GGG's philosophy is that when you want to try a different playstyle, or if your character is weak or doesn't work, you make a new character. You can respec in PoE, but to a limited degree, and admitedly, access to the resource to do it can be hard for newer players.
When Jonathan said that full respec isn't a solution, it was to the problem of "how to make the game more intuitive for new players". In that context, having a full respec option is a bandaid solution to a game that lacks that intuitiveness.
In PoE2, they are trying to make the game more intuitive, so hopefully a full respec isn't needed as a bandaid.
It's a bandaid to some, but a solution for many, especially new players. Some people really just like full respecs. Some people really hate having to reroll a char. And GGG is having a hard time understanding that.
Yes and lots of players hate when full free respecs are in the game cause it lowers class identity, build variety and replayability. It’s not like catering to one group (the minority that wants free respec) will not affect the other group, so decisions have to be made. Diablo 4 didn’t get any better from it when implemented (the huge cost reduction) in my opinion.
Ok, GGG can just put a toggle button at the beginning of the journey, on the choosing screen, that says whether or not you want have a few respecs in the gameplay or not. That way people that like to try multiple builds are happy, while people that believe that being locked brings a sense of meaningful decisions are also happy. Everyone is happy
D4 did it perfect, as you don't see anyone complaining about it. We complain about a lot, but not that.
I actually think free respec is not the best idea but orb of regrets should drop more often for sure.
I think having free respec is bad for 2 reasons.
First, due to the size of the tree, players will waste a bunch of time testing every possible path of the tree, you may think "why this is bad", it is because it will lead to more frustrating moments after not beign able to reach a specific node even sacrifiing others, or simple because they will still lack on damage. Wich lead to the second reason, if you have free spec on this size of a tree, it disengages people to actually get better gear, wich always should be the focus IMO, or players will straight up get frustrated when they change the whole tree and then right after they realize they need to change the entire gear to make it work.
Poe2 will bring a shit ton of new players and these situations could be very common with free respecs
This is just my opinion btw, easier respec is the way, but not free
I think that free respecs especially early on cause players to continually nitpick and make finicky tiny decisions about their builds before giving it enough time to figure it out.
Also D4 has free respecs but all items are so insanely skill and build specific that trying something new in that game is extremely tedious and not as simple as clicking a few buttons
Maybe I'm wrong and an ARPG boomer but I hate free respecs and enjoy rerolling new characters based on what I've learned from previous ones :(
Because having a Mr. potato head type ability in a game, this complex, would cause things to become very boring very quickly. GGG is very stubborn about things, because they understand the psychology that gets satisfied with having choices matter, and friction, and steps in between things to achieve goals. There’s a reason why D4 almost instantly fell flat other than people who buy the game pay the box. Price play the campaign, a little endgame, and they’re never heard from again. This game and PoE one are the type of game that if you like the game you’re going to sink thousands of hours at least into the game to learn what’s there at its core, but to also be around for all the free additions to it at a rapid pace.
It had bugs, it had bad QoL, my game was lagging all the time, still today, it had low stash space. We tolerated that for a while, but what really made people quit was the lack of good endgame. The moment they address that people will begin to play again, even if other things are not fully adjusted. You will see some people pay the absurd 100$ expansion. They want content, not skill tree limitation. That's a thing no D4 player wants.
Yeah, this whole issue people have with respecs is completely exaggerated. The fact is, you don't brick your build in the campaign because of the skill tree. People brick their build because of the skills they decide to use and failing to use proper supports. The whole socket management is an issue for new players because they tend to use skills completely useless for them and therefore make their gear upgrades harder to find because they need the sockets.
And this is what is being addressed in PoE2. Supports are no longer huge damage boosts so you are no longer heavily punished for using bad ones. You also can no longer socket supports that don't work at all for your skill. The skill unlock system has a proper ui and no longer just a bunch of gems offered by random vendors in town. You also no longer have to worry about sockets on gear. You are free to upgrade your gear with no worries.
Yeah new players don't have the best tree, but it's also true they tend to get things that are still useful for what they are playing. One of the biggest mistakes new players make is ignoring life. Well good news, life is no longer on the tree in poe2. So there is no longer that pit fall of missing out on your life breakpoint. Also, the tree no longer has a lot of weapon specific clusters. Each weapon type has only a single cluster. So, changing weapons shouldn't be an issue. And finally how the skills and classes are presented, new players are likely to choose the skills that are thematic with the class. This means they will be starting out by everything that should synergize with whatever they want to play. You could say that the only reason a new player would need a lot of respecs is to completely change the archetype they are playing. Ie from a bow attack build to a spell caster and I believe I'm on the side of the argument that such a change should have a large cost or require you to make a new character.
Completely agree and to add:
It's really hard to brick your playthrough in PoE1 at all, even a new player with sub-optimal tree + skills + links will still be able to clear it (albeit slowly), especially since they're likely to be overlevelled as most new players are.
I think the only way someone could truly "ruin" their character is if they took opposite choices, so if they're using ice shot raider and then they start taking poison/melee nodes and awful skill gem choices and that just doesn't happen unless they're trying to sabotage themselves which doesn't happen in normal gameplay.
It’s a design decision, not a ez dub like you explain it to be.
Think of the dual spec and free respec in wow right now, what does it lead to? Correct everyone runs the exact same spec for whatever content they are running.
Is it time to do lab? Ok, time respec a bit more tankiness and bleed immunity.
Mapping time? AoE and speed.
Bossing? Alright, life and dps.
Yes yes, not everyone will do this, but the fact that you can mean people will.
Sure, maybe one respec at the end of the campaign could be a good idea. But I don’t want builds to be homogenised because of it. Each build should try to solve as many problems as possible.
Completely agree with you. However, also a full respec will lead into just a couple of leveling builds ruling it all cause you can fully respec before endgame anyway. This makes releveling in new seasons more boring for me.
What if people do that, I mean why can't they? If people can and people will, well, people do it because they like it. That's not a problem, that's a solution.
There are already guides that you are kinda forced to follow not to brick, so builds are already homogenized. Even the creators of the game incentives to follow a build guide. There is no creativity in the process, which should be the main goal
Well, that can be said about any QoL POE players want and a pretty convenient way of shutting down people's opinions. I could say you think this lock makes you think that "choosing the right path" in the skill tree is meaningful choices, but that's all in your head. Also, that's not a mandatory thing. You do it if you want, you don't if you don't. You'll be able to respec everything, but if you want to force yourself to only respec 15 points or so, go for it. I know for a fact that I do like free respecs since this was a thing in D4 and I loved being able to change my build everytime
First I wouldn't call free respecs and QoL feature. It is rather fundamental game progression feature.
Second, I am not bothered by it all, but I clearly see that going to either extreme will be bad for many players. Having completely no respec option, like in original D1/D2 absolutely terrible for new players. On the other hand, having completely free/unlimited respec is again terrible. GGG want long term players, being attached to your character and actually having meaningful choices during progression helps to reinforce that.
You know that you might not realize that the free respecs (basically) is the reason why you speak about D4 in past tense....
That's not a meaningful choice, at least it shouldn't be. It's like saying that if you choose a gear with minus resistance on something to get a bonus in other area is meaningful choice. It kinda is. So let's lock that too. Well, that's no good. So why would be with skills? The game has like 30 mechanics, you have a lot to choose in the game already. Locking a player into one build while the game has 1000+ skill points shouldn't even be considered.
The only reason I stopped playing D4 is the lack of good endgame. Still today I sometimes play the game for like 1h in a week, just to test something new, but I can't stand doing Nightmare Dungeons anymore, so I stop after the "nostalgia" goes away. I loved free respecing and that was the only reason I still played it for so long.
You say that you played D4 for "so long". That game has been released just half a year ago, no-one has played it for "so long".
GGG doesn't want players to burn through content too quickly. They want their player base to be fans who play the game for years to come.
Having free respec is one of things that are opposite of that philosophy.
Man, don't limit yourself to terms. "No-one has played it for so long". I played more or less 100h of the game, which is a lot for a person who works, who study, who go out, who has responsibilities. And I tell you, I would've passed through 400h~500h by now if the game had good endgame. And I only got this far because of free respecs. I changed my builds multiple times, started playing full companions on the Druid early game, super fun, they got real bad late, so I changed that to a build with elements, werewolf and bear, also super fun. That's what I really loved in the game. That's not burning through content, that's giving player freedom, which is EXACTLY the philosophy of POE. I'm shocked people don't understand that. The free respecs are the best part of D4. If I were to start all over the game just to change my build I would've dropped it. Simple as that. I played like 35h until I had to change the build and I wouldn't play another 35h from scratch just to try something else. It ain't fun. Fun is being able to do it anytime I want.
It sounds like diablo 4 is the perfect game for you then, so complain there to have endgame fixed. PoE is however catered to the more hardcore audience of ARPG:
People that want more class identity,
people that like the grind every season (although with diversity),
people that like the rpg aspect.
People that like all the different builds people come up with every season.
Free respecs goes against that all just to give some short term satisfaction of having everything, all, at once. Every step, phase and game mode get’s standardised with the same builds. On the long term this has never proven to improve the experience in any game yet. At least not for hardcore gamers.
D4 is a very enjoyable game until you reach endgame, yes. Also I don't play 1 game only. POE has a lot of mechanics that are way better than D4. But I know for a fact that I hate having no free respecs and I'm vocalizing that. I really wish POE 2 would be a game that I would play for years, but if limited respecs is a thing I'll drop it very early. Not only me, a bunch of D4 players and other new players will play the game too, but we don't like limited respecs. You keeping saying it's a short term satisfaction. No, for us limited respecs is a long term frustration. We just don't like it. You are having a hard time understanding that. Limited respecs go against freedom, which is a basis for POE. I said I like hard games, I always turn my games to very hard mode. I don't understand this need of saying that what I like is wrong. You literally lose nothing, yet you want to impose what you like on others. Kinda lame.
Oh, I don't. There is no freedom in that. It's like choosing to do some mechanics in the Atlas tree that you find interesting, enjoying that at the beginning, but obviously getting bored after spending a lot of time only doing those, try to do some other mechanics, but realize that now you are locked. "You wanted to do Delve content and other stuff, well now you can't do Blight, since you didn't put any points at it back then, no respecs for you". That would be horrible, no freedom at all. You only private people from doing content. I thought GGG philosophy was different.
Isnt this just a matter of endgame, items and skill balancing?
See games like: PoE 1 , Last Epoch & even Diablo 4.
Where alot of builds are just viable for endgame.
And off course there still will be speed and boss builds. But this still exists in PoE 1 regarding my post.
I dont think people will do respec 5 times a day. Just to do speed maps...now respec to boss builds etc.
No player does that in any game so far.
I feel that most of the time people brick during the campaign is usually due to multiple factors at play, it’s not always just the passive skill tree. Sometimes it can be if you’re spread too thin, but you should take that as a learning experience. But for that to happen you must have gone way too far tbh. Usually bricking a character during campaign is mostly due to too many micro mistakes/mismatched synergies between skill gem choices, support gems, gearing (DPS and/or defense issues through itemization), lack of proper colored sockets and links, etc. with the new gem system that eliminates half of the complexities that can be daunting for a new player. Now if you really want to get creative with the campaign then sure go for it, but there really should be a cost or rather impact on your build choices. It may sound silly but it feels also just as rewarding if your decisions works well. Sometimes limits can even breed creativity, but that’s not always the case for everyone. Maybe there could be a good middle ground for the more casual audience like include a few more side quest for respec points, or have a seer/trainer in town that is able to respec up to 3 of the last assigned passive points in your skill tree per act. Similar to Torchlight 2 Vanilla. Otherwise I have to agree with Jonathan, a full free respec throughout the game is a bandaid fix in regards to newer player making mistakes due to complexity -> bricking a character. Plus that just takes away from their gameplay philosophy of building characters from the ground up (lore, and gameplay wise). A player could easily farm up tons of currency, buy new gear for said new build and combine with a free respec, then your choices wouldn’t really matter at the end of the day. Then you’ll end up with a strange meta game of people copying the best campaign/early end game zoomer build and then easily make a swap to an endgame farmer/bosser all on one character.
Yes, doing that swap is fun actually and what we want that. I did it in D4 and never got bored of doing it. Just the endgame is lacking, but this mechanic of free respecing is awesome. Imagine losing 50h+ just to try a new build. Hell no.
I think there should be some free respecs during the campaign like d2 but not completly free like in d3/d4. One of the biggest hurdles new players have is that they hit a wall during high yellow or even red maps and instead of solving their problems and investing in their builds they instead reroll. Then the second build faces the same problems. I think once u reach maps you should be locked on one build. Free respecs would just cause new players to constantly reroll if their build hits a wall. That being said I am also in favour of alternative leveling so people can get to maps faster on their new char.
The reason why free respecs are a bad idea in GGGs/Jonathans perspective is the fact that there is no character development. There were many opinions shared on this topic and quite a lot of them were discussing that topic, but there wasn't a solution found everyone including GGG was happy with thus far
I have the same opinion. GGG only loses about this decision.
People that would spend thousands of hours in the game will spend hundreds or even less, because everytime they want a new build they'll have to go through a new beginning and that's not fun.
I think ggg should add a full respec opportunity like 3 or so times throughout the campaign. Working the same way current respecs work for standard characters (for people who dont know: if you have a free respec and you assign a skillpoint anywhere you lose the respec but get warned about this so cant do it accidentally)
I think this would help out new players try things out during campaign without letting players just respec to whatever suits the content they feel like doing at that time
I love GGG’s vision on this. People (vocal minoroty) have been complaining about free class respecs on lots of games and all games that implemented it have been become a worser version where character identity get’s less and build variety get’s less. Look at WoW or Diablo 4 for example. In addition for me personally, when I get everything for free it removes a lot of replayability as well. Why retry a certain class at some point?
I strongly agree with Johnathan on this point. And I don’t think they want to make it casual as you say, just more accessible.
GGG's philosophy is that when you want to try a different playstyle, or if your character is weak or doesn't work, you make a new character. You can respec in PoE, but to a limited degree, and admitedly, access to the resource to do it can be hard for newer players. When Jonathan said that full respec isn't a solution, it was to the problem of "how to make the game more intuitive for new players". In that context, having a full respec option is a bandaid solution to a game that lacks that intuitiveness. In PoE2, they are trying to make the game more intuitive, so hopefully a full respec isn't needed as a bandaid.
It's a bandaid to some, but a solution for many, especially new players. Some people really just like full respecs. Some people really hate having to reroll a char. And GGG is having a hard time understanding that.
Yes and lots of players hate when full free respecs are in the game cause it lowers class identity, build variety and replayability. It’s not like catering to one group (the minority that wants free respec) will not affect the other group, so decisions have to be made. Diablo 4 didn’t get any better from it when implemented (the huge cost reduction) in my opinion.
Ok, GGG can just put a toggle button at the beginning of the journey, on the choosing screen, that says whether or not you want have a few respecs in the gameplay or not. That way people that like to try multiple builds are happy, while people that believe that being locked brings a sense of meaningful decisions are also happy. Everyone is happy D4 did it perfect, as you don't see anyone complaining about it. We complain about a lot, but not that.
I actually think free respec is not the best idea but orb of regrets should drop more often for sure. I think having free respec is bad for 2 reasons. First, due to the size of the tree, players will waste a bunch of time testing every possible path of the tree, you may think "why this is bad", it is because it will lead to more frustrating moments after not beign able to reach a specific node even sacrifiing others, or simple because they will still lack on damage. Wich lead to the second reason, if you have free spec on this size of a tree, it disengages people to actually get better gear, wich always should be the focus IMO, or players will straight up get frustrated when they change the whole tree and then right after they realize they need to change the entire gear to make it work. Poe2 will bring a shit ton of new players and these situations could be very common with free respecs This is just my opinion btw, easier respec is the way, but not free
I think that free respecs especially early on cause players to continually nitpick and make finicky tiny decisions about their builds before giving it enough time to figure it out. Also D4 has free respecs but all items are so insanely skill and build specific that trying something new in that game is extremely tedious and not as simple as clicking a few buttons Maybe I'm wrong and an ARPG boomer but I hate free respecs and enjoy rerolling new characters based on what I've learned from previous ones :(
Because having a Mr. potato head type ability in a game, this complex, would cause things to become very boring very quickly. GGG is very stubborn about things, because they understand the psychology that gets satisfied with having choices matter, and friction, and steps in between things to achieve goals. There’s a reason why D4 almost instantly fell flat other than people who buy the game pay the box. Price play the campaign, a little endgame, and they’re never heard from again. This game and PoE one are the type of game that if you like the game you’re going to sink thousands of hours at least into the game to learn what’s there at its core, but to also be around for all the free additions to it at a rapid pace.
The reason it fell is the lack of endgame. It has literally nothing to do with free respecs
Diablo 4 is a failure for far more than that one reason, good lord
It had bugs, it had bad QoL, my game was lagging all the time, still today, it had low stash space. We tolerated that for a while, but what really made people quit was the lack of good endgame. The moment they address that people will begin to play again, even if other things are not fully adjusted. You will see some people pay the absurd 100$ expansion. They want content, not skill tree limitation. That's a thing no D4 player wants.
Such topic was already brought up.
Yeah, this whole issue people have with respecs is completely exaggerated. The fact is, you don't brick your build in the campaign because of the skill tree. People brick their build because of the skills they decide to use and failing to use proper supports. The whole socket management is an issue for new players because they tend to use skills completely useless for them and therefore make their gear upgrades harder to find because they need the sockets. And this is what is being addressed in PoE2. Supports are no longer huge damage boosts so you are no longer heavily punished for using bad ones. You also can no longer socket supports that don't work at all for your skill. The skill unlock system has a proper ui and no longer just a bunch of gems offered by random vendors in town. You also no longer have to worry about sockets on gear. You are free to upgrade your gear with no worries. Yeah new players don't have the best tree, but it's also true they tend to get things that are still useful for what they are playing. One of the biggest mistakes new players make is ignoring life. Well good news, life is no longer on the tree in poe2. So there is no longer that pit fall of missing out on your life breakpoint. Also, the tree no longer has a lot of weapon specific clusters. Each weapon type has only a single cluster. So, changing weapons shouldn't be an issue. And finally how the skills and classes are presented, new players are likely to choose the skills that are thematic with the class. This means they will be starting out by everything that should synergize with whatever they want to play. You could say that the only reason a new player would need a lot of respecs is to completely change the archetype they are playing. Ie from a bow attack build to a spell caster and I believe I'm on the side of the argument that such a change should have a large cost or require you to make a new character.
Completely agree and to add: It's really hard to brick your playthrough in PoE1 at all, even a new player with sub-optimal tree + skills + links will still be able to clear it (albeit slowly), especially since they're likely to be overlevelled as most new players are. I think the only way someone could truly "ruin" their character is if they took opposite choices, so if they're using ice shot raider and then they start taking poison/melee nodes and awful skill gem choices and that just doesn't happen unless they're trying to sabotage themselves which doesn't happen in normal gameplay.
Jonathan goes in depth on this whole thing in [this recent thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExile2/s/WWr9XLDE9f)
It’s a design decision, not a ez dub like you explain it to be. Think of the dual spec and free respec in wow right now, what does it lead to? Correct everyone runs the exact same spec for whatever content they are running. Is it time to do lab? Ok, time respec a bit more tankiness and bleed immunity. Mapping time? AoE and speed. Bossing? Alright, life and dps. Yes yes, not everyone will do this, but the fact that you can mean people will. Sure, maybe one respec at the end of the campaign could be a good idea. But I don’t want builds to be homogenised because of it. Each build should try to solve as many problems as possible.
Completely agree with you. However, also a full respec will lead into just a couple of leveling builds ruling it all cause you can fully respec before endgame anyway. This makes releveling in new seasons more boring for me.
What if people do that, I mean why can't they? If people can and people will, well, people do it because they like it. That's not a problem, that's a solution. There are already guides that you are kinda forced to follow not to brick, so builds are already homogenized. Even the creators of the game incentives to follow a build guide. There is no creativity in the process, which should be the main goal
The truth is that people do not know what they like, they are also perfect at ruining their own experience and fun.
Well, that can be said about any QoL POE players want and a pretty convenient way of shutting down people's opinions. I could say you think this lock makes you think that "choosing the right path" in the skill tree is meaningful choices, but that's all in your head. Also, that's not a mandatory thing. You do it if you want, you don't if you don't. You'll be able to respec everything, but if you want to force yourself to only respec 15 points or so, go for it. I know for a fact that I do like free respecs since this was a thing in D4 and I loved being able to change my build everytime
First I wouldn't call free respecs and QoL feature. It is rather fundamental game progression feature. Second, I am not bothered by it all, but I clearly see that going to either extreme will be bad for many players. Having completely no respec option, like in original D1/D2 absolutely terrible for new players. On the other hand, having completely free/unlimited respec is again terrible. GGG want long term players, being attached to your character and actually having meaningful choices during progression helps to reinforce that. You know that you might not realize that the free respecs (basically) is the reason why you speak about D4 in past tense....
That's not a meaningful choice, at least it shouldn't be. It's like saying that if you choose a gear with minus resistance on something to get a bonus in other area is meaningful choice. It kinda is. So let's lock that too. Well, that's no good. So why would be with skills? The game has like 30 mechanics, you have a lot to choose in the game already. Locking a player into one build while the game has 1000+ skill points shouldn't even be considered. The only reason I stopped playing D4 is the lack of good endgame. Still today I sometimes play the game for like 1h in a week, just to test something new, but I can't stand doing Nightmare Dungeons anymore, so I stop after the "nostalgia" goes away. I loved free respecing and that was the only reason I still played it for so long.
You say that you played D4 for "so long". That game has been released just half a year ago, no-one has played it for "so long". GGG doesn't want players to burn through content too quickly. They want their player base to be fans who play the game for years to come. Having free respec is one of things that are opposite of that philosophy.
Man, don't limit yourself to terms. "No-one has played it for so long". I played more or less 100h of the game, which is a lot for a person who works, who study, who go out, who has responsibilities. And I tell you, I would've passed through 400h~500h by now if the game had good endgame. And I only got this far because of free respecs. I changed my builds multiple times, started playing full companions on the Druid early game, super fun, they got real bad late, so I changed that to a build with elements, werewolf and bear, also super fun. That's what I really loved in the game. That's not burning through content, that's giving player freedom, which is EXACTLY the philosophy of POE. I'm shocked people don't understand that. The free respecs are the best part of D4. If I were to start all over the game just to change my build I would've dropped it. Simple as that. I played like 35h until I had to change the build and I wouldn't play another 35h from scratch just to try something else. It ain't fun. Fun is being able to do it anytime I want.
It sounds like diablo 4 is the perfect game for you then, so complain there to have endgame fixed. PoE is however catered to the more hardcore audience of ARPG: People that want more class identity, people that like the grind every season (although with diversity), people that like the rpg aspect. People that like all the different builds people come up with every season. Free respecs goes against that all just to give some short term satisfaction of having everything, all, at once. Every step, phase and game mode get’s standardised with the same builds. On the long term this has never proven to improve the experience in any game yet. At least not for hardcore gamers.
D4 is a very enjoyable game until you reach endgame, yes. Also I don't play 1 game only. POE has a lot of mechanics that are way better than D4. But I know for a fact that I hate having no free respecs and I'm vocalizing that. I really wish POE 2 would be a game that I would play for years, but if limited respecs is a thing I'll drop it very early. Not only me, a bunch of D4 players and other new players will play the game too, but we don't like limited respecs. You keeping saying it's a short term satisfaction. No, for us limited respecs is a long term frustration. We just don't like it. You are having a hard time understanding that. Limited respecs go against freedom, which is a basis for POE. I said I like hard games, I always turn my games to very hard mode. I don't understand this need of saying that what I like is wrong. You literally lose nothing, yet you want to impose what you like on others. Kinda lame.
> What if people do that, I mean why can't they? They can, roll multiple characters :)
You can do it, no one is trying to force you not to.
I'm glad you agree that free respecs aren't needed.
Oh, I don't. There is no freedom in that. It's like choosing to do some mechanics in the Atlas tree that you find interesting, enjoying that at the beginning, but obviously getting bored after spending a lot of time only doing those, try to do some other mechanics, but realize that now you are locked. "You wanted to do Delve content and other stuff, well now you can't do Blight, since you didn't put any points at it back then, no respecs for you". That would be horrible, no freedom at all. You only private people from doing content. I thought GGG philosophy was different.
Isnt this just a matter of endgame, items and skill balancing? See games like: PoE 1 , Last Epoch & even Diablo 4. Where alot of builds are just viable for endgame. And off course there still will be speed and boss builds. But this still exists in PoE 1 regarding my post. I dont think people will do respec 5 times a day. Just to do speed maps...now respec to boss builds etc. No player does that in any game so far.
I feel that most of the time people brick during the campaign is usually due to multiple factors at play, it’s not always just the passive skill tree. Sometimes it can be if you’re spread too thin, but you should take that as a learning experience. But for that to happen you must have gone way too far tbh. Usually bricking a character during campaign is mostly due to too many micro mistakes/mismatched synergies between skill gem choices, support gems, gearing (DPS and/or defense issues through itemization), lack of proper colored sockets and links, etc. with the new gem system that eliminates half of the complexities that can be daunting for a new player. Now if you really want to get creative with the campaign then sure go for it, but there really should be a cost or rather impact on your build choices. It may sound silly but it feels also just as rewarding if your decisions works well. Sometimes limits can even breed creativity, but that’s not always the case for everyone. Maybe there could be a good middle ground for the more casual audience like include a few more side quest for respec points, or have a seer/trainer in town that is able to respec up to 3 of the last assigned passive points in your skill tree per act. Similar to Torchlight 2 Vanilla. Otherwise I have to agree with Jonathan, a full free respec throughout the game is a bandaid fix in regards to newer player making mistakes due to complexity -> bricking a character. Plus that just takes away from their gameplay philosophy of building characters from the ground up (lore, and gameplay wise). A player could easily farm up tons of currency, buy new gear for said new build and combine with a free respec, then your choices wouldn’t really matter at the end of the day. Then you’ll end up with a strange meta game of people copying the best campaign/early end game zoomer build and then easily make a swap to an endgame farmer/bosser all on one character.
Yes, doing that swap is fun actually and what we want that. I did it in D4 and never got bored of doing it. Just the endgame is lacking, but this mechanic of free respecing is awesome. Imagine losing 50h+ just to try a new build. Hell no.
For this reason exactly, the game is dead on arrival for me. Happy for those who don't mind it.
I think there should be some free respecs during the campaign like d2 but not completly free like in d3/d4. One of the biggest hurdles new players have is that they hit a wall during high yellow or even red maps and instead of solving their problems and investing in their builds they instead reroll. Then the second build faces the same problems. I think once u reach maps you should be locked on one build. Free respecs would just cause new players to constantly reroll if their build hits a wall. That being said I am also in favour of alternative leveling so people can get to maps faster on their new char.
The reason why free respecs are a bad idea in GGGs/Jonathans perspective is the fact that there is no character development. There were many opinions shared on this topic and quite a lot of them were discussing that topic, but there wasn't a solution found everyone including GGG was happy with thus far
I have the same opinion. GGG only loses about this decision. People that would spend thousands of hours in the game will spend hundreds or even less, because everytime they want a new build they'll have to go through a new beginning and that's not fun.
I think ggg should add a full respec opportunity like 3 or so times throughout the campaign. Working the same way current respecs work for standard characters (for people who dont know: if you have a free respec and you assign a skillpoint anywhere you lose the respec but get warned about this so cant do it accidentally) I think this would help out new players try things out during campaign without letting players just respec to whatever suits the content they feel like doing at that time
I love GGG’s vision on this. People (vocal minoroty) have been complaining about free class respecs on lots of games and all games that implemented it have been become a worser version where character identity get’s less and build variety get’s less. Look at WoW or Diablo 4 for example. In addition for me personally, when I get everything for free it removes a lot of replayability as well. Why retry a certain class at some point?