Honestly, to handle something like respec can be a bit tricky. If you make it easy and/or free to respec, then you end up with people being able to switch their gear on the fly if they so choose, which may inadvertently lead to the game being dependent on players switching their gear on the fly (in other words similar to Diablo 3).
On the other hand, if you make respec too difficult, tedious, and/or limiting; then you may end up with players least likely to even use respec, even for the sake of trying a new build out, as they may find it better to just make a new character instead of going through whatever hoops that is needed for respec.
All in all, I still believe that Diablo 2 had did a great job when it came to the respec system (even if it came out late). Players could freely respec their characters a few times (3 for each character), which fit the easy portion of respeccing. Afterward, characters would need to either trade for and/or farm the Token for further respec (something that would require a bit of effort and time, but nothing overly difficult or limiting). Which is why I stand by my previous statement.
I think that idea holds promise, I would change it however so that you could hold up to 3 of those per characters, and of course have them character-bound. In fact I would even say that respec could be something like:
3/3 Free Token Respec (account-wide):
- Restores 1 Token every week(s)
- Using a Free Token Respec doesn’t proc a respec cooldown
2/2 Non-Free Token Respec (character-wide):
- Starts off with 0 for every character (has to be earned through in-game activity)
- Using one procs a Cooldown for which you can’t use another Respec (approximately 6 hours)
- Can hold only up to two at a time and they’re stored within the character’s inventory inaccessible for players to directly interact with, similar to Diablo 3’s bloodshards and crafting materials.
Some more can be done with this, such as allowing players to have their character transfer a non-free token respec to their alts (can only be transferred to characters within the same account), however there would need to be a cost (such as 2 non-free token respec of a single character + some gold). So if I was playing a Sorceress and had an idea for a build for my alt druid who had no token respecs; then I can choose to either wait until the game replenishes a free token for me, or pay up 2 of my sorceress’s non-free token respec in order to give my druid 1 non-free token respec.
Lastly, upon choosing to respec, the game would give you the option of choosing between using the free respec token or the non-free respec token.