How to recover from a bad character build

[StaceyPowers]

Have you ever done a really bad job building your character with skill/point distributions, and then struggled afterwards? What did you do to make your character more functional and playable?

[Heatman]

Whenever it comes to my character customization in most RPG games that I played, I'm always very careful with my character building because if I mess it up, it's always going to affect my gameplay. I had a little struggle with my character building in Divinity: Original Sin II but I later got it right the way I wanted. 

[Kane99]

That's a problem of mine. I am someone who is not a fan of reading countless mentues and having to read into what stats and all that does. I remember when I started Dark Souls the first time. I made a guy who was fat and of course this made him slow, or I think it did, I don't remember. Anyway I quit pretty quickly because I figured my character wouldn't do me good. 

But jokes on me, as I gave up on Dark Souls pretty fast. 

[Heatman]

8 hours ago, Kane99 said:

That's a problem of mine. I am someone who is not a fan of reading countless mentues and having to read into what stats and all that does. I remember when I started Dark Souls the first time. I made a guy who was fat and of course this made him slow, or I think it did, I don't remember. Anyway I quit pretty quickly because I figured my character wouldn't do me good. 

But jokes on me, as I gave up on Dark Souls pretty fast. 

With how difficult and punishing Dark Souls can be, if your character isn't built well, you're definitely going to suffer horribly in the game because you're gonna be at a very big disadvantage. The rate at which you're getting killed easily will frustrate you into quitting fast. 

[Empire]

Mallus Agathodaemon, he's a tiefling alchemist and the first character I ever played all the way to level 20. I leaned really heavily into the mad scientist persona when I made him. He has multiple personalities and I get to do different voices for each one. He's the sort of person that you meet and he doesn't assume that he is smarter than you, he knows that he is smarter than you. He will dissect you to figure out what makes you tick, burns people alive for fun, and will replace people with Greater Alchemical Simulations to see if anyone would notice.

[Yaramaki]

These days most rpg's have an option where you can redistribute skills and talents at some point or even any given point in the game either for a small fee or a special item so it's not all that bad where you lose hours of progress. Knowing myself i usually play as a warrior type class or something in between that so that is what i usually go for, i've tried playing as magician whenever i started a new rpg but i end up either restarting all over because it's not really my playstyle especially if the game is new to me. 

But if the option is just not there to redistribute skill points i'll take my loss and start over. But as stated i usually just play as a warrior and start experimenting with other playstyles once i've mastered most aspects of the game.

[Shagger]

To me, if it is even possible to level your character up in such a way that they feel weak, then it's a sigh that the game (or at least the levelling system) isn't very good. It should be possible to make it work with any kind of build within the boundaries of the game with, obviously, employing the correct play style and tactics. So in answer to the OP's question I suppose that's answer, adopt and experiment with other play styles and tactics, but if a game is more rewarding to one kind of build or play style over another, that's a sign of a problem.

 

The Elder Scrolls games are bad for this. I remember myself and @Crazycrab posting on what was one of your topics on Oblivion ages ago @StaceyPowers talking about how the levelling system in that game was so messed up it could weaken you compared to the enemies in the game if one got it wrong. I've linked the thread in question, so I won't go into such detail again, but I did mention Skyrim's system was much better. It's true, it is, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have it's own problems. Weapon skills, blacksmithing and enchanting, those are the key to being powerful in combat in Skyrim. Do it any other way, and you're doing it wrong. One can become so overpowered so easily. Forget about using magic in combat especially, you simply can't do even close to the same amount of damage. Ironically though, in the higher levellers, the mages you fight against in Skyrim are deadly, even when wearing armour with some serious magic defences enchanted in, the whole magic system in the game is horribly balanced.

[Akun]

I follow a walkthrough. lol

I just don't give a crap about gameplay challenges as much as most gamers. I just slap a walkthrough and get it over with 'coz I'm lazy like that.

[kingpotato]

Never actually had thay problem except with Skyrim when choosing a very bad race at the start of the game, sadly the only solution for that is to reset the game

[Heatman]

11 hours ago, kingpotato said:

Never actually had thay problem except with Skyrim when choosing a very bad race at the start of the game, sadly the only solution for that is to reset the game

That's truly annoying once you make that mistake because having to start all over isn't always nice but that's the only way to correct the problem. I think that I get the reason now why someone asked tips on the best race to start with in either Skyrim or Elder Scrolls Online one time again. 

[Kane99]

On 9/21/2022 at 9:13 AM, Akun said:

I follow a walkthrough. lol

I just don't give a crap about gameplay challenges as much as most gamers. I just slap a walkthrough and get it over with 'coz I'm lazy like that.

I may have to do that for some games, especially something like Dark Souls, as I can never get good at it haha. I've played a fair deal of the beginning, but once I got to one of the first "real" bosses, I kinda gave up.

But, if I knew how to build the best character for the job, I may give the game and series another go. 😄 

[Heatman]

9 hours ago, Kane99 said:

I may have to do that for some games, especially something like Dark Souls, as I can never get good at it haha. I've played a fair deal of the beginning, but once I got to one of the first "real" bosses, I kinda gave up.

But, if I knew how to build the best character for the job, I may give the game and series another go. 😄 

I did more than that when I was playing Dark Soul's games and even Seriko :Shadow Die Twice. They are games that I couldn't just jump into because I felt like I can play it. I actually did it and the rate at which I got killed, I knew that I needed help 😂. 

 

[Ajibusu]

On 9/20/2022 at 2:15 PM, Heatman said:

Whenever it comes to my character customization in most RPG games that I played, I'm always very careful with my character building because if I mess it up, it's always going to affect my gameplay. I had a little struggle with my character building in Divinity: Original Sin II but I later got it right the way I wanted. 

I played Divinity: Original Sin II and I was able to build my character with the help of my senior brother that has played the game for long. Getting it wrong while building your character can affect everything you do on the game. 

[Shagger]

On 9/21/2022 at 12:52 PM, Yaramaki said:

These days most rpg's have an option where you can redistribute skills and talents at some point or even any given point in the game either for a small fee or a special item so it's not all that bad where you lose hours of progress. Knowing myself i usually play as a warrior type class or something in between that so that is what i usually go for, i've tried playing as magician whenever i started a new rpg but i end up either restarting all over because it's not really my playstyle especially if the game is new to me. 

But if the option is just not there to redistribute skill points i'll take my loss and start over. But as stated i usually just play as a warrior and start experimenting with other playstyles once i've mastered most aspects of the game.

 

Mechanics that allow you to redistribute and remake your character are great, but not nearly as common as they should be. You could do it in Kingdoms of Amalur at the cost of gold that increases each time you do so, but off the top of my head I can't think of another. What other games allow for this that you've played?

[Yaramaki]

57 minutes ago, Shagger said:

 

Mechanics that allow you to redistribute and remake your character are great, but not nearly as common as they should be. You could do it in Kingdoms of Amalur at the cost of gold that increases each time you do so, but off the top of my head I can't think of another. What other games allow for this that you've played?

It's pretty much standard affair in any modern rpg these days, in dragon quest 11 you can redistribute skills at any statue or church. The witcher 3 also had a potion i think where you could redistribute all your skills. I think any modern assasins creed you can redistribute skills whenever you want. The problem is i can't really remember what games exactly because i usually tend to play as the warrior class and not look back so i never really have to make use of these items. I'm fairly sure dragon age also had an item that you could use to redistribute your skills atleast inquisition had because i changed my class to rogue mid game. A couple of others that i remember that had respec options were borderlands 2 and i'm pretty sure 3 had aswell and diablo 3 i'm also sure you could respec your character.

I think this may be an interesting topic to discuss by itself but as my memory fails me now, should anybody be interested in creating such a topic i probably will have to boot up some older saves to see which games you are able to respec your skill points so i can add something to the conversation.