Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Next Community Update?

It has been almost 3 weeks since the last community update and as more people progress into Act 3 there is a lot more discussion about some of the games short comings. Could we please have an update? Just something to let us know what the focus is, some possible ideas floating around and what we can expect going forward.

What makes you think Larian will make another updates?
The net is filled with Astarion memes and Karlach/Shadowheart thirsting by people who haven't even left act 1 (and probably never will) and gaming magazines gave some of the highest scores ever because they played 10 minutes and the hype was so big.

What reason would Larian have to address anything at this point? For that to happen the act 3 complains would need to get much, much louder.

Well if they don't fix it. I won't buy the next, others won't either. And I will just hope that the success sparked the interest of other studios to make DnD RPGs.

And tbh I don't think most people have finished yet.

I do hope they will fix it though. But I am also dissappointed with the focus of some of the people on this forum. 90% of the posts seem to be girls asking for cosmetic updates or turbo simps asking for the option to have sex with more people in various ways (or simp ending with X companion).

They’ve said they’re working on a big performance update, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we got another patch soon.

What in the world are you talking about? I can go to the story forum right this very second and a huge portion of the threads are from people disappointed with various endings. I can go look at the suggestion and feedback forums and a huge number of the threads are people complaining about lack of difficulty, bugs, or other gameplay problems. The flaws in this game aren't some esoteric secret that the foolish masses cannot see. They're pretty glaring and obvious.

Yes, in the forum here....

Also, Larian does not read this forum. They are occasionally on reddit and there and criticism of BG3 gets downvoted instantly. Steam forums are not much better. And there is of course the still stellar metacritoc score and steam reviews.

Yeah but they specifically mentioned this forum in their post. As for the other places, I'm not too worried. Some places are more susceptible to the hype train than others, but everything evens out over time. I think it's very likely that with time criticism of this game will be widespread and uncontroversial.

I was complaining about the apparent non-response to the forum and love the subreddit gets a while back, but I was informed of reasons for this situation:

1. Community managers and other Larian staff DO check this forum from time to time. They’re just not posting or getting involved. Community managers in particular would relay common constructive feedback on this forum to the rest of the company during EA via a specific mechanism or document (can’t remember exactly).

2. The subreddit is NOT primarily a feedback forum. They have specific days where feedback is encouraged, while feedback here is ongoing. I personally view the subreddit as a social media gathering place for fans of the game with the occasional feedback. It’s supposed to be a fun hangout spot for fans.

3. Just because the occasional dev hangs out in the subreddit doesn’t mean Larian as a company puts undue weight on what they hear there.

4. This game has a large audience with many people who like different things, so let’s understand everyone’s going to want different things to receive focus. Larian hears about them, but ultimately the decision is deliberative, not knee-jerk.

They already have announced patch 3 and 4, so we know, that more updates are coming.
ANd I'm regulary over on reddit and there are posts giving criticism about the ending and other stuff. SInce I'm not finished yet (I'm close, but don't have that much time to play due to real life stuff).


Plus this - you will never satisfy everyone. I wanted Helia, I did get a horny bear and an evil drow, so I roll with it. That doesn't make teh game bad for me.

The only update I'm currently interested in is, when they will actual fix performance so I can continue act 3.

Apart from that I think, that the structure of the game is fundamentally flawed with act 3 killing any sense of urgency I had. But well, I'm still having fun and that kind stuff likely won't get fixed anyway. So give me decent performance and I'm good to go.

I appreciate your willingness to lift the veil on Larian’s communication. Do you have any insight as to their post-launch strategy? As far as I can tell, they’re still selling the game to mac users as complete though it isn’t. Does that kind of feedback still need to go through moderators and up the chain?

Seems like a small thing to miss out on compared to the last 30 hours, a coherent ending, and actual closure : D

Just wondering, what do you mean from time to time? I am posting stuff now because I don't feel like I will have time to give feedback, or remember stuff to give feedback on later.

I might disagree with a few of Larian's choices, but I absolutely believe they are listening, and I trust that they have passion for their work and care about what they're doing.

This is a nice refrain, but to a certain extent, I wonder. They cannot be unfamiliar with the criticism levied at them across multiple games now that they drop the ball in the last parts of their games, yet it's a mistake they keep repeating. I think it would pay to be a little bit more skeptical of them.

While I understand the reasoning, many companies do not directly interact in their forums, I still think it is a bad idea. I am not talking about in depth conversations, or giving dates for material. I am saying a company should have an "official" account that makes a presence felt by the community. In lieu of that then having a forum moderator occasional give some feedback from the devs would be nice. Even if it is as simple as letting us know they are watching the forums.

The criticisms of the ending and epilogues are incredibly important from a polished product point of view. There are also continual QA issues and incomplete areas in game (I wont spoil it here but confirmation that there is a possible area locked behind a broken puzzle that a Larian support member confirmed they are trying to fix)

At this point I think a Community Update specifically around Endings and Act 3 would allow more good will from long term customers and gamers. Just at least talk about what the plan is for those.

I honestly can not think that Larians pride in their product would allow them to leave the main story and in particular act 3 as is. Act 3 is almost laughably bad in relation to QA, quest progression triggers and inconsistencies (+ bugs).

If so this is the last game I buy from them, because this is the worst state I have ever seen any game I have played in, if I look at act 3 in an isolated sense. On the contrary if they do fix this I would be more than happy to pay another 50 euro (definitive edition?), for what would actually be, the RPG of the next 20 years. I would rather pay 100 euro for an amazing game than 50 euro for all these mediocre RPGs out there.

With a rewritten main story, act 3 brought up to act 1-2 standards, and maybe add in some more branching and consequence in the story, this game is a full 10/10

I do not know if this is hyperbole or you have not played many games but on the grand scale Act 3 is in the fair range, not even bad. For me the issue is the story line in Act 3 comes off as rushed, push to and ending to just get an ending. This combined with a Tadpole system that feels forced and there are my major complaints.

My initial reaction was that it is not so bad. However I have come to realize we are all being extremely lenient on it because the veil got pulled over our eyes with act 1-2, but the more I think about it the worse it gets.

There are bugs everywhere, story inconsistencies everywhere, faulty plot progression triggers, lines repeated all over the place. For example:
-Gale randomly states that he wants to take the crown and reforge it in a conversation with an NPC, as if it was something that was already discussed within the group. 3 hours later at camp he exaplins his reason for wanting to know more about the crown as if he already hadn't stated it out loud. And stuff like this HAPPENS ALL THE TIME.
- Tanner the Gordian states he wants to blow up the factory after his daugther dies, he tells me to come back for him after the path is cleared. I come back after doing exactly that, and he states randomly" I warned you this is your fault my daughter is dead because of you" and attacks me.
- The Emperor shows you the vision that confirms he was manipulating everyone then still acts all. "why don't you trust me"?

- When Karlach runs away and says she has to think, when you find her the same conversation will run twice
- Every time I dismiss Minsc I have to tell him twice.

There are way more, so many I can't even remember them all. And yes, I don't play that many games anymore. Mainly because I have high standards and prefer not wasting my time because I also like to do other stuff(in addition to you know , life). So generally, the games I play are FINISHED. Act 3 is far from finished and QA'ed. Which is why I rate it so low.

Add in the choose X squid ending or Gale nuke after all the talk about choice I cannot help but think ,if we got dropped off in act 3 without playing act 1 and 2 we would all rate it 4/10. I mean it. DA:O was never like this at the ending. The Witcher 3 was never like this at the ending.

Even old games like Planescape and NWN2 have NOTHING this bad (when it comes to bugs, faulty plot triggers).