Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Reddit : interresting posts

Lastly, it's rare for well-thought-out posts backed by data to get dog-piled by opposing views. The posts that get dog-piled usually leave a lot open for interpretation or are minimal statements.

Does happen. But I find it interesting to ask "when do people call something an echo chamber"? In what context does this word get used and applied. People -- myself included -- call something an echo chamber when the conversation isn't going their way. So I look I look at reddit (until very recently) and say "it's an echo chamber where the only discussions allowed are about romances"

The Surya Siddhanta is an incredible testament to the advanced thinking of ancient Indians. In this text, one can find the roots of trigonometry as well as essential mathematical inventions such as standard notation and the decimal system. In addition, the text describes gravity over a millennium before Sir Isaac Newton developed his theory in 1687. It explains sidereal revolutions and how planets move eastward. It accurately calculates the size and position of distant planets, the length of a tropical year, and the amount of time that has passed since creation. Finally, in its discussion of how time passes at different rates under different circumstances, it contains the seeds for relativity.

I would disagree with you there, go onto a flat earth or antivaxx facebook page and post as well thought out and argued post as you like and then come back here and tell me what the response is. I will wait :P Even in the context of these forums, there have been some occasions with dog piling on good posts.

Does happen. But I find it interesting to ask "when do people call something an echo chamber"? In what context does this word get used and applied. People -- myself included -- call something an echo chamber when the conversation isn't going their way. So I look I look at reddit (until very recently) and say "it's an echo chamber where the only discussions allowed are about romances"

Well, here you go. I did start running out of ideas for some repeated topics around about number 19.

The forums have a rather small userbase and you can more or less keep track of the people who actively post a lot. Their opinions have been entrenched since the beginning (yourself, sludge khalid, Maximuuus, tuco, KillerRabit, etc) and have not shifted much over the course of time. There were some contrarians who also posted a lot but they have disappeared (firesnake, surfaces_R, etc). They also had their own list of issues, but they disagreed with the first group on quite a few topics and there was some back and forth discussion about it without going into mud slinging. I would strongly bet on the shift of discourse being the result of the disappearance of the latter group leading to the creation of an echo chamber here, similar to how reddit is the echo chamber to go to when you want to discuss Helsin's body.

They have, but not all grievances are the same. I personally think the weakest part of the game is the fact that it uses DND combat and would throw the entire thing away and use something else (I don't think Larian's system is a better alternative), but hell would freeze over before a completely new system was ever implemented.

Just because people are right about an issue in 1 game, does not mean a different group of people are right about a different set of issues in another game. An easy example of this is the vocal crowd in the Path of Exile community who pretty much wants to turn the game into a clicker and forget about the aRPG.

Anyhow, I am not going to get into this argument again. I had this argument when the game first came out with Sludge Khalid and nobody budged, repeating the same talking points again isn't going to get anyone anywhere. I have no intention of being Don Quixote here.

Whilst I agree that the way party controls are bad, I don't think constant repetition of feedback from the same group of people is going to change their minds about anything. Were I a developer, it would not change my mind either. If I was gathering feedback from the forums, I would use a tool to condense all the posts on a topic from single users and then measure the sentiment from the condensed post, then look at it based on the number of people complaining as well as what type of player they are. Multiple posts on the topic from a single user would be completely discarded, because I would only be counting the user's opinion on the whole. We know Larian is big on using data analysis, so I would not be surprised if they did something similar.

The best way to change their mind with such a system, would be to get lots of outsiders who are not currently complaining about it, to join in on the discussion, which would mean promoting the topic in places where it is not heavily discussed. Examples of such being on youtube, steam, twitch, twitter, etc.

There is a very real-world concern that if you stop mentioning an issue it falls to the wayside. This actually happens in business where you can report a bug in good faith, but because you thought reporting it once was good enough... you find a year later it was never resolved. Other issues that departments never stopped emailing about got moved up.

That same can happen here without communication on what is on the roadmap for Baldur's Gate 3. If we do not know what Larian is looking to improve/change, we're incentivized to keep writing about it.

And sure some contrarians came and went. But is that really an echo-chamber effect? Could they have realized their argument lacked merit? It's probably a mix of the two. The echo chamber effect is usually formed by an algorithm feeding the user information... gets bumped to the top.

Also most forum members are similar, a lot of folks have played Baldur's Gate 3 and are gamers. Similar people usually form similar opinions.

Pretty much every one of these topics has been done to death and I could draw up argument flowcharts with the for/against illustrating the different positions, at this point its just repeating the same stuff over and over again for the sake of doing so.

A big part of it, is that the issues brought up on the forums are still present in the game. If the issues are addressed people will stop talking about it. if combat is improved, I'm sure people will start talking about something else...But while party movement, inventory management, and combat stay the same we will see the same discussions.

Players A, B, and C have been discussing the issues for months. Player D started playing the game two weeks ago and wants to provide feedback on the forums. Player D also loves many aspects of the game but feels combat and party movement could be improved. (And the cycle starts again).

I really wish this forum had a thumbs up button

Truer words were never spoken.

One of the reasons for several of the mega-threads. It's hard to keep everyone happy when old-timers see the same argument for the eleventy-billionth time but newcomers feel "but we already discussed this without you six months ago" isn't really fair. I think what does make a difference is constructive criticism as opinions can sometimes get a bit entrenched and shouty otherwise, and the resulting negativity can put people off.

Isn't that just the definition of "Mob Mentality"? So basically, that means that their should be the shouting to the four corners, over a subject that has already been argued over and over? I am not sure if that is always a good thing. But I totally agree there are issues with party movement, inventory and combat, I am just not sure some of the "answers" by some would be something I or others may not enjoy. That is why I generally think (well hope) that the developer has the information they need already, they keep to their roadmap, and find a middle ground that will appeal to both sides of the discussion. From their latest patch I have seen some changes that were discussed. I have never been a fan of development by consensus though. As far as I am concerned, if a studio does not already have a vision of what will make a great game, throwing in a bunch of suggestions by everybody just muddies the pot and can cause all sorts of issues, bugs, or a bland experience.

The difficult part is the "constructive" part. Especially when it is involving the mega threads. I will say, at lest when a newcomer "necros" a thread, that is far more interesting than to see it necroed by an existing actor chanting the same points. I am glad I don't have to mod a forum. I would lose my shi&t!

Whose interests are harmed by "necro'ing" posts? Is that a policy guarded by the forum administrators?

I like how everyone is arguing about echo chambers

It's background noise, really,
The whine about echo chambers is conveniently picked up every time someone feels cornered.
There are cases where the accusation may hold some merit, but to suggest it applies to this forum borders in denial.

But I will say one other thing before dipping out of this echo chamber talk completely. One can describe these forums as a very negative echo chamber, but few ever think of the harmful effects that an echo chamber fueled by positivity can have. The latter by nature is FAR harder to call out without people assigning an asshole tag to your name, and will oft drown out anything remotely critical regardless of the context. It is counterproductive to desire something like the latter if you are looking for actual feedback.

Realistically, people who dislikes the game will just leave the forums and forget about it, while others enjoying it will support it and offer detailed feedback. Then you have the middle ground, people who WANTS to love the game but just cant due to some xxx flaws...Basically a HUGE minority in a sea of supporters which heavily criticize the slightest mention of something negative toward the game...hence lowering this middle ground to just pure dislike towards the game, the end result being...just leave the forum and forget about the game.
What will be left is basically just supporters and a few haters that holds grudges.
This has been precisely progressively happening since last November. Its actually a fascinating case study.