I see a lot of talk about "Cheese"

Mike

I mean I have seen a few posts where members are asking the devs to change this item or that.

But personally I like the fact that I can try really hard to make gold and earn massive XP for killing the hardest bosses and in the end come one step closer to god-hood. I mean isn't that what the Baldur's Gate series is all about anyway- realizing that a god's blood flows through your veins and makes you uber powerful?

I have no qualms with any items that many seem to consider "OP". I think that if you can attain them without cheating, you deserve grand rewards.

Anyone else feel this way?

nano

I don't think items can be considered cheese... I mean, the devs knew exactly what they were doing when they made the Shield of Balduran or the Cloak of Mirroring.

Cheese in my opinion is stuff that really should not be possible but is anyways due to game mechanics. Like running out the door to waste a lich's spell - apparently all doors have antimagic fields on them? Or stacking a bunch of traps in plain view of Firkraag, or knowing exactly where your enemies will appear and leaving 15 skull traps there.

the_spyder

@Mike - I really like your attitude. So long as you are having fun, and this is a game after all, have at it. I'll be the first to admit that I am not a 'Great' player. So I take any advantage I can get. I use the shield of Balduran and have Korgan solo the Beholder lair. I use protection from petrification spells against the basilisks in BG1.

Where I personally draw the line is with cheats like similacrums using charged items. But even that I am sure some people enjoy and have fun with. So awesome. Have at it.

Brude

nano said:

I don't think items can be considered cheese... I mean, the devs knew exactly what they were doing when they made the Shield of Balduran or the Cloak of Mirroring.

But remember, these are the same devs who turned out ToB and wickedly imba HLAs.

Also: The Shield of Balduran and Robes of Vecna were originally Collector's Edition exclusives, and later DLC. They weren't added in the interest of gameplay but to appease the fans.

Bioware would later do the exact same thing with KOTOR and DA:O. After the game's life cycle is over, they churn out DLC content with wildly imbalanced items in them and trivializes certaina aspects of gameplay.

booinyoureyes

I agree wholeheartedly with what nano and spyder said. Games should be FUN. It is entertainment, not work. If people think an item is cheesy they can just not use it. The fact that you use something like the shield of balduran doesn't effect my game, or anyone else's for that matter, at all. So I can't see why anyone can complain about it.

booinyoureyes

@brude yeah but you don't have to use them.

Brude

@booinyoureyes Sure.

I was just arguing that the items mentioned weren't reasonable additions made by thoughtful, benevolent devs. BW picked up several bad habits during the development of the BG series that also polluted their other franchises.

Also, I'm the kind of player who gets annoyed when difficult mechanics (like the Beholders) gets so absurdly nerfed and in such a crass way. It makes me feel foolish for putting anything into the game. Time, effort, thought, emotion, whatever.

Schneidend

As nano said, "cheese" is more along the lines of abusing mechanics or engine limitations, not simply using a given item.

nano

@Brude That strikes me as more of a balance concern. Whether or not you agree with their choices, it was a deliberate decision to put them into the game, not a byproduct of AI and engine limitations.

Difficulty is a separate issue and as a single player game it can't be balanced for everyone. It's really up to you to find a level of difficulty that you like. If it's too easy then don't use the things you deem overpowered, and if it's too hard then there's absolutely nothing wrong with using cheese or cheats.

GamingFreak

As long as people name their multi-class Ranger/Cleric save "Dirty Exploit" , I'm cool with anything

I joke of course, Ranger/Cleric is my favorite flavor of cheese.

Shar

Many people many opinions. Of course you know what they say about opinions they are like a**holes, everyone has one and it stinks. As long as you enjoy the game any cheese is tolerable.

Brude

@nano

That's fair. This may be a semantic argument. I consider both of those items "cheesy" because they imbalance the game in a non-trivial way.

I can't really blame anyone for using them though, because they are, as you note, legitimate in-game items from an "official" source.

Still disappointed in those devs, though. :P

nano

Brude said:

I consider both of those items "cheesy" because they imbalance the game in a non-trivial way.

I can't really blame anyone for using them though, because they are, as you note, legitimate in-game items from an "official" source.

I think they dug themselves into a hole with beholders because they're so dangerous that you're pretty much forced to fight dirty against them. And then, players who don't want to do that get frustrated when they're demolished in any sort of head-on attack. And so the devs made the Shield for those players.

I dunno, maybe if beholders weren't so devastating in the first place things would have been different, but I don't mind the "multiple solutions" that are offered. Fighting them without the Shield is harder but in the end you arrive at the same place, whether you decide to take the scenic route or the highway... and the existence of the highway doesn't make the scenic route any less scenic.

Mitchfork

Beholders are basically DM cheese- they are absolutely brutal. At least liches have a casting time for their abilities.

I basically just try not to do anything that I wouldn't allow if I were DM'ing. If I were DM'ing, a Mindflayer would know how to open a door so I don't exploit the fact that they can't in Baldur's Gate. I also try not to have excessive foreknowledge of ambushes, but will pre-buff where it feels appropriate.

Mike

@the_spyder agreed, it comes down to having fun and I do. I can't fault anyone for their personal play style I would just hate to see the devs nerf an item due to popular request. I feel like if the game isn't satisfactory in its vanilla state then the modding community can fill the gaps in - thus leaving everything as a personal choice

SpaceInvader

Schneidend said:

As nano said, "cheese" is more along the lines of abusing mechanics or engine limitations, not simply using a given item.

Agree.
And that being said, "know the rules, so you can break them".

booinyoureyes

Also, just for the record, Brie>Camembert for hors doeuvres and Swiss>American for most sandwiches

Kaltzor

The most I use in cheap tactics I like is bottlenecking, sometimes to a point where the enemies are too big to fit through the point so I just let them smash their faces against a wall while in a Cloudkill or other similar effects...

But if the do get through it, there's a fighter waiting for them which usually can kick anythings ass in one versus one...

Or... Does killing dragons with lots of Chromatic Orbs count as cheap?

And also, Cheddar goes well with most things... and Gouda on bread is great.

booinyoureyes

Kaltzor said:

T
And also, Cheddar goes well with most things... and Gouda on bread is great.

Agreed! And Feta only with tomato salad.

Night_Watch

booinyoureyes said:

Kaltzor said:

T
And also, Cheddar goes well with most things... and Gouda on bread is great.

Agreed! And Feta only with tomato salad.

I find that feta goes well with white rice if you mix it with olive oil and basil leaves O.o

As for game cheese, I try to RP to the best of my ability but there are just some instances (such as beholder mobs) that require a bit of cheese discretion (especially without the shield)

For prebuffs I usually cast anything with a very long duration (protection from evil 10', stone skin, etc.) under the justification that...

Charname: "hey we're about to enter a dungeon. Stay on your toes and keep an eye out for anything suspicious"

Xan: "but everything is suspicious!"

Charname: "I know which is why we have these spells on us at all times in case something happens...Xan?! What are you doing here? You're not even in my party"

Xan: "we're all doomed"

Charname: -sigh- "exactly why you're no longer with us. Especially in Amn of all places"

Wolk

Night_Watch said:

I find that feta goes well with white rice if you mix it with olive oil and basil leaves O.o

I have to try that!

Another great one is parmigiano mozarella grilled cheese.

booinyoureyes

You don't wanna argue with a Greek man about feta, believe me!
I actually enjoy a grilled cheese but with pita and feta too

Wolk

booinyoureyes said:

You don't wanna argue with a Greek man about feta, believe me!
I actually enjoy a grilled cheese but with pita and feta too

I enjoy feta a lot in salads. Have to try it in griled cheese one day.

I can't argue a lot about cheese, since our local specialty involving cheese consists of greasy fries with greasy brown sauce and cheap squeeky chees, but I could argue a long time about mapple sirup!

nano

^ mmm, poutine!

and I love cheese with honey. So good...

GamingFreak

Kaltzor said:

The most I use in cheap tactics I like is bottlenecking, sometimes to a point where the enemies are too big to fit through the point so I just let them smash their faces against a wall while in a Cloudkill or other similar effects...

But if the do get through it, there's a fighter waiting for them which usually can kick anythings ass in one versus one...

Or... Does killing dragons with lots of Chromatic Orbs count as cheap?

And also, Cheddar goes well with most things... and Gouda on bread is great.

Dragons are big silly over-powered guys who when you get past their ridiculously powerful exterior, you realize... they're big freaking pushovers. Most of them fall for the stupidest crap, and doesn't matter how powerful you are, no one's going to resist the awesomeness of insta-kill spells/abilities if I lower your resistance and push Greater Malison on you.

Silverstar

Mike said:

I can't fault anyone for their personal play style I would just hate to see the devs nerf an item due to popular request.

Urgh, yes, get enough of that in MMORPGs. "Balance whiners" as I call them, usually pvptards who cares for nothing else, fill the forums with cries for nerfs every time something is remotely useful or fun. Upon successful destruction of an ability or item that was neat for PvE (and not neccessarily overpowered at all) they will slink back to bickering about the mechanics of the FotM class and build.

I'd rather not see this happen in BG either, I prefer things being upgraded and added to nerfed and removed. It should be Enhanced edition, not Changed or Nerfed edition after all. It has allready happened to some degree at least; my beloved Nymph Cloak now has charges because some similar Alganon's Cloak or something had a lot of critics and Dimension Door has also been axed in the first game. Seeing as I never use charged items because I don't like losing out on the passive bonuses on their destruction this has made my nymph cloak a lot less valuable; sheesh, they could've "X a day"ed it or something

Wolk said:

booinyoureyes said:

You don't wanna argue with a Greek man about feta, believe me!
I actually enjoy a grilled cheese but with pita and feta too

I enjoy feta a lot in salads. Have to try it in griled cheese one day.

I can't argue a lot about cheese, since our local specialty involving cheese consists of greasy fries with greasy brown sauce and cheap squeeky chees, but I could argue a long time about mapple sirup!

Cheese is a magical product that instantly turns awesome when melted no matter what type it is or what you put it on. See, even salads can become edible with cheese. That's how amazing it is.

Night_Watch

I find that I can eat steamed broccoli only if it's been generously dipped in some cheese fondue like product. Or Alfredo XD

Mitchfork

Silverstar said:

I'd rather not see this happen in BG either, I prefer things being upgraded and added to nerfed and removed. It should be Enhanced edition, not Changed or Nerfed edition after all. It has allready happened to some degree at least; my beloved Nymph Cloak now has charges because some similar Alganon's Cloak or something had a lot of critics and Dimension Door has also been axed in the first game. Seeing as I never use charged items because I don't like losing out on the passive bonuses on their destruction this has made my nymph cloak a lot less valuable; sheesh, they could've "X a day"ed it or something

As far as I know this was actually a bug fix. Algernon's Cloak and the Nymph Cloak were always supposed to be a charged item with limited uses, but there was an error in the programming that caused it to overflow (underflow?) from 0 to 65535 charges when you used it. Also, Algernon's Cloak does work as 1 use per day instead of limited charges, so you can use that over the Nymph Cloak.

Dragonspear

First of all, to someone earlier in the thread.

American cheese is teh root of all evil cheese. I cannot stand it, cannot tolerate it and avoid it like the plague!

Gruyere on Rye makes for some WTF amazing grilled cheese sammiches, as does havarti. Natural Aged Chedder makes for some amazing homemade mac and cheese (6mo-1year for Mac and CHeese or sammiches) or plain snacking (2-3 years here).

Gouda, Swiss, Provolone are all tasty as well and I'm sure I'm forgetting other cheeses I like.

Personally, as I said in another thread a few days ago, I felt rather cheesy casting Invis on Imoen and having her scout all of the firewine ruins for traps before the rest of the party even moved past the front door.

But please for the love of all that is good, don't nerf or alter too many things in a SINGLE PLAYER RPG, due to an outcry. Avoid them if you wish (I've beaten beholders with and without the SoB and never picked up Robe of Vecna for the longest time), but for some people they enjoy them. Personally, unless I have Edwin (or Xzar) with me, I avoid using summons. To some extent having Viconia summoning undead makes sense, but in a group of Aerie, Anomen etc, summoning a buncha undead just makes me go "WTF". But hey if that's how they wanna play, more power to em

booinyoureyes

I always faced beholders straight up because I was too stupid to know about this Balduran shield. I think that beholder fights were the only times I ever used summons until I got Celestials and other biggies.

I agree with Anomen and Aerie not summoning undead. Yet Celestials, Nishruu, etc are okay.

Dragonspear

Celestials/Planetar yes. Diva's sure, but that's about it for most of my people since I usually play good.