Feedback for a PoE 2 Respec system

Hi! After watching Zizaran’s interview with Jonathan and Hrishi, I thought of giving some feedback on the question of respecing in PoE 2 in the form of this Respec System.

It aims to:
- offer players a lot of leeway for experimentation early on.
- keep passive skill choices relatively impactful.
- reduce the reliance on build guides.
- integrate the system seamlessly into the PoE 2 story and world.
- improve the overall new player experience.



The players are first introduced to the system when they encounter a new NPC around Act 3, similar to how players encounter league-specific NPCs in PoE 1. This NPC is looking to hire the players to procure samples from Rare monsters that have been infected by the Seed of Corruption. The NPC will randomly mark several previously visited zones on the World Screen where these monsters are located.

* I chose Act 3 since it’s easy enough to reach while offering a decent pool of previously visited areas to select from.
** The infected Rare monsters should be visually distinct.
*** The monsters being located in previously visited zones will ensure the players can complete the content even with a broken build.

Once the players reach the marked areas, they need to find the Rare monsters, kill them, and gather the samples. After turning in all the samples, the NPC will reward the players with a Tome of Regrets which will grant a full passive skill tree respec.

* The infected Rare monsters should not be marked on the minimap in order to make them harder to find.
** The NPC could ask the players to fully clear the marked areas instead (like in the Fetid Pool quest in Act 1 of PoE 1).
*** The players should not be able to have more than one Tome of Regrets / full passive skill tree respec at any one time.
**** The Tome of Regrets could instead give a certain number of respec points instead of a full respec, but then it would be harder to stop the players from hoarding respec points for later use.

The players should be able to repeat this process any time they need to respec during the campaign, but at the end of the campaign, the NPC either leaves or dies in the final battle, leaving behind one last Tome of Regrets for the players (if they don’t already have one). From this point onwards, the players would not be able to acquire any new Tomes of Regrets.



Some Q&A meant to explain the place I’m coming from when creating this system:

Q: What kind of player are you?
A: I’m a pretty casual player. I’ve played almost every league since Legion but I usually don’t engage with the top tier of endgame (Uber Bosses, Juiced Maps, etc.). I usually stop after reaching Red Maps or after killing some of the bosses.

Q: Why do you think PoE 2 needs an easier way to respec early on?
A: Because I think for inexperienced or new players to PoE or the action RPG genre, it is pretty difficult to visualize the impact a passive skill will have on their character even when the text is straightforward. Seeing in practice how it affects their character will make it much easier for them to understand the intricacies of said skill and their character as a whole.

Here’s the interview mentioned above:
https://youtu.be/RskRFwgoQ5g?si=g20dtxLenC3_PGuH&t=1849

What do you guys think? Is my system any good? How would you improve it? What type of Respec option do you prefer?

Before I get into my differences, it is a well thought out idea and something I can see working well!

1) Act 3...I know you gave your reasoning but you are giving it based on Act 3 in PoE 1, as well as from an experienced player standpoint. Just so you know, Act 3 USED to be the FINAL act in PoE 1. Who's to say PoE 2 is going to have anything remotely similar to PoE 1 in terms of acts and progression? Hard to give particulars about this, but I'd rather you think in terms of level progression or timeframe: how long should the player be playing the game before being offered a reset? at what level / % of maximum level? It might actually be BETTER for the respec to happen LATER rather than earlier, because at earlier stages...it most likely will cause more confusion rather than help. Thinking about the NEW player experience: they don't even know whether they have made mistakes before the 50s/60s/early mapping....

2. Earlier experimentation can lead to greater frustration. Experimentation is fun and a major part of the game....but it REALLY isn't something people engage in unless they have a firm foundational understanding that they might not have on their first few runthroughs. Rather, experimentation in the form of totally NEW characters should be the starting point; mid-range experimentation within the SAME character should be a more advanced tactic and should be provided later in the storyline. If you have very little idea of what you are doing, and are willy nilly switching things around every few levels throughout your whole playthrough...you end up learning almost nothing.

3. I find it silly that you would need to defeat monsters on your possibly scuffed build....in order to fix that build to kill monsters? I get that's how regrets work in the current game, but I always thought that a full respec should just simply be GIVEN to the player, rather than "earned" through a monster event. It just doesn't make sense when you think about the reward.

Very good points. A system like this needs testing before any of the variables are set. My underlying idea with this system is that it still needs to punish the player for messing up their build by making them complete what is effectively a chore. It is inspired by my experience with the lab (which I hate with all my heart).

And on the point of having to kill monsters with a broken build in order to fix the build to kill more monsters, you are right, it is a bit silly. But I struggle to find another activity players could do instead since PoE is so focused on killing monsters. And having the infected monsters spawn only in areas already visited will hopefully ensure players can handle the monsters there since they did it before.

I don't understand what's supposed to be wrong with the current system, honestly, but a couple of things:

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Spark480 wrote:

The players should be able to repeat this process any time they need to respec during the campaign, but at the end of the campaign, the NPC either leaves or dies in the final battle, leaving behind one last Tome of Regrets for the players (if they don’t already have one). From this point onwards, the players would not be able to acquire any new Tomes of Regrets.

What is the advantage of removing the ability to earn respecs, especially right as the game starts insisting on builds being more optimised? Surely if it's desirable for players to be able to earn these points at level 40 it's still desirable at level 70 (numbers roughly illustrative only, obviously).

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Spark480 wrote:

My underlying idea with this system is that it still needs to punish the player for messing up their build by making them complete what is effectively a chore.

I think if a game designer - someone who makes entertainment products hoping people voluntarily spend their leisure time on them - ever finds themself planning to put things in their game that are intended to be a 'chore', they should probably question why they chose that field. Insisting players need 'punishment' for not understanding the game is a bit like a teacher punishing a kid for not understanding a concept - except here your player may not even be a kid, so it's infantalising on top of being an abrogation of responsibility. There is inherent 'punishment' in their character not working very well, no need to pile on.

If this is intended to be a resource on a drip feed to avoid stockpiling, I'd consider just literally putting it on a drip feed. Have some NPCs at camp who you can direct to go do jobs for you in the background (advancing time when you pass a level, for example), have one come back with a respec item every so often.

^The only defense I can think of for ceasing respecs at a certain point is that it would force the creation of a new character. Artificial replayability. I don't really consider that a negative, its very much in line with non-D3/D4 games. Biggest problem I had with D3 character building was that once I built a single barbarian....there was no need to EVER build a new one because I could just switch all my stats and skills at will. I think this is the other extreme and poses its own negatives.

Some happy middle ground is necessary: allow respecs, but limit them so that building new characters from scratch is still enticing and worthwhile.

As for the punishment thing, there is something to be said about having to do an additional task. Maybe "punishment" simply isn't the right word. Think about it this way:
1) In school, you get a bad grade: In PoE, your character performs poorly
2) In school, to rectify or make up for the bad grade a teacher will give you an alternate assignment or a makeup assignment: In PoE, you are required to DO something extra to fix your character.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

^The only defense I can think of for ceasing respecs at a certain point is that it would force the creation of a new character. Artificial replayability. I don't really consider that a negative, its very much in line with non-D3/D4 games. Biggest problem I had with D3 character building was that once I built a single barbarian....there was no need to EVER build a new one because I could just switch all my stats and skills at will. I think this is the other extreme and poses its own negatives.

Yeah, this is precisely why D3 fell off for me too - one character is literally the same as any other. I played it through once as each class and then the appeal was largely gone.

But the very fact that POE has this giant skilltree that I've spent so much time planning out and developing means they could make respec points a completely unlimited resource and I would still rarely use any of them, still make new characters all the time, and they'd still feel unique. I don't want to respecialise my characters, so I don't need it to be impossible to do (if other people can respec easily, that's not affecting me, go for it). I just don't want it to feel like this character and that character are only a triviality apart.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

As for the punishment thing, there is something to be said about having to do an additional task. Maybe "punishment" simply isn't the right word. Think about it this way:
1) In school, you get a bad grade: In PoE, your character performs poorly
2) In school, to rectify or make up for the bad grade a teacher will give you an alternate assignment or a makeup assignment: In PoE, you are required to DO something extra to fix your character.

Assignments are not unrelated "do something" busywork though, they're direct opportunities to allow you to demonstrate the particular skills being assessed. If the skill being assessed is to select passive skills in sensible and synergistic ways, then the demonstration of that skill is in allocating points on the tree, and nothing else. So the 'assignment' should be literally "here are the points to have another go".

As I see it, making players go kill a monster to earn points to spend on the tree is not akin to giving them an alternate assignment, it's akin to making them solve an unrelated puzzle to earn one sentence worth of ink to slightly refill the pen they need to use to write the answer. It's an irrelevance that isn't improving the test of their skill, just delaying it.

Oh!

An alternate thought struck me. Even though planning your passives is the skill (or rather, one of them), Path of Exile's actual tests are...monsters. So in that sense it's okay to treat killing a monster as the overarching goal. But in that case it shouldn't come first (a way to earn points to allocate), it should be last - the final exam. Not really a serious suggestion but it's interesting to think about as I don't think I've seen a game do that - make respecialising trivial but make you pass a boss fight to 'lock it in' :)

That's definitely interesting. Sort of like a testing dummy that...can actually kill you lol.

Only problem with that setup is that you can be in an endless loop, forever trapped there trying to reroll without success lol! That would be HILARIOUS.

"Help I can't progress past the test dummy!"

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

I think if a game designer - someone who makes entertainment products hoping people voluntarily spend their leisure time on them - ever finds themself planning to put things in their game that are intended to be a 'chore', they should probably question why they chose that field. Insisting players need 'punishment' for not understanding the game is a bit like a teacher punishing a kid for not understanding a concept - except here your player may not even be a kid, so it's infantalising on top of being an abrogation of responsibility. There is inherent 'punishment' in their character not working very well, no need to pile on.

I think "chore" was a poor choice of words on my part. It is like jsuslak313 said, an extra assignment you have to do for messing something up. And the system is not supposed to pile on punishment, but the opposite. It is supposed to offer a lesser punishment than what is currently in the game: maybe 10-15 minutes of backtracking, and hunting for some mobs instead of starting your character from scratch.