Maybe it shouldn’t be linked to character level… I’d say it would be fine if the mastery wasn’t locked up until you unlocked Empowered… That’s when the game really begins, after all.
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Well, besides all the things that were already discussed already, I can give you a downside to it for a portion of the playerbase:
Let’s suppose Season 3 comes with a new mastery, for example for Primalist. Players in legacy will log in to their level 100 Primalist, respec to the new mastery, try it out for a few hours with a few different builds (because they’re already level 100; so it doesn’t take too long) and be done with the new content in a day.
Whereas if you had a limit to it like in D2 (or a level cap like someone suggested), this is much less likely to happen.
I guess it’s fine if you don’t care about legacy players, though.
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I think I’m the one who started the level requirement suggestion lol. But I agree I think a handful (three would be perfect) quests that give a token of some sort that allows you to Respec. Let’s say you get the first from the quest where you pick the Mastery. The second from killing Majasa, and the final from finishing normal monoliths. I’d say those are reasonable times to give you a chance to experience the class.
You can Respec once at any time between unlocking the class and finishing the campaign. Once again between finishing the campaign and finishing normal mono’s (these could be done in either order) then you’d have one left for use during empowered mono’s if you still weren’t sure if you wanted that class.
I also realized halfway through writing this that I used “class” instead of Mastery every time. Is that telling? I think that’s telling.
Edit: I said Lagon, but my brain totally forgot Majasa lol
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Just the option for a mastery respec existing already dimishes the impact a this mastery choice has on you as a player and it strongly defines how the game is played and how it feels. Wheather you use the option or not.
Right now the mastery is part of the identify of that one particular character, it is not only a part of your build, your mastery is your character. And with how many choices within one given mastery exist there are a plethora of buidls you can go for even within that one mastery.
Now with mastery being able to change it is not part of your character anymore, it is part of your build, which can be changed and thus makes the whole character building a lot less impactful.
Also jsut because somethign is added that the majority of players will use, doesn’t make it a “good feature” or a net positive for the game.
Also the argument of:"If you don’t like it don’t use it " holds no weight for me.
I really like commitment in any kind of RPG and/or loot driven games. Character building and progression gives me a lot of fun and enjoyment.Just merely the option existing of changing it anytime severly downgrades this for me, evne though I am not using the feature.
No it is not, absolutely not. Having to rebuild a new character and “grow into it” is an entirely different experience.
If you change from a Level 75 Beastmaster to a Level 75 Shaman without ever having played that Shaman through the story of early monoliths is a very different experience.
This contradicts itself. A meaningful choice is one, that you cannot undo. Just because you decide not to change it, doesn’t make it meaningful. The game putting some, argueable arbitrary restrictions onto the player can convoke this.
I want to reemphasize, I can see the benefit of having a changeable mastery, but I do think it is a net negative for the game and it does not outweight the benefits of having some form of mroe permanent and meaningful choices.
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I’ll also address this and expand with a different example:
Many people complain that the campaign is too easy and boring to run. However, you have the option to run it naked and make it hard.
You can even just assign random points to your passive tree and randomly choose your skills and skill points.
Now the campaign is suddenly very hard and unpredictable. Does that mean that LE’s campaign is fine and doesn’t need changes? After all, you don’t HAVE to play the game the way it tells you to.
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Then you should be in favor of removing any respec ability at all. If choosing a mastery is a meaningful choice, then shouldn’t picking each and every skill point be a meaningful choice? Shouldn’t choosing which skills to specialize in be a meaningful choice?
We can see that EHG wants you to be able to play around and experiment to find what works for you. I see mastery respec as an extension of that philosophy. That being said, I don’t think it should be cheap or easy, and they might need to make you level up your skill points again if you do this, something like you lose all the skill points after your mastery tree and you need to re-earn them.
I am feeling like we are in politics now, its either extreme right or extreme left, no middle ground. If you are agaisnt something you need to be on the opposite spectrum… ehm no the world is not pure black & white.
You know there is a healthy dose of anything? I don’t want every single thing to be a meanignful choice. But I want some meaningful chocies and as of now there really is only the mastery, everything else is always very changeable. Also a meaningfull chocies doesn’t always have to come with a permanent stipulation, but a small penalty or stipulation is ok as well, like skill respeccing.
Back in 0.7.X they changed skill respec to be much much mroe forgiving, which was a change that I didn’t advocate for, I like it how it was before. (They implemented Minimum Respec Level and faster catchup mechanics for low level skills).
So it doesn’t mean I want permanent chocies with my skills, because I myself like to experiment with different setups and test out things.
But with how much freedom a single mastery gives you already, I think that commiting to one and then experiment within that mastery is more than enough.
You could see it that way and I wouldn’t disagree, but the issue here that I personally have and I heard soem other people saying this as well.
What makes this change so not with their philosophy is that it now all of the sudden changed from 0 to 100, at least this is how it was depicted in the very short segment of the trailer. (They always had a very clear stance of no plans for it and now all of the sudden they implement it)
So I am aiming all of my feedback and concerns very openly here in the forum in the hopes that EHG at least reconsiders how they implement it, since I doubt they will completely do a 180° on this and revoke this upcoming change.
I really don’t think this is necessary as long as there is some limitation or otehr stipulation involved. What you describe is just a arbitrary inconnvience to desincentivice switching mastery, but switching a mastery is such a large thing that whyever you decide to do it you will do it anyway, unless they implement this kind of thing to prevent switchign back and forth continously, which I hope will not be possible at all, because at that point it doesn’t have to do anything with “reconsidering your mastery”, but purely for the flavor of the week.
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BTW will class resets rest the monolith as well? Or don’t you mind if someone cleared all monos into the bosstages and then swaps into another mastery that is doing more single target dmg.
So a handbreake for the minmaxers and balsters so to speak. Many people already seem to have nightmares because other people they’ll never meet will do stuff they can’t ^^.
I don’t expect that will happen. After all, mastery respec doesn’t change this. You can already do it within the same mastery by changing builds for the same reason. Mastery respec just increases your options, nothing more.
I know this is just a preemptive post so we get an answer on this before that topic finds it’s way here. Met to much crybabys the past days.
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Best example is Crate with Grim Dawn, again they’ve been asked repeatedly for over 10 years to add Mastery Respec and infinite storage. Their response is “just use mods if it’s that big of a deal to you”
Edit: I should add that while mods aren’t an option for LE, the important thing was that Crate wasn’t going to go against their design philosophy even if a ton of people wanted it.
Mods are definitely an option for LE. Just because you can only use them offline doesn’t mean you can’t use them at all.
So the argument still applies as “just play offline and use mods if it’s that big of a deal to you”. Especially when seasonal content is also available offline.
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That’s a fair point. DJ always coming in clutch and enhancing the point I’m making. 
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