This is my first glimpse at the reactions of the "forum people" to the game and I have to say I'm really taken aback. I've played through the game twice and my reaction was being utterly stunned at how much more detailed, reactive, and complex the entire game was (Act 3 included) than anything else I've ever played, and wondering what kind of sorcery allowed a finite team of human beings to put that much work into a game without suffering some sort of mental breakdown, even in the number of years spent.
Then I come here and see people focusing on what *wasn't* in the game and - based on that - declaring it a failure and I just...
If I were the folks working at Larian I'd dump the whole thing and run, too, just to put it behind me and not wake up every day feeling a vast sense of futility. I can't imagine spending that mamy years of my life doing 10x more work than other developers do... putting way much more of my heart and soul into my game than anyone had any right to expect given the precedents set by other gaming companies... and then being drowned in feedback that I didn't do enough. Yikes.
I'll allow that maybe the game only looked flawlessly polished to me because I tend to take more the "expected" route - I like stories of good people trying to do good things and may only try an evil playthrough when I'm utterly sick of all the good permutations. That said, no one is entitled to infinite variations on a story in a game. It's physically impossible. It seems like a lot of people don't understand how many hours are involved in just "one tiny fix" everyone thinks should have been done instantly on command.
I also understand that "Can't you just fix this one thing that is super important to me" comes from passion, but I'm just really disheartened that this level of passion would default toward criticism rather than support.
I'm a novelist, and to stay sane I don't read my reviews at all. Once the book is published, it's done, there's nothing I can do about its flaws, and thank God. "Fanfic culture" has changed the way audiences respond to art, expecting it to be tailored to their specific preferences rather than accepting that just because they don't like something about a piece of art it's bad, sloppy, or "unfinished." I can't imagine the monster I'd turn into if every reader review was presented to me as "feedback" meaning I would have to rewrite a portion of my books to please that segment of readers. As novelists we have one boss, the editor, and we do what they say to make the book better and then it's done. The toll of having to constantly, endlessly be told "your work isn't finished, get back in there" must be excruciating.
If any of the devs are reading this: please know that there are at least some folks out there (possibly a very large number) who don't feel your game is "unfinished" or "sloppy" or anything like that - who understand that it is simply finite in its ability to be executed by mortals, like any work of art. There are plenty of people who are well aware that they have never seen BG3's like for detail, reactivity, complexity, and immersion, and likely only will again if they live long enough to see your next project.
