Really? That’s your response? You’re just reinforcing your position that this isn’t a matter of opinion and that you’re right and everybody else is wrong? That how all these people feel doesn’t matter. Just wow. And yikes.
Yep. You being against free-respecs is similar to not wanting certain people to be able to get married because it is against your belief system. Free-respecs do not diminish your gameplay decisions at all, it just gives others (and yourself) more flexibility.
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LOL. This guy is pretty important. I see what kind of person you are, no wonder you just reinforced your position. No longer surprised.
Terrible analogy. And I understand that, except it does affect people that want a cost precisely because…they want a cost. They literally don’t want it to be free, in case that wasn’t obvious.
You want a cost for everyone because of “reasons” that you are not able to articulate. When you opened your argument saying I am close-minded however you admitted to not even reading my post clearly identifying the problems with respec costs. Perhaps the reason why people are not listening to your arguments is because you aren’t making a tangible one to begin with.
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There’s no problem with respecs, it’s a time gate, all games need time gates if they seek longevity. It is what it is. Nothing good or bad and from what I have seen of end game nor is it prohibitive.
Carrot, look at my post history. I already said I wont debate you. Take that as a “win” if you want. Not long ago I debated about this exact same thing. In fact, almost all my post count is probably debating this topic 90%. I think Sebrant said what you are saying exactly and probably many others, and I know exactly what point you are trying to make. It’s been debated extensively all over. Now, maybe my arguments weren’t great, but I know some other people probably smarter than myself were debating as well and making some really great points. In fact…once again, many people have argued in favor of respec costs. It’s by and far the most debated thing on these forums, and your smooth brain response to all that is basically “there is literally no reason for respec costs, period”, so like I said, no reason to debate. I see it as a matter of opinion where you see it as a matter of fact, but in thinking that way you are taking a stance that all our opinions are worthless, wrong, and don’t matter, so again, what is the point?
And I’ll say what somebody else said, you guys keep making us out to be somehow malicious…It’s not about harming others or trying to ruin your experience, it’s about preserving my own. We’re not some twisted… evil degenerates out to get you. Maybe this genuinely what we want…and yes, for reasons.
edit: to clarify since you will surely double reinforce your stance, I’m not going to provide “reasons” because I’m not saying you’re right and I’m wrong, I am saying it’s a topic worthy of debate and you have basically indicated that it is not for you, at least how I interpreted the original comment I quoted…and the “inane arguments” part. This leads me to believe you will not take any argument I can make in good faith.
If you just want to play with different skills you literally only have to respec 6 points, maybe 7 if you haven’t put enough points in at one of the tiers. So the costs only really affect you if you want to swap from highly optimized build A to highly optimized build B. Since you will have to earn the gear for that, paying a bit of gold is unlikely to be the stumbling block.
The issue is what happens when you want to swap back? You already have the gear so now it’s annoying to pay the gold. Except you could just level a second character if you are planning to make another build that you want on-hand to swap between. So what you really want is to be given unlimited free level 100 characters as long as you’ve reached level 100 with 1 character.
That affects me in two ways: (1) with no respec costs I have to either play your way or impose my own system of costs that I have to balance and track for myself; and (2) with most other people having access to every high end build they’ve found the critical gear for, gold sinks have to be balanced around people farming with optimal farming builds while pinacle challenges are balance around people swapping builds to face them. So in reality, free respecs make the game clearly worse for people who don’t want to respec.
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also just knowing there are consequences to your decisions. that they are somehow meaningful. that maybe you can take more pride in a build that turns out to work well. or simply knowing if you messed up and need to reallocate a few points you have a new challenge and something to work towards, a goal, and that you’ll have a sense of satisfaction when you can complete your build. And to some it may give more “identity” to their class. But like I told carrots I’ve done this debate and people will tell you to trash you gold. I’ve actually been trying to phase myself out of debating this topic though. Both sides have valid reasons and unless the topic is still evolving somehow I think mostly anything that can be said has been said, lol. Still fun sometimes…good way to pass time at work.
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Never played an ARPG arcade game, but sure weird comment but okay.
D4 is going backwards towards rigidity and not progressing with flexibility, which is a shame. It sure gonna be fun when we have to reset our builds everytime they rebalance the game.
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Exactly, live service and restrictive respecs don’t mix well together at all. Live service = possibility of ever changing balance, be it within a day of release to week to month. Don’t get why they gotta make this a second job for people, as if people don’t get stressed enough with that in real life making ‘meaningful choices’ that matters way more. This game will, like it or not, be compared to games that are out there and it may not retain new players as well as Mr. Fergusson seem to think this system will.
Never played Gauntlet?
No other ARPGs have free respecs, even the live service ones. D3 is weird in that way. D4 is not going backwards, it is taking a cue from its peers. And the system they’ve put together is highly flexible, since you can respec one point at a time.
Everything else you do to change your character’s capabilities costs gold too, so I don’t know why everyone thinks this one should be free. If you want to play like D3, then just put one point in each active skill as you level. Then you can easily swap skills whenever you want and you only have to respec your ultimate and key passive.
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You are talking adjusting, not respeccing. That is a total different thing. I promise, you will not be changing from a wind spec to a bear spec without a total wipe of paragon boards, class skills and specializations.
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If you played D3, then you have haha.
D3 was fun in a carnival ride way. Not overly challenging and a bunch of flashy lights.
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You could just… not respec. Like, just because you have the ability to do so doesn’t mean you have to do it.
I can play Barbarian at any time I want. It costs me nothing to create a barbarian. But I don’t want to, so I won’t. Even if Barbarian proves to be busted overpowered at some point… I can just CHOOSE not to play barbarian. It doesn’t matter that barbarian is an option. I don’t want to play it so I won’t. You could do the same with free respecs. If you don’t want to respec… don’t.
Many many many people in WoW never respec. They pick the spec they wanna play and play it for ages, unless the devs alter the talents themselves. The game offers free respecs, the ability to save numerous spec templates, import specs from other players, etc… but many people just choose to not use that feature. And they’re able to play the game perfectly fine like that.
This is the biggest tinfoil hat conspiracy I’ve ever heard. No game developer assumes their entire playerbase is willing to swap specs every time they fight a new encounter, and thus no developer develops their game around the idea that that is how it is played. This is simply not a realistic fear. It doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t.
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Sure, if I want to never ever respec at all I can impose that on myself and have weaker characters because of it. If I want anything other than a hard rule against respecs, I have invent, track, and enforce my own respec costs.
You could just put a point in each skill then swap them whenever you want. Me being able to put more points in fewer skills doesn’t affect you.
Developers use data on how easily people are gaining currency, items, XP, and how fast they are beating challenging content to decide how to balance costs and content updates. If everyone is swapping constantly, then that’s what the data is based on.
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Or you could just… respec when it feels right for you. Like… its not like having free respecs forces you to constantly respec. The whole point of free respecs is that it lets you respec however much feels right to you. You can only respec once a year. Or once a month. Or whatever.
Well, fortunately, there’s no world where more than 1% of the playerbase changes specs between encounters so thus their data would never show people doing that.
Even at the most extreme, 99% of the playerbase will maybe respec a few times a week. Only a tiny portion of the playerbase would even THINK of ‘oh if I respec between two fights, it’ll be slightly easier’ - and the devs would never balance around that as a result.
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Sure, I could just have a system where there is no meaning to the skill choices I make, but then try to impose my own meaning by enforcing rules outside the game. You could also just put a point in every skill and then be able to swap to your heart’s content. Either way, one of us is playing differently than the rules intend.
D3 is already that game where you can swap skills however you want, though. So maybe let’s give this one a try for a bit so that folks who prefer it this way can have a good experience. I mean D4’s system is already a compromise where you can make lots of changes with barely any cost as you level and still make as many changes as you want at higher levels. If you are only going to swap builds on rare occasions, this system is already built for you.
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I think it’s just an underhanded way of putting in a gold sink.
Refining gear is insanely expensive and important.
Putting in stuff that drains gold for no good reason other than draining gold makes the actual good use of it even more restricted.
The devs are smart enough to know the skills are actually set up a lot like Diablo 3 and they know the legendary effects will make your skill effectiveness swing wildly with even a single drop encouraging respec somewhat regularly.
They also know the skill tree is tiered and the boards are a trail style so changing one small thing will entail a lot of shuffling at the very least.
They certainly know this isn’t a game where your skill build is how you play and the gear is just statistical strength to enhance it.
It’s just a gold sink to be annoying and drain money. Nothing more, nothing less
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“We’ve tried electric cars for year now. Lets go back to the old polluting cars so that people who like the gasoline smell can have what they want”
Freedom of choice is progress.
There is no meaning to your skill choices regardless. None. Zero. It means nothing. Even in a system where you can’t respec at all, it means nothing. Even if you’re locked to only one character lifetime… your skill choices are meaningless.
Perhaps stop trying to find meaning in a videogame and seek it in real life… and then let videogames be fun rather than substitutes for ‘meaning’. lol
Literally the only thing that has any actual meaning in videogames is your interactions with other players - or in some rare cases the emotional impact a story can have on you as a person. The rest of it is just entertainment. And I say this as someone who plays 40+ hours of videogames a week most weeks. Videogames aren’t ‘meaning’ in the vast majority of cases. And when they are, it doesn’t come from ‘having to choose one skill over another’.
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Oh I see you are here to troll because you haven’t gotten your way. Enjoy that.