I had some really, really poor experiences with Act 3, and it was only later that I learned 90% of my issues were direct results of the Upper City being scrapped.

Karlach, Gortash, Wyll's father and Cazador are perhaps the biggest cases of this, with their stories feeling incomplete, buggy (at launch), and painfully linear relative to almost every other plot point in the game. In almost every case it's because a series of their events, triggers and event flags were placed in or tied to the upper city, and the events needed to be replaced, rewritten, and reflagged in something of a hurry.

Larian is a great studio, and they've made some of my favorite modern games, but they do this with every release. I'm a little disappointed that this is the one time they're not going back and "finishing" the final act a year later, the way they did with Original Sin 1 and 2. I won't quite say I've been burnt by the purchase, or that the game is currently unfinished or doesn't deserve the praise it gets, but seeing what the game could and should have been is a bad aftertaste after an otherwise mostly satisfying meal.

The Steam thread breaking down the cut content, for reference: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1086940/discussions/0/3812913565885064204/

[–] kboy101222@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's fair.

I also can't blame them for ditching WotC ASAP. Their legacy properties feel like pump and dumps lately. Take a look at how many magic sets released in 2010 compared to today. Then their reportedly "backwards compatible" 5.5e isn't gonna be backwards compatible at all, and despite a decade of feedback, they still managed to fuck up more than one class completely. Bank of America dropped their ass for extreme product fatigue.

I wouldn't want to bet my company's future on WotC. I wouldn't want to bet my worst enemy's future on WotC's.

[–] Glide@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 months ago

Fucking Amen. Again, I am disappointed, but it is a great game in its current form and, particularly because WotC is involved, I do not blame them at all for their decisions regarding BG3.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 8 points 2 months ago

Completely agreed with all your points. Act 3 soured me on the game quite dramatically after being pretty high on it after the first two acts, and my only consolation (especially having also read that Steam page guide to cut content) was Larian's habit of releasing Definitive Editions of their games.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I'm just happy to see people finally admitting it wasn't perfectly polished on launch. I felt like I was being gaslit.

[–] Glide@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago

Right?! Watching it get worldwide acclaim was this strange experience, because Act 3 was nearly unplayable. Meanwhile, Acts 1 and 2 were such masterpieces that it's hard to call the game anything other than amazing. Criticizism felt misplaced, but the widespread acclaim it received was toom

I am glad it is a much more polished, finished feeling game now, and we can look back at it as the standard games should be held to, moving forward, but I'll still be disappointed in the way we failed to get what was initially planned.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

There were some major bugs, but none of them completely ruined my gameplay. I guess some people did have their gameplay ruined, and that really sucks. Overall I absolutely loved the game, even with the bugs. It's the best game I've ever played, and the only game I've played start to finish more than once. What's really neat is that I was still discovering new things on my 3rd playthrough, and each time felt very different.