Saito Hikari: There's nothing wrong with expressing negative viewpoints and opinions. I think the problem comes when the impression is given that a certain group's viewpoints and opinions are right and everybody else is wrong. They give the impression that this game is a total disaster and that they alone are the only people who can save it if only Larian would listen to them. Not everybody sees the game as a disaster or a failure. Some people such as the OP actually like it and thinks it's good.
I personally like the game and like the direction development is going. I also understand that this game is in a pre Alpha or Alpha stage right now and has a long way to go before final release. It's too early to call the game a disaster or pass judgement in my opinion. Many things are subject to change between now and the final release. This group I talk about for some reason has already decided the game is going to be a failure and in my opinion it's too soon to say that. They also think that just because they provide feedback and give suggestions that Larian has an obligation to respond and do exactly what they say. That's not how EA works.
My last point is that everybody is entitled to their own opinion. No one opinion is more right or wrong than any other. That's what I've been trying to point out in the posts I've written since joining this forums earlier this week. Calling out people who tried to start review bombing campaigns and defending people such as the OP when they express a like for the game and get attacked for it. From what I've seen reading these forums and in the short time I've been posting it's always the same usual suspects with all the negativity. Most of them showed up here in this thread which was a positive thread and a counterpoint to negative threads such as "I'm out". Contrary to what's been said people who like a game don't play that game 24/7. Some of them actually do end up posting on forums and expressing a positive or favorable attitude towards the game that they are playing.
It is indeed too soon to figure if it will be a disaster or not, but the idea that people are even using such language is a strong hint at the
desperation from one side to raise attention to the issues. People would not feel as strongly as they did if they did not believe to have a perceived element of foresight to them. The feedback is not borne out of a desire to bring the game down. It's a recognition that the game is
almost at a good point, but there are critical problems stopping it from being the masterpiece it could be.
I think the stream could have pre-emptively ended most of the arguments before they even began if the devs gave a clear answer for why they designed certain things the way they did. If they gave even a direct unfavorable answer saying that they didn't want to make any changes because it's simply not part of their vision for the game and explained why they believed so, or that the engine they chose to use simply can't handle the more complicated things like player-controlled reactions and ready actions... I personally would not have bothered making that feedback thread, hopped off the forums, quietly waited for release, and accept the game for what it was because I'd undoubtedly find value in a different aspect of the game. The Solasta devs already straight up admitted that they can't implement all of the base classes because they don't have the budget and manpower for it, and that they can't make a branching story for the same reasons, and nobody gave them any crap for that in the end. cRPGs and character-based tactics-style games are my favorite genre, so I would still internalize the lessons from how certain mechanics are designed and how they ultimately worked out for better or for worse for future feedback for other projects.
(In my MMO days, I used to engage in 'lazy developer' rhetoric in a community where I held far more influence. After the ultimate decline of the NA branch of that community, perhaps partially brought about by my admittedly non-constructive negativity, and seeing the effort that goes into programming things, I know better now. That said, I have also seen communities drown out any and all feedback, even twisting constructive feedback into negativity, out of a belief that the developers can do no wrong. And there is a certain point where that becomes even more harmful than unrestrained negativity. We saw one formerly cherished developer fall to this in recent times, and I'm sure I do not have to name them directly. And I can already tell you that the BG3 Reddit has fallen to this exact pattern, though to be fair, most Reddit communities do because the site at its core runs by silent mob censorship rule.)
That said, I think the clamoring over all of this has only gotten louder now in light of the Bless interview, and that no such clear answer or even a hint that they were planning any action at all towards the most common complaints was given during the stream, despite about four months worth of focused feedback. But really, the Bless-related interview did not do Larian any favors.
One could argue that an EA is not the place to provide such feedback either. But then, one could also raise the question of exactly what is the purpose of an EA, if not for that? And if not the EA, then exactly
when is the appropriate point to raise such issues? I saw this cycle once before with Pathfinder: Kingmaker's official release, where it was known to be so bugged that people legitimately couldn't finish the game without Dimension Door abuse until about 2 months after release, but there was another lesson in how encounter balance was so lopsided that you had entire parties getting wiped by a random encounter Skeleton Lord towards the very start of the game, among other examples. And that game had a Beta, and friends of mine who did participate in that said they raised the alarm many times over certain aspects of the game only to get ignored. Sure, it was called a beta, but what is the fundamental difference between a Beta and an Early Access? On a practical level, nothing much, really.
Personally I have no issue with the OP posting a thread to counter the negative thread of "I'm out" with "I'm in" so that people that actually enjoy aspects of the game can comment, but immediately certain people became threatened and came in to start a forest fire and burn the thread. That is so weak.
One can't really pin the blame on people 'starting a forest fire to burn the thread'
if the thread at its core was already an ember traveling from another forest fire of a thread to begin with.
I would ask this: What the hell did anyone expect the end goal of this thread to be?
