Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General So what now?

I almost feel the same tbh.

I haven't bought this game as an evolutive demo. I've bought it as an early access and even if they had obviously listenned on some major points, I have the feeling that our deep feedback and suggestions have been totally ignored. Some of us are spending a lot of time to analyse and write things and we even don't have some kind of "this was read by the devs" message...

And it's not only about the very active community... Shove as an action is a common complain everywhere just like jump/disengage was. Yet shove is still a BA in patch 7, more than 1 year and a half after release...

I have the feeling that we're just tools that feed their tools (data) and nothing more.
This lack of communication during an EA is a shame and they should probably give more ressources to their communuty managers (or hire someone... I even don't know if they have one...)

I do agree that their communication has been CRAP. Really makes me sad. I still love Larian, and I still have faith in the game, but yeah... abysmal communication.

I refuse to believe you actually play video games to find Larian communication bad.

Does that even mean anything?

They do not apparently, they have posted an ad a month ago saying they're hiring a community manager.

Just wondering if this <EA> process was even fruitful for Larian. They got a boat load of $$$. But comments are minimal, updates are minimal, community feedback <> Larian is minimal.
I feel 95% of the game IS basically DONE AND DONE for Larian (on paper). The remaining 5% is tweaking stuff based on EA feedback lol.

OR they know and just say F**K IT!



I'm good with a long development.

Eh, we got Height Advantage/Disadvantage stamped out.

Pretty sure the game's overall balance would have been a complete disaster by late game if that had stayed in. The EA's already worth it from a feedback standpoint from that alone.

Hope they have combat experience!

Seriously, they will need to have both tough skin and an open heart to the community concerns. They will need NOT to take comments personally, but neither should they be walked on...kinda like a school Teacher (truth and joke at the same time).

It would be nice if they gave feedback like:

We are considering that.

We like that idea, but are considering different ways to implement it. (Followed by a request for feedback).

We wish we could, but....

Of course we will have a day not system, this is a Balder's Gate game (Holy Crap they need to put some concerns to rest!).

We will have Multi-class.

We will not restrict level by area.

We WILL make elves more Elvin (Hell, I think that thread comes with schematics, but its not just about looks).

Ect, ect ect.

This would be prudent...and its time to be decisive and make some judgement calls...or roll some dice if they can't.

For me this is just UNBELIEVABLE that 2 years in EA WE STILL have no SOLID idea of exactly what ALL the classes/kits will be. No SOLID number for companions.
Nothing on future gameplay plans towards this homebrew D&D system.
At this point I am wondering....Is Larian even MAKING THIS GAME? It feels its being contracted to offices in India , Spain or Poland. So they actually have no idea on how its progressing.

Maybe a weekly Faerun lore news update? Something to IMMERSE use in your world Larian?
Instead of just bloating sub-par kids fan <art> once in a while. SHOW US YOUR CURRENT BG3 PRO CONCEPT ART INSTEAD!
Its like Larian is deliberately trying not to make us interested in their world; "leave all that work to FANS! " ?? Or the laziest excuse of them all, JUST GO READ THE D&D MANUALS !.

i be honest i hope they dont pull a cyberpunk card. but of course no one expecting that and i believe no one would. and also i hope it doesnt happen. and true, Larian can do more in keeping the updates and revealing details to keep in touch with the fans.

I don't quite understand why you would expect to know any of it. Larian released early build, gauge interest and releases everyonce in a while stuff they want the audience to test. They said more or less what they plan to include at launch, and to be honest they have no benefit of sharing specifics early.

Playerbase have no direct influence on development, so unless Larian wants to hear what fans think about certain aspects of the game, player feedback in areas they don't is irrelevant. Those who bought EA won't be spending more money on BG3, so it's better to keep as many things confidential for release to build hype for the rest of the potential audience. It sounds like you have issue with advertising and community engagement:
Which I find odd. You already bought the game - what difference it makes to you and me how they advertise themselves? Teams who manage marketing are not game devs - how good they are, or what they do is disconnected from the game that is currently made. Maybe as a person who doesn't engage with social media much, I am just not worried if devs don't want/aren't allowed to post stuff - it is a multihundered dev team - you won't get a direct communicate that you can get with small indies, with team members in constant communication and fingers in every pie of the production. I know more of how BG3 is shaping up then Starfield or Avowed - I can hardly complain, even if I am not happy about some aspects of the game. It is still at least a year before BG3 release. I can't imagine them coming up with weekly newsletters for that lengthy amount of time... nor am I particularly interested in receiving more spam. If you wanna read up on Feurun, resources are all there.

Again, we expected and still expect this approach because this is how this EA is STILL advertised. Which is a blatant farce at this point.

The only "promise" I can find is:
Sounds about right.

One of the endearing aspects of the old BioWare forums was that the developers regularly posted on the 'boards. It was not unusual to see a few of them every week or so. Zeschuk, Muzyka, Darrah, French, Gaider, Smedstad, Ohlen, Bartel, and many others posted on and off over the years. And if you were really lucky, you'd glimpse a rare sighting of Winski! Pure gold. All that interaction generated a strong connection with the internet audience, and to me that was part of the BG experience. It is a double-edged sword to be sure, because some people do not have an ability to filter their postings and things could get hurtful, but even in those cases I admired the BioWare people for always being so respectful and setting a professional example. The Larian forums do feel a bit like a police interrogation room, with Larian on the other side of the one-way glass, looking in from unseen depths. I'll be happy if at least a couple of our discussions here result in improvements to the game.

It's a 2 page thread and I have literally copy pasted how they present they will handle/currently handling this EA from their Steam ad in the first page.

Thanx. Seen it now:

i think Larian is living up to that. Larian has a their own strong vision, and uses data/feedback to shape that vision. They did respond to player bases concerns, even if they didn’t respond to all of them or in the way some people would wish (like creating minicamps, instead of implementing different camping system, or modifying high ground bonus/removing backstab advantage)

As to your question:
Are those opinion representative of a wider BG3 playerbase? There are relatively few, repeating faces popping up on those forum since EA reared out its head. There were some recent community polls but amount of participants was very small. Most active users on this forum might have some leanings, but we are likely not the only/main force shaping BG3.


The bit I cut out from the steam ad is the most questionable one:
I do agree that it would be nice to have more feedback from Larian. On one hand I understand: with such a large team, who is really in a know and in charge to safely share details with community without misrepresenting or overpromising? But it would be nice to get a clearer response or explanation on some of the topics.

I would go beyond calling it questionable, and call it plainly a failure. I mean, if anything north of 10-20% of the EA players think that Larian's level of communication is disappointingly-low, that their avoidance of discussing/acknowledging certain concerns is sad, and that overall they do not maintain a healthy relationship with the community, then I don't think one can say that Larian indeed maintains a healthy relationship with the community.

Sure, it would be nice to have more feedback from Larian. But it would also be useful and efficient : as many have explained before (including me), knowing what's definitely-staying, or still-under-consideration, could allow us to focus our feedback on where it can be useful. We would know what to expect, what not to waste our feedback-writing time on, and Larian would spend less energy filtering out our useless feedback.


I don't think that having someone dedicated to keeping in touch with the community presents unsurmountable challenges. There is no risk of over-promise if all that Larian says is "no, X is not going to change" or "hey, we see a lot of talk about Y, we're sorry you don't like it, but we like it as it is and it won't change", or "hey, we see a lot of talk about Z, we will think about it, but that's not our priority". And it would be real nice to have an acklowledgement that they see topic Z as an issue (or not an issue).

Likewise, they are not being too specific and over-promising if they say "in our vision, <this_description> is how players would approach the game". At the moment, their strong vision is something I can only deduce/reconstruct, partially, from some of the things they said, what they have put in the game so far, and how the game evolves.

Other companies have managed to handle EA communication way better. I don't think it's that big of a challenge. But it's clearly something you won't do well if you don't try. And it doesn't seem as if Larian has a lot of will to try.

"Game is dead " lol. It's not even out yet. Larian +/- said how this EA will be handled. Ngl the " We want a small community to interact with " kinda backfired. The community ain't small and they struggle with interactions.

Two things are sure : Never again EA from Larian until they propose a plan to lead those EA.
They will make a great game regardless.

Yes you are right.
But I was thinking more in terms of what if you DIDNT buy into EA but ARE a fan of D&D and Baldur's gate. Apart from these silly Larian anouncements we have a couple times a year and youtube lets play videos...It doesnt feel like they are trying to engage us to join in this new world and adventure.
Thought it would be nice if they had some kind or Lore gazette every week that loosely ties to the game; to build up that world and immersion once you start playing. I for one HATE being spoiled, I played EA very sparingly just to test things out.
Yea we have the game but everything around BG3 feels...empty? Not sure how to describe it.