Why do game devs punish players for experimenting

[raidR]

When i removed some points from a skill because i didnt like how it played and wanted to try something else i noticed that the entire skill decreases in level and u have to relevel the skill. Why the ♥♥♥♥ would u do that?
Just let my respec the skill to try something else, i really dont get why game devs continue to put these stupid mechanics in games. Why punish the player for trying something else out, i dont get it?

[Demesis]

Ya, I'm not a fan of this current system as well. All it does is make me stick to the same familiar set of skills all the time with no desire to try out any of the others. In a way, it feels incredibly limiting, which is a shame considering the game offers so much possibility for experimentation.

Imo, it would've been better if they added a special "reserve slot" that allows you to save a single skill there. You can then experiment with another skill in its place and if you don't like it, swap back to the original skill without losing its levels. This would give more incentives for us to play around with other skills while still preventing players from abusing the system and constantly swapping builds for specific encounters. It would be a good compromise I feel.

[raidR]

Originally posted by Demesis:

Ya, I'm not a fan of this current system as well. All it does is make me stick to the same familiar set of skills all the time with no desire to try out any of the others. In a way, it feels incredibly limiting, which is a shame considering the game offers so much possibility for experimentation.

Imo, it would've been better if they added a special "reserve slot" that allows you to save a single skill there. You can then experiment with another skill in its place and if you don't like it, swap back to the original skill without losing its levels. This would give more incentives for us to play around with other skills while still preventing players from abusing the system and constantly swapping builds for specific encounters. It would be a good compromise I feel.

I personally would just make it free and give back all the points so players can switch whenever they like. Sure you could abuse the system like u said but its a single player game, when the player want to abuse they will no matter what. I think Diablo 3 does this best, you can swap however you like.

[Snarl]

I realize this does not solve the problem however if it helps I believe the new skill may both start at a higher level and level up fairly quick depending on your level.

[BurnedCrisis]

To be fair it doesnt take that long to relevel a new skill since you get boosted exp

[Demesis]

It's true that at higher levels, skills will level up slightly faster, but I still find the system a little clunky and doesn't quite work all that well. Sometimes, I just want to try a new skill (like when the devs release something new in a patch) without the need to completely replace my current ones. It can be a pain to level a new skill all the way to 20, find out it suck, replace it back with the old one and having to re-level that again to 20. It's such a weird system.

As mentioned in my comment earlier, giving the ability to save at least one skill whenever you swap it out would make the system flow so much better and open up more room to play around with other skills.

[Miyokari]

Originally posted by raidR:

Originally posted by Demesis:

Ya, I'm not a fan of this current system as well. All it does is make me stick to the same familiar set of skills all the time with no desire to try out any of the others. In a way, it feels incredibly limiting, which is a shame considering the game offers so much possibility for experimentation.

Imo, it would've been better if they added a special "reserve slot" that allows you to save a single skill there. You can then experiment with another skill in its place and if you don't like it, swap back to the original skill without losing its levels. This would give more incentives for us to play around with other skills while still preventing players from abusing the system and constantly swapping builds for specific encounters. It would be a good compromise I feel.

I personally would just make it free and give back all the points so players can switch whenever they like. Sure you could abuse the system like u said but its a single player game, when the player want to abuse they will no matter what. I think Diablo 3 does this best, you can swap however you like.

Multiplayer is on the way though

[Silverfisk]

Swapping points should be free. Just dont let players switch skills while in combat. Heck you can even limit it to being in a city. That way it will not be that easy to abuse.

Most likely you will want to use different skillsets for PVE, PVE COOP and PVP.
The way it works now you need mulitiple characters for that. You can't go relevel skills just because your friends show up and want to party..

[(CMD)Bioxx]

I completely disagree. Diablo 3 operated like this and was a much worse game for it in my opinion. Allowing free instant respecs to full power means there's no permanence to your choices and it's not THAT hard to re-level a skill.

[Fate]

I don't mind it at all Doesn't take long to max out once again. At least you don't have to roll a new character, which I also don't mind doing. There's going to be editors out there in the future to mess around with your character in single player.

I do hope in the future you can "Master" Your skills, such as get them to lvl 21 and it'll be a huge investment to do so

[Reaver79]

Sounds like someone needs a tissue..

[Pahbi]

I guess the overall idea isn't bad, but the relevel boost could be a lot stronger imo.

[Cat]

Originally posted by (CMD)Bioxx:

I completely disagree. Diablo 3 operated like this and was a much worse game for it in my opinion. Allowing free instant respecs to full power means there's no permanence to your choices and it's not THAT hard to re-level a skill.

The problem with D3 is the limited depth in player choice and customisation; not whatever "permanence" crap you are talking about.

In D3 you just pick the meta set and look up something like Icy Veins for the best filler pieces for your remaining slots and Kanai's Cube, and this isn't the case for Last Epoch as is.

If you enjoy the masochism involved in having a build be completely ruined just because you decided to try a new build for the sake of experimentation, please, go back to PoE rather than bring that ♥♥♥♥ here.

[Senf]

It's a taste thing. I think LE strikes a good balance between rewarding you for thinking ahead and not overly punishing you for mistakes.

There is no absolute best system. Leveling, progression, endgame, different players and games value them differently.

[Demesis]

Originally posted by Senf:

It's a taste thing. I think LE strikes a good balance between rewarding you for thinking ahead and not overly punishing you for mistakes.

There is no absolute best system. Leveling, progression, endgame, different players and games value them differently.

It's not so much about thinking ahead though. The problem with the current system is that it encourages you to stick to the same set of skills all the time and punishes you for trying out new things. It makes the game kinda stale after awhile.

It's kinda like playing an mmo with only one character slot, and if you level a warrior all the way to 100 and decide to give the mage a try, you have to delete your warrior and re-level him all over again if you decide to go back.

Maybe some people like that, but I personally don't see the appeal and find it restrictive and unnecessarily time consuming. I mean, I can live with it and I'm still enjoying the game, but I feel the game can offer so much more if they refined the system a little and open more room to play around.

[ling.speed]

It takes like 5-15 minutes to get the skill levels back, tell that to mmo players that need to invest dozens of hours to try new build.

The reason for LE to have the skill experiance system is to encourage, yes ENCOURAGE many build styles. Because many skills are garbage when you initially try them, especially with old gear, other skills or playstyle. So to not fall on build guides, one has to take just as much time to tweak other things around as it is to level the skill up while figuring it out.

It would be much easier to misjudge a skill if respecs were free like in D3 (even LE veterans can misjudge a skill as bad till proven otherwise by being forced to play it for few days in tourneys). And looking the other way, if skills were hard to respec like in D2 we'd be having our builds figured out before naming the character (so even worse in context of self expression in builds).

Campagin is a little different. But if anyone is struggling after switching a skill around there are bigger issues than being down few skill levels. Like lack of proper gear or passives to support it, wrong playstyle or support skills etc.

In a way it feels like devs are trying to tell us: " If it feels punishing to switch skills you are not ready to respec yet. " with this kind of system. Which is a good idea in principle, but very tricky to get right (as we see here).

One place where i'd agree it sucks is when you finally get that one speciall skill node you waited for and it turns out to be trash (for whatever reason). But at this point we want to have cake and eat it too. Like exploring builds on your own and looking up guides. Or have feeling of permanence AND free get out of jail card.

I kind of like the 6th skill slot idea (by Demesis), but then even more people would comment on how stupid it is not to have 6 active skills... so it's gonna be half eaten cake no matter what.