Please KEEP the Respec Costs

D3 was a travesty, and anyone who is complaining about the gold sink of respeccing is doing it wrong. Not only is the “I want to swap my build all the time for free” mentality already such an insufferably entitled mindset, but I was respeccing constantly and I still had well over 100k after 2 days of semi-casual playing. Y’all need to chill. It’s fine, do it less. Test your skills early and often, and it doesn’t cost that much.

Hell, the devs straight-up warned you that this would be the case in a blog-update.

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So, letting people experiment with skills when they find new gear with interesting bonuses/skills is an ‘entitled mindset’ on behalf of the player base?

This is a QoL issue. Having to pay to respec is an outdated mechanic brought up by the die-hard D2 and D2R players that follow cookie-cutter builds w/ zero experimentation. Of course, you never ‘need’ to respec. You only ever use one spec, from level 1 to 99 in previous games.

Devs could be wrong, have been wrong, and will be wrong again on many issues from QoL to game mechanics. So, whatever they have said can and should be discussed.

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with the amount of times you have to try different setups, it makes sense to have a free respec system.

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Why does removing the respec cost bother you so much?

In what way would it negatively affect you?

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Yeah, free respeccing does not belong in A-RPGs.
Make a build, and throw the character at the challenges of the game, with the strengths and weaknesses of your chosen build.
Not ‘respec to optimize against every challenge’.

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It also makes sense that choices have consequences. I kept lower gear on that had bonuses to skills I was using rather than changing my spec to follow the gear. Once the game is live you can just make different characters to try new builds. Not going to do that for one weekend. But that’s what happens after you max one out. Respecs should be for mistakes, imo, not for experimenting.

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Then my rebuttal would be that the respec should be something you have to earn rather than a goldsink. In D2 you got one free respec, and if you wanted more you had to collect items and craft a talisman of respec (which was pretty lengthy and difficult unless you could trade with someone who already had one and even then you had to have something good to trade for it).

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Why not have a diminishing cost? Something to prevent people from respecing 50 times a day, but still something feasible for people who want to change things up after getting a new piece of gear?

Maybe something like starting at 1g, then double each time you respect. Every day, it reduces by half until it hits 1g again.

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When people say respec, they’re talking about re-rolling one of the three stats on their gear?

Theres no reason anyone in this game should feel dedicated to a build this isn’t an mmo with specific roles. People changing abilities and skills as loot permits isnt really a big deal here. And with blizzards consistent inability to balance or not put out broken skills or skills that don’t work as advertised on multiple games I don’t know why it would matter.

Its a diablo game its basically a solo pve game and others gameplay has little to not impact on you.

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no they are referring to the skill tree, they want to be able to reset all their skills like d3.

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Yeah, that could work fine. Never reducing the cost of respecs, even after a long time, is not the smartest move.

There really are lots of different ways one could design a good respec cost.

Another idea could be that; you can respec freely as much as you want. BUT skills start at 50% power after a respec, and over time goes to 100% power (or start at 100% but goes to 200% if that sounds better psychologically…).

Making it unviable to respec all the time, since you would always be at half power.
While also making it completely possible to experiment as much as you could ever want, since there would not be any direct cost to the respeccing.

No, but it has an impact on themselves.
It is the job of game designers to design their game around some kind of experience. Giving people a sandbox, where they can do whatever they want, is not a game.

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Gold cost is fine because gold drops everywhere. Keeps you busy and wilderness is full of dynamic changing events all the time.

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Shadout No, but it has an impact on themselves.
It is the job of game designers to design their game around some kind of experience. Giving people a sandbox, where they can do whatever they want, is not a game.

Giving people both choice and elements to change is very much a game. I’d also like to hope that gameplay changes and evolves over time giving people a reason to not play the same exact setup forever.

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Sure. Giving players the ability to change everything however, is not. Respecs can simply be one of those in the “not change” category, in a given game.

Imo, all major content/balance patches should come with a free respec for each character.
So if something has changed in ways that makes you want to reconsider your choices, you can do it at zero cost.
And then have very high cost in between those patches.

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I mean yeah I don’t really see why having free respec is an issue but at the same time I like the idea that you have to earn something, so whether its farming gold or a specific item to do respec it does sound fine as long as its not a heavy cost in currency or time. But again I wouldnt be against free respecs lol. I think ill really only have an issue in this category if the cost of respec is way too high.

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dinosaur gaming mechanics should stay in the 90’s where they belong. Respec is core to modern games.

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They think if they can make Blizzard put enough archaic mechanics into this game it will make them feel like they did when they were 13 playing Diablo 2 when it was new. They are in for a surprise.

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the only problem tho is any game that uses math after 1 month just uses cookie cutter builds anyway. People have always just afkd till the sweats have made meta builds in all games then copied their builds. people have followed the meta since like 1000BC haha. Since like 2000’s the illusion of choice has always been here and people really dont experiment.

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We luckily dont have to imagine how it feels to have games without free respeccing, since plenty of games are like that.
So, no surprises.

Just good game design.

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