A refrain that comes up fairly frequently regarding this kind of thing is that "players are good at finding problems and bad at finding solutions. I do think that there were at least a few things changed due to EA that were fundamentally positive, such as their change to how high ground worked and the inclusion of reactions. But I also think that Larian honestly didn't utlize the EA process as well as they could have. I think they could have done a better job of directing EA players to guide the sort of feedback they were looking for, being explicit about what things were on the table to be changed and what were not. Also I don't think you can blame EA for the choppy way the narrative turned out. I think that just comes down to Larian's lack of discipline. It's entirely possible that they could have gone into EA, never changed anything narratively, said outright that they were not looking for feedback on narrative, they would just do whatever they wanted to do in that regard. But they did not.
What can be said with some certainty is that whtether EA was good for the game or not, Larian seems to think it is, because they keep doing it.
