Please don't tell me my opinion is invalid. I could easily say yours is invalid. It's like saying, "You're stupid." We could sit here all day long and call each other stupid.
Dark Alliance also has the D&D logo on it. However, I know the game for what it is. It is a D&D hack/slash game that is in no way based even remotely on D&D 5e. They tell you that pretty much up front. There is no misconception about this. It may have D&D logo on it, but I don't expect it to be anything like 5e because they said so from the beginning and made it quite clear what type of game it is.
And just because WotC and whoever put their stamp of approval on it, that doesn't mean that it is the same game that they said it was going to be. Steam clearly says that BG3 is "based on D&D 5e." If I said, "This sport that we're playing is based on American Football," most people should expect that it will be nothing like European Football, which is soccer in America. If someone said, "We're going to play a game, and it's based on American Football," and I showed up to the field and found a bunch of people with a round ball and soccer shoes on with shorts and t-shirts and goal posts, I'd be like, "What the heck is this? I thought we were going to play some American football." If they respond with, "We said it would be based on American Football. We didn't say it WAS American Football," that would be totally misleading and would be upsetting, especially if I showed up in my heavy American Football gear complete with armored shoulder pads, helmet, mouthpiece, breastplate, groin cup, etc. Those European Football players are going to be a whole lot faster on their feet than I would in my heavy gear. I'd be very ill equipped or prepared to play their version of football.
Again, that's how I feel about Baldur's Gate 3. I bought it and showed up expecting a 5e experience with maybe a few tweaks because, naturally, it's a video game. I was prepared to fight monsters with proper D&D 5e stats and using their abilities like they normally would based on established lore and behaviors. Instead, I was completely thrown off because what was communicated was that the game would be "based on D&D 5e." They did not say, "This game is based on DOS mechanics blended with D&D 5e."
If they had told me that, then I'd have no issue whatsoever with this game. If up front they had said, "this is a blending of DOS and D&D 5e," I'd have been like, "Hmmm... Do I want to buy this game? What is DOS anyway because I've never played it? Should I try DOS first and see if I like it?"
And you can quote all those interviews all you like. That's not what they put on the descriptions of the game and not what all the media was advertising. I didn't watch all their interviews. Never had the time. I trusted the descriptions of the game provided by Steam and different media articles that were written to promote the game. Everyone everywhere was saying, "based on D&D 5e" and "At last, a true video game interpretation of D&D 5e."
And, finally, the point I'm trying to make is that this game in no way feels like D&D, yet that was even what Swen said they were trying to create. "We want to have that Dungeons & Dragons feeling." This does not feel like D&D. That's the point.
I also do not want them to slavishly obey every single D&D 5e rule. If it doesn't make sense, don't use it. Fine. I'm good with that. But, again, when the homebrew steers so much from the original rules that you are no longer playing a game even closely resembling the original rules, THAT is what I have an issue with.
Classes are stripped of just about any purpose. Monsters are stripped of their typical abilities and stats. Items reign supreme, and surfaces. The game looks like D&D, and the story is Forgotten Realms, but it in NO way FEELS like D&D. It feels like something else entirely.
You know what game FEELS like D&D? Pathfinder. Solasta. Those FEEL like D&D. I want BG3 to FEEL like D&D also, and I'm saying that until they start really implementing more true 5e rules and stats and so forth, it will never FEEL like D&D just like American Football will never feel like American Football if you don't play with an oblong ball and have an offensive team and defensive team with linebackers and tight ends and wide receivers, and the quarterback passes the ball to his teammates who then try to get it to the endzone to score a touchdown.
