I think there are a number of different factors at play here. Those people who want change have more motivation to make a noise, so when a change is made the group wanting it tend to get quieter and those who preferred it as it was then have more reason to speak up. And on some long-running discussions, everything that can be said has been, and while we love rehashing discussions here even we have our limits
Especially when there seems no prospect of things changing so we just decide to live with it and move on. And I think there are also cases where something that seemed important when we were playing and replaying the start of the game in EA turned out not to matter as much in the context of the full game.
Personally, not previously having had 5e experience, I didn’t have strong opinions about reactions but am very glad they were implemented as they were as a result of feedback. I always have them set to “Ask” but it’s good that they can be set to auto-trigger or not to trigger for those who don’t want to faff around with them.
There are other changes that were called for that I do think improve the game, such as making stealth harder to cheese, adding honour mode, more epilogue content and being able to recruit Minthara without destroying the grove.
But I always enjoyed SH’s nippiness and protectiveness of her boundaries, and was disappointed she was softened in response to feedback. For me, her character suffered as a result, and I ended up not liking her quite as much as I’d hoped in the full release.
I was among the people calling for changes to Wyll as his EA iteration seemed all over the place, but I think that’s consistent with my now not being happy with the specific change that was made. Perhaps I’m a cynic, but I can’t take that much righteousness without a bigger dose of humour (thank heavens for Mizora bringing some amusing touches). We’ll never know whether the original vision for the character might have succeeded after all, but my inclination is to trust that the writers made the correct call that he wasn’t coming off and that fundamental changes were needed, even though what was done instead doesn’t work for me.
One change I’m still a little disappointed by is the one to the way dialogue options are presented. In the very first look at the game before EA, rather than lines that could be spoken they were past tense descriptions, as though we were telling the story of what happened. People hated it, and it was changed before EA started, but I thought it was really interesting and created a unique mood. I can accept it might have got irritating, but wish we’d at least had the chance to experience it for ourselves in EA.
With respect to changes not made, there are some combat balance tweaks I agreed with in EA that never got implemented (eg nerfing shove, not retaining AC bonuses from shields when using ranged weapons, not having free swaps between ranged and melee weapons) and I’ll admit those don’t seem that important now and don’t feel as though they unbalance the game in any significant way.
I still really, really wish our avatars were fully voiced and that we could swap between party members during dialogue, plus I have a number of other personal bugbears about the overall framing and missed opportunities to embed our Tavs more in the world, but it’s pointless to keep banging on about those now!
There were also some popular requests, such as increasing party size, that I’m personally glad Larian didn’t accede to.
I do believe that fan feedback has made the game better than it would have been on balance, even if some of the changes made are ones I disagreed with. And I also think that we do the right thing by giving our honest feedback, whether it’s just a feeling or a fully worked out argument. It’s Larian’s job as the professional games developers to decide whether and how to incorporate that into the game they want to make, and while they retain responsibility for the finished product, I’m glad they gave us the opportunity to contribute while it was still in flux.
