Must be a oversight, otherwise people will just make macros that allow respecs at will at anytime in the game ot fit the need.
EDIT: I certainly hope Blizzard doens’t listen to some of these comments. Proof that some players have no business in game design. Stick to playing please.
I like how people complain about things that simply don’t matter.
Things that absolutely do not affect anyone but the complainer.
It’s fine the way it is.
Honestly, having respeccing only be available in town is perfectly reasonable to me. I have no objections with that idea.
I would ask who the folks really want the limits for spec changes for? Their own specs? Someone else? What does someone else care if another player changes their spec and why?
Back in D2 respecs were very limited to the point you might even have to roll a new character. No one is going to do that these days. People have this idea that limiting respecs makes for a more meaningful “choice”. I disagree. Any WoW players here will tell you that conduit energy was a borrowed system that similarly restricted players in respecing.
If a person raided, played PVP and engaged in different forms of content? Players would have to swap conduits. The issue was that these started with 10 charges and replenished at a rate of 1 per day. If you changed all three conduits for a raid night, and back again you will need to wait for six days for those charges to return. Waiting 6 days to play a game because of an arbitrary restriction sounds like fun doesn’t it?
If we want to talk about meaningful choice? Dragonflight has no limitation on changing specs/talents. As a feral druid I gave up some damage dropping an ability I never used despite it’s link to a passive damage buff. In it’s place I took Resto affinity and gained Swiftmend which allowed for greater survivability in PVE/questing. If I choose I can use the damage spec I saved as a loadout for a dungeon/raid and swap between them freely.
Someone that doesn’t want to respec literally doesn’t have to. You have that choice. At the end of the day all spec change restrictions encourage is going to a site typing in “Best Build for ___X character class.” More restriction means more homogenization in the meta. People don’t want to feel like their time is wasted. That’s why they look at what abilities are doing the best numbers. More restriction means less meaningful decisions. It means a player chooses something because it’s the objective better pick rather than “I want to take this ability because it suits my play style, or because I like it, etc.”
According to the Gamer…
As you level up, the effort and cost required to respec will increase, and in the endgame, this “will require a significant investment."
Blizzard did not provide more information about the procedure than that, so for now we can only guess what a significant investment means. Will it take a few hours of play to accumulate the resources you need, like in Gram Dawn, or might the materials needed be rarer, and take considerably longer to gather in sufficient quantity, like in Torchlight 3?
So how do they define significant? People are looking at the gold cost now and thinking it will remain cheap. This cost to respec will be on top of what you will spend upgrading your gear which is in itself not cheap.
Respeccing in Dragonflight literally costs nothing and you can do it anywhere on the fly with the exception of being in dungeons, etc. This kind of “significant investment” is on top of the amount of hours and time you already put into leveling and gearing your character. I fail to see how it will lead to “meaningful” choice when players not wanting their time wasted will look to the meta on Icy Veins for the “Best build.”
Following a build guide is still a meaningful choice. Even if someone else made the choice for you.
As long as there are significant respec restrictions, it is a build made with strengths and weaknesses in mind.
Rather than just optimizing for everything through free respecs.
People copying builds is a complete non-issue tbh. One could think it is a shame that it happens, but it doesn’t affect the gameplay. Unlike free respecs.
Smartest decision Blizzard ever made. Wish their teams would communicate between games to share just how much that has improved WoW lol
The significant investment is that if you want to change from say frost to fire, you’d have to potentially dump 2 or 3 paragon boards (that’s not cheap), perhaps unsocket stuff from your boards to reuse in another board (not cheap), reset your entire skill tree (not cheap), and change your entire gear, gems, aspects, and uniques (this is the easier part).
If you want to do this let’s say once a week. You’ll probably need to play multiple hours a day just not to go bankrupt on your next respec.
You definitely won’t want to have multiple builds that you switch in and out of.
If you want a frost build and a fire build, create 2 characters, gear them differently spec them differently and just logout/login when you want to change spec.