Thanks GGG for finally reworking Bandit-system!

The big thing about bandit rewards is that their cost is so incredible high compared to the actual impact.

Actually I feel it would be enough to offer a way to get the skillpoint, because the bandit you kept alive could still be killed, this would make respeccs easier, since the skillpoint is often more useful than a reward you can't use and might encourage people to take rewards based on the actual need. Early on while leveling Kraytin might actually be a good choice, however in the end he is meaningless for most builds since they cap resists anyway, so they pick Oak in the first place.

Taking the 10 resists and switching to +1 skillpoint later by just killing the leftover bandit would encourage taking other rewards early on. It is more reasonable to make it hard to bring a dead bandit back to life than killing one that is still alive.

I'm not too sure I'm fond of the idea as described - I feel it could be better if refined - but I always liked the idea of having the passive rewards from bandits visible on the tree.

Still, have a free bump. It's sad to see another thread with potential get swamped with goetzam's useless counter-arguing that's done just to try and devalue threads that point out things GGG hasn't done well. Hope this doesn't end up in the gutter when he's made others tired of arguing with him like so many other threads.

I like that, although i honestly dont care either way. The current system isnt an issue for me

I really like this idea. For most of my characters I've opted to get the skill point every time for convenience's sake. I had no idea that it was even possible to change your bandit reward. This change would be excellent for new and/or casual players.

I was thinking that maybe if it is so much of a problem for this suggested system being cheaper than the current one, you could just make it so the book that is currently used to resurrect the bandits instead automatically takes the jewels out of your character's skill tree and puts them into your inventory.
Then you could take the jewel(s) you want to change to Eramir (or whichever bandit you helped, I think Eramir would make the most sense in more situations) while the stats you don't want to change can just be put back into their slots.

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Lunchguy wrote:

I really like this idea. For most of my characters I've opted to get the skill point every time for convenience's sake. I had no idea that it was even possible to change your bandit reward. This change would be excellent for new and/or casual players.

Exactly the reason why I proposed the changes. It is unnecessary for the bandit rewards to be this complicated. They are nothing more than passive skill points after all.

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I was thinking that maybe if it is so much of a problem for this suggested system being cheaper than the current one, you could just make it so the book that is currently used to resurrect the bandits instead automatically takes the jewels out of your character's skill tree and puts them into your inventory.
Then you could take the jewel(s) you want to change to Eramir (or whichever bandit you helped, I think Eramir would make the most sense in more situations) while the stats you don't want to change can just be put back into their slots.

My reason for reducing the cost for changing the bandit rewards was because of their strength. Aside from arguably the merc rewards, they aren't stronger than regular passive skills and sure as hell aren't better than jewels. They just artificially pigeonhole a character behind a paywall. Even though the stats aren't even worth the amount of regrets compared to everything else in the game.

You COULD argue a cost or 2-4 regrets MAX. But anything more just doesn't make much sense if you look at regular passive points and jewels.

catchy title, 10/10 because i got curious.

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Cocofang wrote:

You COULD argue a cost or 2-4 regrets MAX.

from the game master point of view ggg has to see that all regret orbs that drop get used sooner or later.

if players start hoarding them in huge amounts, costs for services need to be increased. which is much better then reducing the drop rate because this way they can force a more even distribution of these orbs.

regarding the bandit jewel system: good idea to display the player's decision in the tree but it has to be something different than jewels to not confuse players.

i like the pvp element of the bandits fight and complained very often about the inconsistencies => there need to be more pvp elements in this game to prepare the player for it. as it is it comes quite unexpected (yes, it's stated is the dialog but still ...)

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vio wrote:

from the game master point of view ggg has to see that all regret orbs that drop get used sooner or later.

if players start hoarding them in huge amounts, costs for services need to be increased. which is much better then reducing the drop rate because this way they can force a more even distribution of these orbs.

Regret economy is actually a good point. However I think that consistency when it comes to value of passive points (bandit rewards vs regular passive skills) outweighs that. Besides, if bandit rewards were cheaper, you would possibly see more respecs and therefore more Regret usage, so it could balance out without affecting the economy. Time would tell.

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regarding the bandit jewel system: good idea to display the player's decision in the tree but it has to be something different than jewels to not confuse players.

I don't feel like it would cause much confusion if things would actually be explained in-game. I was just thinking "Jewels get placed in the passive tree. Hence Bandit rewards, that get also placed into the passive tree, are jewels as well."

But you could just as well brand the rewards "artifacts" or whatever, to avoid the odd confusion here and there. Both approaches have their pros and cons regarding consistency/clarity. For the sake of the general concept it wouldn't matter.

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i like the pvp element of the bandits fight and complained very often about the inconsistencies => there need to be more pvp elements in this game to prepare the player for it. as it is it comes quite unexpected (yes, it's stated is the dialog but still ...)

Well, either removing the PvP element altogether or implementing it more often are valid approaches. But I would remove the mechanic that deaths in those PvP matches count as actual deaths for the sake of death-counter and HC.

bump

I come back to this topic with a fresh experience from D3 RoS new season. I very much enjoy ability to respec my character on the spot in D3 because I can flexibly adjust my character to challenge ahead--If I go to a boss with no adds, remove AOE skills, change runes to more single target damage or just pump up my defenses for such fight.

PoE does not need such flexibility nor Bandit rewards have such huge impact than skills and runes in D3 but it would still be nice to improve on this super old rigid system that remains the same since ever.

If costs can not be reduced for whatever eason, make the respec at least easier to perform and less error prone-I can easily imagine that some poor soul pay the price and mistakenly activate the book in wrong difficulty or use wrong component.

My suggestion for respec mechanism: Let all bandits drop quest item that you can bring to NPC in Act2 town, which will initiate dialogue asking whether player want to respec. Each bandit will drop specific quest item also depenent on difficult, which than initiate appropriate respec--you kill Oak in Cruel, you change your Cruel reward to Oak's IPD. If you kill all 3 bandits in given difficulty, you get skill point.

20 regrets is not worth the measly difference one bandit choice makes. It is costly to change them so we can say "hurr durr the game is hurdcuur and everything comes with a steep price" not because it is really impactful. It is difficult for the sake of being difficult. People want it to be expensive so they can pretend it is a meaningful choice and they "had to use their brain unlike D3 casuals hue hue hue"