Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Level 5 may be needed to attract more testing

Greetings all,

My suggestion is to introduce level 5 in the next patch 8 or patch 9.

I am not sure on the numbers, but I am sure the number of participants has probably gone down gradually since the early release.

The more participants you have the better the testing and thus the better quality control.
I myself aloing with several of my friends have simply stopped playing this game, because every iteration I play makes the game less satisfying or more boring.

It is like the rule of satisfaction, the more you eat something or do something the less the enjoyment.
An example of this would be chocolate chip cookies or french fries. The more you eat them the less satifying they become as you eat one after another.
This was actually a topic discussed in a course during my commerce degree.

I offer this suggestion as a way to bring back players to test your game and maybe test 3rd level abilities, unless you feel you are getting a sufficient number of players for testing.

I don't know. On one hand, I agree with you, it will probably attract those players who did one or two runs and then stopped. It will also let us test a lot of new features, since lv5 is full of them for every single class if I remember correctly.
On the other hand, I think they need to focus on the most "controversial" aspect of the game, so to find a good middle ground on top of which add more meat to the grill. Not to mention that, without more content, level 5 will come too late in the EA to fully experience it or it will trivialize a lot of the fights if it comes too early.

I do agree that level 5 might improve the incentive for players to jump back in, but for me at least it was braking Ethel's (the hag) bonus stats again that got me to stop play-testing. It's like they seem to break it every other patch, then fix it every other time and it is starting to get annoying.

Side note 1: They also changed the dialog options so you could not "offer up the girl" for the second stat bonus option as well as your character not receiving the initial one for letting her go free.

All that said, yes lvl 5 would help but also allowing us to finish act 1 might be nice. Another incentive to bring folks back in would be introducing the "roll stats" option for player testing. Lets hope one of those are implemented in patch 8 along with another class option to test like Monk, Pally, or Bard, and some more racial options would be nice. Though my personal preference would be to bring in Monk, Stat Rolling, and more racial options (like Orcs, Gnomes, etc.. )

Side Note 2: I really wish they would consider Shadar Kai as a sub elf race with the +2 dex, +1 Con, Necrotic resistance, Darkvision, and Shadow Step, as they would fit the lore in this story well.

I approve this message!!!

Level 5 is where the majority of the class differences start to come online as well. A lot of the complaints about classes currently feeling rather samey would vanish overnight.

That said, there is an argument to be made in that extra attack also considers shove to be an attack, so you could legit double shove in a turn. Maybe Larian wants to figure out what to do with that before raising the level cap in EA.

Well, right now extra attack is no problem for Shove, since that costs Bonus Action ... and we would still have only one. :-/

Question is what is more powerfull ... double shove ... or attack, extra attack and shove. :-/

So far it seems like Larian is struggling with implementation for Extra Attack alone tho. :-/
Presuming based on Githyanki patrol and Duergar encounters.

+1. Let us test platforming and verticality Larian. We know you'll just mess it up otherwise Although at this point I'm quite confident they might not even care to implement spells like water walk or fly or spider climb...

My thoughts exactly. That's why I wrote the following a year ago:

Back then, the community was clearly much more optimistic, because the only response I got was "Oh, just go away, man...".

Just have them look at Solasta, where you may see a vampire standing under the bridge your standing on...oh never mind! I hate feeling like a troll.

Your right in thinking, that all features that we take for granted may not be there. No matter how good Larian's intentions are, time and budget are a reality.

Better to appreciate what we do get and be pleasantly surprised with the little luxuries.


Now their project management strategy eludes me...of course start testing level 5 (and a lot of other things).

Sooner than latter would be good...but my give up.

I can 100% say that I never played a D&D game level 5+ where platforming hasn't played a vast role in both the fun of the table and as a strategic mechanic, even without casters. If Larian at this point isn't able, willing, or capable of handling platforming in a AAA 2023 CRPG of Dungeons and Dragons then I feel like the game is gonna have huge problems besides all the obvious ones most of the people in this forum has. If that's the case, they shouldn't have taken the project. I just cringe at the idea of being in a 10 feet wide 50 feet high room, fighting a huge monster and not being able to fireball 10 feet high so that I don't nuke my party.

Also I'll kindly not appreciate what we get as I've payed full price for an EA that I've been lied to on how it would be handled.

Not so much for vacant optimism :P

This is a reflection of my thoughts as well. We are less than 12 months to the 2023 release, if Larians keeps to its schedule. They sounded pretty confident on this tentative release date.

Every new variable that is introduce, be it a new class or new ability, the complexity of the game increases. This why I think Level 3 abilities need to be introduce sooner rather than later to head off a potential avalanche of bugs in the game, before it is released. The last thing any company needs is a release full of unexpected bugs and glitches. So far I am impressed with what Larian has released, but the clock is ticking. They could push the date back even further, but well ... time will tell. I have been involved in game releases going all the way back to the original everquest. I like this game a lot. It has a turn based sequence of progression. There is a lot of quality in this game. This game should attract all ages from the youngest to the oldest. It is a thinking game involving tactics, strategy and action with a well written story that continues to improve. Time now for me to go back into the shadows and wait for events to play out. Thank you for your thoughts and discussion.

Eh ... what? O_o
Maybe i missed something, but as far as i know, all we get so far was "2023" ...

Did anyone somwhere mentioned moth, or even quarter?
Since as far as i know, all we can say for sure is that right now we are "somewhere between 12 - 19" months to release ... since it may quite easily means "January 2023" and "December 2023" aswell as everything in between ofc.

Yeah, actually. If Larian sticks to "2023" we are 8-19 months from release, although I'll be surprised if they release it before cyber monday 2023. When you are playing the "pig in a poke" game, nothing is better than a pre-christmas shopping frenzy.

I think I remember it being said that they estimate they have about a year of development left plus as estimated late 2022 release slipped into 2023, people assume it will be in first half of 2023 rather then the latter one. But BG3 never got a release date to begin with, so really, it could by anytime in 2023.

Judging by the rate of patches/content since EA release, imo BG3 will almost certainly be released in the latter half of 2023 at earliest. I'd give it slightly-better-than-even odds for latter-2023 vs early-2024.

Judging by rate of patches ... how long will be waiting for next one?
It allready feels like eternity since we get Barbarian. :-/

My gues ... 1-2 moths?

Big patches (significant upgrades, new character, new area) have been released every ~4 months:
EA = Oct 2020
Patch 2 = Oct, 2020 (small update: cinematics)
Patch 3 = Dec, 2020 (medium update: inspiration, pacifism, auto-jumping)
Patch 4 = Feb, 2021 (druid)
Patch 5 = July, 2021 (camping, SH updates, enemy AI & spells)
Patch 6 = Oct, 2021 (grymforge & sorcerer)
Patch 7 = Feb, 2022 (barbarian, thrown weapons, UI)

So the next patch should be around June/July: so yeah 1-2 months.

The game has 3 more classes (monk, paladin, bard), probably 1 more area, and I'm guessing 1 companion. Add in a QoL/mechanics patch -> total of 5 more patches -> June 2022, Oct 2022, Feb 2023, June 2023, and Oct 2023.

Nah, they were aiming for early 2023 release. Mid 2023 the latest most likely. But nicely spotted for the +/- 4 months schedule.
And you're most likely right regarding the upcoming content ( for EA obviously).

Source please?

For the 2023 release:
For the " early 2023 " Sven said it in one of the latest panels from Hell. Couldn't find which one exactly but he was basically saying " We tried to wrap it up in 2022 but it's unrealistic and early 2023 is what we're aiming for right now" . Something among those lines.