Since the EA I've only read the forums and never posted, until recently. Initially joined in order to help the game improve throughout the EA stages, participated in discussions about companions, game mechanics and story, and shared my experience.
Now I come back and see things that have been actively promoted before and made it into the release - suddenly were bad or poorly executed, according to the very same community. Or vice versa. Let me give you a couple examples.
Shadowheart, Laezel, Wyll. The first two were insufferable at some point, had zero tolerance for simple questions and roasted you on any occasion. This was changed based on our collective feedback, they made SH and L much more compliant, yet as of now I see posts here and there about 'missing the old days' when they had 'personality' and ’agency'. Wyll was trash talked all over throughout the EA for inconsistent temper, constant show off and poorly written story. On release, they give us an absolute Chad of a character with a steel will and resolve who is perceived now as... Karlach's sidekick? Whaaa?
BA shove with extended pushing range. Discussions were boiling, on how overpowered, unnecessary and unfaithful to the source material BA shove was. Post release, I've seen little-to-none talks about it, except for some general statements such as 'I still wish shove was a BA' with no justification behind the idea. Why wasn't there any justification? I guess its cause with the abundance of other bonus actions and the scale of encounters mid/late game BA shove just became OK, if not bad sometimes. Imaging blowing a whole action during some fight in act 3 in order to push someone a couple of ft. Nonsense, right?
Therefore I wonder if the feedback we'd given on some matters was any good, when in the end we were not satisfied with the result. Was the request properly conveyed, or was it just blatant criticism with not enough substance. And if it was just that, is it fair to complain about things we ever asked for?
Are references to other games and their success always applicable as a valid sort of criticism/feedback? For example, we got reactions with pop-ups aka Solasta, yet everyone seemed unhappy with how they interfere with the combat pacing. IMO the whole idea of copy pasting this system clashed with the general direction of speeding up the combat (Larian tried to take this route with simultaneous turns and Swarm AI), which I found very refreshing for a turn based game. Now late game fights are mentioned as 'a drag' while we ourselves contributed to it.
Just wanted to give my internal thoughts after revisiting the forums once more. This is still a great place to hang out and discuss the game we love (or hate), just wanted to get this out of my system, because I am a bit confused by the tonal shift within several long lasting discussions.
