Let's address this head on. In your first reply, include your age, general yearly income, and job - as my hypothesis is that this is mainly a function of that.

I'll start: 38, $75k, 40 hours a week taking claims for Social Security. I'm also working on getting a PhD in political ideology.

Now, I get the idea of the game being balanced and difficult for a vanilla playthrough at the normal difficulty level - but I've seen so damn many people claiming that if a player is allowed to do this - or that - that it breaks game balance. If this were a multiplayer game where other players doing things that are highly rewarding for them and it was at your expense - such as with a sports game where players will abuse exploits to beat you every time - it would make perfect sense to me. However, when we are all playing single player, why should it bother you if I can mug some noble to get a quick 10,000 gold or steal some magic item that gives a character all 20 stats? If I can save before doing something and grind out a good result, it might not be realistic, but how does it bother you if you don't do it? Why are you obsessed with everyone else playing the game the exact same way you are playing it?

For me, life is a daily grind and I've been playing it at nightmare difficulty for 20 years. I play games as a form of escape from that daily grind and if I'm not playing some MMORPG I am likely to cheat like crazy. It gives a level of control over my temporary reality that I am denied in my daily life - I'm more interested in exploring a game than having any extreme challenge. I don't need frustration added into my life - I've got plenty and all the health problems that come with chronic stress.

So why are people so deadset on everyone else having to experience the same difficulty you enjoy?

Whatever side you are on, post those basics so we can see if there is a pattern.

It is because the options you have influence your experience anyway, since it is a Conscious decision of self-handicap not to use them.

It is the same discussion with giving Dark Souls an Easy mode.

Limiting yourself also limits your reward experience to overcome a difficulty, it is actually simple as that.

You didn't follow the rules - but you're saying that the person who climbs Mt Everest has less of a sense of accomplishment than the person who takes a helicopter to the summit because they gave themselves a conscious self-handicap?

I think you don't understand what's the point of many related to "balance".

I want a balanced game but thay doesn't mean the difficulty has to be the exact same for everyone.

- the difficulty can't be very hard at the beginning and very easy at the end. A game is supposed to be easier when you learn to play and when you improve your skills.
Actually the normal game mode is completely broken.
I'm usual to tactical TB games but I find it very hard at the beginning... Then I learn about backstab and highground.. and I don't need anything else to beat it easily (and even more easily if I over use broken custom mechanics... On the other hand it's a boring nightmare if you only stick to D&D).

- the homebrew rules completely broke many D&D possibilities and tactical choices.

I'm not sure classes are all balanced for combats in D&D and I don't really care... but in BG3 everyone have the few exact same possibilities to cheese with ennemies.

The game is "balanced" arround Larian's mechanics.
The game consider you will use it all the time but this broke the depth of D&D.

I guess in that case "balance" doesn't mean a difficulty that is the same for everyone. That mean a difficulty build arround more than a few custom mechanics.

by far the dumbest and most insecure thing I've read on these forums lol

To humor you:
34 years old, 82k, active duty usn (gas turbine engine mechanic).

Challenge in game or sport is equal to enjoyment. There is a sweet spot which is different for everyone. But there needs to be some limitation or complexity for there to be a sense of accomplishment and fulfilment.

I'll play the game, so I'm 37, I'll make roughly 24k, and cargo sorter of sorts (so when everything closed because of covid, I was still working to send packages to you).

If I pick up a d&d focused game, I'd expect a game to be based on those rules. Truthfully for the most part it is, there are some key parts like height advantage and such but those have specific threads already. Other than that I don't really care what you do in the game, you can save scum to your hearts desire if you wish.

You said something about pickpocketing gold, I'm pretty sure pickpocketing was balanced if I remember correctly, it has a dice roll based on a skill (slight of hand I think), so if you invested points into that skill (or companion) I don't see why you wouldn't be able to use it.

Kind of half tried on this post, if I overly missed something just let me know, also if d20 die gets thrown around again that the die isn't balanced, I DO NOT CARE!

Silly social experiments aside... ;D

Its balance between classes and their different builds with respect to the encounters... not other players...

It seems a little nuts to me to put a +10(!?!wtf:o in a dnd game) stat item basically tailored to my melee/arcane guy... but not a +10 wis item for my melee/divine guy... thats basically handing one build at least 20 additional stat/build points at creation... if you can't see any issue at all with that, i dont know what to tell yah...

For a once through and done with the game type player i would agree, most things are a non issue... that is not me though...

Not gonna reveal my personal stats sorry Veronica.

What I got reading the forums is the same feeling I had reading around about a lot of things related to freedom: to contain your self and avoid a due action is saw as self handicaping thus restrictions are asked.

We have barrels than can be used in battle? Lets get rid of them because to make the choice, made by themselves, to not use them is saw as a form of self hurting (so it's better if someone else does the choice for us).

We have the chance to save before pickpocketing or lockpicking or a dialogue? Lets get rid of that because the choice, made by themselves, to not use that trick is saw a form of self handicapping (so it's better if someone else does the choice for us).

I'm a fan of the "story mode" difficulty level. As I said before I already have a stressful job so I don't want a game to become as demanding as my job. A reason I became an expert in searching cheats and tricks and walkthroughs. And when I decide I don't wanna exploit something I don't feel like I'm hurting myself instead I'm proud I was able to make a choice that allows myself to enjoy a more complex problem.

On another topic, Larian would be foolish to make Baldur's Gate III early access more easier or more difficult, because in both cases it would mean to alienate a part of players.

Balance, real balance, can and should be asked when they release the full game, that is a version that supposedly will have difficulty levels able to please the broad audience of players (something I feel a lot of posters tend to forgot when they go full "I want this eliminate/modified/added becaus to my personal playstyle this doesn't function as agreable as I want" whether they ask for elimination of anything that can be used to have easier fights or of anything that is seen as making the game too difficult).

As I see the game it has flaws (like the fact that wizards can learn cleric specific spells, or that everybody can lockpick or pickpocket when that should be a feat that follows a precise hierarchy (from the one with the higher rate of succes to the one with the lower): rogues, rangers with high dexterity and criminal or runaway background, rangers with high dexterity, caracthers of other classes with criminal or runaway backgrounds, other carachters) and not because of the save/reload but because the chance of a succesful pickpocketing is almost the same for anyone), dialogue incoherences (if I already have killed priestess Gut why the dialogue with Goblin Sazza still have the leading character asking who is Gut and if she can cure the tadpole situation, why Nettie has to poison my toon before the "ehy dear I know where halsin is" option appears and a different set of phrases to obtain the Wyvern poison? and so on), but it is flexible, if you want a hardship battle you can try to kill the Hag before reaching level 4 (and without using barrels), but you can also level up your party to level 4 and have easier fights, with a bit of attention you can eradicate the goblin camp without startin one endless complicate fight (and without the need of barrels or high stand or backstab or pushing over the cliffs).

As I said I'll wait for the full release to see if Larian will put on difficulty levels and how they play with easy and normal (not so skilled nor willing to try hard and nightmare options).

Again is a matter of choice no one forces anyone to use it, I myself in my first run used it sometimes then sold because I found items that maybe didn't gave the same buff but but whose options I liked more, and that artefact is story related, unless they get rid of the ogre in the Blighted or find a very convincing reason why him is so well versed and smart.

Veronica, asking for personal RL details, and describing the disclosure of such as 'rules' for your thread, is probably something you shouldn't do. I am not a moderator here, and it is not my place to tell you not to, but I suspect you will not garner any fans by asking people to do that. I expect you'll receive mostly resistant responses, even from people who agree with your perspective, if you press for them to give that information.

Edit: I'm tagging out the rest of this post, though I'll leave it in the spoiler as I don't believe in trying to 'unsay' things. It was late and I was exhausted, and the OP's tone rubbed me the wrong way in that moment, and I didn't vet my tone as closely as I feel I should have. I do not wish to post with the back-handed hostility that I feel this post came across with. I think I was a little bit out of line. With that caveat, I'll leave the rest of the post in a spoiler tag.

I make around 700 000 a month (who even counts money though am I right), not counting the income from my properties, I am eternally 27, and my penis is ca 25 cm, five in diameter, and ribbed, and I spend so much time every day having sex that I rarely if ever have time to play videogames.

I also agree with @OP that everyone with a different opinion from mine should be looked down on.

None of the information is enough to identify anyone. These are generic, wide range statistics that can be used to classify people.


I was trying not to define it until information came in so as to not bias the results. But my hypothesis is that people who are obsessed with others not being able to use saves to maximize results or so on are likely still too young to be holding a full time job, are not working, or have the types of jobs that are very low stress such as top level management, stock broker, or such. For them, frustration would be less of an issue and they may not have an idea of the daily grind of others. That is a legitimate hypothesis that could be tested by how those with specific responses lined up with it - if my hypothesis was wrong it would be made clear by the data - people having daily grind jobs for a significant time but demanding everyone is challenged, for example. Now that I've said it, you are likely to see people who fit that brand less likely to admit it and thus the data that could be gathered is rather worthless.


The hell it isn't - there are threads complaining about people saving before taking actions, something that affects them not at all if they just don't do that themselves and thus can only logically be people wanting to push their preferences on other players' games. There are threads complaining that an item exists that is considered powerful even though they can just not use the item. In the entirety of long threads you just get people moaning with the most substantiative reason given why is an a priori argument that balance must come before anything else... where the balancing factor is something that someone has to go out of their way to do. They describe these things as "game breaking" despite not possibly breaking the game without a conscious use of these things.


This doesn't involve custom mechanics and rules - this involves players planning ahead or using saves to get better results. Those aren't game mechanics. I am not a game tester - I am not playing to spot bugs for Larian - I paid full price for a product and have the right to try to enjoy my time rather than fine tune things for Larian's benefit. I'm accepting that it is not completed so that I can influence the end result some, but I hold no obligation to do free work for a company to whom I paid for the product. If I want to exploit saves so that it is closer to the difficulty I want - then that is my right.


See how the very beginning of the OP said it wasn't about game mechanics?


Then don't. I'm not demanding you have a full discussion on the matter. This thread was intended to get to the bottom of where this difference of attitudes about the game come from, which could be productive moving forward - no one is required to particiapate in it.


Now you gave away more information than would be useful to testing the hypothesis, and way more personal than was ever requested.

I'm a 2,000 year old comic/producer/director/actor and my current occupation is deceased.

Pleased to meet you, can you guess my name?

So according to you the game must have a button to automatically kill all enemies and another one to instantly win. You must also get +5 weapons at the very start of the game.
Its still balanced because you do not need to use it after all.

39, terrible with finance and the bean count, but we can call it maybe 60k, enough not to starve but not to live where I do. I ran a catering company in the Bay Area before Covid destroyed my entire industry. Wanna gather? Yeah, me neither. Now I am among the millions of unemployed, which is great, while simultaneously sucking. No one should have to grind. Humans have more interesting things they could be doing.

I am not a Doctor like Faustus, but do have a sweet ass bachelors degree in Classics and Philosophy that took me like 7 years to pull off (go State!) Now I am an autodidact and read everything I can get my hands on. I have many thoughts, but struggle to type them down.

My best friend since I was 9 died in March from rare cancer a month after his 39th birthday and it makes me sad that he didn't get to experience this crazy plague and near collapse of civilization. No one wants to be stuck in Durlag's Tower alone. Now my best friend is a rescue Greyhound. And she's better than any human I know.

I think hypotheses are interesting, and that games might save humanity from itself, but not sure I'm following. I have strong feelings about this particular game and might be described as obsessed by balance sometimes, other times maybe not. I don't drink much either, but will take endless bong rips. This game is a form of escapism and fantasism for me. I'm all eidos, praxis not so much

Merry Christmas and Hail Satan
Best of luck d20

This specifically has to deal with exploits - things that you have to go out of your way to do in order to make things easier. If you found out that you could get some huge bonus if you go out of your way to do something, would you consider it game-breaking that it exists, independent of whether or not you decide to go out of your way to do it?

I have no problem with it I guess, if its oriented around gameplay enjoyment and part of some design concept being realized. Maybe because I consider this a single player game. Sometimes I struggle when a game morphs from a game into a simulator without clearly defined goals or challenges, or where I am tasked with deciding for myself what is a win. If that makes any sense. I didn't use the cheat console in BG, but spent more time just playing with the NWN toolset than playing the actual game. If that also makes sense.

Do you mean like killing flesh golems for extra XP? I guess in this one that would be what, like hurling nautiloid tanks at cambions? I'm fine with that stuff if it feels like I just discovered a secret. But less entertaining if its something I read about somewhere beforehand.

I strongly recommend against posting personal information on unsecured internet forums. Age, place of employment, descriptions of disabilities, length of your mustache, etc. is all stuff that does nothing good for you here. I have my own mental impression for each poster, and I don't want my illusions spoiled by reality.

I also play for escape. Optimal challenge is the key to having a fun game. I almost quit Baldur's Gate when I hit the first wolf outside Candlekeep and got creamed. I can remember thinking, "who enjoys this?" As it turned out later, I realized I just had horrible playing skills.

Examples of things I have seen where people have complained along these lines are the ability to save and reload until you successfully pickpocket someone and there being an 18 INT headpiece. In both cases, someone can just refrain from abusing the system with it and there is no issue, but they want it gone anyway.


Well, you need to learn more about what is needed to scam someone then. I am probably the only person on this forum using my actual name - and that is one piece needed. Other key things are date of birth (not age or just year, the exact date), SSN, mother's maiden name, place of birth. For the most part, the top 3 are what are needed to steal someone's identity - all three of them. What you do for a living isn't going to be used to steal someone's identity, nor the length of your mustache or disabilities. Quite frankly, people can openly buy much more detailed information on you than what you described and habitually do because private corporations traffic in selling your information, particularly to advertisers. If you turn 65 you're going to get phone calls and mail about all these Medicare Part C and D plans because some corporation sold these companies packaged information of people who are turning 65, their names, addresses, and phone numbers - and they got this from you buying a phone or signing up for an e-mail address. What was asked are standard demographic questions that cannot be used to pinpoint any individual.

I'm actually on your side when it comes to player freedom in a single player game. As long as I can choose to not use the exploits then I'm okay. I'm not okay with game mechanics that are broken like height advantage. That's because even though I may refrain from what I see as an exploit, the mobs will not. So that is not okay.

As for your odd question asking people to reveal basic information about themselves, I don't see the benefit. Statistically, it's pretty meaningless so all you are doing is confirming your own biases. People can have radically different outlooks in life and gaming in similar socioeconomic and age groups. How about you just offer your opinions to the devs knowing that you will most likely not influence or change a bunch of strangers online?

That is not how things are learned - while different people in similar situations may differ - that doesn't negate a pattern.

Probably wise advice. Can always come back tomorrow and nix it hehe. Honestly I was just impressed with Niara's post there too. But yeah, there's actually not a whole host of reasons to cede the anonymity or dispell illusions. Age is probably the least interesting demographic to consider, esp in a game with zero sense of time.

I have no problem with a circlet of intelligence or whatever. I don't mind the DM giving us plenty of toys to tool around with. The kind of balance I'm interested in doesn't have to do with encounter difficulties or spam exploits or things that don't impact anyone else. There is no high score like in Centipede or a tournament ladder like in A&A. I don't mind for a Dungeons and Dragons game like this if someone can nuke the shit out of all 3 cambions and the mind flayer, by min/max stats and picking up the right barrels. Or figure out how to jump teleport or whatever. It doesn't affect me. This isn't the handcuff in Street Fighter II, where someone just jump kicked a quarter out my hand. So no biggie for me really. BG3 is an SP game for me. No pvp in this one.

I'm glad they dialed back the surfaces, and agree strongly that there is a big difference between potentially entertaining exploits which don't harm the experience vs busted mechanics which do.

I don't really see the circlet as being all that imbalanced anyway. A wizard who uses it will eventually want an intelligence of 20. If they dump INT and put the stats elsewhere then they will never manage that. On the other hand, a wizard that is built as a fighter that uses wizard buffs can do that without 18 int. That wizard will also fall behind an actual fighter (at least as far as fightery things are concerned) once level 5 and 11 are available for multiattack. You can use the circlet to get 18 a bit quicker than you could otherwise, but if you are power focused you will probably buff int to 18 at level 4 so that you can raise it to 20 at level 8.

EK probably makes the best use of the circlet, but even there I don't think that 18 int really breaks the game relative to what other fighters can do.

In my play through I put in on my 8 int warlock to help with skill rolls. This was really nice, but again... hardly broken.

In any case, that item in no way breaks the game, even if you are trying really hard to break it. It does however very nicely justify the smart ogre with clever dialogue, so for that reason I hope it remains in the game.

I think I see the problem. Your frame of reference.

If a game is balanced then there are no exploits, but most devs don't care all that much. If it's functional then it gets a pass. A popular cope is making an exploit to counter another exploit and claim it's balanced. This is false. Example: any Moba ever. However, for a single player, the cope is that it is contained per player world so it is balanced. This is also false. In your particular case, you believe you live an unfair life so you wish to take your frustration out on games and use exploits to feel better. You want games to be unfair and in fact because of your background you feel you deserve it.

If your question is "Should games have exploits?", The answer is: only if the game is designed and marketed as a game full of exploits. Making exploits the goal feature. Games back in the day use to give out cheat codes to use at your leisure once you fulfilled a requirement. They did not design games to be exploited. They made a game balanced to probably the best they were ever going to commit to, then provided the cheat codes. All single-player mind you. Some multiplayer too but that's a digression.

So without all the bs you basically want to cheat. You feel you deserve to cheat. The solution? Have a cheat mode. Larian did this already to a certain extent with DOS2. Should the game be designed to include cheats as a base. No. Should the game have cheat modes and codes? Sure. I don't see why not.

What's the difference? With a cheat mode, a balanced game still exists and the cheats have to be turned on. Exploits in the base game destroy the effort-reward system. The least common factor rules all. People who naturally follow order will do anything and everything possible to move forward without cheating. The mental gymnastics of trying to say "exploiting is not cheating" commences. Your mind with try to rationalize chaos as order and you will feel bad and claim it's something randomly from your mind. Chaotic individuals will go out of their way to find exploits for pleasure sometimes even hate the rules. Sound familiar? I'd say you are order-based and feel the need to balance yourself by getting revenge anyway you can to reestablish order in your own mind. Try not to run over too many things and fight for something you don't actually want. You can simply ask for a more advanced "Gift Bag" that DOS2 featured. I'm sure many would support this too or at least I would be on board. Boom everyone wins.

Society is not run by rules. It's run by exploiting rules that are only in place to be exploited. A terrible cycle but it has nothing to do with the game world.

That's what I think anyway.

name: alice, age: 69, yearly income: $420k, occupation: full time WTC7 truther

Is the WTC7 the seventh version of the conspiracy theory?

Not sure what my job, age or how much I make has to do with anything, but I can say it has nothing to do with how or why I play games.

That said, what has shaped me the most when it comes to games was a book called "Playing to Win" written years ago by a then professional Street Fighter player named David Sirlin.

Link if anyone's curious: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw

Suffice to say, in a game like this what interests me the most is what can be done with it, how far can I push it, and what results can I get. Finding the best and most efficient strategies and tactics that yield the most reproducible and dependable outcomes.

Moral questions such as playing within the "spirit" of the game, or not "exploiting" the game mean nothing to me. It's a video game and I'm experimenting with it. I don't place any constraints on that, especially constraints the game knows nothing about.

What I mean when I say what "the game knows nothing about" I'm referring to arbitrary rules a player self imposes on himself that is not actually represented in the game, either because the player feels the game should represent such a rule or because without it, the game simply doesn't function, or is broken to the point of not being worth playing.

So for example, in this game, a player might place a restriction on himself that he won't long rest until after at least three separate encounters. Why would a player do such a thing? Who can say, it's different for each person. Why do a knife only run in Resident Evil? Why do a no death run in DarkSouls? Why do a speed run in any game? The answers you would get would be akin to trying to count the stars in the sky. A challenge, a world record, because I can, to keep the game interesting etc etc and so on and so on.

But in all these instances the game proceeds on all the same. Resident Evil does not care if you only use a knife, and DarkSouls will not try harder to kill you because you're trying extra hard not to die. And if you do die, it will still let you respawn. In your mind your no death run might be over, but the game doesn't know or care.

People come up with all sorts of rules and conditions to tailor a video game to suit their fancy, and I'm fine with all of it, after all these are all single player story driven games. What matters is that the person playing them is having fun.

I don't generally play with such restrictions because I'm much more interested in pushing the game to it's limits rather than myself. A knife only resident evil run might do alot to get you sweating, but the game doesn't much care, and in fact probably has an easier time of it since you're just trying to slick your way through the game as quickly and easily as possible.

But I want to make the game sweat. I wanna try things that haven't been tried before, do things that haven't been done before, flip it upside down and shake it to try and make all the hidden goodies fall out of it, break it, and finally crash it.(I've crashed this game more times than I can count lol)

Those are the things that are exciting to me about a game.

This idea of "balance" though, is a confusing one to me. What is it? How do you define it? Is it the same for everyone? Is one persons idea of balance the same as another's? Or another's?

I've read countless threads on this forum about this so called "balance" and from what I can see, it doesn't really exist. It seems to be just a word people use to justify their vision of what the game should be. And then there will be just as many people with some other vision of what this magical balance should be, and then just as many who say balance doesn't matter at all.

I'm left to divine from this that it doesn't really exist and is just a buzzword used to give weight to any number of different visions and preferences for how the game should be.

I must admit, I don't normally spend alot of time thinking on such things. To me this is the domain of the developers. They ultimately decide what the game should be.

But I....I get to decide how I'm gonna play it.

And in this eternal battle, players have always had the advantage. Developers can make the games, but the players will break them.

Great book! Nice recommend, I'll keep an eye for it.

Yeah I think your assessment is correct. The term is convoluted and confusing enough as to be basically meaningless in the context of this game. Should probably be ditched. This isn't like a head to head strategy game where balance by sides or factions would make much sense. Saying the game is balanced or unbalanced doesn't make sense as an expression, without qualifying which two things are being weighed against one another. So 5e has "the best balance of any edition" for example is a phrase that's hard to parse. As an abstract noun, its just kinda elevating the idea of 'balance' to beauty or order or something like that I suppose, better left for druidic mysteries. I think whenever I find myself saying 'balanced' in this context BGIII, I tend to mean I want more variety out of something (like in the party composition options) but I don't know what that would have to do with this convo haha. When I hear exploits I think of things like ways to generate infinite gold or xp from a bug of something. Not like bagging Ankhegs for the cheddar or dropping basilisks to boost a level, or making a b-line for an attribute tome or killer item, or a warpzone. And for sure I handcuffed some heads with Guile in my day. All that stuff is in good fun and feels like winning to me. But yeah SP game I'm not trying to invent my own iron man just to sink the time. I like to run with what the devs give me, unless its a map game where I get to paint the world in different colors, or prop up an vassal for idiosyncratic reasons that might be outside the obvious goals like in MOO or MTW. But this isn't one of those games. In RPGs at some point for me it morphs from standard gameplay to just wanting to look cool while doing it, so there is an element of aesthetic progression that might slide the idea of balance back in there for me for the art assets, but that's a bit of a stretch too hehe. I do wish I could change the major and minor colors, so I could balance the blacks with the reds. Probably should just leave it there though. Speaking about the Necronomicon works, I remember that Giger said he was obsessed by symmetry, and that it was suggested to him as a hallmark of insanity and perfectionism and a drive towards the unachievable which is essentially doomed. I always thought that was interesting. The concept maybe fits like Heraclitean aphorisms, where being obscure and pessimistic is sort of the point, but maybe not so much for rambling about Baldur's Gate.

For the record, I found my cheat mode today via a trainer through Cheat Happens. Doing a super cheaty runthrough before I lay off and cheat less.

After nearly 600 hours playing EA BG3 testing various solo 'lonewolf' builds, weapon/weapon combo, and equipment load outs, can I get a link to such?
/sarcasm
Just kidding. :P

Yeah you dont need an artifact level magic item to have an intelligent ogre or ogre-magi wouldn't exist at all... a smarter DM would have just given the ogre a 13 base int with a +3 enchantment item... wallah a very intelligent ogre, less a wtf powerful artifact at level 2... and still with a pretty powerful, more level appropriate(on the high end even) magic item... seems like the dont have confidence in the class, the build.... or that they didnt even take a second to think what a +10 stat item does... hoping we don't see too many of these "gems"...

Obviously noone has to use anything... its just the most "huh?!" stuff like this i see in a "d&d" game, the less i think the people making the game really know d&d and the less i am to likely to invest(time/$) in the game... might just be me but probably not...

d&d 5e does not have +int (or +any attribute) magic items anymore. Rather, all stat items set your attribute to a fixed value, just like the circlet. In other words, this is not a Larian decision, it is a Wizards of the Coast decision.

Your stats are capped at 20, with very few exceptions. Setting int to 18 does not violate this principle, but a +3 int circlet would.

In any case, you are of course free to dislike this if you want to, but if you do then your beef is with Wizards of the Coast, not with Larian.

Ogre Magi aren't the same kind of creatures as Ogres (unless their design was changed in 5e). They're more based on Japanese Oni spirits than anything else, they just share the ogre part in the name.

Though that said I also find them a lot closer to the real Swedish folklore trolls than what they call trolls in-game...

The problem with this item is when...
Finding a 18 int circlet while you're level 2 is way too OP.

Many builds are build arround 8 int to increase a lot other abilities... Fast running to ogre to get that circlet.

Spellcasters using int have way too OP abilities too soon 16 dext, 16 const, 18 int, and a few other at 12 or 14 for checks and ST for a wizard is too much.
At level 4 tour eldritch knight has 18 strenght, 16 con, 18 int + ...

How is having 18 INT OP? You do realize you can start with 18 INT naturally right?
Should we ban having 18 INT?
Balance is truly the cancer of videogames.

Oh boy, you really do not understand anything about balance.
Having a 18 int item at level 2 means that no one ever would start with an 18 int. Why should he? That points are basically wasted unless you get a even more awesome item in the future for that slot.
Having this item means you get free points to invest in other stats while leaving Int at the base value.

What is the cancer of videogames are entitled players who want an easymode for everything and are deeply upset when facing any kind of challenge.

I understand that it has been ruining videogames since 2008.


Because Wizards need to have at least an INT of 19 to cast lvl 9 spells. Or because of roleplaying. Only because some dummy can't help himself but minmaxes all his characters all the time, doesn't mean we must all reduce ourselves to their level. Stats are supposed to represent certain attributes of your character, so I'm not going to play a druid with 8 INT only because INT is a dumpstat. GEt voer yourself, videogames shouldn't be about efficiency. They can be, but it should not be mandatory.

It's a game, the only thing being wasted is your time that you spend on complaining about optional stuff. Don't like the circlet? Don'T USE it. Same for savescumming.

It literally doesn't do anything for you, unless you are an arcane caster and even then, you will want to be aiming for higher to cast your highest level spells. Also this is just early access. Please explain how having a +4 modifier on INT ruins the game. Pro-tip: you can't, because INT is practically a useless stat for everyone who isn't a wizard. Sorcerers can jsut out it on and benefot nothing from it.

How is that circlet easymode? You are hysterical. Also, way to call the consumers cancer, that always works out as we all know.
All your whining on this issue contributes nothing to the betterment of the game, it will not be listened to either because people can see how dumb it is. If you are dumb enough to powergame in 5E, you would never use INT as a dumpstat on a wizard or an EK or AT (the only classes that use INT as a casting stat). Wizards need to aim as high as possible for Spell DC, and the other two mostly use support spells anyway, and giving them a +4 modifier on some spells will only be an advantage until mid levels anyway. Maybe the item exists to make some multiclass options viable, but I guess people shouldn't be allowed to play a viable wizard/cleric or wizard/druid because it offends your feelings.

Plus here's a fact that you can't handle: You are not forced to use the item. Your pathetic moaning about how other peole may have fun with their game in a way you don't like it is just that: pathetic, sad and desperately controlling. Grow up.

Ah yes, the usual garbage coming from entitled kiddies.

Everything added to the game should be expected to be used and the design should account for them so that if you use them you have a balanced, challenging game (yes, challenge is fun, try it once instead of crying for cheats and OP items).
Its wasted effort to add things you do not expect, or even want, the players to use. It also makes the design much harder, or even impossible, as you do not know which parts of the game will not be used by the players.

Starting with 18 int is not OP,even if it's not possible in BG3... But "starting" (lvl 4) with 18 in more than 1 ability is OP. Especially if you have 16 in 2 others...

What's the point about "balance" ?
If you want a cheat mode just use cheat code.
If you want an easy game play an easy game mode.

That's not a problem for anyone... But if every characters can soon have OP abilities, where's the fun of building our characters when they level up ?

Larian is not building the game around people doing that, so if you don't like it - just don't use it - and you get your fun back.

If it was garbage it could be refuted in a single sentece, but you can't do it, because you know it's true. Sucks to be on the wrong side of history I guess.

Everything is build arround such cheesy things, just in case you didn't notice

Max, you seem to have gotten quite worked up over the circlet, please just take a few moments to consider this:

Having at +4 in your primary offence stat at level 4 is fairly normal. Still having a +4 in your primary offence stat at level 8 is common and acceptable, but not ideal. Still having a +4 in your primary casting state at 12 or beyond is generally going to be considered a weakness.

In the DMG, this circlet is an uncommon magic item; it is precisely the kind of item you might pull out of low level treasure, and is exactly the kind of thing adventurers in the level 1-4 bracket might find. The circlet in the DMG is actually more powerful than this one - it sets your Int to 19, which is a mostly academic difference except for one edge case that may well be relevant in this particular game (18 Int is not immune to being brain-blasted by an intellect devourer, while 19 Int is).

No-one who uses Int as their main casting state is going to want to tank that stat just to go grab this circlet - because they will want to push their int to 20 as soon as they reasonably can, in most cases. They also probably don't want to have that equipment slot unavailable for the rest of the game. More likely, your wizard on 16 or 17 at the start of the game, will get this and enjoy a +1 benefit until such a point as they up their own Int to equal and then surpass it, before handing the circlet on to someone else.

Intelligence, as an ability score, is actually a very low value ability, compared to others (There is no "set Dex to 18" equivalent item in the DMG because such an item would need to be legendary rarity, in terms of its functional value).

For classes that don't use intelligence, having a 10 or having an 18 in the ability yields only very marginal benefits - you're better with knowledge related checks, which are usually social and exploration tools. A benefit, yes, but not a game-breaking one by any stretch.

The only situations that really gain any good value from this item at all, are the branch casters - 1/3 casters like Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster - coincidentally two of the very few limited subclasses put into the game already. These characters generally still want to favour their primary stat, and may not have very high Intelligence by default (a player planning to class that way is likely to have given it more attention though). A player with foreknowledge could certainly ignore their In and faovur others abilities, planning on getting this item... but they'd be no better off than any other fighter who favours strength, dex and con above all else, or a rogue who favours dex con and charisma above other things. The boost to 18 for their int, when they class to the arcane subclass provides, even then, minimal benefits: The casting abilities favoured by these subclasses are generally the kind that do not rely on attack rolls or saving throws. EKs are fond of shield, for example, and of the martial cantrips (which, admittedly, we do not have in game yet, and it makes the EK struggle as something with two little magic pops, and otherwise a fighter with no perks), both of which do not need your intelligence to work or hit . Tricksters are fond of invisibility, distracting illusions, blinding or sleeping, or other things that debilitate foes and give them easy advantage or crits - all things that don't use your intelligence stat.

Even if you play an EK who is blazing force bolts and fury, for the kicks of it - well, you're going to need all the help you can get to stay contemporary with your allies and feel like you're contributing meaningfully, and getting a free boost to a +4 on your offence casting stat is nice, in the short term. Again - even for an EK; having a +4 in your ofence stat is good for level 1-4, acceptable for level 5-8, and a weakness beyond that... so if you neglected you int because of the circlet, but picked save and attack roll spells, then you've only done yourself a disservice in the long run. You will not be OP - you'll be weaker than your allies before long.

In this EA, where we're capped to level 4, it is at the point where it will feel the strongest, and it can provide a nice perk for specific builds, for now; it's all downhill from here. There is no problem with the circlet. It is not a balance concern in any way.

I can read all that but I still think this item is too powerfull right at the beginning of act 1.

According to me we shouldn't be able to build our lvl 1-4 characters arround such items and an EK should never be as (more) efficient with magic than a regular wizard that is going to invest its lvl 4 additionnal ability points in intelligence to reach 18.

But you're right, this single item is absolutely not a balance concern.

31, £30k, classical violinist,

A good game design (and balance) should encourage fun playstyles. Choices should have consequences. If I decide to mug someone, and get a major gain from it - that’s cool, but what is the consequence of that? If it was a table-top, I imagine that DM would follow this threat - is someone chasing you? Can you spend this money everywhere? If there is no downside, then it’s 1) boring, 2) it’s the optimal way to play. Why wouldn’t I mug that someone? Same with boosting your characters stats so they stop being distinct.

I don’t care, if you break your own game. Want free 10000 to buy all you want? Use a cheat code. Have unlimited skill points to distribute use a cheat code.

When I play a game I expect it to be well crafted and engaging. If I need to make house rules, ban choices the game gives me, because the game is poorly designed and balance - I will just spend my time with something better crafted. I really don’t have patience or time to play a game, figure out what’s broken, and balance it for myself. It’s designer’s job, not mine. Difficulty options are there to set... well, difficulty and cheat codes, or “Berath’s Blessings” from PoE2 are good ways of implementing those progress boosters some might want. Choices, within a game, however, be it class choice or action choice should be balanced within reason - have impact, absolutely, but not make the game unfairly hard, or break underlying mechanics.

I haven't read up on all magic items 5th ed... only really started a 5th ed campaign earlier this year...

But all the spells like bulls str/bears end... all gone as far as the players hand book... seems like they got rid of most, if not all the stat boosting/ability stacking etc... does that make a +10 item better or worse here?...

If the above is true and even a full casting wizard cant in any way get his int above 20(i thought at least ioun stones might still boost stats, might be wrong... definitely less options to do so though) i can see even some deciding to take that -1 DC to their spells for 20+ additional build points to make their castermuch more well rounded...

...and if WotC put it in there, shame on them imho... i doubt it though.

...and thx on the ogre-magi... always thought they looked genie-ish... never encountered one though.

Just as you say: you're not that familiar with 5e. I don't wish to be harsh, but it shows. I'm not saying you should just believe everything I say, but please do consider giving more credence to someone who is intimately familiar with the system and its design philosophy and style. 5e has a substantially different design philosophy driving it than some earlier editions, one major feature of which is their bounding of values and bonus into a narrower bracket, and the design of all other related aspects of the game flows on from this.

To answer your question: no, no wizard who intended to play through to high levels (and be effective there) would seriously consider tanking their Int and covering it with a low grade, attunement-requiring, score-setting item, tying up an equipment position as well as an attunement slot(!) permanently and losing out on save dc and attack bonus, just for the ability to put their stat spread somewhere else... not unless their goal was to deliberately play a gimped character (which they may well wish to, sure - weak or unfitting characters are fun!).

For your benefit, spells like bears endurance and cat's grace are not gone - they are a single spell, called "Enhance Ability" with Cat's grace, Eagle's Splendor, Bear's Endurance, Owl's Wisdom, Bull's Strength and Fox's Cunning being your choice of which one you want to cast now, so you only need to prepare that single spell, and can cast whichever of the buffs you want or need to.

No, Ioun stones cannot increase your Intelligence above 20. No, their base ability score bonus does not stack onto an item that sets your score. One way exists in terms of core DMG (and other official books) magic items to increase your Intelligence above 20 - it's a mid-to-late game item and can only realistically be used once.

The circlet is not a +10 item; calling it that is misguided and makes you sound either silly or intellectually dishonest in your speech.


As I already said, it's an uncommon magic item in the core DMG, is slightly stronger there than it is in this game, and it shows up on the lowest grade of treasure pulls, designed to be found by level 1-4 parties. It's a low grade magic item; it's not especially valuable. I'd thank you not to back-handedly call me a liar over something you could very easily fact-check yourself in a matter of seconds.

To Maximus,

You certainly can build your character around that if you want - you'd just need to accept that overall you're going to find yourself losing out to and being less effective than a character that didn't, by the time you're level 8. If you feel that giving your character a permanent crutch that doesn't even make them as good as contemporary characters by level 8 is overpowered, that's up to you... that's what you'd be doing though, and I promise you, it doesn't work out well, except in the extremely short term (such as the 1-4 limitation of this EA).

A character that has a nifty magic item having an edge over a character that does not have a nifty magic item is perfectly normal and acceptable as well... but that EK is not EVER going to be as efficient as a wizard, circlet or not. They have lower levels of spells, fewer spell slots by a mile, and know fewer spells. By the time your EK can cast magic missile twice a day, your wizard has second level spells and more of them per long rest. That circlet doesn't even begin to balance the scale, let alone make the EK more efficient or more effective. It gives them a nice buff at early levels; that's all it does, and that's why it is a low grade magic item designed for early levels in the DMG.

One "+" less than max is "tanking" the stat?... Who is being silly/intellectually dishonest? The "enhance ability" doesnt even give you a "+" to those stats like the spells of old, just some bonuses to checks/saves regarding those stats... in case you missed that and weren't being intellectually dishonest... again... ;D

I didnt check but will also assume that item that is "similar" to the +10 item(effectively just that if a player has a use for the stat and wants it to be... its not silly or anything else... just numbers... that also equate to 20+ build points like i said) doesnt provide near the benefit this one does but you didn't say what that item was... I think i know why...

I previously didnt insult you directly or otherwise... grow some thicker skin or probably get off the internets... ;D

Also, while i can admit i dont know it all, my knowledge of 5ed isnt as bad as you would like to believe, i just haven't had the chance to see a good deal of it in live action and at higher levels yet... i feel i can mostly stand by what i said... even the 2nd level stat boosting spells, as they in fact no longer provide actual pluses to the stats... another pretty in your face indicator this particular item is a Larian computer programmer type brainchild... not WotC imho...

One item... not a game breaker... just one little tid bit during a game that makes you wonder if the DM knows what they are doing... certainly a smaller issue than things like jump/disengage...

Peace... Llev...

5e did take away some of the greatest powers behind a high intelligence score, indeed. You no longer get more skill points from higher INT because they maimed skills with proficiencies and you don't get more spell slots from INT but rather just more spells to choose from.

Ugh, so many responses miss the points about personal bias and qualifications: (and yes, the OP must have known they would get flamed)

Not everyone is educated and unbiased enough to make good (good = net positive impact on the game in a way that can be measured) game design choices. Those same people are more likely to not realize that their choices aren't universal truths.

Newsflash, and I won't be shocked if this is controversial: Not every personal conclusion is equal to the rest. Some opinions are much more informed than others. Some opinions are more narrow minded than others. Some opinions are more influenced by personal preference and bias than others.

The world has come to a place where personal feelings and opinions are respected, but this attitude has bled over into science vs fiction. But facts and science still exist. Knowledge and reason should count more than feelings when it comes to real things, like game design. (Knowledge ABOUT Feelings is still important, as the product is a game and games work with feelings).

Unfortunately this is an internet forum and everyone gets to think their ideas are better than the rest and there is no vetting or review process to filter things out. Thus, you are just as likely to encounter a screwball idea as you are to see a well thought out and reasoned idea.

I once had an argument with a guy about plastic nanoparticles passing through skin cell walls and causing problems. I have a lot of scientific background, enough to understand molecules and the difference between eating with a plastic spoon and burning a plastic spoon while inhaling the vapors before they have time to decay. The other guy had a "feeling" that nanoparticles are fine because plastic is everywhere in our lives and we eat with plastic.

He DEMANDED that his POV be taken with full respect, and that he be allowed to advise other people about his opinion while stating it as a matter of fact.

There are significant arguments about expecting a player to choose to handicap themselves and make decisions that are not in their moment-to-moment interest VS forcing limits on the player.

There is a balance, but when people just say "you don't have to choose to use the easy option" they are not showing much understanding in human psychology with game design.

Go look at the Destiny controversy about weapon sunsetting: people want to use the same gun for 4 years and expect people to just "choose" to not use the best option which happens to be 4 years old and will forever impact game design and balance. The Dark Souls Easy Mode argument has already been made in this thread.

This would only ever matter in a multiplayer game where people compete agianst each other. So not BG3.
Furthermore, as we have already established, INT is a garbage stat. This circlet will only be potentially useful to EK and AT, and only in a limited fashion anyways.
Literally no other person will use it for anything else then maybe for a few skill checks. You can attempt any skill check anyways, so this would just result in fewer reloads statistically. Which is funny because the same guys who argue against this item also argue against savescumming, which this item would reduce.
Curious.
The combat benefits of this item are very limited for only 2 subclasses.
Peopel making a fuss about this are crybabies who need to grow up instead of trying to act like science said they are right so everyone else is wrong and should respect them. Lol , this is a video game, grow up.

I have a relative and this relative is highly educated and smart that did get robbed with identity theft thousands of euro. I do not have my age puplically anywhere including my CV! I often get asked by employers my age in recuiting process though and then I can answer but I do not put publically my age anywhere and if I need to use a "proxy" age I will do it lol. Well of course my goverment and tax office knows my age.

Now I do IT support and I am landlord. People often think it is no fuss being landlord quite the contrary now one of my apartments will need a new renter from 1st Mars 2021 forward and I do not like to meet people on COVID 19 time at all. By the way most of my work I do remotely from home we take COVID 19 seriously in my country.

Now before someone get wild ideas I am millionaire as teaser I will not tell my income, but I am not millionaire (1000 000 million euro as net wealth) and my net wealth is that I would be what I consider Upper Middle Class in net wealth (google Upper Middle Class net wealth).

Little social experiment and you are PRO for rob some noble? I rub it in then. I do not care a shit about leftist movement in real life and quite the opposite political party. Please keep in mind that my country is clearly less capitalistic then USA and I do feel pity for the really poor in USA. We really do not have homeless people in my country though some extreme drug addict might have it harsh.

Now about the game. I believe many players want fixed things like exploits or broken things. The Game is in Normal mode at Early Access. I am sure they will include an Easy difficulty level for you.

As for me no I do not need some Nightmare permadeath difficulty level, but perhaps I would try that. Game is in normal challenge level. I think I want to play at what is closest to Pen and Paper perhaps one difficulty level above Normal.

Well as from what standpoint we are coming from? Well some of use like me are real Pen and Paper roleplay players that have played Dungeons and Dragons (I have played Pen and Paper Dungeons and Dragons) or have played many computer games including Baldurs Gate 1 and 2.

What I look for is some kind of experience that is close to real Pen and Paper Dungeons Dragons experience. Well and some of us are perhaps GURU at Dungeons Dragons gaming and like challenge. What I look forward is one difficulty level above Normal that does not have permadeath.

To show you how concerned that I am about the Circlet that boosts your intelligence to 18 I''m level 4 and have not gone after it yet. After all, I don't know who in the party would benefit from it more

There's a unique balance for everyone and if you're forced into creating something that by definition will never fit every individual you'll acquiesce to that fact and try for a demographic which you can more easily define. That being said, pretty sure there are going to be multiple difficulties along with design decisions to cater to whatever audience they're targeting which most likely includes you to a good degree. The limitations are, of course, the 'spirit' of D&D which may or may not allow for more flexibility than desired.

Don’t like it - don’t use it ? Sell or send to the camp to be used at a level you feel is appropriate.
The more I play this game & read the forums the more you begin to see that self policing how you play the game for your personal experience is what It’s all about as Larian try to appeal to all players.
I also believe it’s still early days in ea so larian will continue to listen to feedback and change as they believe is in everyone’s best interest

This. Very much this.

In DOS2 the most powerful ability, more powerful than any magic, was pickpocket (thievery). It pretty much destroyed any notion of risk vs reward balance/fairness and incentivized an immoral type of exploitative gameplay that is the antithesis of the heroic persona the great majority of players want.

Moreover, this is part of a materialistic excessively loot-driven design philosophy I take objection to. When the items you possess become character defining, it diminishes other aspects that I value much more.

I understand what you are trying to prove here, in fact, from memory (I would have to go looking to actually find the relevant studies), you would be correct. If I am guessing correctly, your hypothesis is that younger people who make less money but have more time on their hands due to not having as many obligations (children, etc), care far more about balance than older people who have much more limited time to play. I won't indulge your fancy because I value my privacy to some extent, but I will say that for the purposes of your little experiment you should also require people to state the country they live in, because the US and the UK are not the only countries in the world and you need to adjust the income based on the cost of living depending on the country the person lives in. Someone living in Harare will have a lower cost of living than someone living in San Francisco.

I personally take somewhat of a middle road here, I feel that some degree of balance is important, but that an excessive focus on balance can lead to a lower quality product overall. A good example of why balance can be important is a thought experiment with a hypothetical game where 1 class deals on average 1 damage and another class deals on average 100 damage. Now, as a game designer you can either choose to balance combat around the class that does 1 damage or the class that does 100 damage, but without rebalancing the classes themselves, you cannot balance around both of them. If you design encounters around the 1 damage class, the 100 damage class will find them trivial to overcome. Conversely, if you balance around the 100 damage class, then the 1 damage class has to deal with impossible walls of difficulty.

Anyhow, I could write walls of text to support either side, but I think its better to just provide a link to someone who articulates well why balance is important in single player games, someone like Josh Sawyer. Incidentally, Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 (games he was responsible for) are examples of games where I feel like too much emphasis was placed on balance and it was to their overall detriment. I also place a much higher emphasis on verisimilitude than he does and I do believe that trash options have their place, but those are just personal digressions.

I'm not going to play along with the idea of age, job, and income, but I will note a few things

I agree that a few things are cheesy and could be better balanced, but for the most part I ignore them (and it's not like BG I and II weren't full of cheese and imbalance. I recall reading about veritable fountains of fondue being present in those games, ready for people to take advantage of plus the whole buff yourself to godlike levels then wade into battle that can't be done in BG III). For me balance has a specific idea behind it, that I will explain below (and quickly note that if one class only does one damage, while another does 100, game balance has been thrown out the window and trying to balance around that is ignoring the real problem).

My opinion is that, in a class based game, all the classes should have an equally difficult, equally rewarding experience, or at least as close as reasonably possible, without making them play too similarly (I'll focus on single characters for the moment, as that's much easier to come up with solutions for). Let's take three hypothetical players, playing three different classes. Finn the fighter, Mark the mage, and Theo the thief and see how we can balance those three playstyles in a turn based encounter with ten initially unaware enemies (well, balanced to my mind)

Finn has the advantage of being a durable SOB, but has to avoid be overwhelmed. He goes in with a charge, and takes out a foe. Now he has nine angry foes attacking him at various ranges, and needs to figure out how to take them down. Obviously he needs to prioritize the most dangerous foes, and the squishiest. He has several abilities that allow him to close the gap and avoid getting surrounded, but they're semi-situational (IE need to be used at the right time) and can only be used once apiece. Obviously, closer ranged and tougher enemies would do their damnedest to prevent that so he would need to figure out a way around them, and there should be several way to do so (knock them back, find a way to go over or through them, stun them, etc.) but with downsides to make their use a bit more risky and encouraging smart planning, lest he get overwhelmed and unable to kill the real threats. Once they're down he could take on the lesser threats, though with some care needed not to be overwhelmed.

Now Mark would operate differently. He's squishy as heck, but with several powerful spells to turn the tables. He could start by casting a fireball in the room, eliminating one or two and weakening at least some of the rest, but now he has several angry foes out for his guts and he needs to keep them from outright killing him. Remember, he can't wade into the heart of the foe like Finn can. He needs to stay away from them. One option is to kite the melee fighters while taking out the real risk that are the ranged fighters, but it would need to be handled carefully, lest he get himself cornered, which would result in a quick death. Once the ranged fighters, who he couldn't kite as effectively are gone, he could focus on the melee fighters while keeping up the kiting, though still with the risk of making one mistake and finding himself cornered and slaughtered. He could have a few abilities to help deal with the changing situation, but again, they would likely be single-use and have to be used at the right time.

Finally, Theo, whose durability is between Finn and Mark's. He plays rather differently to the other two. His best bet is to pick off individual enemies quietly and without the rest noticing. Of course, if they can notice the corpses (let's say they can), Theo might find himself in a world of trouble if they start investigating. If they do find him, he is indeed in trouble, though not necessarily as much as Mark. He can fight back and survive even if foes get in his face, but only for so long before they slaughter his ass. His best bet is to get back into stealth and get back to picking off the enemies one at a time, though now at a disadvantage, as they're now aware that he's around. He would have a few ways of doing this, though they would rely on breaking line of sight to pull off, which could be challenging now that the enemy knows there's someone here picking them off one by one.

In a well balanced encounter, they would be able to strategize, find a way to take out the biggest threats, and all in all keep themselves alive, no matter if it was Finn, Mark, or Theo. And there would be multiple ways to go about it, some more challenging and dangerous than others, perhaps, but still viable and rewarding. In a poorly balanced encounter, one of the three would be able to walk over the enemy without issue (say Mark's fireball killing everyone) while another would be flat out struggling to get anything done without a very precise strategy and perhaps even luck (Finn, for example, needing to attack foes and use abilities in a specific order and have the random number god smiling on him to succeed).

What it ultimately boils down to is that, unless they're specifically marked as such and designed as such, I don't want specific classes being far easier to play the game with and other far harder to. I want my own stealth and backstab-heavy playstyle (The Theo style described above) to be just as viable and rewarding as a straight-up fighter's in-your-face, engage the enemy directly style and a mage's magic heavy, keep your distance, burn them to the ground style, and both of those styles as viable as each other. I hate the idea of "oh your favorite class sucks, and when you pick it here the game is going to be ridiculously hard for you, whereas if you picked this class that you may not like at all, it would be a walk in the park." That is a sign of bad game design.

Well, Kudo on overcoming your trials, life certainly has been rought for you. Don't have much to say , except that I'm always impressed by people like you that go through extreme hardship and manage to recover. Hope you'll keep at it !
And happy new years to people reading the thread.

After rereading the thread, I'll play along a bit (not age, job, income, but some details about myself)

I know pain and frustration, because I suffered from extreme social anxiety (still do, but now it's down to moderate, though with a brief reversion to extreme after my dad was murdered) due to bullying from elementary through middle school, meaning social situations are difficult, stressful, and awkward for me, and I know they shouldn't be, which is endlessly frustrating. Even so, I don't want games to be ridiculously easy and free of frustration, cheese or no. I also don't want games to be unfairly easy for one class or character and hard for another, because that's just stupid IMO (which is why I'm glad we're not using 3.5e here). I want to be challenged, but not to the point of "I've done this five times and I'm still barely any closer to figuring it out," especially if simply changing classes or characters would make it 100x easier. I don't care about cheese (and don't consider high ground advantages cheese due to seeing them in practically every game I've played that has elevation, but YMMV) as I simply ignore it (in fact, 95% of the time, the cheese solution doesn't even occur to me). I really enjoy the process of figuring things out that may otherwise seem too hard at first glance without having to resort to cheesy tactics. So yes, balance out the cheese, but figure out what actually is cheese (barrelmancy, for example) and what isn't (the circlet, high ground advantage [even if it could be nerfed some without too much issue])

Essentially, though I think that may also apply to people who perhaps have a disability making them incapable of work or have a low stress job - as those with much higher pay tend to have. But the issue is specifically with "game balance issues" that involve exploits like repeated saving - not game balance in general.

Damn. This thread is full of survivor. keep going at it,I'm sure you ll figure out how to go beyond your social fear !


About the balance :


I always prefered game with a well adjusted challenge. I think the victory is the sweetest when you had to work... just a little bit for it. Amelyssan remains one of my favourite videogame boss because of how spectacular the fight is, the variety of her move, how broken she is, along with a few hint of her power like : Summons a bunch of reaper with a flicker of the wrist, immune to timestop, cast earthquake and max level priest spell, and she is basically absurd on all levels. That made beating her all the more satisfying.

I personnally would like to be challenged by the game and feel like there are other way to overcome challenge than to imbue my giant sword with lethal poison and do froghoping + barrelmancy into the final boss. Having no easy crutch means you have to focus on the game and find really creative way to defeat opponent, using all ressources. The problem, imo, is that some ressource like poison and barrel, are so powerful compared to anything else that they act as a ''easy way out''. As soon as you are frustrated, here, take a poison sip, throw that barrel, GG.
Fighting Thanos in POE1 was frustrating. I had a max level party with max level gear, the boss still smashed me a few time, and I was getting frustrated at him. Which made winning much more meaningful. If there is no challenge, there is no glory. The challenge has to be carefully measured though, as to not repel the players;

Good example of masterfully crafted challenge are Blizzard last mission of Zerg in SC2 HotS, when Kerrigan is in her cocoon. Actually, every mission of starcraft / warcraft that are siege are masterful, because you usually win with only one or two unity left, while there are dozen, hundred of ennemies, and would the game had lasted three second more, you would have lost. There is a real feeling of tension, on the razor edge, which makes winning very rewarding. I think every game should have this quality, imo.

Thread rules: Lol, no.

Actual topic:

I don't care if you cheat, but if the game is poorly balanced then that's in my game too. If I can quicksave pickpocket infinite gold is that intended design? What about robbing every vendor for 2k? That item gives all 20 stats, am I supposed to have it? What if it's more subtly broken? Back in BG2 I bought the Robe of Vecna right at the start of the game but when I hit epic levels it suddenly became insanely broken. I guess I should sell it? Except I pretty much got through the entire game by exploiting one thing or another so is this really the step too far? If it is then what about the Cloak of Mirroring? Carsomyr?

With a well balanced game I don't have to reign myself in, I can make whatever choices I want and still be challenged. What's more there will be a multitude of ways to play and they'll all be satisfying. If I can break a game over my knee then there's fun in that but it's short lived. Poor balance drains the depth out of a game.

The other issue with poor balancing is it runs into "Water finds a path." If you let them, players will optimise the fun right out of your game.

If people want to cheat in a game, without it making an unbalanced game for others (And possible ruining their fun and immersion), why not use mods to do just this? I think there are already mods to make your character much stronger, or introduce items that give a big boost. It seems the optional "wanting to cheat" is exactly what mods should be used for if you want this, rather than just put it in the main game.

That is the best answer here. People can use mods if the want it easier.

Alpha is now at Normal. For full release include example also Easy, Hard and Nightmare difficulty example. Do not have broken things likes bugs make game easier.

For me Normal is to easy for me. I want at least Hard difficulty level to me.

39, $115K, 40 Hours a Week, started in Customer Support, ended up in Management and Development. 15 years same company. Married, Kid, Dog. Home Owner.

Never use cheats. Never use exploits. I want a challenging game that has depth, and replay value, without easy paths that remove any meaningful challenge. If I wanted passive and easy, I would watch TV.

I will put a hole to your theory a bit that time to play is the only factor that makes people want hard challenge and in Europe there is much more vacation then in USA and in Europe people do less overtime then in USA. It all adds in Europeans have more time to play games and other free time activities.

Well some gamers are better then other that simple. If I go to say some FPS tournament I doubt I would totally suck as a newbie, but to win in some gamer competition be among best gamers in the world well doubt that I would do it.

There are some players that are really good they have played Dungeons Dragons before example Pen and Paper like me. In addition many that work with IT (I do are perhaps less emphatic (I am less) then a social worker like you). These people can be great also at say tactical strategy and like hard challenge in games.

That being said the group of players that I will play this game with both me and my brother and a friend of mine are fairly high education would rate as smart players and we have played Dungeons Dragons from before. I work with IT support and my brother is IT programmer.

We like challenge. We are not hardcore gamers there are not many games that we play or that we play many hours/week. In addition time for MMO:S has passed us they are to much of TIME SINK in the long run. My brother has children and I date women in Tinder (though sucks during COVID 19 time) and stuff like that so it is not possible to play huge amount /hours week for us.

What I am saying while your theory might have some merit there are those that are very good gamers and want Hard or even Nightmare challenge.

Please note I do not look down on anyone that want to play on example Easy or Normal challenge level. Everyone should enjoy this game at the challenge level they choose. If you think that even Easy is to hard for you then use some mod but I do not want this game to become broken with bugs that people exploit to make it easy for everyone.

I and my brother and my friend live in Europe and not USA. In USA they have like maybe 2 weeks vacation+some days of Christmas etc and I suspect in USA it is more common to do overtime then in Europe.

In my country everyone that has full time job has 5 weeks paid vacation+other special holidays/year and that is minimum by law on top of that you can sometimes even negotiate extra unpaid vacation example 2 weeks unpaid +5 weeks paid vacation=7 weeks time vacation. To that extra vacation application not paid my employers in my country might very well say yes unless you are example doctor in hospital that is really needed. In my country doing overtime is very rare my employer would most likely say no if I ask for permission to do overtime.

Before you go angry or sad in USA about your 2 weeks vacation? Salaries in USA on average is much higher then in Europe exception perhaps some countries in Europe like Norway.

Within spoiler comments wealth and money has NOTHING to do with Baldurs Gate 3 you might skip reading this:

Within spoiler offtopic stuff like USA pension system vs Europe and some other things about becoming rich how possible that has really NOTHING to with Baldurs Gate 3 so you might skip reading it.

There are some pretty silly statements in this thread about real world economics & quality of life matters. I have to resist the urge to put on my combat helmet here and run into the trenches and explain why many of these points are a bit silly.

But I'll put that all aside for now because I really just need to highlight that these matters are not relevant. The most charitable interpretation I can get out of this thread is that is a round about way of explaining that "some people have more free time than other people". I don't really see why we need to know everyone's life story to understand that. (But I extend my sympathies to anyone whose life has been a bit hard.)

Anyway.

I'll just add my perspective on the real issue of "difficulty" and/or "length". I don't like having my time wasted and I'm not interested in fake difficulty. The story of the game should be as long as it can possibly be -- but only as long as it's still interesting. I think that if the story is good from start to finish (with none of the above gameplay BS), but I don't have the time to play it from start to finish, then that's my problem, not the game's.

I imagine anyone who loves the game will take as much time as they need to to complete the game if they have to. One thing that really helps with this though is that if someone takes a break from the game for a few weeks it's important that they can quickly bring themselves back up to speed with the important plot elements they need to continue the story. I've had problems with this in some games (including Larian games) where you load up an old save game and you have no idea WTF is going on and then you check your journal and you're still confused.

Additionally, I think some people don't want the game to be hard and just want to enjoy the story. Let them have an easy mode. Why not? With a true RPG like this, I think the hardest part shouldn't really be combat. The hardest parts should be in the "role playing" -- it should really be about making interesting character/story choices.

Ahah, I do feel you, because I often have the same urge. However, I think there are too many people that think differently, and just don't care about other opinions / sciences/ facts anyways, so it might be wasted energy.

Anyways, I agree with your point, difficulty that reward good play are interesting, unlike meaningless grinding or bad mechanics . However, reading the fake longevity post, I think calling ''cut scene'' and story plot a device to extend longetivity is a harsh statement. For a RPG or any story driven game, mood and story are essentials and can't be subsituted by anything else. I mean, the link you posted basically banish 95% of what you can seein video game, including level grinding, narrative scene, killing monster in quest, fighting animation, randomness, boss battle. Wondering what kind of game the person who wrote that would like, at this point.

Really like you would know more? Bye the way why we also talked about vacation is because vacation means more free time and more time to play also games without having stress of work during same week.

List of minimum annual leave by country - Wikipedia
List of minimum annual leave by country
I belong to the most BLUE are in Europe the area that says has 23-28 vacation days/year+other vacations like Christmas holiday+Eastern holiday +many other holidays.

What has USA compared to my 23-28 days area? 0 nothing is mandatory there! They do have system in USA though that they get paid vacation like 2 weeks (or take it as salary and no vacation) and if you have worked for same company at least 20 years then maybe even 4 weeks paid vacation, but that is still less then my vacation for sure!

Perhaps you wanted to add that there are other ways to become wealthy like stocks, and index? Agree I did not list every way you can become rich to that can also be added movie star, music star or sport star I am sure there are many ways.

Perhaps you wanted to add that there are many poor people in Europe and USA? Yes I agree there are homeless in USA and in UK there are people that live below what is called poverty line. I do pity them the very poor. Do I need to prove my personal wealth to you? No I do not and I did anyway not say I was millionaire and there are really many people indeed that are more rich then me.

Nothing silly about that bit.

Let's just keep it simple. Bad things are bad things. Sometimes people try a bit too hard to justify bad things. Inadequate annual leave is bad thing and as a worker there is no way that you secretly benefit from that (unless you hate your family).

If I say any more than that then we are going to start getting really political so that'll have to do it.

I think you need to read the article a little more carefully overall. In many cases, they are not describing general mechanics; they are describing boring/timewasting implementations of those mechanics.

The article didn't say cutscenes; it said "unskippable cutscenes". Unskippable cutscenes are disrespectful of the time of the player, even in a story-based cutscene-focused game. If you don't like people skipping your cutscenes, then make better cutscenes, or present the content in a different manner. Don't punish the player for getting bored with your game.

Unskippable cutscenes are even more of an problem in examples where you have a save point, followed by a long unskippable cutscene, and then a difficult challenge that leads to a game over. It is extremely annoying. I've already seen your stupid cutscene 100 million times already, THANK YOU.

...

Well these two posts in this thread I rank as most funny answers and somehow I suspect they are not true . In my case I ignored OP age inquiry and exact yearly income numbers, but gave a view of true comparison in my own way and the vacation stuff was related to more time to play. As for exact numbers I do not need to share them in public or declare them to anyone except my country tax office.

I dont think the premise of the OP is wrong. If they are trying to gather data to see if there is correlation between 'types' of gamers its age, hours worked, etc, are not irrelevant.

That said, Dexai shames us all apparently, so we should just be looking for the door guys.

OP
I'll start: 38, $75k, 40 hours a week taking claims for Social Security. I'm also working on getting a PhD in political ideology.
Scribe 39, $115K, 40 Hours a Week, started in Customer Support, ended up in Management and Development. 15 years same company. Married, Kid, Dog. Home Owner.

Yes it is nice to tell when high but many in Europe earn much less then OP. I only have 1 friend in my country that earn way more then Scribe he is a multi millionaire and Entrepreneur.

In addition then I would need to understand what is it in euro currency to understand what you earn really /year.
75 000 dollar is roughly 61 601,66 euro/year before tax.
115 000 dollars is roughly 94 483,40 euro/year before tax.



Me shortly:
Terminator2020, Age unknown not even my CV have my age, 56k+ EURO (roughly 68k+ dollars however to that is included landlord income currently) 37.5 hours/week (in my country full time work is 37.5hours and not 40 hours /week but this depends on what country in Europe some have 40 hours others 37.5 hours etc. IT support. Never married right now girlfriend through Tinder, but I have no plans to marry her and she does not want kids that I know and that affects my want to marry someone negatively. Uncle to my brothers 3 kids that I sometimes meet.
Home owner (not expensive USA kind of home) and I rent 3 small apartments to other people in my country capitol are to other people looking for buy yet another apartment soon.. right now plans to buy (not so small apartment this time) and new apartment rent it to others.

I am not millionaire and I also have mortgage investment debt in bank so my networth is certainly not millionaire I mean 1 MILLION EURO so that is 1 216 582,00 United States Dollars net value! I would become millionaire if I would marry someone like me a landlord woman with my kind of income and wealth, but that is of course easier said then done. Money is not everything to me love and sexual lust is more important to me then that woman is wealthy.

lol, this thread is embarrassing. The humble/not so humblebrags is real lol

Did OP really think that a discussion that started with "tell us how much money you make?" was going to lead to a real discussion on balance options in video games?

Well I did put more fuel to fire to brag when people see try achieve : I am not millionaire and I also have mortgage investment debt in bank so my networth is certainly not millionaire I mean 1 MILLION EURO so that is 1 216 582,00 United States Dollars net value!
I believe my post, OP post, Scribe post are true.

I do not believe what Dexai posted. He is the only one that bragged that his d... is .

I don't see the relevance of my info, but I can say I'm in my late 20s and work as a full time librarian. I also DM tabletop and post-by-post rping as hobbies. I have a preference for stout and porter with raspberries.

I won't speak for others, but I find balance to be important because I don't think people should be disadvantaged simply for creating a character they want to play.

This is something D&D has always been pretty bad at, greatly favoring certain classes and races. This is both baseline and specific combinations. 5e is probably the most balanced edition so far, but it still tend to favor casters and, for example, (standard) human is very underwhelming compared to other options, especially half-elf.

More than that, a certain balance in loot matters. Every weapon based character should be able to find gear fitting their playstyle and roleplaying. Arcane Trickster, for example, has 3 useful guaranteed drops around the Blighted Village (steelforged sword, warped headband of intellect and the faded drow armor. All are loot, not purchased).

A Strength based Fighter (or Ranger Knight), on the other hand, has a bit of a problem with getting armor that is even just decent. Going with 10 dex on a heavy armor character is supposed to be a perfectly reasonable choice in the system. Yet, until the Underdark, I've not found heavy armor better than ringmail (14 AC), which is just scale armor without the option to add dex to AC (14 with a normal max of 16 AC). So these characters are playing at a needless disadvantage for a significant portion of the content because of loot imbalance, despite chainmail (16 AC) being regarded as common enough to be starter gear in 5e.

Rogues have gotten a bit shafted compared to tabletop, losing Expertise and making Sneak Attack a declared mainhand attack rather than something added to either a mainhand or offhand attack. But they also got the option to flank without allies through Backstab positioning, so we can count the loss of Expertise as the only real nerf. Why does this matter? Because of Ranger and their access to Thieves' Tools. I like the update to Rangers, but the advantage of Rogues (and Bards) compared to other skill based characters is Expertise.

I'm rambling at this point, but the main point is this; games should be balanced in so far it gives every character a reasonable baseline to start with and work towards. No system will be perfectly balanced, but that is no reason to ignore the imbalances that can be addressed. All races, classes and archetypes should be desirable in some mechanical way both in and outside of combat.

Given the google, facebook and microsoft have all my damn info I don't care much about spilling some basics. So 31, Accountant .

Regarding difficulty no problem with easy and normal being whatever, but let us have access to the "grognard" experience. If we want to flail ourselves with 5e RAW(or close as possible) experience given the marketing where they said this game would use 5e system, by all means let us flail ourselves with 5e, my fun comes from micro managing every aspect of the party and have the game judge if my decisions were wise or not.
No one is telling that everyone should have the same experience as I mentioned before, make it as optional. Problem is that people want to force their easy difficulty because somehow having the option to pick it up will make then feel lesser if they are not able to complete it?

Good point. Baldurs Gate had 5 or 6 different difficulty.

Just let people pick easy, or '5e standard' or 'insane' or whatever.

+1 for difficulty settings.

I'm playing through Pathfinder: Kingmaker on Unfair difficulty right now, and I'd like a playthrough like that on BG3 someday, but it is definitely not an experience that I care to inflict on somebody who does not want it.

+1 from me as well

I agree on this. It should be as your want. The OP I know she has complained many times that Normal difficulty BG3 is to hard for her. I respect that. Let them make more Easy difficulty BG3 for her then Normal.

I am on other hand look forward to more Hard difficulty then Normal in BG3.
On the regard to have even so many difficulty levels as 5-6 I am ok with that and support it! However even 4 would be much greater then only Normal. Lets see what they make.

Yeah, I'd skip cutscene too, but lets look at the whole list : Extremely hight story to gameplay ratio. Game like the order 1984 or the last of us have a TONS of cut scene and story element, yet there are great for that reason. The witcher 3 had a tons of dialogue. So did planescape torment. Story driven game NEED these elements. Else its not a RPG. The statement of the article is ambiguous and doesn't define what is extremely hight ratio exactly, so you may argue back that these game don't fit this criteria. I may argue that it does. Whatever. Just saying that I know a bunch of these game that have a tons of story element, and they are fans favourites and best sellers.

Also, mass monster sidequest. So, would we remove any area that has tons of killing? Does that include goblin fortress? Or tyr paladin encounter in Throne of Bhaal? Or any encounter that has more than ten enemies? Again, a very ambiguous statement.
Overly long fighting animation : So should we remove spell casting and invocation,G force and chimaera of final fantasy? They are so iconic and and fan favourites, yet summoning Ifrit or shiva usually take anywhere from 20 second to one whole minute each time.

Random drop : So I guess diablo are bad games? I don't agree with that.

Forced level grinding : That basically put off any J-RPG, as most involve grinding at some point, including Grandia,Dark souls FInal fantasy, Star ocean and so on. I don't agree with that.

A lack of fast travel: While I sorta agree that coming back and forth is a bad idea, fast travel can feel out of place in some story. Also, many old game didn't have fast travel such as some Zelda game, or even Baldurs gate 1&2 . You could go from one map to the other, but you had to walk out of the dongeon by your own means, and go back and forth in area. Thus I don't agree with that point.

Extreme difficulty : Yeah, another Dark soul critic I Guess..

Marathon level without checkpoint : Again, Demon soul, dark souls.

Copy and past environment : This has to be done smartly, but you know that each assets are used a billions time in video game right?
Its mandatory to have decent production time.

Missing secret : I don't like it, but there are present in almost every game. Its up to the player to seek them or not.

The wandering you : Many game including final fantasy and resident evil use that.

Reward that are dependent on difficulty level : Again, that on the player. I never cared about 100% completion, and if a small bonus item is enough to make you spend another 50 hours in a game you don't enjoy, thats on you, imo. If you enjoy the game, what's the matter?


Just discussing how relative all of this is, obviously we may add some differents tastes in games .

[Second Edit] Ya know what, screw it. If nobody's gonna edit the OP then the thread is still personal. People shouldn't be judged by their income, but bragging about making under $80k when pushing 40 is cringe, and bragging about having a brainless gov't job like SS claims processing is double cringe. Putting that forward as a qualifier for discussing video games brings it up to an impressive triple cringe. Examine your life choices.

Anyhow, it's a given that tightening balance is a good thing in most game genres, including turn-based RPGs. Save scumming to get a good story experience (including not letting a child get straight murdered on your watch) and having to make multiple checks in a row towards a binary outcome are just frustrating game design problems that can and should be fixed. Likewise, combat should be balanced to the point that it can be done on high difficulties and be satisfyingly difficult while still having multiple approaches. 5E does a better job of that than previous DnD editions, but barrel spam and similar things water it down. Patches for this game have been moving in the right direction but I would still like to see it tuned a bit more.

Keep the personal life and personal attacks out of the thread. Thank you.

So you agree it is a bad thing to overdo it, but game developers might be tempted in order to save development time and pad out the game?

The point is that when a game is said to have "30 hours" of playtime -- how much of that content is actual genuine content?

So would you say that this content is worthy of your time?

You're allowed to enjoy Dark Souls. But does the game really get credit for being "over 44 hours" long if 20 of those hours is you respawning from the same checkpoint? Can you imagine anyone else getting bored of that?

I'm really confused by a lot of your criticisms about that article. Again, you need to pay attention to how they're describing it.

"Random Drops which may result in a player lingering in an area for a long period of time trying to get the drop."

This does not really describe Diablo. The official length of the game Diablo 3 is just over 18 hours. This play time does not include you farming for random loot drops. The random loot farming in Diablo 3 was a metagame that most players didn't participate in.

The game Anthem had a main quest set called "Tombs of the Legionnaires", which you needed to complete in order to make progress in the game, and demonstrates many "fake longevity" examples because Bioware got really really desperate to pad out the game length. One of these was called Trial of Yvenia where you needed to farm for random drops.

"Mass Monster Slaughter Sidequests which consist of hunting for and killing the same type of enemy over and over again."

I really don't know how you struggle to interpret this. Additionally, if you had trouble understanding that one sentence, I don't understand how you justify not clicking on the link to read the full article discussing the mass monster slaughter sidequest. You're just jumping in here with your hot takes instead of taking the time to understand what you're reading first.

Finally some true info about you Dexai that I believe. Oh ok I will tell roughly from where I am from. Southern Finland we do have had winter here quite a while we are slightly north of Stockholm Sweden much north from your southern Skåne area in Sweden.

Please note I do not hate Sweden people. The only temporary dislike is perhaps during a sports event like icehockey game Finland vs Sweden.
Oh and I am dual speaker I speak Swedish and Finnish both as native language and English pretty well. I have also one friend that is born in Sweden and some relatives on Sweden side as well near Stockholm.

There you go everything I have said is truth and I am long time member of Finland landlord club (that every year have a nice, and huge boat trip with high class restaurant catering etc you know those big boats Viking Line and Silja Line they rent one such whole freaking boat for one trip/once year before COVID 19 situation and only members and their direct family like wife are allowed on that trip and pretty fullbooked every member willing can not attend (though most do not want attend) we have more then 20 000 members):
The Finnish Landlord Association


Finally there are lot of people that are millionaires (in Euro currency) both in Sweden and Finland that are more wealthy then me. Finland is more capitalistic then Sweden in that regard we tend to own apartments and houses fully 100% and not like in Sweden where bostadsrätt is more popular kind of system you own maybe maximum 30 % (do not confuse with mortgage debt in this case you can not buy it all even if you would like to do it) of the apartment.

Another less spoken about Capitalism I know that within my club of landlords there is an unofficial Elite they are all millionaires there. I do not belong to that Elite despite I am certainly not newbie or less then most since I rent 3 apartments and most members rent 1 or 2 apartments to other people.

Why do you keep posting this weird shit that's unrelated to the post lol? I blame OP for the "how much do you make" nonsense that started this.

Because OP asked about real life and being landlord does also take time...and is kind of work and then she asked income top on that.

I did choose what to answer. I will not tell my age period.

Anyway I hope we get many difficult like settings like:
Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard , Very Hard, Nightmare difficulty levels in this game.