Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Dealing with this Game Balance Obsession

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.