Savescumming, respeccing, and cheating in RPGs

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

Dislike the fact in Dragon age Veilguard you change your physical appearance, gender, race etc anytime in the game with no ingame explanation or story consequences. It’s completely immersion breaking and even worse that other RPG studios have been doing the same thing as well.

[rusty_shackleford]

Dislike the fact in Dragon age Veilguard you change your physical appearance, gender, race etc anytime in the game with no ingame explanation or story consequences. It’s completely immersion breaking and even worse that other RPG studios have been doing the same thing as well.

The more the target audience of a game is female, the less you will have decisions that have lasting impact and can't be undone.

[PixiGreen]

Dislike the fact in Dragon age Veilguard you change your physical appearance, gender, race etc anytime in the game with no ingame explanation or story consequences. It’s completely immersion breaking and even worse that other RPG studios have been doing the same thing as well.

Hard disagree. Any game with a customizable appearance eventually adds the ability to change it and for a good reason - it's a fluff that does not affect gameplay in any way but allows for correcting mistakes during initial customization. Lighting on the character-generating screen is never the same as in the game.

Same with respec. If there are builds in the game, there should be ability to change it. Most RPGs have it from the start, others fixed with mods.

Race or class can be fixed if they play a role in the story (like for Hawk in DA2) but the look and the build absolutely should be possible to change mid-game.

[rusty_shackleford]

Dislike the fact in Dragon age Veilguard you change your physical appearance, gender, race etc anytime in the game with no ingame explanation or story consequences. It’s completely immersion breaking and even worse that other RPG studios have been doing the same thing as well.

Hard disagree. Any game with a customizable appearance eventually adds the ability to change it and for a good reason - it's a fluff that does not affect gameplay in any way but allows for correcting mistakes during initial customization. Lighting on the character-generating screen is never the same as in the game.

Same with respect. If there are builds in game, there should be the ability to change it. Most RPGs have it from the start, others fixed with mods.

Race or class can be fixed if they play a role in the story (like for Hawk in DA2) but the look and the build absolutely should be possible to change mid-game.

[Trickster]

Dislike the fact in Dragon age Veilguard you change your physical appearance, gender, race etc anytime in the game with no ingame explanation or story consequences. It’s completely immersion breaking and even worse that other RPG studios have been doing the same thing as well.

Hard disagree. Any game with a customizable appearance eventually adds the ability to change it and for a good reason - it's a fluff that does not affect gameplay in any way but allows for correcting mistakes during initial customization. Lighting on the character-generating screen is never the same as in the game.

Same with respec. If there are builds in the game, there should be ability to change it. Most RPGs have it from the start, others fixed with mods.

Race or class can be fixed if they play a role in the story (like for Hawk in DA2) but the look and the build absolutely should be possible to change mid-game.

You know what? This conversation is making me miss games like Fable. You could actually see your character develop and change as the story went on based on stuff like age, clothing, alignment and your choice of skills. It was legit awesome to see your strong character get more muscled up or your mage getting magical blue marks on their body with changing eye colors. Why we can't have **** like this in modern games?

[rusty_shackleford]

Why we can't have **** like this in modern games?

People who get angry if they make a decision then realize they actually had to make a decision.

[WhiteShark]

Dislike the fact in Dragon age Veilguard you change your physical appearance, gender, race etc anytime in the game with no ingame explanation or story consequences. It’s completely immersion breaking and even worse that other RPG studios have been doing the same thing as well.

Hard disagree. Any game with a customizable appearance eventually adds the ability to change it and for a good reason - it's a fluff that does not affect gameplay in any way but allows for correcting mistakes during initial customization. Lighting on the character-generating screen is never the same as in the game.

Same with respec. If there are builds in the game, there should be ability to change it. Most RPGs have it from the start, others fixed with mods.

Race or class can be fixed if they play a role in the story (like for Hawk in DA2) but the look and the build absolutely should be possible to change mid-game.

I have some sympathy for your position. I have played games with a large discrepancy between how a character looks in the creator versus how he looks in game, and I've also played games with ambiguous or outright broken character building options that made me wish for a respec.

Nevertheless, in principle, I think maintaining the integrity of the game world is paramount. Whatever appearance modification and respec options be available, they must be fully justified within the setting; options beyond that violate the simulation. Fortunately, appearance issues can usually be caught very early, so restarting to fix them isn't much of a hassle. Build issues are a thornier problem, and this is one of the reasons I tend to prefer JRPG-style systems that allow radically altering your build on the fly so long as they are an actual feature of the setting (ex: orbments in Trails in the Sky).

[rusty_shackleford]

Nevertheless, in principle, I think maintaining the integrity of the game world is paramount. Whatever appearance modification and respec options be available, they must be fully justified within the setting; options beyond that violate the simulation. Fortunately, appearance issues can usually be caught very early, so restarting to fix them isn't much of a hassle. Build issues are a thornier problem, and this is one of the reasons I tend to prefer JRPG-style systems that allow radically altering your build on the fly so long as they are an actual feature of the setting (ex: orbments in Trails in the Sky).

ATOM RPG has a single use item you can acquire one of as part of a mid-game quest to respec. The item itself is part of the gameworld and in Trudograd is the basis of a major quest involving another character using it to forget what he's done.

[KOS-MOS]

Man, how you actually mod this garbage into something decent? BG3 was pozzed, but it had redeemable qualities at least.

People won't do it. I think it would be better to mod a good game, such as The Elder Scrolls Morrowind or Skyrim, or Dragon Age: Origins itself, or a game like Baldur's Gate 3 which has a good mechanical base, into a worthy Dragon Age game at this point. Looks like the story, characterization, and theming is fundamentally broken and should be redone, and the gameplay system seems dumbed down into Hogwarts Legacy style action combat and unlike a real Dragon Age game, so that would likely need a Skyrim overhaul mod pack level of rework to make it like the golden era of Dragon Age.

Yeah I agree. I download mods only for good games. I wont go through the hassle of searching, downloading, installing then testing mods for a garbage game.

[Rand]

Nevertheless, in principle, I think maintaining the integrity of the game world is paramount. Whatever appearance modification and respec options be available, they must be fully justified within the setting; options beyond that violate the simulation. Fortunately, appearance issues can usually be caught very early, so restarting to fix them isn't much of a hassle. Build issues are a thornier problem, and this is one of the reasons I tend to prefer JRPG-style systems that allow radically altering your build on the fly so long as they are an actual feature of the setting (ex: orbments in Trails in the Sky).

ATOM RPG has a single use item you can acquire one of as part of a mid-game quest to respec. The item itself is part of the gameworld and in Trudograd is the basis of a major quest involving another character using it to forget what he's done.

Or you can just use the cheat engine to spawn them in as you like.
Which I did, because I didn't like the companion's initial builds.
So as I got a companion, I respecced them to my taste. Which you should have been allowed to do anyway.
After that, no use for the items.

[rusty_shackleford]

Nevertheless, in principle, I think maintaining the integrity of the game world is paramount. Whatever appearance modification and respec options be available, they must be fully justified within the setting; options beyond that violate the simulation. Fortunately, appearance issues can usually be caught very early, so restarting to fix them isn't much of a hassle. Build issues are a thornier problem, and this is one of the reasons I tend to prefer JRPG-style systems that allow radically altering your build on the fly so long as they are an actual feature of the setting (ex: orbments in Trails in the Sky).

ATOM RPG has a single use item you can acquire one of as part of a mid-game quest to respec. The item itself is part of the gameworld and in Trudograd is the basis of a major quest involving another character using it to forget what he's done.

Or you can just use the cheat engine to spawn them in as you like.
Which I did, because I didn't like the companion's initial builds.
So as I got a companion, I respecced them to my taste. Which you should have been allowed to do anyway.
After that, no use for the items.

that's called cheating

[Rand]

ATOM RPG has a single use item you can acquire one of as part of a mid-game quest to respec. The item itself is part of the gameworld and in Trudograd is the basis of a major quest involving another character using it to forget what he's done.

Or you can just use the cheat engine to spawn them in as you like.
Which I did, because I didn't like the companion's initial builds.
So as I got a companion, I respecced them to my taste. Which you should have been allowed to do anyway.
After that, no use for the items.

that's called cheating

No, it's just creative modding.

[rusty_shackleford]

ATOM RPG has a single use item you can acquire one of as part of a mid-game quest to respec. The item itself is part of the gameworld and in Trudograd is the basis of a major quest involving another character using it to forget what he's done.

Or you can just use the cheat engine to spawn them in as you like.
Which I did, because I didn't like the companion's initial builds.
So as I got a companion, I respecced them to my taste. Which you should have been allowed to do anyway.
After that, no use for the items.

that's called cheating

No, it's just creative modding.

need to find an appropriate image for a cheater badge

[Rand]

Or you can just use the cheat engine to spawn them in as you like.
Which I did, because I didn't like the companion's initial builds.
So as I got a companion, I respecced them to my taste. Which you should have been allowed to do anyway.
After that, no use for the items.

that's called cheating

No, it's just creative modding.

need to find an appropriate image for a cheater badge

Cheating would be if you kept a bunch and used them to pass every skill check and combat as they came up my morphing your stats at will.

[rusty_shackleford]

No, it's just creative modding.

need to find an appropriate image for a cheater badge

Cheating would be if you kept a bunch and used them to pass every skill check and combat as they came up my morphing your stats at will.

Cheating is when you use cheat engine to spawn in items you otherwise would not have access to so you can modify characters in ways they weren't intended to be modified.

[Rand]

Cheating is when you use cheat engine to spawn in items you otherwise would not have access to so you can modify characters in ways they weren't intended to be modified.

I don't care about the developer's intent.
If I did, I wouldn't use mods.

[rusty_shackleford]

Cheating is when you use cheat engine to spawn in items you otherwise would not have access to so you can modify characters in ways they weren't intended to be modified.

I don't care about the developer's intent.
If I did, I wouldn't use mods.

Then just admit it's cheating.

[Rand]

Cheating is when you use cheat engine to spawn in items you otherwise would not have access to so you can modify characters in ways they weren't intended to be modified.

I don't care about the developer's intent.
If I did, I wouldn't use mods.

Then just admit it's cheating.

Cheating is when you break the rules of the game.
I mod stuff to improve the game and play it fair.
Rusty, we love you, but you're a nutcase.

[rusty_shackleford]

Cheating is when you break the rules of the game.

You did break the rules. The game gives you one(1) of those items, because they're incredibly powerful and potentially gamebreaking.
The reason you can't respec your companions is because you're not meant to have an uber-optimized party. It's the same reason using mercenaries in RPGs that offer them breaks those games, they aren't designed around you being that optimized.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

Hard disagree. Any game with a customizable appearance eventually adds the ability to change it and for a good reason

It’s called manual saves . If you mess up a character design that you feel the need to change it reload a previous save state.

- it's a fluff that does not affect gameplay in any way but allows for correcting mistakes during initial customization. Lighting on the character-generating screen is never the same as in the game.

I’m not talking about slight differences in appearances like a hair syle or facial hair. I’m taking about changing your skin colour, voice, bone structure, height and other noticeable differences. Which absolutely is a big deal for narrative reasons. People take slight chances in you simply getting a haircut now imagine talking to some one has average white dude and then five minutes later you talk to them as 7 feet black man.

This is same logic as just make everyone pansexual because it gives more options and doesn’t effect gameplay even though it often clashes with the lore and world building of a setting.

Same with respec. If there are builds in the game, there should be ability to change it. Most RPGs have it from the start, others fixed with mods.

It not a fixed but a deliberate design choice. As much I **** on Owlcat I greatly appreciate from them limiting respec options.

[rusty_shackleford]

It’s called manual saves . If you mess up a character design that you feel the need to change it reload a previous save state.

People need to learn to accept what they got and go on. Your game doesn't need to be a series of perfects, just take what you get and go on with it.
I rarely ever reload a game outside of when I get a gameover or encounter a bug now. Got an outcome you didn't like? Too bad, suck it up and move on.


There's a strong aversion to letting go, and people need to learn it now rather than later.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

It’s called manual saves . If you mess up a character design that you feel the need to change it reload a previous save state.

People need to learn to accept what they got and go on. Your game doesn't need to be a series of perfects, just take what you get and go on with it.
I rarely ever reload a game outside of when I get a gameover or encounter a bug now. Got an outcome you didn't like? Too bad, suck it up and move on.


There's a strong aversion to letting go, and people need to learn it now rather than later.

In principle I fully agree you however in practice not so much.Game devs make save scumming extremely incentivizing because they make many outcomes a zero sum game when failing a speech checks or picking the wrong dialogue option ,resulting in that quest having less content or worse whole story branches being unavailable.

Games like Disco Elysium does a good job making failure not such a loss by having various alternative scenarios that still gives insight to the story/characters ,despite not getting the best outcome that just doesn’t just lock content for failure.

[rusty_shackleford]

In principle I fully agree you however in practice not so much.Game devs make save scumming extremely incentivizing because they make many outcomes a zero sum game when failing a speech checks or picking the wrong dialogue option ,resulting in that quest having less content or worse whole story branches being unavailable.

That sucks. Move on.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

In principle I fully agree you however in practice not so much.Game devs make save scumming extremely incentivizing because they make many outcomes a zero sum game when failing a speech checks or picking the wrong dialogue option ,resulting in that quest having less content or worse whole story branches being unavailable.

That sucks. Move on.

Well if there not going to even attempt to address that issue then save scumming will be prevalent issue.

[rusty_shackleford]

In principle I fully agree you however in practice not so much.Game devs make save scumming extremely incentivizing because they make many outcomes a zero sum game when failing a speech checks or picking the wrong dialogue option ,resulting in that quest having less content or worse whole story branches being unavailable.

That sucks. Move on.

Well if there not going to even attempt to address that issue then save scumming will be prevalent issue.

How would you know you missed out on something unless you savescummed?

[Acrux]

In principle I fully agree you however in practice not so much.Game devs make save scumming extremely incentivizing because they make many outcomes a zero sum game when failing a speech checks or picking the wrong dialogue option ,resulting in that quest having less content or worse whole story branches being unavailable.

That sucks. Move on.

Well if there not going to even attempt to address that issue then save scumming will be prevalent issue.

He's telling you to be okay with missing some content. Stop playing games like you have to 100% everything and play them more like simulations. You might miss things - and that's okay.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

That sucks. Move on.

Well if there not going to even attempt to address that issue then save scumming will be prevalent issue.

How would you know you missed out on something unless you savescummed?

Because games typically telegraphs that “you ****** up” in hot pink neon lights.

[Oyster Sauce]

Halo would be improved if there was a 50% chance you just couldn't do the Assault On The Control Room level every time you play the campaign. Just replay 90% of the exact same content and maybe you can see it next time

[rusty_shackleford]

Halo would be improved if there was a 50% chance you just couldn't do the Assault On The Control Room level every time you play the campaign. Just replay 90% of the exact same content and maybe you can see it next time

If there was a good reason for not doing it, sure.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

That sucks. Move on.

Well if there not going to even attempt to address that issue then save scumming will be prevalent issue.

He's telling you to be okay with missing some content. Stop playing games like you have to 100% everything and play them more like simulations. You might miss things - and that's okay.

A very good point however that’s just not how I play RPG’s typically.