I want to love POE... please let me be a filthy casual.

"

Boem wrote:

^Because each wrong choice was actively punished in the final design it provoked me to learn what exactly was at the basis of it being a wrong choice.

If a wrong choice is not punished(= free respecs) then there is very little pressure to actually learn where the mistake came from.

But wasn't the punishment the fact the build failed, as opposed to the lack of respecs?

If a new player made (more by chance than anything, but whatever) a great build that was very successful... Then there would be no punishment, and no impulse to learn anything. Regardless of there being respecs or not.

If a new player made a build that sucked horribly and the player couldn't get past a certain point in the game... Then the punishment would be failing to get past a certain point in the game, wouldn't it? And that failure would exist with or without respecs.

Now let's say the player with the sucky build used a respec to change his entire build. If he/she still doesn't understand the game, wouldn't the new build probably be a failure as well? Wouldn't this failure punish the player, then, even with the respec being there?

"

Boem wrote:

And in therms of "meta gaming" free respecs would allow optimal leveling specs to progress and then swap over to optimal farming specs without any opportunity cost, which would influence the meta game considerably.

Now this is a good argument. I could say that this is more a matter of gear than of skill point respecs, but still, there would be an impact from being able to move from a leveling build to a farming build freely.

"

Erasculio wrote:

"

Boem wrote:

^Because each wrong choice was actively punished in the final design it provoked me to learn what exactly was at the basis of it being a wrong choice.

If a wrong choice is not punished(= free respecs) then there is very little pressure to actually learn where the mistake came from.

But wasn't the punishment the fact the build failed, as opposed to the lack of respecs?

If a new player made (more by chance than anything, but whatever) a great build that was very successful... Then there would be no punishment, and no impulse to learn anything. Regardless of there being respecs or not.

If a new player made a build that sucked horribly and the player couldn't get past a certain point in the game... Then the punishment would be failing to get past a certain point in the game, wouldn't it? And that failure would exist with or without respecs.

Now let's say the player with the sucky build used a respec to change his entire build. If he/she still doesn't understand the game, wouldn't the new build probably be a failure as well? Wouldn't this failure punish the player, then, even with the respec being there?

How is it a punishment if he has endless respecs?

Swap from shit build A to shit build B, damn build still shit => swap to shit build C, build still shit => swap to build D oh this one works \o/

Is the punishment the action of having to allocate passive points?

And i think the story line currently offers around 18 respec points per character(not accounting for regret orbs found, so probably round that off to 20 respec points?) so it's not like respeccing is entirely impossible for a player at no additional cost.
There is room to fix certain errors if the player realizes them.

Free respecs make character choices and designs "hollow" by nature. Since suddenly your choices hold no inherent value anymore.

Was anybody actually proud of a build they made in D3 for example? I played it and i didn't feel any sense of achievement from it because there was no cost associated with my build and changing it on the fly to something else.
Though that's a personal stance, but i still think "choices mater" is a good kind of pressure in these kind of games that make you value your character a lot more.

It forces out emotions, bad or good, which is a sign of involvement.

Peace,

-Boem-

"

Boem wrote:

"

Erasculio wrote:

"

Boem wrote:

^Because each wrong choice was actively punished in the final design it provoked me to learn what exactly was at the basis of it being a wrong choice.

If a wrong choice is not punished(= free respecs) then there is very little pressure to actually learn where the mistake came from.

But wasn't the punishment the fact the build failed, as opposed to the lack of respecs?

If a new player made (more by chance than anything, but whatever) a great build that was very successful... Then there would be no punishment, and no impulse to learn anything. Regardless of there being respecs or not.

If a new player made a build that sucked horribly and the player couldn't get past a certain point in the game... Then the punishment would be failing to get past a certain point in the game, wouldn't it? And that failure would exist with or without respecs.

Now let's say the player with the sucky build used a respec to change his entire build. If he/she still doesn't understand the game, wouldn't the new build probably be a failure as well? Wouldn't this failure punish the player, then, even with the respec being there?

How is it a punishment if he has endless respecs?

Swap from shit build A to shit build B, damn build still shit => swap to shit build C, build still shit => swap to build D oh this one works \o/

Is the punishment the action of having to allocate passive points?

The punishment would be failing multiple times - the "damn build still shit" moments over and over.

Switch it around; today, what would happen?

Character A, shit build. Character B, damn build still shit. Character C, build still shit. Character D, oh this one works \o/ (love this emoticon).

The punishment would then be... Making more than one character? Is this a punishment at all?

"

Boem wrote:

Was anybody actually proud of a build they made in D3 for example?

Yeah? I felt very good after making a build different from what was seen as the main "meta" there. You could probably find it, I think I used the same username on the D3 forum.

Which is funny, because we're talking about how important it is for a player to make his/her own build, learn it and be proud of it, but in the end I think a lot of people just copy whatever they see others using, and that's it :P

"

Erasculio wrote:

The punishment would then be... Making more than one character? Is this a punishment at all?

For me it isn't because i enjoy playing the game in it's entirety.(feel free to check the amount of chars i have and then adding around 50% which i deleted over time)

But having to start over from lvl 1 if a character is "bricked" is quite a significant drawback. This in itself should hold weight over people when designing and actively making character choices.

"if i don't do it better this time, i need to start from scratch again"

For me that's a valid motivation to improve myself, since i value my time and i like to be efficient with it.

I stand by my original point that actions lose significance if there is no wrong choice and if that wrong choice is devoid of punishment.(though a purely personal bias so not all that relevant)

Peace,

-Boem-

"

Boem wrote:

Kajed its really weird that you quote people underneath your responses to them.

Not really relevant to the discussion but it's kind of odd to me.
It's like getting context after a relevant answer.

Your opinion might be valid, but i still find it extremely unlikely for GGG to pull resources into this request given their design direction and available league's already.(standard being the place where people with very little available time/week can play for an endless amount to still accomplish a character design)

Peace,

-Boem-

Just to make you feel better... and I don't know... I understand the comment on my quoting, I guess because I feel like the text in my own reply comes first and the quote is more of the footnote? I'm weird.

"

Boem wrote:

And in therms of "meta gaming" free respecs would allow optimal leveling specs to progress and then swap over to optimal farming specs without any opportunity cost, which would influence the meta game considerably.
At the moment there is a choice to be made when leveling and competing in the ladder and the "eventual build" is an active component of making a good start design of your character.

This might be irrelevant for you and players like the OP, but it is very relevant for the competitive aspect of the game.

Peace,

-Boem-

The meta gaming aspect is probably why the OP would prefer to see this sort of thing as its own league rather than introduced to any of the current leagues. That way the most influence on the meta it has is allowing much quicker fine-tuning, and if that league doesn't have access to new stuff on Temp leagues then optimization requiring something from the temp leagues isn't going to be available.

Although I suppose there could be a compromise: If instead of (or in addition to) getting single respec points, there was one or two full respecs available through quests then that would be helpful to more people while still not getting into the whole new league territory.

Or maybe if there was a system where the game remembered your last 10 points spent and then you could roll those back all at once to pick new passives through certain quests.

"

KAJed wrote:

Just to make you feel better... and I don't know... I understand the comment on my quoting, I guess because I feel like the text in my own reply comes first and the quote is more of the footnote? I'm weird.

It is generally better to provide context for what one is about to say when on forums like this as opposed to written papers where such context would get in the way of the whole thing and thus footnotes get used.

^I have actually already proposed a "one time full respec" upon beating normal difficulty in the past.

I don't have a problem with such an approach though i would only limit it to normal for really newby players and it would still be a one-time thing per char.

Though with the upcoming FoO expansion that option will disappear since there will be no more difficulty's.

But to be fair, the overall 20 available respec points you gain by questing already accomplish a similar task.(addressing small screw-ups)

Peace,

-Boem-

"

The meta gaming aspect is probably why the OP would prefer to see this sort of thing as its own league rather than introduced to any of the current leagues. That way the most influence on the meta it has is allowing much quicker fine-tuning, and if that league doesn't have access to new stuff on Temp leagues then optimization requiring something from the temp leagues isn't going to be available.

Thing is meta changes come with a reset already.

And I don't really see a big issue here, leveling actually is really fast, say you can only play 3 hours a week, this still gives you a endgame character every once in a while.

And you get a total of 24 respec points right now, which is more than enough to fix issues with your build. The thing is with having this as a ressource people are actually encouraged to not just randomly apply passivs until it works. PoE is a complex game without getting some knowledge or accumulate a lot of experience it won't work. It doesn't need a high time investment though, if you have the knowledge you can play very efficiently. But if you are never willing to put in the initial effort to learn a few things about the game than this is simply not the right game for those people.

"

KAJed wrote:

I WANT to love this game again. I WANT to play this game again. I simply do not have the time to play it the way the hardcore community does.

In before: qq

No need to worry, you will play endgame t9 rare yellow maps oneshotting everything.

Or like some blockes told me.. you gotta throw currency in order to sustain t14 t15 maps. Its hardcore way of playing - throwing lots of cash on sextants+chaosing+chisel+ bloodlines.

Solo self found league - kind of hardcore version of playing. With crappy gear clearing t9 maps with ease. Or crafting end game gear after that.

So, not sure what you mean by hardcore but these are the only options so far...