Unfortunately Larian have kind of settled on the "not communicating at all" ......
I also think this is a major contributor to the unrest on here and Reddit. No one knows what is going on at all.
I do agree with this! I get that it is bloody hard to communicate everything when you are making a game and they have plenty things on their minds, but as of now it feels like we only get occational glimpses every now and then in interviews or their videos.
It would be lovely if they could have a Q&A or something where they state what they have been reading and where, what their thoughts are and basically what is unnecessary for us to communicate or not. I am sure they do have some things they refuse to change and it would be nice to know about those. Also what they feel is possible or not to implement.
I do not expect there will be any direct exchange of views. Unlike a small indy with a tightly focussed target audience ( e.g. the Solasta dev team ), Larian are now a well-known studio, making a game with a broad audience, and need to balance the views of their entire player base.
With 1 Million+ EA players, even the subset that hang out on forums is too large to engage with directly, and inevitably will contain a cohort of toxic players that would be counter-productive to communicate directly with.
If I were Larian. I would do exactly as they are doing. Solicit information from any sources that they can ( including actual player behaviour that they obtain from the game ), assess overall sentiment and adjust where necessary.
It would be interesting if they were to offer another AMA, because at least they can prepare their position for expected questions, and not need to engage in a potentially hostile two-way exchange.
However, it would be incorrect to think that they are not listening, because thay do attempt to put forward their position in their videos. The whole reason behind Jeremy C's appearance on Panel From Hell 2 was to have him sanction changes to the 5e desktop rules for a product that is not desktop-based ( if you didn't understand this "sub-text" in the video, you should watch it again ). This is not a revelation, WotC have said it before, and even their own digital products are not 5e compliant.
