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→Diablo II Respecs
::'''Bashiok:''' We don't plan to have full resets, they'll be per-skill (if it goes as currently planned), and we don't plan to allow them to be easily obtained. Probably similar to the Diablo II 1.13 respecs a couple will be easy, or granted through quest rewards, but the idea is to involve some amount of rarity, cost, something. What that balance will shake out to mean... I don't know.
===Respecs and Replayability===
One of the main arguments against respecs, or at least against free/easy respecs, is that they will hurt replayability. As the argument goes, instead of players making new characters and trying out whole different play styles, they'll just reset their character and switch around their skills, whenever a new build becomes popular, or a patch changes existing skills.
Against that the pro-respecs people argue that many players don't have time or interest to reroll a character from scratch. Thus they stop playing, or keep playing their gimped character and don't like it. Whereas if they could just change that character's skills around, they'd be much happier.
Bashiok delved deeply into this debate with a long series of forum posts in September 2010. His arguments are not necessarily those of the rest of the Diablo II developers, but he's clearly been a witness to many internal team discussions about this issue, so we can take his logic as somewhat representative of that of the [[D3 Team]]. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/runestones-deserve-more-respecs/]
::'''Amount of skills in Diablo III, with all player runestone variants included, is currently topping 700. That's about 140 rune combo's per class! neat!
'''Bashiok: '''It's staggering really, even to me still. Those are all unique in their visuals too, which is important to note. Sure some of them may be simple color shifts but most of them are unique mechanics with completely unique visual effects. It's crazy. Big up to our effects guys.
::''I know, I was thinking about that too.. and this is why I cant even fathom how some people think 10 characters will be enough!!! Did they even PLAY diablo2
'''Bashiok: '''Explain please. With respecs and runes being swappable, how does that necessitate a ton of character slots?
::''Your own words say that respecing will be very limited.. if I want to make a new character with a different spec Ill eventually need to be deleting characters (Pretty quickly may I add) at a 10 limit.
'''Bashiok: '''Actually, on that note, who ever said there was a 10 character limit? Not to say that's wrong but, I'm guessing Jay threw out a number somewheres? Also you're quoting me from how long ago? Those seem like very old quotes. Have you played Diablo II 1.13? We added a respec system. See how that works and you'll get an idea of how we think we'd like it to work for Diablo III.
::''Yes, I did play that and it contradicts completely everything stated thus far for Diablo3 respecs.
'''Bashiok: '''Nuh uh!
::''Complete character wipe
'''Bashiok: '''Ok you got me there, but that was just for implementations-sake. The way the trees work in Diablo II you can't have pointed resets. But we can with how the skill system is set up in Diablo III.
::''Very easy to obtain, not rare or valuable at all.
'''Bashiok: '''Well that's just balance.
::''I also do not like that because it essentially cuts the replayability of Diablo2 down sharply.
'''Bashiok: '''It cuts down replayability in the sense that you don't need to roll a new character when you want to try a different build. And yes, it absolutely does that, and ... that's the point of having respecs... I mean part of it is giving people an out if they screwed up and bought the wrong skill or something, but the main reason is so you can play around with your character and not have to start a completely new one just to try a variant out.
::''If respecs happened when Diablo2 came out I doubt anybody would be playing anymore.
'''Bashiok: '''Potentially. But I would argue that it's about the items, the randomness of the drops, and the character builds are simply a means to roll the dice more effectively, and use them in more effective ways.
::''You don't need to make a new character and level it, find new gear for another character or do any of these things.. if youre now saying Diablo3 respecing could be like this.. well.. im pretty worried.
'''Bashiok: '''Why are you worried?
::''Well you say it should be rare, then you say how they were put in Diablo2.. Which was my whole point about that. A contradiction of balance
'''Bashiok: '''Oh I was referring to the method of obtaining them. It's one we like. But yeah people steam rolling bosses in Diablo II means the drop rate was probably set too high.
::''Yes, it cuts down on a major part of gameplay which is why I do not like full easily obtained respecs
'''Bashiok: '''We don't plan to have full resets, they'll be per-skill (if it goes as currently planned), and we don't plan to allow them to be easily obtained. Probably similar to the Diablo II 1.13 respecs a couple will be easy, or granted through quest rewards, but the idea is to involve some amount of rarity, cost, something. What that balance will shake out to mean... I don't know.
::''And when you only need one set of gear (Since most characters use the same gear regardless of build on Diablo2) for a character you can respec at a whim you will min/max much quicker and will need too roll said dice of item finding a lot less.
'''Bashiok: '''That's a lot of assumptions about how things will work. Let's wait a while and talk about it when these assumptions have defined rebuttals. I could counter your assumptions with our hopes and dreams but that doesn't mean much, IMO. [/BLUE]
Since that time the team has revealed that characters will only get up to seven [[skills]] at a time in Diablo III. And since none of them have pre-requisites, stripping all the points out of a few of them and investing those into other skills seems like a fairly easy change. That's not all that will be required to remake a character, though. And it's the other aspects of respecing a character that make it clear that most players will have more than one character of a given class.
One or two skills respecing might not greatly change a character, and it will be fun just to throw max points into a new skill just to see what it looks like. But to do a full on character remake, switching out of your main skills to different skills that support an entirely different play style, will be a big deal.
What steps would be required to remake a high level character, one specialized for a particular type of play style?
# Respec skill(s).
# Obtain new [[runestones]] to grant the desired bonus effects to your new skills.
# Respec supporting [[traits]].
# Change [[weapons]] and [[armor]] to match the new play style.
# Change socketed [[gems]] to match new play style.
# Change the [[charms]] in your [[talisman]] to match new play style.
When you consider all that, it might be easier to just make a second character in the desired style, so you could play both of them right after each other, perhaps with some equipment overlap, easily enabled via the [[shared stash]].
::'''''in.Diablo.d3: '''If you could only change one thing from D2 to make D3. What would be the thing?
::'''Jay Wilson: '''*happy and eager* I already did it. Respecs. My design team worked with the D2 patch guys. We highly encouraged it, they did the work.
==Diablo I Respecs==
