+1 for The Respec Cost Method

PC General Discussion
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Sure seems to be a lot of negativity about the respec style in this game. Much better than d2 and has more impact than the free d3 arcade game style. Its somehwere in the middle with a lean towards the better game, D2.

I like being able to test out a build and refine it as i go but have a little cost so that it forces me to commit to something but isnt so crazy that i cant change it later.

Gold is also pretty easy to grind in late game based on previous entries (seeing people on the thread mentioning getting over 2mil from just up to lvl 25 in beta so i imagine its much more at max level.

My only gripe is i wish you could refund within a node vs going back down to previous nodes, but itd break how it works currently so unlikely.

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I’ll never understand what people have against being able to freely change skills. Experimenting with new builds is fun. Does it really need to cost a lot just to make angry boomers feel better about the fact that we’ve moved on from UO, EQ and FF11? Free skill changes is D3’s greatest strength. I’m afraid of going back to D2 because if I mess up my character, it’s not easy to fix and the leets will tell me to git gud and look at a guide. A guide that asks me to respec 5 times while leveling up.

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When you have the 60 or so points spread out all over the tree, it shouldn’t be as bad.

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which you’ll probably be able to do in D4

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Yeah i agree. D2 was a bit too intense. Tho it had at least three free resets and then unltimited you could grind but it took a lot of work.

D3 meant that chosing skills had no value, or changing them had no consequence. Many games make you build into a direction and it feels more like a RPG than choosing whatever you want whenever you want.

The current way D4 is done is great, you get a few cheap changes as you progress and as you keep going you understand what you like more so you invest into that. Even if you have to fully reset, it wont cost that much other than a bit of gold grinding.

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First … yet another separate thread on something we’ve been discussing for three weeks that has over a thousand replies across those different threads.

Second … you’re assuming people only respec to figure out the build they want to play. There are so many more reasons than that that people choose to respec.

Third … as we’ve discussed many times across those multiple threads … no one can truly claim at this point in time that it will or won’t “cost that much” as we do not know the average rate of gold acquisition in end-game in relation to the costs to respec. That is something we’ll have to wait and see once the game has been out.

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The only compelling reason to have respec costs is as a Gold sink assuming you don’t really have any other major Gold sinks in the game. Outside of that, there isn’t a good rationale for respecing costing gold. The comment made by developers that at a certain point, it will be better to level a new character of the same class is outright ridiculous.

Two things are either being said with that comment. Either acquiring the gold for a major or full respec late in the game will be very difficult or they expect leveling to be trivial. Neither of those things are good for the game design.

Now, let’s say respec costs do not change. The major problem is that you really won’t know how your character is going to perform incrementally to be able to make small adjustments along the way. Rather, it will only be after heavy point investment, gear farming, and time sink this will become apparent, especially in group play where you can see how your character peforms directly compared to another player.

This issue could mostly be resolved if Blizzard implemented a Training Grounds allowing players a safe space to test builds, aspects, and gear against varying types of enemies. This would include the ability to spawn static or active enemies ranging from single normal mobs to groups of Elites or Bosses. At the end of the session, this data would be made available showing your Real Character performance, not just DPS.

From this, Blizzard should implement a Character Planner tool that allows you to Save, Load, and Name these Builds. Upon exiting the Training Grounds, you should have access to the Character Builds you have saved. That gives you a side-by-side view of your own Character in the game world, and from your profile you saved.

This fixes quite a few things and allows players to experiment and gauge how effective things are. You can try out everything at various levels and Power Levels. Undoubtedly, this gives Min/Maxers and Streamers more insight on benchmarking in the game, but more importantly, average players a method to not only see what performs well, but to see what they enjoy.

If this doesn’t happen and a crappy build or boring build is selected, there is a good chance players will quit. People will continue looking toward 3rd Party Tools, not because they want to absolutely have the best build, but to make sure they are not making a big mistake. Unless you really want everyone running cookie cutter “safe builds” I suggest Training Grounds be implemented.

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You do your respec experimentation early on while things is cheap, and you begin to lock into a build with gear and single skill adjusting for future gear drops.

A fire mage with fire damage gear is not going to be much efficient trying to spec frost all of a sudden.

Your gear is going to be a lot more influencing on your build, people is too used to D3 sets.

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I mean, seems like about 50/50 among the forum-going community overall with about half liking it(or thinking it isn’t strict enough) and about half hating it.

Thank you for posting your own opinion on it instead of attacking the people who don’t share your opinion - that’s much appreciated and I wish more people could take this approach.

Personally, I’m not a fan of any system that feels like it punishes you for changing your mind in a videogame, so I am opposed to the respec costs myself, but its good for people who feel both ways to post on the subject.

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True, though people did get millions in the beta and it capped at lvl 25. So its fairly safe to assu e that at lvl 50 or 100 that millions will take less time. At 25 the respec cost was a few thousand.

All of this subject to emd state of launch, but so far from what we’ve seen its not bad.

Reason for posting this is i hanevt seen a pro-respec cost thread so i wanted to counter balance the negativity for what i think (and others like me) that its a good feature. Mind you it may need balancing as the game goes on, but thats with anything.

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There have been a few, but most people take the low road of focusing more on insulting the people who dislike the respec costs than posting the reasons they like the costs lol

And a thread built on ‘I think whiners are posting feedback’ probably won’t last long…

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Why do think this is better than d2?

In d2, you Respec an have to add stat points and skills.

In d4, you have to respec skills, change paragon boards and orientation, change class specific abilities.

The process will take 20 minutes. These posts are so ignorant.

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I’m a boomer and not angry at all about the respect cost.

You must be a somewhere from child to 18 or 21 in your 2nd generation alive on planet Earth.

Now that we have your need for demographics out of the way, lets just say there are much bigger concepts to discuss than respec cost.

Note: if one wants to experiment with builds, I suggest level another character.

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80 hours per experimented build is not a reasonable expectation.

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i agree. only true diablo fans like the respec fee. there was no respec in D2. current respec method is an obnoxious grind in D2. people wanted D2, they got it. LOL.

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Because you can make small adjustments for small cost vs reset everything

The cost for respecing everything (at the moment) seems more reasonable to grind vs a random drop grind from d2.

So better

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It would be nice to have a system where you can “plan” your respec without it needing to be “legal” as you plan. Only when you press a button to actually execute the respec will it determine whether the build doesn’t break any rules.

This way you wouldn’t have to refund points further up the tree to buy points at the bottom for the skill you want to switch to. Then refund the skill you didn’t want, costing you overall more respec cost to do so.

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A Fire Mage performance at a mid level is going to be exponentially different in how it plays end-game. With the Paragon Board, Aspects, and Gear making such a huge impact and all synergizing together there isn’t anything as a simple respec. While changing 1 skill in your skill tree is relatively easy, you might end up reworking your passives and entire Paragon Board as a result.

The issue is compounded over time and considering players do not have crystal balls and Blizzard is absent in providing the community Character Planning Tools outside of and in the game, they cannot take the rather myopic approach of “derp derp just make small changes as you play.”

This is almost as dumb as the idea Torchlight II implemented as a result of D2 core fanbois who took a similar stance on respeccing. You end up with a system where you can only (legit) respec the last 3 skills you took. It was so widely hated that an in-game Skill Respec Potion was embedded into the game and could be accessed via console commands.

Giving players more flexibility with respecs ensures the longevity of the game. Penalizing players for making build decisions in the dark then actually telling them it is a meaningful design decisions is flat out stupid.

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whatever you say, I guess your mind is made up. Read the first paragraph and stopped. There’s really no point in debating with people like this. There’s a lot of people that want a respec cost, myself included. Possibly more want free respecs because Diablo is now a massive game that targets more casual players, but still seems to be pretty 50/50 on these forums with healthy back and forth debate. Comments like yours undermine everything everybody has said in defense of respec costs. The people that do want free respecs have made it clear time and time again that they will not acknowledge any arguments or reasoning outside their own. Pretty arrogant.

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Removing respec costs doesn’t do anything to diminish your experience. Arguing for them is selfish and misguided. Arrogant? Sure. I have read the inane arguments in support of it and won’t pretend that anything past it being a gold sink being even a remotely viable argument.

Let me add to this about saying Diablo has “become casual”. It has ALWAYS been casual. The entire genre is casual. I played original Everquest and was killing The Sleeper with Devs getting woken up after hours of attempting the impossible so don’t talk to me about “casual vs hardcore”.

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