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

Okay, let's turn the heat right down here.

I don't want to end up locking a thread about respeccing because people can't just share their perspectives on it calmly and constructively without insulting others' views. Perhaps it's just because I personally don't care about this particular issue one way or another, but it would just seem a bit embarrassing

"Save scumming" and "Respec" are not the same thing. The former refers to an unavoidable issue in single-player games, while the latter is intentionally designed as a part of the game, encouraging players to use it.
Therefore, the attitude of "don't like it - don't use it" cannot be applied to Respec.
Some players may choose to enhance their gaming experience by using cheat mods, and that is their personal choice, which can be understood. On the other hand, some players refuse to cheat, even to the extent of not using "save scumming," and that is also their personal choice, which is perfectly fine.

However, why should players have to actively control their use of a cheating feature that exists within the game design to improve their experience? Is this reasonable? Additionally, the game provides easy modes for players who do not wish to be challenged, and in those modes, it's fine to have Respec.
But why would you choose a high difficulty mode and then cheat? It's difficult to comprehend.

I don’t understand the narrative of describing respec as a cheat feature. You are still stuck in point buy, you get the same access to classes and spells as leveling up normally, and you get the same choices of feats.

If respec were to be used by players to “cheat” by creating broken builds, certainly those players would be knowledgeable enough about the system that they wouldn’t need to use respec to achieve such builds.

Of note, for the novice player, there isn’t some magic broken build they can make that allows them to insta-beat each and every boss. This is something only a veteran would understand, and they wouldn’t need respec to do it.

On the other hand, for new or experimental players, respec is the furthest thing from a cheat feature: in the case of the former, it allows them to be saved from horrific build decisions; in the case of the latter, it allows test running build concepts, like a Kerbal Space Program for builds.

Describing respec as a “cheat” seems to be a projection of an idiosyncratic problem rather than an observation of a systemic one.

Nowhere does it say it is.But it's equally ridiculous to complain about both.


Saving, and loading a saved game....is "an issue"????


How exactly are players -encouraged- to use respec?


It absolutely can be. You are in no way encouraged or forced to use that in the game. Just like you are in no way encouraged or forced to play a certain race, class, subclass, Origin, use a certain type of weapon, certain type of armor. It's there, and it's YOUR choice to use it or not.


How is loading a save = cheating?


What?

Actively control?

What are you talking about?

And what cheating feature?

The (ridiculous) example of someone respecing from a "dumb" Barbarian into a whatever to pass a dialogue DC ? Sure, put all point in attributes, you can still fail the die roll. You don't start rolling natural 20s after you respec. And the amount of players going through all that effort, for one DC, multiple or all has to be probably....0.01%.



Yes. Allowing players to respec if they made a mistake during character creation or level up, and potentially respec the companions a bit - is absolutely reasonable and in no way whatsoever affects your playthrough.


1) Still not cheating
2) Still not a multiplayer game, still not a competition, still not encouraged or forced to use something in the single player game you're playing, that you do not want to use.

Accidental double post, sorry

I have never been encouraged to respec. I've only talked to Withers once in camp and that was the first time he got there.

It is a matter of "don't like it , don't use it" or for me maybe don't need it don't use it. I don't think I'll ever respec but who knows? Anyway it's there if people want to use it.

Kelemvors Gavel raises a good point about respeccing to hit a particular DC. You don't have to respec to do that. Reloading the save and rerolling over and over again will be a more effective and time-efficient way of achieving it. If you need to roll a 20, and you have a +0 with no bonuses, you have a 5% chance. If you respec to get a +5 to the roll, you have a 25% chance of success. If you just reload and redo the roll, you only have to reload 5 or 6 times to have the same probability of succeeding the check once:
1-(.95)^6=26.5% chance of success on one roll eventually.

Just replying for fun since it is math, I don't think it actually matters.

But our analysis doesn't consider the consequence of failing after those first 6 @5% chance rolls vs the consequence of failing the first roll @25%. Because in one case you have to reroll another 6 times to get an equally high chance again vs just one. I think the more important metric is expected rolls to succeed @5% vs expected rolls to succeed @25% which is 20 rolls vs 4 rolls. So on average you need 16 more rolls without respec. What is faster might depend on your pc It's even worse if you look at the 'bad luck' scenarios. Needing more than 50 rolls is entirely possible with a 5% success rate, and no one wants to reload 50 times in a row.

Also, +5 bonus would be at level 1. If you do it later in the game you can easily get a much higher bonus, especially if you can expertise via bard or thief class.

Still, personally I am not a fan of respec since I think your class choices should have as much consequence as the narrative choices you make in game. There is no option to have character X join your party in Act 2 if you killed her in Act 1 after all, and you can't just switch between Act I choices. It just seems weird to me that you would change your class in the middle of the game, but again, it doesn't really hurt me much except that it limits game design in some other parts a bit.

Your assessment is true and fair, but I think the point that what can be achieved with respec can be achieved with "savescumming" still stands vis-a-vis DC checks, and it is just a matter of convenience. If respec is "cheating," then so is "savescumming." I maintain that neither are cheating, and it is just a way you choose to play the game. I played the whole game as a sorcerer. I chose sorcerer tags, roleplayed as a sorcerer, and never respec'd. Like you, I felt that being a sorcerer was a major decision in how I chose to play the game. However, I understand there are many people who play the game differently than me.

While I am playing this game for a singleplayer, story rich, character driven, party-based RPG experience, others are playing it as a multiplayer immersive sim quasi-sandbox because that's also something that it is. In the immersive sim, finding new and creative ways to solve problems or progress through the story is the name of the game. Part of that is fucking around with builds to see what can and cannot be accomplished in the game. I am not playing this game for build experimentation, but I know many people who are. I had friends at uni who would spend hours looking up rules, mechanics, and build ideas just to see if one character concept would work. Meanwhile, I made a generic bard who was a former god that got Karsus'd and sent back to level one. These guys had a stock of 10 different build concepts EACH, and readily died for fun just so they could try out a new concept.

I wholeheartedly agree.
Regarding the "Don't like it, don't use it" argument, it seems to stem from a perspective held by those who might also advocate for keeping features like the Stealth Bonus in EA games, under the premise that one can't simply opt out of it. Similarly, they might argue that a bug capable of instantly defeating all enemies should remain in the game, using the "Don't like, don't use" rationale.

It appears that there are even individuals who hold the belief that the responsibility for improving the game doesn't necessarily lie with the developers, but rather with the players themselves. They contend that gamers should adapt and play with the existing elements without questioning or seeking adaptations.

That is a complete and utter bag of bollocks. Maybe it is a simple as the fact that if I choose to use respec it has no effect on you or anyone else but if your wish is granted neither I nor anyone else can use respec. A six year old could grasp that simple fact.

Walking along the road on a nice sunny day and suddenly the game autosaves because shit is about to happen. Immersion anyone?

Why do you and Turnipsome insist on claiming that people defending respec are also defending things they have no interest in? There is no magic build that can be tailored at each long rest that fundamentally cheeses every encounter, and if there were, it would be incredibly tedious to produce. Neither of you have addressed any actual defense of respec and have instead decided to claim that its defenders would also defend things like stealth bonus, god mode, and auto win. Address the actual arguments.

Sounds like a you problem.

All the people that hate respec must really hate the existence of an easy mode. The challenge of tactician mode is completely invalidated because easy mode is a click away right? Setting your own boundaries shouldnt have anything to do with it, the developers should accommodate your lack of willpower.

For those of us with common sense, the availability of respec is fine, for those with the discipline of children, mods are surely available.

Okay, trying one more time. Please keep it calm and constructive, and remember it's fine to agree to disagree and to disengage once you find yourself repeating points or not making progress.

Even on something like this, it's clear that not everyone is going to agree no matter how long we argue, so once we've had our say all we can do is leave it up to Larian.

But please, let's not put arguments in our opponents' mouths as that's bound to rile people who are going to feel misrepresented. Focus on the positive case for your own opinion, or at least on arguments that are actually being made in this thread.

I just want a straight answer to a few basic questions:

1. Why is it okay to punish new or inexperienced players for making build mistakes, forcing them to start the game from an earlier save, or all over, just to fix their error? Why should the weakest players among us be forced to pay the harshest penalties in-game for their lack of knowledge?

2. Why is it okay to punish experimental players who are inclined to try new builds on the fly, forcing them to start the game over and play up to a certain level just to see if a build concept even works?

3. Why should mid-game build experimentation be disallowed, or heavily penalized?

4. Out of interest and curiosity, what are these easy mode builds that someone can respec into at more than halfway through the game? Certainly there are builds that can multiply damage or take the action economy for a ride, but all of these can be planned in advance. A player who knows how to make this build probably doesn't need respec in the first place.

5. What is "cheating" in respec that could not be easily accomplished through a combination of diverse party min-maxing and "savescumming?"

I believe most people are expressing their opinions regarding the game, we should focus more on substantive performance rather than playing word games.

1.Incorporating a feature into the game that was supposed to be provided by unofficial mods and only requiring 100g as a cost, isn't this encouraging?
2.Spending 400g to rebuild your team before battle essentially eliminates the challenge from all battles. If this is not considered cheating, then what would be? Is cheating in your concept limited to simply opening the game and instantly win?
3.I believe that most players who choose to play this role-playing game do care about immersion. Isn't it a fact that arbitrarily changing character settings leads to a loss of immersion?

So does reloading a save. That's it, ditch reloads, or at least limit them to one per day. After that, you have to start from the spot where you initially saved that day. People reload fights because they made the wrong call. Live with your decision. It may have killed you, but you can always start over because choices need to mean something!

Or...they could just let people have fun? I just respec'd for the first time and I've been lvl 12 for over 100 hours (277 hours on my first playthrough). I respec'd bc I was thinking about using a mod that allows you to go to level 20 if you multi-class, but you can't take level 12 until your last level or it crashes the game. After 100 hours or so of minimal improvements to anything with next to zero character progression it was <b><i>absolute</b></i>ly taking some of the fun out of the game. I haven't used the mod yet and may hold off until my next playthrough, and if anything, it has made the party a bit weaker since I'm basically pulling level 12 for a lvl in, idk, for Jaheira it was Fighter, but she was originally a Druid/Fighter Multi-class anyway. For Gale it was Sorcerer. I figured he is always talking about how gifted he was with magic from the beginning that it kinda fit.

Then we look at it from Larian and the normal fans perspective. This game will probably sell 15m-20m copies. About 75% of those people will have never played any type of table top or D&D CRPG. Most will have never played a western CRPG, especially the people on console. Most of the people on PC will have never played 5E...Idk, I personally would ot have bothered making Shadowheart a Tempest Cleric with a level of Rogue, but since I might be using that mod, I switched after 100 hours stuck at level 12. Just changing it up a little bit has made it more fun <i>for me.</i> I'm personally glad it is there, and if people are nuts enough to use it between checks instead of just save scumming until they get the roll they want, then all the power to them.

I don't see it as a lack of immersion since it's part of the game through a character. It's not like a mod or something extra added. (Which wouldn't mean lack of immersion either just saying.)

No clue what that is, but regardless, if you can't opt out of it - you're clearly forced to use it, it's not optional, it's not even "encouraged" then, therefore a case of "I'm gonna compare apples and oranges, because I can"


I can't even begin to grasp where this logic is coming from, and I'm trying my best not to get Smite of Ban-ed by the lovely Red Queen (I truly am my Queen).

To say that people who point out something is in the game, in no way in the players face/encouraged, if not used - has zero impact on your playthrough....to say that is the same as abusing a bug is just....wow.
Comparing an intended feature/mechanic to something completely opposite and would be against ToS etc.....


......huh?

Who? What? Where?

Minsc makes more sense.....