Good god, all this talk about "characters meaning something" is so full of crap. Do you seriously make a character, look at it in the character select screen and say to yourself, "Yea, that's MY character. I'm so proud!".
Does anyone seriously go take a look at their old D2 character and find it replusive to look at just because you used a respec on it? This is a video game about you killing stuff and picking up all the shinies that fall on the ground. That's it. If there is some kind of weird, sentimental connection you make with your character, then I just don't know what to tell you.
I hope the respecs flow like water. Hell, I hope they have dual specs, triple specs, whatever.
Good god, all this talk about "characters meaning something" is so full of crap. Do you seriously make a character, look at it in the character select screen and say to yourself, "Yea, that's MY character. I'm so proud!".
Does anyone seriously go take a look at their old D2 character and find it replusive to look at just because you used a respec on it? This is a video game about you killing stuff and picking up all the shinies that fall on the ground. That's it. If there is some kind of weird, sentimental connection you make with your character, then I just don't know what to tell you.
I hope the respecs flow like water. Hell, I hope they have dual specs, triple specs, whatever.
If character customization is made completely inconsequential by unlimited free respecs, then you don't have "builds" for any character any more and you've essentially squashed what a lot of people like about D2: finding out if their build is strong enough to make it through nightmare/hell difficulty, etc.
Otherwise it's just a pointless click fest with 5 generic characters that have different skins.
When we talk about "meaning" we're not talking about some deep pride or whatever, we're talking about customization and having some say in how the character develops and how hard/easy it is to go through the game in our own way.
To be clear: I love respecs. I just don't want free respecs. I want meaningful choices with consequences.
Ease of respeccing means ease of experimenting in-game. You're making a certain playstyle more or less effective at something. That's all that's happening.
And that is a lot more fun to sane people than theorycrafting on fora, wary of making an irreversible mistake in your build.
I think they had the right idea in WoW, with the cost of respeccing starting cheap and then multiplying for each successive one, but they went wrong by allowing that cycle to reset and become suddenly cheap again. I like ease of experimenting when you're new to a character, but I also think your skill choices should become locked in eventually. Permanent choices accumulating over gameplay time into big differences between characters' abilities is a big part of what has always differentiated RPGs from other genres.
Good god, all this talk about "characters meaning something" is so full of crap. Do you seriously make a character, look at it in the character select screen and say to yourself, "Yea, that's MY character. I'm so proud!".
Does anyone seriously go take a look at their old D2 character and find it replusive to look at just because you used a respec on it? This is a video game about you killing stuff and picking up all the shinies that fall on the ground. That's it. If there is some kind of weird, sentimental connection you make with your character, then I just don't know what to tell you.
I hope the respecs flow like water. Hell, I hope they have dual specs, triple specs, whatever.
You're really amazed that people get attached to their characters in an RPG, huh? That's weird to you.
Why would is be puzzling that there should be a tradeoff for focusing in one type of skill to the exclusion of all else? A dual tree char should be more versatile than a single tree (and Blizz themselves has said they want to encourage use of multiple skills per char and versatility)
Now that skill trees are gone and characters appear to have general access to more than just 1 damage type (moreso than D2 at least), hopefully this will be a moot issue, and mostly tangental to respecs overall.
Permanence, a sense of progression and attachment to a character as an entity are all destroyed if you are constantly changing their skills willy nilly. I mean its my preference for the Diablo games. This isn't an objective fact--its my preference. I played and liked Guild Wars and that system is good for that game. For Diablo the skills define the character and constant respecs blur that character definition. At worst you're no longer a meteorb or blizz or tstorm sorc; you're just a sorc. 3 possible builds reduced to just 1 because of too much choice.
As someone who isn't much of a FPS'er, I'm strangely with you on having a measure of attachment to progression of my characters. I just don't see the necessity of 'permanence' in skill selection. A more pragmatic view might be that access to the right tools for the job would lead anyone endeavoring to face such diverse and terrifying foes would adapt their abilities, skills, tactics and whatnot to the best against those they face. Though this is going on borderline Role Playing. I guess I just don't see the individual builds as so seperate that they could be individual classes, despite changes in playstyle. And even with that viewpoint, I think the earlier points about time committments should make Blizzard wary of expecting their playerbase to retain the drive to level up 2-5 of a given class just to try out a variety of builds, focuses and specializations. Solo it's irrelavent (nobody else around) and in groups I have doubts that a party of three Meteorb Sorceresses (D3 equiv at least) will show up and be boned for lack of diversity. It's not like we're going to a party and are all wearing the same dress (how embarassing!).
so because D2 is notorious for cookie-cutterism improving that aspect by limiting respecs is bad?
I think you've missed my point. I haven't played much of the most recent patch (wherein Respecs were introduced), but I played significantly over the years prior to that, and without respecs cookie cutters were pretty rampant. Many people didn't bother trying new or different approaches; they looked up (or were told to look up) what the commonly held Uber builds were, mapped out 70 or 80 levels worth of skill (and even stat) allocations and then traded/prayed/begged for gear. I don't see how heavily limiting respecs (3 EVER... maybe a more if you're willing to do unspeakable things in the Olive Garden bathroom) improves this, no. Reasonably limited respec'ing (WoW style; a steadily increasing gold cost that in the earlier days of the game was a significant but not horrific gold sink) allows a player to try out a new skill or combo while knowing that if it doesn't work or isn't fun, they aren't completely screwed on that character. Respecs won't stop cookie cutters, I'd never think of arguing that, but I daresay that highly limited or a lack thereof is what got us definitive "cookie cutter ______ barbs/sorcs/necros/etc".
Meh everyone will eventually discover the best combination of skills/respecs. OK go fire 1-4 switch to ice for 5-10 then poison 11-15 back to fire for act II etc. Limited respecs will at least prevent everyone from switching to the flavor of the month willy nilly.
But I agree you should be able to try things without massive penalties.
And I see nothing wrong with letting people be "FOTM" specs if they so choose. "OMG everybody is fire this month!" ... so what? How does that in any way harm anyone's gameplay? Yours? Mine? If a million sorceresses suddenly spec for Frost, does the Earth's rotation slow down? Do the servers stop spawning SOJ's?
Hey so am I. let's flip this on its head. Why don't you support unlimited respecs? There's no downside to them right?
First, I can appreciate that plenty of people DO like a more restricted method of gameplay, as the limitations are a manner of differentiating themselves, even if I feel it's unnecessary. My advocacy is in part based on recognition that it annecdotally appears that enough people like working within those restrictions that compromise seems reasonable, rather than taking a purely adversarial "MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY" approach.
I am, after all, Canadian.
Also, I hope that Blizzard manages to make gold a worthwhile resource, and as such they will likely need as many moneysinks in the game as possible. Attaching a reasonable gold cost to respecs could be one way to help keep it a relevent resource worth managing. That becomes another juggling act, especially with multiple other gold sinks that are all highly appealing enough to players. Do I save up that 100,000 gold for a respec, or do I use it to gamble for a new item? Do I spend it on adding an enchantment to something, or another x,000 so I can socket that spiffy new helm? With a significant but reasonable cost, it can drain cash out of the economy while presenting the player with choices on how to best allocate funds.
I wouldn't say that there are NO downsides to unlimited respecs, I just feel that leaning towards the easier end of the spectrum would be better for most players on average than leaning too hard.
I think they had the right idea in WoW, with the cost of respeccing starting cheap and then multiplying for each successive one, but they went wrong by allowing that cycle to reset and become suddenly cheap again. I like ease of experimenting when you're new to a character, but I also think your skill choices should become locked in eventually. Permanent choices accumulating over gameplay time into big differences between characters' abilities is a big part of what has always differentiated RPGs from other genres.
... actually, I think they were right on target with WoW.
Please excuse any mistakes, this is by memory, and while I played heavily back in the day, I haven't played regularly in about a year, so exact numbers may be fuzzy or mechanics might have changed.
For clarity, your first respec in WoW costs 1 gold. The second one is 5, then 10, and increasing by 5 until the cap of 50 gold per respec. If you go an entire month without respec'ing, the cost of the next one drops by 5 gold, down to a minimum of (I believe) 10. So if you go and respec a dozen times in a day, you're up to the 50 gold cap. If after doing that you don't respec again for like half a year, you've got a few cheap respecs available again (before you push the cost up).
I'd say a 6 month wait is pretty reasonable for knocking a good chunk of change off the cost. And to be fair, there were many who would respec several times a week between PVP and PVE needs. Hell, some would respec just to go farm materials/gold/instances for money to respec.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
I can't help but notice a correlation between the inevitable decrease of time I possess to play videogames and the increase in my appreciation of respecs.
I think they had the right idea in WoW, with the cost of respeccing starting cheap and then multiplying for each successive one, but they went wrong by allowing that cycle to reset and become suddenly cheap again. I like ease of experimenting when you're new to a character, but I also think your skill choices should become locked in eventually. Permanent choices accumulating over gameplay time into big differences between characters' abilities is a big part of what has always differentiated RPGs from other genres.
... actually, I think they were right on target with WoW.
Please excuse any mistakes, this is by memory, and while I played heavily back in the day, I haven't played regularly in about a year, so exact numbers may be fuzzy or mechanics might have changed.
For clarity, your first respec in WoW costs 1 gold. The second one is 5, then 10, and increasing by 5 until the cap of 50 gold per respec. If you go an entire month without respec'ing, the cost of the next one drops by 5 gold, down to a minimum of (I believe) 10. So if you go and respec a dozen times in a day, you're up to the 50 gold cap. If after doing that you don't respec again for like half a year, you've got a few cheap respecs available again (before you push the cost up).
Oh was that it? I didn't play much of WoW, and I guess I was going on half-remembered hearsay that I had convinced myself was true, sorry about that.
Still though, 50 gold does not sound like much of a cap. I might've been weird this way, but I was already running around with 800 gold by the time I was level 40, just from spending a little time playing money games on the auction house whenever I flew back to Orgrimmar to train up new skills.
Hell, some would respec just to go farm materials/gold/instances for money to respec.
How about we get a free respec each time they rebalance? Nothing like building up a char then having the devs go "haha, pwnd"
And yes, I think you should be able to respec at any time. Just throw "no respecs" into hardcore and call it a day.
Meh everyone will eventually discover the best combination of skills/respecs. OK go fire 1-4 switch to ice for 5-10 then poison 11-15 back to fire for act II etc. Limited respecs will at least prevent everyone from switching to the flavor of the month willy nilly.
But I agree you should be able to try things without massive penalties.
And I see nothing wrong with letting people be "FOTM" specs if they so choose. "OMG everybody is fire this month!" ... so what? How does that in any way harm anyone's gameplay? Yours? Mine? If a million sorceresses suddenly spec for Frost, does the Earth's rotation slow down? Do the servers stop spawning SOJ's?
Missed the point here. Different specs being popular at different times, according to the calendar, would actually add a little variety. At least it wouldn't be the same meteorb stuff month after month. That's now what valiance was talking about, though.
He's talking about people changing their spec to more easily get through different portions of the game. Fire for Act 1, poison for act 3, switch to frost real quick for the boss and then go back to fire. It changes a character's spec from a defining part of what the character is to a tactical decision. And the correct tactical decision will always be to change to whatever build is best at that level.
The WoW system for respecs is necessary because different specs have different jobs. That's not how Diablo works, every character is just trying to kill monsters. I see no reason to cap the cost of respecs in this game, maybe the cost should just increase each time you do it, with no limit.
Meh everyone will eventually discover the best combination of skills/respecs. OK go fire 1-4 switch to ice for 5-10 then poison 11-15 back to fire for act II etc. Limited respecs will at least prevent everyone from switching to the flavor of the month willy nilly.
But I agree you should be able to try things without massive penalties.
And I see nothing wrong with letting people be "FOTM" specs if they so choose. "OMG everybody is fire this month!" ... so what? How does that in any way harm anyone's gameplay? Yours? Mine? If a million sorceresses suddenly spec for Frost, does the Earth's rotation slow down? Do the servers stop spawning SOJ's?
Missed the point here. Different specs being popular at different times, according to the calendar, would actually add a little variety. At least it wouldn't be the same meteorb stuff month after month. That's now what valiance was talking about, though.
He's talking about people changing their spec to more easily get through different portions of the game. Fire for Act 1, poison for act 3, switch to frost real quick for the boss and then go back to fire. It changes a character's spec from a defining part of what the character is to a tactical decision. And the correct tactical decision will always be to change to whatever build is best at that level.
The WoW system for respecs is necessary because different specs have different jobs. That's not how Diablo works, every character is just trying to kill monsters. I see no reason to cap the cost of respecs in this game, maybe the cost should just increase each time you do it, with no limit.
Except the whole respec elements based on what you're fighting argument depends on D3 having a system like D2 where certain monsters are highly resistant or immune to certain spells. They've said that immunities will not be in D3, and given that the new skill system seems to have quite a few elements in a single tree, I don't think we're going to see characters that suddenly run into brick walls where they can hardly function. Besides, based on some of the posts over the past couple pages, you'd think D2 had entire acts where every monster was immune to an element. Even in the very cold-themed Act 5, that wasn't the case. This is getting into speculation territory on my part, but I really think they're designing D3 so that any reasonably-designed build will be able to function just fine throughout the entire game. You won't have a fire sorceress who is suddenly screwed by a camp of fallen. I don't think there will be much reason to change your spec every twenty seconds to kill the upcoming monsters a few seconds faster.
I'd prefer the game with easy respecs as opposed to no respecs. Optimum scenario? respecs which cost a resource and get more expensive the more you respec, but lowers if the time between respecs is great enough.
What'll we most likely get? Free respec after major patches, paid respecs inbetween. Mark my words.
The WoW system for respecs is necessary because different specs have different jobs. That's not how Diablo works, every character is just trying to kill monsters. I see no reason to cap the cost of respecs in this game, maybe the cost should just increase each time you do it, with no limit.
Are you sure? Have they said that grouping will not have any classes better at soaking up frontal damage or protecting the rest of the group in some way?
Both WoW and Diablo single player questing are exactly the same. Different specs in WoW have only recently become simpler to accommodate the "different jobs" thing - when they added a second spec you can switch to. Prior to that, only the most hardcore players bothered to switch between tanking and healing on the same character. It's a major pain. Everyone else did it because they wanted to change up their gameplay without starting a new character, in the same way that you would do it in Diablo.
He's talking about people changing their spec to more easily get through different portions of the game. Fire for Act 1, poison for act 3, switch to frost real quick for the boss and then go back to fire. It changes a character's spec from a defining part of what the character is to a tactical decision. And the correct tactical decision will always be to change to whatever build is best at that level.
So, you know, don't do this.
Sometimes I just want to strip all my skills away, put 20 points into leap and see how far I can get without attacking anything.
Meh everyone will eventually discover the best combination of skills/respecs. OK go fire 1-4 switch to ice for 5-10 then poison 11-15 back to fire for act II etc. Limited respecs will at least prevent everyone from switching to the flavor of the month willy nilly.
But I agree you should be able to try things without massive penalties.
And I see nothing wrong with letting people be "FOTM" specs if they so choose. "OMG everybody is fire this month!" ... so what? How does that in any way harm anyone's gameplay? Yours? Mine? If a million sorceresses suddenly spec for Frost, does the Earth's rotation slow down? Do the servers stop spawning SOJ's?
Missed the point here. Different specs being popular at different times, according to the calendar, would actually add a little variety. At least it wouldn't be the same meteorb stuff month after month. That's now what valiance was talking about, though.
He's talking about people changing their spec to more easily get through different portions of the game. Fire for Act 1, poison for act 3, switch to frost real quick for the boss and then go back to fire. It changes a character's spec from a defining part of what the character is to a tactical decision. And the correct tactical decision will always be to change to whatever build is best at that level.
The WoW system for respecs is necessary because different specs have different jobs. That's not how Diablo works, every character is just trying to kill monsters. I see no reason to cap the cost of respecs in this game, maybe the cost should just increase each time you do it, with no limit.
Except the whole respec elements based on what you're fighting argument depends on D3 having a system like D2 where certain monsters are highly resistant or immune to certain spells. They've said that immunities will not be in D3, and given that the new skill system seems to have quite a few elements in a single tree, I don't think we're going to see characters that suddenly run into brick walls where they can hardly function. Besides, based on some of the posts over the past couple pages, you'd think D2 had entire acts where every monster was immune to an element. Even in the very cold-themed Act 5, that wasn't the case. This is getting into speculation territory on my part, but I really think they're designing D3 so that any reasonably-designed build will be able to function just fine throughout the entire game. You won't have a fire sorceress who is suddenly screwed by a camp of fallen. I don't think there will be much reason to change your spec every twenty seconds to kill the upcoming monsters a few seconds faster.
You're right, I've been saying the same thing for a few pages. The type of elemental damage will almost certainly not be the deciding factor in what build is the most effective. That said, there will still likely be different specs that are more efficient at different points in the game, and I don't want switching the same character to those specs to be the best way to play the game, because I feel like tactics should depend on your spec, rather than dictate it.
I see two sides in the respec argument, and both have something I agree with. The No Respec crowd sees characters as an avenue of self-expression. The Respec crowd wants to minimize the time it takes to grind to max level just to see if flinging lightning around the screen is fun. I find myself leaning to the Unlimited Respec crowd, and I think No Respec Hardcore Mode is a great compromise.
Maybe with this new skill system we wont NEED respecs! Don't ask me how the hell they'd pull that off, but I'm expecting great things to be revealed this Blizzcon and the only other thing that would qualify would be the release date being next year.
Xeddicus on
"For no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men. Not women. Not beasts...this you can trust."
He's talking about people changing their spec to more easily get through different portions of the game. Fire for Act 1, poison for act 3, switch to frost real quick for the boss and then go back to fire. It changes a character's spec from a defining part of what the character is to a tactical decision. And the correct tactical decision will always be to change to whatever build is best at that level.
So, you know, don't do this.
Sometimes I just want to strip all my skills away, put 20 points into leap and see how far I can get without attacking anything.
I honestly think the game will be better if respecs have a significant cost. What I do when I personally play the game doesn't change that.
And your desire to put points into leap is fine, you can totally do that. I just want that to cost some time and/or in-game currency, so that the easiest way to play through the game doesn't involve changing your spec to better meet the challenges of different sections of the game.
I see two sides in the respec argument, and both have something I agree with. The No Respec crowd sees characters as an avenue of self-expression. The Respec crowd wants to minimize the time it takes to grind to max level just to see if flinging lightning around the screen is fun. I find myself leaning to the Unlimited Respec crowd, and I think No Respec Hardcore Mode is a great compromise.
Most of the argument here seems to be Limited Respec vs. Unlimited Respec.
Most of the argument here seems to be Limited Respec vs. Unlimited Respec.
Which is really just theorycrafting, as both extremes are incorrect.
They've said that they intend to put in respecs, so the "no" side won't be sated.
And given what we've seen with their other games, it's highly unlikely that there'll be "unlimited" respecs either.
The real discussion is more the flavour of how it'll be applied, likely "D2 style" (very rare) versus "WoW style" (available mostly on demand in exchange for another resource), and varying shades of how they're applied (ends to which you have to go to earn them, how often they're available, what the cost might be and how it changes based on frequency of use or lack thereof, character level, etc).
Edit: and Hardcore with no-respecs would, as previously noted, be the hardest of cores. But I don't play hardcore, so my bias isn't coloured with an appreciation for the advanced difficulty such a choice would cause.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
I believe they have said that respecs will be in and will be something along the lines of how they are in Diablo 2. So all of this arguing is a giant moot point.
Maybe with this new skill system we wont NEED respecs! Don't ask me how the hell they'd pull that off, but I'm expecting great things to be revealed this Blizzcon
Well the point of specs is choosing, and as we all know choosing is losing.
Respecs for gold is fine IMO. They're making gold more useful and repeat gold sinks are necessary for that. I don't think there should be a penalty for doing it more than once, just make the cost based on level. Or maybe let people remove one point at a time for a fee so a full respec is expensive but experimenting is cheap.
There will almost definitely be some sort of system to respec; however, it isn't likely to be as liberal as World of Warcraft. We don't want to lock a player into a system that punishes them for mistakes, experimenting, or lack of knowledge early on in the game. We also don't think a system that allows immediate, complete, and at-a-whim changes to a character spec matches the feel of Diablo. It's likely to be somewhere in between.
That said we still feel like the desire to play the same class again that you may have played before is still a part of the game, and with some ability to respec could potentially require other incentives.
Looks like all but the "no respecs at all!" crowd will be satisfied. If there does end up being some minor incentive to replaying a class, they might even be fine with it. Don't respec if you don't want to... and I agree that the "respec for each zone" argument fails based on what we already know about skills.
Then we can all happily get back to "monster killing and rainbow viewing."
Something like classic WoW would be fine with me. If my terrible memory is serving me, 50 gold wasn't as trivial an amount as it is today. They could uncap the increases without bothering me, I suppose.
Monsty on
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ZarathustraEckUbermenschnow with stripes!Registered Userregular
There will almost definitely be some sort of system to respec; however, it isn't likely to be as liberal as World of Warcraft. We don't want to lock a player into a system that punishes them for mistakes, experimenting, or lack of knowledge early on in the game. We also don't think a system that allows immediate, complete, and at-a-whim changes to a character spec matches the feel of Diablo. It's likely to be somewhere in between.
That said we still feel like the desire to play the same class again that you may have played before is still a part of the game, and with some ability to respec could potentially require other incentives.
Looks like all but the "no respecs at all!" crowd will be satisfied. If there does end up being some minor incentive to replaying a class, they might even be fine with it. Don't respec if you don't want to... and I agree that the "respec for each zone" argument fails based on what we already know about skills.
Then we can all happily get back to "monster killing and rainbow viewing."
That was what i was looking for!
Ok, now what can we argue about?
Skab on
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ZarathustraEckUbermenschnow with stripes!Registered Userregular
Oh man, I forgot about the Thief modifier boss monsters use to maybe spawn with. I never had it crash my game.
Dude that should carry over to Diablo 3. Maybe not the same exact thing (knock potions from your belt out), but the idea that monsters can affect your inventory in some annoying but not totally fucked up way.
Ew, no thanks.
Whassa'matter forty, chicken? :P
I'm intrigued at the idea of making things totally bitched up and difficult in new ways.
More like I don't care for annoying/tedious mechanics that don't make gameplay interesting in any way whatsoever. But then I prefer my games well designed so...
We don't like and don't want to encourage any type of item-hoovering. Killing monsters, seeing items pop out, and then picking them up is part of the game.
We don't mind auto-pickup for gold because there's never any reason you wouldn't pick it up, because it doesn't take up inventory space. Anything that takes up inventory space has some amount of choice attached to it, regardless if you think you'll salvage most things or not.
It's important to note that fewer items drop in Diablo III as compared to Diablo II, and the chances for rarer items to drop is less extreme. So you'll be picking up fewer items, and they'll generally be of higher quality as compared to the previous game.
Bashiok, on a item-hoovering "pick everything you can see up" button.
I actually liked the proliferation of crappy drops in Diablo II, gold aside - it eventually turned out that a surprising amount of them are useful to someone in some way. You could reliably gain trade wealth by simply hoarding some of these things and waiting until someone needs them in a hurry.
I can't say it was much fun looking through the hordes of trash that dropped trying to see what was useful. I'm glad they don't seem to want to repeat this scenario.
Honestly, it's a better scheme. Having just two buttons to use for skills really annoyed me in Diablo 2, especially when you have to rotate abilities. If anyone is going to complain about it or more importantly say it's worse, I'm just gonna lump them in with the "I WANT A HD DIABLO 2!" crowd.
I'm glad people have noticed this group exists... man are they a bunch of crazies. I feel bad that Bashiok's job involves calming them down because it's basically impossible. I tried for a while on some other sites, mostly because I have fun arguing, but achieving any kind of viewpoint change or "oh that actually sounds like it might be good" was literally unobtainable.
I think these people are the cousins of the people that were crying about the various interface improvements in Starcraft 2.
That said we still feel like the desire to play the same class again that you may have played before is still a part of the game, and with some ability to respec could potentially require other incentives.[/QUOTE]
Looks like all but the "no respecs at all!" crowd will be satisfied. If there does end up being some minor incentive to replaying a class, they might even be fine with it. Don't respec if you don't want to... and I agree that the "respec for each zone" argument fails based on what we already know about skills.
Then we can all happily get back to "monster killing and rainbow viewing."
I'd like to see something like a retire or apprentice system - for every 20 lvls, the retired character gives 1 bonus skill point or something to the newbie, or one skill of your choice gets a 2/4/6/8% boost or something. Then the game counts respecs, and reduces the bonus based on the number you've used.
Not game defining, makes sense thematically (you'd be better if trained by a master warrior or whatever), makes respec basically free to anyone who doesn't give a shit, preserves an incentive not to use it if you do.
We don't like and don't want to encourage any type of item-hoovering. Killing monsters, seeing items pop out, and then picking them up is part of the game.
We don't mind auto-pickup for gold because there's never any reason you wouldn't pick it up, because it doesn't take up inventory space. Anything that takes up inventory space has some amount of choice attached to it, regardless if you think you'll salvage most things or not.
It's important to note that fewer items drop in Diablo III as compared to Diablo II, and the chances for rarer items to drop is less extreme. So you'll be picking up fewer items, and they'll generally be of higher quality as compared to the previous game.
Bashiok, on a item-hoovering "pick everything you can see up" button.
I actually liked the proliferation of crappy drops in Diablo II, gold aside - it eventually turned out that a surprising amount of them are useful to someone in some way. You could reliably gain trade wealth by simply hoarding some of these things and waiting until someone needs them in a hurry.
I can't say it was much fun looking through the hordes of trash that dropped trying to see what was useful. I'm glad they don't seem to want to repeat this scenario.
There's "hordes of trash" as in, you've just killed six unique mobs and there's high-level loot everywhere, and there's there's "hordes of trash" as in the four or so treasure chests scattered at the end of the Arcane Sanctuary that is almost always full of junk.
The endless arrows and bolts and keys and minor mana potions could have been dispensed with, to be sure, and Diablo III almost certainly won't have such an endless flow of them. And with automatic gold pickup, that isn't really that much stuff to sift through thereafter.
It's more of the useful-but-overwhelmingly-common kinda thing... yes, Baal is a piñata full of Sigon's and everything in the world is a green breastplate but every now and then someone actually wants to twink their level 6 paladin.
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Does anyone seriously go take a look at their old D2 character and find it replusive to look at just because you used a respec on it? This is a video game about you killing stuff and picking up all the shinies that fall on the ground. That's it. If there is some kind of weird, sentimental connection you make with your character, then I just don't know what to tell you.
I hope the respecs flow like water. Hell, I hope they have dual specs, triple specs, whatever.
If character customization is made completely inconsequential by unlimited free respecs, then you don't have "builds" for any character any more and you've essentially squashed what a lot of people like about D2: finding out if their build is strong enough to make it through nightmare/hell difficulty, etc.
Otherwise it's just a pointless click fest with 5 generic characters that have different skins.
When we talk about "meaning" we're not talking about some deep pride or whatever, we're talking about customization and having some say in how the character develops and how hard/easy it is to go through the game in our own way.
To be clear: I love respecs. I just don't want free respecs. I want meaningful choices with consequences.
And that is a lot more fun to sane people than theorycrafting on fora, wary of making an irreversible mistake in your build.
Steam: badger2d
You're really amazed that people get attached to their characters in an RPG, huh? That's weird to you.
Now that skill trees are gone and characters appear to have general access to more than just 1 damage type (moreso than D2 at least), hopefully this will be a moot issue, and mostly tangental to respecs overall.
As someone who isn't much of a FPS'er, I'm strangely with you on having a measure of attachment to progression of my characters. I just don't see the necessity of 'permanence' in skill selection. A more pragmatic view might be that access to the right tools for the job would lead anyone endeavoring to face such diverse and terrifying foes would adapt their abilities, skills, tactics and whatnot to the best against those they face. Though this is going on borderline Role Playing. I guess I just don't see the individual builds as so seperate that they could be individual classes, despite changes in playstyle. And even with that viewpoint, I think the earlier points about time committments should make Blizzard wary of expecting their playerbase to retain the drive to level up 2-5 of a given class just to try out a variety of builds, focuses and specializations. Solo it's irrelavent (nobody else around) and in groups I have doubts that a party of three Meteorb Sorceresses (D3 equiv at least) will show up and be boned for lack of diversity. It's not like we're going to a party and are all wearing the same dress (how embarassing!).
I think you've missed my point. I haven't played much of the most recent patch (wherein Respecs were introduced), but I played significantly over the years prior to that, and without respecs cookie cutters were pretty rampant. Many people didn't bother trying new or different approaches; they looked up (or were told to look up) what the commonly held Uber builds were, mapped out 70 or 80 levels worth of skill (and even stat) allocations and then traded/prayed/begged for gear. I don't see how heavily limiting respecs (3 EVER... maybe a more if you're willing to do unspeakable things in the Olive Garden bathroom) improves this, no. Reasonably limited respec'ing (WoW style; a steadily increasing gold cost that in the earlier days of the game was a significant but not horrific gold sink) allows a player to try out a new skill or combo while knowing that if it doesn't work or isn't fun, they aren't completely screwed on that character. Respecs won't stop cookie cutters, I'd never think of arguing that, but I daresay that highly limited or a lack thereof is what got us definitive "cookie cutter ______ barbs/sorcs/necros/etc".
And I see nothing wrong with letting people be "FOTM" specs if they so choose. "OMG everybody is fire this month!" ... so what? How does that in any way harm anyone's gameplay? Yours? Mine? If a million sorceresses suddenly spec for Frost, does the Earth's rotation slow down? Do the servers stop spawning SOJ's?
First, I can appreciate that plenty of people DO like a more restricted method of gameplay, as the limitations are a manner of differentiating themselves, even if I feel it's unnecessary. My advocacy is in part based on recognition that it annecdotally appears that enough people like working within those restrictions that compromise seems reasonable, rather than taking a purely adversarial "MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY" approach.
I am, after all, Canadian.
Also, I hope that Blizzard manages to make gold a worthwhile resource, and as such they will likely need as many moneysinks in the game as possible. Attaching a reasonable gold cost to respecs could be one way to help keep it a relevent resource worth managing. That becomes another juggling act, especially with multiple other gold sinks that are all highly appealing enough to players. Do I save up that 100,000 gold for a respec, or do I use it to gamble for a new item? Do I spend it on adding an enchantment to something, or another x,000 so I can socket that spiffy new helm? With a significant but reasonable cost, it can drain cash out of the economy while presenting the player with choices on how to best allocate funds.
I wouldn't say that there are NO downsides to unlimited respecs, I just feel that leaning towards the easier end of the spectrum would be better for most players on average than leaning too hard.
... actually, I think they were right on target with WoW.
Please excuse any mistakes, this is by memory, and while I played heavily back in the day, I haven't played regularly in about a year, so exact numbers may be fuzzy or mechanics might have changed.
For clarity, your first respec in WoW costs 1 gold. The second one is 5, then 10, and increasing by 5 until the cap of 50 gold per respec. If you go an entire month without respec'ing, the cost of the next one drops by 5 gold, down to a minimum of (I believe) 10. So if you go and respec a dozen times in a day, you're up to the 50 gold cap. If after doing that you don't respec again for like half a year, you've got a few cheap respecs available again (before you push the cost up).
I'd say a 6 month wait is pretty reasonable for knocking a good chunk of change off the cost. And to be fair, there were many who would respec several times a week between PVP and PVE needs. Hell, some would respec just to go farm materials/gold/instances for money to respec.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
Oh was that it? I didn't play much of WoW, and I guess I was going on half-remembered hearsay that I had convinced myself was true, sorry about that.
Still though, 50 gold does not sound like much of a cap. I might've been weird this way, but I was already running around with 800 gold by the time I was level 40, just from spending a little time playing money games on the auction house whenever I flew back to Orgrimmar to train up new skills.
o_O
We need an exploding-head smiley!
Steam: badger2d
And yes, I think you should be able to respec at any time. Just throw "no respecs" into hardcore and call it a day.
Now this is something I would bet we can get real close to 100% agreement on.
Steam: badger2d
it's also been a part of WoW since before they had respecs in game iirc, so I'd expect it in d3
Missed the point here. Different specs being popular at different times, according to the calendar, would actually add a little variety. At least it wouldn't be the same meteorb stuff month after month. That's now what valiance was talking about, though.
He's talking about people changing their spec to more easily get through different portions of the game. Fire for Act 1, poison for act 3, switch to frost real quick for the boss and then go back to fire. It changes a character's spec from a defining part of what the character is to a tactical decision. And the correct tactical decision will always be to change to whatever build is best at that level.
The WoW system for respecs is necessary because different specs have different jobs. That's not how Diablo works, every character is just trying to kill monsters. I see no reason to cap the cost of respecs in this game, maybe the cost should just increase each time you do it, with no limit.
Except the whole respec elements based on what you're fighting argument depends on D3 having a system like D2 where certain monsters are highly resistant or immune to certain spells. They've said that immunities will not be in D3, and given that the new skill system seems to have quite a few elements in a single tree, I don't think we're going to see characters that suddenly run into brick walls where they can hardly function. Besides, based on some of the posts over the past couple pages, you'd think D2 had entire acts where every monster was immune to an element. Even in the very cold-themed Act 5, that wasn't the case. This is getting into speculation territory on my part, but I really think they're designing D3 so that any reasonably-designed build will be able to function just fine throughout the entire game. You won't have a fire sorceress who is suddenly screwed by a camp of fallen. I don't think there will be much reason to change your spec every twenty seconds to kill the upcoming monsters a few seconds faster.
What'll we most likely get? Free respec after major patches, paid respecs inbetween. Mark my words.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Are you sure? Have they said that grouping will not have any classes better at soaking up frontal damage or protecting the rest of the group in some way?
Both WoW and Diablo single player questing are exactly the same. Different specs in WoW have only recently become simpler to accommodate the "different jobs" thing - when they added a second spec you can switch to. Prior to that, only the most hardcore players bothered to switch between tanking and healing on the same character. It's a major pain. Everyone else did it because they wanted to change up their gameplay without starting a new character, in the same way that you would do it in Diablo.
So, you know, don't do this.
Sometimes I just want to strip all my skills away, put 20 points into leap and see how far I can get without attacking anything.
You're right, I've been saying the same thing for a few pages. The type of elemental damage will almost certainly not be the deciding factor in what build is the most effective. That said, there will still likely be different specs that are more efficient at different points in the game, and I don't want switching the same character to those specs to be the best way to play the game, because I feel like tactics should depend on your spec, rather than dictate it.
I honestly think the game will be better if respecs have a significant cost. What I do when I personally play the game doesn't change that.
And your desire to put points into leap is fine, you can totally do that. I just want that to cost some time and/or in-game currency, so that the easiest way to play through the game doesn't involve changing your spec to better meet the challenges of different sections of the game.
Most of the argument here seems to be Limited Respec vs. Unlimited Respec.
Which is really just theorycrafting, as both extremes are incorrect.
They've said that they intend to put in respecs, so the "no" side won't be sated.
And given what we've seen with their other games, it's highly unlikely that there'll be "unlimited" respecs either.
The real discussion is more the flavour of how it'll be applied, likely "D2 style" (very rare) versus "WoW style" (available mostly on demand in exchange for another resource), and varying shades of how they're applied (ends to which you have to go to earn them, how often they're available, what the cost might be and how it changes based on frequency of use or lack thereof, character level, etc).
Edit: and Hardcore with no-respecs would, as previously noted, be the hardest of cores. But I don't play hardcore, so my bias isn't coloured with an appreciation for the advanced difficulty such a choice would cause.
Ill try and find the quote
Well the point of specs is choosing, and as we all know choosing is losing.
Looks like all but the "no respecs at all!" crowd will be satisfied. If there does end up being some minor incentive to replaying a class, they might even be fine with it. Don't respec if you don't want to... and I agree that the "respec for each zone" argument fails based on what we already know about skills.
Then we can all happily get back to "monster killing and rainbow viewing."
Yep. There's an ironclad argument for respecs across the board.
-Z
That was what i was looking for!
Ok, now what can we argue about?
Those rainbows need to get off my lawn!
But really, I do love how they made that mention in the latest gameplay video.
-Z
I can't say it was much fun looking through the hordes of trash that dropped trying to see what was useful. I'm glad they don't seem to want to repeat this scenario.
White/blue/unique quality ratio was also pretty good. Made you feel so good to hear those rings dropping.
I'd like to see something like a retire or apprentice system - for every 20 lvls, the retired character gives 1 bonus skill point or something to the newbie, or one skill of your choice gets a 2/4/6/8% boost or something. Then the game counts respecs, and reduces the bonus based on the number you've used.
Not game defining, makes sense thematically (you'd be better if trained by a master warrior or whatever), makes respec basically free to anyone who doesn't give a shit, preserves an incentive not to use it if you do.
There's "hordes of trash" as in, you've just killed six unique mobs and there's high-level loot everywhere, and there's there's "hordes of trash" as in the four or so treasure chests scattered at the end of the Arcane Sanctuary that is almost always full of junk.
The endless arrows and bolts and keys and minor mana potions could have been dispensed with, to be sure, and Diablo III almost certainly won't have such an endless flow of them. And with automatic gold pickup, that isn't really that much stuff to sift through thereafter.
It's more of the useful-but-overwhelmingly-common kinda thing... yes, Baal is a piñata full of Sigon's and everything in the world is a green breastplate but every now and then someone actually wants to twink their level 6 paladin.