Poll : Diablo 3.. To respec or not to respec?

[Eron]

I am a pretty big D fan.. And well.. I find the whole respec thing to be a good topic to get out of the way now before the devs seal d3 up in gold...



so.. maybe we can get some real answers to the question on respec in D3 and if it has any place being there!!



I say SURELY NOT as long as the game is dynamic, and fun! And part of diablos appeal is in it's replayability.. I feel respec could severely upset that aspect of the game and would make it less critical for skills to be balanced and useful.



Vote for yourselves! I started it at the Codex! I hope it's ok to link it from here... No point in starting several threads with this poll.. Defeats the purpose!!

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=24910





E

 

[Maylander]

I never missed respeccing in D2, but after playing WoW for 3,5 years, respeccing feels natural, and I wasn't too happy when Hellgate: London had no respeccing. However, when I started to think about it, a character in WoW takes a lot more time to level up, and will be played for a much longer time, so respeccing is more natural there.

For gamers who just want to get through D3 a few times, respeccing would be a big plus, as it means you can make misstakes and simply undo them. For the more hardcore gamers though, making new characters is half the fun, so being able to try out all possible specs for a class just by respeccing would really kill the game.

All depens on point of view really.

 

[kalniel]

Can someone explain what 'respec' is? I thought it might be something like helping grannies across the road but on closer examination that's perhaps a little out.

 

[fatBastard()]

As far as I understand it, "respec" is the option to redo your distribution of points. For example if you put a lot of points into 2-handed swords and none in axes but just found a real epic Axe you would be able to transfer your points in the 2-handed swords skill over to the Axes skill instead.

In Titan Quest and Silverfall this was done by paying a certain amount of gold to a certain NPC and then your points would be freed and you could put them into whatever skill you wished.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Beyond Divinity had it, too. You could "unlearn" skills for an amount of gold.

 

[DArtagnan]

It very much depends on the character development process and design as a whole.

It seems the market for a game such as D3 is much bigger today, and that we're talking about a very broad mainstream. As such, I think it would be wise to allow respec in one form or another, as many mainstream players have no wish to spend that amount of time developing additional characters just to test something out.

Personally, I think "no respec" functions as an incentive to carefully plan ahead, which is a process I greatly enjoy. If I know that I can simply respec, I won't bother with much planning - as it's mostly wasted time anyway. It also decreases the value of developing a very powerful character, because everyone can simply respec in that way. If you actually have to plan ahead and research, it means you're likely more invested in the character and as such you're most likely a better player.

Naturally, there is the case of Blizzard changing skills and abilities through patches - and in those cases I think some kind of respec MUST be in place.

 

[woges]

I'd like a respec probably with a cost in gold to make money more useful and more storage so I don't need loads of accounts for my hoarding.

I'd like to see what's happening with the skill system and how long it takes to level a character to really decide.

I'll be playing either way.

 

[Icefire]

I don't know how hard or easy it would be to do, but how about simply an option at character creation whether or not to allow respecs?

 

[zakhal]

Can someone explain what 'respec' is? I thought it might be something like helping grannies across the road but on closer examination that's perhaps a little out.

In the 90s they called it "reincarnation" (well atleast in the muds I played), because it was the name of the clerics spell that made it happen. You had to kill yourself and then ask "reinc" from cleric.

You dropped back to level 1 but got back also 90% of all the exp you had ever gathered. I have always wanted it as a feature in level-based games - its quite fun to try different classes.

 

[woges]

An xp cut for a respec sounds fair.

 

[kalniel]

I don't know how hard or easy it would be to do, but how about simply an option at character creation whether or not to allow respecs?

Maybe as part of a difficulty option.

Re-rolling ( ) on demand means you can tailor your character ahead of any specific anticipated challenge, but if you balance for that then you create problems for people who aren't doing that.

It also takes a bit away from the point of skills that are useful at lower levels - taking something to help now or saving up for something better later is often a key decision in these kind of games - if you can swap at high levels then you don't have that interesting decision.

 

[magerette]

It completely depends on how the skill system is implemented for me. In D2 it would have been a great option as so many early skills are useless later and you are crying for the points, but after awhile of course, you learn to resist the temptation to put seven points in flame arrow or whatever and save up. Titan Quest had a fairly good system for buying out points, but I think it made the game a bit too streamlined and easy--yes it was expensive, but when you have a quintillion gold, so what?

I think Depths of Peril has an interesting approach--where all skills are available at all times with minimum pre-reqs, no taking useless skills to open a skill tree up, and so forth. The more advanced skills cost more points, so you have to balance your character as you go--you can try to save up, but then you may go without a skill necessary to survive at a very low level, so it encourages you to make a mental template for your build and choose with care.

If the skill system is traditional D2 style, I think respec-ing on the whole should be included, perhaps optionally, as Icefire suggests, and tying it to the difficulty level makes a lot of sense.

 

[woges]

I doubt they will want to separate players any more than they have to. The ladder seasons are a good way of rewarding players that like to make new characters.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

 

[thartanian]

I think they should make it like D2 was, where there was no option to respec. Why change the formula if it works. Besides, if one can spend several hours to build up a level 81 druid, then decide to go lev 81 barbarian by just hitting respec, then that's not right. Plus, it'll spoil players. D2 was also about putting in the time to build a char. This time was essential to building a bond between the char and the player. Therefore, I do not believe in respec.

 

[EverythingXen]

I have no problems with putting time into a character but I'm in favor of respecs for one reason primarily - developers these days don't leave things alone.

Nearly two years after being released NWN2 still has rebalancing patches? It's a single player game, for crying out loud! Similarly, key powers still don't work? Then why were they included in the game?

Bug fixes are fine. Unintended exploit fixes are fine. Changing the core aspects of a class or power after release? Less fine.

I'm talking single player game with the option of going online, of course. MMOs have always faced the wrath of mr nerfbat because players or new content do horrible, horrible things to the existing abilities. But a single player game? No.

Since I no longer trust Blizzard not to meddle (they're still one of my top two favorite developers) I'd want a respec option in Diablo 3. Which I'm getting, of course... here's to hoping they don't delete your characters after sixty days of inactivity this time around (my poor necromancer taken to level 80 multiple times over the years because something shiny catches my eye).

 

[woges]

I think they should make it like D2 was, where there was no option to respec. Why change the formula if it works. Besides, if one can spend several hours to build up a level 81 druid, then decide to go lev 81 barbarian by just hitting respec, then that's not right. Plus, it'll spoil players. D2 was also about putting in the time to build a char. This time was essential to building a bond between the char and the player. Therefore, I do not believe in respec.

That's not how a respec works, it just means you can respec a character class you've levelled already not convert it to another class. Respecs just allow you to experiment with character builds in less time.

 

[KazikluBey]

That's not how a respec works, it just means you can respec a character class you've levelled already not convert it to another class. Respecs just allow you to experiment with character builds in less time.

So would allowing you to switch classes.

Just say no to respecs. Diablo was made to be replayed again and again, so allowing you to try out different play styles would without replaying would go counter to its design. They would need to change some pretty core things about the Diablo formula to make respecs work well, I think, but it seems like they might be doing just that.

 

[aries100]

I think respec is great - as long as it is an option the player can use. And it is done like in Silverfall, in Two Worlds and in Titan Quest. The player pays x amounts of gold to get 1-2 points back, then am ble to put threm into skills that better fit the player's gameplay.

Of course, it should cost a deecnt amount of money, say like 20% of the player's gold - or even more. Respec needs to be very expensive, imo...

 

[magerette]

Yep, too much and you just dumb the game down to a mish mash sandbox. TQ handled it pretty well--you could change your mind on your skill point allocation, but not on your masteries or class, and you really couldn't flipflop too much because it would take the better part of an act to amass enough gold to change more than one or two points.

But I also agree there should be a more hardcore approach for those that want it--possibly as part of a hardcore mode.