Originally Posted by Ixal
Originally Posted by papercut_ninja
Of course it would be foolish to assume that Larian is going to abandon the massive impact that fan interaction with romance and sex in the form of fanart, fan fiction and discussions had on the wider appeal for the game.

That doesn't mean that they are completely blind or oblivious to the fact that they need a solid game underneath to sustain it. Most people, even gooners, are not going to grind through hours of boring writing and frustrating encounters and game mechanics for a few minutes of smut. People were perhaps drawn in by hearing about the sexy elf vampire, but they got into the story and learned to enjoy the mechanics and character progression of a pretty deep crpg for a casual gamer, because those things were solid, engaging and fun.

As someone who enjoy the more tactical and classic crpg mechanics, I didn't feel like the developers abandoned me to exclusively cater to a different audience. There were things that was certainly aimed at other audiences for sure, but also stuff like honor mode for those of us who wanted more strategic gameplay to sink our teeth into. The fact that every decision they made was not made with my specific tastes and interests in mind does not mean that I was ignored, just that other audiences were also included.
I see it differently.

BG3 had and still has some massive problems. The initial state had many bugs, the evil path was practically nonexistant at release it has many plot holes and leftover artifacts from when Larian rewrote the story in the last minute and the writing is at best average when you compare it to for example the Owlcat games. Several mechanics like trading and party control were and still are pretty bad and Larian didn't even bother to add an epilogue.

Together with the already mentioned lack of diversity among companions and their rather bland and "romance ready" personalities.

Yet it was an instant and massive success, not only because of the name BG but also in large parts because it attracted people with bear sex and waifu like companions and they do not care as much about the rest.

DOS2 had similar problems and there, instead of adding more romance content, Larian reworked the last act to improve it.
Only that for BG3 the priorities for post game support were clearly different

I see where you are coming from, and many of the flaws you bring up are things that I agree the game could have improved upon.

But I think you are making it very simplistic when you attribute all that to the inclusion of sex and romance for appeal to other audiences. I have watched many different people play the game. I have seen people who went into the game with the mindset of playing it like a dating simulator and then watching them become fully locked in fighting Myrkul, going through all the different combinations they have at their disposal in their inventory and character sheet to figure out how to win the fight and be absolutely euphoric at the success. Or becoming so emotional when speaking to Karlach after defeating Gortash that they have to take a moment and leave the room. Saying that these people did not care or weren't invested in anything else in the game feels like gatekeeping the experience against other audiences. You find a flaw in the game and rather than looking at many different reasons why it ended up that way in the game, the disappointment is directed towards an external group - it is because of "those" people. I don't think it is as simple as that, but I share your sentiment that there were mistakes and flaws and that it could have played a part in it.

I also hope that they are sensible, and don't go overboard with making the game appeal to any specific audience, be it the people that share my preferred playstyle or any other audience.

And it should work both ways of course. If I want more diverse companions with less focus on aesthetics I shouldn't be met with an attitude of "get out my elf-dating simulator, we don't want any ugly shorties in here!"

Last edited by papercut_ninja; Yesterday at 04:17 PM.