The game was in Early Access for 3 years and there are some of us who waited specifically for 3 years with the intent of playing a finished product. The game is undoubtedly very good in many ways, but there are a lot of baffling design choices throughout, ingame, in content and even in UI.
Aside from all the Act 3 issues. Why was a massive chunk of the Nautiloid removed? Why were the people near the dying mindflayer removed? Just hearing about stuff that was in EA and is now just gone.
Even the campaign name when looking to join games is some random placeholder name. I don't like that I now feel like I've made a mistake buying the game and playing it now after EA, when I can probably get a much more complete experience in a year, that feels awful as an RPG fan and as a consumer.
I actually feel a bit hoodwinked because I thought the point of EA was to avoid massive glaring issues like this.
Now that I think about it, DoS2 suffered from this exact same issue, where Act 3 felt like a mess that needed much more setup and then the game just ends with a bunch of unaddressed plot threads, a friend and I finished DoS2 the other month because we were excited for BG3 and the back half of DoS2 really left a sour taste in our mouth.
Front loading a game makes it seem like the player is being deliberately tricked.
Removal of parts of the Nautiloid is basically the only content I'm ok with having been cut. The tutorial section was overly long (especially as you have to redo it every time you create a character) and it feels much better to me now. The fishermen were removed during EA for no apparent reason. It used to be a nice little encounter I hope we'll see restored eventually.
But the part I'm really angry about is the whole upper city/Act 3 affair. That has basically killed my desire to finish the game (I'm in the middle of Act 3 now with no motivation to continue and have started another character instead).
