Yes this is correct on a non live service game(keeps the first 6months - yr more interesting imo after that player drop-off is usually quite large new game ect), but with new mechanics, aspects and buff/nerfs hopefully quite often this should keep the meta malleable. Assuming these changes are significant and not just 5% increase/reduction in dmg stats ect.
I believe I see what you’re saying except one point for clarification …
Are you saying that you believe it becomes moot in that, at that, point we no longer have a use/need for the cost?
Or are you saying that you believe it becomes moot in that, at that point, the respec cost will no longer be a source of friction (or some other similar wording) for the remaining playerbase?
Yes it will eventually become a moot point but that is after lets say 1 year(4 seasons) or so, then I don’t care if they move the cost unless they have made drastic changes that would change the optimized builds.
Even a high respec cost would feel less aggravating to me if I knew that after 6 months it was going to be changed to free as the tinkerer part of me could hold off for 6 more months before being unchained. We’ve waited long enough for some new Diablo content as it is 
That said, I’d still get annoyed when respec-ing for multiplayer to remove overlaps that made skills useless (duplicate shouts/curses/etc.), but, as discussed with Jim on here, the partial respec would hopefully make it stomach-able for those 6 months.
Only concern would be others that would have otherwise stuck around w/ free respec possibly having less patience and leaving before the end of those 6 months. But I don’t have a crystal ball so it’s just a concern and I could see someone arguing the other direction.
Meta builds dont need respec’s to be discovered they are created by calculators that aren’t in the game (path of building) what typically creates metas are poor design by developers, exploits or a combination of the two.
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That’s a really good point. Respec costs or not, you’re probably going to want to use a 3rd party paragon board and skill tree builder to lay everything out and see a summarized stats you gain from any given paragon board layout.
If you’re sitting in game speccing and unspeccing nodes, to experiment you’re probably not operating optimally anyways. I remember using grimtools extensively for grim dawn cause the tool itself was so much better at giving me the high level view of what I was building.
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It’s always poor design when you need 3rd party tools to layout a build. This should all be in the game itself including full stats.
But that’s all moot anyway if you can’t change stats freely to experiment with the outcome.
This is something solved with better itemization. If powers from Legendary and Unique items are creative enough, those should allow for two Necros/Barbs with curses/shouts, to operate differently from each other. Also future Paragon boards added in could focus on those sets of skills as well. Allowing two Shout barbs to still be useful together.
So with items you could still use shouts but have boosts that effect yourself, then the other barb could be setup to boost the party. Overall potential ways to solve that problem. Meaning you might not need to respec but simply have different gear sets for those moments. (Obviously this doesn’t completely solve it, since early on you might not have the gear to do so. But respec is also pretty cheap early on, so… 
)
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Yes and no.
Things work different off paper than on paper, but you should definitely “measure twice” before you “cut once” 
This is why engineers will take a design and then build a small model of it instead of going straight from paper to final product.
People are fallible. Hand-on testing helps to find the errors made.
So, yes, should be tinkering with the build editors … or, coding up something to generate good permutations based on the boards 
… and then go test them.
There’s also something to be said for “fun”. You can have a few builds that are “powerful”, “optimal”, or whatever. But you need to play them to enjoy them. Maybe you’ll enjoy the less powerful of the set you’ve come up with and go with it simply because you like its playstyle more? We see that in plenty of *RPG games.
I think changing the abilities themselves to solve the issue would be better so it doesn’t require RNG to fix a design problem, but, yes, if they changed the abilities so that they did not become useless in these scenarios, I would not bring it up as a reason for free or negligible-cost respecs.
That would then, for changing from single-player to multi-player, leave us with the scenarios:
- vast speed disparities in builds (think slow mapper playing with fast mapper on PoE … or S-tier farm build with non-farm build in D3)
- it isn’t fun to chase after your friend picking up loot while they slaughter things … nor is it fun to play a build but not leverage its power … most don’t like to hamstring theirselves.
- builds combinations that are not fun paired together like a thorns Barb with minion Necromancer(s)/Druid(s) … thorns isn’t going to get used as much with all those minions taking the hits instead
- would motivate the Barb to farm for a non-Thorns set of gear for playing with those friends so they could respec to it when playing with them
Looking at this after having typed it this way, I guess you could just combine it into a single scenario … builds that are not fun to play together 
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Note: “builds” plural rather than single build gameplay that is promoted by high respec costs.
As I have reiterated, high respec costs discourage experimentation and is a “soft” advocacy into a single build, meaning more repetitive and boring gameplay since respec cost are too high.
Playing 1 build with real strengths and weaknesses >>> playing multiple builds without weaknesses. The former is why having high respec costs leads to less repetitive and boring gameplay imo.
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They just mean that you experiment within the general outline of a build instead of swapping between all the possible builds of a class. That also means that seasons are more interesting because you haven’t already experienced all the major variations of a class in the first season / eternal realm.
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Why do you think each of multiple builds will not have a weakness? Each build presumably will have strengths and weaknesses.
I think he means the character not the build.
What is more boring on a class level playing a single build with strengths and weaknesses or multiple builds per class with strengths and weaknesses?
For me, I prefer playing multiple builds per class rather than being pigeon-holed by high respec costs.
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I think his point is that your multiple builds don’t really have strength and weaknesses in the traditional sense because you can always change to whatever suits the situation. In the one builds case you might be slightly weaker against X(whatever it is) but in the other case, unless you just want to be weaker, you can always be strong against X.
If we can respec, we can ignore those weaknesses, by picking builds that have weaknesses which dont matter in the activity we are doing.
It is theoretically a weakness that a high mobility build deals less dmg. But it isn not a weakness against enemies that gets oneshot regardless of that lower dmg.
Ending up with one-sided builds that is all strength and no weakness.
Preventing respecs between different challenges forces the builds out in situations where their weaknesses matter.
Let’s cut the high-level, abstraction and give actual examples for people to discuss.
Try the Necromancer. What content and what build(s) are you swapping between where the weakness(es) of the builds don’t matter?
ima use Druids and sorcs.
–I was forced to swap my talents around due to my power being locked away in gear.
So I was forced to spec into WOLVES and remove some stuff around to include some Defense as well.
When did this happen? Fort zone bosses. I tried with my build but after a few deaths, I caved and just swapped around for that one fight (and others that hit the same scenario).
Besides this. i also swapped for fun and experimentation reasons.
Mage – didn’t swap for any reason except for fun. Got bored of one build, went to another and kept doing this. Sometimes i went back to old builds. Why? for fun.