Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Decline Respeccing in RPGs

Joined
Jul 27, 2013
Messages
1,567
Is this mechanic a detriment to RPGs? Is there a cut-off point to how extensive it can be before it becomes a problem? The mechanic, in my eyes, is of no worth to someone who likes CRPGs, it's primary purpose is to provide a way for people who got stuck with a shit build in an unbalanced game, to fix their mistakes. Those who enjoy unbalanced games will tell you that playing through with gimped builds can be a fun experience, and gaming the system doesn't feel as satisfying if you know nothing you've done is set in stone. It's a clear case of unnecessary handholding, hell, that same issue was the motivation for a lot of Skyrim's dumbed down character creation.

My take on it relates to my semi recent playthrough of D:OS, I enjoyed the game, even if I agreed with a lot of the criticism. My goal near the end was to finish the game in order to have fun replaying it with a different build, since points were relatively sparse in the game(Just how I like it.), it felt like I could have a drastically different experience playing through another time. Finding the respec option completely killed that desire for me, it was pretty much all-encompassing, and topped off with the appearance editor? It felt akin to choosing your head and loadout in Borderlands as opposed to taking a unique character through the world. Why bother trying to build a new and interesting character when I could just do it right now? my choices in creation, and in leveling, were pretty much worthless. Sure I could just ignore it, but that kind of logic is a slippery slope when it comes to RPGs, I like RPGs specifically because I don't have to LARP that I'm playing a certain character/role. I know there's a line of thought that says: "Don't like it don't use it, y u try to dictate how I play me game cause u hav no self control?" But in my eyes, limitation is a part of RPGs, doesn't sound too glamorous, but it's all quite glorious I assure you.

Overall, I dislike any form of respeccing, even FNV's minor respeccing in the form of a one time trait change and plastic surgery feels lame to me. Obviously it depends on how much my choices matter, and how much my build itself is a part of the game, if it's purely a combat thing I might tolerate it. In D:OS's case there wasn't really much more to compensate.

tl;dr: how do you feel about respeccing? I don't like it.
 
Last edited:

Scroo

Female Quota Staff
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2010
Messages
1,865,340
Location
Too far away from the sea
Codex 2014 Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
Hard to say. Respeccing doesn't feel great somehow but on the other hand it's really no fun when you are like 30 hours into a game and then realize you screwed up your build and have to start over. Of course one should expect a certain understanding that it's probably not a good idea to have a mage who skills 2 handed swords, archery and stealth and tbh if someone screws it up THAT badly it's their own fault somehow ;)

BUT the issue is that even as a more experienced RPG gamer you never really know how the game is balanced and what skills are useless if you are playing it for the first time. And there are always useless skills, it's almost as if game designers put these in on purpose. Lockpicking in modern games is to mention here. So I dunno. While I think you don't give skilling a lot of thought if you are able to respec I still guess it's good to have some kind of way out if the game screws you over because you skilled axes but there are only 2 axes in the whole game, as an example.
 
Joined
Jul 27, 2013
Messages
1,567
Hard to say. Respeccing doesn't feel great somehow but on the other hand it's really no fun when you are like 30 hours into a game and then realize you screwed up your build and have to start over. Of course one should expect a certain understanding that it's probably not a good idea to have a mage who skills 2 handed swords, archery and stealth and tbh if someone screws it up THAT badly it's their own fault somehow ;)

BUT the issue is that even as a more experienced RPG gamer you never really know how the game is balanced and what skills are useless if you are playing it for the first time. And there are always useless skills, it's almost as if game designers put these in on purpose. Lockpicking in modern games is to mention here. So I dunno. While I think you don't give skilling a lot of thought if you are able to respec I still guess it's good to have some kind of way out if the game screws you over because you skilled axes but there are only 2 axes in the whole game, as an example.
:balance:
 

Scroo

Female Quota Staff
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2010
Messages
1,865,340
Location
Too far away from the sea
Codex 2014 Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
Hard to say. Respeccing doesn't feel great somehow but on the other hand it's really no fun when you are like 30 hours into a game and then realize you screwed up your build and have to start over. Of course one should expect a certain understanding that it's probably not a good idea to have a mage who skills 2 handed swords, archery and stealth and tbh if someone screws it up THAT badly it's their own fault somehow ;)

BUT the issue is that even as a more experienced RPG gamer you never really know how the game is balanced and what skills are useless if you are playing it for the first time. And there are always useless skills, it's almost as if game designers put these in on purpose. Lockpicking in modern games is to mention here. So I dunno. While I think you don't give skilling a lot of thought if you are able to respec I still guess it's good to have some kind of way out if the game screws you over because you skilled axes but there are only 2 axes in the whole game, as an example.
:balance:

No I don't say ultimate balance is a good thing, I just say that if there is a skill in a game it should be valuable and usable and not just here for decoration. It doesn't feel right to get punished because I skilled something that's on the character screen but at the same time completely useless in the game itself.
 

ghostdog

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
11,079
I agree, respeccing basically means that your choices in character building do not matter. OCD min-maxers at least have to do some serious work and restart the game a couple of times before. True, it sucks if you seriously fucked up your charactera dn can't proceed, but how many times has that really happened ? It's mostly a case of "damn, my character isn't as much OP as I'd have liked" or "crap, this skill I took isn't very useful, I should have taken 'power fart' instead of 'tranny whisperer' "
 

Greatness

Cipher
Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Messages
288
The only time I'm OK with it is in MMORPGs or Diablo-style Multiplayer "RPGs". It can be pretty dumb when you figure out a build you really like only to have some stupid arbitrary balance patch come along and ruin it.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,999
Location
Platypus Planet
Respecing is unnecessary as long as there are no useless dump skills / stats and there is high quality documentation that states very clearly what everything is and does. Unfortunately this excludes most games.
 

bloodlover

Arcane
Joined
Sep 5, 2010
Messages
2,039
It's quite hard to gimp your character or party so hard that the game becomes unplayable. Unless you do some retarded stuff like pumping STR on a mage and giving her a 2h mace to fight. When I was a kid and playing I remember getting owned because of the fact that I messed up my character but for some reason I still enjoyed the games. Now I tend to min/max and as much as I try to avoid it, somehow I still end up favouring that over not giving a shit and just playing the game. I am assuming this has to do with my limited amount of time to play but this is not really a good excuse.

I remember fucking up my 1st Diablo 2 character so bad that I couldn't even defeat Diablo on normal. My necro was useless so a friend of mine edited the character, put the points in the right places and they I owned.
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
it's really no fun when you are like 30 hours into a game and then realize you screwed up your build and have to start over.

Choices and consequences, sis. Choices and consequences. :obviously:

Building a powerful party is the closest thing RPGs have to "playing with a skill". Being able to respec is like playing Doom in godmode.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
In cRPGs respecs are simply high treason and anyone advocating their implementation needs a genetic respeccing.

In MMOs and Diabloesque games who cares, your character never had a soul anyway.
 

Mangoose

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 5, 2009
Messages
24,725
Location
I'm a Banana
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity
The main problem with DOS is that the manual is shit. Only after you play a lot and also read one of the wikias can you build a good party. This is intentional discursion of the topic lol.

Back to the topic, in general yes I agree that respeccing is a detriment. The only time I want to respec is if I want to try a different build for fun because I don't expect to replay (or I'm too impatient to replay lol).

That being said, I think respeccing could be okay if it were very very costly, or minor as the OP described in FNV. I actually found DOS to be quite expensive in respeccing because of having to buy new skill books (though in my second run I learned much better how to make lots of $$$).
 
Joined
Jul 27, 2013
Messages
1,567
If the systems weren't so shit they probably wouldn't need a safety net to begin with. Better to attack the cause than the symptoms, causes being either bad character system or retards, being transparent is always good, making sure most sensible builds have some advantage is equally good, you could always go full sawyer and make everything viable, I'd take that over respeccing.
 

MrMarbles

Cipher
Joined
Jan 13, 2014
Messages
438
Depends on the player, but if part of the experience is figuring out the mechanics (Arcanum took a while, amirite?) and planning cool builds, then respeccing just saps away all the fun.

I used to enjoy playing around with D2 but as soon as the patch allowing respeccing came along I took it off the harddrive.
 

Scroo

Female Quota Staff
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2010
Messages
1,865,340
Location
Too far away from the sea
Codex 2014 Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
If the systems weren't so shit they probably wouldn't need a safety net to begin with. Better to attack the cause than the symptoms, causes being either bad character system or retards, being transparent is always good, making sure most sensible builds have some advantage is equally good, you could always go full sawyer and make everything viable, I'd take that over respeccing.


Yeh although EVERYTHING shouldn't be viable imho, it's just strange when your full INT barbarian who skilled staffs is as useful as a STR barbarian because honestly if you skill it like this it's not the game's fault that you are a bit strange in the head ^^
 

Mangoose

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 5, 2009
Messages
24,725
Location
I'm a Banana
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity
If the systems weren't so shit they probably wouldn't need a safety net to begin with. Better to attack the cause than the symptoms, causes being either bad character system or retards, being transparent is always good, making sure most sensible builds have some advantage is equally good, you could always go full sawyer and make everything viable, I'd take that over respeccing.
Oh definitely, that's another huge weakness of DOS. I do wish I could play Wasteland 2 to compare but I'm ever so lazy (and the experimental/secrets in DOS are addicting lol).

And I like your last two statements. It's something I was thinking about earlier, and also mentioned. "Trash" skills are not a bad thing as long as there are a variety of good skills to choose from. Sawyer-esque balance everything is good, but not necessary. I'm again digressing, but I believe the principle is not so much to minimize trash abilities, but to provide enough good skills. As long as those skills are sufficient, you can add as many trash skills as you want.
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

KamelĂĄsĂĄ!
Patron
Joined
Jun 18, 2010
Messages
20,317
Location
DiNMRK
Respeccing only has a place in an environment with mandatory updates that include balance changes (EG: MMOs). Respecs are for when you've spent ages making a sensible (and maybe even competitive build) and some asshat developer decides to nerf all your skills because Alliance Paladins don't feel special enough.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
Respeccing is fine in aRPGs/MMOs. Nothing's better than making an uninformed build, or something based on false assumptions, and then to have to stick to it. Or to find out that a late-game mechanic addition/spell scaling will fuck YOUR particular build over.

On the other hand, just about any other type of RPG should avoid respeccing, because it cheapens the experience - and it should give you enough means to overcome the issue in some other way than endless corpseruns, anyway. If it doesn't, then it's a designer's fuck-up.
 

Gozma

Arcane
Joined
Aug 1, 2012
Messages
2,951
It should be a console command, not like some Temple of Respecc with a bas relief of the Phoenix or some dumb shit where they pretend it's a proper element of the game.
 

Cadmus

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
4,264
I like respec if it's like, return the latest learned skill point, for a high price. This allows me to test the spells I don't understand or just can't guess properly how good they will be while also not invalidating the whole experience. Better no respec than all respec. Fuck the complete respec, that sucks ass. I don't remember it ever happening to me that I couldn't finish a game because I made my character so retarded they can't get any further.
 

Xeon

Augur
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
1,858
I like Re-specing.

I kinda didn't like Dragon Age II and wasn't having that much fun and eventually decided to re-spec and tried different builds throughout the game and that was kinda fun.

Second or third playtrough I always just max all my stats and skills to see what I missed so far that only really mattered with Fallout games. most games there is not much difference except for some flavor text or something IIRC.
 

Grunker

RPG Codex Ghost
Patron
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
Messages
27,386
Location
Copenhagen
Hard to say. Respeccing doesn't feel great somehow but on the other hand it's really no fun when you are like 30 hours into a game and then realize you screwed up your build and have to start over. Of course one should expect a certain understanding that it's probably not a good idea to have a mage who skills 2 handed swords, archery and stealth and tbh if someone screws it up THAT badly it's their own fault somehow ;)

BUT the issue is that even as a more experienced RPG gamer you never really know how the game is balanced and what skills are useless if you are playing it for the first time. And there are always useless skills, it's almost as if game designers put these in on purpose. Lockpicking in modern games is to mention here. So I dunno. While I think you don't give skilling a lot of thought if you are able to respec I still guess it's good to have some kind of way out if the game screws you over because you skilled axes but there are only 2 axes in the whole game, as an example.
:balance:

No I don't say ultimate balance is a good thing, I just say that if there is a skill in a game it should be valuable and usable and not just here for decoration.

This is the crux of Sawyer's argument regarding balance. If you see anyone claiming he's all about "ultimate balance" and "everything must be equal", it is their interpretation. Not his words. In fact he himself often uses examples of two things that aren't equally good in his system design but argues that the important thing is that both are at least useful. He's recognized many times that even with ad infinitum system iteration the concept of "perfect balance" is probably impossible.

Sawyer's problems are overambition, some evident execution problems and a lot of practical issues. Don't let Roguey or butthurt anti-sawyerists fool you into thinking that Sawyer and Roguey are the same person.

On topic: I dislike respeccing but I also hate it when a system tells me something will be useful and then bullshits. Like in D:OS where I spent a few points in Perception to make it sort of a secondary investment and almost literally gained nothing by it because the stat does nothing for non-ranged unless stacked pretty highly. Or a lot of the skills in my Fallout and Wasteland playthroughs. D:OS actually had a respec system that made you work for your respec (you had to start from scratch acquiring skills and such) but fucked it up beyond belief by only including a single copy of some skills. I liked having to work for my respec, I liked it less that some stuff was completely supported while other stuff arbitrarily was not.
 
Last edited:

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,176
Respecting is only legitimate on MMOs, where making the wrong build defacto means you are shut out from end game and other crucial content (unless you have a wacky guild to play with). Other types of games, particularly single player games, shouldn't bother with it.
 

Xeon

Augur
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
1,858
but fucked it up beyond belief by only including a single copy of some skills.
Does that mean not having different skills like in Wasteland 2 for everything? That kinda redundant (Sorry, if that's not the right word to use).

I don't mind having a lot of skills and I love that in Fallout but having multiple unlock skills for each type of lock is kinda of a chore to go through.
 

Grunker

RPG Codex Ghost
Patron
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
Messages
27,386
Location
Copenhagen
but fucked it up beyond belief by only including a single copy of some skills.
Does that mean not having different skills like in Wasteland 2 for everything? That kinda redundant (Sorry, if that's not the right word to use).

I think you misunderstood :)

In D:OS, active combat abilities are called Skills. You learn them from finding physical objects in the world (Skillbooks - you can purchase some from vendors or find them as loot). However let's say I build a mage and I want to respec. If I already learned X spell of which there only exists one copy, I'm stuck as far as respecs go, because I can't find or purchase a new skill book of that Skill. So yeah, liked that they made you work it, liked it less that there was dumb shit like that.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom