Is it possible to "revert" patches?

[Abist Thuringiensis]

Absolutely love this game, but I'm having lots of issues playing the latest version.
Since my computer likes to act all funny I initially tried to pirate the game in order to test if I could run it properly...
Well, after snooping around for around 3,5 hours without any sorts of crashes, freezes of problems of any kind I obviously bought the game and started again...
Except that right after Act I starts and I get off the nautilus the game started crashing quite literally every 5 minutes.
[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3016159305
After following this incredibly helpful guide I managed to mitigate my issues impressively Tand not only on BG3, I really should find a way to offer the guy a beer.
but it's still quite inconsistent.

So, back on track, is there some way to manually revert the patches?

And how much would I be missing out if I were to, say, revert back to patch 1.0 or something?

[Hawke]

It is possible, but the save files from the later versions might be incompatible. I don't remember anything significantly positive in the patch notes, aside from the saving issue fix in one of the first hot fixes and character appearance editting.

From the same user:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3023295121

[Abist Thuringiensis]

Originally posted by Hawke:

It is possible, but the save files from the later versions might be incompatible. I don't remember anything significantly positive in the patch notes, aside from the saving issue fix in one of the first hot fixes and character appearance editting.

From the same user:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3023295121

Very thankful, thank you very much.

After investing give or take 35 hours in the game the prospect of losing my save is quite harrowing...

But could be a way to restart and make different choices I suppose.

Still, I find myself asking: how much content would I lose if I were to revert to a previous version?

It may be greedy of me to ask such a thing considering the incredible amount of content already present in the base game, but a big reason why I chose to purchase this game, aside from supporting Larian Studios, is because I don't want to miss a drop of content this game has to offer.

[Kafik]

Originally posted by Festina Lente:

Since my computer likes to act all funny I initially tried to pirate the game in order to test if I could run it properly...

lmfao JFC.

[Morvana]

Originally posted by Festina Lente:

It may be greedy of me to ask such a thing considering the incredible amount of content already present in the base game, but a big reason why I chose to purchase this game, aside from supporting Larian Studios, is because I don't want to miss a drop of content this game has to offer.

You won't lose much content, but you could encounter waaaay more bugs. If I remember well the last patch corrected more than a thousand... But it was playble even without that.

Your best bet is for one of the next patchs to correct your problem.

[Hawke]

Originally posted by Festina Lente:

Very thankful, thank you very much.

After investing give or take 35 hours in the game the prospect of losing my save is quite harrowing...

But could be a way to restart and make different choices I suppose.

Still, I find myself asking: how much content would I lose if I were to revert to a previous version?

It may be greedy of me to ask such a thing considering the incredible amount of content already present in the base game, but a big reason why I chose to purchase this game, aside from supporting Larian Studios, is because I don't want to miss a drop of content this game has to offer.

You are welcome.

There are some mutually exclusive paths (granted, the Evil path is not exactly enjoyable), hard to find/complete quests, and a lot of build variety, so another playthrough should provide a different experience.

At the moment, the epilogues are not implemented, Minthara's (a very optional companion) quest is told to be bugged, and the performance in Act 3 varies from user to user, so if losing progress is undesirable, you could back up the main save files until the next patch and start a new playthrough on the older version (requires creating a new Windows user or just copying the configuration and save files somewhere).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3029018792

[アンジェル]

If you liked Essential PC Tweaks to Improve Game Performance and Stability you might also like this
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3065050571
Neither I consider as good as my collective troubleshooting guide
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3027526886
but I felt I had to shorten it with how many people miss how much stuff or outright ignore the content despite the usefulness -as threadstarter pointed out correctly- for other games as well.
Hells, I even made a simpler version for preserving the game version because it felt the guide Hawke linked about how to use mods gets outright ignored, considering how many with mods issues keep posting stuff.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3077201809
Extra shiny and whatsonot. The data basis is thinner than thin on stuff with "regular crashes" due to the lack of information as people are not providing enough and not providing what matters. The only existing hints are that it is related to the latest graphics drivers being incompatible like once happened with Patch #2 and that the version 4.1.1.3767641 from 6th October is stable with the latest graphics drivers while using the latest version would be better with four versions earlier of the graphics drivers (save yourself headaches and keep the graphics drivers clean and only revert the game back if you must).
Make also sure to use this to be on the safe side ~
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3031161135

Originally posted by Morvana:

Originally posted by Festina Lente:

It may be greedy of me to ask such a thing considering the incredible amount of content already present in the base game, but a big reason why I chose to purchase this game, aside from supporting Larian Studios, is because I don't want to miss a drop of content this game has to offer.

You won't lose much content, but you could encounter waaaay more bugs. If I remember well the last patch corrected more than a thousand... But it was playble even without that.

Your best bet is for one of the next patchs to correct your problem.

You are not wrong with that. Personally I think it depends entirely whether you are bug plagued or not. Some users encounter more of them than others especially due to their playstyle and also because of their hardware.

Long story short: my advice is always to keep a "frozen game version" and start your playthrough and finish your playthrough on that is ideal - but it suffices if e.g. you keep a "frozen game version" and wait 2-4 weeks before continuing the playthrough on the newest game version unless there is hard reason to do so.

For example: when patch#4 got released and you kept a backup of the previous version, you could have take the wait and see approach and check the forums for any reported game blockers. If there are none after two weeks since patch release -> proceed with the latest version. If there are some which have not been before -> continue playing with the "frozen game version".

That is what mod users do anyroads, so they can enjoy their custom stuff throughout an entire playthrough. Otherwise they would have to fear that every two weeks, or weekly their game would break.

[Abist Thuringiensis]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

If you liked Essential PC Tweaks to Improve Game Performance and Stability you might also like this
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3065050571
Neither I consider as good as my collective troubleshooting guide
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3027526886
but I felt I had to shorten it with how many people miss how much stuff or outright ignore the content despite the usefulness -as threadstarter pointed out correctly- for other games as well.
Hells, I even made a simpler version for preserving the game version because it felt the guide Hawke linked about how to use mods gets outright ignored, considering how many with mods issues keep posting stuff.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3077201809
Extra shiny and whatsonot. The data basis is thinner than thin on stuff with "regular crashes" due to the lack of information as people are not providing enough and not providing what matters. The only existing hints are that it is related to the latest graphics drivers being incompatible like once happened with Patch #2 and that the version 4.1.1.3767641 from 6th October is stable with the latest graphics drivers while using the latest version would be better with four versions earlier of the graphics drivers (save yourself headaches and keep the graphics drivers clean and only revert the game back if you must).
Make also sure to use this to be on the safe side ~
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3031161135

Originally posted by Morvana:

You won't lose much content, but you could encounter waaaay more bugs. If I remember well the last patch corrected more than a thousand... But it was playble even without that.

Your best bet is for one of the next patchs to correct your problem.

You are not wrong with that. Personally I think it depends entirely whether you are bug plagued or not. Some users encounter more of them than others especially due to their playstyle and also because of their hardware.

Long story short: my advice is always to keep a "frozen game version" and start your playthrough and finish your playthrough on that is ideal - but it suffices if e.g. you keep a "frozen game version" and wait 2-4 weeks before continuing the playthrough on the newest game version unless there is hard reason to do so.

For example: when patch#4 got released and you kept a backup of the previous version, you could have take the wait and see approach and check the forums for any reported game blockers. If there are none after two weeks since patch release -> proceed with the latest version. If there are some which have not been before -> continue playing with the "frozen game version".

That is what mod users do anyroads, so they can enjoy their custom stuff throughout an entire playthrough. Otherwise they would have to fear that every two weeks, or weekly their game would break.

I want to let you know that your guide I first linked on this post is what started me on actually learning how to properly set up and maintain my computer's software health.
Using your advice I managed to solve some long-standing issues I had even with other games that I struggled with for about a year now.

Surely part (alright, most) of my issues were caused by my stubborn refusal to put in the effort to try and find solutions...
But the way your guide was set up has been so easy to follow and understand that it simply came natural to try and put an effort in understanding a bit more my computer as a whole, and for this I sincerely thank you.

I'll make sure to check out your other guides as well.