Hello Forum,

I am curious what the overall opinion on Early Access being released so early is. When Baldur's Gate 3 first went into Early Access I tried to give it a go and it was too buggy for me to enjoy. I tried it again after some patches and absolutely love the game - I ended up having to stop myself because I didn't want to go too far before actual release. So this is not a knock on the quality of the game or how good it will be upon release...

But do you think Larian releasing the game into Early Access that far in advance is a bad business decision and/or bad for the game? The main questions I have around it are...

1. Does community interaction and involvement make the game that much better? Is there a chance it could actually hurt the game? I am not in game development, so I am curious how much people think player feedback will impact the final product.

2. Based on player feedback and wanting to keep some things, even in the early part of the game, a surprise - how much do you think the full release of the game will actually differ from Early Access?

3. Do you think it will ruin the experience of the game and thus overall reviews/player perception when it comes out due to burn out or "bad experiences" during Early Access? As an example if you look on a lot of review sites there seems to be a ton of negativity because people don't "get" Early Access... or on forums people are posting about having played through Early Access ten times already and wanting more.

4. Isn't 2+ years of Early Access a long time to have a half baked version of the game out in public? Is it going to kill the hype for the full blown release of the game or do you think marketing and word of mouth can get people hyped up again?

For their finances? No. For the game? eh...?

I can't speak for Larian, but I can say that Early Release is just not good for me. Game crashing bugs are even more more frustrating than losing your golf ball in the weeds, and in the case of computer games, you don't have the option of pulling out another ball. I don't like multiple 60GB patch downloads, either, because something always interrupts the download and I am never sure if it will actually make it all the way.

Imagine buying an Early Release automobile, where initially you get a chassis with an engine, wheels, partial transmission, and driver controls. But the transmission has only two gears so the car will go only 30 mph (48.28 km/hr), and otherwise it has no radio, A/C, headlights, cup holder, back seats, doors, windows, hood, or exhaust system. You'll get those missing things in three years ... maybe.

So Early Release is not for me. But, I do like the idea of community feedback early in the development, which I believe was a huge factor in the success of Baldur's Gate. D&D has always been a community thing, and the old BG series picked up on that same spirit. I am very glad Larian has these forums, and I am glad they are using the Early Release to improve the release-version of the game.

I've enjoyed the game. It was well worth $60, and it's still EA.

That said, I'll probably never do another EA. The amount of frustration debating endlessly over different things and getting very little feedback from Larian has left a REALLY bad taste in my mouth. I wanted to post suggestions to help improve the game. I never knew I'd be sometimes arguing over the tiniest things in an empty vacuum for almost 2 years.

Take party of 6. All Larian has to do is say yes or no. Just, "Yes. We'll provide an option for players to have up to 6 if they want.". Or "Nope. Not gonna happen. Too many issues.". Or whatever.

But instead, we keep spinning round and round and round and round, saying the same things over and over again.

Personally, I think they're doing it on purpose. Keep the convos going and new people hop on and start reading them and bam. It takes off again. Keeps the game alive. It's torture for the fans who hang out here, suffering because they don't know what they are going to get, but it seems to work. The forums are still active even after all this time.

Guess sometimes silence is more effective than talking.

That statement - delivered by an individual such as yourself - surprised me in a way I never thought possible; I thought you were all for an open dialogue between developer and consumer.

Whereas the community management and communication leaves much to be desired, what you mention is not as much a failing of Larian as it's on certain vocal parts of the community and their incredibly stubborn entitlement issues. Beyond the initial stages, the circular debate clearly degenerated into a protracted exercise in futility kept alive by a tiny minority of fans unwilling to let go. Swen Vincke stated months before EA started that they had decided on a party limit of 4, but that 6 could have worked as well. He rejected the notion of being *mechanically* faithful to the original as they weren't looking to simply recreate the game and times had changed. No further communication on the subject, is in a way still communication given the the scope of changes required making the likelihood of change incredibly small as time passed on.

This becomes even more clear when you consider the turn-based vs real-time "discussion". Both are core mechanics that would require too much resources for simple minority fan-service. BG fan-service that would conflict with expectations and mechanics of a new generation of D&D. A small fraction of BG3-players on full release will have played the original series, and only a small fraction of those again are wed to the mechanics of a quarter of century old game. I myself played the original series when it first came out and played the enhanced version again when that was released. It was a clear reminder to any objective mind that, despite its greatness, indeed times had moved on.

Your mistake was not managing your expectations well.

1. Nobody really knows ... and nobody will ever know.
There certainly is some big progress, when you compare curent game and patch 1 ... they are in some ways completely different games. O_o
But how many of those changes were based on our feedback ... and how many od them was planned anyway? We can only speculate.

2. Depends ...
From wich part of Early Access?

First patch X release ... a lot ...
Last patch X release ... certainly not as much ...

Quite honestly i would not be surprised if Last Patch would be identical to Release version, only a little smaller in matter of content (races, subclasses, followers, items, maybe even some side quests we dont have right now, or dialogue options ... stuff like that)

3. Well, yes ... but actualy, no.
There will allways be people complaining about something ... no matter what you do, and if someone gives a game bad review based on Early Access experience, it come out quite quickly ... so, personaly i would expect it would more hurt those people who would make such inacurate reviews more than game itself.

4. It may a little ... but that would be insignificant on grant scale.
I mean the hype around every next patch is a little lower with every another month of EA ... but still those are BIG events ... and they would be trivial compared to full release.

Oh. Don't get me wrong. I WANT communication. I want them to give us definite yes/no answers. I'm all for it. I've just taken more of a step back and realized the method behind their madness. I'm saying that I think they don't respond on purpose because it keeps the die-hard fans going crazy, this keeping the forums alive.

There is some truth to this, but I also think some individuals like to pick on us for being so devoted to what we think would improve the game. Ask, and ye shall receive. If you want something, ask, and be persistent. You never know but they might change their minds especially if enough people are asking for something.

No matter how little Larian did with this EA so far and at what snail pace this whole thing progressed (honestly the last thing I expected joining in was that I would be still waiting for several BASIC classes and races almost two years into EA), it's terrifying to even imagine how the game would have turned out without it.

We would have a whole lot of HORRIBLE mechanical implementations without experiencing the chance to bitch about them for months before seeing them addressed.
I'm talking about unquestionable shit like "advantage for walking slowly behind your opponent", "advantage for being two meters higher than your enemy" (and DISADVANTAGE for being lower than him, factually DOUBLING that gap) and so on.

They stated that they set for what they thought it was best but they were open to feedback. They got tons of that feedback and they decided not only to not act on it, but to almost ostentatiously ignore it.
Same goes for their hideous chain-based control scheme and how WIDELY unpopular it turned out to be. It's not even worth to debate if it's liked or not at this point. I may be more annoyed about it than most people, which is why I've been very vocal about it, but it's not even in question that the OVERWHELMING majority of users either actively dislike it on an instinctive level or realize they do when it's pointed out to them what a better alternative would be like.

The only people who defend the chain system seem to be the ones that just don't know better or the ones that would defend Larian even if the studio formed a cult and started stabbing their newborn child on an altar.

He argued that some mechanics would be poorly suited for a computer game, but then they came up with WORSE alternatives and a competitor came to the scene proving that a more faithful adaptation ironically enough worked far better.



There was never an actual "real-time vs turn-based" argument to be had, because they've been adamant from the get go on what they wanted to. THIS one is indeed a case where they've been transparent and some people just refused to listen.

Ah. Leave it to Tuco to step in and put things in place. Blunt. To the point. No beating around the bush.

Careful how you respond to Tuco. Just a word of advice. The panther is a suitable image. Tuco will unleash claws and teeth, every time.

Is EA a mistake? Well, recall what the game mechanics were like in the earliest versions. If Larian hadn't done EA, it would have been even less like 5e than it is now, and it would still retain the very unbalanced mix of 5e-style and DOS-style mechanics which worked against each other.

For me personally, it turns out that I could not keep replaying the same first act content over and over again. I found myself burning out, so I stopped playing EA some time ago.



I was under the impression that they've already said no to a party of 6 for the primary reason that many people in the party would also force more enemies in encounters or increased toughness for enemies, which would bog combat down and make it take too long. I do watch some 5e combat livestreams on occasion and combat with lots of players does take a long time, even accounting for the manual adding of dice and the confusion.

(Personally speaking I would have liked at least 5 party members so I could fill all the main roles of melee fighter, blaster/controller, healer, and thief and still leave room for another one to spice it up, but I'm certain Larian isn't going to budge on the party size.)

You mean the dog? O_o
If im not misstaken, it seems like some kind of Pitbullterier.

Better resolution here:

I would gues around 20.

Well not Early Access as a whole. It seems like having some Early Access is probably a good thing for any game to get player feedback and allow them time to tweak the game.

More so... is 2+ years of Early Access a good idea? I get a year or six months. I also get that the pandemic happened during all of this and dev times seem completely unpredictable for just about every studio right now. But 2+ years seems excessive and like it might be to the detriment of both the fan base and Larian.

Our resident anime vampire doubles as a devil's advocate for L.

this is just probably my own opinion. the way i see it larian put it to EA was a form of marketing. they wanted to show they have community engagement. i'm not sure how much did they take community feedback to heart. and how much was actually implemented? just take for example 6 party characters, reactions, day & night, DOS like artistic style, RTwP and the toilet-chain UI implementation.

so was it a mistake? i think not. they are pretty successful in gathering attention.

I had thought of starting a similar thread but more centred on asking whether EA fatigue would set in amongst the players due to the lengthy development and total lack of communication from Larian. It's pretty evident that Larian didn't realise the scale of the project they took on (which I find a quite staggering admission) and hence the development is well beyond their initial projections. Anyway, to answer you questions:

1. Community interaction has seemingly led to some minor changes but there has been a resounding silence from Larian until they make their Panel from Hell announcements every few months. Larian have their own interpretation for the BG IP and D&D and they won't digress too far from its current state, that much seems clear to me. Personally I think the game will suffer for it in terms of longevity and trying to appeal to too broad an audience but that's just my opinion.

2. It won't differ a huge amount.

3.I wondered about this myself, whether people would tire with the notion of another year of development with no communication and relatively little added apart from the occasional new class.

4. I mean, EA is what it is. I don't think anything further than Act 1 was ever promised.

I don't think, that EA was a misstake. As someone (I think it was Tuco) pointed out, there could be far worse stuff in the game without EA and player feedback. I do hope, that the finished game will be a better version of what we have right now. I still want 5e implemented better, less cheese stuff and party of 6, but we will see, what will happen.
It's not a bad game, far from it, I just miss the DnD and BG flair.
As for communication - that one needs a lot of improvement.

Agree with Tuco, that EA has unquestionably made the game better. Feedback - through player suggestions, bug reports, and player metrics - has resulted in many positive changes. And of course BG3 now has more marketing than it would otherwise.

However, Larian's complete lack of community discussion (especially compared to community interaction from another D&D video game studio), the incredibly slow content drip during EA, and their questionable design choices for BG3 have put me off ever participating in a Larian EA process again.

2+ years is a very long time for a game to be in EA. It's somewhat understandable because of the pandemic, but even still, Larian should have probably released EA later in their development process.
I think the Full Release game will look incredibly similar to the final EA patch. New areas, people, quests, etc in Act 1, but the mechanics and gameplay will probably be practically the same.

Roughly 200 unique users on this forum alone spoke unfavorably about the mechanic (spoiler: that would equate to pretty much 95% of the people who talked about it at all), and the response was pretty much the same on Steam, NeoGAF, ResetEra, Reddit... Hell, the BG3 subreddit in particular is pretty much a den for rabid fanboys and even there the large majority of comments was absolutely, unquestionably unhappy about the chain mechanic every time the topic came up.

This is one of the biggest ones for me, because I wasn't around for D:OS2 Early Access.

But didn't they like... completely add voice acting to the whole game, have significantly more polish and alter Beast's entire story arc while also adding more quests and content or something?

That seems quite far fetched ...
But w/e, i dare to presume Larian have more exact numbers.

I hope not ...

I can’t think how it could hurt it - especially as Larian doesn’t seem to give in to too many community requests (and I don’t think I have seen anyone complaining that any of the changes that Larian made, made the game worse.

Every game should go through rigorous testing - that means developing playable builds like those in EA, be it for showcases or in-house test sessions. Did EA consume more Larian’s resources then such closed testing sessions? Possible - at the same time testers paid full price to participate. Reception to BG3 has been mostly positive. I can imagine it impacting sales negatively when the game is released.

I expect for it to be noticeable. Larian said they will keep things to themselves for 1.0 release, and by Larian’s reputation I expect it won’t feel like playing another EA build. In general though, I don’t expect for any underlying issues that I have with BG3 to disappear.


Considering how little we have in EA, I think 1.0 will be an attractive proposition - we have seen relatively little of both story and gameplay. Even if someone got burned out on EA, I don’t see why they wouldn’t return to it.


Why would it make a difference if the game is in EA for a year or two? Sure, waiting can be agonising, but it hardly matters once the game is complete. It’s better for the game to be half-baked now, so it can dazzle reviewers and audience once it is ready. “BG3 was great 2 years ago, but look at it now!” Is a far better headline then: “the game that is well documented to be good has released.” If BG3 EA was poorly released, then sure, but that was never the case.

I'm not sure if the Early Access wasn't poorly released. From what I recall when it first released there were a ton of Steam and GOG reviews ripping the game for the state it was in... and the responses to them were largely "Should have read that the game was Early Access" or "These people don't understand what an Early Access game is".

I know when I first played BG3 I only got about 3-4 hours in and then hung it up. I wanted to wait for patches and fixes until I got back into it - then I did and so far I have loved it.

But I think one of the dangers is burn out or a negative connotation with the game being established for people. As a completely anecdotal example I have two friends who played the game that have lost all interest in it. One of them lost all interest because it was a "buggy mess" when it first came out. The other thought it was ridiculous the cut scenes weren't done/polished and that the story/characters weren't fleshed out and now thinks it is just a flop.

Obviously this isn't everyone or perhaps even a wide range of people. Maybe this forum isn't a good sample since the people here at obviously interested in the game. But it seems like exposing people (the general public of most people - who casually play games) to a half-done game for an extended period of time (2+ years) may have negative consequences. I imagine that is why most games haven't been in Early Access for 2+ years.

I'm also not saying it is a good or a bad thing to do so. I'm just curious about the general perception.

That's literally the number of unique forum accounts that participated to the dedicated "mega thread".
In fact, that's not even up-to-date, since the user who bothered counting at the time (Maximuuus) didn't update the count since march 2021.

Yeah ...
Well, dont take it harsh, but you just changed the claim from "I think" to "Maximuuus thinks".
Aka ... basicaly not at all. :-/

He didn't say Maximuus thinks, but Maximuus counts - so... not at all guesswork.

You are lacking reading comprehension. Which is hardly surprising at this point, but at the same time it never stops being annoying when you are even smug about it.

No one is guessing. I'm telling you someone took the time to COUNT the number of unique posters in the thread.

Personally I've enjoyed it. I play lots of other games so I leave BG3 for a while and tend to return after a patch or two. I know I'll enjoy full release more because EA has made it easier for me to explore different class and race options for my characters that I might have ignored if confronted with the entire story play out. I've also been able to develop a few characters personality and back stories and one in particular I have really enjoyed playing. She'll be fully fleshed out and ready to experience Full release from the start when it eventually arrives.

I have done early access and beta testing for several games, usually it has been a good thing. This is the only one I have found to be frustrating and this is due to lack of communication. Sure they might "be listening to feedback" but no one knows what they are listening to and what they are ignoring.

1. Player feedback in many cases does lead to a lot of changes (not always good ones depending on who you ask) but it usually will affect things.

2. I am hoping they surprise us with some things in the final release but the gameplay itself unfortunately will probably remain the same.

3. This is all on player self control (and the lack of.) Early Access means things may change and things are still being worked on. If someone gets burned out, that is because they decided to play too much. Play through what you want of the game, leave feedback if you want, then move on to something else until an update comes out. In one game I play, there are a handful of people who complain that the game is awful when they do wipes or make other drastic changes, but they are quickly reminded that early access means things like this will happen.

4. Some games stay in early access for years, this is nothing new. The one I mainly play has been in this state for almost 4 years. You can do a lot of stuff already but they are constantly improving and adding things and taking player feedback into account. They actually interact with players and give monthly reports of what the different departments are working on. The hype for full release may be a bit different for that game since it is an entirely different genre to this one (survival) but I expect it to draw in a lot of people simply because it will be unique in its mechanics.

As for this game, I feel like they got more sales than expected already and probably aren't worried about full release. Besides, they will probably take the lazy way out like many games unfortunately do and rely on streamers to draw in all their brainwashed followers. Once they all buy it then Larian won't care if they move on to the next popular thing because they get their money no matter what.

Early Acces was probably the best thing that could have happened to us if one looks at the state the game was in when it first got released.

If we get a good game once it enters full release in 12 to 15 months, even after so long in Early Access, is a question we can only try to find an answer to by examining the road we have taken to get to this here point in time.

Yeah ... he said ... that is source of my disbelief ... that someone else said ... wich is another one.
And i simply dont believe either, there was not even a single word about any guessing.

I mean ... if i would claim that i just went to that topic and counted them aswell ... and i counted only 74 accounts ...
Tuco would probably believe me aproximately as much as much i believe that there was so nice round number ... 200.
And that would be not at all.

And that is natural ... humans often (some even allways) tend to things that are aligned with their own opinions.
And just for the record ... since im quite sure someone would nitpick that ... no it doesnt mean that i say Maximuuus lies ... there are other options you know ... he could exaggerate, made a misstake, round the results up, etc.

But ieven IF (and that allone if quite big if) they were right ... and there would indeed be "around 200 peolle" ...
Hells even if there would be 2000 people ...
Its still quite insignificant amount of players to call it "majority".

is exactly what I said.

There will always be one , I swear to god. "1 (less than 1%) seems to like it."

You know, sometimes you could just shut up and spare to make a fool of yourself with some embarrassing, far-fetched mirror climbing, only because you feel compelled to have the last word no matter what.

P.S. Also, let's face it... It's not even as if you like the system yourself. You just took to heart your role as the petty, petulant devil's advocate for Larian and feel compelled to have a "witty answer" against any criticism people make on this forum.

It's also worth noting that Maximuuus' breakdown was already fairly charitable toward the feature, since that last portion was counted as "neutral" because "they didn't clearly state if they liked it or not", but as the summary points out even these people expressed several reasons of discontent with the system and suggested several necessary changes.
And once again: these were the numbers from more than a year ago. It didn't exactly improve a lot since then.

The feeling is mutual, as you surely guessed ...
I mean, i just stated my opinion ... any time you could simply say w/e and move on ... and yet, to use your own words ... you feel compelled to have the last word no matter what.

Quite honestly?
I dont have strong feelings one way or another ...

Its not perfect, true, but not many things is ... and some suggestions around here was certainly interesting, even tho i would need to try them to make opinion about wich i like more ... but curent system is certainly acceptable for me, i have no struggles playing with it and im quite fine with any and every function it provide to us, i also dont have any feeling that something cruicial is missing for me ... especialy now, when we get ungroup all button.

In other words there are things that bothers me much, much, much and much more.
But most of them is tied to hotbar.

Why dismiss the results out of hand when you could check the math? It's all there in Maximuuus' post. He's very diligent in explaining how he computes the figures.

If you paste the whole thread in Excel and start sifting through the data, you may find some slight mistakes in the post. That's not an enditement of Maximuuus's work, on the contrary. It's thorough and honest enough to let anyone see exactly what he did and how. Saying you flat out don't believe it kinda blows my mind.

For the record, here's what I found by checking the math. Feel free to check mine, so we may collectively approach the truth.

There's a typo in the number of accounts expressing dislike of the movement system (it's 127, not 147) which means only 181 seperate accounts had commented on that thread by the time of Max's post. By my count, this is correct. However, this is a little lucky because the post only lists 172 unique accounts. Notably, some accounts are listed twice while others are missing.

For some reason, the errors cancel each other out. This means that the category totals are correct, typo notwithstanding. Because of that typo, the total number of accounts used to compute the percentages is off by 20. Here are the updated percentages:

RESULTS (out of 181 accounts)

- 127 (70%) of them give a feedback that you can't missunderstood : they don't like this system
- 6 (3.3%) said that they're pretty ok to deal with the system but they have issues with it
- 1 (0.6%) seems to like it, but honnestly it looks like a troll ("get good")
- 47 (26%) disccussed issues related to this system or give related feedbacks, suggestions etc...

For good measure, here are the updated lists I used to come to this result.

This doesn't take into account pages 30 to 42 of the thread, so let's look at those right now. Here's a list of all users who posted in that thread for the first time after Maximuuus had done his analysis, along with the category under which I place them.
This comes out to 47 accounts, who break down as follows : 37 dislike, 2 like, 4 more or less fine, 4 no opinion.

This brings us to updated percentages:

RESULTS (Out of 181 + 47 = 228 accounts)

- 164 (72%) of them give a feedback that you can't missunderstood : they don't like this system
- 10 (4.4%) said that they're pretty ok to deal with the system but they have issues with it
- 3 (1.3%) seem to like it
- 51 (22%) disccussed issues related to this system or give related feedbacks, suggestions etc...

You can have issues with the methodology, or how I classified accounts, or anything else. If you do, please point to specifics.

Do you mean in original topic? I simply didnt want to search for it ...
Or do you mean in this one? That showed an hour later after what you quoted ... i am man of many talents, but readint the future isnt one of them.

Anyway, feel free to blame my lazyness ... but i simply didnt have any reason to do that.

As i stated abowe, even if that guess made by Tuco (200) were 100% corect ...
(Wich we now know it was not, since there is no way you can round 147 to 200, maybe except when you are rouding up to whole hunderts, but in that case even 101 is 200, so using that method would be ridiculous by itself.
... in other words, yes now im absolutely certain that Tuco exaggerated, just as i suspected ...)

But even IF he would be corect, it would be meaningless bcs my argument was about his words "OVERWHELMING majority of users" ... and 200 people out of millions of players (i dunno how many coppies were sold, blame my lazyness again if it was announced) simply cannot ever be described by those words.

I dont ave Excel ... and im certainly not installing any software for single use in forum argument about game.

Which it WAS, as the sample was in fact of 201 users. In fact according to the updated numbers it was even an underestimation, since the new total is at 228 according to Flooter''s recount.


If ONE user out of 201 speaking favorably about the mechanic (or let's say 3 out of 228 now) and 75% of them being OPENLY AGAINST it doesn't point to the *overwhelming majority of users* not liking it, then I don't know what it is.

Also, clearly you have no fucking clue of how a sample works.
There are even nation-wide polls made with samples of 1000 people at most. But according to you we would need a million votes to know for sure how the majority feels about something.

As I said, you made a hobby of being the petulant little devil's advocate of every lost cause on this forum.

There's also a survey that was done right after the beginning of the EA asking if players were "satisfied" with the chain system.
50% were satisfied while 50% weren't (+-1000 playerd gave their opinion).

We could argue that people here give more feedback about things they don't really like so the 70% may not be absolutely representative of the whole community... but we could also argue that "being satisfied" doesn't really mean that you like something.

In the end this survey show that at least 1 player out of 2 is annoyed by this feature and the megathread tend to show that most players dont find it super efficient. That's all we have.

It would have been very cool if other survey were done during the EA. I'm glad Larian choose this path because we have succeed at making them change jump/disengage, backstab, highground, cantrip surfaces.
I hope they'll listen for other (major) changes but if the EA question is raised, in my opinion it's only because Larian is doing a POOR job with this EA. The lack of community manager and the lack of communication is really a problem.

I really like playing EA games but I'll probably never buy any Larian's EA anymore. As a non artwork or memes creator, I think they're extremely disrespectfull to their community.

i'm currently replaying solasta. just purchased all the DLCs. i haven't play bg3 EA ever since its initially first release. not even patch2, 3.. or whatever. so i really hope when replaying it's going to be a breeze rather than a tedium. the skip intro in solasta is pretty neat.

on top of that.. i'm actually installed the community expansion mod. there seems to be an option for multi-class. this is really awesome. i pretty figure out what kind of build i want for a multi-class character in bg3. only wish is that level cap should be around level 12. it would be great if more.

>>>
When exactly we turned from "spoke unfavorably" to "users in total" ?
You have to pick a side ...

>>>
See? Not pretty much 95% ... exactly 72% ...
Thanfully Flooter did the math for me, as he said, feel free to check it.

Once again, exaggerated.

Thats quite easy ...
It points out to the fact that "overwhelming majority of people who cared about the topic enough to come to this forum to that topic, to complain about it ... didnt like it".

Not users in general.

Funny enough, i bet that in my studies of statistic during University i learned quite well samples works.

Let me tell you in short something:

The main aspect for sample to have any value is that those people choosen for sample have to be "sufficiently different", to include as much potential opinions as possible ...
That is often achieved by picking people randomly.

Wich didnt happened here.

People come on this forum, bcs they had something to say ... wich logicaly exclude every single person that is satisfied with the game as it is.
And they participated in that topic, bcs they had something to say on that topic specificaly ... wich again logicaly exclude every single person who liked the system as it is, but didnt have the interest, or energy to go argue with others.

In other words ... if at least every single person from this Forum would participate in that topic, then its results would be much more acurate ...
Im still not sure they would be acurate, but it would be much better.

Yes, we all know you love to repeat yourself ...
No matter how many times you state, you will still be wrong.

-----

Indeed ...
Mine conclusion from such data would be that survey was not done properly ... and its conclusions are inconclusive.

Thats the problem ... it dont. :-/

I dunno how to say it ...
Imagine you come to Apple store to make survey if people like more IOS or Android ...

That is our situation ... maybe not as extreme, but in general ... the survey will be strongly bend to one side, but its informative value is ... questionable at best. :-/

Agreed.

Yeah, I didn’t mention margin of error. Using a Survey Monkey applet (which I may have done wrong) the margin of error is -/+6%. That means there’s a 95% chance that the actual number of people who dislike the system is between 66% and 78%.

Who we’re surveying is an important question. It’s likely this “thread count” and the survey Maximuuus mentioned are reflective of different segments of the player base. Having to be a forum member in order to have your opinion tallied is a strong bias. My guess is they’re more invested in BG3 than average, and are likely to be somewhat outspoken given the very nature of a forum.

As for EA, I’m of two minds. Discovery is such a big part of this game that seeing a big chunk of EA in an unpoilshed state is that much less awe I’ll get to experience on launch. I bought into the EA because I’d heard and seen so much about 5e that I wanted to try my hand at building characters. The fact you can only build one per playthrough really burned me out quickly.

The fun part is watching the game grow and interacting with the forum. It’s really interesting to analyze the game’s issues, see what Larian do to address them and then read player feedback. I’m still hyped for every PFH because I want to know what changed. And I’ll be hyped for 1.0, when BG3 reveals all of its glory.

Why are you even assuming that only the ones that spoke openly against the chain system should count as the only ones that "spoke unfavorably" of it?
As I already pointed Maximuuus' interpretation of what counted as "neutral" in that thread was already pretty CHARITABLE.
Most of the "neutral" users had plenty of criticism about the system as well, most of the "mild positions" amounted to "Yeah, it's BAD, but maybe it would be better IF".
Not to mention that while I can't really be bothered to go back and check for everyone, I can already spot a bunch of users that were counted as "neutral" by Flooter while they actually expressed openly negative opinions about the system. Case in point: GM4Him was not "neutral" in the slightest.

And with what face are you even spitting hair about my approximation being inaccurate when yours amounted to "It's probably just 20 users"?
Are you even more unfamiliar with the concept of shame that with basic grammar?


Fun fact: the bias of the sample here is in FAVOR of Larian, not against it.
The people who hang around here are at very least interested in the game and committed to hang around and play the EA.
I know plenty of users in other spaces that aren't so well-inclined toward BG3 or past Larian products. In fact, while I may sound one of the fiercest opponents of the chain system here, in other forums I know people who rate it so badly that they said they just aren't interested in the game if this doesn't change.




"He said, while proving him right".

You are once again splitting hair and defending something bad for the sake of defending it.
And "repeating myself" is nowhere near as a bad habit as spouting incoherent nonsense on a regular basis just for the sake of pestering other forum users with your obnoxious and vapid multiquotes, since we are on it.

Care to point where we can check it? Because I've been here for years, even before the EA started, and I've never seen that survey.

In fact, I know the chain system was widely unpopular even in the DOS 1 and (especially) DOS 2 days and it has been a hot topic even back in the days.
i think one could even find the threads with some digging.

Admittedly at the time my criticism was way more focused on another WORSE DOS feature, which was its abysmal randomized loot system.

I absolutely don't understand the point. But I don't care, tbh.
I agree that most data are "questionnable", but it's still data and a "yes or no" does not allow much ambiguity.

Ofc it's a very old one that was done far before players had time to really try and retry and re-retry the game.


That's unofficial surveys created by a forum user a week or two after launch if I remember correctly.
One was submitted to the reddit and 1 to the forum.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sip8wb8Yu1-N1FC7dDY72RJewnu3hqvz/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IgN2IAZi8Hho6X_7XpiW-0N_cUYEJvX8/view

Two reasons ...
1) As i stated earlier, people tend to conclusions that are in aligment with their own ideas.
2) Since those people didnt express their opinion ... and i, on the contrary to some other people, dislike puting my words to other people mouth.

Again that word "most" ... you like those, dont you?

Lets agree that "some" of them indeed were ...
And some of them were amounted to "it could be better, but curent state is acceptable" ... i know, since i AM one of them. :P

And until you dont know exactly wich is wich, you cant include them to any group, since you are deciding for them ... in other words you distorts the results.

Smug face, definietly smug face.
Since thats how i usualy look. :P

Anyway since my point was that there was "not many people" ... wich i expressed with my guess of 20 ...

And yours was "OVERWHELMING majority of users" ... wich you expressed with your guess of 200 ...

And (this is the important part, focus!) ... my argument this whole time was that 200 users is NOT even in your wildest dreams close to something you should call regular "majority" (that is, not at all "overwhelming majority") ... while 20 is in my honest opinion quite close to "not many people" ...

My point stands unshaken.

How exactly can people who came to complain about something Larian did can be concidered to be in favor of Larian?

Yes, people are interested in game ... they are even interested in providing their opinions ...

But if you read (after you will be done with judging other people capability in gamar, at least enough to show your own) that argument properly ... you should easily find out that the argument was about that comitment and interest was the problem.

You should take your crystal ball to service, it seems to be broken.

---

Ambiguity is not the problem here ...
Yes, you have only two options ... and yes, those options are clearly distinguishable one from another ...

But the problem is that while you are asking 100 / 1000 / 10 000 / 100 000 / 1 000 000 people ... in group that clearly is biased ... you never get proper results. :-/

Side note -

I wish this forum gave me the option to delete this thread and spare the world this pointless, sad argument.

A sample size of a few hundred is more than enough for a 5% margin-of-error and a confidence level of 95%. ~384 is the number that pops up for all populations greater than 100,000 people. A margin-of-error of 10% only requires a sample size of ~100.

And given that >72% (72% "explicit dislike" + some fraction of the 26% "unclear") of forum respondents actively dislike the chain mechanic, even a 10% margin-of-error still results in the conclusion that most people actively dislike the chain mechanic at a >3-sigma level. But we have a couple hundred respondents, so we're even more sure than that.
EDIT: I suppose it's a 2(2.5?)-sigma at most because of the 95% CI.

https://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/research/determine-sample-size/
https://tools4dev.org/resources/how-to-choose-a-sample-size/
https://www.checkmarket.com/sample-size-calculator/

Here is source of your error.

Arguments are abowe.

Sorry about highjacking your thread to get an excuse to kill a couple of hours messing around with Excel at work. Let me actually answer your four questions.

First off, I believe in Larian’s passion and ambition. The stars are aligned for them to make a classic. They will use every weapon in their arsenal to make this game as successful as possible. That includes things like early access and console compatibility.

On one hand, DoS:2’s early access was a success according to Larian. They’ve repeatedly stated that player feedback helps them make the game better for the people who want to play it. It’s happened already in BG3, as people have stated previously. I’m positive more QoL upgrades are coming based on community feedback.

On the other hand, Larian’s ambition means they need to appeal to a wide audience. They’re trying to merge two fandoms with one game and compromises will be made, such as a control scheme designed around a controller even though it’s effing baffling for mouse users.

Some of it will be down to taste. But as I was skimming a 42 page thread trying to decide who felt what about a system, I noticed a good portion of the specific concerns mentioned had been addressed in later patches. The pathfinding is better, the autojump is better and requested buttons have been added. Those buttons aren’t perfect, but they’ll get better with another year of iteration.

Larian need all the time they can get to cater to every part of their target audience. Every piece of feedback will help them do that, whether you like it or not.

My first playthrough will go straight for the githyanki crèche. I’ve also never fought the fish people to save it for later. And I’m planning to buy a real gaming computer to really enjoy the visuals for the first time with 1.0.

There are some storylines that seem cut off, maybe there will be more intrigue in the grove and the underdark. The marsh also feels oddly empty, which is a nice change of pace but also a noticeable departure from usual Larian practice. There may be surprises there, or on the risen road, which oddly ends into the side of a mountain.

I feel the burnout.

A big part of the fun of BG3 is discovery. I’ve tried to be parcimonious with the content, but doing that means repeating the same critical path over and over. I’ve tried (almost) everything at least once by now, to spice up various runs, so the discovery lies in character builds. Unfortunately, my setup doesn’t let me play 2 characters, so I’m stuck with the five familiar faces on the poster.

It’s very different from “bad experiences”, though. I know what early access is. I’m psyched for the full release because, no matter the flaws in the game, I’m bound to find that sense of wonder when discovering 1.0.

On the contrary, I think this is a hype tactic. I agree with Wormerine:

BG3 is a work in progress, but I wouldn’t call it half baked. I’ve got 200+ hours on it already, which is a good deal for 60€. And you bet I’ll tell my friends when it comes out.

I wonder if Larian feels the same way about EA

People reffering to this EA having had big sweaping changes...are you kidding me? For me 95% of the base game we got 2 years ago remains unchanged. Saddly. We just got TWEAKS and bug fixes basically.
We got this and that class, this area etc...UHHH, thats the base game. Which we STILL do not have. Like BASIC STUFF like all the classes?? After 2 years? really now? BASIC UI is still uuuh, SHIT.
How can we test/play this game that does not EVEN HAVE ITS CORE FUNCTIONS finished?!
Could NOT CARE LESS of additional areas and story content. GIVE US 5 HOURS of the FINISHED GAME *close to. Hell 2 hours is FINE! All the classes, revised systems and UI.

At this point Larian is probably scrambling to finish all these annoying cinematics before going back to the core gameplay. I blame everything on that. Overload of cinematics dialogues WE DO NOT NEED.

Simple - by giving us stuff that Larian wants us interacting with. We are not there to provide critique encompassing the entirety of the game.

For that to happen they need to finish the game though, and by that time any feedback would be moot. The unfortunate reality is that none of us knows how the game development works, so our critique will always come from comparison to a finished title. Some of what we say might be of use to Larian, and a lot of it might be "duh, the game isn't finished dummy". How we interact with what we are given is probably more informative, then our ramblings.

Those are seperate departments.

Just to say... Early Access exists specifically to find bugs and make tweaks, major changes are going to be few and far between. Admittedly, they did release to EA seemingly kind of early, but its honestly hard to know. We've also gone a while without any major announcements, which is aggravating, but eminently understandable at this point in history.

Normally, yeah, I'd be complaining by now. But seriously, the majority of development has now come at a time which can hardly be considered normal. And not just the pandemic. Many of us are in the US... how concerned would you be about a war happening a few states over? Say, Ohio invaded Kentucky and you live in Colorado? You might even have friends and family you were hugely worried about. Also, please tell me you've noticed they've gone from 7 locations to 6. I haven't actually heard any news or announcements (yes, I've been kinda busy, now you mention it), but I'm guessing that 7th location isn't hugely productive right now, and if it is, they aren't really excited to advertise that fact.

As for it being a good decision? Who knows? They're probably kind of trading ongoing income for some of the major release day bang. But you also have idgits like me who bought a Stadia specifically for this game, saved up $4000 for a PC and bought it again. My little brother just bought it about a month ago. Guy I work with is waiting for full release, because he knows he doesn't like EA for anything. Reviews for EA will get swamped during release day, good or bad. I've reviewed twice, guarantee both will be updated within a week of full release.

Last but not least... This is not mainstream fandom. Don't get me wrong, we have our loud annoying Chads. They happen. I've been a fan of Baldur's Gate since before the first game started development. I remember traveling there in the mid 90's. My friends and I pooled our money and bought Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast the day it released. Most of us have been waiting for this game for decades. Including a lot of the people who are working on it.

I have faith in them.

Incredibly burned out and bored with BG3 now. As expected cinematic dialogue overload as gotten OLD and SILLY really fast. Itemization hasnt changed much from DOS2. Boring NPC choices. Boring party load-out with just 4. Incredible MESS of a UI. Slow slow slow tactical combat. Zero world atmosphere. NOTHING entices me to visit Faerun again. Man, cant wait to get immersed in that world...NOT!.

Between all the recent computer RPGs, I am playing Pathfinder WoTr the most. It just has everything *except for pretty face cinematic dialogues, which is great NOT having in my view (opens the game more to mods, more/longer dialogue, more content options).

It has that classic control and UI. Not design for controller shit. Not designed with smartphone user sensibilities.
Epic character portraits/ custom art option.
6 party members. Over 15 playable NPCs. All while not perfect, most are pretty great with the story.
A solid D^D 3.75 system *Pathfinder which I love. BOAT LOAD of classes and builds.
A fun simple yet epic story.
Incredible music, very immersive world. TONS of content.
Fun gameplay with OPTIONS to turn base OR RtWp. Both work great.
It just does EVERYTHING pretty well. I am not a big fan of the still too colorful manga like graphics (problem with EVERY games nowdays....), also wish we had a bit more character appearance customization.
All in all, that game feels more BG3 than Larian's BG3 lol.

Owlcat games : the longer I play them the more I love their games.
Larian games : the longer I play them the more I hate their games.

Yup. I genuinely wonder if there are people who play BG3 for more then couple hours and don’t skip through cinematics. I don’t even mean on repeated playthroughs - there is value in both cinematic presentation and full VO, but for me there must be a unique value in it - cinematics in BG3 are just not worth seeing/waiting for. Even if it’s something I haven’t seen before, it will be just same bland talking dolls I have seen countless times already. But unfortunately catering to people who will actually play the game for an extended time is catering to minority.

Yup.

Me! I love the cinematic dialogue!

And now they'll tell us the two of us don't count.

I also like the cinematic dialogues. Again, replaying Icewind Dale, and I gotta say, dialogue is not as enjoyable when I have to read through a lot of it. I find myself not wanting to talk to a lot of characters just to avoid more reading. Sure, it's a trade off. I can imagine the voices as opposed to Larian voice acting every character, and they were able to more easily create dialogue branches since they didn't have to voice them all, but at the end of the day, having to read all the dialogue does wear on me more than having the cinematic dialogues in BG3.

Reding is four layme branez

I like reading, but I'm just saying I do prefer having voiced dialogues.

We lose something when every void is filled; there is less room for the imagination to expand . Incidentally, turn of the millennium CRPGS were the best because visuals were clear enough to interpret yet indistinct enough to allow a human mind to fill in the gaps. IMO, "All photorealistic graphics, all the time." is a stifling design philosophy.

I am genuinely willing to believe Icelyn. Less so Rag as he has history of being contrarian, just for the sake of it.

That aside, I would really be interested to see data of how many players of average skips through cinematics. I wonder if it is something that Larian tracks during early access.


Having to read is more demanding - watching or listening is a passive experience, while reading requires focus and engages imagination. I do find that reading engages me more but I can't binge games with a lot of reading in them. That's a tradeoff but the one I value. As long as I enjoy written material - if I don't then whenever it is voiced or animated doesn't really make a difference.

Wich he keep declyning and nobody believes him, bcs every single other person selfishly (smugly?) believes that they know better his reasons than himself ...



I wonder ...
Maybe you will clear this mystery for me ... for the sake of what exactly you keep repeating that lie?

It is no lie.

Well, you of course have every right for your wrong opinion ...
Still i would like to know for the sake of what you keep to repeating it?

Bcs, and feel free to corect me ... this is the book example of "doing someting just for the sake of chaos". O_o
Funny that is exactly the thing you people keep acusing me for.

I don't skip them. I enjoy the cinematics.

I can understand that some people skip them. What I find odd is that someone else has trouble understanding that other people enjoy them.

*

Regarding the chain system, I don't have a problem with it. It works fine as far as I can tell. When the characters are chained, they move together. When they're unchained, they move separately. Not sure what the problem is.

I've heard someone around here mention that they have trouble with basic movement, like jumping and accidentally leaping off the Nautiloid. I can't even imagine that or figure out how they're having that problem. It sounds like a complete lack of control that doesn't reflect any of my personal playthroughs or any of the play I've watched others go through.

It's that transition from chained to unchained and back that is the big issue. That and some of the possibly related pathfinding issues.

Everything between "all" and "nothing", for a start. Like attempting to do something QUICKLY with just two or three characters.
Or anything that requires precise positioning.
Or setting up coordinate maneuvers and/or ambushes.
Or keeping up an ordinate formation.

Well, the list could go on, but would it matter? Tomorrow you'd be here again pretending you never got your answer and wondering for the nth time "what could be wrong with it".

1. Quickly? I'm not sure what you mean. Maybe I just take my time. You can only go as quick as you can click on things, I suppose.

2. Precise positioning? Unchain, then position as necessary. Why does that not work for you?

3. Maneuvers and ambushes? Can you not ambush? You have sneak options, vision cones provided and highlighted in red, no less. Every character can generally get a shot off before combat as long as you're paying attention to your positions.

4. Formations. I accept that there aren't any formations, but I've never found them all that necessary in this game so it doesn't bother me.

5. I suspect I've said "I think the system is okay" far less than you've repeated yourself about not liking it.


I guess I've just gotten really good at chaining and unchaining.

There's the occasional pathfinding issue, but it's never that bad for me. In fact, it's gotten much better over the patches, and I suspect it will continue to improve.

I guess you're exceptional but that doesn't disprove the rule

I just noticed you posting contrasting opinions on various occasions, whenever it was convenient in an argument. I can't be bothered to track down when the actual statements were, unless you sue me for deformation.


Perhaps, I would just think that with how high the bar has been set for cinematics, that someone who likes cinematics in their games would be put off by what they are offered in BG3. Same with control system - yes, they fulfill basic fuction - you can awkwardly and imprecisely move and group your units, and camera mostly points at the character speaking. If they work for you, I am glad they are. However, I am willing to wager that as you don't see issues in chain system, you also aren't used to playing games in that genre. To me it's a bit like going back to auto-aim in original Doom, or systemshock1. We had better systems for that for over 20 years now. I am able to play BG3 just fine - it is just a more awkward and straight up worse experience then what I am used to.

I don't accept your presumption that there is a rule to be disproven. I think most people are having an okay time playing the game and moving the characters.

Early Access is not a mistake for me. However I do not belong to those people that have played this game hundreds of hours.

On purpose I have break from gaming this for months now. Perhaps I play this again towards end of this year... I play this rarely. My brother has said he will buy it when released and play with me.

It is worth is if you can afford it and accept it as only Act 1 content and very early ALPHA etc at least when it started.

I simply want maybe test some classes when released, but I am more interested in this game when full release and then play through it all. It is not only that. There are likely more Cleric domains and subclasses available at full release.

Early access is also good to test your computer system performance.
I ran on old desktop computer:
Nvidia 1700 Titanium 8 GB DDR5
16 GB RAM DDR4
Fast for being such old CPU AMD RYZEN 2600 X with in TURBO speed 4,2 GHZ 6 cores 12 threads and it runs fine on FULL HD resolution max settings. With my budget I think I buy laptop as well with Nvidia 3600 or better (and a laptop with minimum 16GB RAM) since I also travel fairly much and will not take my desktop with me on my travels.

Actualy you indeed cant ...
Not in the way some people are used from previous games, sometimes it seems that they somehow forgot that there is difference between Real Time with Pause, and Turn Based combat ...

Since they often demand to prepare characters to attack, and then start them all at once. :-/

Personaly i dont see much difference between exploiting sneaking at start of battle ... /shrug. :-/

Shame you didnt notice any of those several occasions when i stated that this acusation is completely false. :-/

Did ever crossed your mind that i simply have different opinion?
Its quite simple really.

Ultimately I think only Larian can decide if going EA was a good decision or a mistake. For myself, I generally don't like the idea of developers using--and very often abusing--EA. Getting feedback from your fans is a wonderful thing, but (1) you don't necessarily need to go the EA route for this, and (2) Larian doesn't seem to care about any of the real and meaningful feedback from fans and instead appears only to care about superficial "statistical" feedback from EA player play-tracing. So effectively, EA is just glorified beta testing for Larian, and free beta testing at that.

But most important of all for me, if you are going to use EA, then at the very least you should have a clear plan for how your EA process is expected to work, and as such your EA should last only about 6-8 months and no more than a year. In fact, I wish Steam would enact a hard rule that games cannot be in EA beyond one year max. BG3 being in EA for 2.5+ years is simply ridiculous.

So... you are saying that you have multiple personality disorder? In that case, no it didn't even cross my mind.

OH i see ... you didnt mean contrasting with topic ...

Well, in such case i would need specific examples.
But there is many other options, besides acusing someone from mental illnes ... was that really necesary?

On at least two occasions, I've noticed you telling people to - effectively - kill themselves. You're not one to talk.

There are only two things i regret about it ...

1) You obviously didnt notice the situation they were asked to do such thing.
2) You didnt follow my instructions.

Defending Larian at every turn and suggesting suicide for differences of opinion over a CRPG? What a shocker.

Well ... there is many things i could say, but i wonder why even waste a breath ...
If you ignored them in first hundert cases, i dare to presume you will keep at it. -_-

Enough. Closing this thread as it's mainly nonsensical.

There are some repeat offender names causing the thread to get locked. If the behaviour continues at any point, this week, this year, or any year in the future by the same individuals, I'll give you a week off to do something else. If you feel targeted by this, there's no need to message me, as you already know. Not all fights are worth having, and while the principle of having a hill you're willing to die on sounds fantastic on paper, it's just the proverbial you dying on a hill for no good reason.

I was reminded of a video this morning that reminded me of some interactions here. Disregard the title, as the contents are far more illuminating.