encounters are "heavily" unfair and imbalance where most fights players are "encouraged" to use barrelmancy or the new shove? Their design they wanted each combat to be memorable and unique hence they have to alter monster stats and abilities (which isn't according to statblock) and users to find exploit and chokepoints to win fights. I think larian should go away with their old stubborn thinking in my opinion.

If alot of their "budget" went into cosmetics and cinematics that probably wont end well for a game if it has shallow content. I see longevity for Baldur's Gate 3. The content and the random encounter will be great. Much like Solasta. But if Larian want to stick with fixed/finite combat encounters we probably end up with DOS2 itemization issue as loot are random.

They need to add 2 more levels next major update. I don't think anyone would drown in tears if that happens. The EA supports experience for this and it would be nice to see how the fabulous fireball does to the irritating goblin trash mobs.