In order to get the sales (to recoup outlay and make a profit) Larian have to appeal to the largest number of people and in order to do this everything has to be made as simple as possible (dumbed-down).
Yeah, this is a platitude that gets repeated over and over for years at this point. But despise the attempt to make it sound like a wise assessment, it doesn't actually answer the question: how many additional copies would you guess these changes will move, if you had to quantify?
Originally Posted by Sansang2
In your opinion.
Exactly.
Clearly very little. You answered it well before you edited your reply. It'll be the other stuff. So, firstly these changes will have minimum effect on sales. Currently steam spy has BG£ at between 2-5 million, up from 2-3 million. It'll be a big seller. You seem to think the optional rules will be a turn off though. I disagree. And I can point to the other forum of committed BG3 fans, reddit, and say the subject hasn't even made a splash there. Normies will give even less of a shit imo.
The people annoyed at these options tend to see a game system as a whole and if something is added that they see is holistically to the detriment of the system even if optional, they think it as bad choice by the devs. Most of the time here it boils down to how far they stray from 5e. Not just 5e mind you, PHB because they tend to disagree with Tasha's which is a core part of it now. It's a fair opinion, nobody can say someone is wrong for feeling that way. Saying just don't use them is not understanding why they don't like it and really isn't a valid counter argument. But it is only an opinion and no-one is speaking from authority, even if they obviously have convinced themselves otherwise.
The people who think different think it's all about choice. And that what Larian do too as Swen went into a lot of detail explaining, that it is their goal for a successful experience. But honestly for games like this, or even ones with light rpg elements, this is in fact one of the core design philosophies of a lot of developers. That's not an opinion, it's a fact you can tell from playing them and it is confirmed by interviews and youtube videos they make. Highly dependent on publisher, budget and technical issues, but it is very high on the design philosophy. Larian being Larian push the goofiness and cheese, but that is again a matter of taste only.
The existence of difficulty sliders and story mode even shows how the holistic approach just isn't as high up as people think. BG 1 and 2 changed the core mechanics of the rules and BG2 normal (default) difficulty was with party damage from spells removed. You had to actually change it to core if you wanted the proper rules. Even Elden Ring has a robust summoning system which most of it's hardcore players think goes beyond easy mode and borders on cheating.
I know a bit about DnD and all I care about is can I get it as close to it as I can. I'll ignore the cheese, exploits and optional rules. The only rule I'm worried about is the multiclass spells one, which I hope will be made optional. I think it's fair if some people think differently, But to be honest I think BG3 is going to be a bitter sweet experience for them, maybe not even sweet. Most of us are gonna have a ball for the most part. There's always the chance of patches, but I just don't think enough people care about an option that can be ignored and I don't think they'll make major changes before the Xbox/playstation crowd arrive.
