Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Patch 9 what a disappointment

It's my personal opinion
Patch 9 is a disappointment as there is much more to come.
Every time this stupid show, you should rather publish a patch presentation in several languages ​​with such a complex game instead of a show that is in English and the complex possibilities bring so much closer in general.

For people who don't understand English, and there are quite a few, it's just hard to keep up with the talk of the show and how useful the new spells or features are to understand. for Patch 9 itself one level more and one more class is not enough, I'm not satisfied, August as the release date is amazing I will never buy an early access game from you for far too long. collectors edition €256 for early access customers is cheeky, as long as we paid for your game as a beta tester, this edition should be free for us just how long you needed it. so that's my right to have this opinion and I will also represent it, I'm angry and angry and massively disappointed.

You make a lot of excellent points. I think the only thing I really outright disagree with is you suggesting EA participants get the collector's edition for free, though we still should be able to get some sort of discount if we wanted to buy it. Buying the game twice is definitely a bad feeling. Everything else? I think your points are valid even if I found the patch to be above and beyond my own expectations.

just turn on auto-translate... smh

I'm also having trouble playing this patch. The things I wanted to test: Multiclassing, Variant Human, Slings, Blowpipes, other elemental spells beyond Fireball e.g. Tidal Wave, Ice Knife, Whater Whip etc. pp. or testing body shape to create a beefier berserker or a reasonable custom party system with maybe a 5th and / or 6th additional character slot are again not there. So I skip the patch again and watch the streams and YT videos instead.

The CE will also only be available in English, so you can do without it. The content isn't exactly killer right now...

- I don't need another digital copy of the base game
- Anime-like stickers can be saved
- speaking of anime, I just recently bought a Kakashi Hatake keychain, ergo the tadpole keychain isn't necessary either in my case
- 3 MTG boosters I don't need either, because I buy my desired cards specifically
- the same goes for the BG d20 dice, I already have several from MTG
- a certificate and character sheets, I can make them myself from the internet and in my native language
- hardcover artbook (in English), I can also look at digital media for it, respectively I prefer to play the game then

Remaining: a 25cm Mind Flayer vs. Drow battle diorama and the satin cloth map of Faerûn. The former is a matter of taste and exactly not my taste and the satin map will again only be available in English. Ergo not worth my money. The last time I wasted much money was for a Neverwinter Online Founders Pack and since then I always avoided it.

yeah it is but only because so many amazing suggestions were never added. LIke sneak fix!!!! Just one of thousands suggestions, compared to milllions of tasks they had to do it's all a drop in a bucket so why not do those to make a batter game.

But at least reactions and lvl 5 are ok even though solsata had those for ages...

I was excited to see what is new and played for a bit. Loving most of the improvements. Looks and runs gorgeous for the most part that I played, feels fluid and snappy, but unfortunately lots of issues from Patch 8 remain, including the bugs and that goddamn hair color intensity that doesn't even belong in a Saints Row game, let alone a medieval inspired RPG.

I seriously hope that hair color eyesore is not there for release.

So I am not really overly excited or dare I say satisfied with this content drop that makes me feel like I really want to dig into it and provide more feedback. It's whatever. Feels like they just dropped the patch so people would finally stop asking about the level 5, Paladin class and reactions. And since it is the final update with 9 more months to go till release, I kinda am not really into playing it religiously as I have in Patch 7 and 8.

To me this is not a good update to leave to people for 9 months. It should have been better.

I don't like being negative, but that's kinda how I feel about the situation as well. I like (most) of what's being added but it feels a bit lackluster for a last patch. There is a lot that hasn't been addressed at all...or only partially (which maybe could give hope or be worrisome if they considered that as a final solution).
I feel like a spoiled brat for not being more excited about it after the testing the patch a bit. Maybe I've already had too many playthroughs in addition to what's been mentioned here 😅

Yeah. I think when you look at it as a fan it is disappointing. But when you put yourself in the shoes of the devs... I bet it is a ton of effort to maintain the EA patch, put the PFHs together and all of that different stuff. With them naming a release date I don't think they care as much about patch reactions and interaction. They are about to go heads down for eight months straight to get the game out of the door and try to avoid having to push the release.

So I get it.

But I also think level 5, Paladin and reaction system is also pretty darn big.

True, true. They obviously have worked a lot back-end side. I'm just giving my honest reaction as a player 😅
But you're right. It's worth mentioning 🙂

Paladin's implementation seems really undercooked and slipshod. Oaths + what constitutes breaking an oath are badly done, Oathbreaker is even worse. No other option for playing an evil paladin. Religion for paladins crudely and nonsensically hacked out of the experience, leaving several awkward instances where our paladin's still reference serving a god despite Paladin deities being left on the cutting room floor (again, a terrible choice IMHO)

I was really looking forward to playing paladin, what we got though was really just about the worst-case scenario for me, it pretty much overshadows all of the other positive improvements for the game. A lot of the other stuff that was getting shown off in the leadup to the patch turned out to just be teasers for the final release too.

But what surprises me most is that this is the last 'big' update for EA till it's set to release in about a year. We aren't getting Origin characters, or any additional party members. No Half-Orcs or Dragonborn or monks. No additional story content. to be brutally honest, I don't think this is a good note for EA to coast on for the next 3/4 of a year.

I had high hopes for this update, set time aside to watch the PFH even. This update has been the single biggest disappointment to me of all of Early Access.

I think there are definitely flaws in how paladin oaths have been implemented, but it's worth mentioning that the deity removal isn't on Larian. 5E itself decoupled paladins from deities and made that into something that can vary depending on the setting. So that much at least follows the rules as written. But that does make the mentions of a deity in dialogue very strange. It makes me think some writer didn't get the message about how paladins work in 5E.

You said it yourself 'vary depending on the setting'. But this isn't Eberron here, this is Forgotten Realms. In this setting divine magic comes from gods, and the very backstory of the BG Saga-the Time of Troubles is one in which the consequences for worshippers whose gods are killed or depowered is spelled out in no uncertain terms (nor is it the last time in the setting-it's a reoccurring major plot point). So while deities might be optional for paladins (and clerics, if we are talking 5e), that doesn't mean it is an option that is necessarily appropriate for a setting such as this. And certainly not for it to be the default.

To me personally Patch 7 was the pinnacle of quality and stability, but unfortunately went downhill ever since. Patch 8 was alright, but ruined a lot of things I loved about the game and now Patch 9 didn't really do either. Just left most issues of Patch 8 and added new features.

So I'm worried too about some questionable design decisions, primarily about the modern overly vibrant hair colors which I absolutely despise as they ruin immersion since they truly do not belong in a game like this. It makes me worried because I feel like they forced those colors upon us for the purpose of inclusivity rather than making a great gaming experience. Because I am still months later ever since Patch 8 dropped still exclusively forced to using Black Raven hair color for all my characters, where previously I had the entire realistic color spectrum to choose from, all because they forced these overly vibrant hair colors onto me without an option to tone it down back to realism. And to think that DOS2 which has a somewhat cartoony yet beautiful art style which is quite colorful, does not have this problem whatsoever... I miss my dark purple hair color damnit!

So I'm a bit disappointed most issues still remain from Patch 8 and it kinda makes me not willing to play through this patch, especially because it is the final update so I see no purpose in playing it and providing feedback any longer since this is the end of Early Access. It's a fine update like any other. Worse than Patch 7, better than Patch 8, but terrible as a final update. It's just not satisfactory to me, especially the removal of the black fade-in/fade-out of the cutscenes and leftover issues that were ignored.

But it's no biggie. Whatever they do not fix, I'll fix myself. I'm back into making mods lately and I don't usually enjoy having to make mods that fix bad design decisions, but if that's what it takes... I'll do it myself

They started this whole EA a year too fast at minimum and it needed more planing.

Things like cover system and day/night are the biggest let downs. Those alone remove it as masterpiece contender combine with other missed opportunities. Don't get me even started on rest system 20+ years we are waiting for that fix that should be designed and working, day one of EA.

Yeah the resting system is the worst designed aspect of the game due to how it breaks the flow of the story. It's literally a "click me if you want a story" button that I have to actively abuse in order to experience the main thing I play RPGs for, which is the story.

I feel like Early Access ended way too soon and unfortunately these issues will be present on release. Not that it will ruin my enjoyment of the game, but would have been nice to experience it fluidly instead of me having to abuse it. And I feel sorry for all the new players who will run into the same issue as I did and basically not see 50% of the story because they'll be avoiding rests because of the tadpole.

yeah it's not that those things make a game bad far from it. But all sorts of improvements would make it so much better.

I also just tested to see if they made any changes to Arka's story which I've covered in this post extensively and unfortunately there are no changes. In fact a particular line to convince her that Kanon would not want her to become a murderer is missing now, despite using detect thoughts on her which reveals she is thinking exactly about Kanon not wanting this for her, yet there is no dialogue option to choose it. Most likely is available only if she is persuaded rather than thought detected. So this quest is still very much unfinished and broken just as thought detection is, which leads me to believe everything else is pretty much the same as it was in Patch 8.

This update seems like it's just for reactions and Paladins, which apparently also don't work properly for some people. Makes me sad a bit seeing so much stuff buggy and broken still, especially since there won't be any more updates until release. But at least there's hope knowing that the next time an update drops, the game will function beautifully and properly. At least I hope it does

I can only agree with this.


This was exactly my fear and currently keeps me away from Patch 9.

Are you taking orders? How about Multiclassing, Custom Party Creation with increase to 5/6 members, subclasses: Arcane Archer, Storm Sorcerer. Looking up to you hopefully.

Patch 9 was not so dissapointing for me itself ...
As it was the information that its the last EA patch ... this alone made my exitement about Patch 9 become quite bitter (Sour? One of those.).

I know that Larian have their testers for final version...
Still EA means millions of people around the globe ... wich sounds lot better than few dozens, maybe even hudert, hells, even if thousand (wich i honestly doubt) locals (bcs lets be honest most people who dindt participate do not bcs its too far for them).