I disagree that the current implementation of respeccing is too harsh. In fact I think it is much too forgiving. The success of an ARPG is directly tied to its replayability and giving players easy access to unlimited respecs kills a portion of that replayability. Some of the key pillars of a role playing game is making meaningful choices and character identity. This becomes lost if players can just completely switch a characters build whenever they feel like it.
I do however like your idea of paying to respec your skills but the price must be significant enough to where it becomes a choice of “do I blow a significant amount of currency or do I reroll another build”.
I understand this is more of a “hardcore” approach and maybe not even the right one but that is just my opinion on the matter.
i suggest also something else . if it is viable.
To add the ability in game to make a “test” or “clone” char where you don’t get loot,gold etc but where you can put ability points where you want over and over till you are satisfied and when you are done deleting the char and use your knowledge on your normally char.
Took the words right out of my mouth. Definitely not fun when the system keeps rolling back hours of time spent on leveling a skill. This game emphasizes on customization, where you have so many skills to choose from and make a combo that suits your play style. Putting a huge wall right when you want to customize things is not the way to go.
Love the idea where the skills keep the experience and skill points earned when doing a respec. I think a significant currency cost is a good idea if developers original idea is to not make things too simple.
You could argue that making currency to fund the respec costs time too, but I’d rather spend time grinding with a high level skill that I like and have spent much time leveling than with a skill at it’s most basic state doing little damamge.
Totally agree! The game offers so much diversity with the skill trees yet penalizes one for experimenting. Using time as a penalty is harsh and honestly this approach actually holds me back from having fun trying out new combinations. I would not mind paying gold or using a crafting mat to re-spec the skills.
Experimenting is the core of arpg builds. i think the state is quite ok for SC, but i can imagine in HC its way too harsh. bc if you wanna change your build completely you gotta "grind through a few skill levels while having immense reduced dmg and def( that came from the skills). Maybe make it like 15-30% easier for the last levels. maybe refund half the point if you do a full reset …
I don’t want to be a Russian Dolls maker but 2 topics are already talking about this point (hence other opinions) :
Well my 2 cents :
If i had to make an adjustement, i’d say :
If you already have spec’ in a skill : The next time you do it, the xp needed is slightly reduced (with a cap), depending of the number of points you used. It can be helpful in the long-term. It’s like a system of memory of the character that reminds a little of his previous learning.
If you don’t like the idea, we can imagine a faster xp gain for skills (without being abusive) than now.
In the 2 topics above, i already talked about the limits of interest in early changes in the game (imho).
Moreover, i think that the passive system & skill system shouldn’t have the same currency, especially with gold (not that hard to have, i think i still have 3M). Even if the cost is really really higher for skills, you’ll have to … farm anyway to have cash. So it doesn’t change the fact that you’ll need time to accomplish your changes or it will be quite easy.
Don’t forget that we’ll have a bazar too.
Beyond these points, i think the system will be perfectly fine (impression of choice that matters) when :
We’ll have better tooltip on nodes and skills
A Path of building will be available (like evoked by @Llama8)
i picked up the game about a week ago and very much agree that respecing should be less punishing. ive read that the current system allows for easy respect once you reach a high level, i guess thats nice but its exactly backwards. i dont know how the skills work or the system and the only way to learn is to try but currently there is a huge time cost to experimenting. new players need to be able to easily try things out early to get a feel for what they want later on.
personally i dont see the point in making it difficult to rework a character, i suppose forcing players to re-level may keep them playing for longer, but also being able to easily adjust a character and continue playing at a high level would keep me playing longer.
I think if you have bunch of people complaining that a thing is too hard & a bunch of people complaining that it’s too easy, you’re probably not too far from balanced.
In fact (i don’t remember where i posted an answer to the “freedom needed for beginners”), it could be true if you had a limited linear system (like a game that ends with the story).
The story gives you an idea of skills (general use or design). Nevertheless, this is totally different from what you build during the endgame.
So, if you experiments earlier (i’m not against the principle of course) you don’t learn a lot about what’s working or not later (and even the real efficiency as the main story is quite easy to go through even with a bad build and gear).
I understand that you can feel that’s difficult (or punitive) but you could change your mind later (not a promise of course).
In fact, LE is a compromise of existing systems and allow to make choice that matters (not a free respec D3-like which is, in long-term, really bad) and the possibility of changing your mind ( not as rigid as D2 for instance that is obsolete).
So, during the leveling-story, try to find what skill you like and then specialize them to test the different nodes (even if it’s sub-optimal). The time to do that, you’ll have the opportunity to play the endgame and a lot of things will change.
As i mentioned before too, if you still think at the end it’s a punishing system, the crafting will be painful too (imho).
Well, i hope you’ll have fun exploring the game anyway !
P.S : We’re still in Beta and some informations are missing IG. So they could make it easier during the beta, but they won’t be able to go back later (player’s habit).
This may not be thought out well, but an idea for adding some freedom, for a cost, came to mind.
What if, an additional option was made for despecializing a skill that we’ll call “preserve”, where it costs resources (gold and perhaps some of the runes/glyphs), but simply deactivates the tree instead of removing it.
This would preserve the levels and choices you’ve made for skill A, but deactivate it’s tree if it’s equipped as skill. You could then level Skill B to try.
If you want to return to skill A, you could preserve or despecialize skill B, depending on whether you want to pay the cost to keep it’s levels/node choices, and specialize in Skill A, bringing it back to where it was before.
This allows for some experimentation, but costs resources to do each time you switch, which could help make it impractical to constantly switch back and forth. The cost could even increase each time you “preserve” a skill tree, which could be reset by fully despecializing (and deleveling) the skill, if necessary to help prevent abuse.
The idea is interesting. I agree with you on the fact that if we have a “discount”, it should be on the switch back and not the switch itself.
Personnaly, i’m not a fan of the “keep the entire tree” because imho it encourages to find a way to be able to switch constantly (or simply move the problem)
If i remember correctly, the devs have made a post where they say they want to avoid the trade out of the game, so i’m not sure about glyphs & equivalents (As PoE had, or maybe still has)
It remains the gold (i’ve posted my opinion above).
I may be wrong about all that and, as i mentioned before, the multiplayer and bazar will have an impact on resources for everyone, so it seems inappropriate to change now (always smarter to make it a bit more difficult and slowly climb down after if necessary. The opposite creates frustation for all players).
There will likely already be a market for glyphs, runes, and such, as they’ll be used for high end crafting. This means that something to facilitate trading them will need to exist, Bazaar or otherwise, or players will have to go outside of the game to trade them. I don’t think using them for another purpose (respeccing or otherwise) will have a significant impact on how those are handled for trading.
Personally, I don’t mind the current system, but I can see why it would be frustrating in it’s current form. My suggestion was an attempt to alleviate that frustration without creating a complete freespec system. Something that has some opportunity cost and can be scaled to prevent abuse (perhaps adding a cooldown to being able to switch between 2 “preserved” trees for instance). It’s not perfect, but gets the rough concept across.
Yes, the bazar will come in a next patch.
I’m not sure about a market about glyphs & runes as is fairly easy to buy/loot them all (regarding your need even in endgame).
But in any case, i personally just don’t want to have a freespec system (hence balance with the drops of the chosen currency to pay the respec). If we have other changes, it will be ok.
The same applies to glyphs and runes. Once players can trade/bazaar items, people who enjoy crafting will want to craft, more than they can with what they find, so they will look to purchase them from people who aren’t crafting. This is what I meant by “there will be a market”, unless those items are completely untradable, which has it’s own set of pros and cons.
You may be right about that. I thought the current drop rate and the possibility to buy shattering will lessened this phenomenon.
So yes i imagine that a possible solution is to not allow trading & exchanging shards, glyphs and runes.
I don’t know if it’s a good option or if they even consider that kind of management for the market.
What if skill points were tied to levels? It would solve the problem where gaining levels peters out very quickly and you’d get to keep your skill points as well.
An example could be alternating between passives and skill points every level.
The current system discourages experimentation. Other ideas: when you replace a specialised skill with another one, have the skill points gained on the new one taken off from the former one. Another idea: old skill retains all or nearly all ranks until you have invested at least, say, five points in the new one.
