I am talking strictly on the basis of bugs/incompleteness not the overall quality/scope of the games. But also "it barely ran on PCs" neither did Act 3. I have a 7950X and I still drop down to 40fps in some places even after the patches. People with say a 3600X were barely scraping 30. If we're talking about the trend of games being unfinished or buggy on launch then BG3 deserves to be called out for the same.
On just bugs I still disagree that it's anywhere near cp2077, but yeah there is a trend of games being buggy on launch and that defo has to be called out, especially when it's bugs that most people come across that are not even niche or very specific. Performance in act 3 still has a long way to go yeah, luckily it's not a fast paced game or a… shooter, so it's not the end of the world, but not very pleasant either.
I'm surprised I don't hear more people talk about this, maybe because they seemed to strategically handle bugs and content more thoroughly in the early game so that a lot of players would gush about that and be more forgiving by the time they got to act 3, along with everyone who didn't even make it that far and only praised it online instead.
Starfield gets dragged through the mud for both deserved and undeserved reasons, almost universally without nuance, and BG3 gets blanket praise and acclaim, almost universally without nuance, and then I see this comment thread where there are apparently some serious issues grouped within a specific portion of the game and I'm not sure if that's better or not.
Part of it is the game just being so huge. Most people aren't even going to hit Act 3 until 50-60 hours in which is already much longer than most other games. So you've already formed your opinion of the game by the time you hit the less polished part.
And to be fair, those first 50-60 hours are pretty great. (Minus some gripes with things like pathing and inventory management) If the game just straight up ended with Act 2 I would be completely satisfied. I didn't even mention this because I wanted to focus on the bugs but even narrative, pacing, and quest design in Act 3 is just so rough compared to the other two. It almost feels like a different game or a different developer. The quality drop is that drastic IMO.
I am worried that other studios might look at this and realize they can just front-load the best content and all the polish in the first section and neglect the rest to fix later. It sets a bad precedent.
Indeed, that's the worry. It sometimes seems like AAA game development is learning just how far you can push the average gamer and still get good word of mouth online by way of leaving choice aspects incomplete and compromised
MMOs have been front loading the best content since at least Conan. Remember that one, the first zone had amazing quests and voice acting that the rest of the game didn't.
I am talking strictly on the basis of bugs/incompleteness not the overall quality/scope of the games. But also "it barely ran on PCs" neither did Act 3. I have a 7950X and I still drop down to 40fps in some places even after the patches. People with say a 3600X were barely scraping 30. If we're talking about the trend of games being unfinished or buggy on launch then BG3 deserves to be called out for the same.
On just bugs I still disagree that it's anywhere near cp2077, but yeah there is a trend of games being buggy on launch and that defo has to be called out, especially when it's bugs that most people come across that are not even niche or very specific. Performance in act 3 still has a long way to go yeah, luckily it's not a fast paced game or a… shooter, so it's not the end of the world, but not very pleasant either.
I'm surprised I don't hear more people talk about this, maybe because they seemed to strategically handle bugs and content more thoroughly in the early game so that a lot of players would gush about that and be more forgiving by the time they got to act 3, along with everyone who didn't even make it that far and only praised it online instead.
Starfield gets dragged through the mud for both deserved and undeserved reasons, almost universally without nuance, and BG3 gets blanket praise and acclaim, almost universally without nuance, and then I see this comment thread where there are apparently some serious issues grouped within a specific portion of the game and I'm not sure if that's better or not.
Part of it is the game just being so huge. Most people aren't even going to hit Act 3 until 50-60 hours in which is already much longer than most other games. So you've already formed your opinion of the game by the time you hit the less polished part.
And to be fair, those first 50-60 hours are pretty great. (Minus some gripes with things like pathing and inventory management) If the game just straight up ended with Act 2 I would be completely satisfied. I didn't even mention this because I wanted to focus on the bugs but even narrative, pacing, and quest design in Act 3 is just so rough compared to the other two. It almost feels like a different game or a different developer. The quality drop is that drastic IMO.
I am worried that other studios might look at this and realize they can just front-load the best content and all the polish in the first section and neglect the rest to fix later. It sets a bad precedent.
Indeed, that's the worry. It sometimes seems like AAA game development is learning just how far you can push the average gamer and still get good word of mouth online by way of leaving choice aspects incomplete and compromised
Worry now about front loading?
MMOs have been front loading the best content since at least Conan. Remember that one, the first zone had amazing quests and voice acting that the rest of the game didn't.