Sorry, I am not sure what you mean by min/maxers, is that point spreading?
I kinda spread mine out everywhere minus two categories so.
Basically it means putting the stats ahead of role-playing or story elements.
A min-maxer in
Baldur's Gate 2, using the D&D system, might have a Fighter in their party with an Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma of 3 (the absolute lowest) because it doesn't have any real impact on the game for that character, putting all the points in Strength, Dexterity and Constitution.
But realistically, that character wouldn't be able to think or interact with anyone.
Most game designs reward min-maxing over more generalist approaches, because the more powerful damage, skills and equipment tend to be gated to very specific statistics.
A related concept is the "glass cannon" idea where you prioritize damage dealing over everything else. You are extremely fragile but can do massive damage.
Min-maxers tend to identify the most critical areas to maximize their advancement and power to the detriment of everything else. They will gear accordingly, regardless of how ridiculous or inconsistent it may be.
For the old "Multi-User Dungeon" games, there was "leveling equipment" where you would change out all of your equipment right before your xp hit the next level threshold, in order to maximize your leveling gains at that time. You can ask yourself whether changing all of your clothes in the middle of a fight or adventure makes any sense from a role-playing perspective.
The original Baldur's Gate had random HP gains when you leveled - so a min-maxer would save their game and then reload until they got the maximum HP possible. To cater to those people, they actually put in a setting that just maximized it anyway in the sequel IIRC.
They may also play the game in a manner to further maximize those points, repeating sections of the game over and over again or performing tasks that seem silly or inconsistent with previous actions or activities or the storyline in general.
An example of this kind of min-maxing is in the game
Fallout: New Vegas, where it is in your interest to take your 1st level character and take a very long and circuitous route around all of the dangerous creatures to get to New Vegas, and then gamble your way up to sufficient funds to buy Intelligence augments at the nearby clinic. With the greater intelligence, you gain more skill points per level, and these additional skill points are not granted retroactively if you had purchased those augments later on.
However, the game is designed to funnel you to certain areas and you really have to go out of your way (and outside of the logical storyline progression) in order to achieve these additional points.
I'll admit to being a completionist which does have certain min-max elements associated with it - but as I've gotten older I've leaned away from it to some extent. It used to bother me forever if I missed a single skill point somewhere or something like that.
The irony of min-maxing is that game balance is usually designed for a less intensive approach towards stats and skill builds meaning that by the end of the game, it's usually not much of a challenge to those who embraced the min-max philosophy.
At the same time, one of the benefits of this approach is that, armed with the requisite stats and prior knowledge of what you need and what you don't need, you can complete most if not all elements of the game in a single playthrough as opposed to having to play it over and over again to unlock all the content using different builds.
Some people get a big charge out of maximizing the power of their characters, discussing their builds with others, and wringing every last drop of character strength out of the game design.
The
Neverwinter Nights 2 Build community is basically dedicated to creating the most powerful characters using the D&D system, participants often don't even play with the characters, they just like the logical puzzle of it - what skills and feats and levels in which classes to take at what time.
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