Respeccing a character - suggestion for improvement

[EvilVik]

I couldn't find another post mentioning this, so here goes:

 

Leveling up several levels for a character is quite the tedious task. Let's say you want to respec Aloth to optimize his spell selection at lvl 18 because you got just the right grimoire for the job. 

 

That's screen after screen after screen after screen of clicking through the same pages for every level. 

 

I would much prefer to have all abilities/talents/choices pooled up, smartly "locked" to the minimum tier you need to place them (so you don't go all in on high level abilities), but handle it all on one screen for abilities/spells and then one screen for the skills. 

 

My 2 cents

 

 

[Ghilteras]

I think the whole respec experience needs a major overhaul as you cannot even change classes so if you fumble your choice when a new char joins you are screwed forever which makes NO sense. Also many times you end up respeccing just to change a weapon specialization you want after you got a powerful weapon, for which paying the cost seems dumb. I don't know, I honestly cannot find a single thing I like about this respec experience. I'd rather see it changed _completely_ to be honest. PoE 1 had a better experience and so have the other crpg out there from numenera to tyranny. Was this really the best they could come up with? I really wish they would give players more freedom.. Swapping party and inventory between benched and active members is also traumatically painful..

[Crucis]

I couldn't find another post mentioning this, so here goes:

 

Leveling up several levels for a character is quite the tedious task. Let's say you want to respec Aloth to optimize his spell selection at lvl 18 because you got just the right grimoire for the job. 

 

That's screen after screen after screen after screen of clicking through the same pages for every level. 

 

I would much prefer to have all abilities/talents/choices pooled up, smartly "locked" to the minimum tier you need to place them (so you don't go all in on high level abilities), but handle it all on one screen for abilities/spells and then one screen for the skills. 

 

My 2 cents

 

I think that the part of the problem is that you have all these abilities that are linked to various levels.  You just can't give the player, say, 18 levels of skill points, ability points, and weapon proficiency points and let them loose to choose what they want willy nilly.   They still have to obey the ability level limitations when they're selecting abilities.

 

Beyond that, I think that there's a super obvious reason why respeccing is done the way it is.  They already have a system for leveling up.  Why should they create a second one for respeccing when all they have to do is just reuse the already existing system?  I sure wouldn't.  It seems like a waste of time and effort to reinvent the wheel.

 

OTOH, what I don't like with the leveling up process that does exist is the ability tree's graphical presentation.  I hate it with a passion.  I prefer the old POE1 text based version.  I hate wasting time having to hover my cursor over every freakin' ability icon to get the name associated with that ability circle.  Drives me nuts every time I have to use it.  The written word is SOOOOOO damned much easier to use than a bunch of useless picture icons.

[flyingsaucers]

Also [PSA for those who don't know it] respeccing the Watcher can trigger a bug that erases his Watcher abilities and the skills/abilities you learn from NPC's, so yeah, I'd say respeccing needs to be looked at. I guess Watcher abilities are pretty useless anyway but I'd still like to have mine back.