Hereβs my thing: I donβt necessarily care what sort of game you make, I just want it to be feature-complete and technically solid (I.e. mostly bug-free). Whether thatβs a small indie game or a massive AAA game, those two things should be true.
I think what most people find frustrating is that the in-game store is the most well developed part of most AAA releases nowadays, which often ship riddled with bugs.
BG3 has still been riddled with bugs for me and since it doesn't have MTX or a store or anything, it feels kinda worse. At least I know why the crap riddled with MTX is rife with issues; what is BG3's excuse?
I actually agree with you. People praise BG3 as if it were the most perfect 10/10 video game in existence. Its far from it. It is riddled with bugs reaching from minor to game breaking. The best example is the very first few seconds of the game. The first thing the players are likely to interact with is the tadpole pool after awekening on the ship.
Minor spoiler
It explodes, knocking you back and causing damage.
As someone who made a few characters and played the intro section a lot, the animation is often times bugged and confusing. And thats the first interaction a player has with the game.
A few seconds later you stand in front of a door. Usually the door opens and you can go through. But sometimes the opening animation doesn't play. This happened on my very first time playing and I couldn't figure out where to go, because my first instinct wasn't to clip through the closed door. Things like this are absolutely unacceptable in the tutorial area.
Even though they already have full controller support it is very clear why the console release is delayed. The console player base is expected to be a lot more casual and unless they iron out all the confusing bugs they run the risk of people being frustrated and dropping the game.
And then there are other major things.
Why is there no native option for 3rd person WASD movement even though it is fully implemented for controllers?
Why does only the controller get a search area function but the keyboard doesn't?
Why is there no camera sensitivity for controllers?
Why are there no deadzone settings for controller joysticks?
Why is there a 1 second delay on movement when using a controller?
Why can't I set the text size below 64px when using a controller?
Why in a game that has been in early access for so long and a world full of magic can't we change our characters appearance post creation? (I know it's announced but why just now?)
Why do we not have advanced difficulty settings? (I'd love the enemies to be smart like "tactitian" but not be unhittable bullet sponges.)
Why is every adult character so goddamn hot in this game? I need my blood in my brain.
Why can we select a player voice, if the player isn't voiced beyond some minor quips?
Why isn't there a random name generator for your character?
Why can't I shift + click multiple items or containers to queue them up for pickup or search?
Why do container windows open on top of each other or other inventory windows?
Why can't I rename containers in my inventory?
Why can't I filter out or hide wares in my inventory?
Why can't I sort or filter items during trading or in the party view?
Why do containers always open in a 5x2 grid instead of trying to fit all the items without scrolling?
Why can I skip the rolling animation but not the success-continue animation?
etc.
I know I'm nitpicking here, but for a game that is as highly praised as this, I expect it also to nail all those minor things that other games have already figured out already (some of which were even their own older titles). Especially because it was Early Access and they had a lot of user feedback. I see it times and times again that studios apparently throw out all their previous knowledge of videogames and seemingly start from scratch on every title, making small stupid mistakes that could have been easily avoided. It's like the research process for video mechanics and UI never consists of actually looking at other games.
So for me, it's a very pretty game, its a beautifully sounding game and even a very fun game. But nowhere near a 10/10. It's a 7/10 game. Fix the bugs to bump it up to 8/10 implement some QoL for 9/10 and release modding tools so the community can make it a 10/10.
I know Iβm nitpicking here, but for a game that is as highly praised as this, I expect it also to nail all those minor things that other games have already figured out already
You realize that smaller companies have to do triage and prioritize what they're working on, yes? Take bugs/enhancements in a certain order? And usually the major things get taken care of first before the minor things are.
Also, some of the things you ask for, they may just not agree with you as being needed in the game.
Have you submitted that list to them for their consideration, directly (Github, etc.)?
I can't say for anyone else, but Karlach is hot because of that infernal engine she has for a heart. :P
Why can't I sort or filter items during trading or in the party view?
You can on a controller. Press in the left stick. The fact the UI between a controller and the M&KB is so completely different and you get dumb differences like this is another amateur hour move. I've played entirely on controller, but from talking to other people and seeing my sister play on her laptop, the M&KB interface is garbage and offers for fewer options far some damn reason.
Stupid question, but have you been letting Steam do game updates?
Unless you've changed the default settings, you have to let Steam do updates while not playing any games through Steam. By default it won't do any updates in the background.
Yes, everything updates automatically. I've gotten all the updates so far. Only a few of the changes made in any of them actually affected me. Most of the things I've experienced have yet to be addressed.
Most of the things Iβve experienced have yet to be addressed.
I was going to reply humorously with a comment along the lines of you should be moving from a technical to a spiritual solution, an exorcism perhaps, but I don't want to kick somebody when they're down, for the sake of comedy.
"I won't try this game because it's too highly reviewed!" What a weird hill to die on.
D4 seemed to have been great at launch, but the seasons and battle pass stuff ruin it for me (though you can like it if you want, I don't care). I don't like the idea of a game being on a timer and asking me to play the way they want me to play it. This is what BG3 does right. It's a game with many options and many ways to play. It never tells you how you should and you also don't need to pay extra for other crap. You get a complete experience from start to finish with no timers and nothing extra asked of you.
I dunno the part where they try to make themselves out to be some kind of hero over racism randomly because they didn't play a game has gotta decrease the score by at least a couple. Just feels like they're trying too hard I dunno. Feels basic
I feel you on the deepthroating shit. It's a great game, no doubt about it. But some of these articles act like it's the second coming of Christ, and if I am to be entirely honest... It's not quite as good as the original games. It's lacking a lot of depth in the story telling (it's almost entirely voiced so there's more brevity in any given conversation than the pages upon pages of text even a random nobody can give you in BG2), but makes up for it with mechanical depth.
I agree it's a big deal for a major release to not have MTX or a season pass or other bullshit, and that should definitely be applauded. But some of the things I've seen said about the game are out right fraudulent. Like an article the other day saying it is the most polished AAA game in over a decade, which is absurd. The game is plagued with issues and the polish is literally the one thing I can not give it praises for. It even feels amateur in a lot of ways. Like it has many little issues I would not expect from a seasoned developer, and many bugs ranging from minor inconveniences to full blown game breaking stuff like scripts firing wrong leading to an outcome you didn't choose to take or characters becoming comoletely broken being unable to move or be interacted with.
Story is great. It actually feels like a remix of the first Baldur's Gate story. Characters are some of the best I've seen in a long time. The combat is super fun, especially when you try to do weird random shit just to see if it works; cuz 90% of the time it does. There is a depth to the changes you can have on the world at large that are extremely cool and haven't been done on such a scale before in all the RPGs I've played over the years...
Although that last part is where the previous talk about bugs really starts to drag the experience down. There have been so many points in my two playthroughs of the game where I took one path, but got the dialogue and changes to the world of another path. Like currently, my party keeps talking about one of the companions killing another. But they didn't; I stopped that from happening. So now this character is standing around in the background while other characters talk about her death. And that's not even the worst one I've encountered.
I think it's funny talking about the second coming. It really is the second coming if anyone follows it. The thing is, it's not extraordinary in the grand scheme of gaming. It's just not something we've had in a long time on a large scale. It pretty much follows the norm for 2000s/90s games, but that's why it's an outlier. We don't get those anymore. Bioware used to make games like it, but they don't now and they'll tell you it's not going to happen again despite technology being better.
I understand that publishers will force them to do certain things, but most AAA studios have the capability of making games that follow the same standard (but maybe not scale) of BG3 if it weren't for publishers. They shouldn't copy it, but they should internalize that players want complete experiences in the box, and they want to be treated like adults who can think for themselves.
Not all the issues are bugs. There are issues in the actual design of some systems that are amateur at best (such as the UI). Even most indie developers wouldn't have these issues, so seeing them in a AAA game that was in early access as long as this one has is totally unacceptable.