Well, i’d say because for Games like this, people still want to have somewhat of an Meaningful choice, and i go by that as well. Don’t get me wrong, by no means i personally wish to go back to the old-school Diablo 2 days, where you could like not respec at all, and could potentially screw over your complete build, or the “fear” of not trying out skills if they might fun for you, because well, without respec it would be a waste of points and such.
I appreciate “modernizing” this concept in a lot of ways, that i don’t have to fear out to totally screw up, and can’t fix that because either the Grind is way too extreme (though opposite way can be hurtfull too if it’s too easy to respec) or there aren’t any respec-options, or that it allows me to experiement more.
But in the same way it also had it’s downsides and drawbacks. That more and more Characters you create kinda lose identity, because unlike older days where when you create a character clearly build toward something, quite some modern entries miss this because you can change everything on the fly. It kills replaybility with doing more characters with different builds and ideas. And it especially push away the concept and consequence of meaning full choices. Some stuff which you have to decide for and stick with, and if you can’t deal with that, you’ve to start over a fresh character for a different choice / direction.
It’s like the problem with games which have Skilltrees and such, where in the end you learned everything… sure you have exceptions where this can work out - like as example a very storydriven/campaigndriven Game with no real postgame content, a skilltree where you max out everything can still make sense to a dagree, because you can define the way you tackle the adventure, which skills and stuff you prioritze first. But Games like this, which lives for it’s build diversity and stuff, having all skills and passives unlocked can kill a key element which makes this games so interesting and engaging and also kills a skillsystem in a terms of an concept, because it doesn’T make any sense anymore then and they could make a linear progression where you get everything anway…
So there needs to be a limit, because people want to tinker around and want to experiment.
And in the same fashion also people want something in the game, which is also a more meaningfull and permanent choice, and in that regard locking specialization/mastery makes the most sense, because it’s the expansion of your initial choice of a class heck - i’d argue even further, this is actually “pick your real-class”-Choice, and that needs to be meaningfull and permanent. The same ways some people pointed here out, that you can’t change classes in Diablo - or masteries in Grim Dawn.
And about the Point with “but Path of Exile” - a little reminder here - atleast as long my memory serves right (people who play more PoE than me can correct me if i’m wrong) → but in PoE Respeccing the last time i played, was pretty limited in sense of - it either costs you or you have to put efford in to actually respec. Which means if the Grind / Cost - Ceiling is too high, it already gives the whole “choices” more weight (not as much as permanent but still) - so you have that here. But considering how “easy” (atleast last time i played LE - like last year… but now i wait for full release) respeccing is in LE compared to PoE, there needs some sort of compensation for that… and now you can tell me what’s better / worse (atleast for you) →
Do you rather want to grind your Soul out or have to pay money to respec your class?
Or
Do you waant to have a permanent mastery-selection, which you can fix for a new character within an hour…
(And again something needs to be meaningfull here).