"Baldur’s Gate 3 is Causing Some Developers to Panic"

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

The biggest difference between Taleworlds and Larian is that Larian did have an early access where they LISTENED TO THE COMMUNITY. Taleworlds gave us early access because they wanted free beta testers that would actually pay them money, they took advantage of the hype.

Look at the Multiplayer, is a hot mess because TW ignored the whole community about it, and so many singleplayer suggestions are now forgotten forever

Multiplayer was bad because they didn't know what they were doing. Their vision for the game as a class and perk based shooter was fundamentally flawed. Taking community suggestions during a beta is basically too little too late, and isn't going to fix the core problems.

"Listening to the fans" is essentially just QA testing after the game has mostly been completed. Sure you can take suggestions on how to improve a games presentation and mechanics, but only if the core idea works in the first place. Bannerlord is a mess because those core ideas are a mess, but baldurs gate 3 (while not my cup of tea) is good because the core idea is well thought out, and would have been good (if a bit rougher) even without community feedback.

 

[JunKeteer]

Though I don't like the GAAS/battlepass model, it works and has been done well for certain games/studios/genres; same with console/PC ports.

BL is not going that route, they are still a single-purchase game; same as BG3. Major difference, BG3 is complete at purchase all things considered (besides some minor bugs/story logic scripts); BL isn't.
Both certainly have bugs and QoL features to improve the game but BL's list is probably massive in comparison, especially as there's issues still present from EA 3 years ago.

 

[Mad Vader]

Bannerlord is a mess because those core ideas are a mess

Community feedback certainly worked in BL MP, and a vast majority of players (and I mean VAST) was fine with the class design.

 

[Shiroin]

Community feedback certainly worked in BL MP, and a vast majority of players (and I mean VAST) was fine with the class design.

Yeah, I see that.
I can confirm that a vast of players (i mean VAST) are satisfied with multiplayer.

 

[Apocal]

I don't mind a fix or two, but at the end of the day: official release = finished game, period.

The only way that will ever happen is if live service games make less money than one-and-done releases. And that isn't very likely.

 

[Goyyyio]

Yeah, I see that.
I can confirm that a vast of players (i mean VAST) are satisfied with multiplayer.

Hilarious how 2 of those commenters are now banned, 578 was deranged though. I'm very sad they were so dull headed about this, I understand and agree with what you say Kentucky but on the other hand it does look like they could've gone another direction if the beta results weren't good. I wonder who those players were, it doesn't feel like pro clans played it at all.

 

[histamiini]

Yeah lets make Bannerlord a Total War game. Larian has created more idiots in Internet with their BG DOS copy than any game before.

 

[froggyluv]

Yeah lets make Bannerlord a Total War game. Larian has created more idiots in Internet with their BG DOS copy than any game before.

I dont understand what your saying here or if your being sarcastic. its not my kinda game but ive heard nothing but good things about its level of polish -are you saying that they've created an impossibly high standard of release?

 

[histamiini]

I dont understand what your saying here or if your being sarcastic. its not my kinda game but ive heard nothing but good things about its level of polish -are you saying that they've created an impossibly high standard of release?

It's a new BG story copy&pasted into a Divinity Original Sin game engine. Hardly a massive feat. Completely different than developing new simulation engine from ground up, where everything affects everything.

 

[froggyluv]

Completely different than developing simulation engine from ground up, where everything affects everything.

Ahh ok i see your point now

 

[Goyyyio]

Did Taleworlds took suggestions from the community that modders made into mods with their own ideas and put them in an "appreciation" post instead of adding it themselves to the game? Is this a thing that developers do now?

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

It's a new BG story copy&pasted into a Divinity Original Sin game engine. Hardly a massive feat. Completely different than developing new simulation engine from ground up, where everything affects everything.

People are seemingly using Baldur's Gate 3 to vent their frustration about other games coming out now, which are mostly just scams. To me it looks boring as hell, turn based squad combat is probably the dullest thing i can imagine building an entire game around, it reminds me of Xcom 3 which people also praised relentlessly at the time despite it being seen as kind of mediocre now.

If Baldur's Gate 3 had come out in say 2018 amongst actual competition nobody would be gushing over it like they are. But its been released alongside such gamer classics as diablo IV with its insane battlepass ****e, and blizzard outright deleting overwatch 1. Gaymers are generally quite mad right now.

 

[Mad Vader]

"I don't like turned based combat, therefore no one else should enjoy it. All praise of TBC games is undeserved and should stop.
I also personally had a good time around year 20xx, so it was the best year for anything and now everything is ****."

Meanwhile, I do look forward to Starfield and the Cyberpunk DLC coming next month. It's great time for gaming.

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

People are seemingly using Baldur's Gate 3 to vent their frustration about other games coming out now, which are mostly just scams. To me it looks boring as hell, turn based squad combat is probably the dullest thing i can imagine building an entire game around, it reminds me of Xcom 3 which people also praised relentlessly at the time despite it being seen as kind of mediocre now.

If Baldur's Gate 3 had come out in say 2018 amongst actual competition nobody would be gushing over it like they are. But its been released alongside such gamer classics as diablo IV with its insane battlepass ****e, and blizzard outright deleting overwatch 1. Gaymers are generally quite mad right now.

XCOM 3, like, Apocalypse?

And honestly it would probably get a similar amount of attention in 2018 as it is now, Baldur's Gate is inexplicably the holy grail of Western cRPGs despite the other two games being absolutely terrible, on that alone there would be significant buzz. Realistically, though, what would it have been competing with in 2018? We were only teetering over the precipice as opposed to halfway to the bottom, true, but the signs were still there. I'm pretty sure I knew Bannerlord was going to be **** in 2018.

 

[Orion]

Hilarious how 2 of those commenters are now banned, 578 was deranged though. I'm very sad they were so dull headed about this, I understand and agree with what you say Kentucky but on the other hand it does look like they could've gone another direction if the beta results weren't good. I wonder who those players were, it doesn't feel like pro clans played it at all.

I can tell you both had disciplinary issues before the BL beta, and they weren't banned for negging the game. Nobody is, or I'd be banned, too.

It didn't feel like deeply invested, hardcore fans of Warband beta tested BL because TW refused to budge on most issues that were raised during the closed beta. I can confirm that top native competitive players were hand-picked as testers specifically to identify complex or nuanced issues & reliably report them as problematic where a more casual group would just gloss over them as "part of the game." We did exactly that, but some of the biggest problems were core concepts of what TW wanted MP to be. As you can see in the "I mean VAST" links above, TW brushed these concerns aside wholesale by labelling just about everyone they hand-picked to test their game as impossible to please haters.

I'm sure that in their minds, the greatest mistake of the BL closed beta was letting a couple of Warband competitive players pick the tester pool. Think what you want about Callum as a community manager, but he did right by all of us with the selection process. There was no shortage of reasonable, well-presented, and deep feedback from those players, but TW rejected it all and the players naturally became frustrated.

 

[Apocal]

XCOM 3, like, Apocalypse?

Chimera Squad.

 

[Dodgy]

It's a new BG story copy&pasted into a Divinity Original Sin game engine. Hardly a massive feat. Completely different than developing new simulation engine from ground up, where everything affects everything.

So in your opinion, what they did with Bannerlord is actually way more difficult?
Well they certainly had more time overall, didn't they? 13 years give or take against about 6 but please feel free to correct me as I am going by what my poor memory is telling me and can't be bothered to double check things online.

In any case, we are comparing apples to oranges here given the completely different kind of games.
My humble opinion is that when it comes to complexity, an rpg with massive dialogue/event branches like BG3 that can cause quests to break depending on a massive amount of potential outcomes seem way harder to get right and to a polished state.

To say a game such as that is "hardly a massive feat" and suggest that Bannerlord in its current (broken) iteration in twice as much the development time is a bigger feat to accomplish, well I couldn't disagree more.

 

[JunKeteer]

There was no shortage of reasonable, well-presented, and deep feedback from those players, but TW rejected it all and the players naturally became frustrated.

This is the crux of the issue, not saying all feedback here or otherwise is 'good'. But it's like it doesn't matter anyways - they'll do what they want at their own pace, if a change/patch they have in the works happens to address a feedback maybe 2 years ago, they'll point to it and say 'look, we do listen!'.

 

[JunKeteer]

It's a new BG story copy&pasted into a Divinity Original Sin game engine. Hardly a massive feat. Completely different than developing new simulation engine from ground up, where everything affects everything.

Sounds like you were talking about BG3 more than BL, where everything affects everything. You barely feel that in BL despite the 'economy' effects; which are all very shallow.

 

[Blacke]

People are seemingly using Baldur's Gate 3 to vent their frustration about other games coming out now, which are mostly just scams. To me it looks boring as hell, turn based squad combat is probably the dullest thing i can imagine building an entire game around, it reminds me of Xcom 3 which people also praised relentlessly at the time despite it being seen as kind of mediocre now.

If Baldur's Gate 3 had come out in say 2018 amongst actual competition nobody would be gushing over it like they are. But its been released alongside such gamer classics as diablo IV with its insane battlepass ****e, and blizzard outright deleting overwatch 1. Gaymers are generally quite mad right now.

I wrote the OP and yes I use "Baldur's Gate 3 to vent my frustrations about others games coming out now" (and the ones that have already been released btw), but also toward studios/editors and a whole generation of devs that keep the video game industry where undelivery/dlc/gamepass/micro-transactions is a norm.

So what ?

Today players are taking this release to say that this has to stop, tomorow it might be through another game or a particular event.

For the record, turn-based combat systems aren't my cup of tea. I'm not a big fan of the characters design (not that I find it ugly, I just don't like it). And I can't stand generic fantasy universes with elves/demons/blablabla anymore. I played BG1 and BG2 when I was younger, still have the boxes somewhere. But my thoughts about BG3, as well as yours, are totally irrelevant.

The fact Baldur's Gate 3 is a finished game, without petty DLC or any other way to make players pay again despite they bought the game, that the studio truly listens and communicates with its community is simply an anomaly in today standards. And it shouldn't be.

That, is the point.

What Larian has done is reminding everyone this was a norm decades ago. We simply forgot it, drowned by what industry greedy/bad/poor-planned decisions provided us for years and probably as well because a new generation of players never experienced anything else than this.

Don't take us has beta testers or cash cows, finish your games, plan your stuff better and respect your community.