Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why did Larian promote cut content?

I am starting to wonder what happened at Larian. Not long ago, a few months at most they still promoted locations as explorable and hyped them up which are not found in the game (or just for one very short scene). And while in the last panel from hell there was still a dragonborn hireling he too was cut.

So what happened? I find it hard to believe that Larian didn't know the extend of content they could deliver so close to release.

What happened is ps5 and Xbox could not handle the load and frankly watch the last 'from hell's to see even PC struggled

You don't believe Larian could be so unaware = imo you have not followed their other games then

Larian does a lot right as a dev team but testing isn't one

The Larian Final Act Curse strikes again.

They cut so much, and not just from the third act. Something really odd happened late in the development for this game and it sent ripples through the core of the story. More than that, what they didn't outright cut, they basically shifted away from dangerous consequences to heroic power fantasy. I still enjoyed the game but found that it really wasn't what was in early access whatsoever.

I was wondering how do I get to Ramazith's tower the usual way to explore other levels. I guess you don't, then?

There are many threads all around internet about this and I have not read them all. What I would like to know has theen been any post release interviews asking questions about content cuts in general or more speciffic?

Consoles holding the PC back, shock.

Should have really just left it in and let console players struggle.

How exactly do consoles handle Waukeens Rest when even my 3080 Ti spits out 30-40 FPS with all that fire lol.

So, I guess what I should deduce from this thread is that there is NOT an Upper City as a playable area?
That would explain why going through the lower one was taking this much time.

I have yet to finish the game (and I'm no particular rush to do it, either) but one thing I can say about Act 3 from what I've seen so far is that if anything I'm fining myself wishing that if was a lot LESS city-centric.
I kinda expected/hoped for the structure to be closer to "You have the city as central hub and you go to a series of adventures in the peripheral regions" rather than "You'll spend the overwhelming makority of the act into the city itself and its (fairly dull) sewers.
I know there are a couple of possible exceptions (Iron Throne, House of Hope, etc) but so far I'm finding the (lack of) variety of the final act a bit tiring.


Also, speaking of cut/changed content... I can't be the only one that expected the "Hag" thing to play out very differently in Act 3.

Wow you guys are funny. Part of game development includes cutting content usually due to limits like time, expense, and yes downgrades due to technological limits.

The consoles have specs well above the minimum required for BG3. Suggesting they cut content due to consoles for this game seems pretty far fetched don't you think?

You need to remember the average PC player is not using a 3070 or 4070.

I understand the urge to find a scapegoat though and console peasants seem to be the go to for some I suppose.

Definitely sympathetic to this view and all, but between the discussions of said locations recently, the six years of development, and the 150M dollars, I’m thinking it’s probably tech constraints more than the other two.

I don't think it's tech constraints. I feel like something happened behind the scenes that ended up with a lot of material cut. I'm thinking it was either the long rest/camp event system remaining pretty clunky and therefore changes were made to reduce the possibility of players missing things/bugs impacting things/events misfiring. You can see this with Raphael who went from sauntering into your camp one evening to showing up randomly around the goblin village. It would also explain why Daisy was simplified into a benevolent being and there being no true 'no tadpole/powers' run. It could also have been that there was a mandate to change the tone of the game away from something dark and consequential to something more shallow and heroic. They didn't just cut content, they removed a lot what was in there (and changed a lot of what was left in.)

Except that you dont usually promote the content you cut in big press releases.
That shows that the decision to cut them was made very late, maybe less than a month before release and is directly responsible for the lower quality of act 3 as questlines had to be hastely rewritten.

And I wonder if that was necessary because of technical limitations or because Larian rushed the game to beat starfield.

The city has too much content as it is. Large segments that hold you back from progressing the main quest, at a point where you're expecting a climax in the story.

The sewers and bank robbery parts especially started being too much for me and I lost interest a bit. And the Minsc scenes were not good.

Its very interesting to see the conflicting opinions that either the game has too much content or not enough content.

Additional content does require more development time, something a lot of people seem to miss is how much longer would they have wanted to wait for more content?

Oftentimes games that need to spend too long in development, or get delayed a lot end up not only not selling as well, but can even bankrupt the studio (See Ascaron Studios with Sacred 2 as an example).

Theres always room for additional content with expansions, but Larian seem to be a company thats not interested in releasing expansions, don't forget that both BG1 and 2 had expansions that not only added more content but also raised the level caps.

I'm still in act 2 so haven't yet reached the city, but one thing I've often seen is some complaints that act 2 and 3 are too small and not as big as act 1, which from what I have found is only true if you choose to skip a lot of the content and exploring the areas fully. It is very easy to miss a lot of content in this game if you don't explore everything, and a lot of players seem to make that error.

My concern is less that there is too much or too little content but that this cut just before release lowered the quality of the remaining cintent as there was not enough time to compensate for the less of an entire district and modify all quests and story for it. So what remains is a hastily cobbled together compromise with lots of cut corners.

And my question is why this cut happened this late in the first place. Or why Fafner which was seen in the last Panel from Hell got replaced? What prompted the decision to make this change this late?

There can never be too much content. Just content that is poorly placed or ill-designed. In an Assassin's Creed game, the excess of content isn't bad because it's more content; it's bad because it's not fun content.

^This.

The content was in early access or otherwise in the files. Larian probably burned more time in creating an entirely new dream visitor than just completing Daisy. And when they were rebuilding core sections of the game, they weren't polishing elements that needed it (especially in the later acts.)

Yeah... I think it's the FAKEST problem of them all, in every damn RPG where it keeps getting mentioned.
I genuinely don't give a shit about being "pressed into REAL urgency" especially if the terms of said urgency aren't clarified enough and I need to be kept second-guessing on the deadline for every secondary event.

My ACTUAL problem with Act 3 so far is of a very different nature: I'm finding it very lacking in terms of variety.

I'm not fond at all of the idea that "I reached the city and now I'll spend most of my time here, between streets, shops and sewers".
I would have vastly preferred if the city itself was treated more like your central hub and you were offered the chance to visit several peripheral regions in the wilderness around the city for various subplots.