Mastery Lock-In & Skill Level Resets Need 2 Go

Feedback and Suggestions
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I’m calling it here and now, eventually the process of skill lock-in (both Mastery lock-in and skill leveling) will disappear in the future. Sadly, I feel like it’ll be too little too late.

Mastery Lock-in Needs to Go…

Here’s my reasoning: The new season has just started, I’m playing on my Sentinel, now Paladin, and I’m repeatedly getting gear more tailored to Void Knight and Forge Guard… Moreso than I am for my Paladin. What does this make me do? It makes me regret not choosing one of those other Masteries. Now me, personally, being in my mid-30s in age, having a career, and social obligations outside of gaming… I don’t have a load of time like when I was younger. Why does this matter you ask? It makes me feel like I’m wasting my time, and wasting my time is not good if you want me to stay around and continue spending.

Diablo 3 (I know, cringe to some of you) kept me invested for years because of the flexibility of progression. New item drops for a skill I’m not currently using? I can just swap to it freely, no leveling up that skill either! Every playthrough I had, I’d sit down and be like “I’m going to play X and do Y build”, but then I’d go on tangents as I found items that were more suited to doing other things. Eventaully I’d go back to focusing on Y build as more items would drop for it, but in the meantime I could have this little thing called FUN; and I could also do this little thing called EXPERIMENT.

Those two things are lacking in this game, unless you want to max out 3 characters for every class.

Even then, that gets to the second point: Skill leveling…

While on paper skill leveling is great, and I commend your implementation of the trees, the idea of respeccing to another skill when something interesting drops is a pain that I try to avoid. It seems arbitrary that we have to relevel them, even partially… If I respec a level 8 skill, I should start off with 8 skill points for the skill I replace it with. I get some of the arguments about how at uber end-game you can just relevel your skill in an hour… that’s still an hour wasted re-leveling your skills.

Neither of these systems, Mastery lock-in or Skill leveling, are casual friendly in the slightest and I highly suspect are part of equation regarding the cratering playerbase. The story reasons for these systems are scant in their justification for existing and could be retconned completely without nearly anyone batting an eye.

I’m urging you, please undo the Mastery lock-in, please make leveling your skills based on the slot’s level, not the skill’s level. These two things will make it more casual friendly and will retain a larger playerbase. I highly suspect that this will happen in the future, but the question is, how far into the future? How dead will the game be before you decide to frantically re-inject fun and convenience into the game?

Fat Shark is a perfect example of this. With the launch of Darktide, they instantly got feedback from a non-insignificant portion of the playerbase demanding that people be able to craft gear instead of relying solely on RNG… Now that the playerbase is a shadow of its former self (about 1/10th), they’re working on doing just that to preserve what playerbase they have left. This game, Last Epoch, went from a peak of 250K to around 2.5-5K in 4 months flat (I was a part of this as I got tired of having to level same-Class alts to use gear)… With the launch of the season, Steamcharts had a playerbase of 70k, we’re already down to 40k… mere days later. That’s a 43% drop…

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Your suspicions will turn out to be wrong, I can nigh guarantee it.
So I wouldn’t say a date.

It’s one of the absolute core elements, basically choosing your class, even if it’s a partial choice after Act 2 and not a full one right away.

This is one of the things which won’t change.

Which is a apples versus oranges comparison. A RNG based mechanic hindering progression versus a active choice with a warning that it’ll be a permanent one is a vast difference.

Normal for a new released game.

The weekend will be the actual sign of how well retention works, before that we can’t make informed decisions, it’s during the week, Wednesday/Thursday are generally the weakest days for gaming.

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What if you get more gear suited for a Rogue. Would you also regret not making one and wish you could respec to it?
Mastery respec is a long long long discussion that’s been discussed many many times. You can search for those threads and see both sides of the argument. You’re adding nothing new.

Long story short, Mastery IS your class. You just get to choose it later. If you chose it at character creation this would be a non-issue. And it still is.
In D3, 1 character is every single build at once. But LE is clearly targetted for people that like making alts. That like having multiple characters. That see drops and makes them want to roll a new build.
If you don’t like that and this is your line in the sand, then LE isn’t the game for you, which is fine.

You still can. There are many possible builds for each mastery class. You can respec with little cost in each.

Again, been discussed to death, you can look for other threads about it. Long story short, it’s there so you can’t respec on the fly from an AoE setup to a single target setup for boss killing.
At endgame this is mostly negligible as you can relevel all your skills in a few minutes, so it’s just enough attrition that almost no one will try to cheese it.
At early game this is mostly negligible because campaign is far too easy even with a lot level skill.
It’s just the initial perception that makes you feel like that, but the more you play the more you realize that this isn’t really an issue.

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Cite to me the story implications that can’t be retconned.

Cite to me how it’s an Apples vs Oranges comparison, both the changes I suggest and the changes Fat Shark are making are in the name of making progression more casual friendly.

Cite to me how it’s normal for a new live-service game to drop from 250K to 2.5-5K in 4 months and how that’s sustainable.

I’ll give you the weekend thing, but I doubt that’ll be the case. I’d wager to bet that it merely sustains over the weekend at the same rate that Friday starts at, and then continues plummeting after.

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Actually, the outlier here isn’t dropping to 2.5k at cycle end. The outlier was having 260k people at launch. 70k is already very healthy for a new game. And numbers dropping at cycle end are a natural thing, as you can see in PoE, even more so for a new game that still doesn’t have that much endgame to increase retention.

More than half of those 260k are players that played it for a while and will never return. As happens with every single game, no matter how good it is.

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Mastery isn’t your class, it’s your Mastery, that’s why it’s called a Mastery. It’s 10 skills across two trees that you arbitrarily don’t have access to because you chose to not go down that path. If the subject has been brought up time and again, maybe there’s a reason. That said, this thread isn’t particularly aimed at the “hardcore” players who camp this forum 24/7, it’s aimed at the developers who need funding to sustain their game, and whose funding is coming from an ever dwindling playerbase.

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Yes it is.

These things aren’t going away, and don’t need to. They’re not problems, and their inconvenience is negligible. I suggest you get over it ASAP.

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The devs say it is your class, though. And at character creation, if you look at the masteries, it specifically says that “your mastery class is chosen later”.
And lots of players agree. Myself included. I don’t have a sentinel that happens to be a Paladin. I have a Paladin that started out as a Sentinel.

It’s a character identity thing. Which, granted, not everyone feels. Especially D3 players where there was none. But it’s a valid design choice nonetheless.

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Or I can just go play another game and spend my money elsewhere? Like everyone else seems to be doing?

Honestly, doesn’t matter, this feedback isn’t for the tiny “hardcore” playerbase, this feedback is for the devs anyways.

Also, you speak of character identity when we don’t even have basics like gender choices, character customization, or non-cash shop transmog. The character identity of this game is that of “an anonymous rogue”, and I rarely ever hear anything in the story pertaining to my characters class and don’t remember a single thing uttered about any of the Masteries beyond the initial choice.

I know a bunch of you “hardcore” players want a hardcore ARPG, that exists. It’s called PoE. It has the market cornered, go play that. I did for a long time, when I had the time to. This game is hardly hardcore, it’s just a good-ish game plagued with bad progression decisions that waste player time, subsequently driving away casual players, and the money they bring.

Feel free to continue ranting and keep the thread alive, this thread is geared towards the devs, it’ll help them see it.

Edit: Also, feel free to continue conflating leveling other classes and leveling multiple of the same class to be able to do the different masteries. Only the simple minded are impressed by that argument, and it’s not what I was talking about in the slightest.

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Maybe you can say this about re-levelling skills (personally I like it especially at earlier character levels because it gives me a chance to feel how the various nodes actually work) but chosen class/mastery and not being able to change it? That’s a feature, not an inconvenience. :joy:

Honestly, the only arpg game I ever played where you could have one character who could arbitrarily play any kind of skill/combo you wanted to was Wolcen. And that was one of my biggest dislikes about that game. The characters had no identity, no special abilities geared to their identities.

I like EHGs choice. Big bold letters. THIS CANNOT BE UNDONE.

And then you get these cool mastery base bonuses.

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Yes, you can. Not every game appeals to every player. It’s ok not to like some.

Again, that is because you’re from D3. Character identity has nothing to do with the way the character looks or if it’s mentioned in the story. A big part of it is feeling that your choices matter. Which they don’t in D3, where, as I’ve said, every character is every single build at once, with a touch of a button.

As I said, you should go check the threads open about this. You have said nothing new so far. So the devs are already aware of your feedback and have been for a long time. Some of those threads even have replies from the devs themselves saying why mastery respec won’t happen and why it’s actually a class.

LE is actually positioned between D3/D4 and PoE, though closer to PoE.

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Once again, not even remotely suggested in the OP.

All that’s suggested is removing Mastery lock-outs and converting skill leveling into slot leveling, allowing you to more freely change up your build as you level up and find gear. Or at the very least, allow us to swap Masteries in town or something. Right now EHG are kneecapping their own game and driving away the casual audience.

Lastly, at no point did I suggest, or anyone suggest for that matter, removing classes entirely.

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That is one of the reasons why mastery respec won’t happen. Because then meta would be: do the campaign as Paladin, then change to Void Knight for monos and use Forge Guard for endgame.

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And that’s going to negatively impact the game, the playerbase, and their income how? Ask yourself that.

What you just said tells me that if you want to do Monoliths, don’t level a Paladin or Forge Guard. What even is “end game” to you then if not Monoliths? All I’m hearing is that depending on what you want to do, 2/3 of the Masteries are useless/sub-par.

Keep in mind, you may be happy with a game tailored to you and the 500 other “hardcore” players that will be left in a year, but will EHG be happy when they can’t keep the lights on because the decisions they made drove 99.99% of the p(l)ayerbase away?

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LE already has the biggest variety of possible builds and playstyle within on single mastery class compared to any other similar game.

Mastery are an extension of your class selection and are meant to be character defining. You can do dozens of different builds within Paladin.
But you have become a Paladin and you can’t (and shouldn’t) switch to do Void Knight things.

LE offers tools for hybrid builds already but what you request is simply moving goalposts.

It is not hours, it’s minutes. It is not “wasting time”.

It is putting effort into testing a slightly different setup.

Most skills and builds don’t need full level 20 skills. The minimum Respec level usually is enough to get core key nodes.

I wouldn’t count on that. EHG is always listening to feedback and that is the reason this forum exists, but that doesn’t mean that they will necessarily change some aspects of the core design.

Things like Mastery Respec, Skill Releveling and Auto Pick Up are hot topics of discussion for literally years already. And regarding skill respeccing they already did one reiteration of the system with the addition of catch up exp and minimum respec level.
And for auto pick up they implemented vaccum loot for crafting materials.

This shows that EHG is listening and tries to do middle ground solutions where possible.

Still EHG has not fully given in into requests to completely remove these restriction and I am very happy that they stand strong on these design decisions and don’t give in.

Class Identity is something that is basically completely lost in most other ARPG’s and I really like how it is preserved in LE for the most part now.

I really hope EHG does not change this aspect of the game.

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You clearly don’t understand character identity because you have a D3 background, which is clearly targetted at casual players. Maybe LE isn’t the game for you. LE is a game for people that like multiple alts and anything that takes away from that is something the devs don’t want.

As I said before, you’re not saying anything new. It’s all been said before. I don’t feel like constantly saying the same things again, so I’ll do your work for you and link you the biggest thread about this, which includes dev replies.

EDIT: The key part of why it won’t change is simply this: in LE choices matter and some are permanent. In D3 they don’t.

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Ah, okay, so I know nothing about hardcore games because I played D3. Got it. I also mentioned I played PoE. Wolcen? no. Grim Dawn? Yes. Since we’re talking about character identity and who’s hardcore and all these other dumb concepts: I’m also a huge Souls-like fan, I have over 1.5 years of logged in time on just my Prot Warrior in WoW that I’ve played since Vanilla, I’ve run multiple game servers for TF2, Battlefield, etc., ran gaming clan websites, and have been gaming since I was a child.

But I played D3, so I don’t know anything about “character identity”.

Once again, you may be happy with a 500 person playerbase, but I’m sure EHG will love not having money in their pockets after driving away 99.99% of the p(l)ayerbase.

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Core design decisions in a video game are not always lead by what would make the most amount of money or what would attract the largest amount of players.

Also your complete hyperbole with the numbers doesn’t make your statements any more meaningful, quite the opposite.

While I know there are a significant portion of player that are not 100% happy with mastery and skill Respec, they are far from the large majority. You and me and probably not even the devs have exact numbers.
But there is also a significant amount of people that are actively happy and enjoying the implementation as it is right now and don’t want it to be changed.

We don’t know how these numbers are relative to each other.

And then there are other people that don’t care either way.

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It has nothing to do with hardcore. It’s a character identity thing, which D3 doesn’t have. PoE does have it, but to a lesser extent, especially with allowing changing skills on the fly for AoE vs boss setup.
D3 could be casual and stil have character identity if only choices mattered in that game.

Mastery respec will make mastery choice meaningless, which is something the devs and many players don’t want.

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Can’t change masteries in Grim Dawn.

This sort of hyperbole is pointless and speculative with narry an ounce of data.

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