Originally Posted by gaymer
I want to know what caused them to decide to do the game with 100% cinematics. That was not the initial decision and changed during EA.
I am not sure where you get the impression from - from the very reveal cinematics were as they are now. Sure some of them were missing, resulting in overhead view (some goblins, corpses), just as Astarions bite scene didn't have a cinematic in previous patch. At no point those were to stay that way, even though I really wouldn't prefer if Larian did fewer, better cinematics, then add "cinematic" for every bark a character has.

Originally Posted by Saito Hikari
I guess what I'm trying to say is that hedging the majority of effort into the writing and cinematics at the expense of the moment to moment gameplay is a BAD long term idea.
Overall I agree with you - issues with core camplay loop are a big worry in BG3. I am not sure how much cinematics are to blame, and how much is Larian attempt to marry D&D and D:OS2 - no matter which you lean toward prefering, those are very, very different system. While I didn't find D:OS2 combat very interesting, it was enjoyable. BG3 combat neither gives justice to D&Ds dice roll buff/debuff based combat, nor D:OS2's positioning/skill usage one. D&D is a system with strict classes forcing cooperation, while D:OS2 had classless, mix what you want approach.