Coming soon, the Respec “System.”
Posted 13 July 2011 by FluxSince Bashiok’s now-infamous statement that all systems would be revealed before the 
Diablo III beta test begins, we fans have been wondering what their time frame was for those reveals, what systems were going to be revealed, and what exactly constituted a “system.”
We know that most/all of Diablo III’s Battle.net systems are going to be revealed at the media event towards the end of this month, and it was widely-hoped/assumed that those would be the last of the systems, and that with them out of the way the beta might begin shortly. As we learned yesterday, that’s apparently not true, and there will still be systems to reveal after August 1st. (On the brighter side, apparently the Demon Hunter‘s Hatred resource will also be revealed at the press event later this month.)
Today brings more news about systems, with the surprising (to me) revelation that respecs are considered a system, and that we’re going to learn about them fairly soon.
Bashiok: We’re going to be ready to share a bit more on this real soon.
So what do you guys think we’ll see for respecs in Diablo III? I hadn’t really considered that a “system” since it seems like it’ll be something fairly simple, along the lines of what they added into Diablo II in the recent patch. I assume it’ll be something like: we get one full skill and two full trait resets per difficulty level, plus you can buy or earn other respecs with some sort of quest.
Simple enough, but even if that’s all they do, I guess they’ll still need to explain the particulars. And you know we’re not going to get full details about the quest or special item that enables respecs, since it’ll be some late game thing and SECRET!
I would be happy if they design a respec system that does not involve questing (like it was in D2). I agree that there should be a respec system but I don’t think it should come easy. There must be a cost behind of it or even a difficult of finding some rare “ingredient” (potion of amnesia?
).
Agreed. I think there SHOULD be a way to respec, but it should be later in the game, and make it something you will have to save up for, or hunt for certain reagents for.
in WoW (sorry, had to go there) the respec eventually was the cost of about 50g. It might be different now, but in the beginning that was alot of gold to fork over. When Cata hit, I was specing and respecing daily just to screw around. So yes, I too hope that there is a little labor to the respec and they keep with it so that it means something special.
I really liked the way Titan Quest handled respecs. By making it a per point deal and increasing the cost (to a limit) by a factor of two after every skill point refunded it made it possible for new characters to try out lots of skills, while making it costly in long run theoretically. Sadly the cost limit was a little too low IMHO, so it was relatively cheap even for high level characters too. This could be easily changed in D3 though, and I think the system itself is sound.
There has to be a free/cheap respec way, way early in the game, right around the time you get your 7th skill. You don’t want to force people to rush/hoard points if they plan a build that only uses tier 5-7 skills.
Well hopefully they still have those scrolls that let you unlearn a skill point, cause those would help people change their character slightly over time.
I think, 1 full respec for completing normal, and one for completing hightmare. Oh, and the ability to redo your last spent trait or skill at any time except for lvl 60.
Thats it.
Enough for mistakes and some experimentation, but not overdone so that it removes the need for creating new characters.
And of course free respecs for major patches like in WOW.
WOW WOW WOW! wow…..
wow….
Unless I missed something, I was wondering the same thing. He just said it’ll be revealed soon. Presumably, even when all the “systems” are revealed there’ll still be LOTS of smaller details we won’t know about until we actually play through the game. I hope!!
Who’s calling respecs a “system” other than Flux? All Bashiok said was that we’d get more information on it soon – not that it counted as a “system”.
Well anything that’s in the game is a system if you want to split hairs about it. Take dyes, they are a system of coloring your character. How about the windows that you open to look at your character’s stats or gear, that is a system as well.
I don’t think it will be a reset like Diablo 2 was if it is being called a “system”.
It seems like it’s going to be something you can always change, with an increasing cost associated with making that change. A ramp-up system that encourages early respeccing but becomes very disadvantageous later on (a “might as well start a new char” sort of disadvantage) seems likely.
Not sure how it would actually work though, as you have to take into account how many skill points you’ve spent into a skill, and the 7 skill cap means you can’t just “take a few points from this skill and throw it into that skill” because once you hit 7 skills you’ll have to unlearn one of them and that might ramp the cost up fairly quickly, especially if you’ve put 15 points into it later on. This might encourage point hoarding, though I’m going to assume the system isn’t to redesign your entire character at a whim rather than fix mistakes or make builds more efficient, there’s always single player to test things out.
I think yovargas is talking about this above, but I can’t find where it’s said that they will talk about the DH resource system at the press event (or that it’s called Hatred). Source?
Incidentally, are the comments and replies messed up right now? Sounds like YV is replying to someone whose post isn’t here, and there’s a noticeable lack of treeing in the comments…
Definitely messed up – the Forum/Blues tracker tabs at the top right. The white background makes them hard to read.
PPS – WTF on the “Solvemedia” thing. I’m logged in, and I’m a Site Pal, why do I have to jump this (clumsy advertising) hoop?
… And no edit function on posts now? :/
I prefer respecs to be something easily obtainable. If not, it could lead to point hoarding and that’s no fun. I think the game would be more fun if respecing was made easy since people would feel free to experiment and try new things, even in the early stage of the game. Instead of planning about how your toon will be once it hits 60, you can try to spec it to be fun to play at say level 10 w/o worrying about it costing you down the road.
Also, sometimes, a spec may not play as well as you had hoped and you don’t want to be stuck with that build for a long time. If respecing was difficult, I think everyone would gravitate towards cookie cutter builds because they are proven to be viable and rarely anyone would want to take a chance at being different in case they get stuck playing a bad build.
Look at guild wars, you can just respec once your in town, so your one toon could be very versatile and you can play so many different builds in a short amount of time.
Respec in WoW is cool because it allows you to be a healer, dps, tank easily. It can get repetitive playing the same thing over and over again or if you’re stuck with a bad build.
Yes, there should be a cost in respecing but I don’t think it should be something that you have to wait for or something that is overly difficult to obtain.
It might even make repeat dungeon runs more fun. Try build A , switch to build B and try again, that in itself would make it feel different.
Oh and I don’t see the need to make it so prohibitive that you’re having to decide whether it’s worth it to respec or just start reroll your profession. Starting from scratch is often tedious. If I wanted to start over, I’d rather choose a new profession entirely.
I may not be reading much into it… but… Where is it called a System per se?
So perhaps the reveal will be something more along the lines of “Customization System” or something or “Endgame” or whatever which includes certain specifics about respecs… BUT that doesn’t mean that the Respec is a system by itself… Hell, it could even be part of the “Vendors” system or the “Towns”… Or maybe part of the “Skills and Talents” system?