I think this is about change management and communication. As someone pointed out, a roadmap could be helpful. As it would be focussed feedback. For example, they could ask specific questions to us, the testers. Otherwise they risk people thinking that they are ignoring feedback. And while I don't think that is the case, I do think that it is about visibility and expectations.
I mean, if some things are "set in stone", they should be honest and clear about that. If, for example, they meant the game to be played as an origin character, then they shouldn't promise that you could play as a custom character without penalisation, because then, you are setting part of your customers for disappointment. And so on.
I think you meant "they shouldn't have promised". Because they did say that playing as a custom character would be possible and interesting (obviously, that's very vague ... I mean they were vague and I don't remember the exact thing they said).
Well agreed otherwise. I'm still writing my feedback, and I keep thinking that it would be somewhat useful to know a tiny bit about where they are standing, so as to not include a number of things (things they don't want to reconsider, things they have already planned to re-work, etc). I feel that, at the moment, it's more work for them to filter the information through the noise in the feedback.
I very much agree that they should prioritize working on the fundamentals, but I think for the most part underlying mechanics and additional classes/races/companions (acts will only come with full release) don't clash. They're likely done by different people and introducing a new race doesn't impact working on the mechanics, imo. And those new things need to be tested as well; we have 6 classes left! And quite a lot of subclasses. And some of them have non-straightforward mechanics. Even if we get one class every two months, it will take a year. That's a lot of testing needed. Another thing is that the sooner those new elements get implemented, the sooner we can test how they work with the revamped systems; that's important too.
There's a lot of truth in that. There's a balance to be found. I'm not sure they have fully figured how to deal with Reactions for instance, and all those similar 5E rules that give a player decision points when it's not their turn (the Diviner mage being just one example that works the same way). And I feel they need to rethink some core aspects of combat. So, at the same time, they'll want to know how combat works to know how to translate a 5E Class into a BG3 Class. At the same time, they'll want to have a first draft of all classes to have a better view of how combat works.
At part of me tends to consider that they probably (hopefully?) started with whatever early graphics and UI they had (stick figures are wholly sufficient), translated all the 5E combat rules and classes, to get an idea of how it feels in video game form, and only then started playing around and homebrewing. Which means they should have a first draft of all classes already. But well, I don't know of video game design works as much as I know about board game design. Anyway.
