Hello. Need abit of an explaination.

[Yes, I have a Mic.]

Let me preface; I was a hardcore BG1 and BG2 fan. I didn't much like the idea of paying for early access for something that may not be fit to lick their boots so I waited and hoped. And now I'm back, looking at negative reviews to see what the potential flaws are.

Here are some of my favourite quotes;
“Looking great so far, but annoying that theres no discount or any real benefit for a limited early access where your progress gets wiped every patch. Paying full price to be a play tester for 2-3 years is pretty ridiculous”

“The Early Access for this game was released in October of 2020; this means it was *after* the most devastating early months of the COVID pandemic. When it was released, it was advertised as being "over 50% completed" and slated for a "late 2021" release date.”

“… and the devs clarifying that Early Access will *never* see more than the first 4 levels of character progression and an incomplete Act 1…”

“At the end of the day the system revokes player agency. Your RP choices don't matter. Your attention to detail don't matter. Your combat plans don't matter. EVERYTHING is down to the roll of dice.”

“On Steam, on their Discord, on the Larian and BG3 forums - no matter where you go, if the dev team has administrative access to the discussion, they are bludgeoning all comments questioning the state of development into submission.”


So, if these quotes are to be believed this is basically Original Sin 3 with heavy RNG wearing the skin of my favourite game series that has its players paying full price for 2-3 years of rather limited early access.
And furthermore, despite it being "50% done" three years ago there is no specified release date and no further acts planned before release.
Oh but thats ok because noones supposed to talk about it anyway.

Would someone like to give me a explanation please.
Now thank you.

EDIT:
Very detailed answers:
Yojo0o

Detailed answers:
Pan Darius Loveless
larhtas

Answers:
A Sociopath
Quillithe

A waste of time and patience:
Thomas
Grimreaper
Hobocop
Hisdudeness
Farsha
Nx Machina

These results are disappointing. I suggest the last category do better next time.

[A Sociopath]

These are very good and true quotes, which you'll get zero constructive answers to here. Enjoy the ride.

[Yojo0o]

The explanation would be that you can't please anybody, I guess?

“Looking great so far, but annoying that theres no discount or any real benefit for a limited early access where your progress gets wiped every patch. Paying full price to be a play tester for 2-3 years is pretty ridiculous”

This is a subjective opinion that the devs acknowledge as being perfectly valid in their Early Access disclosure blurb on the store page. If you're not interested in paying full price to mess around in an incomplete game, then you are 100% encouraged by the developer to wait for full release, as you might any other game.

“The Early Access for this game was released in October of 2020; this means it was *after* the most devastating early months of the COVID pandemic. When it was released, it was advertised as being "over 50% completed" and slated for a "late 2021" release date.”

This is an outright lie. No such promises were ever met, and I'd challenge you or anybody to produce such a promise.

“… and the devs clarifying that Early Access will *never* see more than the first 4 levels of character progression and an incomplete Act 1…”

I don't see the problem? We were only ever going to see a demo.

“At the end of the day the system revokes player agency. Your RP choices don't matter. Your attention to detail don't matter. Your combat plans don't matter. EVERYTHING is down to the roll of dice.”

This is another subjective opinion, one I strongly disagree with. DnD is a dice-based system, as you know from your experience in BG1-2. Missing an attack because you rolled badly doesn't mean you've lost player agency. This person clearly isn't interested in a dice-based system, and should probably not have purchased this game, since it is very clearly a DnD game that features dice-based combat. The presence of dice in combat doesn't rob you of strategy in combat, as I'm sure you know.

“On Steam, on their Discord, on the Larian and BG3 forums - no matter where you go, if the dev team has administrative access to the discussion, they are bludgeoning all comments questioning the state of development into submission.”

This sounds like somebody raging because they made an unpopular post. Yeah, if you make a rude "GAME WHEN" post, the folks who are actually enjoying the game probably won't treat you like royalty. Otherwise, citation needed. I've never seen any administrative removal of honest criticism, but I have seen troll threads locked.

So, now that I've answered your question, I'll ask you one in return: Why are you only reading negative reviews? This game has 88% all-time positive reviews and 92% recent positive reviews. And, in my experience, many of the negative reviews are simply about the wait time for the game itself, not actual negative reception of the game. Why ignore all the positive reception? You're a fan of BG1-2 like me. Shouldn't you be hoping the sequel is worthy of the originals, rather than looking for reasons why it wouldn't be?

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Most of those reviews are hyperbolic.

The game releases on Aug 31st. It is not delayed.

If people didn't want to pay full price for EA then they shouldn't have, Larian even encouraged them not to.

This has been the best EA I've ever played and I commend Larian for doing everything right.

The game itself:

It's a 5th edition D&D game with a smattering of Larian's homebrew, which often reminds on of Divinity.

The biggest similarities between BG3 and DoS are the way Larian likes to design encounters (with more emphasis on environment and puzzle solving than character and party building), surface effects are everywhere and too prominent, and explosive barrels are a staple of every battle.

Some of the homebrew rules are downright broken and trivialize combat.

All of these things can be addressed by mods, and Larian has another PFH coming up on July 7th where they may show us they are fixing some things themselves.

I have nothing but optimism for this game.

[Thomas]

Originally posted by A Sociopath:

These are very good and true quotes, which you'll get zero constructive answers to here. Enjoy the ride.

most of them are false or out of date

[His Dudeness]

Man just loves to revel on negative.

[A Sociopath]

Originally posted by Thomas:

Originally posted by A Sociopath:

These are very good and true quotes, which you'll get zero constructive answers to here. Enjoy the ride.

most of them are false or out of date

The only false quote is the "only level 4" part, and the difference is that they actually added level 5, we are still experiencing an incomplete act 1.

[Grimreaper]

So you are someone who looks for the bad/negative things and wants someone to come in here to confirm your confirmation bias. And anyone who has an opposing opinion to the one you created by looking at the negative is a "fanboy" correct?

[Quillithe]

Short answer, those quotes aren't to be believed

[Yojo0o]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Short answer, those quotes aren't to be believed

The first one is totally fine, it's just not an objective experience.

Yeah, I paid full price for access to an incomplete game with no release date. I'm a fan of the franchise and the developers, I was eager for a sneak peak, and I got the opportunity to directly provide feedback as a tester to the devs. This was worth it to me. If it's not worth it to somebody else, that's entirely okay, too.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Yojo0o:

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Short answer, those quotes aren't to be believed

The first one is totally fine, it's just not an objective experience.

Yeah, I paid full price for access to an incomplete game with no release date. I'm a fan of the franchise and the developers, I was eager for a sneak peak, and I got the opportunity to directly provide feedback as a tester to the devs. This was worth it to me. If it's not worth it to somebody else, that's entirely okay, too.

Yeah, it was a very short answer. The one about early access being only 4 levels and one act is mostly true too, though obviously a little wrong now

[His Dudeness]

And now I'm back

Why now? It's not a 31th august. Wait until release and see fresh reviews on full game, not about EA.

[Hobocop]

Is this another 'Not my Baldur's Gate' thread?

Because it sure is looking like one based on that last paragraph.

The recent nonsense around FF16 not being a 'real' Final Fantasy despite it embodying the exact essence of the franchise (ever-changing and willing to take risks with the mainline IP to reach new audiences) has only made these kinds of topics even more trite and hilarious to me.

And hey, maybe if BG3 gets people who wouldn't normally be interested in these kinds of games to play it, all the better. It might make them more open to checking out other titles in a similar vein, including the original games, which can only be a good thing, yes? Much like how D:OS2 convinced more than a few folks who didn't normally like turn-based games to change their minds.

[Farsha]

It's a DnD game. You roll dice, I don't understand the complain you can't role play.
You role play only when everything goes as you planned?
Fun of DnD roleplay, is in the failed rolls and how you react to that.

Release date is very finite 31.8.23.

And Price issues? You want discount for something that was not released yet?
Even now for 60Eur, full 1st EA walk trough is around 45hrs.
That is far more than average AAA title will last you today.

None of the complains make any sense.
Game is far from perfect and it will not be.
It has it's issues.
But is well worth the time and money if you like CRPGs and DnD.

[Yes, I have a Mic.]

Originally posted by Yojo0o:

... You're a fan of BG1-2 like me. Shouldn't you be hoping the sequel is worthy of the originals, rather than looking for reasons why it wouldn't be?

Yojo0 provided a thorough answer. His arguments seemed reasonable and in good faith. Time will prove how much holds merit. In response to his question; if you want to know the flaws you find negative reviews that do not rely on hyperbole. Good reviews very rarely mention these.
Yojo0 has earned a major award.

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

I have nothing but optimism for this game.

This last quote gives me pause, nothing but optimism. This hints at bias and indeed he is very forgiving of the time frame.
However, Pan gave a thorough account of what he found to be good in this game and never descended into hyperbole.
Pan has earned an award.

Originally posted by Thomas:

most of them are false or out of date

No details, not one. No award earned.

Originally posted by His Dudeness:

Man just loves to revel on negative.

No details, not one. Ad-hominem, assumption. No award earned.

Originally posted by A Sociopath:

The only false quote is the "only level 4" part, and the difference is that they actually added level 5, we are still experiencing an incomplete act 1.

Voluntary confirmation of a detail.
A Sociopath earned a minor award.

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Short answer, those quotes aren't to be believed

Although a detail is confirmed later it was after someone had already volunteered it. There is no way to know if he would have before. Benefit of doubt given.
Quillithe earned a minor award.

Originally posted by Grimreaper:

So you are someone who looks for the bad/negative things and wants someone to come in here to confirm your confirmation bias. And anyone who has an opposing opinion to the one you created by looking at the negative is a "fanboy" correct?

Strawman. Just a strawman.
No award earned.

Originally posted by Hobocop:

Is this another 'Not my Baldur's Gate' thread?

Hyperbole, ad-hominem, extreme amounts of irrelevant detail to questions asked.
No award earned.

Originally posted by Farsha:

And Price issues? You want discount for something that was not released yet?

Farsha offers his perspective on DnD. This is a good start that is quickly ruined by a strawman. This could have been forgiven if answers were given but far from answering the questions he quickly dismisses them entirely.
No award earned.

[Yojo0o]

Ooh, we're getting awards!

Look, I see the merit of reading negative reviews, I just don't agree with the idea of focusing on them. Any review is capable of bias, positive or negative. Any review is also potentially written by an idiot, positive or negative. If we're crowd-sourcing information as to the quality of a game, which reading user reviews is, shouldn't we be looking at it all together, rather than assigning more legitimacy or weight to negatives? How do you know these reviews aren't resorting to hyperbole, having not played the game yourself?

If we're worried about hyperbolic reviews, I'd highlight the second to last review, and your subsequent conclusion. I'll re-quote it for reference:

“At the end of the day the system revokes player agency. Your RP choices don't matter. Your attention to detail don't matter. Your combat plans don't matter. EVERYTHING is down to the roll of dice.”

I mean, this is hyperbolic as hell, my guy. This guy paints the entire game as some sort of "Heavy RNG" experience, in your own words in your conclusion. But... it's not. It's DnD, which is a dice-based system. As a BG1-2 player, you know all about dice-based systems. Presumably, you wouldn't label BG1-2 as "heavy RNG".