Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General New interview with Sven by Gamespot

Ok, so, I like this interview. It isn't the most specific thing but then thing I have been asking for are vague stuff, and he has confirmed that he was working on big system stuff, that he is hoping for 2022, and that they are supposedly reading this forum and accounting for our feedback.
Swen needs to do more interviews like this cause this feels like a godsend to me.
There are some things that were eh to me, like how he is saying he has to account for players jumping from DOS2 to BG3. I personally had none of those expectations because it was BG3, not DOS3, but I guess I can see where he comes from. But overall, that there was some communication is what I needed.

If anyone at Larian sees this, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do more of these. Take as much time as you need with content, but more communication like this is the thing that sustains me through this EA.

Almost word for word from the other thread:

I'm done watching that video interview and there's something I'm struggling to understand.

Swen Vincke keeps teasing "things that they are changing according to feedback" (and *which* feedback exactly could be in itself a cause of concern), but he seems to be adamant about keeping the secret on what these changes would be and I can't help but wonder... What purpose does this serve exactly?

It seems to me like a counterproductive strategy. If your user base is vocally asking for something and you are actually listening to them and doing what they asked for (whatever he's referring about) it wouldn't just help to give everyone peace of mind if you were going to be open about it?

Swen Vincke keeps teasing "things that they are changing according to feedback" (and *which* feedback exactly could be in itself a cause of concern), but he seems to be adamant about keeping the secret on what these changes would be and I can't help but wonder... What purpose does this serve exactly?

It seems to me like a counterproductive strategy. If your user base is vocally asking for something and you are actually listening to them and doing what they asked for (whatever he's referring about) it wouldn't just help to give everyone peace of mind if you were going to be open about it?

Developer here (project manager for a AAA) and with 1093 comments no one will likely read this (and it is possible someone said these things already), but here it goes:

A lot of the things I am not candid about are because they are partner decisions. People spending millions of dollars like to listen to marketing when they have ideas about game design - even when that data is based on a very limited data set and the games within them may be dissimilar to what we are creating. If I was to say that we made changes to our game that were poor because the publisher forced our hand to try to sell more games, it would piss off a lot of people off and make me less persuasive. By not pointing out these mistakes until the next time they want to mess with our game's design, it gives me ammunition too.

Sometimes we fuck up. With games, you tend to become committed to mechanics after a while. You can change some things, but you can't change an entire game. I don't work for Bioware, but if you go and look at the Mass Effect Andromeda previews, you can tell that they already anticipated a lot of negative feedback about how the open world design destroyed the game's pacing and narrative. What likely happened is that they saw all the extremely similar criticism of Dragon Age Inquisition, but they couldn't just delete all the work they'd done on making Andromeda open-world because they probably had a year or more of content created that was all open-world with a design document that was all for open-world. Changing it. . . even if they cut all the side content that was lame and just did polish on the good parts of the game would likely have extended the game's development while making it a shorter (but much better) game. Given that they have had to shutter the franchise as a result of bad game design decisions, they probably should have done that, but though they certainly knew this would be a major criticism for the game, they didn't know that it would necessarily lead to the series having to be shuttered. Having said all this. . . even when you screw up, you don't want to scream it from the mountain-tops as that is likely to lead to fewer sales and those sales are what pay for your kid's food.

Online anonymous forums are always going to contain toxic people who are just terrible. It isn't just gaming and it certainly isn't most gamers. Even the subreddits tend to have a ton of witch-hunts and people with axes to grind. . . but this isn't why we don't engage directly with gamers or give candid answers. We would just ignore the flamers and respond to the many thoughtful gamers who give us feedback. The reason we don't do it is that we have marketing professionals who want to save information releases and discussions to create content for magazines, podcasts, and gaming hobbyist websites so that we can maximize our free media. You want the cover of a magazine, then they want to know that you aren't going to be scooped by developers talking to gamers directly before the publish date.

TL;DR - Reasons we aren't more candid:

Professionalism and protecting the product
Even when we screw up, we're still selling a product; and
Maximizing free media.

Surprise on the beach ? Waking up at night then watching the sun rise in a beautifull D/N cycle !?
Or maybe multiclassing ? What can be this surprise he's talking about ?

I'd assume its to be noncommital in case some things really don't work out well or they find it impossible to fix things in the way they want.
Then again, now that you mention it, there is such thing as too vague and perhaps I'd like a few more things mentioned as things they are looking at as feedback from the community.

Swen Vincke keeps teasing "things that they are changing according to feedback" (and *which* feedback exactly could be in itself a cause of concern), but he seems to be adamant about keeping the secret on what these changes would be and I can't help but wonder... What purpose does this serve exactly?

That dont sound like so hard question ...

If you tell people that you are actualy working on D/N cycle, people would expect D/N cycle in next patch ... this is how it all works [

Agreed that being coy is not helping.

From my reddit post -- which is being karma bombed as usual.

**************8

Sigh.

I stay with this game because: romances, graphics, storyline

And I'm holding out hope that a "DnD mode" will be implemented.

But WOTC made a mistake in giving this to a studio that doesn't like the DnD ruleset. I'm going to email them and tell them that.


"DnD rules don't translate to tabletop" except Solasta proved you wrong.

"This isn't a criticism of DnD . . . but the fighter is training class" Facepalm.

"People came from DOS and wanted . . ." DOS2 was fine. Nowhere near as fun as BG2.

Call me crazy but I came for BG three because I liked BG two. Weird that I would want a sequel to be a sequel, right? I just don't care about DOS2. Those games are Salmon and Chocolate sauce -- both taste great but if you combine them you get something awful.

My main criticism is about what they won't change. I think there are many things in the game that are subject to change, but I'm also certain there are things they already decided will stay the same. I think, for example, that day and night cycle is something that unless they already decided to do, won't be in the game. So why not say it? Same goes for other aspects like reaction system. This silence serves them well, but I don't think it will continue to serve them well for long.

I think it'd be good to stop using the crutch phrase "some things just won't translate well into a videogame".

No matter how many times that is spoken, it won't excuse poor design choices.