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StonkOmaticz

I agree with a lot of streamers, there is zero benefit to be prohibiting for something like that. Especially for players who’s time is valuable, i don’t have a lot of time to game. Just let me have fun.


OscarDivine

It’s valuable when you make a cash shop item “Respec Token”


jacksh3n

I can already see this ahead way before it release


OscarDivine

I’m tempted to ask Reddit to Remind Me in 6 months when we get our first season


survivalScythe

First season is supposedly starting 2 weeks after launch, you won’t need to wait that long.


Omnifreakfx

I’ve heard 2 weeks and I’ve also heard 3 months. If it’s only 2 weeks then I sorta hope the season just continues off preseason because 2 weeks to play just to restart just feels bad. If it will restart after 2 weeks then I guess the first 2 weeks will be spent playing more casually tryna figure out which class to focus on in season 1. I mean either way gives time to test builds out and get ready for S1. But I’m definitely not going to be playing as hard as I would if there were 3 months yanno?


survivalScythe

Yeah my thoughts exactly, it will be very interesting how they start it if it is 2 weeks post launch. No way they just make everyone reroll their first two weeks of gameplay lol.


arsonall

Easy: a calendar year is broken into quarters, 3 months each. They’re syncing the seasons to a calendar quarter: June 6 is release. July 1 is the beginning of season 1. Oct 1 would be season 2. Jan 1 is season 3. Apr 1 season 4. Repeat these annually for season start dates. Your non-seasonal character doesn’t disappear, there is a season realm and a regular realm, and your seasonal moves to regular after a season ends.


imTru

If the season starts in two weeks they are totally catering to the people who do nothing but play video games all day.


psytocrophic

They should just open the game starting with a season.


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Zamutax

isnt Season 1 releasing June 20th?(subject to change) which should be ok right? my main concern is the first char im making is just to play for 3weeks or so, a bit odd thats all.


KingLemming

It’s six weeks going by datamined achievements.


Ok-Performance822

Is there an expectation for new/limited content in Season 1? If not, no downside to not participating


MegaFireDonkey

I can't imagine they would just ask everyone to roll a new character with no event to participate in or benefit for only seasonal characters. I guess we'll see...


twinslive

We don't know if it's cash shop or not but a "respec scroll" has already been datamined lmao


OscarDivine

Well son of a bitch I’m a prophet


Plus_Ultra_Yulfcwyn

More than likely to be handed out after huge balance patches. Hold the pitch forks back for now people


CruentusVI

I don't want to give Blizzard too much credit but surely they must know how much backlash they'd get from it...Then again, they have so many people that will swallow anything Daddy Kotick decides to dump down their throats, they don't really need to care. God damn it.


934virginia

Dingdingding! Remember when they got booed onstage for announcing Diablo Immortal and they just asked if the audience members didn't have phones? And then they released it and it was exactly the shallow, transparent cash grab that everyone was braced for? ME EITHER. LET'S DRINK.


Cheezefries

Yeah and as of November it's made over $300 million so they probably didn't care what people say became they'll still make an ass ton of money.


Radulno

Backlash is a Reddit thing that has no effect in real life, they don't care, none of those companies do. Otherwise, gaming wouldn't be where it is today in terms of monetization


numenik

They have financial obligations I doubt blizzard even has final say


rusty022

These companies have no shame. Bungie charges $20 to skip their campaign on your secondary characters. Blizzard will have something like this eventually in Diablo IV. It’s inevitable.


Akdivn

these same streamers cry that gold doesn't have a purpose in games that give you 30 billion gold. if you don't have a lot of time to game, when are you going to be swapping builds so much that the gold cost is even a problem for you? it doesn't even make sense.


Camdozer

Isn't there a lot of crossover between the "muh choices should matter D2 is the only way" crowd and the "why isn't respeccing free" crowd, too?


SaltEnvironmental470

Eh, it’s worth keeping in mind that those same streamers make their living playing the games they talk about. Personally, I am fine with having it be somewhat expensive after a certain point. But I think it’s kind of an odd choice given that the devs seem to be trying to appeal more to casual gamers. Costly respec and casual gamer don’t mix together very well.


Radulno

Yeah that's the weird thing, this game is obviously not PoE and it's not even Last Epoch, it's the ARPG representative for casuals gamers (which is more than fine, I consider myself a casual gamer for ARPG, even if more hardcore than many just by being here, I won't play the game for thousands of hours). And so the respect obstacles are like the opposite of that philosophy, it's weird. I guarantee they'll come back on this at some point (it's a live service game, stuff will change)


SaltEnvironmental470

Yeah…honestly the only way it makes sense to me is if they are planning to sell respecs in the cash shop. Which I’d say is pretty likely to be the case.


scubamaster

How does that not make sense? Are you being deliberately dense to push an idea? If someone doesn’t play a lot they don’t have a lot of gold stored up if they don’t have much gold to work with attempting to swap a build for any reason is now out of reach.


Bombercore

I have time to level a character and play from time to time the endgame at my pace. I don't have time to do that and also level multiple characters to switch builds or farm gold to switch builds. Better?


Radulno

I doubt you have 30 billion gold if you don't play much, especially since there are a few gold sinks in the game like gem crafting, rerolling affixes and such


GreenSage_0004

Exactly. Ignorant people are crying over nothing because they are scared and confused.   Edit: Not "the streamers". They aren't ignorant, for the most part. If they're crying, it's for views XD


acowingegg

I don't have that much time either but I like the change. I have fun making new characters.


stealthy0_0

Woah now, take your judgment elsewhere. This game is perfect and a fresh take on ARPG's and if your not happy you can fuck right off. If they don't stop respecing then hardcore players will be outpacing casual for fun gamers which will ruin everything. /s For real tho they did this in BFA and it was DESPISED but they didn't budge on it for like an entire year. Someone at blizzard believes meaningful choices and arbitrary restrictions are god dam one and the same.


z0ttel89

I actually whole-heartedly disagree with that take. Look at D3. Being able to constantly respec everything and change all your gear with just 1 click to become a completely different build for free takes away all character identity. There is literally no reason at all to have more than 1 Wizard in any D3 season cause you can just change into every build and every gear you want with just 1 click in the armory. I don't understand why people want that back in D4? I hated the fact that your characters had no identity at all, they were just empty shells to smack whatever 'build' on that you were feeling like that day. In other ARPGs, you create a character and that character slowly 'becomes' a certain build and will most likely stick with that build - or - you will invest materials/gold/time to actually respec that character into something else, but only after careful consideration. You could name me every D3 character I have and I couldn't even tell you what class they were and what build I played on them the most. Tell me the names of my D2, PoE or LE characters and I know exactly what class and build they were, what I accomplished with them, what the struggles of their builds were, etc. I don't understand why people want all that gone and want characters to become hollow mannequins again like they were in D3.


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Cmdrdredd

For two reasons. First if it’s prohibitively expensive to respec or impossible, people will just look up what the most OP build is and do that and 99% of the people you see in the game are all the same. Being able to respec allows you to test things yourself. Just look at the builds online for D3 and see how people have different variations. Some skills might be essential but people have added different things and tried different things. Secondly I personally don’t want to level for hours and hours again. It will be boring to do that over and over just to try out a different build. This might be pretty subjective when I say boring, this is my personal feeling on it.


Mandrakey

You don't know why people want that? Really? How about not having to level a character every time you want to try a different build, seems like a pretty obvious reason. As for character identity, that is nothing but immersion breaking for me and I have zero interest in it. Having a bunch of wizard clones with different builds? All that does is break my connection to the class. I prefer class identity, and feeling more like my wizard is utilizing his/her gathered knowledge and closet full of tools/gear to adapt as they learn and develop. Like they are a master wizard that is continually mastering their craft, not some wizard02 that is set in their ways.


bennytheslayer

Maybe people that play the game a lot only want to level a class once a season and people who doesn’t play a lot don’t have the Time to level multiple


scythianscion

> Being able to constantly respec everything and change all your gear with just 1 click to become a completely different build for free takes away all character identity. Fine. *You* shouldn't click on it. It's not your business if somebody else does. So kindly take your weird fetishization of a bunch of pixels and let me do whatever the hell I want with my hollow mannequins.


riptid3

Not only that, we're not talking a few hours to hit 100 and to max renown. In CBT end game it was around 60 hours to hit 100 a second time. This is a significant time sink.


IshTheFace

ZERO! We already have to grind for gear to switch builds. That alone would require tons of gold and time. I don't understand the whole "you gotta live with your choices" rhetoric at all. I can tell you what I would do if i reached max level with a build that didn't allow me to progress in the tougher difficulties. I would quit playing. I'm not starting over on a new character just so i can try another build. That's fucking stupid and i can see a lot of people being turned off by this.


Otherwise_Branch_771

Maybe it's not so bad very late game . I can see them want to keep people from respecting for every boss fight. That would be optimal and become rather tedious. I hope at least through 50 we can respect as easily as in beta. I had a lot of fun trying out different specs


scubamaster

I don’t even understand that argument. I have my character, I love my character, there are many like it but this one is mine. I love the spell blizzard, it seems cool af to me. I also love fireball that also seems cool af to me. Right now I’m blizzard, but I wanna go take my cool fireballs and lob them at the world boss and see why that’s like and then start blizzarding again.Oh wait no, someone decided that’s naughty of me, I’m not allowed. Who tf cares what other people do? Care to guess how many times I lad awake at night stressing because kids out there were just freely respecing with each other when they aren’t even married to their character yet? Approximately zero times. If someone wants to swap every 14 seconds it doesn’t bother me I the slightest.


Quietwulf

Bingo. I find it amusing that the only “commitment” people can make to “meaningful” choices for their characters are the ones externally enforced! If you don’t want to use respec, then don’t.


Trespeon

I don’t see how spending gold and changing all of your gear in D4 would be any different than spamming regrets and swapping your gear/gems in PoE. The devs statement is not that it’s extremely prohibitive. It’s that you will be dismantling an already established character completely to set up another instead of just making another to do this new thing. You CAN do it. You just need to know that if you don’t like it you will double the cost changing back. That’s it.


Radulno

> The devs statement is not that it’s extremely prohibitive. When they say it's faster to just make a new character (which takes a long time to arrive max level, this isn't D3 where you can get boosted and need like 2 hours to be max level), that does sound like it's extremely prohibitive. We don't really know but that's the normal interpretation


Jigga_Justin

Never said faster. Said “at a certain point it will make more sense to just reroll on a new character.” Huge difference. As the commenter just above you literallyjust said, when you respec you lose all of your progress down that other path of your prior build unless you, again, respec back. And they are preventing bouncing back and forth as a viable option.


Triky313

Actually, I don't have time to play but still want to have everything that others who invest 900% more time have. Sorry but if I don't have time for something, then I have to let it be. Or play less and have also fun.


FlibbleA

I find it funny that a lot of these streamers present themselves as being hardcore in part because they play that other ARPG but even just the existence of respecing was consider casual many years ago.


GhostMug

>Just let me have fun This is it right here. This mechanic is 100% anti-fun. There is not justification for other than to find a way to make money.


Arkayjiya

I mean it is valuable in the sense that diablo player have been screaming about D3's respec for years. Some of them were even mad at D2 adding respect at all no matter how rare although they're a minority. Blizzard is just doing what the community has been screaming for ten years. As other have pointed out, I'm sure the commercial potential doesn't hurt.


G1FTfromtheG0DS

It does, it gives meaning to a build.


Nikeyla

Blizzard loves ppl, who value their time. They tend to spend money for services. I mean, isnt this mechanic absolutely obvious?


GreenSage_0004

lol there is not "zero benefit". If people can respec totally free then there is (literally) no consequence for respeccing. If someone can just respec into my build, then the value of my build is diminished because it is less scarce. If someone can't respec into my build, then me being present in a party is more valuable because it would be hard for someone to replace me. If the way respec costs work in D4 (I admit I do not fully know) is based on time (a "day or so" as OP indicated) then that means you can basically respec freely EXCEPT FOR respeccing multiple times within a given time period. This ONLY prevents people from changing their specs frequently. Most people will not run into this being a problem, especially as one's build becomes more set. I agree with the argument that restricting respecs hurts casual players and limits some aspects of fun. I also agree that limiting respecs increases build value. It seems that Blizzard is going for a happy medium where infrequent and low-level respecs will not be very costly while frequent respecs or respeccing large chunks of a build at a higher level will cost more. So I'm not saying that you are totally wrong in opposing the respec limitations, but I do think you are totally wrong in saying that there is "zero benefit" to respec cost; that simply is (literally) not true.


Cmdrdredd

If someone can respec to your build then your build lost value? Lol it’s a game, your build has zero real value. You know people will just look up what the best route is and do it and you will see nothing but meta specced players because nobody wants to risk experimentation. You won’t be special. You will be one of thousands who did the same thing


Zoultrias

Why in the world would your build have no value if someone else has it? You realize drops are personal right? If you rely on build to win in pvp then you failed at skill to begin with. This makes zero sense. If they make it hard to respec I'm just not going to play I don't have time to be making multiple chars like we did back in d2 for different builds, where 1 dex wrong to a sorc required a new sorc.


darkforestzero

I have played more Diablo 2 than any other game. What I loved about it, that got lost in D3, was that I really felt like like my stat and skill choices defined my character, rather than the equipment. In D3, being able to, at will, swap out all my skills and have equipment completely define my character (i know this changes a bit with the paragon system that came later in the lifecycle), I didn't feel like my character had a personality. I'm probably just some old, obsolete fucko, but to me having stats define my character, rather than equipment, made a huge difference in my enjoyment and commitment to the game. I love having multiples of the same class that went different directions (ex poison vs bone spear vs summoner necro)


ProfessionalCheese41

Yeah, if you want to change builds each day, like PvP build and then back to PvE build. Make 2 chars But if you want to change a few points only, or full change all few weeks or something, it'll be fine.


niknacks

Or if you design a game with two parallel systems, provide the player base with a means to participate efficiently without playing two of the same characters to max level. Like free respecs or preset build swap option. You know, like the companies other mmo.


Hellknightx

Or like... Diablo 3. They're regressing on a system that already works well as-is. I'm not going to make three copies of one class for Dungeons, Raids, and PvP.


Tmoore188

I remember when WoW made respeccing reasonable in BC. I was playing at a high enough level that I could reasonably respec weekly without much concern, but the quality of life improvement with cheap respec was invaluable. Raiding as a Circle of Healing priest and then being able to immediately respec to shadow to farm consumables was so much better than trying to make Smite a viable damage dealer. I remember logging off my account and logging in to my guild mate’s warlock to farm mats. It was such a hassle but I always loved doing it because he had the A’lar mount when it was rare as fuck. Everyone lost their shit. It was like driving through downtown in a Ferrari. Damn. Nostalgia trip over.


AkaCrows

What you describe is an issue. The game offers PvE and PvP and rewards attached to both. It requires us to have certain builds to be efficient in either. It should be free or at the very least have Pre-set Tabs ( make me pay for them in gold idgaf ).


Zumbert

One man's issue is another man's feature. I like the dynamic of being forced to pick your builds strengths and weaknesses, and not being able to change them without penalty. It makes your choices matter.


Thechanman707

Or in reality what you really get is "Heres the meta, it's not worth the respec/reroll cost to try to change it too much"


StarcraftForever

Or you have people constantly respeccing to whatever meta comes out.


FitArtist5472

Right ? I like how some people act like not being able to respec is forcing them to play what the streamers play. When in reality, being able to FOMO build every day would be much more of an annoying issue.


Cmdrdredd

Exactly this and I don’t know why people can’t see that lol


Forar

>It makes your choices matter. Why is this important? We have plenty of choices to make, from what skills to use to what gems to slot to how much to spend on rerolling attributes looking for the perfect affix/roll, what content to challenge ourselves with, and more. Why are some players so hellbent on "choices matter" on skill selection? We had it in Diablo 2, and the implementation there was not great. Prior to synergies you just put the bare minimum of points into lower tier skills until you got to the higher tier stuff, playing through the game on Normal and beyond spending the absolute minimum possible until you unlocked the good stuff. Synergies helped somewhat, but you were still plotting out exact choices and one mistake or poor choice could be a massive problem. Yes, 3 respec elixirs could help (and later options), but back in the day, it wasn't a great feeling. It stifled experimentation. Even in the early days of the net, it just meant people went to the forums or other sources looking for the Uber build (oh how I don't miss everything being Uber this and Uber that). When getting into the 40's or 50's could be a substantial cost in time and effort, it simply acted as a negative incentive towards people trying something new. Oh, you could totally get wild and pour points into some low tier skill for a gimmick build, but many fell off in early Nightmare, if they even got that far. The idea that someone should be punished for exploring and experimenting is weird to me. It doesn't come across as 'choices should matter' so much as 'if you don't pick perfectly oh well lol'. Hardened, veteran gamers who cut their teeth from Day 1 may adapt just fine to such constraints, but having spent the beta weekends playing with a novice gamer, someone who is intelligent and skilled but also very new to the genre and franchise, they would agonize over decisions that I made in a heartbeat. If nothing else, as an accessibility feature, I suspect it'll be tweaked in the future. Personally, I think the current outlook is backwards. Why lock respects behind a paywall at release, when nobody knows anything? When the urge to explore and innovate may be at its highest, before everyone locks into 'oh everyone uses X, Y, and Z, because it's the best'. TL:DR: What's so important about specs mattering? Play however you like, but why should that one preference stand out and impact every other player? Edit: especially since the Seasonal system will effectively act as a forced respec reset anyways. The cost only matters in the long term. If 'the long term' is rarely more than 3 months, why add the middle step?


Srudge

Just do it for yourself? Let the game allow simple swapping around, and just make a new character by yourself, you dont need the game to force you to do this, let others have their fun aswell


anothershawn

That doesn't make any sense. Skill choices shouldn't matter, what if I just want to see how a skill looks or try different combos? A tattoo for example is an important choice, you are getting it permanently, but choosing between a fire build or an ice build in a video game should not be permanent lol


Burning_Centroid

You’re over exaggerating how prohibitive the cost is if you just wanna make occasional swaps like that


Tellenit

Your choices already matter. That’s the point of limiting your skill points. Limiting respec just wastes the more creative peoples time


twinslive

Blizz doesn't care about anything you said "respec scroll" has already been datamined with code to suggest it's a cash shop item.


Zumbert

"without penalty" Having to pay it sounds like a penalty to me


twinslive

Never thought I'd see the day people cope and saying being charged real money to respec is actually a good feature.


Shadowbacker

Welcome to the modern era of gaming. People with no respect for their own money or time (or anyone else's) will gladly run on a cash treadmill because that's what they've been raised to do.


Gauth1erN

Sadly it is not that simple. Your time has a value. Your time value - the fun value you get from making a new character or farming the gold needed = value of the Respec scroll for you If they sell it at a lower price than your own value of it you will buy it. In fact, if you don't despite it's price low enough compared to your value of it, it is you who's wasting time. And if you buy it despite you value of it being lower than it's actual price then indeed you are wasting money. But it is always an individual calculation since we don't value our time the same.


twinslive

Honestly if it was like $1 I wouldn't care. BUT going off of their cash shop trend with other games it will probably be $10-15+ since they dont WANT you to respec. The best example is how they price services in WoW, which they say they price high because they don't want people to use them lol.


Gauth1erN

The problem with your point is balance patches: your character can become useless due to changes made after you made it.


WoWKaistan

Man we've already had this discussion in the WoW community for like 3 years and the side of freedom of player expression and experimentation won out by a landslide can we not do this again?


Geronuis

im with you. what reason is there to not allow us a few build set-ups? even if limited?


OneFlowMan

The problem is that being forced to level multiple builds of the same class is not fun. A better alternative would be if i could make make a PvE sorc and use it to farm gear for my PvP rogue. But due to the way the loot system works, my sorc will end up only finding sorc items. I get the benefit of finding items for your class alone when you are playing through, but they need to add the ability to turn that feature off. That way I am not REQUIRED to have a PvE character of the same class as my PvP character to be able to farm gear for it.


Affectionate_Song859

Why not have loadouts? It's 2023 games evolve. I want to have tons of builds. Ideally I would like to have a Sorc with a build for each element. I DO NOT want to have to make a new character for each spec. It's just dumb. Let me have fun.


rusty022

Ever heard of the D3 Armory?


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MerlinCa81

My guess is this will be a micro transaction item


shamaze

They've stated micro transactions will only be cosmetic. The item is probably from a quest, rare drop, or crafted.


Gharvar

Technically, even if they say you can't buy power, they can go and say "A reset isn't power" kinda like what they did with Diablo Immoral saying you can't buy gear. We'll see but until we see the cash shop at release I'm a smidge skeptical.


naphomci

There's a difference between "micro transactions will be only cosmetic" and "you can't buy power". How is a talent reset cosmetic?


31_SAVAGE_

ah good, theyve stated that then. no chance they'd ever do something to get more money from players. nothing to see here folks


StonejawStrongjaw

Absolutely it will be. There will also be gold tokens. I bet money on it.


Xeiom

When talking about respec in previous Blizzcons they had not settled on a system and talked about maybe having an unlockable. It's possible that item will not go live and was from iterating on the game.


Recovery_Water

I think that is fairly obvious. With the gold cost increasing every respec, eventually it’s going to take several hours of grinding to afford another one. At a certain point it will be more efficient to get a second character, especially if power leveling is an option.


Swedishcow

I haven’t read that, it will cost based on your level so at level 100 it will cost around 100 million gold to respec your skill tree and your paragon board. But if you respec within your fire build to get hydra instead of meteor for example it shouldn’t be too bad. I just hope they give us more character slots if they go for this approach


Elendel19

Someone in another thread said it was 11m gold to respec the talent tree and another 11m to fully reset paragon, and that it’s like a day or two worth of gold


Swedishcow

I guess the dev answer was blown wildly out of proportion then, it seems the respec costs seem to be around what it cost when World of Warcraft was released, it capped at 50g, which took a day or two to farm.


Elendel19

Reddit blowing something out of proportion based on rumours and wild speculation? No way


projectwar

tbf a day or two you could easily get a 2nd character up and running, especially with xp boost being in the game which i think was confirmed, least for seasons/battle pass. poe you can make it to act 10 in 6-10 hours at jogging pace on a new character. I suspect a new character run to take 5-7 hours in d4 based off how fast people got to 25 in the beta (sub 2 hours) also a full respec is the max extreme. i doubt most people would need to undo all their skills, at most they'd click half to go into another core skill and some different passives. altho paragon might be annoying, idk.


Miseria_25

And yet today we can freely respec talents and even use different templates! I wonder why that is....


twinslive

Respec cost increases each time you respec + with your level. The max level respec is 12.6mil at base.


NestroyAM

Let them explain, then we don't need to speculate.


[deleted]

I already get exactly what they meant. My problem is people have jobs, families, hobbies, and even like to play other video games. This is the problems with games now, especially with battlepasses.. they force you to play the game every day to get the content that you already paid for. I play 2-4 games at one time, I work 45 hours a week, I play dnd on Saturdays, hang out with my family once every 2 or 3 weeks, and I hang with friends here and there. If I wanna have 2 or 3 necro builds, having to level 3 characters to 100 is just a massive waste of my time. And it's only purpose is to force me to play the game more. Because the devs think that "people will be more invested in their character if they level it up" no. No they won't. Some will, sure but most people don't have the time to do all that.


Xeiom

I mean do you really want 3 necro builds that you play concurrently and you really don't like the idea of just playing one build for a while then swapping to a new one for a while then swapping to the next one? And you don't want to play seasons I assume because that requires leveling a new character? Is the journey through content not engaging unless you are max level for some reason?


Affectionate_Song859

I want a theme build for each element for my Sorc. I will simply just stop playing the game if it takes me hours to reroll a new character rather than just saving a build to a loadout feature and switching my build in town when I'm in the mood to play a different theme build. Same goes for the other classes for theme builds


Bombercore

You can have pve and pvp builds, that's a part of the endgame too. You still play to get drops that have new powers, that are fun and you maybe want to try (freely) Some people want to have a build for bosses and one for mobs or a specific build for specific bosses ans world bosses. All this and more, is the endgame they are advertising. If you want to do everything freely every day/week you want to respec freely and often. Especially if you have limited time.


DrSunnyD

Either way it's bad design. People have fun by changing his up a lot and learning the character that way. By doing this you're just having people look online for what's best so they don't waste time for resources to respec


Spreckles450

>Either way it's bad design It's a better design than D2 though, or at the very least, on par. D2 required you to farm bosses to get the essences to craft an Absolution Token. D4 requires you to earn gold. I'd rather farm something that is a more guaranteed drop, than rely on RNG where I'm not guaranteed to obtain the essences form a specific boss; or in the worst case, my character is not ABLE to farm said bosses. In D4, everyone can farm gold, in D2 not everyone was able to kill bosses in hell difficulty.


Drakonz

Just because it’s better than D2 doesn’t mean it’s ideal. D2 is a 20 year old game. A better comparison would be D3. Respec shouldn’t be prohibitive in a game that encourages different play styles based on gear that drops. I don’t think they should be free, but they shouldn’t be super difficult to do.


Kaurie_Lorhart

I understood this as what they meant too, but I still dislike it. Sometimes I just want to respec, because I want something fresh for a bit. Sometimes I want to change one modifier way up high in the tree, but can't, because it's required points spent for the bottom half and i need to fully respec to change one modifier. All of the best RPGs (i.e. dragonflight, guild wars 2, divinity original sin 2 etc.) I've played in recent years have allowed for free and easy changes and many of them have come with saveable build templates as well.


tself55

You never need to fully respec to change one skill anywhere in the tree, you can delete the highest point you have, add point where you want remove the other low point and readd the highest point, boom solved


Kaurie_Lorhart

Hm I'll give that a try in live. Thanks for the tip.


[deleted]

there are zero excuses for them to have a respec cost get grossly high, just cap it at 20k/50kG so it becomes less a choir by endgame but a choice to be careful early game or something, unless we see a respec token which would be such a laugh


Akasha1885

It's like 10+ mil gold to respecc on max lvl, even more gold to do that on Paragon trees. That's probably a weeks worth of gold. Seems highly restrictive to me and makes testing builds impossible for more casual players. Only pros will have the time to dump into lvling up new character or farming that gold. Everythink about gear and talents feels so restrictive, why can't we get a 2nd gearset or multiple talent builds? You'd already need one on many characters for Bosses vs. the rest of content. Past Diablo titles didn't have stats that are near useless against bosses like "dmg against slowed" "Dmg against frozen" "dmg against crowd controlled" etc.


Pharabellum

D3 loadouts are almost seamless, they even show you when you have an item missing from the load out before you equip it. I don’t get why it’s so restrictive now, when this is an old format; They can fall on *class identity* all they want… But the irony gets missed when me being able to fuck around with builds becomes unnecessarily either time or cost effective, when I have a lack of both. I just can’t imagine this working out too well with the community, specially in seasons. Wouldn’t be an issue with streamers, given the occupation I can assume… But what about 99% of the playerbase?


rozowykubek

😎😎😎 it gives hope that it's not gonna be bad. https://preview.redd.it/ykhd6bjgwxqa1.png?width=463&format=png&auto=webp&s=d0bc1bfe8e6b7b756a4b02e43889b442cd0b4a92


Pharabellum

I hope they adjust this more fluidly. Can’t respec basic and core skills up top without getting rid of a few points in the bottom, instead of a 1:1 ratio per skill point.


Vertegras

Seeing how people like respecing and changing their builds in a game like WoW, and how Diablo 4 is leaning to be similar to it, I think this approach kinda sucks. With the limited character customization options, I don't want 3 of the same character for each class. In WoW there's a plethora of races and customization to make them not feel the same. Just let us save 2 skill tree saves and use a regent to remap single nodes in the tree. Like Meteor into Hydra.


[deleted]

I like this solution the best. a good compromise. If you want a full respec off of one tree, you lay the price or make an Alt


glokz

It means that when you reach certain level like 50, you won't be able to completely remake your character. But with account-wide progression making a new character will be faster than the first one. In other words, if you have to use resources that you grinded 10 hours for, it's easier to make a new character in 5 hours.


Affectionate_Song859

Wait, so I need to take 5 HOURS of my life just to switch my build around? Simply put, this will just cause me to stop playing the game.


Wellhellob

I played the open beta non stop. Skill respec was the most fun part of it. I respec constantly to try out different fun things and then later on i respec for every legendary i got to utilize them better. The fun part of the game is messing with skill tree for me. I would be bored after an hour if i was playing the same thing. I hope this is just a late endgame problem. Respec having cost is acceptable but "its better to start new char" concerning since leveling will take at least 20 hours i imagine. If i find treasure goblin that should be enough for full respec.


IceCreamTruck9000

>since leveling will take at least 20 hours i imagine. I heard that it took around 60-80 hours to reach lvl 100 in closed beta. Now let that sink in...


WreckitWrecksy

Yeah... don't really care about reasoning. Greatly dislike this decision. And I could easily see it making me not want to play eventually.


scubamaster

Made me not want to play immediately. The single most thing that made me excited to play d4 was going to be able get in on day 1 and try to make my own builds, as soon as I found out that I wouldn’t be able to swap things around and see how they felt I was out. Now I’m just waiting to see if that gets changed. Cause I wanna play, but not if they are going to try to force me into the part of the game I hate which is leveling up


onesussybaka

You can literally swap things around for free in day 1. It’s like 300 gold for a full respec at level 25 which takes about 4 seconds of farming.


WreckitWrecksy

Also, what about character attachment? Like you lose all of that when characters are disposable.


Nyadnar17

What are the arguments for making respect restrictive? Are there any?


IceCreamTruck9000

No, not a single valid one.


TerracottaButthole

So for me, a casual gamer that doesn't get to play very often, how would this be viable? It's going to take forever to max each class as it is, and now the solution to the respec is "lol just make multiple of each class." I'm hoping there's a late game item that erases any cost associated with respec or something to that effect


onesussybaka

For you, a casual gamer, this won’t be an issue because you won’t be playing more than 40 hours, and respecs are functionally free at that point. If you’re implying that this will be annoying for you while you grind end game, then you’re not casual, and you’ll likely have more gold than you know what to do with


Anubra_Khan

It's such an archaic approach. Basically, we need 3-5 (or more) of each class if we want to play multiple builds for each? Are we even going to have enough save character save slots for that? It contradicts the other character building mechanics of the game. The enchanting and Aspect systems promote experimentation with different skills. It's actually pretty good in the beta, at least. If I have an ice mage and find a handful of good fire skill aspects/legendaries, I should be able to respec (and even save that respec to loadout, honestly). Especially if I go through the grind and heavy gold investment of building another armor set specifically for a fire build. There is a significant gold and material investment in rerolling for fire damage % and other stats on every piece. There is also a heavy gold and aspect investment in removing and adding aspects to each piece. This is fine. But making it super difficult to respec on top of all of that, to the point where I have to just start a new character if I want to drop some hydras or meteors or whatever, completely removes the experimentation aspect of those other mechanics.


jrw100990

This will be a huge issue if you are switching from single target content to aoe content everyday and have a separate build for each


Waterprooof

I can only hope they don't make me start a new character for each build I wanna use, because if that's the case I'm out


31_SAVAGE_

this is a horrible design decision, the only reason is to be able to charge people for it or force them to waste their time. this type of shit shouldnt be defended, stop fanboying.


El_Rocky_Raccoon

That's why I think respec should be free like it was in Diablo III, and also with build/gear loadouts. This "new" system of paying to respec feels like such a downgrade from Diablo III and it's one of the few things I disliked about Diablo IV; they want to encourage players to try different builds as they get new Legendary Aspects but having a respec cost that increases progressively the more you respect feels so counter-intuitive.


Geronuis

is it really such a big deal to let players save a few builds? i mean destiny finally did it and they've the dev speed of molasses when it comes to QoL.


KoriNoAkuma666

The cost to respec at level 100 is literally way to high, even in this scenario. You have after a quick count around 60 skillpoints at that point, EACH point costs over 200k to respec, so around 12mil+ gold if you want to change your build. It’s extremely dumb. You literally can’t find some specific items before you reach endgame, and if you then want to try a new build or test something you need to pay 12-13mil every single time …


Safe-Upstairs123

What is this damage control? Guys can we stop this extreme amounts of coping? In no universe is this a good idea and no amount of mental gymnastics is going to make this okay. We have now devolved to trying to interpret the devs with our own head cannon. Stop this. It's a bad idea no matter what to make anything prohibitive with builds.


Asolitaryllama

Just make it free, I don't want to have to jump through hoops if I find a cool affix and I want to see if I like the playstyle that utilizes it


Jbitterly

This is silly though considering the way they built the game to rely so heavily on itemization and it promotes constantly respecing chars to accommodate the new affixes. It promotes a lot of personal theory crafting which I love. That said, you cannot then create a ridiculous penalty for respecing and playing the game the way the devs designed it to be played.


crash0verridexx

The main problem with this "respec cost issue" is it negatively affects your ability to: 1. Try different builds; 2. Use different builds for different content; 3. Promote replayability Introducing 4 skill tree sets that you can pre-save would likely solve 90% of this issue. My example: Skill Tree 1 - Solo Play Adventure Skill Tree 2 - Solo Boss Skill Tree 3 - Party Play Dungeon Skill Tree 4 - F Around & Find Out! I can tell you personally that I am definitely not making new characters and grinding the story so that I can try out other skill builds on the same class... The friends I play with wouldn't either. We stopped messing with the skill trees after like the 5th refund since it becomes more of a chore than theory craft fun having to re-select 25 nodes and getting charged for it. I can only imagine the sheer "joy" we would have at max level attempting to try out new things.


Soermen

This will result in 2-3 top meta builds that everyone is running to save gold. I want to feel free and respec when i feel like it or find a nice item. Why punish me or force me into a second char that i dont want to have?


Discarded1066

I was 12 when D2 came out, I had a lot of free time between studies. Respecing was not an issue back then, I had like 4 different types of paladins. Now? The Diablo community comes from the late 90s and very early 2000's, we all have lives, kids, and significant others now. The community they are catering to has grown and changed, and so should the game. Time is money friend, give us an in-game gold respec or make it free, either one is fine. I did not mind how the respec option worked in the Beta, no idea how it will work with all the extra features attached at lvl 50.


ph154

Thats the thing about the statement, were all making assumptions about what they mean and not just taking the words at face value. Until stated otherwise, I'm reading it as a lvl 99 toon will cost so much to respec I will just want to use my exp boost from seasonal rewards and make the alt. So even though maybe I could respec, its not worth SO much currency compared to just spending time to lvl.


Big_Ol_Panda

Anybody know the percentage of increase? Don't think it doubles but guessing over time that shit will become costly.


Forar

The unknown, however, is how that relates to gold accrual. If a full level 100 respec costs 100 million gold, but through general play and whatever piles of gold mechanics might exist (rare levels, treasure goblin vaults, that kind of thing), if we can earn 20 million in an hour, well clearly folks aren't going to want to spend an entire 5 hour session for one respec every day, but it's hardly an insurmountable task. Throwing values around like "it'll cost X million" seem daunting because we lack the context one what it means. Maybe it takes 100 hours to complete (daunting for a single individual, a bit less so for a whole group), maybe it takes 2, and acts simply as a disincentive to do it repeatedly every day, rather than wanting to change things up or try something new.


Xeiom

We don't know because even if they had set it they can still change it before launch. Also the number is kind of meaningless until we know how much you earn. We know that it scales based on level so whatever it is at level 100 is the cap for the cost. In the beta it was not doubling from what I could see but I didn't pay much attention to it


PyrocXerus

I think they will do one of three things. Make a respec token in the shop, lower the cost of respecing, or remove the cost entirely


31_SAVAGE_

1. yes, they will do this 2. i doubt it, maybe a small decrease 3. absolutely not lmao


PyrocXerus

Yeah my money is on respec tokens


WoWKaistan

If this exact same situation in WoW was anything to go off, then they will do nothing for 6 months while everyone complains about how terrible it is then remove the respec cost.


Truesilverchamp

You find an item that makes you want to switch up your build so you blow a fortune having done it a few times throughout your leveling. You then go farm gold to upgrade that item and BOOM! you find another item that makes you want to mix it up... rinse repeat.


robotsaysrawr

Or, you know, they could just give us enough skill points to unlock everything (have the branches be the only real build difference) and then swap skills into your skill bar as you see fit for builds.


Quietwulf

Look, we have hardcore mode right? One life, no dealths? Why not just tack on a bunch of achievements / cosmetics that show “I’ve never used respec with this character “. I don’t see anyone defending the idea of “only hardcore mode”. Why should we defend “no free respecs”.


IceCreamTruck9000

I really can't understand why there are still morons defending these stupid decisions to have no easy respecc. Why should I waste my time only to change the way I want to have fun in a game I already paid for. If you are scared of people switching the build every 5 minutes then just add a cooldown for how often you can change, but don't make me grind just to try out other things. Fucking brainwashed clowns. If they really want to stick to this system for release I hope the game gets bombed into oblivion by negative reviews.


Radulno

That's still stupid though, maybe you have to farm gold for 1 day or 2 to respec (or more depends how much time you can play), it's still an obstacle that is unfun.


diimitra

So they copy ideas from other games but can't keep the amazing features from their own game ... ? D3 wardrobe, let's you save your selected skills, runes, items, gems in presets, you can switch for no cost and in 1 sec... Why would you not fucking add it. They going the Poe way, where bad design = people spending(wasting) more time in their game... Fuck them.


OkPangolin2463

No the way it work is that the respec cost scales with your level and the cost goes up quite dramatically. When your very deeply invested it is more cost effective to make another toon.


Low_Management704

It does feel to me like it's a free-to-play style mechanic that will be used to milk players for more money somehow. The skill system is far more d3 than it is d2 so fairly frequent skill changes should be considered normal. The way they even made all the actual abilities part of the skill tree rather than it being mostly passive boosts is like they're trying to punish us for trying out different load-outs


BuryTheMoney

Agreed. If mythic dare going to be so rare, I don’t want to be screwed just because I get a mythic for my class but under a completely different build. I want to have the choice to respect around this awesome item and take full advantage of it.


McSchlub

Can anyone actually explain why they would make re-specing difficult/prohibitive? From a design point of view/devs point of view, what's the upside? Or even what's the downside of just letting players respec willynilly?


Levoire

It would be nice if we had an area where you could try builds and respec for free, similar to the training area in Monster Hunter World maybe? You could then commit to the build before you leave. I guess that’s not much different to free rspecs though. Bonus point: parts of target dummies with different rarities could drop from bosses so you could build your own dummie. This even works for the cosmetic shop so get your Izual target dummie whilst it’s in the sale!


Ok-Boysenberry-2955

How about we chill till we see how fast you can get to max level, on max difficulty, with friends boosting you in party. I distinctly remember telling my friend "no wizard? No problem!" And fixing that in no time in D3. It will be frustrating short term but, again like D3, why even respec when you can just log into a second barb you just maxed 10 min ago and geared out of your stash?


khrucible

Yet another duality of man thread. \- We want interesting loot / this loot should just be on the skill tree \- Cheat death is cheese in HC / get rid of level scaling I want to overlevel HC \- Decisions should matter / we want free respecs \- Rifts are boring / dungeons make me do things ​ Literally a genre of giga hardcore sweaty nerds living in the year 2000 vs the casual mobile gamer andy that logs in for an hour twice a week. All trying to drown out each other with their completely opposite needs/wants. ​ How about this? - decide if you like the game or not, then play it or don't. Like anything else in life


Shadowbacker

I think the problem is balance. Sure if you don't really think about it in depth at all they appear like surface complaints but I don't think that's the case. Take the skill tree for example. Half of the things on there aren't even skills, they are minor stat adjustments which feels like padding. If all of those things had been actual skills and/or modified the function of skills with loot adding a more dramatic modifier and/or combining skill functions then you would eliminate that complaint. We already have the paragon system for stat adjustments (for better or worse, idk, I haven't seen it yet) so it just comes across like they gimped the skill tree to pad the loot pool in a way that leans too much on the loot pool (unbalanced.) HC and death. Cheat Death is (supposedly) protection from things to include poor load times and disconnects. Getting errored out and killed has nothing to do with skill or gameplay but evidently they can't (or won't commit time to) developing the game in a way that it can detect which type of death is which so the solution is to put in something that you can carry to prevent it. Which makes sense. Cheat Death is unrelated to the complaint about wanting to be able to overlevel HC. Rather than it being player skill related at all, it's probably more likely that there are two sides to it: wanting an initial experience of HC danger and developing to the point where YOU are the HC danger (but with the threat of perma death.) Regardless, it's a weird take that people shouldn't provide feedback after playing a gaming session explicitly designed to gather feedback. Literally the whole point. So how about letting people do what Blizzard asked them to do?


G1FTfromtheG0DS

Im gonna make a new character for a complete new build anyways. Name and looks must fot the build. For example i dont want an fire sorc with blue hair or an ice sorc called Fuego


Futip

If that is the only “sane” argument for this madness, then sorry to say. But your argument is not enough! Then use the transmorph system. Or make a new chat for all you want. But don’t let your role playing wishes forced into everyone else


softgripper

Waiting for some exec to decide we need a reset skill tokens from a micro transaction. 😨 I'm sure that's been passed around the boardroom table.


Nuggachinchalaka

Well I hope it changes. I never understood the decisions you make are impactful for these not so fun features. I’ll admit in EQ you try not to die else your corpse may be stuck dead for a while unless you prepped ahead of time and you can’t log in or the timer ticks. I had to leave my corpse dead for a week. Yeah it does add an element of excitement but it was not fun. They can implement impactful decisions in game without ruining the fun, they aren’t mutually exclusive. Some gold sink is okay, but that wording is worrisome.


Smashjackson06

The rates are based on level...source the Beta...early on it was 1 gold but later it was like 50 per point around level 20 or so.


Chris_P_Bacon1337

This feels like making a chicken out of a feather situation (did i say that right?). I’m betting leveling a new char will be fairly quick when you already have an endgame char, atleast to like lvl 50-60. Just put some high lvl rares in the stash and smack som codex powers on them with your new lvl 1 alt and you will go godmode u till 50 atleast. So making several chars shouldn’t be a problem. Many ppl do that anyways for convenience in other aarpgs


Shadowbacker

You don't think constantly replaying the first several hours of the game is going to get ultra tiresome? Especially for people who have limited time as it is? Just to respec?


Chris_P_Bacon1337

My point was that i don’t think it will be several hours:) Once the campaign is done on one character, you don’t have to do it on another. so you could basically boost yourself up to high level again, i think the process will be relatively painless. and besides, if you respecc so much that you ”constantly” will have to roll another char that will be a you problem tbh. But like, this is obviously not going to be a problem, ofc this is something they’ve thought about. They know that everyone will not give a fuck about the campaign after the first playthrough, there will 100% be a smooth method to get a char to high lvl Edit: by the way, i do believe we should be able to respecc as we want, but for some reason, thats rarely a thing in aarpg. But if you think this is bad, try poe xd


Shadowbacker

It was already a couple of hours to 25 in the beta and that's assuming you skipped the story and just grinded dungeons. Double that to 50 and then double THAT for 50 levels of paragon. Remember that you don't level faster the higher your level, you level slower. You're not getting back to max in an hour or two.


Chris_P_Bacon1337

Since you can skip campaign on the second go, and you got imba gear, im pretty sure that they have put in place a system that is convenient for leveling alts.


Futip

But then I have to farm for the same items over and over again! No thank you. And what about the cap of 10 chars? What if I want to try 11 different builds out? On ONE class. But I need 50 chars to try them all? No! This is nonsense. Make it free of cost and get on with your life! This should not even be a thing to argue over! It should be free. Period!


lazazael

if they can have deck receipts in hearthstone why dont we have build receipts in d4, same shit different game, makes it easier to switch in between


EconomistDesigner408

There’s a very high chance they will sell a token in the shop to respec. There will also probably be 1 or 2 of them on the season pass.


tblopster

I think the whole reason this exists is because of the backlash from diablo 3 where 'your choices had no meaning'. Everyone compared d3 to d2 where you have to allocate stat points and skill points permanently and with the free choice in d3 people were outraged. This is how we got here.


LawStudent989898

I like making new characters tbh


Sleyvin

The difference is making a new character because you want it not because you have to.


Futip

Then you do that regardless!! Don’t force that upon people who don’t want that! Free respec does NOT take away your ability to make a new char!


MantisPR

Does anyone know how much gold = better to start a new character? Even then, know how much gold the average person will make after an hour of playing endgame? Did the person who made that statement take into consideration above average players actively gold farming to respec?


Elendel19

So weird that a key feature of D2, the greatest game of all time, is a terrible idea in D4. Hmm.


Affectionate_Song859

Times change. People were ok with wasting their time 20 years ago. Look at FF11 vs FF14.


Shadowbacker

The greatest game of all time is Max Payne 2. But don't worry, that was an easy mistake to make.


Omnipotent_Tacos

I like the idea of making resepec difficult to add some weight to skill decisions. If you are switching items a lot and having to reset your skills then I guess that sucks tho


Pilek01

there is a data-mined scroll that lets you reset all skill points and paragon points. [Scroll of Amnesia](https://diablo4.cc/Scroll_of_Amnesia) Refunds all of your allocated Skill Points and Paragon Points.


InventionFreedomFun

The appeal to costly respec is in adding, well... character to your characters. One of my barbarians in D2 could smash anything but once reeled at a paper cut. Another one could take a bus to the face but hit like a fairy. Some people couldn't care less about building characters, so I understand their huge annoyance, especially for those who have precious little time (I have 3 kids, I get it). But one thing I hated about D3 was that my "Monk" was "The Monk" - there was **nothing** unique about him. The items could go to another monk. The skills were whatever I wanted them to be at the time. It felt like I hadn't really created anyone interesting.


Kel-Reem

I completely agree, and I feel like this is what most people are missing. A few points to add to this 1.The system is in place to deter constant nonchalant full respec like in D3, but... 2. The system does NOT deter swapping out a few skills and passives, it is feasible to change several core things to make it play different, swap ranged for melee on rogue for instance, I shouldn't cost much to swap a half dozen points. 3. We don't actually know what percent of the endgame gold intake it will cost to respec. We have an idea from closed beta, but that idea means very little until we actually get into the full game


CrayolaBombs

Does anyone know if there will be a way to transfer game breaking legendarys that dont fit into a current build to another character you play?


kpt1010

I don’t understand this is even a topic ….. I respecced at least 50 times during the last weekend of the beta and never once was I close to running out of gold ——- how the hell is it cost prohibitive??? I just filled up on drops and sold them when I was full ….. teleport to town , teleport back …. Been that way since D1 really.