But when negative feedback is provided in a way that is demeaning, passive-aggressive or outright negative towards the developers or other members on this forum, that creates a toxic vibe which puts off people. I understand people are extremely passionate about the game and want it to be the best game ever, but passion can also be quite toxic and often ends up achieving the opposite effect.
Respectfully, I can't see the relevance of this (which can be said of nearly any discussion forum) to the topic of this thread. Do you oppose the idea of Larian answering in their own way (through a Forum moderator for example) a few simple questions such as "Is the 4 member party a hard limit?" or "Are you actively working to increase maximum party size beyond its current limit of 4?" ?
I think the Larian Development Team can handle that. As I said earlier I'm not advocating they come on here live for a punching bag session. Just clear up a few of the easier to clear up questions that are being discussed on the forums.
I think it would be great, until we get questions like "do any of you even know how to code?". You don't have to read too many topics on this forum to find that question, or other similarly negative questions. What happens, really, when an answer is given that isn't popular, to use your own hypothetical: Yes, 4 is the hard limit for your party. You believe that people will just move on, and be done with it, and some most certainly will. Others? Not so much. A BioWare dev had to delete her social media because she commented that she'd like to see more story driven games with less combat and started getting regular death threats. She didn't say they were making such a game, just that she'd like to see some. Are there people here that would go that far? I don't know, but I read a lot more threads than what I comment in, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that some would. I know I've received some pretty "spicy" private messages here.
Not that a Frequently Asked Questions scenario would be a bad thing, but even that could result in some bad things, if the answers aren't popular.
