Respec - How do YOU like, or not like it

General
62

When I think of my WoW time I remember spending hours with the talent planner. You could respec your talents, but the change was meaningfull because everytime you respecced the cost for the next respec increased.

So there where times when I had to stick with my dual sword spec if my rogue despite finding a hell of a dagger because I could not afford the 3rd respec per week. (numbers are subject to change)

So why not go the same route? Every respec increases costs by 50% of the current price. These steps are reversed ever 4 days in a row you do not respec.

This prevents extensive respeccing because you just cannot afford it. But respeccing once in a while because you found a nice unique that enhances you to do something different would be not punished.

3 Likes
63

I like the principle.

64

I would like for there to be a limited respec system in place.

1st: You get 2 full respecs per patch. (In case you make a mistake, lol)

  1. You can only reduce the points put into a passive and can’t remove it completely after investing in it. Those points can than be allocated towards another passive as necessary.

Getting to respec after each patch is necessary especially if there are changes to the passives. It may not directly impact your character even, but everyone should have the same opportunity in case they only main one character.

65

I know, and that’s why i even pointed that out with my last sentence and agreed with people who said this should be locked in. What people need to keep in mind, there is a difference if you need to start over a new character so you can play a new class… which this subclasses / specialization / mastery whatever you wanna call it are, or if you get punished for doing mistakes and need to crate a new character to do the same build over again so you’re being able to fix your “character” and it unneccessary stretches the playtime in a unfun way. Again Grim Dawn have one of the most fair respecc… you can except mastery respecc almost everything and it still encourage most people in the community to play as many characters and builds as possible, because if the Core-Game is complex enough and fun enough to build with (which i argue Last Epoch so far promise as well / show the potential of it). than you want to stick to your build with each character and only respecc and stuff so you can fix them if there is some sort of issue with it, not being forced to redo the whole character and waste another 100 Hours which you could than better spent in a new character with a complete new type of build.

Because again, if the game punish me, for trying to do my own builds, which i can’t fix afterwards or are very limited, or even worse are punished by some stuff like the mentioned incrase of cost ad infinitum (GD have for certain aspects also a increase of cost, but there is a limit so it won’t end at some point in endless grind for ressources), than you can be sure i won’t restart over a new character with basically a new build, but rather look for a new Game or go back to Grim Dawn. I’m open to put 1000’s of ours in such a game if enjoy it, and do many different characters and builds, infact i already have around 1000 hours in Grim Dawn and i still plan to get plenty more, but only if it doesn’t feel like a waste of time by being punished to not being able to fix mistakes i do on my build.

And keep in mind, for people who argue “but that’s alot of replaybility which is lost”. First nope, like i mentioned over and over gain, if the game is good enough it encourages you to do more different builds anyway… secondly how much replaybility have such games nowdays? Heck majority of my friends which play Path of Exile play it with Guides and do builds made by the community, because they don’t like the fear of messing with their characters and waste many hours on a broken, messed up character, limiting the will of trying builds of yourself and experiment with it. At the point where the people are kinda encouraged and “forced” to use guides and finished builds to being able to enjoy a game i’d rather question the replaybility and if it really does makes sense. By no means i’d argue it should be as easy and mindlessly as swapping skills and stuff like in Diablo 3, but it shouldn’t be limited to a few times, bound on patches or punish you with grinding for mats and gold either. The sweet spot in the middle is what they need to aim for.

66

I have no issue with being locked in on your chosen mastery, this works fine imo and makes the choice meaningful.

The way re-spacing of passives works fine too, paying gold per point.

The problem I have is the way skill points work. Having to re-level the skill to earn the point back is both frustrating and tedious. It’s a forced time constraint that inhibits experimentation and for me the fun factor of trying new things out to see if it works. This should be fixed, I suggest tying it to a currency or crafting mat. Maybe some kind of scroll you use that drops from regular gameplay.

3 Likes
67

Honestly i found the way d3 did was the best.
Some of you saynig th it reduce replayabity or you dont have any reason to play i anymore, im saing tha it even creats even more reason to play.
last season in d3 i had barb, i used the core build of WW/Rend, but i had for every situation it a little different:
Bounty Version
Rift Version
Greater Rift Solo Speed Version
Greater Rif Solo Push Version 1
Greater Rift Solo Push Version 2
Greater Rift Multiplayer Meta Speed Version
Uber Boss Version

i had 7 different ways to play the same build but better for every situation. Should i creat 7 differen Chars only to be in different Situation better than in other. And it was only one build, other builds have too suptyps that are in different situation better than the core version.

i find it better if the player can choose how he want play, when balance patches comes he can dicide if he wants to play his char or want to switch the build to play, It makes for newer player even better because they can test if the build is good for the way they want play it.
Just my humble opionen on it.
(sry for my english)

68

I think the way respecing is at the moment is fine.

Active skills where frustrating to respec when I first started playing, but now I have got use to it, it’s not so bad.

Though I do think the passives respec to be a bit to cheap!

1 Like
69

There is probably a little bit of tuning at the high end that can even things out but it’s not bad in current state, given its beta.

The problem with PoE is without spending hours figuring things out, you could screw your build and hit a wall. If it’s bad enough, just start over? This discourages new players from experimenting and is a significant turn off for a lot of people. People don’t want to start completely over because of one failed decision in a 60 hour run. People don’t always want to follow build guide to the T.

If you adopt this mentality, you are focusing on the hardcore minmax crowd. The games longetivity and customer retention overall (and ultimately profitability) will be a balance between new players and streamer type minmax so new players can have their fun yet offer challenge for the minmax crowd that has spreadsheets to calculate down to the ten billionth % of damage.

I personally do not want to see a player carousel where I end up deleting entire characters because their build is useless. But I’m not a fan of D3 either click button respec go. Maybe it’s because I’m not so young anymore and don’t want to piss away hours grinding because of an system put in place makes me do so - I’d just move on.

Even having respec be a gold sink doesn’t work because people just get Uber rich and it doesn’t matter. Maybe you can’t equip uniques for… Some period of time? Stat reduction because your in a weakened state from… respec? I think there is a lot of cool options - maybe build it into lore in some way.

Probably a tough one to balance in the end. My 2 (or 200) cents.

70

Probably echoing what many others have said but I don’t like the current iteration of the system.

When we talk about skills and their respective trees, I think it’s harsh to punish the player for wanting to change their skill tree by forcing them to re-level that skill (point). If I’ve gained enough experience to earn a skill point, that should be mine until I completely de-specialise the skill. Removing a skill point at L20 (down to L19) to then have to re-level that 1 extra skill point is just an unnecessary grind and use of time. The word “grind” is subjective here, but I find it very tedious. You may not.

I would propose letting players move skill points around around at will. IF you have to gate it behind anything, it should be a gold cost. Perhaps even have an increasing gold cost. It would be a much better system.

However, in the case of totally despecialising a skill and respeccing into a new skill, I’m completely okay with losing all skill points and re-levelling a new skill. I don’t think skills should ‘carry over’ their skill points.

Regarding the Class skill tree and masteries, (insert a Reeeeeeeeee here).

Please, let us shuffle around our skill points at will and take away the ridiculous 20point mandatory system. It’s so clunky. For example, let’s use a Sentinel.

So, we MUST have 20 points in the base class. Once we have 20 points in it and we want to respec those 20 points, can we please just have an option to respec all points (for a cost) and be able to start again? Why oh why am I forced to take points out of another tree, spec them into the base class to get more than 20 points, so then I can respec some out of the base class and re-arrange them; man it gets ridiculous.

This would be simply fixed by having an ‘OK’ button on the Skill Tree UI somewhere. Allow us to respec all of our 20 points at once and reallocate them abiding by the skill tree’s mechanics and criteria (linked nodes, skills that require a certain amount of points to progress to another skill). Once players meet the tree’s criteria of 20 points, the ‘OK’ button lights up and we move on. If there aren’t enough points, the button remains grey. If a player closes the window with a grey button, no changes are saved.

Lastly, I have no real problem with having to re-level a character for a different mastery. However, not everyone has the time or the desire. So I think that perhaps allowing a mastery respec would be a nice feature and should be implemented and gated behind some kind of currency value. Whether its straight up gold, a special currency drop like an orb, scroll, crystal etc… whatever floats your boat.

That’s my 2 cents,
Cheers.

1 Like
71

I think there needs to be a rename, I see repec and I think the points I take away will be respendable. If you call it nullification or reset, it is more in line with what I expect.
But I expect to ‘respec’ my points if I choose that option.

72

Well I have if I have to choose, I guess I like a limited or earned system. Free respecs wouldn’t bother me though. Completely restricted would be the dev shooting themselves IMHO. Diablo 3 was the last ARPG that probably drew a significant crowd of new gamers to the genre, for better or for worse, but was really liberal with how you could setup your character on the fly… That kind of respecing freedom design is at least in some ways expected now. Doesn’t have to be that degree, but I think respec freedom doesn’t punish anyone: you can respec if you want or live by some code where you don’t at all. Whereas if it’s restricted entirely your only making one camp of people happy.

73

I actually like the system as-is. Restrictions or inconveniences like Mastery selection, slightly inconvenient respecs, etc. are important for making the most of limited content and ensuring you don’t do everything too quickly. It’s really not that bad to relevel a skill guys. Do you play ARPGs yet get tired after just an hour? If you have any stamina for this genre at all it’s the smallest thing in the world.

74

This exact point was not well received by a very huge part of the fanbase. It’s one controversy people talking about in the d3 community as well. Not a QOL that every d3 player likes. And afaik the girls & boys at EHG treat this point as a principle: Make choices impactful and not that arbitrary as in d3.

For me this is one of the top selling points of LE. It adds identity to your character. I disliked the d3 system very much. It’s one of the main reasons this game only has a short phase in my gaming history.

3 Likes
75

I agreed that if you can easily change your character, than all characters of same class becomes too similar to each other, I wouldn’t like that, its rpg after all. For example, If I will need to create special characters for PvP build, I will fill they have some specialization to kill players, it definetely will add identity to them.

76

I like the system as it is at endgame because it’s easy to get exp in Monolith or Arena. The system shouldn’t be too difficult but it should not be too easy or even free. You need to put weight into your decisions, and you should be penalised when you want to make changes.

At early game it’s very tedious to try out new skills and respec. Probably they should make like a progressive refund? For example at first 5 invested nodes, refund X% of the points. At 10 invested nodes, refund Y% of the points. Something like a progressive tax bracket.

I don’t like that I have to put more than 20 points into the base tree first if I want to respec; it’s really tedious to do it. I think the game should force you to replace the point into something else when you click that button rather than you having to spec into something else first then remove it manually.

1 Like
77

Honestly I’ve not readed all the pages before, but for me respec should be as easy as possible.

You are locked already to the class selection, so potentially you can do 3*5= 15 different characters.
It is nice to be able to experiment with skill and passive to find what is more fun and effective for your playstile.

For me if it will be free and if you can even save templates in game of my char (i.e. as you can do in Diablo 3 with wardrobe stashes that save equip, passive, etc…) this will be awasome!

78

Most of example here come from games that dont have real multiplayer.In multiplayer you will want to adjust your build with other party members.
And wasting time on leveling skills is annoying.
You have so many nodes in skills with ability to cast on alies, that pretty useless in single player. And you will for sure want it in multiplayer.

79

Yeah. There are 1000+ reasons why saving skill loadouts and swapping them instantly as well as respeccing skills without releveling again would be cool. I don’t think anybody would argue this would be a massive QoL improvement. But it has the one downside that skilltree decisions aren’t meaningful anymore. This is one of the main design pillars of LE. “Make decisions meaningfull”. This gives your build an identity. You are not just playing Paladin. Your playing a “Rive Ignite Paladin” with lots of DoT and fast melee attacks. Or a “Shieldthrow Buff Forge Guard”. You define your build not only by choosing the mastery. You define it even further by choosing your skill loadout and even much further by the way you build your skills.

This would all be meaningless. Everybody could play everything just by switching to another loadout.

I hated this mechanic in D3. That’s the main reason this game could not catch me. And the design decision of LE to prevent this is the main reason this game feels so fucking good.

And I hope EHG never change their mind regarding this!

2 Likes
80

Exactly the opposite.
This part was great in Diablo 3.
Why the hell ill waste time on making new char (and its a lot of time) if i simply want to try another build.
Mastery restriction is really enough. Here you change your path.
All micromanagement must be free.
Again take as example multiplayer and single player game. Its definitely different builds.
As For POE game it has very poor multiplayer experience (so many other games).
If last epoch devs want people to play multiplayer they must remove time penalty from respecing.

1 Like
81

Thats your opinion. But it’s not a fact. MMOs are heavily based on multiplayer and also have the defined roles of tank, healer, damagedealer. In many of them you can’t instantly swap between single player and party specc. Some classes don’t even have those.

LE was founded with the philosophy in mind to NOT go the d3 route. And it attracted/ attracts many people that have this exact mindset.

Switching this would be like breaking their promise for many people.