the other day me and another dude already came up with an idea for this.
just make players who dont respec their mastery have a tag such as “True Mastery”.
you lose the tag when you change your mastery. works the same way deathless tag works.
gives players who want an award for their “pure” class more meaning and can also apply to ladders.
its all dick measuring anyway
Mastery Respec isn’t a Quality of Life feature. It’s a rework of a core aspect of the game. Shards auto-storing in the Forge is Quality of Life, not Mastery Respec.
So, when you play Grim Dawn and you’re locked in to your two mastery choices, that ruins your ability to experiment and is punishing? Bro, that’s called “game design”. Last Epoch and EHG had the game design that your Mastery was your class and no RPG lets you respec a class. Then decided that they’d allow us to respec our classes, changing a core aspect of the game’s design. This is the equivalent of Blizzard deciding, after 5 years of saying “no, that’s not part of our game design”, to remove Dungeons from D4 because people didn’t find them fun.
Again, EHG has been on record for over three years telling people “no, you cannot respec your mastery. your mastery is your class.” up until the day the trailer showcased mastery respecs ~2 months ago.
i was so happy when they made this change
I give this a 1000 negative votes.
Not everyone has the time to grind out a bunch of characters to try things out. Some people have these things called lives. It’s one of the main reasons I gave up on PoE (along with hating the zoom zoom and required trade).
This is actually extremely different from that. This is “let’s remove a time barrier (and a “quit moment”) for people that feel like they’ve wasted a bunch of time on something they are not enjoying, or are finished enjoying”. Your example is “Let’s remove content from everyone because some people didn’t like it”. Mastery lock in is not content.
Yes, I understand the philosophy of “character investment because of permanent choices”, but we’ve had games for decades that were phenomenal games, despite the fact that you could avoid all the negative consequences of your actions by save scumming or editing save files or downloading a cheater.
If you enjoy the game more when something is a permanent choice, then exercise some self control and DON’T HIT THE BUTTON!
You presented no argument in the first place, thus no counter argument is necessary.
You have “a right as a player to suggest what you think”, and so do those replying. Thankfully, EHG has the right to ignore you and do what they think is good for the game, which is what they’ve done.
You presented “game identity”, which is a completely nebulous term with no discernible objective meaning, and presented the example of spam clicking your way into a mistake as the best possible form of your argument. Need more be said?
There’s a massive difference between people going out of their way to avoid negative consequences by downloading trainers or save scumming, and the game just handing you the option.
As a better analogy, since I concede that the Blizzard one was a stretch. We’ll use Save Scumming in Pokemon to catch a Legendary. Even up to Gen 9, if you wanted to ensure you captured a Legendary Pokemon without a Master Ball, you needed to save beforehand and save scum until you caught it. Now, next week The Pokemon Company releases a patch for Scarlet and Violet that elimimates Pokeballs breaking when a catch fails, and makes it so wild Legendary Pokemon can never be KO’d so you don’t have to worry about accidentally KOing it and needing to reload a save. Suddenly, catching a Legendary Pokemon isn’t an accomplishment because any potential for failure has been removed. Some people will be happy because they saw it as a chore, but others will be disappointed because there’s no risk involved in catching a Legendary. But they can just manually count how many Pokeballs they’ve thrown and reload the save when they would have run out (or accept they “failed” to catch it an run from the battle). But can you honestly say that would have the same impact as before?
We’re at that point in LE. Sure, I absolutely can avoid Mastery Respecs (and I will), but can you honestly say that avoiding it for pseudo-permanance is the same as genuine permanence?
Masterfully said. I get it now and my only experience with Pokémon is 10 to 15 minutes of Pokémon Snap.
First of all… for that you would need to provide actually an argument that’s not ‘trust me bro’.
There’s a myriad available for mastery respec especially as to why in the current state of the game it’s a detriment.
Like LE already being content starved (despite additions to 1.2 to a degree) and hence the replay-time acts as a good buffer against reaching the end overall too quickly. Or that it makes the decisions more valuable in itself and the fulfillment of success through that choice more meaningful (or frustrating if success isn’t happening).
But yours was a dumpsterfire plainly spoken.
Which ‘brother’? While I also agree that mastery respec is a bad choice you’re a tantrum throwing child, not a ‘brother’.
And it’s disgusting to try and guilt trip others btw. Just mentioning.
Nah, it’s dumb.
Just doesn’t look like it.
I would agree with you in a classic RPG where the story is the focus.
In LE that clearly isn’t the case though, the story at best is a nice addition but at worst a menace even for some.
That argument has been used a bazillion times and also utterly debunked as to why it’s not a viable one. Read through the myriad of discussions from shortly before the update dropped to see why.
And that for example is a very good idea, finally someone with some sense voicing properly thought out arguments here!
How doesn’t it? Unless you’re in SSF.
Via CoF you could optimize a route with a respec to gather rewards through content otherwise hard to reach, without the need to relevel a character. Then you can group up and gift that to another player, hence actively affecting someone else.
In MG it’s kinda obvious as well, slap it into the market earlier then other people, hence changing the market competition naturally happening.
So yes, you do influence me personally potentially with that choice.
You bought it while it had no mastery respec unless you specifically did so because of mastery respec and only after it was announced. If you did it before then this is as awful an argument as it ever comes.
Is it? I always thought fixing mistakes is… not the D3 mess Blizzard set into the world.
And it’s also for many players a reason to quit earlier.
New build? Lemme just check how it feels. Oh… decent, but not as good as imagined. Maybe that other one? That’s nice! Let’s play it 5 hours… oh… I’m bored.
Otherwise needing 40-50 hours to achieve the same, done in 5-10, hence missing 30-45 hours of engagement.
A coin usually has two sides.
That’s neither a positive nor a negative by design. Could be both.
Otherwise if more characters are a net negative why not make a single char and have that one be a generic mash of everything so you can respec freely and willy-nilly?
If you’re a casual gamer and don’t enjoy the journey instead of the outcome then sorry to say… play something else.
It’s plainly spoken a disgusting argument to make. ‘Respecting the time’.
Respecting time happens when your time is not actively wasted. If you get variety out of the repetition is it not wasting your time. Otherwise every rogue-like would solely ‘waste the player’s time’ since you need to re-play it from the beginning every time again… but the experience is different, so it doesn’t uphold.
It’s a shame that people have become entitled to something which they have no active right to have inherently since it comes at the cost of something else.
A topic is done when nobody adds to it, not when someone says it is.
Fair. But not the proper truth, is it?
Anyone unhappy and it ruining your experience having gotten a refund for the game? Anyone? No?
Guess it can stay a topic then given people paid into the game for the premise of not having that potentially, which hence would break the contract in spirit with that change. But… we haven’t seen the option to opt-out for it, did we? 
Same, read the posts about mastery respec before 1.2 dropped.
‘You can just not use it’ has been debunked actively as a argument a myriad of times there for very clear reasons.
Which is a vastly stronger argument.
First of all because even people not actively competing against another person get impacted if around them the success happens a lot easier then it comes to them, be it because the mechanics of their class/build don’t work as well or because they have a lower skill-level.
Secondly if in any competitive environment (including MG, since a market is inherently a competitive environment) then it actively affects other people.
So yes, OP or extremely weak builds do impact other placers.
Read my points above, that tells you the direct impact from a few possible venues.
They’ve never changed.
Otherwise you would be presented with a window and a single button stating ‘you win’ to press. End of game. Quickest way.
Fun? No? Guess then there’s more behind it.
Enjoyment comes from having a framework of limitations and you as the player work to overcome them. The only exception is exploration, hence the gathering of information to make the unknown into the known. Though the moment it becomes ‘known’ it means there is no reason to continue. Story-games function on that premise.
Hack’N’Slash games function on the mechanical premise though, which means improvement of personal skill is the main reason for success and hence enjoyment. So if there’s no limitations then you can’t succeed as you can’t fail… hence generally no enjoyment.
Because it’s badly made.
It’s not a inherent thing happening.
That I agree with, but that’s a failure from EHG’s side to provide the technical framework to allow players more characters in a genre demanding a large variety of them.
Oh, absolutely! 100% agreed even!
Sadly also the prime example as to why that shouldn’t be allowed.
People tend to ‘optimize the fun out of things’ for themselves. Our brain is primed for efficiency, so obviously skipping stuff is great! But… what to do after? When you’ve skipped all venues of progression there is nothing else to do… so you get bored generally after a short timeframe.
That’s why those measures of progress exist, to keep you mildly enjoyed for hundreds of hours rather then extremely enjoyed for a few moments.
A viable position.
But also… are you the type of person re-inventing the wheel repeatedly rather then using the knowledge of others and building upon that to reach even further heights?
Different types simply, neither is worse nor better. You might find interesting stuff nobody has seen because nearly nobody re-does those things… and the others find stuff at the top end which is interesting to have.
So you can’t parse the content of what other people write? Precisely what is happening with that answer you gave! 
Re-read and think, then answer. You’ve clearly missed the point.
And it doesn’t even have to do with character identity as @Scipo0419 mentions. Sure… as well… but also active fundamental aspects of the game in the current state.
Same old, read above why not.
Why?
It’s primarily about the available diversity, which gets inherently reduced through that function.
That’s the primary problem.
Sure, what you describe exists as well, and is absolutely fine for people to try to achieve as well. What do you have against that? As little as you’re allowed to talk down towards them as little as they are allowed to talk down towards you.
Sadly… you do, which is an issue.
Which doesn’t change anything about the actual functional downsides it provides. ‘Just don’t use it’ in the same competitive environment is a laughable argument. And as long as MG is one of the big factions and implemented such methodologies are non-functioning.
I would agree if only CoF existed, but that’s not the case, there’s also a broken mess of a neglected market on the other side.
Umh… you know what the word ‘addiction’ means, do you?
If not ensure to look it up. Might enlighten you…
It’s like saying to a ADHD person ‘just do it’. Or someone with depression ‘just be happy’.
I’m not one big on character identity and more leaning on mechanical and psychological reasons.
But nonetheless… it absolutely does remove that!
So the others don’t want to enjoy it?
I guess I had it wrong all along! 
Sadly nope.
We’ve already seen it happening, so it’s a real thing. Not seeing that is your own fault for not looking at the forums or checking before making that post.
Happens, just know that it’s a real thing and also common and obvious to happen.
Is there? Which one? Explain.
Because ‘sub-class’ just sounds like ‘class’ to me, the ‘sub’ only mentioning the position of it… nonetheless a class. So if I can change one class… why not the other?
There is no ‘dead build’ existing in LE currently, and hopefully never.
They picked something they don’t like. Name it like it is, what you’re proclaiming would be a serious and viable argument… but re-doing stuff with something you might actually like is by far less severe.
In the majority of cases it absolutely does though!
There’s even been studies towards that phenomenon which most people say ‘Oh, it doesn’t exist!’.
The prime one was about people who’ve had a need for psychological intervention, knowing the need was there. In the study it was compared to how well received said intervention was, with people being given it for free and others having to pay (even if the payment was low). The group which had gotten it for free had a substantially lower amount of successes since people didn’t even attend the time, despite it being necessary for them to fix their shit… but they didn’t.
Meaning derives from value. Value derives from it being either scarce or only available during a short timeframe. In the mind without either it generally devolved into having no value for one personally.
No, they already are the first step towards that.
So it already happened but more will happen likely with that step then the comfort zone allows.
So yes, his argument is solid.
And so is the excitement of gradually working yourself up to trying it out, finally managing to get to the point and seeing it’s a really fun interaction!
It’s engaging. It keeps playing.
For the aforementioned reasons.
It… actually is.
But the example from @Scipo0419 was simply bad in that regard, I got one more fitting:
Imagine Path of Exile… you play it, you see all the stuff existing there. Delve, Breach, Incursion, maps, Heist… all the variety!
Now GGG decides to instead of giving each their own space like it always was… they shove it all together into the absolute same space. You got a delve-run going while opening doors for heist and gathering the loot quickly as breach enemies come at you and you got to choose which pieces to pick at the same time. It’s a mess hence, an amalgam which doesn’t represent anything in itself properly.
That’s what mastery respec basically does to classes.
The meaning for mastery respec is to avoid mistakes of choice, nothing less, nothing more.
What it does though is also allowing testing to happen cross-class, which actively reduces replay time.
It also does allow potential progression shortcuts through either drops or optimized routes. Which is not the intended task
Those are hence active negatives, reducing the engagement time in the game.
Exactly that.
Opt-in vs. Opt-out.
That’s a extremely important difference!
First off, very impressive making a single post to reply to the entire thread (not being sarcastic - that’s dedication!)
Sadly, I am one of the people with a real life - my 2 month old is currently stirring next to me - so I’ll give one last argument before I must move on.
Giving a player a choice to do something that does not affect anyone else in any way aside from how you believe they see you, is not and never can be, similar in any way to altering the core content of the game for everyone.
Mastery locking is literally just a thing that makes some people feel better about their roleplay and others frustrated by their inability to experiment. There is 0 impact to the playability of the game or the fun of killing badies and getting loot other than the impact you force upon it yourself by falsely assuming that it existing means you must use it.
To give a quick World of Warcraft example: Masteries (and even skill trees, IIRC) were locked originally. While a small number of vocal players complained when you could change them with gold later, the change was one of the most celebrated in the game by the overall player base. Because it told the players “we value your time”. It gave them agency and choice. It let them correct a mistake or experiment. And most importantly, it didn’t artificially punish people who did not have time in their real lives to re-level characters for every new idea.
I suspect you have not played games for many years, because (especially on PC) games of the 90’s and 2000’s were extremely easy to save scum - literally F5 to quicksave, F9 to reload and try again. At times I reloaded a dozen times in 2 minutes.
I’m going to make my response quick and easy, because you effectively echo the same lines over and over.
You believe that Mastery respec kills time ingame and provides shortcuts. There are PLENTY of shortcuts available, so why does having this particular one bother you. However, your responses made it quite clear. You’ve got apparently far more hours to push into the game and therefore everyone should cater to your style of play, which is decisions in mastery are permanent and roll the class again if you want to play another version of it.
Not everyone lives in the game, plays 6-10 hours daily or has that time. This system IS OPT in, whether you choose to use it or not is entirely a choice, which is, wait for it, an opt-in. Anyway,. its clear based on feedback and the devs desired direction that what you desire is not what THEY or the MAJORITY desire.
Done.
Then I just have a single and quite important question for that:
Why does only end-game and not the campaign feel enjoyable for you?
That’s the point which needs to be handled by EHG, not skipping content… but making content valuable to play and enjoyable from start to end. That’s the gold-standard of game-design.
Reducing the amount of game-time in any way just means that the time spent in the respective system is ‘not fun’. So the question then is ‘how to make it fun’.
Exceptions obviously apply for timers… because timers tend to suck, unless they’re made as a limitation urging a player on to solve something in a specific amount of time, not as a limiter to let people wait.
Yes, and in WoW it was a good decision.
But in LE it’s a bad decision.
Why? Because there actually is a fundamental difference.
The mastery in LE provides a full-scaled class. Specific skills solely available there, not a focus on something. In WoW you have access to all skills of your class at any time, which means when choosing a mastery that’s all available, all of the time.
In LE you choose which things you actually have access to above the layer of the mastery. That’s a extra decision step. You could say that inside each mastery in LE is the value of multiple masteries of WoW. So the skill respec is good in LE but the mastery one goes a step too far as it doesn’t only change the uppermost aspect but the layer below.
The others bother me too, they’re called ‘bandaid programming’ basically. The devs didn’t have the time/resources to make the respective aspect of their game enjoyable enough so they provided options to bypass them.
This includes the dungeon-skip, the portal-charm and mastery-respec, all 3 are the same category of ‘bad design’.
Portal charms were made because EHG didn’t get the dungeon content into a proper state.
The dungeon skip is there because progression early on feels clunky and needs adjustments.
The mastery respec is made because there’s no ability to properly try out a mastery and hence choices could ‘lock you in’ into something which couldn’t be foreseen and feels bad hence. The solution for that is to provide a trial time like @oldschooldiablo mentioned before locking in finally, like empowered monoliths being reached as a good point for that.
I can enjoy games also when I play 20 minutes a day, or a hour a week.
Gaming is a hobby, and as every hobby it’s supposed to provide enjoyment the whole way long and requires a specific amount of personal dedication.
If the only reason for gaming is ‘to pass time’ then there’s a myriad of other things available for that which don’t requite effort to be put into.
That was a feature that make me and other people i know leave from the game cause it’s boring to lvl up 3 chars to test 3 specs. Glad they change it.
I wouldn’t call it a distinguishing feature lol. A lack of features or QoL more like it. Lets be honest having Mastery respec benefits the whole community. Example people that want to use the respec will happily do that if they don’t like their build or want to try something else.
This increases play time for players as they are more engaged to theorycraft and try new builds. (build diversity is an actual feature of LE)
As for myself I started with a 93 pally and leveled up a 97 FG because I want both Masteries to test different builds with. It’s a win/win for everyone. If you don’t like the respec don’t use it. If you enjoy leveling another class do that like I did.
There is no benefit not having mastery respec. Zero, zip, nada. Where having Mastery respec benefits the whole community and game.