Even in PoE a lot of the time you have to respec. Anybody who has ever played an es character knows at minimum you will need like 20 regrets. The cost in PoE is completely reasonable.
That’s funny, seems to be plenty of people playing PoE.
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So I take it that you would also be for an in-built cheat-engine that allows you to spawn any item you want with any stats you want?
If you don’t like it you don’t have to use it, right?
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That’s a false equivalence, this has nothing to do with respeccing.
With each response that says, “Blah blah blah PoE” all I can’t help but think, “Well go play PoE then”. It seems like a certain subset of this games population is a disenfranchised lot from PoE who see this game as PoE V2.0, a chance to right the wrongs of the past and really want nothing more than their “Best” version of PoE instead of supporting this game on it’s own merits. I will be honest, I have tried PoE several times and I just cannot get into it for various reasons. I fully acknowledge it does some things amazing well, just as Diablo 3 does some things well, or Grim Dawn, or any of the other titles on the market, but it just never really satisfied that itch for me. But doing anything in this game just because it is done in another game is silly. This game should be it’s own entity. It clearly borrows ideas from other titles, but what game doesn’t?
That being said, decision should matter and the choices we make when building our character should feel impactful, it is a part of what creates a meaningful experience. But there has to be a line drawn between cultivating a certain kind of experience and ease of use/entry. The focus of a build should be the gear, not the skills. The character development should be like the skeletal system, a foundation for which to apply the rest to flesh out a design. Talents and skills should be our foundation of a build, a build that functions from ground zero. The loot should serve as the muscle and flesh to enhance and empower the build, to augment it in different ways. In this fashion choice and decision are impactful, assuming itemization exists to support it.
In this way you create a system that allows for the player to experiment while leveling up and figure out what works for them. If they find a great 2 handed axe half way through and think, I bet this would make a great X build, they should be able to try it out. Nothing feels worse than getting a great piece of gear and knowing that it is useless because it’s not for your current spec or build. Sure, you can level up an alt or pay through the nose to respec, but that is only going to be acceptable so many times before the answer is, “Screw it!” and the player goes to do something else.
This thread has taken an interesting turn since I last posted an update.
It stragne how most people are so determined in their view of respecing that they have forgot that the game is in Beta.
I was left with the impresion that we are discussing how respec should work in Beta, not during live.
Why wloud you want restrictive systems on a product that You have paid to test. It’s like you are a lumberjack that chooses an axe instead of a chainsaw I mean wtf guys.
The idea of a beta is to twst the product so it can be polished for lunch, it is nornal to have systems tuned into your favour for testing purposes.
And let me make a comparison with D3 every time the open a PTR the systems are in the favour of the tester/player when the devs have gathered the required info the PTR server goes down until something new needs testing. The same logic applies here as well.
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Gotta second this comment, i thought we were discussing whether the beta should allow for easier respec with the intention of getting more things thoroughly tested before the game goes to 1.0.
As per my understanding, the current system doesn’t leave much flexibility in respeccing without investing a huge amount of resources.
As for how respec should work in 1.0 i have no opinion on right now
It’s the same principle. By building a cheat-engine you make finding loot “worthless”. By making respecs unlimited and free, you make builds “worthless”. So the argument is the same, only for loot and respecs.
For the beta though, as I said, I’m all for easier/cheaper respecs of pässives. Skills level fast enough that they don’t need a change IMHO.
I don’t mind it if someone wants to play with cheats in offline mode. Also it is something that community could figure out for themselves. Most games use 3rd party cheats.
And I’m sure noone has a Problem with free respecs in offline mode either 
I had free respecs in D3 (well you never really had a “build” there anyway), and it just makes the characters so… unattached imho. Like you don’t care what you pick, you can always Pop up a guide and go with the current FOTM build anyway.
Oh, you used an obviously overpowered build to farm stuff and it got nerfed? Who cares, respec to the next best Thing, done. (This is btw a slight equivalent of the “cheat-engine” I mentioned earlier)
With respecs being impossible (as D2 did), you always had that wonky Meelee-Sorc hanging around in your char Screen, you’d get an item for her here and there with useful chars, and tried her out once and again for fun. And you felt that it was “Your Melee Sorc”, not a copied build from somewhere, and even if it was copied, you played with it for hours, you hung in there.
At the same time I, too, had a couple of chars where some lag or misclick left me with a skill I didn’t Need, and no Chance to get it back, and I “had” to reroll that char. That felt bad, but oh well.
So, I don’t want respecs to be impossible, but they should cost you enough that you think twice. Kinda like they do at the Moment, with smaller “Rollbacks” of your most recent choices being relatively cheap, but a complete overhaul is rather costly, so that you have to decide “Do I farm the Money for the respec? Or do I Speedlevel a second char during that time instead?”. And IMHO that’s a fair middle-ground isn’t it?
PS: And leveling a twink will be rather easy and quick with nice equip you’ll have by then.
Or maybe, alternative Idea: Respecs are more expensive, but you get one “Free Respec Point” around lvl 20 or something. You can use it to reset all your passives for free once, you can use it directly, or at lvl 100, or anywhere inbetween.
To alleviate the Problem of a newbie skilling useless nodes for him in the beginning.
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I’ll say it again as I have.
There are so many variants of 1 build, and there are many many many many builds.
The ability to change 1 point in your current build should not cost 100ks of gold, just because it’s farther away.
ARPGs should be able experimenting and testing out things. Just because you personally like making 1 character and playing it till death, doesn’t mean everyone else doesn’t love trying out all the cool builds they can.
At it’s current pace, I cannot see LE being relevant for long, because players will spend weeks leveling 1 build, and basically being pidgeon-holed into playing that spec forever, or at least spending their entire bank re-specing, and spending a week re-leveling spells. People will quote POE or D2, but those games are largely figured out, and I bet money that a lot of players just follow the herd, the pros, the streamers, and pick the most optimal builds. But what if I want to make my own optimal build? I can’t, because I don’t have 10 hours a day to spend re-rolling characters and re-specing. I want to be able to test out all the passives and spells in the game, but that’s impossible. How can restricting access to try out all the different builds being behind a “free time to play” wall be a good thing? That’s like Dota have all heroes unlocked for anyone, no P2W, even playing field. VS League of Legends where you’re at a disadvantaged state on day 1.
Giving players an even playing field (but high ceiling) on what they can do is critical for any game.
How do I know if passive A is better than B? Well it sort of reads better I guess? Or big streamer told me to use it. So I pick it. Can I test out the difference? Nope, because for some reason you don’t want me to, so I blindly choose.
There is no real choice, because you cannot test anything in the game. Also you cannot experiment because once you decide it’s almost over in terms of choice. Just changing re-specing during beta will be an advantage for beta players, new players will never be able to test anything, so that’s not a good solution.
Choice is always better than no choice. To make an informed choice, you need to be able to look, test, and feel all the options. Blindly choosing things and then being stuck with uninformed decisions later is not a good game model.
The thing is once you give the players something its hard to take it away. If they give easy respecs for beta I guarantee the playerbase will pitch a fit when they tried to take it away for release. So they should just find a good middle ground and stick with it.
''Choice is always better than no choice.** To make an informed choice, you need to be able to look, test, and feel all the options. **Blindly choosing things and then being stuck with uninformed decisions later is not a good game model."
But at the same time choice doesn’t really matter if you can change that choice every 5 minutes. Damn forum quote isn’t working.
Which brings me back to my cheat engine.
“How can I test which legendary works best for my build if I have to find it first? That gives Players with more time an Advantage and isn’t a Level playing field. So we all should get all Items, choosable as we wish.”
Yes, Players with more time have an Advantage. That’s always the case in an RPG.
Pagan Online goes a more MOBAish route if you want it more arcade-like.
Only when you make finding a cool build a challenge, you’ll have the satisfaction when it works out. See for example Soulslike games, which are created to frustrate the Players, up to a Point. Because that is the only way of getting the satisfaction of having overcome that obstacle.
With free respecs I only ever Need to Level 5 chars, one of each class, and I’m done, you won’t be a “Lightning Pet Shaman” or a “Strengh Melee Beastmaster”…you’ll just be a primalist like everyone else. That’s why I want to take choice away when it Comes to free respecs.
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It depends. If builds progress rather differently then it could make sense. If it is like in PoE where are a few good leveling strategies then it is just a time sink.
After all leveling supposed to give feeling of progression not regression and repetition.
Also more player will choose to follow guides instead of trying to build something by themselves.
The issue is less the price of the current respec system as it is how rigid it is. You pay to unspec the last X amount of passives which is absolutely trash if you screwed up early on (the time you’re most likely to mess up) in your build.
You should be paying X gold to get X amount of respec points and the ability to choose which points to refund (similar to orb of regrets in POE). They could even increase the cost of each individual respec point to balance out the extra flexibility. This gives you the option to fix that point you placed at level 5 that you realize is useless at lv50 without redoing every single point.
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Correct. And with expensive respecs, you are inclined to Level the new char in your new build you want, different from your other builds. Thus, you use other Skills during leveling, have a different experience. With free respecs, you just take the “Fastlevel Build”, and Change at lvl 60 or whatever…though you never even Need to re-level since you can just Change your spec anyway 
Yeah, I can see that. But that could be exploited unless you carefully restrict which Points you can remove. (Or you could just remove the low nodes, and move them up, when you have enough Points spent anyway)
Or, as I mentioned, give a char one free respec. Or three in total, one at lvl 20, one for completing the campaign, and one for reaching Arena Level 100 or whatever 
Just no limitless, cheap-enough-they-might-aswell-be-free respecs whereever, whenever please.
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It could be a good thing if leveling for any build within given archetype is more or less the same. D3 Armoury comes to mind.
Hopefully, leveling will be fun enough to not wanting to get it over with ASAP
Also…D3 has an all around free System… how many People do you see in Public Games, that don’t follow a build-guide? It isn’t the free respecs that make People Experiment, it’s the Feeling, that This could be good, or that, or maybe Frost-Only…
With free respecs, this Exploration takes 5 minutes “Nope, nope, nope, oh Frost-Only works. Done”, while you’ll have a few half-decent chars with expensive respecs until you finally get the frost-only char right, and you rock the Arena and it feels great. Because you went through hardships to get there.
I agree respeccing should be limited and maybe a bit on the expensive side. I do like that characters have their identity.
That being said, this is a beta. And should promote trying out new stuff. While not “punishing” the player that wants to by requiring a new toon everytime.
And you shouldnt need to respec 30 points in one subclass just to get to the 5 points you used first in another subclass.
TLDR; Should be well accessible during beta to respec points and try out different builds.
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And after release, I think if there are some BIG changes, like changing how a skill works completely, or removing life leech completely or something, I’m all for a free respec for everyone. Small balancing Patches are fine, but big gameplay changes should give the Players a Chance to adapt to them afterwards.
(And before someone Comes with: “But then you also Change the identity of your char!”…yes, but it’s not your own fault in this case )