Haha, I was thinking more in lines with traps and such:
For example, a rewarding side quest that favors slow and steady over speed would be something like:
This way, it would still be possible to blitz through, however you’ll have a harder time compared to playing it safe.
Or just let everyone pay for it…
They might be crying now but none believe me none wants permanent MF reduction
And any fairly intelligent game designer will not include this
They’d rather go back to free for all
Claim 1. Free respecs make the game “completely meaningless” or an "offensive joke"
Every action in this game has meaning only the extent varies.
A. On character creation, you can choose to play hardcore or softcore. That decision has meaning.
B. On character selection, you have to choose a class. This decision has meaning as to how you play (e.g. range class versus melee class) and what skills are ultimately available to use.
C. Actions in game have meaning.
Do I want to do activity A or activity B?
Do I fight this monster in my current location or do I move? Do I run away?
When do I want to use my skiils?
D. Do I equip this item or that item?
E. So on and so forth
Conclusion: Choices still have significant meaning in a loot-based game with free respecs.
Claim 2. Free respecs kill game replayability.
A. Some players will choose to play the same build over and over and will never play another. Respec costs are irrelevant to this player’s own personal enjoyment. He may want to have others to have high respec costs at end game but essentially it is “rule” that does not apply functionally to their own gameplay.
B. Some players at end game will want to make minor tweaks to their build. With high respec costs, this become less practical, psychologically alienating many in this situation. This makes them less likely to replay the game.
C. Some players at end game will want to make whoelsale to their build. With high respec costs, this become less practical, psychologically alienating many in this situation. This makes them less likely to replay the game.
D. Some customers will see that respecs cost are high at end game and will simply not buy the game at all as they want the freedom to experiment and tweak their builds.
E. Some players want the freedom to change their build to maximize their game enjoyment and to break monotony. They find playing the same thing over and over again monotonous. High respec costs discourages a subset of these players, reducing game replayability.
F. Some players want high respec cost to make their choices more meaningful. They feel that this that adds to their personal enjoyment. If respec costs are free, no one is stopping this player from establishing their own rules on respec costs to promote their own personal enjoyment of the game.
G. Some players want high repsec cost to make others choices more meaningful. This undermines the concept that payers should be able to experiment with multiple end game build freely where those individually have already invested the time to reach end game.
In conclusion, free respecs promote game replayability for many players.
Gedankenexperiment
D3 has free respecs. I have played D3 thousands of hours. The reason that I can play this long is because I play all classes and can vary what build I use freely.
For those who argue for high costs of respecs, how many hours have you played D3?
Claim 3. Free respecs is like "giving every class a god mod button that you just have to press to be immortal and deal infinite damage to all enemies on the map"
A. D3 has free respecs. Certainly, free respec is not equivalent or even similar to being immortal or killing all enemies on the map with infinite damage.
Sure. Just a lot less so. 98% less to be exact 
But good job disproving your own strawman.
For some players, maybe, although I honestly doubt it. But it hurts replayability for others. And hurts playability all along. By making us able to optimize against each challenge.
Diablo 2 had no free respecs, actually, no respecs at all, when I played it. I have played D2 for thousands of hours. The reason that I can play this long is because I play all classes and can not vary what I use freely.
“Undermining”… Not exactly a bad thing. The entire goal of a high respec cost is prevent players from freely using multiple end game builds on the same character.
Sigh.
Let Diablo 4 be a meaningful game with consequences. A game where we have to create characters, with their own strengths and weaknesses.
It should be an obvious thing in an A-RPG. But I guess it is not.
You know that this is not true. The simple selection of playing hardcore versus softcore or even your class is far more meaningful than being able to respec a build at end game. For example, whirlwind barbarians in D4 apparently require strength and dexterity. Switching a str/dex point or 2 is alot less meaningful than whatever character I selected originally to play.
I despise how respecs were handled in D2. So I know for a fact and honestly, that it does hurt replayability for players like myself. The D3 developers did away with D2 limitations on respecs because this was one of the most widespread complaints about D2.
No
If you go to your D3 profile, how many hours have you played? Considering you have 6,000+ posts on the new forum, it seems like your are very engaged with D3.
How long do you think it will take to reach endgame on a single character?
I am not the one who made this claim about free respecs being equivalent to god mode. Just responding to this false hyperbole.
This is already the case in D3 with free respecs. I can choose to devote more to increase my damage output or more to defense. I can play a ranged build versus a melee build. These are already meaningful choices where these decision have consequences. This creates strengths and weaknesses for every character.
Just for Clarity. Are you saying that you hated how Diablo 2 didn’t have respecs (as that came later on in the game’s life) or are you saying you hated how Diablo 2 respec system worked (after respecs were added)? If it’s the former, I can certainly understand that, as making a new character because you messed up a build with no chance to recover is something some folks wouldn’t find enjoyable.
On the other hand, if it’s the latter, then how would you improve upon it? Because personally I think Diablo 2 respec system was pretty well done. My only complaint about it is that the limited free respecs are given way too early in the game (given at first quest completion), which could lead to new players accidentally wasting it.
Despite not liking the introduction of WoW elements into Diablo, I hope that this one becomes more similar to WoW Mythic Dungeons than D3 GRifts/PoE Maps. While GRifts/Maps feel to me like an empty experience with forgettable enemies and a pointless purpose lore-wise (wasn’t “pieces from dreams and memories”?), Mythic Dungeons are part of the lore, you have a purpose there, and you know who are you fighting.
GRifts/Maps kill my immersion, I can’t see a fight against bad guys with a background story, just random tiles with random moving polygons acting as stat containers over them.
I strongly disagree with that. Your build will have much more impact on moment to moment gameplay. It should matter as much as class choice, with the difference of there being a lot more choices to be made in the entirety of a build.
Also, not just at end-game. While lvling too. As long as the cost is high enough.
Hopefully that is not true. As that would indeed be shallow and sad.
One skill upgrade for whirlwind requires str and dex. Others should require int, will, and various mixes of the 4 attributes.
Making Int WW barb into a different thing entirely, from a Str WW barb. And so on.
Sure. And I despise how respecs were handled in D3. One of (to be fair, many) things that made Diablo 3 into a lesser game.
Just saying that I bet many people would learn to like the restricted respeccing, even if they initially think they would not like it. You might of course not be one of them.
Dont know. Likely more than a thousand hours. Mostly in vanilla I think. Can you see it on your profile?
Discussing Diablo 4, in the hope of a better game than what came before.
Not really. Since you can just switch from ranged to melee in a second. Zero consequences.
I played D1 and D2 both when the came out. During leveling in D2, you had skill point that you could accumulate and allocate. The problem was your build that you wanted to play later was not necessarily supported by the items that dropped. Therefore, you felt like an idiot to allocate points for a future build to handicap yourself due to bad RNG for skills that lacked item support. Alternatively, you allocated skill points to match your gear thereby handicapping yourself later. I did not consider this fun to make decisions that I knew were bad either at the present time or the future.
I hadn’t thought about key dungeons from a lore pov. But yes, hopefully they’ll be something that fits and expands the game’s lore.
Yes. Open the game. Right mouse click on your character. Select view profile. That will show how much time spent using each class. My least played class is 380 hours.
Which skills in Diablo 2 were not supported with gear until you got further into the game?
Pretty sure you can take basically any skill from D2, and complete the entire game with it. From start to finish.
Not that Diablo 2 was perfect. Very, very far from it.
Like, one of the most stupid things about D2 skill trees, was how the early skills are basically traps, and you are better off saving your points for later. But then, that speaks of an error in the basic design of skill trees. Which D4 at least seems to avoid.
Where is that discussed?
We have only seen that two upgraded for WW will require str and dex. Which is not the same as all WW upgrades in general requires it.
But yes, if all WW upgrades only required str and dex, then that is incredibly bad design, and it needs to change (which I have also made several posts about in other threads).
I am not exactly claiming that everything, except the risk of free respeccing, is perfect in Diablo 4 so far. It has a nearly endless list of potential problems. And even though the last blog post seemed to take some good steps in the right direction, we are still not there yet.
And it has counted since release?
Will check later then.
I think so. I will point out if you really have played 500+ hours, than the argument that free respecs kill replayability seems moot.
Are you on any leaderboards in the past/currently?
Not really. 500+ hours over 8+ years, in an A-RPG, is not that much, and says very little of the replayability.
Though as said before, what it kills even more, is the playability. Just less fun in the moment to moment gameplay, when your character is a demi-god that can do everything.
Your wizard can whirlwind? 
So if I’m understanding it correctly; you’re mostly speaking from a pre-repec patch pov. You hated the fact that you had no control regarding whether or not you could get potentially key items that you may consider necessary for your build and also the fact that to play the build you desired in an optimized state, you had to avoid spending skill points carelessly, as misplaced skill points meant the build you envisioned for yourself wouldn’t be as powerful as you’d want. This along with not having the items you desired leads to you feeling your progress, character, and playstyle impeded upon.
Assuming that I got that even a tad bit correct, I can say that you’d likely wouldn’t have to worry about that repeating in Diablo 4, as Blizzard themselves had stated that respeccing won’t be costly until you hit near cap level.
Shadout statement here was that Whirlwind should have bonuses from the other primary stats like Intellect and Willpower, not just Strength and Dexterity.
Everything the class has in its toolbox.
I think your summation is reasonably sound. The only thing I would add is playing the same build at end game over and over and over again gets really monotonous and boring. In D3, I break the monotony by switching builds and/or classes where I have all end game gear for every class and each build. For DH (2,500+ hours) that I play most and collected all the gear, it seems stupid to need to switch from one character to another if I want to switch builds. Why should I not be allowed to use either build on the same character freely? My time investment has already been done.
Does it make things more meaningful to relevel (where gear is shared) so that I can freely switch from one character to the other than simply respeccing one character? Dependent of the time commitment to relevel, I will opt not to play more than one build, thereby reducing game replayability.
Agreed. But why would you do that?
You play one build, at some point it is “finished” (whatever that might mean for the individual player), and you can start another, different character.
With a respec cost, you do not need to make a new character to switch to that new build.
The respec cost only matters if you want to switch back and forth between those builds.
If you just one day, after having played a multishot DH for a month, decides it would be interesting to play a GoD DH instead, a respec cost totally allows you to do that. Hopefully even without a second of farming.
The time investment is irrelevant imo. Getting out of build limitations is not something you should be able to “earn”. Should just be a hard restriction, forever after.
You shouldn’t be able to freely switch between characters in the same progression path either. Each character should be on individual journeys.
If it is all on one character, with free respecs, you can switch to a different build right in front of a world boss. That boss then drops a key for a dungeon, and you can switch to another build before entering the dungeon (or even inside, if there are no limits).
Not the same with multiple characters.
It depends on the time investment/cost of a respec versus releveling a new character. Since gear is shared, if it take 30 hours to achieve respec cost at end game and 60 hours to relevel to end game, I would relevel and then just switch characters or simply stop playing.
I disagree.