This will be true for game launch as well as subsequent seasons.
I. Why respec cost is bad in the beginning:
- It actively discourages experimentation.
- Your build changes depending on item drops along your journey.
- Makes leveling experience feel restrictive rather than impactful.
Allow free respec at least up to lv50. Let players properly weigh their options unhindered before making a “permanent” decision.
II. Why respec cost is bad for endgame:
- There are 5 classes, each with numerous build variations.
- Different builds are good for different content (dungeons, world bosses, etc.)
- There are softcore, hardcore, seasonal softcore, seasonal hardcore.
- There are 10 character slots.
Am I supposed to only play 1~2 classes? I want to play them all with all their different builds and actually keep them in my roster/storage. Remove (or minimize) respec costs, and add in D3 Armory mechanic to enable quick swap between builds.
III. What is the purpose of respec cost?
- Make skill point allocation feel more weighty?
This reason alone is not enough to offset the above problems. Devs were tricked by people with D2 nostalgia goggles. Old systems are not always good for modern games. Attention spans are shorter now, and there are plenty of other games to play instead (unlike D2 times). Reconsider this outdated system.
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Right now it cost near nothing to respect with the amount of money you make. I agree the cost need to be low until you get to the end of the skill tree.
When a game is good and early game enjoyable, I love restarting and doing different builds, like in Grimdawn. Not sure about D4, but at least you unlock extra skills points and aspects for new characters, that mean if you restart with the same class, you can have a different experience right from the start.
It all depend if you can bypass the main story with new characters and enjoy a free ride. That could make restarting a fun and new experience.
But true, I hate the character slot limit, that kill the idea to create a new character with a different build! That stupid (or greedy, because don’t worry you will be able to buy character slots!).
Big problem right now, lot of skills/builds are trash with boss, that really push you to respect depending of the content. They need to rework skills/bosses mechanics to allow more diverse builds, or allow free respect + loadout tab so you don’t get stuck on a useless build.
If they are able to make diverse builds enjoyable, give more character slots, I don’t mind lvl 50+ character respect costing a good chunk of money. Otherwise, it will lead to lot of frustration.
EDIT : I think dev and people forget that in a good hack&slash, the leveling is a core experience. It’s not about consuming content and finish the game. D3 is dead because there is no reason to replay it. It’s 200% dependent of seasons. It’s consume content then leave.
D2, Titan Quest, Grimdawn, Torchlight 2… don’t have seasons but they offer near unlimited replayablity because it’s fun and engaging to start and build new characters ! That’s what devs (or activision) never understood with D3.
The costs in the beta really werent high. Actually rather low to be honest, I used it a lot to test different builds and I never ran out of gold. I guess the whole system is part of a way to get rid of some generated gold and keep inflation in check?
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Due to the nature of the current state of the game, where you literally swap around better rare and legendary items in mere minutes, and you adjust your skills toward those items, for this reason the skill respec cost need to go away!
I only played Mage so I can tell you my experience with that class. But I spent a LOT of money just to remove skill points from one skill and add them to another because I found gear items adding extra points to that (new) skill. I did this at least… half a dozen times during the beta playtime.
BTW, first I didn’t even notice there is a cost. So I was fiddling around adding removing, nah lets do it back, ok no Wipe everything and start over… then I saw in the popup it costs a lot to refund all… I was like WTF I thought its free! Dude that was a facepalm moment right there. 
Sure, when its end game and you only search for certain gear, its negligible change. But still, its a penalty more like than cost.
IT needs to go!
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The whole point of a hack&slash game is to hunt gear that help your build, not build around what you loot. You get it backward. If you get legendaries / aspects that doesn’t help your build, you’ll use them later in a new character. That’s the core gameplay loop lol and why some games are still played today
Nah, when you get a god-tier item, you can totally build your spec around that. In Beta I wanted to try all kinds of builds with my Sorc, so I tried fire build, ice build, lightning build, pet build, and changed my specs around constantly.
The costs weren’t too much so it wasn’t bad early game, but I felt like it was a completely needless annoyance.
probably not that big of a deal that you make it out to be.