A solution to the respec conundrum going around since ages

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Edit:
If you enjoy the idea leave an upvote.
If you’re simply sick of hearing over and over about people complaining about the respec system… do the same!
If you see any problems with the suggestion, please leave a comment, fleshing the idea out further and taking care of any potential problems is a primary concern of mine after all. I’ll keep the initial post updated and adjust it according to any problem brought forward.
If you just wanna talk about the idea or have questions… well… leave a comment as well :stuck_out_tongue:

Currently there’s a camp, a rather large on (which I’m in favor with) stating that respec is utterly fine, maybe needs a bit of love early level and that’s it.

And then there’s another camp stating that respec in the current state feels punishing, and having to re-level the skills up is a hassle and at times even ruins the game for them.

So I thought about a solution which does solve all of those issues plus some extra ones along the line. It’s an add-on to the existing system and not a rework. Because that’s fairly important effort-wise from EHG as well plus keeps familiarity with the existing situation but solves the issues for both sides completely.

So first let’s set the baseline what it needs to do:
-It needs to stop characters from switching their setup frictionless during content to hinder boss-cheesing or similar things.
-It needs to take full care of the hassle for respeccing the passives (Clicking hassle).
-It needs to fully take care of the problem with respeccing skills (Re-leveling hassle).

So my suggestion is a fairly specific loadout system which is set up the following way:

-First of all, it’s only allowed to be done in town. This hinders any sort of abuse of the system

-It needs to have a cost to activate a new loadout initially since it could be abused as a storage method otherwise.

And it works the following way:

When you activate a new loadout it keeps your level and progression in general. Hence Campaign status, quest status and monolith status. Those don’t need to be touched.

What it provides simply is:
-An empty equipment set.
-Empty skill allocation
-Empty passive tree
-Empty blessings page
-Empty idol page.

So this way you can re-fit and re-build a character from scratch, with the same class and sub-class fixed but allowing variances in building up a character.
It also minimizes the needed storage space on EHG’s servers since no full-fledged character profile needs to be saved, it doesn’t need to store quest status, faction allocation, the monolith layout, the corruption status and probably much more I can’t think about.

This way both ‘camps’ are happy.
Friction for changing your own build is still there, meaning adjustments to a single loadout will nonetheless have an effect.
On the other hand variance in building a character is freed up and possible. ‘Experimenting with builds’ can be done without hitting the currently existing roadblocks for it.

Currently the game has 15 character classes in total, which means playing 15 times through the progression.
I would say this is more then enough. Expecting any more would solely be a mockery for the player’s time. After 15 times it’ll most likely become a slog for many people and takes care of this side-issue as well, alleviating that, raising player retention upwards.

Also as another side-effect it frees up character slots. Currently 25 are available because of technical limitations. I imagine this system will avert a large aspect of those limitations, allowing for more then 10 variances of builds to be played.

So… where to put that mechanic actually? Would be new assets needed?:

Actually no. We already have a place to respec passive points. This can simply be a tab there, enforcing it mechanically to be only done in towns anyway. The only implementations would be the mechanical application of switching out the respective parts on the fly as well as the UI for it.
A tab-system similar to the stash-tabs would work for this hence. You can name the different loadouts, you see what equipment, idols, blessings, stats and skills they have allocated through scrolling down when in the tab, you can one-button click and hence switch the whole setup simply.

As a side effect it makes ‘skipping’ the campaign for those variant builds unneeded as you’re already at the respective progress stage, hence this mechanic would be especially useful for long-term legacy players as well as experimental-prone people… as well as surely some others as well.

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In all honesty I am 100% happy with how respecialization works right now (It is easily the best system for such a thing I have ever seen in any game). You get a lot of minimum respec points and you level up majority of the whole pool extremely fast due to increased xp gain up to certain level. I really don’t think it needs changing.

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Yes, as mentioned in the first sentence: I agree 100%!

But it’s not about each individual doing that… but instead looking at those not enjoying it and even be turned away from the game for it.
There’s a non-substantial amount of threads about the topic, coming up over and over again and both sides making arguments about the situation without finding common ground.

The suggestion hence tackles that so me and you for example can keep the full system in place… as is even. But! Adding extra functionality without damaging any of the existing limitations and functionality.
Which is not only good for those not enjoying the respec system and having their enjoyment lessened but also providing those already happy with it a bonus on top.

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Personally dont give a shit about respecing skills or passives, done it for years and takes 1 monolith to get 20 skill points back

No…the respecing I want is complete Mastery change at a cost, read my post history if you care but at the end of the day nothing is going to change so who cares

I actually used an example pre league which is ironic as I would do this now: I have a level 100 Warlock in cycle I wont play again now, I considered playing around with the new broken Minion and some auto ressurecting Zombies but I do not want to level an Acolyte again and collect blessings and stack corruption etc etc so naturally respecing my entire Mastery makes complete sense since I just want to screw around with a high level Necromancer

I am making a Storm Crow Beastmaster which is my 3rd character this cycle, after that im done as im already burned out. I did Sanctum around 13 times last night or more to gear up this new character. cant be bothered doing it yet again and also leveling and opening all monoliths etc

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I can absolutely understand that, it’s one of the points mentioned after all.
‘Not having to go through the whole progression over and over’.

But respec for the mastery itself is probably a big stretch as EHG puts that under ‘character identity’, so I imagine unless there’s a massive outcry about it we won’t see that.

Which is why I at least lessened it to keeping it fully contained inside the mastery itself, hence 15 characters created over time. Everyone burns out after a while, the difference is just how long it takes to do that.

So while not helping with the mastery itself it at least would stop the issue of moving between heavily varying builds in the same mastery class. For example a Necromancer with a wraithlord and one focused on Fire minions while the next is a full ‘Zoo’ build. Those all need different blessings which need a long time to farm up and hence hinder switching between them. Usually warranting a new character… which isn’t possible sadly with the limited character amount we have.

It’s a slight alleviation of the issue but at least one which can become a solution to people burning out because of re-leveling and having to do all the content once more from start to finish, since that is a substantial amount of time which one would often rather use to actually push their character to new limits.

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I will be happy when they add a button for Respec all Passives at once or give the ability to take out all points from one Tab.
This is the only thing what struggles around…

Releveling of the skills is not that part. Make one Map or Two and its done.

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Yes, but it’s an issue for some people seemingly, the base idea of it taking time which had already been invested, and having to re-do that every time.

Hence the suggestion, the other things are a nice bonus.

The one-button respec should definitely be done as well though, I agree 100% with that, it would make life easier should the need arise.

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There wont be any way to change Mastery, im fine with it but it just means ill play less

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Yeah, understandable.

But you can see it that way, if you keep in legacy and don’t care for a ‘fresh economy’ or the leaderboard then over time you might get all 15 masteries up to end-game, or even level 100.

It doesn’t need to be all done in a day after all, the game’s supposed to be fun first and foremost, that’s the whole reason for games to exist.
So should that happen the loadout system would start to help immensely, since re-doing the whole thing when wanting to vary in builds inside a mastery? It’s there for exactly that reason, allowing it given enough items have been acquired, and a bit of effort nonetheless being spent for the blessings.

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But this is why most nations don’t negotiate with terrorists. Once this demand is met, then the same leverage will be used for the next thing they don’t like, and want to quit the game over. Rinse, repeat.

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I will add my voice to the crowd outlining that there is too much friction in the current skill specialization re-leveling. If I play a flame wraith build, and I get Wraithlord Harbour to drop, I have to respec my wraiths out of Locus of Death and Flame Wraith and into Twin Spirits and Sequel of Avarice, I have to respec my Dread Shade into All for One, and I have to drop a skill intirely for infernal shade to make that change to the build work. So I have to significantly drop down the level of content I’m clearing until those skills relevel, as I’ve taken all the power out of my build to accomodate moving to the loadout that facilitates using my lucky unique drop.

It is an annoying bit of friction that serves very little purpose by being there. It discourages and punishes experimentation with the skill trees, which given their depth and the level of combinations should absolutely be a strength of this game. Limiting the respects to occurring in town areas to prevent abuse is a fine solution, but releveling skill specializations feels unnecessary and I think it detracts from the opportunities for one of the strengths of the game to shine.

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I mean… yes, definitely. The point of the loadout idea is that the functionality of a skill respec is available at any given time in the game unlike passive respec.
Hence to avoid exploitation of the mechanic there needs to be some sort of ‘cost’ coming along with it, or the functionality be limited.

And since limiting already existing functionality is generally a bad idea the inclusion of a solution for the issue on top of the already implemented mechanic is the only available option, and this one also takes care of other problems on the side as well, especially the limiting factor of available character slots.

Your first example would fall into this category, you wouldn’t have to ‘re-level’ your already existing build after all, you can simply keep it as is, go to the NPC to buy a new loadout and put the Wraithloard Harbour in there together with other fitting gear until it feels like a complete one. And when ready you switch over.
Suddenly you have 2 builds simultaniously and able to be switched towards back and forth with a single click after choosing it.
A Flame Wraith build and a Wraithlord build.

The downside of changing your pre-existing loadout you’re actively running though wouldn’t change. Why? Because of the aforementioned functionality the game provides, causing it not to be allowed to be frictionless, but nonetheless making it a necessity to relocate skill-points ‘on the fly’ in some situations.

In the end-effect it makes it so your efforts of acquiring gear aren’t wasted, you’re practically playing towards a second build with vastly less time investment then playing a new character from the ground up, allowing you to have several variations of your specialization at the same time.

You realizing your argumentation standpoint is ‘I’m right and there can’t be any viable complaint in existence against it’ hence?
That’s no basis for improving anything. It’s absurd, nonsensical. It provides zero basis for anything.

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