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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?

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

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Originally Posted by Argyle
I strongly recommend against posting personal information on unsecured internet forums.

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.

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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.

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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.

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

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Is the WTC7 the seventh version of the conspiracy theory?


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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.

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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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by VeronicaTash
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

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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"... wink

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...

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Originally Posted by Llev
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"... wink

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.

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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...


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Originally Posted by dwig
Originally Posted by Llev
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"... wink

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.

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 + ...

Last edited by Maximuuus; 25/12/20 05:34 PM.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Bruh
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.

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Originally Posted by Ixal
Oh boy, you really do not understand anything about balance.
I understand that it has been ruining videogames since 2008.

Originally Posted by Ixal
Having a 18 int item at level 2 means that no one ever would start with an 18 int. Why should he?

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.

Originally Posted by Ixal
That points are basically wasted unless you get a even more awesome item in the future for that slot.
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.

Originally Posted by Ixal
Having this item means you get free points to invest in other stats while leaving Int at the base value.
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.

Originally Posted by Ixal
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.
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.

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Originally Posted by Bruh
Plus here's a fact that you can't handle: You are not forced to use the item.
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.

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Originally Posted by Bruh
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.

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 ?

Last edited by Maximuuus; 25/12/20 07:00 PM.

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