I don’t like the idea of gating learning behind losing DPS/Utility/Surviability because you didn’t know what something was before clicking it, especially when in-game descriptions are limited and currently game-details aren’t highly detailed on a wiki. Not to mention no build planning tools available atm (as far as I know, anyway).
Respecs should always be 100% respec for some good amount of Gold, maybe around 50k, just to make it hurt a bit…but never be like PoE where you’re burning already uncommon and barely scalable currency because GGG thought not having gold in the game would stop botters.
I checked the wiki for equations on crit chance. Poorly explained. As werebear I don’t need certain nodes in swipe skill tree, but don’t know how much to invest in nodes to get to 100%.
So my methodology is to whack a dummy and observe before going more crit.
Unless the game communicates these things thoroughly the respec penalty should be lax.
It just feels so bad to try out a different skill path on an existing character/build right now and like you said, without really having any kind of tooltip/preview of the change of the path in the game (i.e. Node X + Y = 15% more dps for Fireball, etc) it’s just a huge source of disappointment and stifles creativity in build making.
Respecing early levels should be made very easy. It will allow players to try different skills, play styles before settling in on what feels good for them. Maybe set skill thresholds? Lvl 5, 10, 15. Once these thresholds are reached you cant drop below that skill level and you gain that amount of points to respect with. If you choose to replace the skill altogether it resets these thresholds.
You have given the player an amazing amount of choice on each skill, why make it hard for them to try this out early game?
Once you finish the storyline (hit the level cap that the devs want you to be) then remove this freedom. Not sure what this looks like but players should think about respecing. (I love D3 and played thousands of hours but it’s a joke when it comes to variety and flavour of character choice) Everyone is playing the meta builds set by bad Dev choices.
Masteries
Once chosen you should NOT be allowed to respec. Ever! Period! If you want to select another mastery than reroll a new char. I have played over 2000 hours in Grim Dawn simply because of this. It’s a fantastic feature and really forces you to think about what type of character you want this to be.
… or make this feature SUPER hard to achieve and a one-time feature. Being an ARPG, allow them to grind out a drop to forge something that resets your characters mastery. Make this super rare item have multiple uses as well. The whole point is to let player decide if they really want to respect their character or craft a BIS item.
You may be watching a stream or a youtube video of another player absolutely crushing the games content and think… hell yeah! I’m trying this build out! Don’t allow them to respect and grind an arena for a few hours to achieve this.
End thoughts
All this depends on how hard it is to get to end game builds and gear. If it only takes 5 hours to level a new character to put on the end game gear you farmed with your main then making things hard is pointless. Just re-roll. (D3)
however, if end game gear drops are very high levels and it takes weeks to level a new character to that point, then introduce another way for them to sink that time into. Give players choice and let them decide how they want to spend their time. (Grim Dawn/ D2)
I really get where the OP is coming from, because infact i was like that myself as well, however since Grim Dawn my Stance over this Concept have changed completly. Grim Dawn have one of the best, most fair and open execution if it comes down to respeccing and it didn’t hurt the replaybility and longlivety in any sense. Heck it might be besides D2 my most played ARPG ever and i know i won’t stop playing GD soon either.
The thing about Grim Dawn is, it show’s when the Game itself is complex enough and have a lot of Build on, you focus naturally on fixing / get the best out of your Build Idea, instead of mindlessly swaping between Builds, because this isn’t like Diablo 3 where your Builds are basically what you put into your Skillslots and which Runes you equpipped. This is where alot of stuff besides Gears works interconnected like the attributes, two Skilltrees and the Devotions. So “IF” i didn’t completly f*** up my build idea, i never intend to do a entirely different Build either way, and in all honest, if i would get punished for that, it wouldn’t encourage me to create a new Character, but rather drive me away to something else, a new or even possible better Game. You shouldn’t punish People for trying to experiement which might end up in a failure but rather give them the option to fix them and encourage People to do many Characers after that so they try different Builds. And for people who didn’t play GD, it’s not like they give out respec options for complete free either… it still requires some sort of work, but it’s not as hard or punishing as some might expect but still rather fair and easy to achieve.
So from my Perspective nowdays i’d argue if a game needs to go back to a archiac Gamedesign of purposefully limiting and a punished Respec-System, it rather tells me that they don’t have enough trust into their complexity and engaging Build / Skillsystem and kinda shows what really is lacking. Because based on GD i’ve to say, if i’ve a working build i rather start over with a new character to try a new build, instead of killing of / wrecking with said working Build. But i guess it’s just my 2 Cents.
Though i’ve to agree with people above if it comes down to the Mastery-Choice. Similiar to a Class-Choice this should be something which should be final, and not respecced on the fly.
Keep in mind, Grim Dawn does not allow you to respec your specialization…like ever. In LE if would be similar to picking one subclass which you can never ever respec from.
I think the current system is fine, but id like to see a higher cost to do the respecing.
The lack of an ability to change mastery is somewhat punishing since it is hard to really know if you want 1 specialization over another until you are far too far down the line. Especially for new players.
My suggestion to handle this would be to allow it but require a rare drop like a “key to the future” or have it cost 5 or 10 character levels off of your character.
The other thing id like to see is a button or option to allow me to do a full tree respec for a large lump sum. Taking the points out one at a time is extremely tedious.
Why? It punishes experimentation especially, as you say, for newer players.
IMO, it’s having to confirm each point removed that’s the tedious. If they could put the confirmation at the end of the process it would make it a lot easier/quicker.
For a higher cost to respeccing, It is positive to have each choice have at least some weight. If you can respec too easily, Then your choices matter very little. Currently, I believe it is too easy and costs too little to respec. I got to end game with like 60 points or so and respecced my entire tree the moment i got there on my first character with no issues whatsoever and could have done it 2 more times.
There needs to be some weight to the choices made.
The skill system trees are a great example of this as you cannot just immediately get your points back. You need to carefully choose your points lest you need to relevel the skill entirely or get those levels back after removing the points.
Many of us enjoy, when your choice actually has some weight. Again, while I would be perfectly okay, if NO respec would exists, I understand how important is for many players. So compromise should be like “Unlimited respec is possible, but not trivial, it should cost you time and/or resources.”. Make respec very easy and you will end with “load-out” system like Diablo 3 has, where character building is just non-existent. We tried this system and I believe it’s horrible for any RPG.
I feel like respec’ing active skills is a huge pain in the early game.
I am okay with losing a point but it would be nice if we received a skill experience buff that doubled experience for the skill or something along those lines.
Maybe there could be a ‘global’ respec point pool that fills up 4 times slower than individual active skill experiences? Or better yet, award a respec point for every 4 levels gained in active skills.
These are the exact points, I love how the skills are done, you can respec your specialization trees but you need to relevel the points you lost. It is very well done and makes you feel like your choices in your skill specialization trees matter. I consider these points much harder than I consider my choices in my character tree.
The singular reason is because if i mess up in the skill specialization tree or choose something not ideal, i need to put in effort to fix it. Where as the character tree feels more like a loadout due to how easy it is to respec and how easy gold is to get. There are not enough dumps to make gold feel like a strapped resource.
Leaving the story with over 60k-100k gold and being able to respec the entire tree with no issue is kind of silly. I ended the story with 60k and my friend who ended the story at a similar time ended with 80k. We quickly realized theres nothing really to use gold on other than respeccing and shatter runes so we have been doing so with reckless abandon.
Id like to see it require an item alongside gold that isnt easy to get or requires time to get. Could put it in the arena and have it be in shards. After so many shards, it becomes the full thing and you can respec. For new characters, could make the base class choices stay as they are now and only cost gold until mastery is unlocked. (or you choose a specialization.)
This will allow early experimentation for new players before completely locking in. Could have a prompt when unlocking mastery/Specialization saying that “once unlocked, respeccing will require the use of an item obtained in the end of time”
So, if i need to respec my entire primary damaging spell it resets back to level 1 rendering it useless until i crawl through some higher level arenas/shrine runs with other spells.
You can see how this is a design flaw?
Give me another option, either pay gold to keep the same XP level or allow me to level it up again.
In 2 monoliths (low level), you’re at at least lvl 10-15 (depends of the size of the map) in the respec’ skills.
I recently did it (respec’ 2 entire skills at the same time, hence from lvl 1). In 3 Monoliths (not high-experience rewards), i was full respect (or maybe it lacks 1 point i’m not entirely sure, but you see my point).
You still can think it’s an horrible idea but it’s not as punitive as it seems.
