Mastery Lock-In & Skill Level Resets Need 2 Go

[DJSamhein]

@Lonsey

24 hour cooldown when you swap out your 5 skill slots, but you always keep your maximum skill level on all skills. That’s fair? Then you can’t freely swap here and there for whatever endgame purpose you have, me personally im not really into competing, i understand that some do which is fine.

Yeah, this is a good suggestion that might please more people.
It won’t fix the problem for the ones that want to experiment around (thus respec a few times in short succession) or people that just made a mistake when assigning a point, but the idea itself has merit, especially in that you’re actively searching for a compromise solution and doing it in a moderate discussion.

@Lonsey

Or perhaps a huge gold sink?

This is not a good one, though. Especially because MG makes more gold than CoF, so it would affect players disproportionally.

@R1ng0

You use orbs of regret and be done with it. What is so hard about it?

First, the amount of time you need to spend farming for orbs of regret, for the average player, is bigger than the amount of time you need to spend releveling skills.

Second, you’re not comparing equal things. Orbs of regret are used to respec passive points. That’s equivalent to passive respec in LE which already only costs gold. And in LE the gold costs for this are negligible, whereas in PoE my first point applies.

If you want to change skills in PoE, you start a new gem at level 1. The only 2 differences are that once a gem is leveled it stays leveled and you can buy one already leveled. But if you decide to try a new skill, or want a new support gem, you start over from scratch again.

And if you want to buy a new gem already leveled, then you have to spend currency you spent time farming, which, again, requires more time than you spend in LE releveling them.

So yes, PoE is vastly harder to respec than LE.

So the only real difference between both is that in PoE you keep the gem level while in LE it gets downgraded. And this is because in PoE you end up with a system where every single build has a set of alternate gems for boss fights which you swap out on the fly.
And this is what EHG wants to avoid.

@R1ng0

The problem is that in LE we do not have a tool to figure out the required changes in advance.

Yes, this is true. Although you can use LETools planner to figure things out a bit, it doesn’t offer the same vast amount of accurate information that PoB does.
The best solution, for me, is my suggestion of turning the dummies area into a free respec zone. You go in, get your full amount of points for everything, you can freely respec whatever you want, even mastery and even class, try things out to your heart’s content. Then you leave, you’re back in your previous spec but now you have an idea of what you want to do.

[MrJohnson]

@DJSamhein

Yeah, this is a good suggestion that might please more people.

It’s a very bad solution that breaks down as soon as you notice that it causes issues during the leveling period, in which you are likely to change skills multiple times while waiting for your wanted skills to unlock, not even to try stuff out, but just because you don’t immediately have access to your wanted skills.

[DJSamhein]

I did point out why it wasn’t feasible later. But that doesn’t change the fact that his suggestion is a good one in that he’s trying to think of ways to make this a compromise between both sides, rather than just slap an option or say that it’s stupid and should go away.

The idea isn’t a good one, but the suggestion is. It turned the discussion with that person into a moderate exchange of ideas instead of what was happening before.

[Llama8]

@Kulze

they basically shames the whole genre with the massive changes and improvements, many of which have been wanted to be seen since ages

Like the AH for currency & maps (ie, consumable stuff).

[Kulze]

Yes, albeit maps are not included.

They can be rolled and GGG probably couldn’t include them properly while ensuring that people wouldn’t get ripped off by receiving random corrupted maps they can’t adjust and have bad rolls for their builds.

So that’s fairly understandable there.

But… everything else which can’t be rolled and is basically static is fully included as much as I’ve seen. It’s a massive step in the right direction for player agency and removal of frustration. As are a majority of mechanics introduced or re-introduced there.

Basically PoE saw ‘hey, other games actually are talked about’ and went so far beyond their norm behavior suddenly that it stiffles any question of ‘who’s the boss’ of the genre. And while I heavily dislike several things they do I simply can’t argue anything else then them being the qualitative monolith of the genre if they can only uphold 50% of what was presented.

[MindBlayde]

@Kulze

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

If Last Epoch is setting its target audience as Path of Exile players then yes, Last Epoch is going to fail.
There is a very clear space between the simplicity of D4 and the complexity of PoE, I think that space consists mostly of casual players. But that is of course simply what I think.

[DJSamhein]

There is. And that is where LE sits.
That means that EHG doesn’t have to do everything to appeal the casuals or everything to appeal to the hardcore crowd, but can rather carve a niche somewhere in between.

You implied that the only chance of success for LE is to fully target casuals. Which just isn’t true, as there have been examples of the opposite.

[Kulze]

@MindBlayde

If Last Epoch is setting its target audience as Path of Exile players then yes, Last Epoch is going to fail.

They don’t
They also don’t set their target audience to D3, or D4, or Torchlight.

What LE tries to accomplish is to get the people which are not 100% happy with either of those games in terms of re-spec methods.

That means it isn’t allowed to be as rigid as the system of PoE, hence the time-investment needs to be less.
This also means that it isn’t allowed to have a fully free system where builds can be swapped without downsides that can be felt. Hence we have re-spec for passives only in town and at least with a minimal cost and re-spec for skills enforcing a downlevelling with a floor raising along with your level.

That downside is made so hot-swapping items with +skill to whatever doesn’t automatically allow to change builds as well as not solely limited to the town - which it would’ve been otherwise - since such items exist.

That’s what LE decided. Neither PoE nor D3 but something in the middle that is the state. It doesn’t fully cater to the heavy casuals and also doesn’t cater to the heavy sweaty people in that regard. It’s a compromise, a middle ground.

@MindBlayde

There is a very clear space between the simplicity of D4 and the complexity of PoE, I think that space consists mostly of casual players. But that is of course simply what I think.

Yes, any space always consists more of casual players then those which want to put heavy amounts of time into something and make it their main endeavor. That’s a give, that’s always in any case true.

The question is just which type of player EHG wants to cater to and they decided their positioning by actually decentl well thought-out design and followed through. Once more… not D4, Not D3, not PoE… instead the open space which no other game filled with that specific design they have in terms of re-spec.

[Erasculio]

@Kulze

That’s the current state.

The idea is that it’s not a dichotomy between “the current state” and “Diablo 3”. Just like PoE made its own respec system easier without becoming D3, so could Last Epoch make its system a bit easier without it becoming frictionless like in Diablo.

[Kulze]

Yes, they did that during the beta more then once actually. There were several adjustments with the gold price for passive re-spec as well as the time to get skills leveled up.

They got their own system… they just need to fine-tune that.

As mentioned several times by now. Early game has issues with re-spec speed when the game needs it the most.

My recommendation for EHG hence would be a level based slightly exponential curve for experience needs per level, so not a fixed one but a variable one.

This would lead to early leveled characters having the option to switch their build day in and out without issues at all and the further they progress - and hence ‘lock into their build’ - the harder it gets. This would flip the re-spec speed on it’s head simply and sustain that without major fine-tuning being needed.

[Erasculio]

@Kulze

This would lead to early leveled characters having the option to switch their build day in and out without issues at all and the further they progress - and hence ‘lock into their build’ - the harder it gets. This would flip the re-spec speed on it’s head simply and sustain that without major fine-tuning being needed.

I agree - I was thinking more or less the same, a system in which the more you use the respec system the more expensive it becomes, but with level impacting both the starting cost and how quickly it increases.

So a low level character would pay very little for using respecs a few times, but a level 100 character using the system often would have to pay a small fortune.

[DJSamhein]

@Kulze

My recommendation for EHG hence would be a level based slightly exponential curve for experience needs per level, so not a fixed one but a variable one.

This is actually a pretty good alternative. I think most people would agree with this change.
As long as the costs aren’t too high so you can still switch builds every once in a while, for example once per cycle, this does everything people ask for, except for one thing:
-respeccing oftenly at, for example, level 50-70-ish when you’re trying out what you actually want to do. But the solution to that could simply be my idea of turning dummies area into a theory-craft zone.

[MrJohnson]

@Erasculio

I agree - I was thinking more or less the same, a system in which the more you use the respec system the more expensive it becomes, but with level impacting both the starting cost and how quickly it increases.

I’d rather avoid making the system more expensive to those that overuse it. They are the ones most in need of that system, not the ones like us that hardly ever change their skills.
Increasing costs with level, I am all for it, though.

[CaiusMartius]

I’d be totally down with this except for one small (but, it’s going to induce rage) addition.

The area is ALL theory crafting. Meaning the changes you make aren’t permanent. Once you decide what you like with the adjustment. Then you have to go out into the ‘real’ world and change it.

This keeps the earned aspect of leveling but it takes the guessing game out of it because you’ve now tested it and you are ‘sure’ this is what you want.

[Kulze]

Yeah, the theory crafting area needs to 100% stay theory crafting without any actual effects.

Otherwise it poses issues with group-play. Someone finding out that adjusting a bit would handle a situation, going out of the instance - which stays open as another one is inside - before going back in again with those changes.

Generally… group-play needs a bit of work still.

[DJSamhein]

@CaiusMartius

The area is ALL theory crafting. Meaning the changes you make aren’t permanent.

Yes, that was my idea. Your current spec is saved but while in there you can freely respec everything, even class. And you have the full points available to you as if you were level 100.

I even suggested that you could have an option at the start screen to access this area, even if you hadn’t even created a single character yet, so new people could play around with it and find out which class they want to play with.

Also some dummies that deal damage would also be a good idea. They would actually be a good idea even without this. Just a way we can gauge defenses as well.

[MrJohnson]

@DJSamhein

I even suggested that you could have an option at the start screen to access this area, even if you hadn’t even created a single character yet, so new people could play around with it and find out which class they want to play with.

I would absolutely love that.

[DJSamhein]

@Lonsey

But the problem again, is the way you’re being punished which honestly sucks when you just wanna swap your damage type.

This is not a problem. This is just a philosophy issue between 2 different types of players. Some players like making alts. Given the choices of a fire/lightning/cold build, they will have 3 characters.
Some players don’t like making alts. Given the same choice they’d rather have 1 and switch.
Some games like D3 (and I’m assuming D4 won’t be too long in following) target the latter.
Some games like D2, GD and in fact almost any ARPG that isn’t D3/D4, target the former.

So it’s clearly all about game design/identity and which players you’re targetting. And LE clearly targets the former.

@Lonsey

I could take it as far as bringing this option to offline mode only, wouldn’t that be more appealing?

I’m pretty sure you already have mods for offline that do this.

[Llama8]

@DJSamhein

and I’m assuming D4 won’t be too long in following

D4 doesn’t have the depth to enable that kind of element switching.

@DJSamhein

I’m pretty sure you already have mods for offline that do this.

There are only 3 mods on Nexus & one of them looks quite trainer-y.

[DJSamhein]

@Llama8

D4 doesn’t have the depth to enable that kind of element switching.

I was talking about loadouts. D4 has little depth, but it sitll has some build variety.

@Llama8

There are only 3 mods on Nexus & one of them looks quite trainer-y.

There are actually 12, and yes, one looks very trainer-y but also lets you respec. And I expect it won’t take too long until you get more mods.