ARPG communities are their own worst enemy. Just musing and laughing, feel free to ignore

[DJSamhein]

@Kaolyr

But what if at some point, you realise that you don’t enjoy your build that much and think about switching masteries? Would you do a new char to achieve that goal, having 2 of the same classes, and as a result keeping your first “depreciated” character?

Yes. If I have a hammer throw paladin and I want to make a warpath paladin, I create a new character. So not only do I have more than 1 character in the same class, I have more than 1 character in the same mastery.

@Kaolyr

In LE, most of your power comes from your gear, not your abilities or class.

Other than some build defining unique, not really.
If you don’t select any skill and use only your base attack, you won’t get far even with 4LP legendaries.

But I think your misunderstanding regarding this comes from different definitions of “character identity”. Character identity isn’t really the character personality, motivations, flaws, etc.

Character identity is simply the choices you make to create that character.
In a regular RPG like D&D, this includes choices like the aforementioned personality, motivations, flaws, etc, as well your race, your class, your height, your hair color and so on, and along with it your skills, spells, etc. All of these are sort of permanent, baring jumping through hoops to change them.

In a diablo-like, you have less choices, but they’re still choices. You choose your class, your mastery, your skills and your passive tree. You don’t have choices for your personality (though you’re free to come up with them if you want), but you still have choices. And those are part of the character identity.

Making those choices not have meaning because you can undo them with a touch of a button removes that identity.
And making it so that switching a mastery is a 1-minute thing while releveling a new character will take lots of hours, depending on which level you are, also kinda removes the incentive not to use respec.

[Kulze]

@Kaolyr

Would you do a new char to achieve that goal, having 2 of the same classes, and as a result keeping your first “depreciated” character?

That has been the ongoing theme for a long long time. Why is that actually good? Because it allows you to shift back to it. It’s not ‘gone’ but in storage simply, and surprisingly many people tend to rotate between those playstyles they like when they’re becoming established.

So now instead of keeping up a single character with progression of the game you got 2… this counters the reduced time investment into individual mechanics (as you’ve already ‘played it out’ anyway) but instead focuses on re-doing the new ones more often then formerly. The more characters the more time investment.

So when a new mechanic offering 5 hours comes out someone with 2 characters will spend 10… someone with 10 characters 50 hours in it.
This allows longevity to sustain itself to a degree. Obviously it’s not a 100% situation where everyone and for everything does it… but it definitely does increase the overall investment comparatively.

@Kaolyr

In LE, most of your power comes from your gear, not your abilities or class.

But the type of gear is reliant on class and then further on build.
Hence this still creates a identity for the character, which is very important to mention.

Yes, it’s reduced, but it’s not like for example Dungeon Siege 1 where your character had the idendity of ‘the hero’ and that was the end of the line as you could simply switch between melee and mage without any downsides. This was nigh never done though, and if it was done anyway it wasn’t investing even remotely the amount of time into your character to push that secondary way of playing up, you instead reduced the total playtime substantially.
The game was ‘played out’ quicker this way and you only needed a single character.

@Kaolyr

You have your party, class identity is distinctly defined, okay. But the leveling / story / campaign takes up 90% of the game.

Then use MMOs instead of the classic SP RPG game and you’ll immediately find it upheld again.

The only divergence - and a well designed one actually - is Final Fantasy 14, which simply removed the need to create a new character but demands playing up the respective aspects nonetheless from start to finish with fairly minimal reduction of effort being needed comparatively.

[CaiusMartius]

@Llama8

I think that there’s definitely room to listen to other people & change, but if they change “everything” then you get a game made by a committee as you say & that’ll suck. There is a middle road.

I agree which is why I said “listen.” The “game/movie/song by committee” thing is something that sends me into a coma.

[oldschooldiablo]

@ResplendentEgo

I don’t think so, especially not in an ARPG. Character progression in ARPG’s are based on gear

It is a fact that it does in fact do this.

They used an example laying out the facts behind it using D&D. It no different in an arpg

Thats exactly why max roll changed how they do there guides. Why lvl with a blast rain marksmen with explosive trap procing off denating arrow when umbrella blades falconer is the strongest rouge build for lvling.

Mastery respec does for fact remove the weak and strong points of a build.

Facts trump opinions. Which tbh those facts where layed out. U may not think it does this. In reality it does for a fact.

Theres even more facts to this i could lay out. Show casing this even further and those would be how builds where made when mastery selection was permanent

[oldschooldiablo]

@Kaolyr

This is not D ‘n’ D either, which is a party board game. In D ‘n’ D (from the few games I’ve played), the emphasis is put on your class, your party, your base stats and your abilities / passives. There is a gigantic amount of abilities and as some of them are shared between classes, class fantasy is a tad diluted.

Completely missing the point they are getting at. The same exact thing applies to all arpgs.

Push aside the game they used as an example and look at the example they gave. It fits any arpg that has mastery switching

[Erasculio]

@ResplendentEgo

that in this specific situation was adapted to be used as an insult, this applied through context

Err… Not really, no. Something may have been lost in translation (English is not my first language, sorry). But by “projecting” I meant taking what is his/her individual opinion and assuming it’s also the opinion of a majority (or of a high number of people). I don’t know why you thought it would have been an insult, I may have worded it poorly.

[ResplendentEgo]

@oldschooldiablo

Thats exactly why max roll changed how they do there guides. Why lvl with a blast rain marksmen with explosive trap procing off denating arrow when umbrella blades falconer is the strongest rouge build for lvling.

Alright, I had to look up the respec mastery costs because I was under the impression that it was 1 million gold at all levels, which makes the entire situation completely different, and I hope you can understand that. It was getting pretty confusing having so many people insinuate a player could easily do something I clearly thought was impossible.

I have only ever re-specialized a character at level 100.

@oldschooldiablo

Facts trump opinions.

Just because the nature of leveling has changed, doesn’t mean that the end game outcome is different. I can at least admit where I was wrong. This does in fact have an enormous impact on character progression getting to monoliths. This does not, however, change the fact that ultimately how well a character does , and how far it can go is gear dependent.

The issues that are plaguing the multiplayer experience are rife with inconsistencies. From balancing issues that make certain archetypes much more efficient across the board, to scaling potential, which creates power vacuums where either a small percentage of players are grossly out performing their peers or everyone is playing the same 2-5 builds.

People being opposed to a system because it changes how other people play the game is still an opinion. That mic drop moment is still just someone telling someone else how they feel. I don’t use guides, even if I play a meta build I talk to people in chat or look up characters on lastepochtools.com. Changing my mastery repeatedly to have marginally shorter runs from level 1 to monoliths is tedious and pointless to me. So I personally wouldn’t do this. How someone else decides to play is also not going to affect my experience at all. Why would I care in the first place?

Why do you?

@oldschooldiablo

Theres even more facts to this i could lay out. Show casing this even further and those would be how builds where made when mastery selection was permanent

Go ahead and lay them out. At this point, the “conversation” has turned into a who-can-be-more-right game. Nothing you, or anyone else for that matter, can say is going to convince me that having more freedom in a endeavor people use to pass their time is a bad thing. As for how creating builds has changed, shining a flashlight on mastery respecs without acknowledging the changes to individual classes, item introductions, changes in content that allow for different approaches to getting gear, etc. is near-sighted to say the least when approaching the subject. I, for the life of me, will never understand why people are so staunchly opposed to this type of change. Not that disliking it is a problem at all. But you are able to do this in quite literally every single ARPG I can think of.

If you don’t like the feature, don’t use it. If you’re upset because you don’t like that other people can do it, get over it. Pushing up our glasses to debate the legitimacy of this is a meme. Just a couple of crying wojaks killing time.

[ResplendentEgo]

My bad. My experience with the statement is this context is usually when someone is trying to make someone else appear irrational in a conversation. Therapeutic language has made its way into the casual lexicon, but the training (or at the very least the self education) to properly use much of it hasn’t. I’m also a bit of a pedantic.

So again, I apologize for the misunderstanding.

[DiceDragon]

@ResplendentEgo

Just because the nature of leveling has changed, doesn’t mean that the end game outcome is different. I can at least admit where I was wrong. This does in fact have an enormous impact on character progression getting to monoliths. This does not, however, change the fact that ultimately how well a character does , and how far it can go is gear dependent.

No one said otherwise lol.

But you have to understand those are still important elements to a game. Early game is when the player learns and interacts with the game a lot.

Many players jump around and try different things in this genre before ever making it to end game, they want to explore all the options. Your opinion/knowledge on options is warped/diminished if you dont understand how things perform from the ground up.

A good example is solo bear BM, people see clips of it blasting bosses/ubberoth and go “w0w that looks so cool im gonna go play that, I can get bear at level 25? easy pz” then learn “oh wait this does not play at all like I like and its so slow to gear up” because they didnt consider the stages between level 1 and level 100 deleting the game with perfect gear.

Being able to swap mastery means you dont actually have to consider that at all. You just play whatever build farms the best. Hell, you can pick up the reflect chest, go reflect shaman, walking sim farm 500c with almost 0 gear while collecting all the loot for bear BM then swap. Cause even at level 100, the cost is quite reasonable even more so in MG.

[Makszi]

OP, if anyone had sympathy for you before, they definitely don’t now …

[Kulze]

@ResplendentEgo

Alright, I had to look up the respec mastery costs because I was under the impression that it was 1 million gold at all levels, which makes the entire situation completely different, and I hope you can understand that.

It also depends on the player being CoF versus MG… and when MG if they’re not solely buying and maybe selling 1-2 items… but actively using the trade system to provide to the market at large.

Even now I can still make 10 mil per hour roughly in Legacy… which is a bit better in Cycle since while prices are a bit lower the variety of items wanted is still a bit bigger.
Not taking the time needed into consideration to actually sell the stuff… that doubles it nearly, but less now.

So even at level 100 that’s 10 respecs possible.

One of the big reasons why I’m repeatedly saying ‘Gold for MG is a mess’.

It’s after all still at least 4 hours saved towards empowered… and not to speak of already unlocked and optimized blessings… those are a big thing for min-max after all and takes ages to re-do reliably.

@ResplendentEgo

Nothing you, or anyone else for that matter, can say is going to convince me that having more freedom in a endeavor people use to pass their time is a bad thing.

It’s still the same reasoning as ever. Limitations cause results to have more value.
The more limited you are the more valuable a result achieved nonetheless.

Mastery respec is the same freedom as creative mode in some games.
If you compare for example Factorio and Shapez 2 in the factory-game genre then Factorio provides a much much higher reward because you’re limited in how close/far away you can build (at the start), you need resources to build things and you need to handle scarcity and optimization related tasks.
Shapez 2 is a great game but you can simply build up stuff once and then copy/paste without any resources spent or anything of the likes.

For some one is better… for the others the other. The point is that there’s both a upper and lower limit, this changes per genre and per setup of the game at large. ANd in the ARPG genre a distinct amount of limitations has proven to be better then others for a larger group of people simply.