Keep respec system but lessen respect penalty

Feedback and Suggestions
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Update: Hey folks, I’m re-wording my original post to make it more friendly to other perspectives. And remember: if you like this idea, please vote for it!

I feel like the respec system is extremely generous, especially compared to others in the genre, and I really like it. And also I think it could be improved! I know there are a LOT of topics about this and I have searched them already, but this suggestion seems unique, hence the post. This comes in two parts: the passive system and the skill system.

Passives
Suggestion: remove the gold cost
Bonus: remove the need to use an NPC
Why:
The current “penalty” for respecing passives is that you have to do it in-town, and it costs gold. In my opinion, the in-town penalty is perfect: it keeps you from respecing on the fly or during a battle (if that were possible!). But the gold part of the penalty feels like it isn’t hitting the mark for me: during the leveling process, gold is still scarce, but late-game (monolith+), it isn’t. This means the majority of the “penalty” comes during the leveling process, when I feel like players need the most freedom in switching builds around and experimenting. Entire builds could be built and rebuilt to encourage experimenting and diversity. Conversely, costing gold - or anything, other than your spot in the map - means there’s enough friction that, for players like me, I’d rather just look up a guide than to risk doing it “wrong.”

I know one big idea on this board is that “choices should matter.” In my opinion, I feel like the gold cost actually takes away my choice: friction means I don’t have a choice, because I’m just going to follow a build instead of experimenting like I would do if it were free. I realize not everyone shares this view.

But regardless, my point is that the gold cost means nothing to late-game players but it definitely means something to leveling players, when I feel like build choices should be the most open. So it’d be great to remove it!

And as a bonus, this would eliminate the need to use an NPC for adjusting passives, which could be replaced with a “Respec” button that functions like the skills one does now. Importantly: this button would still only be available in “town” areas!

Skills
Suggestion: if you respec in a Town area, you do not need to use experience to re-level a skill, but can reassign points freely up to double the current respec limit (which is based on your current level)
Why:
This one is trickier because it’s already balanced very well. I get that people don’t want to be able to swap max-powered skills left and right (or worse - feel like you needed to on the fly), but the problem in my opinion is that re-leveling a skill still makes skill swapping punishing enough that I wouldn’t want to do it without knowing that what I’m about to do will work… but I can’t know without a guide. So once again I feel like it discourages experimentation. At the same time, I feel like “going back to town” is still the best possible penalty, because that means it can’t possibly help you during a fight.

So why don’t we keep it like it is, except that in a town you can re-level without pressure or worrying about losing so much that you can’t clear content before you get the XP back? The one tricky part is explaining this in the UI, but I think people could understand. At the same time, I don’t want to remove how the skill system works now (for example: say you can only respec in town), as some builds literally depend on it.

Conclusion
Constructive feedback is welcome! And if this needs to be two separate suggestions, let me know and I can do that. But most of all if you like it, vote for it!

Thanks for reading!

3 Likes
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I just want them to remove the vendor and enable us to right click to remove, left click to place.

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Hey there.
The reason why the change hasn’t been implemented isn’t because it’s hard to code, but because infinite free respec goes against the design philosophy of the game, and making the change is likely to reduce player retention rather than improve it.

This would typically push the game into Diablo 3 territory, a game that a lot of players in Last Epoch strongly dislike.

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I feel that respeccing skills is very easy when you are doing empowered monoliths, exp come very fast.

What I feel is quite unfair is during leveling, you’re quite harshly punished by this system for trying out stuff. I think it’s actively working against the philosophy of “trying out stuff, figuring out what works”.

At least during leveling, I think the leveling of skills should be much faster to be back to what it used to be. This “increased exp gain” in my opinion should be significantly bigger for lower level characters.
I remember choosing not to explore the skill tree too much because of that. Went with a guide, and it felt like a missed opportunity

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Hey there.
I think a lot of people agree with you there. There are improvements to be made during the leveling part of the experience.

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It’s basically free at this point, the cost is more of a formality, in the future who knows what may change. Not much left in a philosophy of making people work to respec when it costs a couple thousand gold and 2 minutes of your time running an echo to completely respec.

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Please search before posting, it’s basic forum etiquette. This has been discussed numerous times, and there is no reason for another thread about it.

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And a lot of people disagree. We read tooltips before allocating points. We like that choices matter. We also know that having to relevel a skill isn’t a big deal.

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This. With out the penalty we have now. The game jist becomes diablo 3 all over. And turns into a meta of swapping builds on the fly to handle content. Vs ACTUALLY learning ur builds strong points and weak points.

Problem with swapping on the fly like D3 is u dont have a build u have everything

Same thing with buffing everything and not nerfing as well. Blizzard buffed the crap out of so much in D3 power creep became a huge problem.

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The point of the system is intended to stop on the fly respecing. Even if its a 2-5 min echo run to fully respec skills. Its doing what its intended to do.

Gold cost to respec passives imo should be higher. Respecing of any kind shouldnt be a free and easy thing to do.

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I think gold is at the right place. Not being able to do a full passive reset on the fly is already causing a lot of inconvenience for people who are used to freely swapping builds.

I hope they don’t cave in and keep the re-specting slightly inconvenient like this.

I am also glad EHG is not scared to do nerfing to keep the game more balanced and fair. D3 would have been a lot more fun if they stopped the power creeping earlier.

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It hinders you to do it mid-combat.
Skills loose levels.
Passives can’t be done during that simply.

So it does exactly what it needs to do, making sure you can’t switch out builds before a boss for example.

Hence:

This can’t be done or at least only be allowed in towns.
The vendor itself is not needed though, you’re right about that.

Not a single game in the genre provides the functionality you proclaim… or at least not a single one which has made it ‘big’ and stayed that way.
I think the only exception is Diablo 3 and they struggled from start to finish through their existence, still doing that to date despite the ridiculously powerful franchise name they have built with Diablo 2.

Yes, next time please take the 1-2 minutes necessary to find the other 15 ones posted last week alone before making a new one which does ask for the exact same thing you mentioned.

Would’ve saved time for everyone + also made it easier for devs to think and - maybe - implement the solutions which have been provided beyond the baseline issue your suggestion has.

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Thanks for all the replies, folks! I hope this eventually gets noticed.

FWIW: I did search the forums before posting. There was nothing else that came up with this exact suggestion, so I posted it. I know there are lots of other posts about changing the respec system, but this seemed like such a simple solution I hope they uptake it.

As for the idea that this will somehow turn this game into Diablo 3… I literally don’t understand that, so I guess there’s more there that isn’t being said. There’s still a penalty for passives: you have to go back to town, which already resets everything you’re doing. You cannot change them on the fly. That’s a completely reasonable penalty. Adding gold on top doesn’t add anything that I can see, and it punishes people when they cannot afford to be punished. Late-game gold probably rains from the sky but until then, you are just not going to spend gold to respec. You’re going to look up a cookie-cutter guide and follow it to the letter to conserve resources. To me, that seems more like D3.

As for skills, I’m saying we keep the same system but just double the number of points you can respec to. So at level 60, instead of having 8 points, you have 16. That actually allows people to build something useful for that character level.

I feel like some of the responses to this post aren’t about this post: I’m not saying to give ZERO penalty, nor am I asking for big changes, nor am I frankly trying to wade into what is clearly a touchy subject for some folks. I think we could “keep the respec system” but lessen the penalty so that it’s not so difficult that it doesn’t encourage playing with builds - which I posit is the case now. To be honest, I think skills shouldn’t ever lose points - ever. I think once you’ve leveled a skill, it should always have the maximum number of skill points you’ve ever accumulated available to you. But that would actually require a tech change. Making one integer x2 doesn’t require anything big.

I’m actually still super confused as to what the “no you just have to wait an annoying 5 minutes and die a lot to respec” penalty even does to enhance the game, because I just don’t see it. Clearly a bunch of folks like that, though, so I’m trying to work within the system.

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Should probably rename the title to “lessen” instead of “remove” to make it line up with what you just said.

I understand your take for lessening the penalty but there’s a community of people who like to feel like choices matter in the game. This game is very lenient as-is with the penalty system. So, lessening any of the penalties would basically be making it too easy to change. People like to craft builds but if you give too much freedom in doing that all in one character, it would make people less attached to their characters.

I agree with some of your points on the system.

  • The respec system is nice and that the minimum skill level is pretty low at early levels. I do think that can be reworked to have the slots have different min. levels. The earlier the slot unlocks, the higher the min. level should be throughout the game.
  • The vendor isn’t needed to do passive removal of points. There isn’t any game-breaking changes on the passives so this can be done while in a town or done at a waypoint.

All in all, I like that my choices matter. The respec system, in my opinion, is there to fix mistakes and make slight build changes. The only time someone SHOULD rework their entire build is in late game where the gold doesn’t matter. At level 35~, if you wanna respec your entire passive tree or skill tree, make a new character to do it.

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Yes, that is the exact same limitation D3 has. And yet it’s a system most players hate because at that point you don’t have a build, you have a character that is all builds at once.

The gold cost to respec is negligible. By the time you reach level 80 you have more than enough gold to fully respec a dozen times. You’re not punished by it, it’s just there to give some more weight to your choice.

Lots of people respec at various points in the game while experimenting. The gold cost for passives is negligible, like I said, especially because you rarely respec the whole tree. And the skills have a time penalty associated to them which is also very low, especially at high levels.

A lot of people still make their own builds. If you keep playing you’ll realize that the attrition from respec isn’t that great and doesn’t keep you from experimenting. It’s a little harsher at lower levels, which could be re-balanced, but overall it has enough attrition where build swapping constantly is annoying but where experimenting a few times is painless.

I have fully respecced all skills at once at low levels and still managed to do all content easily. I have also done the same with several build at high levels and it was still easy. Due to accelerated XPs, once you kill a single pack in an echo at high levels you’ll immediately get a few skill levels.
And you don’t even have to respec them all at once. The best strategy would be to respec 4 skills and leave your main damage dealer to kill mobs, then once the other 4 are done, you use your new damage dealer to respec the last one. Though you don’t really need to do this. You can still kill mobs with the minimum levels.

Overall, the system is fine as is and some players would actually like more attrition to it (higher gold costs, no accelerated XPs, etc). You can still experiment with it. However, it does leave you with a negative perception the first time you try it at a low level, which is something that should be addressed.

Other than that, making free easy respecs will attract casual players but will cause the playerbase LE is targetting to leave. It’s ok to like a more casual approach to your game, but there are other games that cater to that and LE isn’t one of them.

Not every game needs to appeal to every player. As D3/D4 clearly shows with trying to please everyone and failing constantly to do so.

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Good point on the title - done!

I like your explanation, but I do disagree with your opinion - which is fine! And great! Everyone gets their own opinions! In my mind, if I got to level 35 and had to make a new character to respec, I would quit the game and never play again and also tell all my friends not to play, because that is a devastating choice that does not - in my opinion!!! - respect my time. I think building an entirely different subclass is something that can require a new character, which is one thing I don’t mind at all about the current subclass system. But I also wouldn’t hate it if it didn’t work that way.

You said it would make people “less attached to their characters,” but I also disagree with that point, because the thing that would make me less attached to my character would be knowing that this was the 3rd version of X character I built because the respec penalty was too high. To me, that makes a character disposable. Allowing change actually makes me more attached.

Again - all opinions! But thanks all the same for explaining what some folks enjoy!

1 Like
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This is correct… but thanks for replying to me I suppose.

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Gold cost will always be negligible at high levels, and can be more problematic than intended at low or intermediate levels.
A real cost would be 3-5% of a level (with the ability to overlevel level 100 by 50%, so that you can respec some points without losing a level). Sufficiently low to allow corrections on the build whenever you need them, or to even fully respec absolutely all points (at the cost of 5-6 levels at high level), but sufficiently high that you don’t just respec willy-nilly.

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My only issue with passive point respecing is that I need to keep closing and opening the vendor for it all the time because it goes “you can’t remove more points here because you have X passive” and then I need to spend them again on another window and then go back to buy them over and over and over.

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Ya this is annoying. Drives my wife and i crazy depending on how many passives we respec.

Im hoping this get improved at some point