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

Though there is to some extent a... Let's call it "Negativity bias" for a lack of a better term, I'm sure there is one. In online forums, people tend to be more driven towards voicing their opinions if it's of a "negative" nature- Actually let's call it criticism, that's often what the intent is. I don't actually want to throw shade on any group of people here, rather share an experience.

It's more likely for someone to find the motivation and interest in navigating to an online forum, register, and make a thread because of having something in the nature of criticism or wish for change, than to go and say "Hey I had fun, this is great." without seeking to influence anything. This also drives people to reply where someone seems to share their opinion, or to try and 'enlighten' anyone who disagrees. It's also perfectly human to be defensive about one's opinions, and sometimes fall victim to perceiving an opposing voice as an attack or dismissal, and some people indeed quite literally do this, in either direction.

The point I'm ultimately trying to make is, online forums has the odds stacked against it of often being dominated by variants of criticism or "negativity", often because it's the most passionate fans that in their own way just want something they love to be even more loveable, somewhere deep down, even though others may perceive them as haters.

I want to focus on Larian forums specifically, to "win an argument" here, in the only way that matters in the end of the day imo, is to influence the developers. Most people get stuck in interpersonal squabble instead of focusing on what matters; Making the developer want to read, instead of dismiss it as "angry irrational people". For example a long while back, before EA launched, I wrote to Larian about the narration perspective, that a 2nd person past-tense could potentially be damaging to the feeling of player agency. I wrote something along the lines of, albeit very simplified and shortened, "Hey, if the narrator speaks about something that is currently happening, as something of the past, then as a player it may feel like the story is already set in stone, you're just viewing it through the lens of a history book, you're not actually choosing what you do in the moment. So I believe it should be narrated in 2nd person present-tense, so that the player has a stronger sense of driving the story and making the choices as they go themselves." - No squabble, no frustrated rants about how they're bad developers or ruin D&D or how everyone that disagrees with me is ignorant, or get stuck on calling them out for ad hominems, strawmans, or any other non-sense. Just keeping the eye on the ball, and presenting a rational argument.

Now I'm doubtful that my particular message was in any means impactful or the straw that broke the camel's back, I'd be surprised if not many people shared the same "awkward feeling" towards how the earlier form of narration was, but I believe level-headed discussion that focuses on the merit of the criticism, rather than other participants of the debate, goes a long way. In fact, I believe that undermines the criticism more than anything, and I dare say most people share their criticism because they hope to see it make a difference. That's what I'm trying to say I suppose, that I want criticism and calls for action to actually inspire action, rather than to undermine itself by falling victim to typical weaknesses of the human psyche.

Also, I'll suspend myself for making who ever makes it this far suffer with a TL;DR wall of stuff that probably could be about nine paragraphs shorter - Though I'll excuse myself with a 5 day tenure of insufferable heat and no wind. Please send help.

I think there is plenty of thoughtful topics here, with great arguments and well established reasoning. The idea that Larian isn't willing to listen to feedback because people on the internet could be unpleasant sometimes is kind of absurd to me. Larian are the strong, influential party here, they can do what they want. They could respond and explain themselves or they can completely ignore us and do what they want. The idea that they can't handle criticism because nameless people on the internet are mean to them is a bit ridiculous.

I don't think thats what The Composer meant. I think what they meant is that Larian might be simply more likely to listen to well reasoned feedback that does not in the same sentence insult them, because the are.. well.. humans.

I know what they meant. And I stand by what I said. Removing all the responsibility from Larian and blaming everything on the community, as if the reason Larian is silent and not willing to make changes is because of the community means removing any accountability from Larian. And Larian has some accountability.

People tend to be more vocal about things they are unsatisfied about than the ones they are happy about (and when it comes to things they are indifferent about it's not even a contest, really). That's true basically in any context.
And I'd argue there's also plenty of good reasons for it. Screaming your happiness at the top of your lungs is not exactly going to do you any favor, while asking for "problems to be fixed" has a clear self-serving purpose.

About the tone... Well, I'm not the biggest fan of tone policing in general as far as certain lines aren't crossed, but I'd like to point that there's a reason if the overall mood was WAY more cheerful in the first weeks of this EA and some users (myself included) drifted more and more on the surface of dark, never ending sea of bitterness as time went on.
Larian simply didn't live up to its promise to keep in contact with the community and have a two-ways communication with the user base.

For the most part, we started pointing flaws and "asking nicely" if something could be done about them, then we watched with a certain amount of perplexity the studio completely overlooking every point made by the community for the nine successive months.
They never even acknowledged several of the major, recurring points of criticism, let alone bothering arguing in favor of their choices and why they were even made in the first place.
What we got is a bunch of "Oh oh oh, you guys surely love to get laid and pet the dog. Also, eating mushrooms now is a free action and here's some loaded dices".

it's hilarious to me that we have even part of the user base being pesky because "People always complain about the same things".
Yeah, I mean, these "same things" are all still true nine months later, aren't they? And they didn't stop being bad just because at some point discouragement will prevail and we will eventually grow tired of talking about them.

I feel like this take is de-emphasizing something critical: forum discussion and arguments about ideas can change minds, help generate new ideas, and/or tangent into related but also important topics. Challenging ideas (through negativity/critique) can be very useful for figuring out what's important and refining our own ideas. At the very least, forum arguments will give Larian a broad view of many reasons for/against certain mechanics.

On this forum, we are (ideally) both trying to provide feedback to Larian but also trying to convince others of our viewpoints. Why? Because then our viewpoints will have more support=more forum posts agreeing with said idea=more likely for Larian to make changes. Personally, I've had my mind changed on a few topics through discussions/arguments, or at the very least was able to see something in a different light.

Negativity by itself isn't bad, as critique of things is the ~only way they improve. The problem is when that negativity is unconstructive or it's directed toward other posters instead of the game.

Sigi is quite right. No one is driven away. It's merely a comment of my observations on what I believe makes online communications more likely to reach the ears that we hope hears it. I'm on your team, or try to be, in that I just want people to be heard, and not undermined by what I call "noise". A thread that frequently requires moderation, is generally less likely to be heard because of the noise drowning out what is often good tidbits of thought underneath. Reducing the noise is a win for everyone I've been rather involved with collecting and assimilating feedback myself, and through that I have no concern that feedback isn't being listened to. Whether or not the hundreds of pages inspires design decisions on its respective fronts is another matter at the design team's discretion. Personally I'll take my wins on what ever does influence design decisions, and trust that smarter people than me have had better reasons against it for the things that didn't make the whiteboard. No game is 100% perfect on all the things I*d want anyway, and that is likely true for most people. Anyway...

It'd be cool with more frequent communication of some form, I loved Bungie back in the day during Halo 2/3 era when they posted things. Wasn't anything specific necessarily, but was fun reads to make the torturous wait of anticipation and excitement just a little less... Slow. But there are many reasons that I understand why you wouldn't want to go into specifics, too. I am looking forward to what ever the next community update holds though.

Exactly ^^ The word 'negativity' is always a difficult one to me. But you're exactly right, and it's basically what I mean. Noise is bleh, challenging and interesting discussion is fantastic.

The only reasons why constructive posts tends to dissapear in the "negativity" is the lack of communication and transperency.

There are a lot of passionated players about the game on this forums even if they can easily bring negativity on some thread (my bad, I know I can be one of them).
But well written and constructive posts, analysis, arguments and so on had been said too many times in too many different ways.

This product we're passionnated about is a lot of frustration and I'm not talking about patches, I'm only talking about communication.
We even don't know if anything is read... We just had a vague "yes someone is reading" one time.

I totally agree with <Redacted> : "this doesn't fit our vision for the game so we're rejecting it" is a hell of a lot better than radio silence.

A bit more transparency about Larian's vision would :
- reduce the frustration of many people
- help players to understand if the game could ever match their whishes or not
- help players to focus their feedbacks on constructive things

At the moment we just know nothing. We're all waiting for monthes going in circles.

Yeah, it's starting to get weird how they totally ignore the community they claim to love, and should love. We deserve more communication I think. I still love Larian but... do they love us? =)

it's funny you mentioned Bannerlord. I was just looking at their forum. They actually have a thread made BY a dev that is a "Statement regarding plans for...'x feature'". They give a relatively detailed list of things they're working on and people are allowed to comment on it. Some are needlessly aggressive "IT'S BEEN 8 YEARS!!!" but most of the comments are relatively tame and polite, and I'm convinced that part of that is because the devs are actually responding to people in that very thread. Imagine if you could actually ask a dev "Hey, are there plans to have a more 5e based diffculty put into place?" and have a dev answer? Even if it was a non-committal "eh, we're thinking about it, but we need to get 'x' done first", i'm convinced people would really appreciate that level of contact.

look at some of these responses by the dev

"We are not currently plannıng such a feature."

"As bannermen noted, a few variables already tie into this albeit it is currently limited. We have discussed succession laws before and may still explore this aspect, but it is not part of our current priorities."

"Gang mechanics in the sense of owning alleys exist within the game for notables currently. If time permits, we may explore player owned alleys further."

"Mexxico knows these parts well, yes. (When I came to the company some 2 years ago, he explained the WarScore calculation to me )

While I am not too involved in the issues you are referencing, I would hardly call the AI as such. He has spent a fair bit of time on improving it already but in a world as open ended / dynamic as ours it can be challenging to achieve decision making that is always sensible. Not to mention that in some cases it's a matter of preference (aka the player feels like the AI should have made peace because they lost a number of battles, but the AI "knows" that the numbers are still in its favor). Which isn't to say that it cannot be improved."

these are all in response to actual players asking questions. it's not just PR talk either, you can tel they actually read the posts. They don't answer every post, or even post every day, but having some contact at all would help immensely in my opinion.

I hear ya. I'd love more tidbits too from a public front. I've mentioned it on the forums once or twice before, that it's definitely being read, listened to and scribbled down, because I've involved myself in that and cooperate with some people in forwarding feedback. I doubt my word on that matters much, but if you take my word for it, I can tell you it's read by more people than me. I'm not using that as an argument or defense for the lack of communication that you wish would be different. Just wish to hopefully lift your spirits however much I can in that I dread even imagining the job of the people that has to read all the hundred of pages that's been pushed since October.

It'd be cool to hear more about the design decisions and directions that are set in stone, but I imagine that'd have to be on a rather high-level tone, because it's thousands of paragraphs worth of unique feedback collected, so addressing every one of them would be... Unrealistic I think.

The TL;DR I believe I take from it is that the listening is happening, that's something I can put the worth of my word on, the dissatisfaction for communicating how that data is processed, or what solution might be best for it isn't something I'm prepared to speculate on. I'd have many thoughts on pros and cons in regards to it, and challenges surrounding it, but that wouldn't matter in the end of the day.



Absolutely. I've moaned about it myself, wanting more focus on discussing EA related feedback in community updates, My fingers remain crossed.



Yes please! Am I right to assume that's a fair example of how people would generally want more of from Larian? I mean, the type of responses. I'm not asking you specifically, Bobla, I already assume that's the case. But I'd love to get a verification from others, just so I can build a case and point to it for reference.

Strong +1 from me!
Info on what things they're considering, what they are almost certainly not going to include, what they want to implement but might not have time for, etc. Those types of responses for Larian would be amazing. Either AMA-style where they respond to certain questions or bulk-feedback style where they specifically mention common topics on the forums/reddit would be great.

Yes, please - if you're able to whisper in Larian's ears at all, please please relay to them how deafening their silence is to their devoted player base.

Just some kind of contact - a tease here, a tweet there, a "we're working on something really cool, stay tuned" - and then a follow up with something, anything at all. It has been almost 3 weeks since they last promised a community update (last hotfix according to SteamDB was 19 days ago, so coming up to 3 weeks) and no community update has materialised as yet. If they've had another flood, or programming bugs that are difficult to squash, or they've run into any kind of difficulty, we'd still love to know what is happening. I'm sure anyone who's ever touched a computer knows how difficult programming bugs can be, so they would find more sympathy here than derision. If COVID has impacted on their plans or delayed things, again we'd understand, there's still a global pandemic going on - or perhaps, we'd love to hear about how they are overcoming those challenges.

I understand they may have NDAs that they cannot break or reveal details until Big Patch Reveal time comes, but no one here is asking for details or spoilers - just some contact, any at all.

Indeed. I have hundreds of games, and every single one has some aspect for which I could express a negative/critical opinion. But despite that, I like and enjoyed playing most of them, and actually regret the purchase of only a handful.

The same is true of BG3; I know the game *will* have aspects I am negative about, and nothing I can say will change that, no matter how eloquent the justification. But even if the game does not change at all ( aside from content completion, of course ) I will not regret the purchase. If I can influence the inclusion of optional features that appeal to me, that will be even better.

In terms of the topic of this particular thread, I'd have to say I was expecting content patches only a few times a year; I don't remember any promise of 2 weeks.

But, at the same time, I don't think Larian have really understood that moving into the major studio category probably means they need to re-examine how they interface with their audience. A community manager actively engaging with the most pressing questions on the major discussion platforms would probably be far more valuable than infrequent "Panel from Hell" presentations that don't directly address those questions at all.

Got to start somewhere, right? Would what Boblawblah shared be a nice approach in your opinion?

+1 from me! Communication, even if just to tell us to hold tight cause they're hard at work, is good!

The other thing is - many people are being/sounding very negative right now BECAUSE of the lack of communication from Larian. It is a fast paced world and people are now accustomed to communication via social media and the internet in general. Having a 3 week gap of complete and utter silence is going to cause a spike of anxiety in some people, and people will jump to negative conclusions - and then go on to other forums and spread that negativity.

Now, I'm not saying Larian is directly responsible for the mental health of its fans - they are not, of course. But communication can - and does - shape the perception of the company and game in general. You don't want to create negative publicity by remaining completely silent about a game that people love - some communication, any communication from them about how things are going, whether development is on track or even if it's not on track, will help to shape that publicity into a positive route. Otherwise people's imaginations will just run away with them.
And if development has hit a snag or an annoying bug somewhere, admitting that will go far towards making the studio feel like Real People to its fans, and not some Strong Silent Type that Never Admits Mistakes. Many brands and companies now cultivate a social media presence that relies on making the brand feel real and relatable.

A lot of game devs meet player feedback with the preconception that their personal thoughts on game systems override those of players, because "they aren't making the game, so their feedback is worth less than those who do", and as a result many feel justifying their changes is unnecessary. This is, for obvious reasons, entirely missing the point of player feedback and a very unhealthy stance to take with your community (it practically guarantees an increase in hostile player feedback because cordial feedback is ignored, for one).

This often manifests in a general unwillingness to communicate, which is compounded by unwillingness that is artificially created by things like employee NDAs/non-compete contracts. There are a lot of unfortunate pressures within a corporation working against actually responding to and considering feedback.

Larian's obsession with telemetry suggests to me that those pressures have won out in their internal corporate culture, and they resort to anonymous data gathering as the primary/solitary source of 'feedback' they actually consider, but the early access model requires at least a veneer of accepting feedback because part of what you're selling is player involvement in the development process (whether you officially admit it or not). Protip, Larian: telemetry alone is not feedback - collecting all the stats in the game tells you almost nothing useful if the game those stats were collected from is incomplete. Collecting stats from your existing incomplete product is, however, an extremely effective way to create the delusion that simply regurgitating statistically meaningless stats from a deeply unfinished project counts as 'listening to players', and anyone who verbally disagrees with your decisions is 'just a troll' or 'doesn't understand the game'.

Game publishers suck at communication because corporations in general suck at it, often shooting themselves in the foot out of over-prioritization of legal protection (and dubiously legal wealth protection in the form of NDAs/non-compete contracts). Unfortunately, in order to have an effective Early Access phase, you need to be able to communicate well. It's gotten so bad in the games industry that sometimes I genuinely wonder if every game publisher marketing/PR department, along with much of their upper management, needs to just be purged and replaced.

IMO, the bottom line is something Wikipedia figured out years ago: always assume good faith before you assume anything else. Nobody gets mad at game companies because they don't want the product to be better - the people providing specific complaints (even ones about meta-issues like communication) and suggestions are doing so because they care about the quality of your work, and every time their issues are met with silence, you've done damage to the most engaged and invested parts of your community by saying in effect that their efforts to express their thoughts mean so little to you that they aren't even worth acknowledging. At the same time, every bit of information you provide about internal reasons for certain decisions allows those parts of your community to improve the relevance and specificity of the feedback. Truly functional feedback is not two one way streets - a street sending games to players and another street sending game telemetry from players to you - it's a collaborative effort that requires the game makers to have respect for the opinions and experiences of players at least as much as it requires players to respect the game makers' decisions. In a decade of watching the games industry, I've genuinely never seen a widespread lack of player respect for devs be a problem - on the contrary, players will bend over backwards to avoid putting any blame for even clear software errors on the devs, usually citing crunch/stress/mismanagement as the true culprit (they are also usually correct). Players assume good faith from devs so broadly and reliably it's incredible how often that simple idea serves as common ground for even vehemently arguing players - it'd be nice to see more game publishers reciprocate that respect when it comes to feedback, rather than continue to take the passion their players share with them completely for granted by making only the bare minimum effort to respond (or less).

The thing I am hoping is that they have people lurking here but not responding so they actually are collecting the feedback...