Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Disappointed in Larian

But do you have issue with Larian not supporting the game, or their branding? Please, feel free to correct me if my timelines are wrong (I played D:OS1 and 2 only after Enhanced Editions were released, so I might not have a full picture of their post launch support nor 1.0 state).

In past Larian released D:OS1&2 on PC and about a year after the release they released Console Port, which included improvements, and some major new features (VO for D:OS1, remade act3 for D:OS2). Those also came in a patch to PC, together with "Enhanced Edition" rebranding.

With Baldur's Gate3 they released at the same time on all three platforms and instead of working for a year and releasing "Enhanced Edition", they were patching the game with improvements, new modes and new content.

My personal view is that Larian didn't really change their attitude to post-launch support, but rather changed how it was released - more regular patches throughout the year, rather than one big patch and re-release. There is no denying, however, that ino BG3 case Larian's approach seemed to be focus on polishing what they had in the game and adding a bit on top, rather than diving deep into guts of the game, and remaking parts of it. I am willing to assume that such unwilligness to change BG3 content comes down to it being a far more intricate game, with far higher cost and time required to make content and any new major content might require it's own post re-launch support (more on that later). It's been a year+ since the game released, and new endings release only now. How long have they been in production? If Larian decided to remake act3 - how much time would it take? Months? Years? If let's say Larian had to set aside a team to work for 3-5 years to remake act3, would it really be worth it? Not only to them, but to us as well. How many people would care about BG3 getting revamped content years from now? Is that estimation way too generous? I really don't know. But it took CDPR almost 3 years to release Cyberpunk2.0, and as far as I remember they did mostly polish and revamped gameplay systems - not remake 1/3 of the game's levels and narrative content. At the very least, I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that revamping act3 of BG3 would require much, much more time investment and resources than that of D:OS2. Would D:OS2 get a new act3 if it was full of cinematics for each NPC interaction? There is also a matter of how long it took to make BG3 vs D:OS2, so I don't think this is 1-1 comparison - D:OS2 released 3 years after D:OS1, while BG3 released 6 years after D:OS2 - so not only they supported both games for about a year after launched, but even before the release they spend 2x as much time on BG3 than they did on D:OS2.

I reposted Larian's recent retrospective twice already in 24h, but I think it is just too relevant to many discussions happening here.

1) 11:10, 41:44 - Sven mentions the original plan for the game to be much bigger. Isn't possible that issues that we as players see is the result of this scaling down, rather than game being "unfinished"? If so, even though 1.0 didn't feel right in many aspects, I don't see there is a feasable way of fixing it, beyond "try to planout next project a bit more realistically". As well as explanation why there might be links to other areas which in the end weren't utilised.

2) 47:55, 06:07, 28:27 - on QAing BG3. I found third clup especially interesting, when Sven describes how cinematics needed to be constantly watched and rewatched throughout the development as "done" content kept breaking due to seemingly unrelated changes. So I don't think making act3 is as simply as hacking it off and adding something new. What state could BG3 end up with, if Larian kept working on new content, instead of focusing on new stuff?


I should also stress that I don't really aim to defend Larian. I do find their game's tendency to dip in quality as they go on to be frustrated, and I hope they will find a way to address it in the future. I also think they have been addressing it, and each game they did have been getting better and better at it (I will take 1.0 Baldur's Gate3 over D:OS2 Enhanced Edition any time!). Larian also have been supporting BG3 post launch for a good chunk of time and responding to some feedback. That they don't agree with some feedback or think addressing some of it would be unfeasable, or not worth the work it would take - I mean that's their call to make, I am incapable of making that judgement myself. Sven doesn't think it is worth continuing changing things, and that's pretty much that. At the same time it is players right to be dissatisfied with product that was shipped. On the other hand if a larger chunk of the playerbase feels that BG3 needed more time in the oven and required extensive post launch support, perhaps they should be more objective about game's state. I don't mean to aim it specifically at you, Ixal, or anyone on the forum. But I think that if a game with 96 metacritic and 8.8 user score and crap ton of awards is left in a "bad state" after a year of post launch support and improvements, than something very questionable has happened with how the game was appraised (or of course, the game is excellent, and some of the players have unreasonable expactations).