I have been following Masahiro Sakurai’s (Smash Bros designer) lately, and I think his recent video nicely touches on why I find “exploits” like that detrimental.
Even if I as a player chooses not to utilise mechanics that I deem OP it robs me from feeling the pressure. I KNOW I can just disappear at any time. I know I have a stack of guaranteed damage granades in my inventory that will wipe the enemy down. I know I can just easy stealth and push enemy to death. With being aware of how easily it is to break merchant’s reputation system being rewarded gold is of little value to me, and as such game rewards don’t feel impactful. And the OP mechanics have little to do with lvl up, so being in rewarded in XP is really irrelevant when it comes to my ability to beat encounters.
It is unavoidable that at some point this engagement will be broken - meta will be learned, player will gain too many resources to be concerned about gaining more. Doing self-imposed run feels fundamentally different to playing the game for a first time and feeling challenged by it. But in BG3 it happens too quickly and too easily.
