Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Time for Larian to Surface

My post wasn't aimed at any particular individual.

My post had nothing to do with Owlcat or Larian 'getting love' (whatever that nonsense means), it was comparing how Owlcat and Larian handle keeping the community informed.

FYI WH40KRT is not DnD. It is Owlcat's interpretation of the Games Workshop TT rules and this is one of the reasons why some of the hotfixes and patches contain a lot of balancing and improvements to descriptions etc.

Sorry I might have latched on to the wrong thing there then, cause I thought it was in response like I was one of all those apologists, though I guess I probably am, so it wouldn't be unfair really. What I meant by gettin' love is just that there is a lot of crossover between these fandoms and on these forums, particularly between WotR players and BG3 players. For example I own and enjoy playing both games and appreciate what they've done. It is probably somewhat nonsensical, many I gather do not feel that way, but still, that's where I'm at with it these days. I know Rogue trader's got it's own thing going on now over there, I just went for the familiar cause it seemed simpler to compare the BG3 EA to the Pathfinder WotR Beta in my mental shorthand. I think I would have preferred a public Beta for BG3 more along the lines of the WotR Beta, cause I think it would have accomplished more in a shorter span of time and felt a bit more gratifying with that kind of consistency and back and forth. Although honestly, the scale up seems different too, like just somewhat easier to do I'd imagine when the focus is very clear and curated and the feedback is more directed.

These boards have been fielding frustrations aimed at Larian daily for some time and how they communicate here (or don't, or didn't during EA specifically) but then the people reading these posts now and engaging here are mostly just the players, not really the developers, so I dont know. It's a very different sort of community engagement or support if one wants to call it that, and the approach to taking feedback or general criticisms is of a different kind altogether, because its so indirect, rather than direct. It all seems to crack off by proxy. When it comes to the gripes they just take it on the chin mostly I guess, and never come clapping back except like once in a blue moon, say when a big patch drops. Then it's radio silence, unless one wants to hunt around elsewhere.

Like in 4 years this has been the drill the whole time pretty much. It's frustrating but not at all surprising at this point. And then I think often a defense of the player base or their enthusiasm for the game itself can be conflated with a defense of everything Larian does, or has done, or their style and approach on this score, which wouldn't be my take away, cause for me it's all pretty fraught. Again, didn't want to sidetrack too hard, these thread are always pretty interesting to me cause they're kinda like lightning rods and sparks sorta fly, especially in the weeks right after a big patch comes through. I find it very challenging to follow this game in other places, cause the stuff all moves at warp speed. Here we get a bit more slo mo on it, so I can actually read what people are thinking and try to process it without too much rush, but I probably slip sometimes pinballing between threads, or missing the keynote. I don't know what breaks through over here esp in General, points well taken though.

Ps. Also just to note, that a couple weeks later Larian did surface to say pretty much exactly what was requested by the OP and also fixed the shield bash and dropped those new idles I was hoping we might get. The second that happens though, whatever the thing was, it tends to recede into the background, replaced by other concerns or new bugs. Hotfix dropped last night right? It's a lot of wait and see here, I agree - kinda rough. Oh and one other knock on thought for whatever its worth, but just a personal level I had never played a larian game before this one, so it was all a big mystery to me how it would look or whether they could pull it off, and I really wanted that to see that, whereas with the Pathfinder games I just felt like those were hitting the marks pretty early. So I had confidence and didn't really feel the desire to weigh in, cause they delivered for me on kingmaker and the follow up for sure, even if I have complicated feelings on that one, it's a great game. But BG coming back felt like the ultimate dice roll somehow, where I'm blowing on the dice in total trepidation at all times - like good grief please let them not hose this one. So far so good I'd say on balance, but doesn't feel done.

Funny, I remember everyone blaming Microsoft for the Xbox cloud save issues, despite there being a similar issue on the PC release and it's something that should've been picked up during Larian's QA...


I imagine these frustrations are mostly built on the expectations of BG3 being an EA game, which is that there is constant developer feedback with devblogs or roadmaps (Like how other EA devs operate).
Even though the game is post-EA, there is still a ton of issues with the game and the question of DLC/Mod Tools/Definitive Edition still hangs in the air.
I also imagine they have a Slack or a Trello board they can pull from to show what their general plans for the future are.

And now that BG3 won the Community support award, people also expect that BG3 is at the same standard as past winners, if not better.
Instead, it just seems that Larian is content with being like any other AAA dev.

Pretty much the only game that has a player facing, detailed and long term planning I am aware of is Star Citizen, and this one is a terrible comparison since RSI needs a continuous amount of cash to fuel their infinite ambitions. Care to show me any other non GAAS game that has long term planning for their upcoming features?

I would direct you to Cyberknights: flashpoint. Currently in early access and they provide very regular updates on their plans and a road map of their future goals.

Has Star Citizen made up a roadmap yet? I kinda checked out a few years ago. Last I heard they made a Roadmap to the Roadmap.

But for games with a Multi-year roadmap, I'm aware of two:
- Workers and Resources (going back since atleast Oct 2021)
- Exogate Initiative (Bit less detailed roadmap, but it has the things they want to add before release)

In saying that, long term doesn't have to be multi year, just along the lines of quarterly/half-yeary devblogs that details what they are planning on releasing within the next quarter/half-year, which both of those games also do.

What I would have wanted, or kinda expected to see in EA (now post launch) would have been rather involved - basically two versions of the game - a Stable and a PreRelease.

The first would be for the general playerbase (the players who just came to play, not to test) and the modding community.

The second would be for motivated testers to opt-in. Basically for people who've already beaten the game and who just want the latest thing on offer, even if it's still not yet stable.

There are probably enough BG3 players in this latter category to catch and help crush many bugs, just through casual play and regular reporting if there was a more fluid and convenient way to do that. Especially if it was directed periodically and less concerned with the surprise factor or spoiler guarding. Support tickets are perhaps too compartmentalized for that, making it harder for the testing player to cross check with other testers for known issues. Of course this is happening right now, but the issue is that is weighed down by all the other stuff, which would come under more general criticisms or feedback on the stable. If it happens in the same place at the same time, then it all just gets subsumed into one big maelstrom that's probably impossible to stay on top of. Just seems like something where it would be better to break off into groups, to make that whole process more expedient, while still safeguarding the general user experience.

It's necessarily a much smaller group of players than the general playerbase on that, but also still a much much larger group than whatever they could pull off in-house, probably. All those players would understand going into it that they are likely to experience significant bugs, perhaps game breaking bugs, and material that has not yet been vetted. I'm talking about stuff like bugs and the nuts and bolts. Story minutia or stuff that's more subjective is somewhat different. How I feel about Lae'zel as a character at plot point Z, or what I might want to see from her romance is one thing (it's perfect as is for me lol) but I mean stuff that's easy to spot. For example, the door of Lae'zel's cage just floating there, suspended in the air after her recruitment scene on the beach. Easy problem to identify, hopefully easier to fix, and if there's a conversation to be had about the other stuff, well then that gets taken under advisement - or tabled for the stable.

Basically 2 feedback gauntlets going at all times, with the Beta group scouting stuff out a few weeks in advance. Telemetry without feedback is only so useful, it doesn't explain the why of what's going on. Feedback without telemetry is pretty anecdotal and harder to make use of. To gather either is probably pretty tough. Discord seems to have alright systems now, but then the link from the launcher takes us here, not there, so there's that.

The difference with an opt-in scheme is that then you can make it into more of a quest, essentially to gameify the process of hunting down bugs and breakers and to do quality control with people who are chill doing that, or even eager for it. Keeping it light. When I swooped this game on spec to participate in an Early Access that's what I thought it would entail, or at least for people who wanted to go under the hood with it a bit more. That's what the EA should have been for me, but the EA was only the first Act of the game, because they held back and wanted the surprise factor thing. It made a certain sense I guess and clearly worked on some level, but we see the downside of it now. Any little kink along the way makes much bigger waves, gets picked up by reviews and journalism, with every misstep or goof on full display. In EA it gets let slide, but out of EA people are way more critical. If they did the open Beta thing, then, when a Beta player does encounter a bug, instead of just being annoyed by it, feels more like helping to improve the game. You can do the same thing with the general playerbase, but then you get all the sour grapes, and it takes longer anyway. By walling it off somewhat, and only pushing out the patch after it's gone through the beta grinder, that preserves a stable version at all times that regular users/modders can rely upon.

I think it would be better to do it that way. There are maybe a couple reasons not to do it that way, but I'm not so sure. Sawyer was talking about one caution in the Pillars kickstarter post mortem, that by relying overmuch on the most enthusiastic and ardent players (the sort who are willing to go through the saw mill like that) that the feedback will necessarily skew a bit differently than what they'd receive from the average players. I'd guess people are unlikely to do things like sign up for discussion boards too, unless they are either very dissatisfied with something, or elated by something. But then they wouldn't have to weight it all the same ya know. Another big reason not to do this I guess might be the fear that those testers then somehow spoil whatever surprises are still in the works. Honestly though, at this point, does it really make sense to do that? Cause the game is out now, and the trade off there for guarding the grail secrets doesn't really seem worth it to me after a certain point - I mean if the result is that the average player is being confronted with stuff that borks their ongoing campaigns every couple months. Or if their MP experience gets tanked, or a streamer's stream crashes out in the midst of a hotfix being delivered or whatever. That's probably more annoying for the average user, than just avoiding spoilers by avoiding whatever Pre-Release and focusing only on the Stable build. Also they could make the Beta users agree to disclosure agreements of some kind if cats getting out of the bag is the main concern. Games journalists are not going to be all citing these forums, or discord groups, or studio discussion boards, because those don't qualify as impartial sources. It's seriously debatable whether Reddit or Twitter should be treated that way either anymore, but that seems to be the main source for anything buzzworthy. Anyway, just make the point clear in the sign-up by saying stuff like no screens or hot takes or speculation posted outside the Beta, with a gag on it until the stuff is released as part of the Stable.

Disabling updates is onerous for the new user. The average player isn't going to do that. Modders might do that and players who use those mods, but they're more used to navigating that probably. It's sort of the reverse of what I'd expect for a release pattern. I think it's unreasonable to expect the general player base to get on board with an EA for all vibe, and to restart campaigns with every patch just to confirm whether its an issue with the save or an issue game wide, cause that's probably what it requires right? Although some people would happily do that, it's better if people are volunteering instead of getting drafted into that process by default. The devs don't have to be all super responsive to every little thing in order to still pull something like that off, they just need to set up a framework that allows it happen in a way that's more efficient and centralized than it is currently. Right now it all feels very decentralized and scattershot. I think a monthly roadmap plan is more likely to stick than a quarterly or yearly plan, which would probably include too much forecasting and speculation. It should be more like "Hi everyone, we're getting ready to push out the new patch next month, it's ready for testing in the Pre-Release..." Perhaps with a Gazette entry at the same time to preview what's coming down the pike, or what sorts of feedback was toplined for the last patch. That stuff could be aimed at the more general audience and games journalists. I think the disc is what makes it officially official, so whatever is in that is the baseline and the thing that just stays available in that state perma style.

This is just guesswork cause I have no idea how they'd actually set that up. It seems like a pretty complex thing to do for a game on this scale, like unfathomably complex to me really, so this is just my impressionist take from a enthusiastic player's perspective. If theory crafting why they are doing it the way they are, the only thing I can come up with is that somehow they want us to see the jank. That the jank somehow indicates that they are still working on stuff and building it out, which was fine in EA if a little exhausting, but that's not really the best look after red carpets rolling out. I think the best play for me would be if they announced an Expansion/Toolset legit, and set up an EA for that if they want, to learn from the last EA and apply whatever lessons to the next. New material for the current thing should just get tabled while they focus all the zots on making it stable. Stable enough so that the disc can stand the test of time, and be the go-to for the modders. Ultimately I think these boards are going to be for the modders, because those are the peeps who are the most motivated, and they have been paying attention pretty much the whole time. The Mods on nexus are an expression of the EA feedback actually put into practice, cause there are mods there that do most of the things that have been suggested over the past 4 years, but they are also more decentralized. So anytime the main game updates it's like a scramble to get the house back in order in a timely fashion. But then if it was pushed out as a preRelease first, they could also get ahead of things. Would be nice

Well a Prerelease/Beta branch for everyone would be the ideal solution, even if it's not something I'd agree with, because Larian is 450 staff strong, so surely they'd be able to catch the really obvious bugs that this Patch has introduced.
But also, this patch specifically, they could've just not released the buggy portions and focused it completely on the Romances and the general community wouldn't care...
It'd be perfect for mod devs tho.

Given that a bunch of other companies do beta branches, e.g. Paradox Interactive, I can't imagine it being hard to setup. They'd just need to use whatever stable build/branch they use for QA and upload it to Steam's Beta branch system.
Sudden idea, they could do a two Betas, Private and Public, and release the codes for the private one on these forums, although that might kill these forums in the process.
That way you get the most ardent supporters as free labor first, then more the casual people in the open beta.

If they were to do this, they should also develop some sortof ingame bug reporting feature too.

Rollback branches, which can also be done via Steam's Beta function, would be nice for people already knee deep in a run too, given that patch updates seemingly breaks those runs.

And surely they've see what made Skyrim so popular and re-re-releasable is because of the modding community, their silence here is wierd; If they were working on it, it'd be a no-brainer to mention that it's definetly in the works. Bethesda atleast gives a general date for their modtool releases.

As to your last point, to why, who knows, but given that seemingly nothing has fundamentally changed between how they operate in EA and now, they seem to be happy continuing doing things their way.
Honestly, it just boggles my mind, they make a game that people consider to be the "second coming" and make over $1 billion and yet, it doesn't seem that they have put any of that money into the QA Department.

About Patch 6 and modding, wanted to share this here with you all:

Patch 6 seemingly introduced a range of issues, and we have plans to release a hotfix shortly that should resolve some further bugs, glitches, and crashes.

We are actively working on further fixes that cover several community-submitted issues with Patch 6, and really do appreciate your patience as we prepare to deliver this.

MODDING
Thank you for continuing to send in your bug reports, and for sharing feedback with our support team.

Alongside our investigations, your support tickets have helped us identify a discrepancy within the Hotfix #18 build, which meant that, unlike previous hotfixes, the Script Extender modification was no longer compatible with the latest game version.

We absolutely love that we have such an active modding community across our titles, and have enjoyed seeing that passion grow even stronger with Baldur’s Gate 3. We want to continue making sure you’re getting the best possible experience, which is why we frequently patch the game, although this does inevitably mean that each new patch or hotfix has the potential to become incompatible with your favourite mods.

We know this sucks, we know you want to play with mods, and we want to make this right.

We are working on official mod support, and have been for a while. We want the very best for you, which includes establishing a pipeline that lets mod authors release their mods across different platforms.

Together with the platform holders, we are working on making this a reality, and are forming a team to support mod curation. We’re aiming to offer modding support for things like classes, UI, customisation, spells, and certain assets and game mechanics.

As this is no small task, we hope to introduce the initial stages of modding support in our next big patch, which is still several months away. Frustrated as you might be now, we’re keen to work with you on this - and have plans to reach out to popular mod authors to talk further and work together to avoid issues in the future.

Hi Salo. Thank you for taking the time to update us. Can you please let us know if modding support will include making custom environments like dungeons? It was promised by Swen in September.

The team is currently working on the mod support and we'll be announcing more of its features as soon as we know!

Well, that's something. I can start planning on a 3-7 month timeline now for the mod support we need to make Multiplayer really work.