Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Nerf Respec please

I think its awesome that Larian knows us roleplayers so well they immediately gave us a character editor ingame.

Immediately allows to fix problems with how you leveled your character, or a companion.

Immediately allows to change your companions into different classes in followup walkthroughs, for some nice variance.

And yes, sure, its abuseable. You can also savescum. Should Larian protect you from that, too ?




Um.

Which is wrong ... why exactly ?


Uh-hu.

So people who cannot restrain themselves from using options just because they are there ... will just drop to lowest difficulty, respec, then change back. Big win ! You totally archieved something there.


Fun ? In games ??? HOW DARE YOU !!!!! I'm telling Lae'zel you suggested that !




Dont join those people. They suck. They have this icky things, like common sense and rationality and logic, and they care about facts. YIKES !!! Who ever does that ???

We should all judge them in silence until they drop dead ! That will teach 'em.


*throws first stone*

*throws more stones*

*throws the last stone*

*throws even more stones*


Its a technical impossibility, since it would require an online connection for saving and loading, so you cannot edit that. As long as you're a master of your data, you can do with the data as you please.

Which is kind of the point.



ROTFL !!!



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You ... cannot ... mispec ... in ... D&D ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Whow.


Then dont respec. Problem solved.

The theme of this thread is that some people want to dictate others how they should play the game, and come up with the strangest "reasons" for why thats right.




You have to talk to Withers to even get the option offered. So how exactly is something you clearly demanded in the first place taking you out of the experience ? Just dont talk to Withers then. You dont ever have to, for the story. Only if you screw up.

You dont even know what "game design" even means.

Withers is an option. You can remove him per mod just like that. Nothing else has to be changed.

You cannot change game design. Not without completely rewriting huge parts of the game code.

Allow players to freely change their characters at any time without limitations. What is the purpose of role-playing when you can simply switch your character in any form to ensure victory? This completely undermines the immersive experience. Even though I restrain myself from using this cheating system, I am utterly disgusted by its existence!
I cannot help but wonder why such a detrimental system was ever created. if you want players to try more builds, a sober idea is supposed about to make a better game that people want to play multiple times. if you want to avoid that player might sometimes stopped somewhere due to weakly build, you should balance the classes and bring more creative solution in the game, instead put a cheating machine at my camp!!

I think you are kind of missing the point. It doesn't matter if you call it game design, story design, or whatever else. The point is if you add something that breaks immersion, it is always bad. If thing you add is "worth it" then you get more good than bad. Telling someone who obviously feels that some immersion-breaking thing is fine because you can ignore it is as helpful as telling someone they should just ignore it if they get punched in the nose.

The goal should be to take this bad thing "broken immersion" and try to keep the good thing "respec." The way you do that is by moving respec out of at least one game mode, with Tactician being the most appropriate. If you want to break immersion, fine, go to story mode and respec. If you don't want to break immersion, you need Larian to make the change because "ignore it" when immersion is broken doesn't unbreak immersion.

If you don’t like it, don’t use it. I haven’t, but I’ve completely ruined my build in other games and wish I could’ve respecced a little to save myself a headache. This is really a non-issue. I doubt people are using respec as an auto-win button. It’s probably used in two cases:

-Build experimentation (because who wants to replay a whole game just to know if a character concept works)
-Serious errors made in build development (someone fucked up and needs to hit the undo button a few times)

Nerfing respec sounds specifically designed to punish newcomers who might make serious mistakes, all in the service of making an optional feature less annoying to people who were never going to use it in the first place.

Should we really have cheats openly available everywhere in the game?
For instance:
All the rules should be optional. God mode from the start.
Pop up option to skip a battle before it starts.
We should have every ACTS available from the get go. So we pick whatever point in the game to start from.

And we go down this rabit hole of conveniences and cheats that BECOMES the game.

Because its fun right? And "if you don't like it, don't use it".

Worst excuse ever. Get a MOD if you want to cheat, PLENTY of cheese available at the Nexus. Or make it really hard and have consequences to do a respec in game.
I really hope Larian will include an option to turn OFF these free respecs in game. But I doubt it.

Nice slippery slope fallacy there, arguing for the inevitability of a bunch of absurd features to disregard the utility of a minor one that isn’t. You come up with that all by yourself?

Well hey, If I want to skip battles whenever its my choice, if its more fun. I am all in for pre-battle pop ups.
Don't like it don't use it. But it ruins the game for many doesn't it?

Point being, some people would rather have these "cheats" like rescping whenever , OUT of the game world, or turn ON/OFF via an option. Not forced on to us.

Okay, folks, it's my bedtime so logging off now and hoping we're not going to have a row here.

Both people who object to respec and those who don't are welcome to express their opinions, but not to be rude about the views of people who don't agree with them. Please recognise when you've made your own preference clear and it's time to agree to disagree, and do your best to keep the heat level low.

To the OP, here is my take on this topic... leave it up to the players themselves. It's an option, no requirement for you the player to participate if you don't wish to. I never understood how some players want to control how others play the same single player game. For a real world analogy example It's similar to a mindset that people of one religion/belief try to force their views on someone of of a differing religion/belief. Just because you believe it should be one way... bear in mind that others may and do have different perspectives on this topic (which ever that particular topic may be). So back to the game, by trying to impose your feelings on something you could be taking away others right to chose or enjoy playing it how they like. Remember this is just a game, and your play-though is for you, and not anyone else. And the same goes for someone else's play-through being for their enjoyment, not yours. Don't waste energy trying to compare or control the play-through of other players, as they will be different experiences based on their choices in the game. It's really none of my business how others play the game, I just wish all players could follow the same principle.

I don’t know how many session 0’s people have attended, but I’ve been to enough to know that most people, while desiring a unique and interesting build, have no idea how a TTRPG rule set works. Someones going to want a character that is wise and smart and stat them accordingly, only to pick something like Paladin which needs every stat except for wisdom and intelligence, but they won’t know that until they hit a certain level and the difficulty throws them against a wall. I don’t think it’s fair to punish new players for wanting to make characters according to their desires, and rather than pervert the rule set or create a system where every class uses every stat (looking at PoE), I’d rather give new players and experimental players an easy out. People make new characters with different classes, feats, and stats all the time in tabletop—whenever a PC dies! I’d rather have a system that encourages creativity and gives people an out if they really fuck up rather than a system that punishes players for lack of experience or experimentation.

I have never used Withers for any reason during my game, not even resurrection. I’ve used scrolls of revivify until Shart got the spell. I do not intend to use Withers in any playthrough because I usually plan my build in advance. His services may as well not exist to me.

As a compromise, maybe a toggle in settings for people who don’t want Withers to offer the service.

Also— BG1+2 EE have god mode available at the start?

Be 8 charisma barbarian with no dialogue proficiencies.
See dc 30 persuasion check.
Load last save.
Visit Withers.
Turn into 20 charisma bard with persuasion expertise.
Go back, pass persuasion check with ease.
Return to Withers.
Become 8 charisma barbarian with no dialogue proficiencies again. Continuing what is supposed to be the story of an uncharismatic person who is bad at persuading people, but not actually getting the story that matches your character.

Be paladin.
Perform action, oath breaks.
Reload save.
Visit Withers.
Automagically cease to be a paladin, oath no longer exists.
Go do action. No significant consequence.
Return to Withers.
Become oathsworn paladin again, having done whatever you want regardless, trivializing the very concept of an oath.

The main issues with the exceedingly cheap and easy respec aren't even mechanical, they're narrative.
At the very least, once a player adds a paladin level for the first time, the oath should be applied to them for the rest of the game, even if they respec out, and taking an oathbreaking action while not having a paladin level anymore should still break the oath, whether the event triggers immediately or when they try to respec back into it.

Also, it makes every caster a wizard.
I'm not taking about the 1 level multiclass dip people are doing for scrolls, I'm talking about how every caster can access their full potential spell list whenever they want, swapping out choices on a whim which is suppose to be half of what distinguishes wizards from other casters. Warlocks and sorcerers are functioning like wizards.

There are good ways for rpgs to offer respec systems.
Withers doing it at any time for just a few gold is not one.

oh neat i wasn't aware you were forced to, talk to withers after and before each encounter to re-spec your characters -sarcasm-

I highly doubt anyone is respecing characters after every encounter or abusing this in any way since its so trivial. More likely that not people will ignore his existence until they misclick or misread something they really don't like in which they could very easily just "load a previous save" and not have to spend any gold in the first place. Even if people do how does it affect your gameplay your almost sounding like the people who pick all the optimal stuff follow a walkthrough/guide to the letter, and then complain the game was too easy....

You can easily never interact with the option its not "On by default" you have to literally go to an npc and activate it. Imagine being so hurt about something in a primarily single player game that you want a thing that you never need to use removed so other people can't. I would agree with you if there was any kind of competitive elements in this game but there are none its primarily a single player experience you can impose whatever silly restrictions on yourself you want for fun, and give up on those restrictions whenever you want if you choose to do so.

I for one am planning to do a multiple player session with IRL friends as a D&D campaign so we will probably only load a previous save after a total party wipe and have any choices stick for the fun of it being a mostly blind playthrough for some of them. however for my own playthrough i will want to do things a specific way since itll just be a master save where i wanna test things and see what i like before trying a harder version. I like that freedom its refreshing.

It’s a single player game, let people play how they want.

Hell, I used respec on all my companions so their stats weren’t all over the place. I used it to change Shadowheart into better domain with better stats.

Sure, if someone wants to abuse it, they will do it anyway. But the same could be said about mods.

There are already plenty of overpowered items on the nexus. Respec is nowhere near as much of a problem.

It's not like you are competing with each other. And as someone, who modded other games, respec is something that would probably get modded in sooner rather than later.

I'm not going to lie, after doing 2 playthroughs it would be nice for an act selector to relive parts of an act without having to replay the entire game again

But honestly there's systems that have implemented this successfully like Xenoblade Chronicles 2. In that game (past v1.3) you can change how much HP enemies have, how hard they hit, how effective debuffs are, etc. You can also just use the preset "Bringer of Chaos" difficulty if you wanted the traditional hard experience

These QoL features respect the player's time and lets them play how they wish. For example given the chance I'd want to play BG3 on normal as that is what the game considers the "intended" difficulty with normal HP, normal shop prices, etc. but also experience the enhanced AI tactician has

But with these sliders you could also get your ideal "hardcore experience." You can have an option to turn off withers, turn off waypoints, to increase shop prices as much as you want, give enemies 300% HP, etc. Really giving the players more options on how they want to experience the game they usually only helps the player's experience

I like respec from the idea of being able to travel with the companions based on the personalities I most enjoy.

I don't like it for a lot of other elements. The first is making choices have less weight -- why even have the class and level up system, y'know? And I think the second has something to do with encounter design. If you give the player six companions and you know they're, like:

Fighter (Lae'zel)
Wizard (Gale)
Warlock (Wyll)
Cleric (Shadowheart)
Barbarian (Karlach)
Rogue (Astarion)

And they're going to have three of them, then you can plan for encounters a little better because you have an idea of the tools the player might have in their toolkit. As it is, the player can have any combination of tools and potentially no tools (for example, four casters and therefore no martial capability) and so planning anything becomes impossible. If I knew more about game design, I'd be able to explain myself better. But it's sort of like... BG3 has all these encounters and abilities and spells, and yet I resolved just about every encounter past Act 2 by knocking the enemy prone and beating them to death with basic attacks.

Some thoughts here: I agree that mostly you can simply not use it - this being said, I would argue there are several ways it impacts as well on player who dislike the feature.

Firstly, it introduces more separation between the class a character has mechanically and which class fits from a story perspectives, and it limits the story in some way. Consider Khelgar being able to become a a monk in NWN 2 or some of the characters is SWKOTOR becoming Jedi down the road. Such a feature is awesome but would not really work in BG 3 since you can do those kinds of respec anyway at anytime. Generally, I believe separation of game mechanics and story is an issue with BG 3, another example being the Str and Wis scores of a certain famous ranger.

More examples would include the class strongholds of BG 2, which would also not deal well with respec. So it at least limits what the designers can do.

For example,


Secondly, it becomes part of the metagame, which some people enjoy especially on their x-th playthrough. At some point people will ask for advice on no-reloads games and other high difficulty playthroughs and will get guides and video recommending respeccing several times. It's already quite commonly done for multiclass builds that take up to level 8 or more to become effective.

Admittedly, this one is of low concern to me personally. But I do like tight story/game mechanics integration and unlimited respec does not sit well with me in this regard.

Then why you still bother yourself to play Tactician game? isn't that better to play story game to save you valuable time? what's the point to play a harder game version and cheat?

Exactly, respect ruins the whole point of role-play. when we are able to change ourselves all the time, what a role we are playing as? No more than a Doppelganger.

I thought "savescum" as a term, used in a derogatory way to shame someone for loading a saved game (for whatever reason...something goes wrong or curiosity about something, whatever...doesn't matter at all), in a single player RPG, was peak idiocy in gaming. Something that has been done since SP RPGs exist, and save/load function exists.

But then I saw this and the arguments for nerfing/removal of something that no one is, in no way whatsoever, forced to use. Something set aside in the camp area that you do not have to look at either, in no way in your face.

This is a YOU problem. Not Larians, not the games, not any other players. Only YOURS.

It is absolutely, above and beyond, the point of "don't like it - don't use it".

Wanting...no, DEMANDING, something changed/nerfed/removed because YOU don't like it, and everyone has to deal with it, is absolutely a very toxic way to ruin the game and create a very sour experience for everyone involved, both players and devs.

Loading a save is not cheating, respec-ing characters is not cheating. It's a feature you can opt to use or not.

All the arguments "but roleplay" make zero sense. You're not using it, someone else on their playthrough is. Their playthrough has NOTHING TO DO with yours, your roleplay or whatever. Where is the problem?

Play your game the way you want to, leave others to play theirs as they want to and stop trying to enforce your POV on everyone.