Tbh I think you vastly underestimate how often lost of players respecced in D3 endgame. Personally cant say I ever met someone who never respecced between activities in D3.
Respeccing a few times each week is already quite often though. The goal should be that respeccing more than 1 time per week is going to make you feel the impact of whatever the cost is.
Yes. Which is the very reason for having high respec costs; to counterbalance that encouragement there otherwise is to respec frequently.
It is how it should be though. A respec cost is just a good, and basically required, start for that.
Without cost, respeccing is optimal in many more scenarios than with cost. In D3 they literally added a feature to let you swap to a different build every time you went back to town. Sure, you had to select and save those loadouts and find the gear for them, but once you did, your one character was now really 5 characters (and you could swap those characters out for others of the same power whenever you want). That’s dumb and it encourages everyone to swap to the latest hot build with like 3 minutes of work, play it for an hour, get bored, and go looking for another build because the whole point of games in this genre is STRIVING TO CREATE A GOOD BUILD.
That’s what I mean by “meaningful choices.” Not, “omg this character should fulfill me in ways my kids don’t.” Obviously.
If you want to just play the build calculator, go for it. It’s free.
So, in the same post you mention that you need to find the gear for the builds but then mention people swapping to the latest hot build with like 3 minutes of work. This appears contradictory.
But, to that point, what is the difference in
Joe plays specA
Joe farms gear for specA
Joe farms gear for specB
Joe levels another character with specB and puts specB gear on it.
Versus
Joe plays specA
Joe farms gear for specA
Joe farms gear for specB
Joe respecs to specB and puts specB gear on.
I see nothing meaningful here other than having to be aggravated going back to the character select screen.
As for a character is now 5 characters …
What is wrong with that?
Many would, and have, argued that play variety encourages continued playtime as well. So being able to play in 5+ different playstyles would seem to be a positive thing as opposed to a negative.
When playing through the same content (dungeons, grifts, maps, etc) over and over again (as we do in aRPGs), one way for it to not become boring is to run that content with different builds.
As far as striving to create a good build … I’d argue that a build is
[class] + [level] + [skill point allocations] + [paragon point allocations] + [gear]
Please note that respec as well as a lack of respec are not part of what makes a build.
Now, given the above … I’d argue that
there is no difference in a build having been played from the start and respec-ing to that build … the build is the same in both scenarios
So free respecs would not impede you from striving to create a good build. In fact, I’d argue that free respecs promote players experimenting to create their own good builds.
No developer is stupid enough to assume everyone is going to respec every encounter in any game. Thus they’re not stupid enough to balance around that assumption. They will, instead, because they’re smart, seek to balance such that most well structured builds can complete most content if they’re played well because that is what will make the game the most fun to the largest audience. And, if the top 1% wants to try to twist the system to capture a tiny bit of extra power, then that’s fine. The 1% will do that ANYWAYS regardless of what restrictions you put on it, because that’s how they like to play. So let them have their fun but don’t sabotage the game based off of them.
Talent choices in games have no meaning, no matter how much you try to pretend they do. Limiting respec does not change that.
Freedom of choice is an improvement. Restricting specs is just a cheap way to provide a gold sink without being creative enough to come up with proper gold sinks that don’t feel punitive.
So then let people experiment to try to create a good build without being punished.
BEcause the more restrictions you put on this… the more people are just going to google ‘best hydra build diablo 4’ and use whatever maxroll tells them is most efficient.
Because if there’s a heavy restriction on it, it is no longer FUN. it is just punishing. Whereas if it no restrictions, then more players will just be like ‘I wonder if this can work together?’
The difference is the effort it takes if the cost of respeccing is low. In the first case, you built two unique characters. In the second case, you built one generic character. Building specific characters is more fun. “Creating a build” by just selecting options in the interface isn’t striving. Figuring out what style you want to play for the moment and switching it up whenever you want might be a creative mode some players want, where the game doesn’t bother with pushbacks, but it doesn’t provide any sense of accomplishment.
Again, in D3 you get to unlock all the skills at once and can’t put points in them. If you want to play that way, you can just put one point in each skill and then skill swaps are as free as they are in D3.
I guess if you define characters solely by the arbitrary skillpoints you put in, rather than by the journey you’ve taken with that character, then this matters.
I personally don’t reduce my characters to their skillpoints… I play characters and remember the stuff I did on those characters. And thus, each character’s long journey becomes unique regardless of how many different specs I try on them… and thus each character IS unique. Without needing to arbitrarily limit them to ‘one skill build’ and reduce my creative expression.
Hell in one game I even had two characters with identical builds that were completely different in my eyes. Why? Because I had different memories of my time with the game on each character. So they were distinct. And they had distinct accomplishments.
I don’t think ‘picking skillpoints’ is an accomplishment. I set my bar higher for what I see as ‘accomplishment’ in a game, I guess. I just expect more of myself than simply ‘I put skillpoints into a skill screen’.
Just selecting the skills to use isn’t creating a build. That’s choosing what build to create. Without any pushbacks, whatever you come up with is just going to be worse than what the streamers come up with and there will be no reason to be playing it over whatever options are best at the moment. On the other hand, if the path you took to get there matters, then making it the best you can based on where you are is actually a challenge.
So then why promote a style that encourages people to pre-research and just google a build?
Like… under normal circumstances, most people will just play a game how seems fun and then when they hit endgame if they’re struggling to complete content, they will probably experiment and only look up a guide to find a working build if they fail completely.
But if they know they’ll be punished for picking a bad build… then they’ll just google a build at square 1 and work with it from the start… so all this does is REMOVE the accomplishment you seek from the average player since they won’t feel comfortable with trying on their own.
Whereas if a person has free respecs, they can then gradually tweak their build at their own leisure to find one that feels just right for them without feeling any pressure to look anything up, because they can just do what’s fun without risking the character being useless or them being punished for their choices not working as well as they’d hoped.
I guess its just the fundamental difference:
I want players to have fun and seek accomplishment through experimentation and playing the game their way.
You want players to feel punished and, uh, pushed to google a good build so that they can be strong, I guess?
Lol. Whether or not people look up builds on the internet has nothing to do with the difference between paying a little gold to fix problems with your build and paying no gold for it. People who care about optimizing will look up builds, whether to copy them or just out of curiosity. Optimizing will be more fun when it costs something to do it. The idea that people follow build guides because they are too scared spend their points wrong is ludicrous.
Lots of other people will learn about optimal builds from watching streams or shorter videos talking about them. They will feel pressure to copy them. Some will be annoyed at the cost of copying them, some will use it as an excuse to not copy, and others will see it as a challenge. This all mostly true in D3 also, since copying a build means getting the gear. The difference is that in D4, copying a build will also mean abandoning what you already play or starting a new character, so people will have a reason to stick to a unique concept for their characters and not swap them around.
Since unique concepts for characters and a sense of satisfaction at making my own character better are things I want, this seems like a good system to me. The devs and lots of others around here agree. But sure, your motivation is entirely for the good of all those poor gamers out there who must agree with you and not me or the devs.
There is no difference between Whirlwind Barb and Frenzy Barb with respect to character swap between them vs respec-ing between them. Either way, I’m just pushing a different set of buttons to make the swap.
Now, if you want to level another character of the same class, free respecs won’t stop you. I don’t think you should force others to do it though.
We already both agreed that you have to acquire the gear for it. It isn’t just selecting options.
Being forced to replay the leveling process of a game is not an accomplishment; especially when you’re already doing that every season for every class you want to play each season.
You’re free to disagree, but I would find it to be a greater accomplishment to acquire gear for a build, make the build, and then complete the highest level of end-game content I can with it … rather than starting back at level 1 with a basic skill and going back through the simplest content in the game.
Also, as the other guy stated before … if you’re wanting accomplishments … the real world is a better place … though you are welcome to go for leaderboards, etc. in the game world. Other than that, you’re just reaching.
No. Otherwise I’d enjoy the gains from working out more if I had to pay taxes for them. This claim is nonsense.
Except you can look up the hoard of threads for people doing just that for Path of Exile for that exact reason. There are people running around with tons of passive skill tree points unspent because they are afraid of messing it up and are waiting on people to point them to a build.
Respecs, free or otherwise, do not make a character concept more/less unique.
If you want to make your character better, great. Get the loot and tweak the build however you want.
People simply don’t want to have to pay for the respec piece as there are scenarios related to experimenting/tinkering, swapping between single-/multi-player, play variation, etc. that people have for wanting to respec and they still have to pay the costs in gear (finding it, rerolling it, upgrading it, managing all of it).
In short … you can have the things you want even if respecs are free.
Others cannot have what they want if respecs are not free (or negligible cost).
How? How does ‘I had to spend money on this’ make it more fun? I don’t get any more satisfaction from getting something by spending money than I do by getting it for free. That makes no sense at all. Zero, zilch, nada
What makes it more fun is the process of trial and error through every tiny little step of the build - trying every possible skill option that fits together, trying all the different gear, etc… A process that is harmed by ‘making it drain the resources you’d like to use to make your gear better’. That is what makes it fun. Never have I respecced and been like ‘man I’m glad I have less gold than I had before, that is exactly what I needed to make this build feel good - having less gold than before’. And I can’t imagine ANYONE has ever had that thought.
The number of people who have leveled characters in Diablo 2 without spending a single skill point out of fear of the punishment of misclicking one tends to agree with my theory - a practice nobody has EVER done in diablo 3, mind you. But hey, you can ignore evidence if you’d like.
Best solution is still to just separate seasons in to ladder mode and eternal realm mode. Those on the eternal realm get whatever they want. Free spec, armory, high drops rates, whatever it is they think will keep them playing longer. Everyone else can play on ladder with the heavy restrictions they enjoy.
Again, you can play the ladder with whatever restrictions you want to impose on yourself. Other people’s freedom doesn’t stop you.
There is nothing gained by having the cost except another gold sink (not necessary) and some “sense of weight/accomplishment” that is some insubstantial thing people claim.
With the cost, assuming it’s not negligible, you have a piece of the game that causes friction for players if they like to tinker, if they have a reason to change when swapping from single- to multi-player, if they want to try new gear or simply a new build to get a bit more variety in their gameplay.
That’s not a good cost-benefit; additional player friction in multiple scenarios in exchange for a gold sink when we have other places to sink gold, and some insubstantial “sense of weight/accomplishment” thing some folks claim.
What friction? In my example. Everyone gets seasons and everyone gets the stuff they want. Where is the actual negative?
If your about to tell me that there are players advocating for free respec who also want to go hardcore and compete on ladder I find that incredibly hard to believe.
So your skills aren’t meaningless now? But you just said…I’m confused. Are choices meaningless or not including your change to another meaningless skill that you chided another for making the assertion skills should have meaning.
