Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General I think I'm giving up on Larian

"Just don't use it if you don't like it" is an incredibly fallacious argument when applied to game design and mechanics.
In the very moment you are setting new rules and conditions, you are intrinsically changing how a game plays. That remains true even if the reaction is "I'm not a fan of it". You are basically asking the player to "pretend the flawed rule isn't there" and to self-restraining from taking advantage of it.

This fundamentally alters the "rules of engagement" between the designer and the players. It's not "Here's a puzzle/challenge, do your best to work your way around it" anymore; it becomes "You could unravel this entire thing with a button press, but try to pretend you are struggling with it".

Case in point: why would anyone have to struggle to make good use of the stat assigned to companions, when they'll be constantly merely two clicks away from readjusting each one of them at will?

But that's a bit beside the point, since in the end while INCREDIBLY LAME in itself, the "free respec" is by far NOT the worst news among these announced changes.

In this context(talking about availability of respec to fix broken builds) it is. I don't want to start a new game every time i make a build mistake. You can be dramatic and say designing character build before starting the game is part of the process, but that it just for you, not everyone. I just want to play organically not spend hour or however long to research best wizard build available.

Not having to go to the trouble of entirely rebuilding your character from the ground up, including designing what they look like, and then doing it again to change back. There are issues with this, but it replacing disguise self isn't realistically one of them.

Definitely. For me the multiclassing stuff is way more concerning, and I think there's already been some discussion of that over at https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=859247#Post859247.

I'm going to be away for a couple of hours at least, so in the meantime I'll just suggest that we try to have discussions on one topic in one thread to save all our heads exploding. I don't mind which thread it is though

There is and it is provided by personal choice and self-restraint.

You could of course just live with your mistake. That would truly be playing organically.

Yup, i like playing dead weight characters.

Hyperbole.
A single mistake does not make a character dead weight.

For sure. You'd ofc also not be playing a game that rivals the budget of a A-A-A SP in the style of say Horizon or TLOU hell you would not even be playin an OwlCat budget one.

Respecing the MC is just a granted, that's obvious, and respecing the companions at least from the point you acquired them (WOTR) come with it. People don't want to start over a story because their build didn't turn out as they expected, and if you can respec your MC you also should be able to respec the decisions you took for your companions.

Now, for "full" respec of the companions, I'm going put my clown hat on with this, I know, but: it's fun.

I don't expect to be able to change races of companions, as I couldn't in DOS2. As someone said before the game have a massive amount of cinematics and it would simply be impossible to make them work with new models. And there are a few more things that really matter, like Shadowheart worship towards shar. But classes and stats? They do have a meaning, sure, but only up to a point.

I'm going to play the companions as they are for my first and second play through, but after that I'd change them to have fun. I'm not interested in bringing around a mute hireling to have a barbarian party, I'd rather change Lae'zel and Minsc in barbarians.
Wyll made a pact with a devil, but not everyone who makes a pact with a devil become a warlock. He can easily be a fighter who made a pact with a devil. Shadowheart worship Shar, and will continue worshipping her as a death domain cleric, as a rogue or as a sorcerer. Gale as been rewritten so who knows how much he's tied to the idea of a wizard.

If I couldn't fully respec my companions it would change nothing to me, but having that option is just a plus that opens up the game to new experiences.

A single mistake? Sure. But one thing i learned playing WOTR is that you might think you are making the right choice, but you can't actually finish the game with your build.

What does budget have to do with this?

In all my life I never played a crpg where I didn't have to learn rules, and I don't want to. If Larian wants to make a game where you don't have to learn any rules, that's their prerogative, but it's not what I wanted when I paid 60€ for a game called Baldur's Gate.

I have to agree that these new changes to core rules are not very pleasant to hear.

I was planning to make gloom stalker/battle master/assassin multiclass with 8 STR 17 DEX 15 CON 8 INT 16 WIS 8 CHA stats. Now if I find some magical item from the game that changes my WIS to 17 or higher I can respec my WIS to 8 and raise my other stats significantly. This makes these regular not so good magical items to be legendary status magical items.

Some might say that well you don't have to respec your stats to abuse the game but I have to because this is now built in game mechanic and the game wants me to do this or else I'm being a dumb for being a bad player.

Oh please I finished WotR with several unoptimized and "badly" build characters, including one which was build from level 1 for combat in gold dragon form (already a suboptimal choice) instead of using respec, meaning for 3/4 of the game all of his feats were useless. On normal difficulty.

This argument is not fallacious in any way, shape or form. One of Larian's selling points for this game is the amount of choice they are offering via game design and mechanics. Choice implies that one or more options will not be chosen. Should I complain that Larian provides the option of killing the grove druids because I don't want to do it?

You appear to be making a tautological argument. Anything which allows deviation from the way you wish the game to be is bad. These choices allow the game to deviate from the way you want the game to be so therefore they are bad.

Meant that in context of not having respec needing to design character build before playing. With respec you can just play the game and fix build issues at any time.

Look at the chess 'analogy' they made early on. If there was any doubt before it, there was none after.

No.

Core difficulty here, I was stupid enough to start my first PF game at this difficulty and hit a wall somewhere in act 2. Thank god respec was bugged to be free back then else I wouldn't be able to progress further. But to be fair you can't mess a character this badly in DnD5e.