The Wisdom of Baldur's Gate

Or when I got my butt kicked and was reminded of the important things

Most people will be perplexed at this random screenshot of a video game - at first glance it's very busy and confusing. Others who recognize the layout of this screen or the names of the characters will perhaps internally squeal at this amazing, 2023 Video Game of Year, Larian Studios ' Baldur's Gate 3.

So I could write a 12-paragraph post about how? great this game is and how much time it has sucked out of my daily routine, but this time I want to share this random brain fart I had while fighting this tricky, maddening, exasperating boss, Sarevok. (He's the one in that "spotlight" which is my attempt at roasting him with moonbeams. Yes my spare time is made up of spells and a variety of melee weapons.)

Sarevok has three lieutenants who provide him extra powers and make him significantly more resilient and tanky than he would be on his own. I thought I was being smart by eliminating his lieutenants first but realized too late that by doing so permanently gave Sarevok their powers, and so the idiot's armor basically increased in resilience and he kept healing himself after I'd repeatedly beat what I thought was the crap out of him.

The thing is, I also have three lieutenants. Well. More like a ragtag band of somewhat reluctant buddies, but essentially a team of unique individuals with amazing powers of their own. And for the first few rounds of fighting this boss, I was using each person independently, bashing Sarevok with individual spells and melee attacks, thinking I'd eventually wear him down despite all his healing. This strategy did not work. (I won't admit how many times I had to restart but let's just say at one point it almost induced a rage quit.)

I have no shame in admitting that I started Googling what was the best way to do this. While there were multiple approaches to it, it was in building my next attack strategy that I had the brain fart. It fundamentally came down to - drumroll please - teamwork.

It meant having one person casting defensive spells to keep Sarevok immobile or weak, while another acted as intelligent bait, while the other two kept whacking him with their own special attacks. It meant restarting the umpteenth fight (yay for the save option anytime, anywhere, also known as save scumming) and replacing team members with others who were better at certain skills - some of who I'd initially thought were too 'weak' for the fight - and having each play a piece of the larger battle.

It worked. This picture wasn't the final fight - I had to experiment a few more times with different combinations of team members and tactics until I got something that worked consistently - but in the final fight, I kicked Sarevok's a$$ in half the time it took in previous attempts for him to kick my butt. And I did it without even eliminating Sarevok's own lieutenants and instead with some magicking got them to fight for me (bahaha *magic*, also known as change management).

The brain fart was - oh wauw, this feels a lot like what I try to do with my real-life teams ??

Everyone is different and brings something unique to the table, but we come up with the best outcomes when everyone interlocks and figures out how what they do can improve what the team is doing as a whole. It means knowing who my team members are, that what they can do at face-value is just the surface of what they are capable of. It means that as a Team Lead, my job is to remember these things and bring them together and make it happen so that the team can consistently work smartly and efficiently, leveraging on not just everyone's strengths but also their potential areas of growth. And it takes practice; it doesn't always work the first time, but if you're paying attention, you learn something new each time.

So anyway, I'm still way way off from the final boss fight of this game, but after more than 120 hours invested (yes I'm that kind of gamer), I think I've finally practically applied resource planning to my gameplay. ??

There is no "I" in teamwork, but in my world there's at least one druid, a cleric, a rogue and a barbarian. And some true, very real, very human magic. ??

#baldursgate #bg3 #larianstudios #teamwork #druid #gamer #ps5 #collaboration