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@Limz

Calm down. First of all by your definition of aggregate everything outside of a single dev making a game for himself/herself can be dismissed or misrepresented. Your use of aggregate is disingenuous and a smokescreen. Secondly their is always a good point because their is always a goal. Having value itself does not negate the existence of a point. The vaccum in question is Baldurs gate 3 and only Baldurs gate 3. Not an empty space entirely. You are off the walls on that. Thirdly you say your logic is not hiveminded but then immediately use a hiveminded example with the subject of architecture. You are contradicting your self and are trying to curse me out and huff and puff when I ask for clarification. I think you know you are wrong and its making you angry so I'm just putting this debate to rest. At least on my part. I've no interest in fighting or name calling. Believe what you want we are done. Have a nice day.

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Keep it civil please chaps.

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Originally Posted by KillerRabbit

Sharp is a smart guy and is pretty good at rhetoric. I'd guess he's even had classes on rhetoric -- he is alternating between an appeal to the people and an appeal to authority. The trap he is laying -- and one you seem to believe I walked into -- is get you to declared an expert and then be tarred with unpleasant aspects of expertise. Snobbishness, elitist attitudes and the like.

Google snob appeal / mob appeal / Ad Populum

I haven't actually and I am not sure whether to take this as a compliment or an insult - my field of expertise is statistical modelling, not public relations in any way. This is why I made comments about biases. I am also not a fan of Ad Populum, just because something is more popular, doesn't mean its the right thing to do.

Originally Posted by KillerRabbit

The flaw in the argument is inherent denigration of the opinions of the forum: that if devs listened to our proposed solutions then we would produce a game that only appealed to a small niche. In this vision we become the Homer Simpson who tells the car maker how to make something that only Homer would want to drive. (if anyone remembers that ancient episode)

But the argument is counterfactual -- BG was a D&D nerds game. It adhered to 2nd ed ruleset closer than any other video game. In BG2 they dove even deeper into the rules implementing optional rules like class "kits" (always hated that term). So BG2 was actually a Homer car that was wildly successful.

And @Elenhard nailed it --
Quote

Maybe it's just me, but I'd say BG 1 and 2 actually were good enough to instill the desire in the player. To become experts, to understand "how it all works".



BG 1 and 2 were made in a different era, when the market was much smaller, much less saturated and the expectations of the player were different. At the time when BG 1 and 2 were released, most people playing PC games were us nerds. You could reasonably expect the people who are playing the game, to have some understanding of the ruleset. This is different to today, where I would argue that the average person playing PC games is not us nerds, it is far more of a mainstream hobby. There is another aspect of this as well, D&D itself has changed. Back when D&D was originally conceived, its roots were in war gaming. At the time of 2e, this was still present to some extent, with some of the rules like for example the different armor types being good against different damage types being present because of this. As a result of this, the audience for D&D itself was a more tactics driven audience. This has, for the most part changed. D&D now is marketed far more as a theater of the mind, with flashy effects taking center stage, with the main marketing of the brand being things like critical role. You can bet that the audience which enjoyed D&D in the 90s, is not the same audience as D&D today.

My point being, time goes on, things change. Forums are still largely visited by the same groups of people however, the newer communities in gaming prefer different mediums of communication.
Originally Posted by KillerRabbit



Exactly. I really think BG3 will become a better a game if our solutions are listened to -- the forums have the relevant expertise and the devs can and should learn from us. As Bioware did when it was good company.


As I said in my very first post in response to you, better is subjective and it depends on the person giving feedback. Better for you does not necessarily mean better for someone else.



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Originally Posted by Aishaddai

Calm down. First of all by your definition of aggregate everything outside of a single dev making a game for himself/herself can be dismissed or misrepresented.


Like I said, you have no understanding of what I am writing and are deliberately misrepresenting me that or you have a complete lack of understanding of basic logic. I stated that any truths derived from something is qualified by that something.

So, by my logic, any truths Larian would come across is first and foremost only applicable to their context and application to any other game or dev would need further qualification and quantification (if applicable). The same goes for people discussing this, and that any truths we arrive to will have to deal with the same scrutiny. Holy shit, not that hard is it?

Originally Posted by Aishaddai

Your use of aggregate is disingenuous and a smokescreen


This is rich coming from someone who doesn't understand the basic premise of my argument.

Originally Posted by Aishaddai

Secondly their is always a good point because their is always a goal.


It's almost as if you vaguely have enough comprehension of my argument, but miss the entire point. You're saying here that any good point has a goal. Assigning a GOAL to something inherently makes it biased and the truth of that point or rather the validity lies with that goal. Which is literally what I wrote to begin with, however, if you look at your original post you suggest and imply that it is a truth easily transferrable because all truths are the same.

Originally Posted by Aishaddai

Having value itself does not negate the existence of a point.


No one ever said that. Like I said, you fail to comprehend the basics of what I wrote even when I provided examples. I also never talked about a single 'point' but rather when you qualify something by amending it with 'good' which is also a value judgment.

Here's a link for you in case you have no idea what the terminology I am using means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_judgment

Originally Posted by Aishaddai

Thirdly you say your logic is not hiveminded but then immediately use a hiveminded example with the subject of architecture.


Like I said, you have zero understanding of what's being written; you're considering whatever logic the fan boys of Larian have to a system of analysis derived from no one particularly entity or group of entities. Cool. Then I guess it must be difficult to run tests because all the parameters and variables are hiveminded. Awesome job there with that stretch of logic.

It's good that you're going to drop this because you aren't a serious contender for any discussion and brings me back to another point of mine: most feedback here is absolute garbage when it comes to depth but is great for breadth.

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Expertise is only relevant if it can be applied to the correct context; none of you so far have ever figured out what the audience of BG3 is for and how to navigate that. I haven't seen one person actually break down the possibilities then list out what compromises can and cannot be made. Yet, you are all claiming that your expertise can fit the bill without further qualification.


That sweet sense of satisfaction gained from tearing down ones own strawmans is just too overpowering.

And also, you speak like an expert on the matter, haha.

Quote
As I said in my very first post in response to you, better is subjective and it depends on the person giving feedback. Better for you does not necessarily mean better for someone else.


Its all relative people, therefore nothing is better than anything else. lol.

Its all just a ... mush. Incomprehensible white noise. hahaha.


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I have issued one warning to keep the tone civil. Don't let's take things further, eh?

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To interject in the middle of a discussion
Originally Posted by Sharp
BG 1 and 2 were made in a different era, when the market was much smaller, much less saturated and the expectations of the player were different. At the time when BG 1 and 2 were released, most people playing PC games were us nerds. You could reasonably expect the people who are playing the game, to have some understanding of the ruleset. This is different to today, where I would argue that the average person playing PC games is not us nerds, it is far more of a mainstream hobby. There is another aspect of this as well, D&D itself has changed. Back when D&D was originally conceived, its roots were in war gaming. At the time of 2e, this was still present to some extent, with some of the rules like for example the different armor types being good against different damage types being present because of this. As a result of this, the audience for D&D itself was a more tactics driven audience. This has, for the most part changed. D&D now is marketed far more as a theater of the mind, with flashy effects taking center stage, with the main marketing of the brand being things like critical role. You can bet that the audience which enjoyed D&D in the 90s, is not the same audience as D&D today.

"D&D itself has changed" and become "far more of a mainstream hobby." Doesn't this imply that Larian, if they want to make a mainstream game, should follow D&D 5e rules? They should keep 5e purity because the rules of 5e have allowed it to become popular?

If D&D is more mainstream, then those who are arguing for BG3 to follow 5e rules are not "niche."

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
To interject in the middle of a discussion

"D&D itself has changed" and become "far more of a mainstream hobby." Doesn't this imply that Larian, if they want to make a mainstream game, should follow D&D 5e rules? They should keep 5e purity because the rules of 5e have allowed it to become popular?

If D&D is more mainstream, then those who are arguing for BG3 to follow 5e rules are not "niche."


My argument there was following on with the comment about forums. The more "mainstream" D&D player, the player that found D&D within the past 5-10 years, is not the type of person who is making arguments here. In fact (and I loathe generalizations, so please forgive me, but I will make a few here), they are likely the type of person who does enjoy flashy effects and not following the rules of D&D very closely. They are not playing the game because of the ruleset itself, rather they are using it as a springboard for their own creative license.

The feedback you see given on these forums, is not from these types of players, it is largely from the type of player who has been (as they will tell you) playing D&D for the past 20-30 years and has very deeply entrenched and "hardcore" views.

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Originally Posted by Sharp
My argument there was following on with the comment about forums. The more "mainstream" D&D player, the player that found D&D within the past 5-10 years, is not the type of person who is making arguments here. In fact (and I loathe generalizations, so please forgive me, but I will make a few here), they are likely the type of person who does enjoy flashy effects and not following the rules of D&D very closely. The feedback you see given on these forums, is not from these types of players, it is largely from the type of player who has been (as they will tell you) playing D&D for the past 20-30 years and has very deeply entrenched and "hardcore" views.

Gotcha. I somewhat disagree with this. As a personal anecdote, I have only played tabletop 5e (and only half of BG1, played ~5 years ago).
More broadly, if you look at the results of the forums survey https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=712680
-88% of people who filled out the form played DOS1/2
-82% played DAO
-69% played BG1/2
-82% are familiar with the 5e rules
-65% played tabletop 5e.
If you assume that the survey sample represents those who post on the forum (not unreasonable), we see that more people are on this forum are here because they've played DOS1&2 or DAO versus BG1&2, and 35% (not an insignificant amount) have NOT played 5e. So posters on this forum are not overwhelmingly from BG1&2/old D&D purists. A majority, sure, but also take into account that these players, like me, may have only played BG1&2 in recent years after starting with 5e.

If you look at the answers of only those who are NOT familiar with 5e (assuming that these type of players are the "mainstream" audience Larian is looking for) https://i.imgur.com/KAcSU4N.png, they still dislike e.g., surface effects, increased HP, and stealthing as a bonus action available to everyone.

tl;dr: I don't agree with your assertion that most people on this forum have been playing D&D for 20-30 years. And even if they are, there are still common arguments between "d&d purists" and "mainstream players"

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Originally Posted by Sharp

I haven't actually and I am not sure whether to take this as a compliment or an insult - my field of expertise is statistical modelling, not public relations in any way. This is why I made comments about biases. I am also not a fan of Ad Populum, just because something is more popular, doesn't mean its the right thing to do.


It was mean as a compliment. If it came across as anything else it was due to the fact that I took charisma as a dump stat wink

It was also a "I see what did you did there" combined with a "well done". I declared myself a pleb and you challenged that. As far as ad populum there is a variant in which an argument is dismissed because it is associated with a particular elite group of people. It's a particularly powerful technique because people are rarely willing to give up their (hard earned) status as experts in a matter. The more you put yourself forth as an authority, the deeper the hole gets. For someone who hasn't had a rhetoric class you've intuited the from perfectly. I think @uncle lester's chosen word of "veteran" is a good one but I think we've found our word -- nerd. Doesn't have unfortunate connotations of expert but makes the case well.

And this is where I see the form returning. Having agreed that BG2 was a nerd's game and was better for it I think you return to the "biased sample" by saying that any forum feedback is poisoned because forums are out of date.

Quote
BG 1 and 2 were made in a different era, when the market was much smaller, much less saturated and the expectations of the player were different. At the time when BG 1 and 2 were released, most people playing PC games were us nerds. You could reasonably expect the people who are playing the game, to have some understanding of the ruleset . . .

Forums are still largely visited by the same groups of people however, the newer communities in gaming prefer different mediums of communication . . . My point being, time goes on, things change.


Or, in brief, that assessment is out of date. Right? It's a way of dismissing the sense of the majority of the forum.

And it gets to the point of our disagreement -- I don't have strong opinions about how the X men movies should be made but I do their success has come, in part, because the directors have paid such close attention to the opinions of the comic book nerds. I really do think those nerds are as responsible for the success of movies I enjoyed as were the producers.

Quote

This is different to today, where I would argue that the average person playing PC games is not us nerds, it is far more of a mainstream hobby. There is another aspect of this as well, D&D itself has changed. Back when D&D was originally conceived, its roots were in war gaming. At the time of 2e, this was still present to some extent, with some of the rules like for example the different armor types being good against different damage types being present because of this.


I don't disagree with the theater of mind the mind characterization but I don't think it applies to the discussion -- I'm not critiquing the theatre of the mind aspects of the game, I'm interested in combat aspects. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give Larian a 9 on capturing "theatre of the mind feel" and a 5 on "D&D combat feel". I'd also argue that Larian markets itself as company that excels at tactical play.

Quote

As I said in my very first post in response to you, better is subjective and it depends on the person giving feedback. Better for you does not necessarily mean better for someone else.


But that's a given. In the absence of data we only have access to our opinions. Like the OP, I would like to see an official poll. Unlike you I think that if the devs listen to results of that poll and make changes it will be to their benefit.

Larian already has the loyalty of DOS fans, it needs to earn the loyalty of 5th edition fans. I'm trying to help them do that. It just so happen that a side effect of my generosity is a game I would really like to play smile

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3


If D&D is more mainstream, then those who are arguing for BG3 to follow 5e rules are not "niche."


Brilliant.

Or are part of the niche the devs want to please.

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The feedback you see given on these forums, is not from these types of players, it is largely from the type of player who has been (as they will tell you) playing D&D for the past 20-30 years and has very deeply entrenched and "hardcore" views.

No. If you actually look at the threads majority are of the more mundane, superficial, mainstream nature.

Additionally, the term "hardcore" and "deeply entrenched" and meaningless negative classifications that dont say anything about the actual suggestions and ideas. You just paint whoever you want with that broad brush and then take that as somehow relevant in considering how good their suggestions or ideas are. Which is completely nonsense.

And of course according to yourself, any and all ideas and suggestions are meaningless because someone else will dislike them. I.e there cannot be anything better than anything else.

Which will of course make the whole game meaningless and not "good" because someone will dislike it. As if "someone" simply disliking something is an issue of actual quality and merit of that thing.

The Absolute relativism.

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Originally Posted by Uncle Lester


However, the game IS being marketed toward "niche" or very specific audience: it is a "main entry Baldur's Gate game" and a "D&D 5e game". They were pretty clear in marketing it as such, and therefore, in my opinion, it is fair to hold the game to being appealing not just to any RPG player, but specifically to these groups. And yes, Larian have made it quite difficult for themselves...


The thing about BG1&2 is... you don't need to understand the systems to enjoy the games. I don't consider myself a hardcore player. To this day my understanding of all the 2AD&D systems is... incomplete at best. Yet it never stopped me from enjoying the games, and not because I had nothing else to play.


Exactly right. Larian wants to ride the wave of rising popularity and WotC wants inspire more devs to make video games. For many, this will be their introduction to the ruleset. As @Ellenhard said -- BG2 encouraged more people to take an interest in the PnP version of the game. Let's hope this game has the same impact.

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I feel like this discussion moved on a bit from "what Larian said and did" to "which type of criticism Larian should listen to.", which is fine I guess.

I want to address something some of you raise here about BG2 being a mainstream game. I don't think it's true. at the very least, I don't think BG2 is as mainstream as letter Bioware products were. If we take kotor for example, their systems are very similar (or at least seem very similar to a casual guy like me. Wait a second, a casual? here on the hardcore forum?! more on that later). The biggest difference, if I put aside the full 3d graphics and the massive increase in voice acting (only the protag in that game is not voiced), is the fact that Kotor is much easier. much more.

now let me tell you about my first experience with BG2 - it was a fucking nightmare. I was much younger, and English is not my first language, but The dialogue was the least of my problems. I felt like this game just keeps pushing me down, as no matter what I do I can't keep my party members from being held\confused\charmed, I didn't even realize there is a difference between these stats half of the time, and spell descriptions were an absolute nightmare to figure out. Of course, my party members eventually died (and this is the best-case scenario, in the worst case they turned into stone or completely disappeared as a result of some other spell), but unlike later Bioware game, they actually die, and I had no idea what to do with it. And over the years games became more streamlined, not less.

I think it took me at least another year to give BG another try, but even that playthrough (which I played on easy) was very hard and I did almost everything following some guides. I think it was worth it, but I also think that I could have enjoyed the game much more if it was a more casual experience. and lo and behold, the best addition to EE for me is, of course, story mode. Over the years I got better after several playthroughs, but I would never dedicate so much time and effort if it weren't for the story and characters.


Larian's Biggest Oversight, what to do about it, and My personal review of BG3 EA
"74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems."
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Originally Posted by mrfuji3

If you assume that the survey sample represents those who post on the forum (not unreasonable), we see that more people are on this forum are here because they've played DOS1&2 or DAO versus BG1&2, and 35% (not an insignificant amount) have NOT played 5e. So posters on this forum are not overwhelmingly from BG1&2/old D&D purists. A majority, sure, but also take into account that these players, like me, may have only played BG1&2 in recent years after starting with 5e.

If you look at the answers of only those who are NOT familiar with 5e (assuming that these type of players are the "mainstream" audience Larian is looking for) https://i.imgur.com/KAcSU4N.png, they still dislike e.g., surface effects, increased HP, and stealthing as a bonus action available to everyone.


You know that survey is a piece of shit right? Take note of https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1323316

And look at the language employed by the survey without bias and see if it passes a basic test. It actually doesn't. Beyond that the sample size is fucking terrible so extrapolating data from that is kind of worthless unless we're talking very specific things.
And we aren't.

You can also look at the Steam reviews which has a larger sample size and those do not reflect the same sentiments as expressed in the survey.

I think it's very stupid to think that the forum and everyone who partakes in it is representative of anything but the type of people who visit forums which is a subset of the audience that Larian happens to capture ( as you pointed out we have no idea what audience Larian is actually looking for) - we're all pretty special. If you want to talk about the mainstream then the approval rate is 88% on Steam currently with a sample size of 26k which is far higher than any aggregate provided by the shitty survey. It also comes with some kind of standard unlike the survey.

Also, the majority of the posters here do not fucking care about the combat so much as caring for their own class, cosmetics, or narrative aligned things; go ahead, chop down, and reorganize all the threads created by people here organize the threads by user and reduce them down to one theme and you'll most likely find that the majority isn't combat related.

Do you not realize your own bias?

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Originally Posted by Abits


I want to address something some of you raise here about BG2 being a mainstream game. I don't think it's true.


The demographics have changed too, because I am pretty sure most of the PC gamers back in the day were pretty 'hardcore' or whatever you want to call it. But you know what's funny? If you look at https://web.archive.org/web/20030820032731/https://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_020207.htm which includes games from '99 it still basically says that there is a strong argument that BG2 is a niche game.

BG3 will be the first contender to try and become a mainstream game, but I doubt it because you're still gonna compete with COD / Among Us / Minecraft / Fortnite etc. those are actual mainstream games.

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3

More broadly, if you look at the results of the forums survey https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=712680
-88% of people who filled out the form played DOS1/2
-82% played DAO
-69% played BG1/2
-82% are familiar with the 5e rules
-65% played tabletop 5e.
If you assume that the survey sample represents those who post on the forum (not unreasonable), we see that more people are on this forum are here because they've played DOS1&2 or DAO versus BG1&2, and 35% (not an insignificant amount) have NOT played 5e. So posters on this forum are not overwhelmingly from BG1&2/old D&D purists. A majority, sure, but also take into account that these players, like me, may have only played BG1&2 in recent years after starting with 5e.

If you look at the answers of only those who are NOT familiar with 5e (assuming that these type of players are the "mainstream" audience Larian is looking for) https://i.imgur.com/KAcSU4N.png, they still dislike e.g., surface effects, increased HP, and stealthing as a bonus action available to everyone.

tl;dr: I don't agree with your assertion that most people on this forum have been playing D&D for 20-30 years. And even if they are, there are still common arguments between "d&d purists" and "mainstream players"


I would ideally like to have access to the dataset so I could draw my own conclusions from it, but I will (for now) accept these numbers as given as a representation of the forums. I will add that I am not entirely convinced the language used in that survey passes a test for bias, but I don't want to be stuck quibbling about minutiae all day. With that being said, this still all comes back to my initial point that I made 2 pages ago however of, "even if it is what all of the players want, we don't know if it is what Larian wants," and until they clarify what they are and are not willing to budge on, its just a matter of us going back in forth in circular arguments.

Originally Posted by KillerRabbit

It was mean as a compliment. If it came across as anything else it was due to the fact that I took charisma as a dump stat wink

It was also a "I see what did you did there" combined with a "well done". I declared myself a pleb and you challenged that. As far as ad populum there is a variant in which an argument is dismissed because it is associated with a particular elite group of people. It's a particularly powerful technique because people are rarely willing to give up their (hard earned) status as experts in a matter. The more you put yourself forth as an authority, the deeper the hole gets. For someone who hasn't had a rhetoric class you've intuited the form perfectly. I think @uncle lester's chosen word of "veteran" is a good one but I think we've found our word -- nerd. Doesn't have unfortunate connotations of expert but makes the case well.

Ok, then thanks :P

Originally Posted by KillerRabbit


And this is where I see the form returning. Having agreed that BG2 was a nerd's game and was better for it I think you return to the "biased sample" by saying that any forum feedback is poisoned because forums are out of date.

Quote
BG 1 and 2 were made in a different era, when the market was much smaller, much less saturated and the expectations of the player were different. At the time when BG 1 and 2 were released, most people playing PC games were us nerds. You could reasonably expect the people who are playing the game, to have some understanding of the ruleset . . .

Forums are still largely visited by the same groups of people however, the newer communities in gaming prefer different mediums of communication . . . My point being, time goes on, things change.


Or, in brief, that assessment is out of date. Right? It's a way of dismissing the sense of the majority of the forum.

And it gets to the point of our disagreement -- I don't have strong opinions about how the X men movies should be made but I do their success has come, in part, because the directors have paid such close attention to the opinions of the comic book nerds. I really do think those nerds are as responsible for the success of movies I enjoyed as were the producers.

Quote

This is different to today, where I would argue that the average person playing PC games is not us nerds, it is far more of a mainstream hobby. There is another aspect of this as well, D&D itself has changed. Back when D&D was originally conceived, its roots were in war gaming. At the time of 2e, this was still present to some extent, with some of the rules like for example the different armor types being good against different damage types being present because of this.


I don't disagree with the theater of mind the mind characterization but I don't think it applies to the discussion -- I'm not critiquing the theatre of the mind aspects of the game, I'm interested in combat aspects. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give Larian a 9 on capturing "theatre of the mind feel" and a 5 on "D&D combat feel". I'd also argue that Larian markets itself as company that excels at tactical play.

Quote

As I said in my very first post in response to you, better is subjective and it depends on the person giving feedback. Better for you does not necessarily mean better for someone else.


But that's a given. In the absence of data we only have access to our opinions. Like the OP, I would like to see an official poll. Unlike you I think that if the devs listen to results of that poll and make changes it will be to their benefit.

Larian already has the loyalty of DOS fans, it needs to earn the loyalty of 5th edition fans. I'm trying to help them do that. It just so happen that a side effect of my generosity is a game I would really like to play smile


See response to @mrfuji3 above, I will concede that it might be the majority view for now, but as I said, even if it is, we do not know if its a topic that Larian is willing to budge on.
Originally Posted by Surface R

No. If you actually look at the threads majority are of the more mundane, superficial, mainstream nature.

The majority of the threads which are opened do not make up the majority of the discussion which is taking place. I am not going to scrape the forums to gather data to prove this point, but I think we can both agree that the majority of discussion which is occurring here, can be attributed to only a few posters, which are pushing a very clear narrative.
Originally Posted by Surface R

Additionally, the term "hardcore" and "deeply entrenched" and meaningless negative classifications that dont say anything about the actual suggestions and ideas. You just paint whoever you want with that broad brush and then take that as somehow relevant in considering how good their suggestions or ideas are. Which is completely nonsense.

Those terms were not negative. Indeed, I consider myself to have a more "hardcore" mindset and I also have some opinions which are, "deeply entrenched." If you see them as being negative, then that is entirely on you. We can quibble about whether they are meaningless or not and we can very easily remove any possibility of "meaninglessness" as well. If you want, I will define exactly what I mean by them, then you have some terms to use.
Originally Posted by Surface R

And of course according to yourself, any and all ideas and suggestions are meaningless because someone else will dislike them. I.e there cannot be anything better than anything else.

Which will of course make the whole game meaningless and not "good" because someone will dislike it. As if "someone" simply disliking something is an issue of actual quality and merit of that thing.

The Absolute relativism.

I never said that at all, although what I said was similar and I guess can be interpreted that way. What I said is, what is good and what is bad is subjective and is dependent on the person who is making the judgement call as well as whatever criteria they are using. In this case, the person who has the ultimate authority is not you, or me, or anyone else involved in the argument, it is Larian. That does not make the ideas meaningless at all, it just means that the framework in which you judge them changes depending on the circumstances. For example, I am a huge fan of both 4x games and RPGs, but if I used the criteria that I use to judge a 4x game in order to judge an RPG, I would be doing the RPG a disservice. Obviously, after a game is finished, the crowd which ultimately decides what is good or bad is arguably the market, although that doesn't stop me from personally considering things which the market hates to be "good."


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Originally Posted by Limz
Originally Posted by Abits


I want to address something some of you raise here about BG2 being a mainstream game. I don't think it's true.


The demographics have changed too, because I am pretty sure most of the PC gamers back in the day were pretty 'hardcore' or whatever you want to call it. But you know what's funny? If you look at https://web.archive.org/web/20030820032731/https://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_020207.htm which includes games from '99 it still basically says that there is a strong argument that BG2 is a niche game.

BG3 will be the first contender to try and become a mainstream game, but I doubt it because you're still gonna compete with COD / Among Us / Minecraft / Fortnite etc. those are actual mainstream games.

And where do Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Witcher 3 fit on the "mainstream scale"?


Larian's Biggest Oversight, what to do about it, and My personal review of BG3 EA
"74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems."
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Originally Posted by Limz

I haven't seen one person actually break down the possibilities then list out what compromises can and cannot be made. Yet, you are all claiming that your expertise can fit the bill without further qualification.

It's really surprising because these questions are basic interview questions you would get when you apply for a technical position.

Do any of you really have the relevant expertise and have any of you actually gone through the rigors to show that you have that expertise? Doubt it.

They can certainly learn from us, but it's not really all that much because very few people here have empathy let alone a good grasp of logic.


Your statements are certainly not true, if you'll kindly take the time to actually read what people post here.
I, for one, came here with a respect for the opinions of many people in this thread. And would really like for this thread to stay constructive, even though I hear contradicting opinions.

We are (partially) waiting for Larian representatives to form their own understanding of their resources, willingness to share with us, the capability to ask or direct.

Or it could be like it is now, and while it isn't bad at all on a grand scale, I'd say there will be missed opportunities.

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Originally Posted by Limz
You know that survey is a piece of shit right? Take note of https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1323316

And look at the language employed by the survey without bias and see if it passes a basic test. It actually doesn't. Beyond that the sample size is fucking terrible so extrapolating data from that is kind of worthless unless we're talking very specific things.
And we aren't.

You can also look at the Steam reviews which has a larger sample size and those do not reflect the same sentiments as expressed in the survey.

I think it's very stupid to think that the forum and everyone who partakes in it is representative of anything but the type of people who visit forums which is a subset of the audience that Larian happens to capture ( as you pointed out we have no idea what audience Larian is actually looking for) - we're all pretty special. If you want to talk about the mainstream then the approval rate is 88% on Steam currently with a sample size of 26k which is far higher than any aggregate provided by the shitty survey. It also comes with some kind of standard unlike the survey.

Also, the majority of the posters here do not fucking care about the combat so much as caring for their own class, cosmetics, or narrative aligned things; go ahead, chop down, and reorganize all the threads created by people here organize the threads by user and reduce them down to one theme and you'll most likely find that the majority isn't combat related.

Do you not realize your own bias?

Is there a better survey to use? No.
I am well aware of the problems with samples sizes, question biases, etc. But the questions that ask "Have you played tabletop 5e? Have you played X game?" are prettttttty straightforward.

We are talking specific things: is the forum representative of mainstream audience, as measured by their experience with D&D. See above questions.

You compare steam reviews to forum posts. The problem with steam reviews are that most of them are just "Is the game good or bad"? A game can be good without being great, but a lot of steam reviews aren't critical because there is no discussion on steam reviews, so why bother? The Steam BG3 discussion board is more relevant to the topic at hand.
AND, the steam reviews match well with the forum response. See that survey: most people respond 7-10 for "How has the game met your expectations through EA?" and "How likely is it that you would recommend BG3 EA to a friend?" 88% approval rate on Steam is similar to responses of 7-10 for these questions.

Umm...who cares if "the majority of posters/threads created...aren't combat related?" That's besides the point. We are discussing the experience levels of people on the forum and whether the forum posts represent the mainstream audience's opinions. Opinions on narrative, classes, etc are still opinions.

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