An suggestion/compromise for the Passive Tree Respecs (with pic)

The player would incur an experience debt for every skill point refunded, up to a full level worth of experience debt for a full respec.

Those would be the default "respeccing" as opposed to "refunds" which are free and comes with orbs or quest rewards. Default respec would be right clicking perhaps? The button at the top remains for spending Orbs of Regret.

I have illustrated what could be the popup when the player points at the marker/tick on the experience bar.

Conveniently, the exp. bar is visible during editing of the passive tree: each time the player right clicks to "cancel" a passive node, the marker will move to the right (perhaps with a small visual effect to make it more obvious?).

The cost may seem small to some? I only suggest to make it 1:1 because it's easier for the player to evaluate the time it will take to "grind" the respec cost. But the scale could be different...


Cons:

* XP debt is not very original.

* You are not forced to recreate a new character: let's keep in mind when the game goes public, there is always an influx of new players. And players create new characters to play different classes, and different leagues.


Pros:

* XP debt is very easy to understand. Players are familiar with this idea.

* The player pays the cost which makes the choices more meaningful, but he pays after respeccing. And so he is never stopped "dead in its tracks" by the Orbs of Regret prerequisite.

* The prerequisite for Orbs is removed, but the Orbs, allowing a totally free respec, are still advantageous, and still worth trading.

* The player can change his mind freely at low levels, when the debt is cleared quickly. He soon understands that he must be very careful at high levels, since experience from level to level is not linear.

To limit the experience penalty, it is still better to plan the build. And if doing a large respec, it is still useful to plan it and "payback" all at once rather than spend points haphazardly which would continually set one's progress back.

* It is possible, especially at lower levels, to test and learn the mechanics with direct visual feedback ingame, without a great penalty. Since the exp debt will cap at 100% of the level, and that level worth of experience won't take too long to clear.

* The more casual player like me who doesn't have the patience to restart new characters and doesn't have the time to level up so many characters can continue playing his favourite character, he'll just payback the cost and resume levelling at some point. He keeps playing and getting loot meaningful to the level he reached.

* GGG can opt to sell Orbs of Regret. I don't think this would be considered an advantage? It is in a sense, but I've noticed players are quite happy if they know they can get the equivalent with some more time spent in game. The player who doesn't want the exp penalty and doesn't have the orbs, can buy them.


Thank you.

I think this is a very good idea for respec. I could say something more but you already listed all the pros, so I can´t say more than you already wrote. The best pro is this I think:

"

DeF46 wrote:

* It is possible, especially at lower levels, to test and learn the mechanics with direct visual feedback ingame, without a great penalty. Since the exp debt will cap at 100% of the level, and that level worth of experience won't take too long to clear.

I think there's a big con you're missing:

This can be abused by high level players (level 100) who can easily afford an "exp debt" and remake their character from scratch.

Exp-debt is fine for characters below 75, but after that - no way. If you can't figure out your build by level 75 you should start over. Sorry, but I don't want the meta/end game being about people respeccing to the flavor of the month build, even if they have to grind a little bit to do it. I'd prefer if they were forced to pay up with orbs and such, because at least there's economical interaction there and not simply the issue of having to grind.

By FORCING the use of orbs late game, you're putting a hard limit on the amount of respeccing that can happen among end-game players to the supply of available orbs.

You're right.

Though I was thinking it would take forever to get to level 100. In that scenario, respeccing would keep you from levelling to 100 for a long long time, since a full respec would set you back one (extremely long) level. Actually even just a few points, in a hypothetical extremely long level 99, say, would set you back many hours of play.

I have no idea what they have in mind though about the level progression. Just a guess that max level will take forever, as you can flesh out a decent character already by level 70+

It's definitely not a great idea, I admit :) I posted it as a starting point here for discussion.

Chances are GGG already considered and dismissed this idea, as it's quite obvious.

I don't think it's so obvious they've dismissed this idea. They're probably reluctant to go with the idea, but if they've read this thread I'm sure they'll consider it as an option.

I'm not a professional game designer, but I balance a fairly popular source engine mod in my free time, and I often don't comment on threads directly relating to balance suggestions, mostly because I can't really say more than, "I'll think about it." Which isn't something people really want to hear. The truth is, all a designer can do is think about it, try some things they'd rather try first, then go ahead with an idea that might work. This idea might work -

but that's assuming there EVEN IS a problem. Because I think once this game goes live, sure, people will want to respec initially, but I think most of them will slowly figure out what to do instead of respeccing, which is either work with the build they've got, go orb hunting, or reroll. All of which I think won't deter them from giving up on the game - if they do not support POE, it will be for other reasons.

I guess I don't see the urgency in respeccing a level <50 character, because you can grind to 50 in under a week, even if you're a casual player. Part of this game is finding out what the best build is for you, and respeccing feels like it takes the fun out of the game. But maybe that's just me.

I mean, I played WOW from release until '06 or so, and I actually liked the power of the respec there, but back then, grinding to 60 took at least a month or so, even if you were semi-hardcore (I guess a fully hardcore player could do it in 2 weeks back then, but they'd be pulling some all-night grinds). The investment isn't as severe in POE. And really, there wasn't much fun to be had in coming up with builds for WOW; only 3 ways to play your class, at most.

Have to say I really like the OP's idea. It also adds a fair bit of longevity to the game w/o being unfair.

Currently I think respecs are to punitive & sparse. Very unforgiving when considering it is very possible to make a build which simply isn't viable in later difficulties. Dashing whatever effort a player put into their character.

I think the Orb of Regret is fine for a respec. I do not think that this is a game for respec at all, and I think it would lost a LOT of its charm if one was added.

The only change I would make is a confirmation button for changes just in case you clicked the wrong thing.

I think the idea is interesting but I agree with johnnysd, orbs of regret are enough. Although I wouldn't mind seeing their value come down slightly, just to make it slightly less punishing.

16 respec points as well as orbs of regret is already enough.

I promise that a higher level character can fully respec himself in the time it would take to get back a single level of experience via accumulating wealth and just buying 80 orbs of regret.

Yeah something I didn't account for is that come Open Beta Orbs of Regret might be much more common currency...

Anyway I have restarted a Ranger since crying about this issue.. this game takes a while getting used to. It's like all these oldschool insta death platformers that have become all the rage since a couple years.

Things will be better when we the passive skill "calculator" actually calculates stuff like good estimates for HP, DR% and CTE, instead of just previewing the spent points.