Why do you discard any of my suggestions by demanding a PROOF, while yourself providing none?
Since I'm not making outrageous statements?
Like, I literally stated that any assessment of the worth of EA and its impact on the game is based on speculation.
See:
It depends. A lot of speculation is required for an accurate assessment.
Like, how polished would all 3 acts be if they didn't spend an inordinate amount of time fine tuning Act 1? Having 3 "Decent" acts could be considered better than 1 "Good" act and 2 "Bad" ones (Even more so when Act 3 is typically the climax of the game's story).
You're the one making claims about having complete certainty:
All we can say for certain is EA and its extended development time is overwhelmingly positive for the specific act being worked on. (Which is not a particularly groundbreaking revelation...
That I flat out disagree.
Meaning you seemingly have some sort of proof that we can say for CERTAIN that EA was overwhelmingly positive for more than the specific act being worked on.
Meanwhile I have proof that other acts aren't as good the Act that had extra work on in the form of the literal game as it exists. Whereby a nigh unanimous verdict is that Act 1 is by far the best and most polished act in the game. Meaning that EA and the extended development has, with a high degree of certainty, been overwhelmingly positive for that specific act (How much of an impact each aspect - The EA, or the extra development time itself - had, is a matter of speculation. As I mentioned prior we have little in the way of comparative data to single out the benefits either aspect has). Stating it's effect beyond this act is a matter of pure speculation.
You try to bring up more general systems as evidence that EA was "Overwhelmingly positive" for the game as a whole, but such a claim would need proof. Especially when it has to go up against the vast list of problems that many threads detail about how the later 2 acts are just way less developed and polished.
Without any proof to bring about in regards to EA being positive for all parts of the game (And to what extent), thereby leaves open room for a speculative argument about whether EA was a net postive for the game as a whole. With both sides being equally possible to argue given their basis in pure speculation.
One could just as easily argue that the general systems updates that happened during EA being a direct response to EA and thus improving also the later acts and thus being a positive impact on the entire game, as one could also argue that the hyperfixation on act 1 and pandering to players whims for an extended duration ran a toll on their development budget (And overall passion) which lead to the more shallow developed later acts and thus was a negative impact on the game as a whole.
We simply cannot be certain about anything besides the system of EA and extended development being beneficial to the singular act that was worked on. As we have clear evidence that shows us this, namely Larian's three games where they've done this and the three games where the act that was being worked on in this way being superior to the other acts within their games.
