I’ll try to explain and copy one of my posts from discord on a similar topic:
Imagine you get all your passive points with level 3.
Some people might say “Wow, cool. I don’t have much time so getting my full spec at level 3 saves a lot of time.” Others would be like “Oh no. It doesn’t feel like I earned my way and progression feels empty.” You could suggest latter people to just play on and only spend 1 point per level when they progress. But I doubt it would feel the same. At this point you can just pretend to progress when in fact there is no progress anymore. The fact that you know it is only a fake will make that progress not feel right.
By this I mean that it isn’t a respec penalty when it is a choice and not a hard rule. It’s like trying to tickle yourself. It doesn’t work.
The skill system in games like d3 or Wolcen don’t make me feel like I have an important choice when progress. You can brainlessly just blindfolded apply your points. You click, kill a mob, respec because it wasnt like you expected. This makes all decisions irrelevant. It aren’t choices when there is no drawback.
In LE, early levels, you are forced to kind of stick with your decision. Respec is a pain so you wont do it that much. But this also forces you to think about the pros and cons. To make up your mind and plan where you want to go. You are forced to understand the mechanics and synergies.
This also may lead to that point that you have to try to make a seemingly bad decision work. Perhaps by building gear around a skill that feels bad for the first 5 levels. But an hour later you may smash your enemies and think “Wow, thank god I did not respec that skill. It’s awesome.”
LE gives all the opportunities to respec besides your mastery. And the higher you go, the lower the effort.
So at the point you have understood most of the mechanics, you’ve earned some gold and a bunch if decent items you can respec very easy and explore everything you want.
The only downside is that you have to get to that point to realise.
So because you cannot show restraint from pressing a button, other players should not get that button as an option. Nice.
I understand why you want no respec. I don’t understand why you can’t just not press the damn button. I never, ever in a million years want to play this game Hardcore. Yet the button is there. Not once have I been tempted to press it. Yet I find I can be happy for those who enjoy it and have that button to press. Good for them.
Do you realized, that current game systems are designed in a way, because devs see things similar to me? You are downplaying the argument because you don’t understand the issue. I think we already said enough time, what you are proposing is not good solution for us, but I alone proposed something, I would accept - respec orbs…I still didn’t hear your opinion on that.
First of all, I don’t have problem with button. I don’t care. The only thing I am against is pooling these players together with other. As you are not pooling hardcore players and softcore players, you should not pool players with free respec and non-free respec.
What I am questioning however is, if this would not fragment population too much. I think it would. But that’s just my opinion.
Why would you need to segregate players based on respecc choice? Just make respec only work in set conditions like being in End of Time and not grouped or whatever, there is absolutely no difference between a free respeccer and er…the other one.
I mean why would you care if you ended up grouped with me, knowing I had freely respecced many times? If anything that will just mean my build is fine-tuned and very efficient.
You just said yourself at 70 everyone’s respec is as good as free, so what’s the problem?
As I said, it’s mind-boggling you don’t see the issue so I am not sure if more examples would actually help.
So my question is, why you are so dead-set to have these players playing together with non-respec players? Do you understand why hardcore and softcore players are not playing together? Do you understand, if you remove time commitment from one group of players, you will automatically put the other group into disadvantage?
Also, I never said that at level 70 respec is as good as free, and if it is, I would definitely want to change it.
Hi guys, seems like you’re having a vigorous debate. I just wanted to pop my head in and say that we won’t be splitting the community based on respec options. It will continue to be a blanket system.
That said, the system as a whole could change still. It’s not set in stone and we do want it to be something that players enjoy interacting with as a whole. We know it’s not perfect. We do have a vision for important requirements that can sometimes be difficult to reconcile with expectations from other games.
OK so are we suddenly saying that a free spec player has an advantage over someone like yourself because it takes them less time to try out various builds than it would you? This is the first this has come up. I thought your only objection to free respec was simply that you wanted your choices to matter. Now it has become not only that you want your choices to matter, but that you perceive that players who don’t care to play the exact way you want to have some unfair advantage that you dislike? My mind is now officially boggling.
Hardcore versus softcore is not comparible for the record. HC players have a completely different playstyle to SC and they do not and cannot mix. SC players will get HC players killed - accidentally or otherwise - because they don’t have the same careful approach to pulling enemies etc. This split makes sense.
On the other hand, free respeccers play the exact same way as non-free respeccers, so the point is mute. I can buy the argument that a free-speccer like me might do better in Arena because I can try more builds out in less time than yourself, but you’ve chosen that path not me. It’s still no reason to segregate us, as the difference is minor and either of us can google the “best build” any time we want. Plus it’s a co-op adventure anyway, we’re on the same side. If you kill more enemies than me because your build is superior, I’d be delighted, believe me.
I therefore conclude there is absolutely no reason to segregate players because their respec patterns or options are different, especially if you control and limit where and when a respec can occur.
As for Respec Orbs. Sure. As long as they drop plentifully.
Context: I’d want to have about 1 drop per level for example, assuming they are used to remove 1 point from a skill tree, and perhaps 5 of them could be used to de-spec a skill completely without losing its level. Something like that.
So you obviously don’t get the point. We have different mindsets and define “fun” in separate ways. This has nothing to do with “forcing people to play something unfun”.
With the same arguments you bring up you could defend cheating. If it does not affect you, why bother that others are cheating? You can chose to not cheat and done… problem solved.
The argument that people can chose to have a certain game experience by ignoring game mechanics is not viable.
Wolcen and D3 are both criticised for their skill system by players and press. So it’s obviously because it matters for a lit if people. This does not make these games bad per se. But it shows the expectations different people have.
D3 has a big player base. There are seemingly many people that like the simple respec.
Now here it’s different and you see a lot of people defending harder respec.
It is controversial and none of us will change his mind.
That’s ok.
Maybe EHG find a compromise. But if not I hope they leave the system as it is. One of us might be disappointed. I hope it’s not me. Maybe it’s selfish, so be it.
I guess it probably depends on how it’s implemented, but potentially yes. If all they did was to remove the xp loss on respec & you could do it on the fly, you could take a skill, say Lightning Blast, and convert it from a clear skill to a single target skill just before you came to a boss, which would be a not inconsiderable advantage (only needing one skill for dps, as against one for single target & one for AoE).
If they required you to go to a vendor like they do for passives, then it would be less of an advantage.
The discussion (aside from the continued dropping of hyperbole from certain parties) seems to be geared mainly around one of ideology for the game. FREE RESPEC < = 98% of other gamers => NEVER RESPEC.
I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts that EHG is going to find the ‘best’ solution that fits in that 98%. Personally I think it’s mostly there. But when discussing the context of respec of skills, I also very much like to keep in mind as best as I can EHG’s methodology and ideology for what they want in the game.
Your opinion only. I disgree and think you’re talking nonsense. Many people above us have stated that a full respec at 70 takes minutes. So ladder is already broken by your values. There is no issue with giving free respec then, since it would only affect low level players in the campaign.
Opinion again and I disagree again.
How can you predict what bosses you fight? And did you miss where I said no respec in the middle of any event or when grouped? For one thing it would create unwanted downtime in groups.
End of the day, full respec is apparently already free and easy at 70, so making it available to lowbies while levelling - where players have less impact on things like ladder - should be a non-issue.
PoE has a considerable playerbase too and also goes down the completely free (skill) reset path via gem shuffling and only passive respec costs anything. A fine compromise. I can experiment all day with Poe gems which would be akin to skill shuffling in this game. You think I’d give PoE the time of day if gems lost any level at all when I removed them? Nope.
Just for the record I don’t actually care if the respec is FREE as such, I’m just saying the current cost (in time) is far too expensive for a levelling player who might actually enjoy experimenting with skills. It should be lowered and/or changed to use a different currency from pure time.
As it is, look at the effect of the prohibitive respec price we have → everyone just goggles a strong build and sticks with it. Hence everyone ends up with a Death Seal Reaper.
Kinda off-topic, but how would you folks who are against skill swaps without losing levels because of people freely swapping to match the content feel about skill swap timers? Something like a 5 min forced cooldown after a skill is swapped.
You’d still be able to experiment, but I’d imagine the disruption it’d cause would be enough of an inconvenience to take advantage of regularly. Or maybe I’m just impatient.
I’m very new to the game. 3 characters, my main is lvl 38. What I love the most in ARPG is the leveling process. Engame is not my thing… I love how a character develops, gets stronger with new abilities, trying this with all classes. For me, struggling a bit to level up is what makes the experience interesting.
I complained when my sorcerer at level 26 had a hard time advancing in the game because my fireball didnt do much damage anymore… Didnt change the skill because it was kind of pain doing it… then, at level 35, with a few more points in the fireball skill tree, fireball works way better now.
In a game, pretty much like in real life, it’s kind of a good thing to work a bit to get what you want. You appreciate more what you get this way. A least, this is what I think. The important thing in a game is to have fun, and the Devs surely want to please the most people possible. The important thing is “balance” and compromise. I just learned by your discussion above that leveling new skill at higher level is way faster than at low level. Pretty fair then! So the way it is now is not bad at all in my opinion.
Completely agree with this, the skill derespec is very tedious losing all our points we leveled… Honestly we should at least save the ones we remove to the skill for future reference, in case we level that skill a second time.
My Fireball is not cutting it. Have I specced it badly? Let’s check the passives. Wait there’s a couple that would make it do more damage let’s try that. Respec. OK still not quite cutting it, maybe more Fireballs would be better. Respec. Nope still not sufficient. Let’s check my gear. Oh I see I have more Lightning damage than anything else, let’s swap in Lightning Blast for Fireball and see how that runs. Respec. OK not quite, it’s owning mobs of trash with the chaining effect but elites are a pain. Wait, I just realised, if I go over the other side of the tree there’s a node that makes all chains hit the same target - sounds like a boss killer. Respec. Wow, elites are indeed melting now, but trash is now the problem. Just need an AoE for trash. My cold damage isn’t bad let’s try Glacier instead of that Mana Strike I took at level 9 - I’m never meleeing anyways; that spell choice was a mistake for sure. Respec. omg this Glacier spell owns! Trash is being destroyed - but now I am out of Mana all the time…not good. Hey wait…there are some nodes on the other side of the Glacier tree that reduce the mana cost let’s try that. Respec.
Now I am destroying all!!! This game rocks!!!
SORRY. Everything above was a FANTASY. Game says NO. Just use attrition and stick more points into that Fireball till it gets there. How dare you think about build experimentation.
