I haven't been following almost anything about BG3 (want to be surprised when I play it), so I don't know how faithfully they implemented 5e, but yeah, 5e is piss poor choice to be the core system for BG3, given how few choices player gets after initial character creation in 5e.
Obviously, given the setting, they had to use some D&D system, I'm not sure if WotC is playing any active role in that, so maybe they had no choice but to pick 5e, but 3/3.5e would be so much better fit for the game, no matter how old that system is.

Agreed, the 3.5 system lends itself a lot better to games like this with its sheer depth and breadth of choice. That's one of the reasons why I love Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous so much, the PF1 system is very similar to 3.5 and full of choice and breadth. The downside of it is the insane OP builds you can do by exploiting the mechanics (cough cough - my Halfling tank sporting 84AC at level 18...).

Neverwinter Nights was brilliant as well, in no small part due to the faithful adaptation of the core D20 system (kind of a mix between 3rd and 3.5).

For me, a game with the sprawling narrative structure and immense world-building of BG3 deserves a better system. Unfortunately, I think the BG and D&D IPs are tied at the feet, and WotC get a say in the implementation of the system in video games. I can only hope that a studio with the pedigree and talent of Larian will one day make a Pathfinder game. The 2e system is a lot more streamlined than 1e, but still plenty more deep than D&D 5e, and full of customization and actual logic in its rule-set. One of my biggest pet peeves about 5e is how they handle modifiers and the entire attack - defense system, it's just too simplified to be satisfactory. Not to mention the intoxicating flexibility of the 3-action economy of Pathfinder 2e.

My god, I'm ranting, I'll stop now! Glad to see more good 'ole Pen & Paper RPG fans in here!

I'm actually surprised how many play Pen&Paper here. I cannot say much to D&D5 (or4) as the last D&D I played was 3.5. I like Pathfinder too. And yes, friends of me also complain about more modern D&D, as apparently each class plays the same. but as I said, no personal experience here.

Yeah, PF2e is much better system than DnD 5e, when you look at class/level based TTRPG systems. Though (as I said in that other conversation we had), I'd rather PF2e went away completely with DnD legacy of AC being determining factor of your defense, and went with skill based combat (like Hackmaster 5e did).
Of course, once you get rid of DnD completely, there's plethora of skilled based TTRPGs that, IMO, play much better than any DnD or its offshoots, but that comes down to personal preference of class/level based VS no class/no level based approaches.

Well, classes don't feel quite the same in 5e, but lot (if not most) of classes have magic in 5e, so that may be one of the reasons why people feel that way.
Problems of 5e are too numerous for this thread, but bottom line is that it becomes too simplistic for players very quickly (in a bad way) and DM tools are either bad or non existent, so you have to go to homebrew or make up your own if you're running any resemblance of actual world and not linear narrative campaigns.

As for Pen&Paper - there is nothing like it in my opinion. Devs can spend hundreds of millions of dollars for single video game RPG and yet well DM/GMed TTRPG campaign will trounce it for me every time due to how flexible DM can be and react to player actions. Eventually, there will be video game RPGs with AI DMs, so maybe that will change my feeling toward the balance of the two.

I looked into it, and supposedly its been estimated (about half a year ago) to have gone past 5m sales in early access on steam alone
(who knows how accurate that is though).

In a update on steam blogs, the devs talked about "being joined by over 2m of you". That was from June this year.
Im assumeing thats people that bought the game on steam and played it there in early access.

So hopefully it ends up doing well enough.

Again, I'm not doubting that the game is going to be great; in fact, seeing the user score at Steam shows that those who have played it already are giving it an score almost as high as the previous entries, so obviously it is shaping up good. What I'm saying is that, in this particular instance, those devs are talking about scope, not quality; and I bet that if they have had imagined that they saying "I hope no one expects a 10, 20, 40-person team to make one" would be translated into "hey, don't expect anything as good from us", they would have refrained from giving an opinion on the matter.

Let's put it this way, nobody is expecting Spiderman 2 (or the next game from Bend Studios, for example) to have the same scope as GTA 6. Now, does that mean that those developers are not working hard enough to reach that "level of quality"? No, it just means that not every developer has the man power-budget-time to pulloff a game of such scope. That´s something that we tend to forget sometimes.

I agree with the overall sentiment, my main criticism is directed at the detractors from massive studios and publishers sitting on some of the biggest resources in the industry (the likes of Blizzard, Obsidian, Ubisoft, etc.). From these, it comes of as whining, as well as rationalizing poor practices within the industry. For smaller teams, it's of course very different. The industry needs studios like Larian to show the moneybags and "big boys" how it can be done, and hopefully inspire consumers to make more and better demands of the titans of the industry.

BG3 is confirmed past 3m sell through now:

Last year, there were 13 million players who owned a game with 'CRPG' as one of its top 10 tags on Steam (effectively, 13 million people owned a CRPG). As of this side of 2023, there's now 16 million.

— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) July 27, 2023

like 6 days to release.
Hopefully it has a good launch, sales wise as well.
I would like to a crpg actually break 10m units sold...

That would be awesome, and grant so much more credibility and attention towards the genre. For me, there's no other type of game that comes close when it comes to immersion, sheer scope, and that glorious mix of tactics and action. With more modern engines and physics, things can only improve on the immersion side of things. The use of physics and environments in Divinity: Original Sin 2 was far and away the best implementation of these mechanics I ever saw, and the most awesome use of interactive environments since I played Half-Life 2.

After reading this bit... I actually tried to find out how much sales other (beloved by me) games in the crpg genre sold.
I was dissapointed, after a quick googleing on fallout1+2, torment, baldur's gate1+2, Divinity: Origianl sin 1+2 ect....
These games were so impactfull for me, and apparnetly they didnt sell much..... its depressing to learn.

So I kinda want BG3 to be actually be a sales success, just to prove that it can be done, even in this genre.