An idea for skill respecing

Feedback and Suggestions
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Hello :slight_smile: One part of the Early game that I find frustrating is how discouraged I feel from experimenting with skill points.

For the sake of argument, let’s say I’m playing a void knight that’s around level 25 and is about to finish ruined era. I used warpath since I unlocked skill specialization and now it’s level 9-10. Since I’m not following a guide, experimenting with point distribution to see how the skill gets affected and finding what I like is something that I want to do.

Since I’m a void damage build, 4 points go into conversion, 3 more points go into ‘fixing’ mana drain. With the remaining 2-3 points I want to experiment: what is this warslash? will casting a.echoes benefit my build? Maybe I want more area or speed? So I click reset and I’m left with 5 points (with accelerated xp to lv7). Forget experimenting, I can’t even maintain the mana cost now. And leveling the skill back to what it was in early game takes time, it’s not like in endgame, were you run 1 echo and the skill is back to being lv20.

And this is the pain point for me. What if I picked a node that turns out not that great for my build? I’m now stuck with releveling the skill for the next ~hour (self nerf yay). Or maybe I want to try vengeance with the void nodes, realize it’s not that great and have to spec back into what I had with warpath? I’m pushing my power progression back and it doesn’t feel great.
(For the white knights: this applies to all skills. Be it utility or mobility. Suggesting to reset a different skill than warpath only shifts the frustration to another skill)

I can only think of one suggestion that would alleviate these early game frustrations: retain the skill level of that specific skill after it’s been reset. I.E. If I my warpath was level 10, I unspec it, spec into vengeance (it’s level 5) and play with it for a bit and don’t like it, spec back into warpath and it’s level 10 - just how it was before the reset.

As an additional note: Trying out things feels especially bad on cycle start or in SSF setting were I don’t have a huge backlog of crafting materials to fall back onto by making gg items (for leveling).

Thanks for reading :slight_smile:

*edit: typos (whoops)

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Retaining skill levels just leads to “loadouts” to cheese content, where you keep switching skills for bossing and mapping. Which is what the devs want to discourage.

Once you’re in empowered monos it’s pretty fast to switch nodes and experiment at will with minor annoyance (that minor annoyance is what prevents cheesing but doesn’t really prevent experimenting).
So the problem is mostly during the campaign and early monos and there I agree that it can be more annoying, even if it’s not really an issue, because the “self nerf” doesn’t really matter. You can finish the campaign with a few levels less and probably even with unspecced skills.

However, it does create a negative impression on new players especially. So what I think would be a better solution would be to adjust the minimum skill level higher for early game and leave it as is for late game. So that if you’re halfway through the campaign and you have a skill at level 8, you would respec to level 7 instead of 4 or 5 like it currently is.
Or even adjust it so that you’d stay at level 8 but lose the skill XP you had until then.

Then once you’re in monos you’d keep the current system, since it’s much easier and faster to level skills in monos.

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You know that you can Respec individual points? You don’t need to reset the entire skill and go down to your minimum respec level.

But realistically speaking you never need all skills fully specialized and optimiser anyway. Keeping your “main skill” and experimenting with the other skill spec slots definitely does help with power and loosing progression.

For the most part if your utility or mobility skill lacks a few skill points or even is u specialized still keeps them relatively useful. A lot of the times I personally specialize mobility skills the very last and just use the u specialized version for the campaign.

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Along with a blindfold and an arm tied behind your back…
While it is absolutely true, I hate this argument. Let’s put it in bold characters: it is true, but IT IS A REALLY BAD THING.

The campaign, which was already quite easy when I started in 0.8 compared to other games in the genre, gets a little bit more demolished with every patch, because people see it as a “tutorial” (considering it teaches you nothing, I am not sure they know what tutorial means, but hey, that’s what I have read).
In 1.1, it has become a complete farce. Quests get shortened or removed all the time, uniques and even legendaries drop like snowdrops in Alaska even at level 10, and I could have a bath in shards and runes from act 1.

I would much, much (much much) rather have a more interesting campaign, with meaningful drops. If that means having to think about my skills early on, experiment with them, and tweak them now and then so I can survive: that sounds great!

tl;dr: I am completely in favour of free (and instant) skill respecing until character level 50 or so, if it can help bringing back a bit of challenge in the campaign.

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I said it for a long time. Respeccing early on is to punishing and respeccing later on is to easy. This discussion is a never ending story and pops up again and again and again and by now everyone should’ve understood that this was and is an issue.

I don’t care about it because I autopilot the game untill empowered monos but this isn’t helpfull at all if there are players who feel/think/observed that respeccing early on is trash tier again and again.

I still think the system should be the other way arround and you should keep more points early on and less and less later on because you level skills so fast.

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Which is why I said:

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I beaten the campaign with just puncture with no skills mastered. The experience was horrific but it’s doable.

The vast majority of people who quit, do so before they get to Husk of Pannion from what I been told when I spoken to those who quit. You should be able to just start with your mastery at level 1. And unlock the rest of your kit at lvl 10.

As to a solution I don’t have one- not without reworking the game entirely

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So the people you spoke to are the vast majority of players who quit? You seem to know alot of people and have a lot of spare time talking to all of them.

I highly doubt that any number of people one individual knows and talks to is enough to have any significance.

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I agree that the campaign should be more challenging and interesting. But personally, I think a quick and easy campaign is a pretty decent middle-ground between the players who want a campaign skip and the devs who don’t.

But free and instant skill respecs are mutually exclusive to bringing back a bit of challenge to the campaign … One does not require the other… I see no issues with the current respec system, when you know what you’re doing you will go from level 1 to monoliths in only a few hours anyway. Once you start monoliths respecing is free and easy. Once you are on empowered monoliths respecing is virtually instant.

In summary, I 100% want the campaign to be more challenging and interesting, but I don’t see any reason that would involve changing the respec system … As it is, it’s easy enough so long as you don’t fear it.

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That’s a bit nitpicking isn’t it? I think he said the vast majority of players who left the game he talked to left before husk. That’s how I got it.

The vast majority of players I know that left told me that LE is even more boring then D3… all 48 of them. 48 vs the playernumber when there is a new update is almost nothing so who cares?

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It is not nitpicky, because this is the 12034582356324th time they said stuff that was compeltely blown out of proportion and and/or without any good contstructed context.

This is just annoying as hell, when certain individuals are making shit up, misrepresenting some statistics or spreading misinformation. Just for the sake of sensationalism and attention.

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Yeah if what he said is what he intended then everyone should know to point a finger at him and laugh. I’m not annoid by that kind of people they are good for a chuckle every now and then because they are delulu if they think they can speak for any majority.

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You can if you got the statistics to back it up, or you have heard something being parroted enough. Will people believe you at all? Generally no. But you can. I would argue you should ignore 99% of people as they do not know what they want- you should know for the 99% of people. What makes leaders. They lead people , and force change, even if they do not want it. This means recognizing to ignore democratic principles, and to wear a crown of a tyrant.

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What makes dictators as well.

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Yes

No, because that would mean you know the respective variance in personalities, which is not possible as you won’t interact with those which aren’t at least partially aligned to your personality.

I don’t know what you wanted to say there… but the outcome went very very awry, and not in a positive way.

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I think its fairly obvious, you need to make decisions people think they wont like- because you know the consequence is that they will like the outcome.

I am gonna quote blizzard here… “You think you do, but you do not”. The idea here is the same. Being a politician, is not different from being a game designer. You are in charge, and the responsibility is on you. Do, and do not ask. People dont even know what they want, so do not ask. Its the purpose of the elite to forcibly guide the weak and un-intelligent

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This made my day. People parrot a crapton of useless BS 24/7. As long as you have no evidence you can take a guess and that’s it.

Evidence rules and that’s that. the only ppl with data to proof stuff are the devs and I guess they don’t even have a datapoint for ppl who left because of not so meaningfull reasons ^^.

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Yes, agreed, the idea is there, and you know the outcome for Blizzard?

Ah yes… they fucked up, royally, did it so bad because they thought they knew better that nowadays their company is deemed a joke, one of the most beloved game companies of all time turned into becoming as liked as Electronic Arts… that’s a thing which takes clear dedication… just not in the right direction.

So please, spare us with that nonsense you’re speaking there, it’s actually atrocious.
I have to agree, as a designer and as a dev you’re in charge of providing your vision to customers. But you’re also in charge of making your product a success. Neither Blizzard does it for a hobby nor EHG does. It’s a business, so you can’t go along and do the things you want willy-nilly.

Hence you do ask because feedback is the number 1 reason to make your product in this industry qualitative better with reduced costs to boot and also you don’t stomp over your customers and instead revamp your own stance if needed since otherwise you’re out of a job quicker then the stock market crashed in 1929… for a damn good reason.

You thinking that ‘people don’t know what they want’ makes you inherently unable to properly add to any relevant discussion of the topic since you’re automatically seeing yourself in a superior position.

You do ask, but not directly, you derive information you personally need and can use in a professional field from the notions your customers give back. You’re 100% right! They don’t know the exact details… but let me tell you something which is very very important, they nonetheless know the direction, hence the core of the situation. Not the ‘how’ but the ‘what’ is where the knowledge of the majority starts and stops… but that bit? That one’s solid and unchanging.

Which is the biggest nonsense of all which I’ve heard since a while.
First of all… define ‘elite’. Because if it’s knowledge based then yes… those best versed in the respective topics should definitely be at the helm. But we both know that’s generally not the case and even if… nobody says those people have leadership qualities either, hence despite knowledge their respective ‘orders’ would not be parsed down properly.

If it’s wealth then that’s simply nonsensical to think as ‘the elite’. The vast majority of current leaders in those positions are there because they’re highly competitive… as it’s a high-return position. That means they’re intrinsically self-centered and object-oriented since to compete at a high level this is a mandatory aspect. So if they’re given a choice to sacrifice every single person underneath them to further their own position long-term or to stay in the place they are to enhance the experience of the masses… they’ll obviously chose the former.

This inherently goes against the actual task of what they should do, hence it’s not compatible with the ongoing systems normally in place nowadays, neither in companies nor in politics. Not understanding this is a sign of someone definitely neither being in the competitive ‘elite’ nor in the knowledge based ‘elite’ of any kind. Hence by your own standards you wouldn’t be heard anyway as your opinion is non-viable… so I’ll also hold you to that Standard you’ve proclaimed would be the ‘optimal’.

Your whole argumentation line automatically puts you in what you perceive as the ‘weak and un-intelligent’ by default, as otherwise you wouldn’t need to converse with those ‘below you’ as it’s not ‘worthy’ to do so, there is no value in it anyway, hence it would be a waste of time better used for other endeavours.

All in all I got to say: I literally never saw someone make a clown of themselves in such a grand manner in a Forum.

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Himself and those who agree with him, while everyone else would fall in the “weak and un-intelligent” category, of course.

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Me? I am not close to that level and I will never be there- as I was born poor. I am speaking of others when I say it.

I define power here as money not knowledge. Money buys knowledge, it buys competency, and it buys people. Those with money control everything- and it’s their purpose to use that power to do what is right.