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

As long as you have proficiency with the armor you are wearing, you can cast spells. Just Wizards and Sorcerers don't get armor proficiency naturally so you need racial features or feats to achieve that.

+1
The biggest problems are in 3 and 4.

I see. Thank you. I've often "wasted" feats on lessening the spell failure, so it's kind of neat I won't have to do that again seeing as I will indeed be playing human.

As I have said many times before, I'm okay with D&D rules and mechanics being changed in a video game because I don't really care for D&D rules and mechanics anyway. But that doesn't mean those changes are necessarily good either. The changes WotC has been making to D&D recently (One D&D is an abomination) are utterly stupid and ridiculous, and some of Larian's homebrew changes are similarly ridiculous. But in principle, changing up D&D rules and mechanics is just fine.

Now, if we can only find someone with the guts to get rid of dice-rolling in D&D ....

These are different things. I mean, it should be clear to everyone that respeccing is a gameplay convenience and not an in-world power, that race changes do not happen in-world as a rule etc.. so it should be regarded as inappropriate to do that in response to in-world events. I don't think the fact that other players use inappropriate means is necessarily detrimental to my own experience in these cases, but they can plausibly be called inappropriate.

Changes to the way the world works are however, perfectly appropriate. Magic rules are highly arbitrary to begin with, and in D&D more so than usual. Why, for instance, can a warrior get multiple attacks per round just by leveling up but a spellcaster never gets multiple spells per round unless they have access to certain metamagics (of which I don't even now if they're canonical)? Does it make sense? Why does one class get two of its class-typical actions per round while another does not? Balance, people say, but that's also a gameplay convention. Must characters of similar level be similar in power? Well, if so, wizards are considerably less powerful in lower levels but considerably more powerful in higher levels, so that does not happen in the first place.

Then, why do I tend to play with standard rules in a single-player CRPG? Because if I don't, talking to others about my game experience is less meaningful. There is no reason for any standard rule to be with necessity the way it is, unless it's susceptible to reality checks and alternatives appear silly.

I regret that all those resources were spent on woke stuff and breaking dnd rules, when they could’ve been allocated towards actual game design (combat encounters, side quests, world design)

Sigh

The word "dumb" is doing a lot of work in these sentences. I think the core misunderstanding is the kind of enjoyment you're looking for from a game; in that sense "dumb" means "incompatible with my expectations". If you're playing a game to experience freedom, removing options is obviously "dumb". If you're playing a game to delve into interesting decisions, options that make decisions less interesting are "dumb".

Imagine if those metallic brain teaser games were sold with a buzzsaw. You could still seperate the elements the usual way, poking and prodding and searching for insights, but wouldn't you wonder what the saw is doing there? Wouldn't it look kind of "dumb"?

You should try a Githyanki Wizard, they start with medium armor proficiency, or a Dwarf Wizard with the new proficiency changes since they also start with medium armor. Basically you end up with 17 AC Wizard without buffs in Act 1. Great fun!

I really don't follow.

I doubt I'll use respec at all unless it's for something I want to test.

I won't even notice it unless I talk to Withers. Same with hirelings. I probably won't hire any hirelings. That doesn't mean that I care whether or not Withers is offering them.

It's a quality of life convenience. That's all. Hardly worthy of despair. Hardly worthy of claiming that Larian designers are incompetent.

I feel like there's something seriously abnormal about the internet. I can't imagine this conversation making any sense in person.

For me it's not about laziness. My concern is whether it affects game balance. For example I don't like barrellmancy or the bombs, so I don't exploit them. I'm fine with them being there so long as I'm not forced to use them in order to win the fight, and so long as I don't face an impossible encounter because the AI can. So far in EA this isn't a problem for me. I think respec is fine...so long as I don't have to exploit it to progress, same with the multiclassing changes. I agree that more options for players are generally good thing ...so long as they truly remain options.

You should have seen the budget for Bear sex and realistic testicle physics.

Just imagine, it was someone's job at Larian to stare at testicles all day to make sure they jiggled correctly.

Now I want to respec my career.

I'll try to summarize points already stated before by many. There are two avenues to consider here.

Firstly, there is choice and consequence. Your ability scores, race and class are a choice you make. The easier it is to undo such a choice, the less weight it has. For example, if you can change your choice of class on a whim, there is no real importance to having made that choice in the first place and it's literally demoted to the level of equipment.

Secondly, there is the issue of using self-restraint to make up for holes in the system. There is a significant difference between 'not liking a feature, therefore not using it' and 'knowing a feature is exploitable but choosing not to exploit it'. To illustrate, let me offer an example of both:

• Some people don't like to play mages. Magic is an optional feature of the game, just like martial combat, and they don't have to use it. This is okay.
• The broken stealth system lets literally anyone wipe entire encounters without recourse. You can choose not to exploit it, but each time you get stuck in combat you'll know there is an easy way out. Policing yourself to make up for bad design is not okay.

Some of us see respeccing entire classes in the 'stealth' category. I hope this gives you some perspective.

Heh, nah, my reasons for playing human sorcerer is pure flavour, not mechanics. The armour is (this time) just a sweet bonus. Interesting you should mention githyanki wizard though because I've kinda wanted to maybe have a githyanki character but had a hard time determining which classes "fit". Fighter obviously, but Lae'zel's got that covered and I find the class, well... boring. I had a look on a FR wiki the other day but it was very unhelpful in telling me what classes work, conceptually. From what I could tell though, wizard's indeed an option, and necromancer in BG3 seems fun with all the corpses to speak with.

What’s the starting salary for virtual testicle physicist?

Funny. Still, making stuff that will appeal to 10% of target audiences instead of something that would appeal to 90% is sadge.

I’d trade all gay bears along with their balls and respecs for one good, interesting quest chain / storyline.

I get that, but don't we all police ourselves with any game that has a save feature? It just becomes a matter of degree after that.

Just think about how much has been spent, to date, on "breast physics" in video games compared to "testicle physics" - this is about male empowerment. It's not fair, we need to demand more testicle representation.

We need to Take Back the Nut.

TAKE BACK THE NUT!

Not enough imo.

I was thinking specifically of multiclassing. (Respec and hirelings don't bother me at all).

I get a good deal of enjoyment out of just sitting and thinking out the ramifications of particular build decisions. I like comparing tradeoffs, seeking out synergies, etc. If it turns out that multiclassing is always better than not multiclassing, then there are fewer real decisions to be made. If the value of a game (to some gamers) is tied to the number of interesting decisions it contains, then reducing the number of interesting decisions reduces the value of the game (to those gamers).

There may be some dramatics in expressing this or similar sentiments, but I'd say that nobody likes to see their expected value go down (or perceived value, as the game aint out yet) and that holding interest in a game for 1000 days of early access requires some level of passion. Strong emotions come with the territory.