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

I never doubted or questioned that "there were cuts".
I'm just telling you that they can't be explained with "We are releasing a month earlier than expected".

I agree that it’s very unlikely that they made massive changes so close to release, but I’m sure Starfield was absolutely why they released early. Releasing at the same time would have meant a massive impact on PC sales and publicity, even if Starfield turns out to be underwhelming. If Bethesda have pulled off another Skyrim it would be a disaster not to get in first, or put it off for a really long time.

Yeah. I'm sure of it as well.
Nothing of what I argued so far contradicts it.

I also happen to think it was a VERY smart move on their part.

There are several different types of cuts and some are less relevant to the final game than others.

a) Things that may have been proposed or discussed at some point during development, but never got off the ground in any real sense.

b) Stuff that was implemented during Early Access, but then altered due to changes in scope or creative direction (ie: Daisy). I'd like to hear more about those changes through interviews with the developers, so that we can all better understand their decisions.

c) Content that was actively being worked on before the game came out, but was still unfinished and needed to be removed in practice for the sake of streamlining the product. I think this is what we will most likely see return in patches or even in a Definitive or Enhanced edition release.

d) Content that existed yet was very, very far from being ready and only remains present in the data files in a less than skeletal state.

e) Content that is in the game files and supposed to be accessible, but it's somehow accidentally locked out or buggy at the moment.

I've always been a great defender of this game. Played 200 hours the Early Access, wrote here in the forums, reported bugs/issues, gave ideas. Convinced all my friends to play it and now they think it is probably the best game they've ever played. There is just one problem... they haven't finished the game yet. I did, and I can tell you (SPOILERS AHEAD) that the endings were horrendous. [b][/b]

As someone said above the cut content affects the endings GREATLY and this is the main problem. Not the game itself, forget about the bugs or performance issues. These can be easily fixed in time. But the endings man, the frickin' endings are screwed and very few of what you did in the previous acts really matters. So much is missing you can't even wrap your head around and it is so obvious by the items in the game that you don't even need datamining to see it.

THIS is the main problem, the last 1/3 of the entire game screws up the entire experience.

So, @Larian Studios - please fix it. Fans will forgive you quickly. I'd even buy a DLC without even thinking about it for a second if it fixes the game.

Of course, if they could have fnished all the cut content in a month they would have likely done so. But that doesn't doens't change the point that the communication about those cuts is lackluster. That it looks like significant portions were cut way to close to launch. And that they should have used that 1 month extra to polish the loose ends caused those cuts and the bugs in the basic game mechanics. The PC version is in no shape or form in such a good state that releasing a month early was warranted. I would have greatly prefered delaying the game and release it fully finished. Larian is building a reputation of releasing games with half baked endings, that is something to avoid.

300 people can do more then 1 act in 1 month. You can make all of act 1, 2 in 1 month if work flow is done correctly. I made a 50 map pathfinder campaign [urgir, Mandev, custom city 4x size of bg3, level 16, the entirety of the land of mammoths, in less then 2 weeks myself using solasta game engine DM maker. People think it's hard... it's not. Only reason there is so much missing content is because the devs where lazy to complete it.

Whatever the reason for cutting content I'm absolutely livid that they would cut as much as they did including content they talked about recently and have the audacity to not address it publicly.

You do realize that Pathfinder maps require ZERO mocap and voice over?

Well, you actually can do the Creche in Act 2. In my playthrough Halsin strongly suggested finding a way through the underdark to avoid the Shadowcurse, which was utter nonsense in retrospect, because no mater which route you take, you don't avoid the Shadowcurse.

Anyway I skipped the mountain pass entirely and went straight to the Shadowlands via the underdark and then I travelled from the Shadowlands to the mountain pass and did the creche half way through Act 2.

If the achievements considered the crèche as part of Act 2 rather than Act 1, that is, if everything beyond EA but before Baldurs Gate was Act 2, I’d rate it more highly. Probably an 8/10 instead of a 7/10. Still think Act 1 is best at a 9.5/10.

I came here after reading the post on reddit about the cut content, I was rather annoyed at Larians statements not turning out to be true especially regarding Act 2's Length and the Upper City.

Some noteable things that were cut
- Avernus as an explorable zone
- Upper City
- Story content for Minthara, Halsin and Karlach, Karlach really drew the short straw
- Ethel's Covern were supposed to appear in Act 2 + 3
- Bhaal and Orin versus the Creche (You could choose sides)
- You could pick certain evil deities as a cleric and get unique dialogue options

That's just some of the stuff that was cut the list is much much longer and as someone mentioned on page 1 " The Larian final act curse strikes again " those of us who played DOS2 knew this already and it was eventually addressed with the DE so I'm hoping that they don't forget Avernus, Upper City and more content for the companions.

I would be extremely surprised if they added in Avernus. I suspect that was something which was cut early own before they actually built any maps or content for it.

I also think the Act 3 witch coven content simply got changed to having Ethel as a recurring character. I suspect this was originally going to be a sea hag lair before they changed rather than cut content.

I believe the Minthara content is actually just bugged and will be fixed with a patch. Hopefully the same can be said about all the epilogue stuff as there’s plenty of recorded dialogue for it.

That said by the sounds of it the Upper City was probably cut late in development and does affect the pacing of Act 3. I hope a definitive edition does give Orin and Gortash more time to do their things culminating in bigger battles and better pacing.

I was looking forward to meeting another hag (a more *powerful* hag) - seeing Ethel again was a major disappointment - especially after I'd killed her so convincingly. Like dead. Really toasted dead. I barely cracked a sweat the second time I killed her. After the big fight in Act 1, it was very anti-climatic. And a sea hag would have fit in well given BG is a port city, she as below a tavern etc. I think they simply didn't have time to do what they wanted, rather than Ethel v2.0 being their original intent. No new assets required etc.

I was expecting rest of her coven, at least the one mentioned in the letter...I'm more saddened by the descision to cut Avernus & soulcoins real purpose...it even feels like they planned for 4 Acts, 3rd act lower city,Orin + entrance to Avernus, 4th Act upper city, Gortash and conclusion.

Well, we can only hope they bring it all back in Definitve Edition...

The cutscenes and acting in this game is minimal. They use procedural cutscenes which means all they got to do is record emoting once and never again. They reuse it for many dialogue. Voice acting is not hard. Yes you can only do it in 4 hour segments due to exhaustion etc, but it's not hard. Designing maps is way way harder.

I don't think people should get so worked up by large cuts... I recently looked into the development history of Baldur's Gate 2, and guess what? same story, huge cuts of tons of content. in a large scale game such as this it is to be expected. for now, I think the focus should be only on making what is in the game working perfectly. If something was cut, it is probably for a good reason. and it might be used in the future if enough work was put into it already. even if Larian themselves won't do it, we might see something akin to KOTOR2 cut content mod.

but then again, I'm not sure things are this bad in this case, as far as I see, it's merely a matter of buggy flags. although I do wish some early choices would have more impact.

Imagine playing Bg3 with one part of the city to explore lol

Did Black Isle or Bioware say that the cut content would be in the game, a month or two before release? Only to let people find out it wasn't when they actually played the game? Did those cuts cause many bugs that weren't fixed before release? Did those cuts obviously cheapen the conclusions of the main quest and some of the longer sidequests?

The cuts to BG3 were obviously much more than the normal decisions that are made during development on what content should and shouldn't be in included. And I don't see why Larian should get a pass for that.