There's nothing exploitative about the hidden items. Those are easter eggs (hidden things found by exploring less obvious areas of something).
While the pleatora of easy guides have rendered them and their locations common knowledge nowadays, back in the day they were legitimate surprises to be found, basically by accident.
I would like to have mini quests, with no reward or XP but only directions for the hidden items, some NPC banters that give hints to the player to find these items.
The thing about games, people will always find a way to exploit the rules in ways that give their character an advantage. This is why I don't play MMOs, it just isn't my playstyle. I don't care about making the most powerful build for my character, or figuring out ways to use bugs for unlimited gold and things like that. On the other hand BGEE is a single player game (mostly), so I also don't care if people choose to power game through it. If this is how someone gets enjoyment from the game, good on them. I'm not taking it from them, because it in know way effects my enjoyment.
To be honest there's just one bug/exploit in BG2 I really want to keep...the one that lets fighter/mages get both strongholds! I know there's a mod that lets me get all strongholds, but the exploit seems more...official, somehow, and it'll break immersion when I get offered the thief stronghold, etc., even though I'm not a thief.
Anyway I think a poll like this really needs a long note defining what are bugs, exploits and glitches first before everyone starts voting. There's definitely a difference between game-breaking bugs/exploits/glitches - the type where frustrated people post bug reports to devs and complain that their game or their quest entries are spoilt - and the other type that doesn't break the game and gets reported to fellow players as a cheat instead. Even the people who voted that all bugs/exploits/glitches should be gone for good would agree that there should be a differentiation, at least when it comes to the priority that the devs give each bug/exploit/glitch when they're fixing them.
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While the pleatora of easy guides have rendered them and their locations common knowledge nowadays, back in the day they were legitimate surprises to be found, basically by accident.
On the other hand BGEE is a single player game (mostly), so I also don't care if people choose to power game through it. If this is how someone gets enjoyment from the game, good on them. I'm not taking it from them, because it in know way effects my enjoyment.
Anyway I think a poll like this really needs a long note defining what are bugs, exploits and glitches first before everyone starts voting. There's definitely a difference between game-breaking bugs/exploits/glitches - the type where frustrated people post bug reports to devs and complain that their game or their quest entries are spoilt - and the other type that doesn't break the game and gets reported to fellow players as a cheat instead. Even the people who voted that all bugs/exploits/glitches should be gone for good would agree that there should be a differentiation, at least when it comes to the priority that the devs give each bug/exploit/glitch when they're fixing them.