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.
None of the information is enough to identify anyone. These are generic, wide range statistics that can be used to classify people.
What exactly is your hypothesis here? You didn't define it; if you're going to set your tone as one of denigration (which you have done), then you need to fully define what it is you're proposing first; you're suggesting a pattern or a correlation: what pattern are you expecting to see, exactly? Say what you mean, and don't beat about the bush, if you're going to make a post like this.
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.
You're defining the situation which you are assessing in a distinctly prejudiced manner; you're judging in advance the motive and reasoning of the effigy you're poking your lance at - that is, you're saying that commenters who express explanations and concerns about game balance and the effect on that that various mechanics have are doing so in order to tell other people how the game must be played. That's not a justified assumption by any stretch. I'd go so far as to suggest that it shows a lack of understanding of the impacts of such decisions, beyond the immediately visible effects, and a lack of concern for the experiences of others outside your direct personal desires and goals, to posit the "how I play doesn't affect you" argument (which you do appear to be making a derivative variant of) in response to comments about mechanics being implemented into the base game itself, and whether they should be or not.
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.
I have no interest in telling people how to enjoy the game, or trying to make everyone play the game the same way.
Game balance is important, integral even, to the game's overall quality and its longevity, and it is currently badly undermined by the custom mechanics and rules that the current iteration uses, making the game more shallow and tactless; this needs to be fixed.
Those two statements are not in any way contradictory.
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.
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.
See how the very beginning of the OP said it wasn't about game mechanics?
I have neither the free time nor the energy to get into an in depth discussion about the matter; I am sorry, I just don't. There are several detailed threads where folks discuss it, however, and within them are more than enough explanations to show that the question you're begging with your premise does not obtain.
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.
My name is Erica, I'm in my early thirties and I work something approaching a 60 hour week on average, on a variety of tasks and projects that are predominately mentally taxing. I work that much by my own choice; I am formally unemployed. I have no average yearly income. I have a PhD in Philosophy and Philosophy of Science, and I've studied a broad range of academic topics outside of that, mostly surrounding classical and ancient history, folk lore and mythology, natural biology and botany as well as language and language evolution. I speak with my hands; I've been mute since I was nineteen. At that time certain incidents left me in a position where my doctors advised those closest to me that I would be unlikely to recover, and very unlikely to survive more than a few years of the lingering attacks and the strain and risk it placed on my body. I'm very stubborn; I'm still alive. I've long since forgiven the individuals responsible for the attack. I go rock-climbing in my free time, and enjoy spending time with my partners - I live in a three-person committed relationship; it galls me daily that I'll never likely survive to see a time when we could actually officiate it. I am a deeply personally spiritual person, but I am not religious. I'm also rational person who likes being able to understand the things around me, and explain the unknown where possible. I have a very visible scar across my neck; if I don't cover it, people react to me when they see it in public. I usually cover it. I play dungeons and dragons. I play with friends who know me well and don't mind that they need one of my partners to translate for me around the table. It means the world to me. I like to challenge myself in video games. I'm very strongly against exploiting or cheating in video games. Breaking an AI and winning that way usually feels like a fail state to me. I'm 138cm tall, and despite being over thirty now, I still get asked for ID whenever I try to buy something classy for my dad from the bottle shop for his birthday or christmas. I don't drink, myself; can't stand the taste of alchohol. My sister has spent years trying to find one I'll like, no success yet, though I try a sip of everything new she asks me to, just in case. I have family members who do not approve of my 'lifestyle'. I'm Scottish, but I've grown up almost entirely in Australia. I could be lying about some of these things, all of these things or none of these things. I don't tell lies; but you don't know that for certain. Of all of these things, my age, financial status and employment status are most certainly the least significant factors that have gone into making me the person that I am toady and shaping my outlook on the world, and by proxy my views on matters like this... and I will not be alone in that particular fact.
So... what is it, exactly, that you're hoping to learn?
Now you gave away more information than would be useful to testing the hypothesis, and way more personal than was ever requested.
