It’s not meant to stay relevant forever It’s just to level out the efficency you claim is gained by constantly changing build. Stop trying to make “solutions” that force people to play your way.
Actual solution to probelm 1 gain some self control and just don’t respec.
To achieve that it specifically needs to stay relevant forever.
I think this is why the debuff is a problem vs having a specific cost you have to earn in advance. Conceptually, I think the debuff is doing the same thing: you have to spend time with the game to earn your new build. But because you can just swap to the build right away, it feels even more like a penalty. You swap, then spend time paying it off that seems like it’s just an unfun grind. Paying upfront is more like working towards your goal in increments (either by slowly changing your skills and finding gear or by storing away the gold while you find the gear). So when you finally get to switch it feels like more of an accomplishment.
It’s kind of like when they swapped around rest time in WoW beta: originally you built up an XP penalty as you played and people hated it. Then they swapped it to an XP bonus that slowly drained away and people thought that was fun (even though it was exactly the same in terms of effect).
I suppose a similar option could be to have a quest that you go on that takes some time to complete (maybe it converts some small amount of drops into a quest item you have to collect or you get anima instead of some fraction of the gold that drops or w/e) and when it ends you earn a respec potion.
Still, I think the ability to tinker with a build for a few points here and there is a good system to have alongside item upgrades and enchants and consumables. So the best way to balance it is to make sure that gold stays meaningful in the endgame. Crack down on bots, maybe have gold caps per account, keep prices high and make sure there are reasons to spend on them.
No it doesn’t look we are very clear you have zero want for the game to actually have a significant userbase and want every casual player to quit but just say that instead of coming up with bs.