Mastery Lock-In & Skill Level Resets Need 2 Go

Feedback and Suggestions
182

That’s the same argumentation line as to why ‘FromSoftware’ doesn’t implement a difficulty option of some form.
That gameplay element provides - albeit small, but noticeable - a distinct difference in how content is perceived.

Also as a secondary thing… free respec would necessitate to break up the specific game-modes further, you can’t put free-respec and the old-respec group together in any form of competitive environment. This includes leaderboards as well as MG, MG is a natural competitive environment by design albeit often not perceived personally as such.

184

They would. I would. I don’t want D3. If LE became D3 (even if it was just an option) I would leave. And so would many players that have been around since the early stages of the game.

You do. You gain the possibility of switching between builds when you’re farming monos or doing bosses. Which means you’re much more effective at doing everything in the game. So at that point it’s not an option, it’s a mandatory setting.

I never said everyone in LE feels that way. If they did, we wouldn’t have this thread (over and over and over again). I just said that many people like it the way it is, just like many people don’t like it. And some would even like respec to be even more restrictive than it currently is.

They are. But an improvement to you doesn’t have to be an improvement for others. Which is why many players left D3, while others joined it.

Possibly quite a few. Which actually isn’t relevant. EHG is making a game they’d like to play. They’re appealing to a certain type of player. The kind of player that likes these restrictions and that thinks that choices mattering is important.

Every design choice in a game will make players stay or leave. Keeping respec as is would make players leave and others stay. Making free respec without downsides would make players leave and others stay.
So it’s up to EHG to determine which types of players they want playing LE.

As can be seen in this thread (and in similar others) many players have adamantly said they would leave if respec was changed like this. Including myself. So doubt all you want, it doesn’t make it any less true.

Yes.
Because if you just want to switch a build, the current system is barely noticeable, as you would know if you had read the thread.
And if you want to experiment it’s annoying, so a new solution needs to be found, like my suggestion of free respec while in the dummies area.
And if you want to cheese content by having a spec for bosses and another for speed farming it’s annoying enough that very few people will do it.

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185

I completely agree with you. There is zero meaningful reason to PUNISH casual players for experimenting, and that is exactly what releveling skills and an unjustifiable sub-class lock do.

186

If that certain type of player is anything except casual then I completely and without reservation believe they are guaranteeing the failure of their game.

187

Great idea, but I don’t think you’re taking it far enough. Character selection isn’t soon enough to allow players to make this decision, IMO.

What should really happen is, you click the Last Epoch icon from your Steam menu, and before the game actually loads, it gives you a popup that says A) I want to play Last Epoch or B) I am a FOMO slave that can’t handle making decisions. If you choose B, it closes the game and launches Diablo 3 instead. Done deal.

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188

These kind of “solutions” that seemingly offer “choices” for everybody are usually very bad.
The people that want the commitment to the build will just feel at a disadvantage when not using the “easier” option, even though they would prefer the option that requires more commitment.

So the game putting some restrictions on everybody, the playerbase as a whole, can be a good thing and is sometimes necessary.

Also this would create even more split within the community outside of SC, HC, SAFSC, SAFHC etc…

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189

No its not pure stupid. While God Mode has more impact on the actul gameplay and difficulty of the game, it will still cause the game and the different options to be perceived very differently.

Just having this “option” there for everybody will put other people that don’t prefer that option to be and feel at a disadvantage. So much so that we almost play different games.

DJ never said they are a spokesman of the community, but they bring up points that a lot of other people agree with.

So “your clear solution” is not as clear as you think.
They wanted to give you a different perspective.

There is no clear and best solution for these kind of game design decisions, becuase they massively impact how the game is played and perceived.

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190

Yes
But not without context here.

I wouldn’t have picked up LE in the first place if the game provided me the option to… for example respec masteries.
Why? Because I bought the game by learning there’s 15 classes, hence knowing full well to get them all up I’ll need to play 15 times through the campaign.

This leaves me more then enough time for the future to play each one out cycle by cycle.
If it’s only 5 (3 masteries per base-class) then I would’ve thought twice about buying into the game in the first place.

As for the skill respec… Path of Exile has a easy system for it. For a good while the best available builds often had a switch method for changing out an AoE gem with a single-target spell included.
Why? Because otherwise they wouldn’t have been amazing but mediocre.
Sure, several others existed but they generally focused on an aspect, either map clearing or bossing, I wanted to do both since I had in mind to experience the game back then fully.

It became so frustrating to do that that I actively put the game down and only came back ~2 years later.

So for example for me personally it would be one massive downside. I know what the outcome out switching between AoE and single-target entails, I know I don’t enjoy doing that, I know that if I want to play a strong build (don’t worry, I have shit ones for fun too and mediocre ones to simply enjoy the game ‘as intended’ as well) then I wouldn’t be able to do that without actively engaging in those mechanics as otherwise it would be unlikely to be as powerful.
So… I’m avoiding those things actively.

Yes, the comparison is bad there, agreed.

It has a function though.

How many don’t play Last Epoch because it isn’t a racing game?

Same line of argumentation. You can’t argue about flavor, different people like different things and there’s a distinction between a flavor mechanic and one which is outright detrimental or enhancing the experience for everyone.

First point:
It’s not about time, it’s about weight of choices. The people you’re disparaging value the weight of a choice higher then the loss of time.

Second point:
Respec in higher levels takes around 10 minutes. If you don’t have 10 minutes why are you playing the genre in the first place? The game is supposed to at least last for 40 hours per character per cycle, and that’s pitifully low anyway.

Looks over to PoE
I guess you’re right, we can’t see any example of that happening. :rofl:

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191

I personally don’t think that changing skill respec and masteries to be able to be mroe easily or freely respecable would lead to that many people actually leaving, but some people including me, would have a lot less fun.
Maybe it will lead to some more people enjoying the game more and even growing the playerbase. But it is up to the devs decision if they want to compromise their vision for the game for a bigger playerbase.

Bigger playerbase != better

I personally would continue playing Last Epoch, but I would be a lot more critical for future changes. Because changes like this are very bad indicators, if the devs compromise on their vision and the communtiy will keep moving goalposts.

The next changes that will be requested will be auto loot.

Then the next suggestion will be even more wild and crazy. Like Changing Base Classes, Exchanging Build Enabling Unique A for Build Enabling Unique B, so you can switch from Build A to Build B without even farming new gear.

Obviously these are very outrageous things, but it will go into that direction until LE is not the game anymore, it wanted to be.

And somewhere on that way the game will lose me. And I am very happy that EHG so far was very adamant about changing these things. They already did a compromise on skill respeccing with skill catchup exp and minimum respec level.

192

You mean like PoE failed? If there’s a game that clearly doesn’t like casuals it’s PoE and yet it seems to be doing just fine. In fact, it’s doing even better since D4 released, a game that presumably attracted all the casuals since that’s their target playerbase.

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193

Mike once said regarding this that mastery respec won’t happen. Maybe when there are 5 masteries for each class or more they could consider it.
In those terms, I might accept it, even if I would, like you, enjoy it less.
But if they decided to make mastery respec and/or skill respec without penalties happen in 1.2 I would leave.

EDIT: to be clear, I know that I could probably continue playing and make all my alts. Much like I could in D3. But the fact that you don’t have to really detracts from my fun a lot and on top of that I have an almost irrational hatred of this because of D3’s armory loadouts.
So any game that has that option, even if it’s an option, is not a game that has an identity I want to play.

I mean, I probably would still do what I did with D3: play for a week once or twice a year.

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194

Not Diablo Immortal?

Because casuals aren’t the ones that provide most of the revenue for a game?

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195

100x this. “Make it an option!!! People who don’t like it don’t have to use it!!!” is such a ridiculous argument.

They already have the choice. If you don’t like how a core function of how the game plays, don’t play the game. All of us who don’t want infinity free change everything features aren’t over on the Diablo forums shouting “YOU SHOULD ADD MORE RESTRICTIONS”. We just stopped playing.

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196

“Maybe this game is not for you” is such a great argument on the other hand.

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197

Actually it is to be fair.

There’s exactly 1 thing as a customer you can do if something’s not to your liking, the sole and only thing unless you’ve been messed with by the one providing the product.

And that is not using the product, simple as that.

It’s basic customer behavior as should be.

We got feedback since it provides the developers a way to check if their doings won’t screw up things too much along the line and to improve longevity of their product. They could release it, say ‘good, that’s it’ and leave. Not only their right but actually the way it’s supposed to go everywhere else then with software.
Imagine buying a bike and the bike dealer suddenly knocks on your door saying ‘Ah yes, we’re putting patch 1.1 into it!’ :stuck_out_tongue:

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198

It is. I don’t like Dark Souls. I think it’s too hard for the time/effort I’m willing to put into the game. Rather than go trolling the forums asking for a difficulty slider (and get laughed at), I just realize that Dark Souls isn’t a game for me and I don’t play it.
Much like D3 wasn’t a game for me, so I didn’t play it.
Much like I got burned out with PoE and it’s no longer a game for me, so I don’t play it.

I don’t go to their forums demanding they adjust the game so I can enjoy it. If a game doesn’t fit my playstyle, I just play another. There are literally millions of available games out there, many of them are even free.

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199

I don’t often agree with the way Bronco delivers theirstatements, but I often agree with the sentiment. Their way of expression themselves might be a bit blunt at times.

But in this case they were refering to my original post.

Providing feedabck as a customer is fine, but the devs don’t have do something about it though. And in cetian cases it might just not be the game for you.

The main reason and main issue I have with what @MrJohnson and @Lonsey said, that they claim there is a “ideal/clear” solution making it sounds like that is objective fact.
I absolutely despise when people claim things as facts or being “objectively better”.
Showing them a different perspective and angle to look at things is something I will always do in these types of forums.

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200

“Maybe this game is not for you” is nothing else but belittling those who love the game too but never the less would like to have certain aspects changed. It is what happens in these type of games because they are, unlike most other games, continously extended. So if enough customers raise their voice, chances are there will be changes to the skill mechanics or how to forge LP items.
And why else should I be be coming to this forum other than to suggest and discuss changes (I do not believe I ever demanded anything).
Perhaps camp the forum and defend each and every design decision with an essay? That would be a waste of my time.

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201

Not really. If someone comes to the forums and says “I’d like this to be this way, but I’ll enjoy the game as is if it doesn’t change” that’s good feedback and is just an indication of what you’d like the devs to do (which they might or not follow through on but will always consider).
Coming to the forums and saying “This design is horrible and I’ll leave if it doesn’t change” is a clear sign of “this game might not be for you”.

Much like this game is for me due to the choices they made in design. If they change those choices (like allowing mastery respec), then it won’t be a game for me anymore and I’ll just leave.

So bottom line is: is this a line in the sand for you? Do you find this design choice which is a fundamental part of the game’s identity so horrible that you’d leave? Then yes, it’s not the game for you. And there is nothing wrong with that. That’s why we have millions of games all catering to different people.

Like I said before, D3’s armory loadouts are a big line in the sand for me. So clearly D3 isn’t the game for me. Likewise, I find the difficulty of Dark Souls unappealing. Clearly it’s not the game for me. I don’t see anything belittling in that.

EDIT: To emphasize: my very first post in this forum, before 1.0, was inquiring about some choices I didn’t much enjoy, like shard autopickup, instanced zones and summoning minions in some places would consume mana and not summon them due to lack of space.
Mike answered me on these issues (and others) and said won’t happen for the first, performance issues for the second and technical limitations for the 3rd.
I weighed everything down, decided LE was fun in spite of that and continued on.
At no point did I feel inclined to tell Mike “This is a stupid design, you have to change it or the game will fail”.

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And neither did I.