Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General RIP the patch every 2 weeks

Building off of that, I've seen multiple posts about classic BG fans who were actively dissuaded from trying the game by rhetoric like Mr_Planescapist's here, but ended up liking the EA when they tried it. And as a 5e aficionado, I also am very happy with the EA in general.

I am happy to support rpgs that look good to me in EA or Kickstarter because I know they don't make as much money as other types of games. However, if you don't like EA, just wait until full release to get a game, as it says on the BG3 steam page.

that word has lost all meaning. "omg, you paid for a product and expect something? You're sooo entitled" It's ridiculous. Yes, technically we don't have any "right" to know what's going on behind the scenes, but yikes, a lot of EAs pride themselves on this idea that "hey, we're building the game while you watch" kind of vibe, which includes communication like "Hey, here is our weekly update about what we're working on". It's not entitled to be disappointed when that doesn't happen. It's like if most of the Mcdonalds you visit let you have free refills and suddenly one doesn't, you're not entitled for being disappointed. You're just disappointed, and that's OKAY, just as it's okay for that Mcdonalds not to give you free refills.

Certainly some developers ( paradox comes to mind ) are much more active in providing blogs and other ongoing communications/soliciting feedback, even when they have not taken your money.

Apparently having nobody tasked with community engagement during a full-priced EA, with no real notion of duration, is probably not a good look.

Exactly this. Larian is benefiting hugely from this EA process. We’re all paying volunteers here. A little communication from Larian isn’t too much to ask. At least a running list of known issues or acknowledgment of areas they’re addressing would go a long way so we’re not all talking around in circles. They want my feedback? My feedback is I would politely request that they communicate with us more, just like they used to and other studios using EA do.

As you said VOLUNTEERS !! Nobody made anyone purchase the game in Early Access. You are a volunteer, complaining about the lack of a pay-off. You've been told volunteers will get a free party , dinner and concert at the end of the job, and are screaming because you haven't received details on what is being served, who is playing at the concert, what date it is scheduled for - and demanding your favorite dishes and bands because they are what "everyone wants".

You’ve obviously never done any real volunteering or managed volunteers in your life. Communication is absolutely essential.

I’m really not sure what it is you people feel that you need to be communicated to you.

You want to know exactly what Larian is working on? Not going to happen. In AAA development there are two many moving parts. Larian would constantly need to walk back their statements as features get reimagined, retooled, and pushed back.

You want to know broadly what Larian is working on in a very general sense? Why? For what purpose?

So we know we didn't drop 60 bucks to talk into a void over an alpha test?

What does that mean?

You dropped $60 to purchase a game that you know Larian is working on.

You paid it early to allow Larian to collect your data and read your feedback and make changes to the product before full release.

We already know that they are implementing changes based on feedback based on the last patch.

So what do you mean when you say you are afraid that you are talking into a void?

OK here’s an example – there’s a (possibly infamous) thread in here which has just been promoted to megathread status on party movement – almost 500 comments since Tuco posted it four months ago. A simple ‘it’s in the pipeline’ or even ‘we hear you' from Larian would go a long way. Just take a skim of it and get a sense of the frustration involved and the resentment brewing. It would be so easy for Larian to turn that around, if they treated this forum as other studios treat their betas/EAs (even Larian themselves for DOS).

See? You have already provided interesting topics to keep us in the loop on how and why the game is shaping up the way it is going to be or not going to be. How much they want to go into detail is up to them. I don't need to know every secret hidden room that eventually didn't make it into the game. I also don't need to know about experimental features that aren't even playable at the moment.
But I would like to know what their reasons where to change something that was already implemented in Early Access, for example, or what they are still being unsure about. They could also talk about the currently hottest topics on the forums, to maybe cool the flames here and there or provide another topic people could talk about and get an idea of how people feel about certain things.
They could also just put a stop to certain discussions that are running in circles infinitely because there is nothing in sight on how Larian is going to move on with the game. It feels like everyone and their mother have discussed back and forth about things like combat, how much DnD 5e should be in the game, how much homebrew should be and so on.
They already have a wonderful tool in their hands, a direct line of communication between them and their customers and fans. The only thing they would need to do is use it. If they actually care about feedback, that is, and don't just have a forum for the sake of having a forum and ignore it.
Just being a bit more transparent about their design and production process doesn't mean they would have to play with all cards open.

Every mega thread should have had official responses from a community manager/dev type, at a minimum.

Actually, volunteers are told do this, put this there, be here at such time.

They are not told the program budget, hiring plans, proposed programmatic changes, time lines for proposed changes - and they have NO input into such areas.

People keep demanding Larian run EA the way they believe it should be run - Larian has absolutely NO duty to respond in a fashion you or I deem proper - they get to respond if and when they choose to, in the manner they choose to. This is 100% their choice.

Your choice and mine was solely the chose to participate in EA -

Our choice now is to communicate our opinions and viewpoints, or not.

It’s kind of funny that you post that thread. The first comment in that thread was from me voicing my agreement with the OP because of problems with how the game handled jumping. The last patch specifically changed party jumping in a way that resolved my complaint. I don’t need a Larian rep to come in and assure me that my problem specifically would be addressed. They have said multiple times that they read the comments, iterate on their game design, and implement where they can, and I’ve seen this demonstrated.

Now there is nothing wrong wishing Larian communicated more often. Their perceived lack of response doesn’t bother me, but this is in line with what I have always seen on all of the official game forums I have visited (which isn’t very much) so I don’t expect anything more.

The thing I butt up against is the idea of people being bitter, resentful and frustrated by this. Why? It would be one thing if this was a beta for a multiplayer game, where constant developer feedback is absolutely necessary to maintain the active, constant player base, but that isn’t this game. You don’t need to be constantly engaged with this game and so Larian isn’t trying to keep you constantly engaged. If you have already played 200 hours repeating the first chapter of a roughly 100 hour rpg then get a new hobby. Play another game. Read a book. Learn to paint. I say this as somebody who has put almost 200 hours into the game, and hasn’t bought a new game since.

You people are demanding that Larian not only continue to make the game, but to keep you engaged and entertained while they do it. Why? Just be patient and do something else.

“But I payed to be in the EA!”

And you got hours of (hopefully) entertainment from a game that is a year out from full release. You aren’t owed anything else.

Edit: I’m responding to my own hypothetical invented quote here, not you specifically, Lukas.

I think you misunderstood my point. We don’t need to be in the loop, and Larian doesn’t need to keep us constantly engaged in this forum. If people are at each others’ throats and talking around each other in circles that is their problem, not Larian’s. I just find the very fundamental premise that Larian is responsible for managing people’s expectations and level of engagement in this way a bit ridiculous.

I only ever see studios provide this level of community engagement if they:

A) are making some sort of multiplayer game that needs a certain volume of constant players to maintain viability
B) it is a really small studio that needs to assure its backers that it is still actually making the game and not dicking around.

That isn’t to say there aren’t exceptions to this generalization, but I’ve visited a bunch of different game forums pre-launch over the years and the level of engagement I see here doesn’t strike at all as atypical.

Anyway, typical or not, this it how it is. I simply don’t understand being frustrated by it. We know they read the forum (as they have already made adjustments to the game based on feedback). We will eventually know what is in the new patch and what they have been implementing very soon. Why it is in any way incumbent upon them to tell us what they are doing in the interim is beyond me. I know they are working on the game. Why isn’t that enough for you?

If they did tell people what they were doing some would still melodramatically protest and bicker anyway, regardless of whatever they do, simply because it’s the internet.

That is correct, they don't need to be active or engaging with us, or even moderating on the forums. But doing so wouldn't hurt them either and could even improve the discussions being held on the forums.



This might be correct as well, but "not being atypical" doesn't mean that it's good.

Simple: people are different. What might be good enough for you, isn't automatically good enough for the rest of the world. And every person you meet in life might have different standards of how good or bad something is or has been, whether being it your boss about your job performance, your teacher about your grades, your parents about your freetime activities, or your partner about how little you talk to each other.

Following this reasoning you could simply abandon any type or form of PR because your argument is so broad-brush it could be applied to literally anything. So no reason even talking to anybody in life because there will always be someone protesting or bickering about what you say.

I haven't been around when they were workin on DoS2, but what I do hear a lot is how much more active and engaging they were back then. And now that they have way more money and resources at their disposal I am actually surprised that people are suddenly holding them to a lower standard than what they were used to.

Time to bump this. We were told over 2 months ago at Patch 4 release that they improved their coding and programming and would make subsequent patches easier and faster.

Now we wait to see if the time for Patch 5 actually takes longer than Patch 4, which was over 90 days.

At this point I don’t really believe anything Larian promises. I do think it is best they just stay quiet if they have no intention of making changes or don’t want feedback.

This was my estimated timeline as of March 19
Patch 5: ...waiting (currently 8.5 weeks after Patch 4, 28.5 weeks since launch)
According to my estimate, we are behind schedule for adding a new class. But if the next patch comes in the next 6 weeks and includes the remainder of Act 1 and/or 2 classes, then we'll still be on schedule.