Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Feedback on Updates

It would be nice if Larion could give us an idea of what they are aiming for with content updates. Some of us stream the game as part of our regular weekly twitch streams and youtube videos/streams. On 2nd+ play through to I think I am mid my 8th 9th and 10th in multiplayer at the moment. With being early access it would be nice to get some official news on. The next content edition patch and what we might get to see being added. Being able to update our followers and subscribers with new content coming would be a very nice. Especially with holidays coming up. It would be lovely to here if we will get a but further peek into what's coming out with holidays coming up. I know alot of us are excited to see new classes ect to both promote the game and our own streams going into the holidays and keep viewership up. Like an indevelopment post from Larion would be very nice.

There will be one.

WHEN THE GODS WILL IT.

Maybe they'll will it tomorrow?

Has there been any kind of development map released? Since Marian is a big studio I'm not expecting them to go into great detail and certainly not to make calender/date promises but a general "this is what we're doing next" thing would be nice.

Nice. Now that streamers are asking for updates, we'll finally get some information.

Well it would stimulate some interest in the game to get more feedback, so sooner is better.

Yeah viewership is down lately for anyone that streams. Makes it hard to be playing it. Regularly if you stream. Which does not do them any favors either its free marketing for them it would be nice to have some news just for that reason.

we "might" get some news here tomorrow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcQ...IFBQq4PCv&index=1&ab_channel=IGN

but am not expecting anything since most dev , don't know what those video are about.

It would just be nice to hear something like hey were working on druid or paladin or something for december were hoping to release a small patch then were you can play x additional content we have also fixed a b c d. and raised level cap to 5 were hoping to release it for december but no eta at the moment. (Just so we had a little teaser). The feedback they are getting has to have dropped off quite a bit just based on the amount of people streaming currently. Having dropped a lot. A few of us were going to do a multi-tonight but put it off till tomorrow cause viewers counts were too low.

Viewership has cratered on the game and the negative reviews is getting louder. Larian has to act before month-end with not just an insignificant update about player choice.

I didnt seen any negative review so far. O_o

Yeah well someone said it above and I surprisingly agree - there has been no official release of any kind of roadmap, and everyone here is waiting for updates. You'll just have to wait and see, like the rest of us.

Any details beats shooting in the dark for something you can actually get excited over.

There'll likely be an update before Christmas. It'll be marketed by Larian as a gift, which will buy them dead air time before people shake it off and remember how inconsistent the company has been at communicating.

Come on people, stop expecting Larian Studios to act like an AAA studio who can do stuff like Tactical Adventures.

https://www.solasta-game.com/news/105-dev-update-23-winter-patch-preview

Oh wait, Tactical Adventures is a tiny independent studio who seems to understand how to communicate during an early access.

They never said they were gonna communicate. They just said they'd take our feedback and make the game better.

I'm annoyed with Larian's lack of communication, but even I have to objectively say that this is a silly point to make.
Of course there's going to be more communication from a small upstart company with just a handful of people working on a project that's tiny in scale when compared to a large company working on a huge project.

Oh please, stop somehow at Paradox forum, alt tell us there how do find lack of comunication anoying, since you get your last update moth ago.

I have never understood why developers and/or publisher fail in communication so much. I am not talking about actively respondign on forums regulary. That would be nice but take staff off something else since people have the tendency to take an arm if you give a hand.

What really would be nice is a roadmap, as mentioned above and at least one statement about progress in development to certain times. Once a week or twice a month. Something like that.

That way it would not look that the EA was used mainly to get funds but that they are actually interested in our feedback. It would not be the first time that development of games ignored feedback even on things where a great part of the playerbase was positive about.

I would really appreciate a statement about what they intend to fix when or in case of suggestions, which they consider.

I think that woulde be called "building trust with your customers".

Lots of publishers don't do it to evade broken promises and the rants that go with it. But i think if you communitcate it clear and formulate it well you can evade that. You will still get ranted at by some people but that happens anyway.

I suspect that the reason for this lack of communication seem to be the enormous weight the fans give to any offhand comment Larian's official makes. We spent pages upon pages discussing and analysing every word Sven said during his last interview with IGN, analysing both what he said and what he didn't. Were I in Larian's shoes, I would also be very careful of what I'm saying, since people seem to draw some very far reaching conclusions from every syllable I say. It seems to me like they comment on things they are absolutely sure about, at least for now

To be fair, I think this immense focus on that IGN interview is a direct result of the lack of direct/frequent communication. We have nothing better to do on these forums than discuss that article.

If there was a patch (or community update, big or small) more often, or a roadmap telling us when to expect these updates, then we'd probably give less weight to every offhand remark Swen makes.

I think they are just waiting to until they have something to talk about. The the patch had something from the audio team. I dunno what that means but I'm guessing it means that some new cuts scenes were added. I'm guessing some content, even if it just cut scenes and/or Tav's voice.

Yep I was thinking about this possibility as well. Either way I can't deny that Larian need to improve their communication with the community. But I'm more inclined to give them some leeway at least for a little while more

I think people could stand to be a little more patient.

Early Access is probably going to last 12-18 months, and we'll probably only get like 4-6 updates during that time. Settle in for the long haul.

Of course. That is one of the main reasons why it is like it is. A LOT of players are not reasonable. But as i already mentioned, there will always be badmouthing the publishers and developers not matter what they do. Pity i think. But i would rather inform the "good" customers and live with the ones that hear and read whatever they want instead of keeping silence and agitate the "good" ones too.

The wording of each comment hast to be very straightforward as to give the least amount of possibility to understand something wrong. That way you can always point back to the post and clarify. Some won't even hear that, i know. As usual the whole community gets punished for a few, sorry for the wording, stupid idiots. Kinda reminds me of politics sometimes.

Looking at the status of the game that may be a good estimate.

Pretty sure Swen mentioned monthly updates in Panel From Hell. I think they're just lagging because of unexpected EA numbers.

And 4-6 updates would be WAY too little for how much work the game needs. It's better to do several smaller patches than a few huge ones. I mean, 6 would be just for the classes, if they want to add all before 1.0. Also there's races and companions said to be added during EA. And that on top of all the systems/mechanics that I HOPE are going to be tweaked and tested.

There will have to be a lot more than 6. You have 6 classes balancing, debugging, additional races, multi classing, mercs, levels above 4 chapters 2-3 to be added there is alot more to be done. Adding additional classes to balance there early levels will help both development and balance patchs is why some commentary would be valuable. All the updates so far have been just bugs and cinimatics so little small updates like we added paladin we fixed 5 bugs wit the ranger we fixed some cinimatics. We dont expect to see this added till around december or january and are also currently working on incorperating druid as well but no eta currently but for the following patch - is an example of them giving a little bit of info without a full disclosure gives community some things to talk about.

I agree on most of that, but I'm pretty sure Acts 2 and 3 will only be added on full release.

I also would have wished for a much better communication policy and more recent updates... more something like one patch per month, ideally with up- and downvote which features should be implemented...

I'm okay with waiting. COVID, big game to fix, lots of pressure to perform. Of course I'd prefer not to wait but I get why are.

Besides, I'm hoping that the longer we wait the more it indicates that we are Xmas patch with presents inside. *Rolls to d20 to see if we are getting Moonrise Towers*

A romantic scene with Astarion would be a good gift for me...

I only want to be able to run this game without frame rates drop and textures loading mid scene.

Yeah, this game really demands a great deal from the machine. My old laptop spiked to 97 degrees halfway through the character creator.

And there is no justification for it. The game looks good, but it's not the Witcher 3

Certainly not in the fabric/hair physics department...

Wow Solasta is knocking it out of the park with these updates, can’t wait to get back into it

Always enjoy seeing a request for a roadmap, especially since those things get altered, ignored, tossed out the window or lit on fire. Frequent communication just gives a different kind of avenue for complaints, this is the internet don't expect rational discourse to be the norm. As for the release of Act 2 and 3, that's happening at the game's full release. I figure the next patch will be more classes, maybe races, plus however many bug fixes. The evil path overhaul will probably be farther down the line. I'd rather they take their time overhauling that story rather than rushing out something for field testing.

Solasta could very well be an amazing game, maybe the shilling is an indicator, probably not though. However, unless it's BG or Arcanum I just don't care.

Optimization is always something that gets done near the end of development. Also UI typically gets a full pass near the end of the process. In both cases its more efficient to finalize these after the game is basically complete. Making performance optimizations and UI changes now would likely just result in rework for Larian down the road.

As for presenting a roadmap . . . I really don't think Larian feels comfortable enough to do that yet. I suspect they will give more information at some point. Its been a pretty confusing schedule for Larian, in part due to COVID. Even the Early Access release slipped dates and was a challenge to get out.

It sounds like a 3rd patch isn't too far out (given all the Steam updates). Larian is probably scrambling to get as many updates included in the patch as possible, and likely has some things that they are attempting to include but may need to be cut if bugs or schedule prevents it.

I would expect them to provide more concrete information as time goes by and things stabilize (both the game development and COVID)

Yes, I've followed other games development and EVERY comment the developer makes WILL get torn to bits . . . regardless of how much they communicate. And god forbid if they have to go back on their word . . . I've seen everything from death threats to employees having breakdowns to the point of leaving the industry.
Its FAR safer for everyone at Larian if they err on the side of saying too little.

I can live with that and I believe you are right. For all it's flaws, if there is one thing I can safely say dos2 does much better than any newish crpg I've played over the last few years is good performance. I feel like something so basic has became some sort of a recommendation only in this genre

To be honest, compared to recent games, i was surprised about how well this game runs. Resident Evil 3 and AC:Odyssey sometimes dipped below 60 fps at 2k with a 2070 Super, and i'm pretty sure i didn't have either maxed out. This one never even stuttered at the bandit camp.

Now, if they could reduce the loading times, 'cause save scumming, that'd be great

It's true because I say it is.

Didn't play AC odyssey but I think resident evil 3 has a much better graphics than bg3.

I think he/she was talking about the optimization, not how good the game looks

Yeah, that's what i meant. Nowadays a lot of games crap their paints when it comes to optimization. The ACs, Horizon, RE3, RDR. Even Deadfire somehow managed to have issues (for me on a 1080 at the time)

Optimization and bloat, look at COD over 250gigs, just why?

https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/1086940/view/2894088190702891542

I gues you noticed, but why keep it a secret.

So far it seems like no new content, just adjustment of curent content ... wich is also fine by me.
I wonder what will change.

I would think there will be some significant story changes . . . otherwise it wouldn't break saves. Or rather be worth pissing people off by breaking saves just to make minor adjustments

Still underwhelmed by the level of communication. Only reason we got that pre patch announcement was because patch is going to break old saves, otherwise I expect we would still be in the dark about next patch.

Wont know until its out but it does seem to imply significant enough changes to the story to brick old saves. Notifying that it'll brick the saves is pretty good communication, saves people time on their rage. Would you like a full walkthrough of the new content before its released?

This just seems like "i want to be angry, so im angry about whatever you will tell me" ...
You wanted news ... here are news ...

As someone who is waiting for more than half year for some relevant info about Bloodlines 2, i just cant understand how can see this kind of comunication so negatively. But maybe that is bcs i know worse ... there we got at least a whole year delay, we still dont even know release date, we god 13 Developer diaries, from which 3 was talking about fact they need to work from home since covid, and 4th one was about cats that are sabotaging their work from home, we still have no idea how any game mechanic will work, and all people that was hold as main marketing faces (and possible ensurances of quality) was fired this summer ... wich was never comented, or explained ... and since that studio goes on complete raido silence, and we have no idea when or even if anything is happening for last few months.

This game on the other hand is out for month, was delayed only once (if i remember corectly it was for 14 days, August was never promised as sure date, so i dont count that, but if you wish there is two delays for month and half toghether) ... and you allready get 10 comunity updates, 4 hotfixes, and now first bigger alterning patch. :-/
Some people will just never be satisfied. -_-

Its nice to get news...hopefully it will be more than just cinimatics and bug fixes however if its not really adding anything just making things more fluid its not going to be a anything to be excited over it will litterly do nothing. The thing that is making it stale is there isnt enough to stop you from being like i already did this 7 different ways yawn. It has to have fleshed out content. More npc's origins characters, new classes to play with an extra level or 2. New gear something to get excited over. If they just added like say 20 paragon levels in diablo 3 for example no one would get excited. Of they added 1 extra cinimatic no one would care. There has to be something expanding on the current game play. Typically DLC / Major Content patches to games are every 3 months but with the amount of content the game has to add the current content isnt sufficient to keep you interested after 7-8 play throughs you dont have anything you have not seen.

People can do that, or.... you know... wait for the full game... I really struggle and still can't understand why do you think they have to add more content. If your reasons were "they need to put it to the test" I would say fine, but "people losing interest" is stupid. People will gain a new interest when the game will be released.

But I really don't see the stress of keeping it relevent with new content all the time. I can understand why streamers want more to work with every day but this is an ea. emphasis on early. We got to try out act 1 and get the general idea of the story and core mechanics. Now is the time to gather feedback and rework the mechanics that people didnt like. Not showcase new content just to keep the hype up. That's atleast my opinion and this game is something that I from the very start saw as something I will be coming back to several times throughout the whole ea, not playing it every day until final release. Still, it will be exciting to see what they have changed so far

+1

Also, Larian has so much work to do on the fundamentals (UI, controls, writing of Act 1, game mechanisms, etc) that I don't see much value for them in releasing more content (Acts, races, classes).

People who "need" more content, like streamers, are like journalists who rush to publish an article about the latest big news before verifying it. They have put themselves in that uncomfortable situation.
From the point of view of Larian, they had too many people joining EA already. They'll probably be happy if things calm down a bit, and they'll probably do some communication and marketing again when the game gets close to release. Basically, they're fine.

I very much agree that they should prioritize working on the fundamentals, but I think for the most part underlying mechanics and additional classes/races/companions (acts will only come with full release) don't clash. They're likely done by different people and introducing a new race doesn't impact working on the mechanics, imo. And those new things need to be tested as well; we have 6 classes left! And quite a lot of subclasses. And some of them have non-straightforward mechanics. Even if we get one class every two months, it will take a year. That's a lot of testing needed. Another thing is that the sooner those new elements get implemented, the sooner we can test how they work with the revamped systems; that's important too.

I think this is about change management and communication. As someone pointed out, a roadmap could be helpful. As it would be focussed feedback. For example, they could ask specific questions to us, the testers. Otherwise they risk people thinking that they are ignoring feedback. And while I don't think that is the case, I do think that it is about visibility and expectations.

I mean, if some things are "set in stone", they should be honest and clear about that. If, for example, they meant the game to be played as an origin character, then they shouldn't promise that you could play as a custom character without penalisation, because then, you are setting part of your customers for disappointment. And so on.

Project managrment is hard, project management with so many customers is even harder.

Anyway, I'm curious about the changes.

I think you meant "they shouldn't have promised". Because they did say that playing as a custom character would be possible and interesting (obviously, that's very vague ... I mean they were vague and I don't remember the exact thing they said).

Well agreed otherwise. I'm still writing my feedback, and I keep thinking that it would be somewhat useful to know a tiny bit about where they are standing, so as to not include a number of things (things they don't want to reconsider, things they have already planned to re-work, etc). I feel that, at the moment, it's more work for them to filter the information through the noise in the feedback.



There's a lot of truth in that. There's a balance to be found. I'm not sure they have fully figured how to deal with Reactions for instance, and all those similar 5E rules that give a player decision points when it's not their turn (the Diviner mage being just one example that works the same way). And I feel they need to rethink some core aspects of combat. So, at the same time, they'll want to know how combat works to know how to translate a 5E Class into a BG3 Class. At the same time, they'll want to have a first draft of all classes to have a better view of how combat works.

At part of me tends to consider that they probably (hopefully?) started with whatever early graphics and UI they had (stick figures are wholly sufficient), translated all the 5E combat rules and classes, to get an idea of how it feels in video game form, and only then started playing around and homebrewing. Which means they should have a first draft of all classes already. But well, I don't know of video game design works as much as I know about board game design. Anyway.

Good points. I have no idea how they intend to go about reactions (and whether they intend to do anything about them, tbh) and I don't envy them having to think of something. It's a system that's very hard to translate into the video game format. I've seen a good post on reddit on reactions, where the OP explained WHY they're so problematic and what are the problems with different approaches. Yikes. I think the best option would be to optionally be able to script when they trigger, but it's not a perfect solution.

I wonder about the classes, I'm fairly sure they have much more than drafts by this point. But some classes have "probematic" or "labour-intensive" mechanics. I think the initial choice of classes was a mixture of "basic" (Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric) and something that needs a lot of time testing. Ranger, obviously, because of the rework. Warlock because of... potentially wonky mechanics? Alternative magic system (Pact Magic), pact boons, invocations... Lots of things to go wrong, and I believe we already see some of them not working properly. There's also the matter of companions - we only have those of the implemented classes, though the classes probably took precedence. (I'm curious though, because the class choice seems like it had little wiggle room, yet they've also said they've chosen specifically the "evil" companions, suggesting that it wasn't class-related. Hmm.)

Let's think about the others:

Barbarian: pretty straight-forward; I don't think rage mechanics are particularly difficult to implement. Probably left out because it wasn't a priority.

Bard: Bardic Inspiration has the same problem as reactions. I could see them implemented after they figure out reactions and similar mechanics, as you say.

Druid: wildshape. I could see it as problematic for several reasons. Animations, animal choice approach (all of them? only the ones you've seen in the game?), inventory management, interactions...

Monk: ki. I don't think it's particularly hard to implement, but it's a new magic system to code.

Paladin: smite - similar problem to reactions, but I could see them just going with "you decide beforehand".

Sorcerer: metamagic and sorcery points, two new systems (or one complex system) to develop. Some of metamagic options might more problematic than others.

So if they were to introduce the remaining classes in the order of low- to high-hanging fruit, I'd say it would be: Barbarian, Paladin, Monk, Bard, Sorcerer, Druid. More or less, especially depending on how careful they want to be about "invoked" mechanics like reactions, Bardic Inspiration and smite.

I'm not sure why you think save game incompatibility would have to mean story changes or additions. There's a lot of behind the stage coding that could have been changed in ways that would break saves beyond user-end content being changed or added.

They explicitly said this is the first patch with story changes.

Read this https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=738612

Ah, I see. Reading it again it was right in the first paragraph. I missed that the first time.

there was a video posted just reciently hinting we might get the druid again. as well as with possible details on barbarian or sorcerer but it was apparently game files stuff. so no confirmation would be nice to get some more details from larion on this... Hopefully at least the druid. (even though myself i want to see the barbarian as a high talking point).

I hope the scenes trigger easily and that you don't need to rest or use the tadpole so much to get them 😊

I dare you: Name 5 games that actualy adding content every 3 months ...

Anyway ... if any youtuber want to focus all his chanel to one, not yet released game ... i think i know where is problem, and its not in Larian.

World of warcraft
Total War Warhammer 2
FFIV
DBZ:Xenoverse
Hearthstone
Runeterra
MTG Arena

thates with zero thought in 10 seconds off the top of my head. I am sure i can give you another 10 if you really want more with some actual effort at least without really thinking too hard. Wow does get a 6 month gap before the release of a large expansion typically however after content patches.


Dota
League of Legends
Dead by Daylight
Mortal Kombat 11
Diablo 3 (Its has a new content patch for gear every 3 months with season roll over)
Elder Scrolls Online
Fortnite
Overwatch
Star Trek Online
Team Fight Tactics

If you need some more examples i can give you another 20 games or so if you want... However thats 17 i believe you wanted 5 I mean...its not even a challenge to list games that do regular content patch updates. However as World of Warcraft, and FFIV and elder scrolls have subscriptions you could disclude those however none of the other games have a subscription...thats still 14 with those 3 counted out.

Not to nitpick your list but a lot or some of those are multiplayer games. They need to roll out new content often otherwise people will get bored and move on. Another game like this would be that Avengers game. People seemed to have stop playing because they're waiting for new content.

Well ... World of Warcraft, Diablo 3 and Heartstone i actualy play ...

If i recall corectly last patch (Nyalotha raid) was up for at least 3/4 year, maybe even whole year.
Diablo III added single set since necromancer dlc ... that means at least 3 years no "new content". Those seasons are equivalent to start a new character here, its the exactly same game, you just start over.
And HS? Well, i admit i didnt started it for some while, but as far as i know last new hero anounced was Hogger, before that ... cant remember anything for at least 2 years.

Wow major Content patchs - typically 3-4 per year
Patch 8.3.7 July 21, 2020
Patch 8.3.0 January 14, 2020
Patch 8.2.5 September 24, 2019
Patch 8.2.0 June 25, 2019
Patch 8.1.5 March 12, 2019

Hearthstone 16 major patches in 2020 13 that added content to the game for 1 or more aspect of the game - Non subscription based game.
https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/news/patchnotes

and your talking about heroes of the storm get your game facts strait heroes of the storm has a discontinued developer staff the entire heroes of the storm staff was gutted in 2019. Which that hasnt had content released in a year because they litterly have a team of 4 people for the entire project. Last character/content patch for it with new content for heroes of the storm was 2019. I was suprised they even released new content for that at all.

Why are you discussing about online games when it's a single?

baldur's gate 3 is a 4 players online / offline co-op game.

Patch 8.3.7 was indeed released in July 21 ... but its content (prepatch event) was inactive until 2 weeks ago ...
So, exactly as i said ... 3/4 year of one patch, maybe almost whole year.

I hope you understand that it's still not the same... co-op function is just an addition... It is assumed that you will play the game alone, and if you want, you can play it with someone else. This is not an online game like WoW.