I have played about 35 hrs of the game so far - really like it! It’s very enjoyable. I’ve gotten to max lvl using primarily greatsword and want to try other builds, but respeccing is gated behind the crucible, and then it will take fallen embers to actually respec.
As a new player, this is frustrating because there are things with my early build that I messed up and I don’t like that I have to spend fallen embers to respec those missteps. It feels like I’m being punished for my early mistakes as well as wanting to try out new builds/weapons.
I don’t think the Fallen Ember cost is too bad, you get to reallocate multiple skill points per Fallen Ember.
But I agree that the respec statue being gated behind the Crucible midway shop is not ideal.
You can however, in the Crucible find some upgrades like “Skip straight to the shop”, so even if you have a bad build, you should be able to get there.
i said it already in one of the other countless threads about this: respec should not be possible from the start! that people think respec is necessary to “fix a broken build” or to solve a problem/difficult situation is exactly why it should not be easily accessible.
changing stats back and forth is not the only way to overcome a challenge. sometimes you maybe even need to force players to think about their problem and possible solutions, not just only press the “undo” button.
choices should matter, and clever adjustment should be rewarded.
plus the stat system is gonna go anyways at some point, so there is no real “solution” but to wait.
It’s good to hear that stats will be going away at some point.
I don’t agree that having a friendly respec system means that choices don’t matter - I understand that your playstyle is this way but not everyone prefers to play that way. This is a barrier to exploratory gameplay. Players can’t try out different builds/weapons effectively unless they just deal with their current stats. It’s not a huge ask to allow respeccing that is easier than using the crucible or creating a new character entirely. Your choices will still matter, and players that wish to respec their builds early/mid game will have an easier time. Giving players the option to test out new weapons and builds wouldn’t mean that your choices in the game matter any less.
well, i disagree. its very common in almost all RPGs i played that u can not respec at all, or you have to craft super expensive potions which mostly require endgame ingredients, and still u can vary builds, test new weapons etc. so if u want to play a mage in dark souls for example u need a new char or new game +, which also strongly promotes replayability. In skilltree based games you learned skills are oftentimes final or you need aforementioned potion.
respec should not be a “try out new build” thing in the sense of today i pump everything in STR and tomorrow i change everything again to DEX. for that you have multiple realms and characters. respec should only be for situations like: damn i did not understand weapon scaling and requirements and leveled all stats, now i am bad at everything. and that u only need endgame, if u notice earlier u can simply level in a direction u want to go.
plus, i might be wrong, but u can just use a weapon and check its runes and attack combos. if u like it, skill towards it, if not toss it or keep it for the next char.
The existance of different build options by itself promotes replayability. The need to start a new game/character is just padding.
The possibility to respec does not hinder a player to start a new game/character and have a different experience with a different build. On the other hand, respec option allows players to stay in the content range they enjoy the most and experience it in different ways without the downtime/lvling inbetween, which could be a reason to not engage with game any more.
Why is this the supperior design approach? What are the benefits?
the benefits lie in immersion and the weight of a players choices. its just immersion breaking that you feed some statue with resources and magically turn from harry potter into hulk.
and it should matter lore wise and roleplay wise what u choose to level. when u can respec anytime, why would you even think about how to invest points or what weapon to chose in this realm and with that char? whatever u do does not matter at all once u can respec from lvl 1 forward.
its very common in almost all RPGs i played that u can not respec at all, or you have to craft super expensive potions which mostly require endgame ingredients, and still u can vary builds, test new weapons etc. so if u want to play a mage in dark souls for example u need a new char or new game +, which also strongly promotes replayability. In skilltree based games you learned skills are oftentimes final or you need aforementioned potion.
Having a robust stat system - and if they are planning on removing character stats to begin with, they are probably already thinking like this - encourages players to choose and learn different weapons, runes, armour stats instead of staying with 1-2 weapons the entire game. I’m not sure that trying to pigeon-hole players into replaying the game just to freely try out new builds is the most effective way to encourage replayability; I think it actually makes it worse.
An easily accessible, low/free cost respeccing system for character stats will encourages replayability - replayability is not just about making new characters and progressing through the story again, it’s also about desiring to do so in the first place. Respeccing is already in the game as well - not only in terms of character stats but also in terms of weapons & armour stats/runes and utility runes. The game does value giving players the ability to customise their builds to their playstyle, so I’m not sure why this would be an issue. Giving the choice once the crucible is unlocked or something AND either allowing players to spend a modest amt of coins or just respeccing freely would encourage players to play the game more, not less. This is a single player/co-op game, I just don’t understand why it’s a concern here.
should not be a “try out new build” thing in the sense of today i pump everything in STR and tomorrow i change everything again to DEX. for that you have multiple realms and characters.
Why shouldn’t it? I get that in Dark Souls, stats work that way, but there are plenty of other games that don’t, and I think they are better for it. I play games like Guildwars 2 and V Rising which have very flexible character build mechanics - I love playing my own builds in these games & looking at videos of other peoples builds. I’ve replayed the main storyline of V Rising probably 5-6 times at this point with several different characters in several different servers, and I have almost 1000 hours in that game, partially because it’s an online multiplayer and majorly because I can switch between skills, weapons, etc. and respec my build to try out against PVP & PVE content. In Guildwars 2, I’ve played it for almost 2k hours with 9 different characters, all with several different classes/stories … being given the ability to freely respec my build has only encouraged replayability in these games.
A friendly respec system would champion replayability through design, not hinder or prevent it. Nothing would be taken away from players that wish to only make 1 choice for their stats and that’s it. Respeccing system already exists in the game, so they do value it and want to give players that option, my suggestion is to remove more of the gating around it.
the benefits lie in immersion and the weight of a players choices. its just immersion breaking that you feed some statue with resources and magically turn from harry potter into hulk.
I don’t understand this - you can cook/build things in a 3 second animation, store sawmills and furnaces in your inventory, and be a highly nimble dexterous character that has the muscle mass of a gorilla, but having the option to respe your stats breaks your immersion? If you only want to be Harry Potter or The Hulk exclusively, you can still do that. I don’t see how other people respeccing or just having the option in the first place breaks immersion for you.
and it should matter lore wise and roleplay wise what u choose to level. when u can respec anytime, why would you even think about how to invest points or what weapon to chose in this realm and with that char? whatever u do does not matter at all once u can respec from lvl 1 forward.
It’s up to the player to decide that. Giving players more options to control their experience is a good thing.
The fact that I can find a plagued heavy armor or a graet hammer on an archer is just as immersion breaking. At the end of the day it is a highly subjective matter what is and what is not immersion breaking.
The R in RPG usually describes whether your character will hit an enemy with a hammer or a fireball, because the rollplaying mostly extends to combat roles. And if there are quests then you can be either “bad” or “good”. This is not roleplaying. Disco Elysion would be only game I ever played that deserves that R.
NRFTW in its current state does not support any range of roleplay. There are no quests/decissions. A big sword can require Int or Str or Faith. Stats do not carry any meaning besides what weapons you can use effectively.
If I understand this correctly you speak in favor of “raw” experience, kinda “learn your lesson” way. This is a bold move and might turn away a good number of players, because unfortunately your experience depends heavily on the weapon in the hands of you character. And not all weapons are made equal.
Everyone has an individual approch, you might take whatever comes; others will spend hours on wiki or YT researching & planing; others will just drop the game because no fun.
NRFTW wants to be a difficult game, this does not mean it must be inconvenient.
there is no harm in asking why respec is behind an endgame wall, and i merely stated why it is good that it is not available at level 1. there are requirements to respec and for me personally it totally makes sense that you need to go through cerim trials to gain access to that feature.
while ledge protection has absolutely nothing to do with that. it does not influence how players approach builds, skill their char or gain loot. ledge protection is absolutely non invasive while respec from the start would be invasive. aside from the fact that it will be obsolete soon anyways, it would prevent players from actually finding solutions for problems. once u can just press a redo button players will not think about how their character forms, how their problems can be overcome by improvising or how proper upgrades and smart char building can get u access to said reset button.
respec is fine, but there should be hurdles to achieve that. it should matter how u build a char, it should matter which resources u loot, what weapons u upgrade etc.
for me just respecing a char at lvl 3, again at level 5 and again at lvl 10 and 12 by praying to a statue is immersion breaking. it makes all choices a player makes absolutely obsolete.
Freeing up the respec ability is not going to kill this game or negatively affect it any way shape or form.
This argument has no real leg in reality, and has more to do with your controlling personality.
Players are not sheep. Gameplay is not homework so that you can say: Sit down, do your work and someday it will all make sense. If someone is stuck, or simply isn’t having fun, or just wants to try something new, the ability to do so without hassle is not going to have any detrimental effects. In the scenario that you’re describing, the person will simply find out that respecing was not their problem and they need to work on something else.
And please don’t refer me to Elden Ring and other Souls game. This is a crappy practice and no matter what game does it, it doesn’t make it right or fun.
So what? Remember when I said being called “they” in my face as a male character was immersion breaking? And YOU totally dismissed the whole notion? Your immersion shouldn’t imprison other players. If it’s immersion breaking, don’t do it.
because “they” is perfectly fine english that existed even before we existed.
and i really think you should not assume anything about peoples personality. that has no place here. and adding a <3 to your post does not make it less confrontational just as a general tip for civil communication.
Yeah, the fallen ember isn’t that bad it’s just the gating behind the crucible that I don’t like. If it was just fallen embers with the statue once the crucible is unlocked, I wouldn’t have as much of an issue.
Yeah, used when the gender of the subject is unknown. Not when I’m standing here with a mountainous beard or when my character has bosoms the size of a pomelo.
Moderator, wants to gatekeep fun, has double standards when it comes to her immersion vs other’s … I’d say that’s deduction rather assumption.
Conflicting views are confrontational in essence, <3 was a sign of no ill intent. If that makes me a barbarian, then so be it. Although you’re not really giving me a tip on how to be more “civil”. You’re just saying I’m not? That’s a horrible tip. I want a refund.
well i do not have any more double standards of my own opinion as you or anyone else for that matter does. Am i not allowed to answer a question about “why is respec endgame?” with my personal reasons why it makes sense, because i am a moderator?
and how does assuming i am a “controlling personality” really forward anything? for me that just feels like confrontational provocation tbh. and that is not productive or has any relevance what so ever.
Permanently unlocking respec statue is literally 20-40 mins of doing crucible, unless you have no skill at all and cannot complete even first floor. As for the cost it is just 1-3 embers that can be collected in less than 5 minutes. What is wrong with “gamers” nowadays, how tf you survived early 2000?
You do not have to agree, but it is basic logic. If you can become anything with the press of a button then there are no meaningful choices, no consequences. Sadly modern “players” do not like to face consequences of their own actions, they would like to be rewarded for simply existing… If there is no weight behind stats then why are they even exists? And when there are no stats why do leveling even exists?
Again… how you survived till now? Diablo 1 and 2, Baldurs Gates 1 and 2, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, all those games and many many other classics had multiple permanent decisions you had to live with. And you can’t deal with even one simple decision. You still can experiment with different weapons from base stat you invested in, and for different stat weapons just create another character.
Silly me, I thought creating new character / starting the game again from the beginning is the crucial ingredient of REplaying and that REplayability is determined based on how many different experiences shaped by meaningful choices one can have during each playthrough.
But it does take away meaning from making a choice and it makes the game shallow. Similar thing happens in a lot of rpg and story driven games where you’re allowed to join every single group/guild and do every quest in the game during single playthrough. How boring and small… Why would i ever want to replay such a game?
They plan to replace the stat system only because of players like you that can’t read few lines of text explaining what each stat does before destroying their characters. Respec statue was similarly added because people cried and devs compromised by locking it behind crucible. The original vision was that you actually read tooltips explaining game systems and then make informed investment into some stat or a hybrid and try new weapons basing on that stat, not trying out to be a mage while a minute ago you were swinging a claymore.
I’ve already answered in this post what replayability is.
You think you are right, but you are wrong. Giving the ability to respec, even locked behind some mechanic encourages you to experiment with different builds on your one and only character, just respec play 10 more minutes the same content you were doing for past hour and just quit, because real endgame in this game is non existent (probably by design). Without respec you create a new character because you are curious about different playstyles and do whole campaign again.
Can i get an option for free money and crafting materials generation, cuz i don’t like gathering and selling loot. I would also like an option for game to pick a build for me and auto allocate stats and generate equipment on my character for this build for free. I could also have a use for an option that would make my character auto walk and attack when enemy is nearby… my wrists hurts so much of all this clicking.
You scoff at it as if every player is just breezing through crucibles when they’re lvl 15. It may have worked that way for you, but not for everyone. Also, it’s 2025, game design has evolved since 2000.
You’re making a moral judgment about respeccing and people who don’t meet your standards. This post isn’t about passing judgment, it’s about descriptively true feedback on a feedback forum for a game that I wish to hear my feedback.
Diablo 1, Baldurs Gates 1 and 2, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim … all games that came out around the early 2000’s … again, it’s 2025, game design has evolved since 1999. I’ve played countless games with this system as a kid, and as an adult, I have a different take for making the game better for new players. Elitists and hardcore gamers will always exist regardless, this is for the casuals and new players who don’t have game knowledge yet. If the stat system is going away, then it’s a moot point to even work on the respeccing further, and we can all be happy.
Since we’re on the topic of the early 2000’s, it’s no surprise that I was obsessed with Final Fantasy games - not only for the stories, but also because they allowed you to freely customise builds for the different characters with things like materia, junctioning, weapons, etc. as did a lot of other games where there wasn’t a fixed stat system. It’s almost like gamers like me highly value build customisation in games, even all the way back in 1999.
This is just short sighted - saying that replaying/replayability is just simply starting the game over is missing the fact that the player actually needs to want to start the game over. There are other types of players out there, and if the devs don’t want to appeal to those players, then sure, they don’t have to. They can disregard feedback from myself & people like me because we’re not hardcore gamers about this genre specifically.
Not sure how having the freedom to respec makes the game shallow. Just thinking logically about it here: the only thing I’m suggesting in this thread is to have an easily accessible respeccing system. That alone is not going to make the game shallow compared to what it is currently. And as I said in my other post, the game has a very accessible way to respec weapons & armour stats as well as utility runes, but you’re not here complaining about that? For some reason, having the ability to freely respec character stats means that the game is shallow and meaningless? I just don’t understand.
The tooltips don’t describe everything, but thank you for the assumption that the reason for supporting a respeccing system is because “people like me” are “crying” about this because we “can’t read few lines of test explaining what each stat does”. I’m glad that you perfectly understood every single mechanic in the game, all thanks to the few lines of texts in a tooltip.
It’s your prerogative not to engage with respeccing and if you know 100% which build you want and which weapon you like, go ahead. I was legitimately providing this feedback because I wanted to test out the weapons with different builds. Again, so glad that you got everything you wanted from the game; not every player did.
I’ve clarified for you. Hope that helps!
I don’t think I’m right - I have an opinion; a suggestion; feedback; and this is my perspective as someone who has played the game. If you treat respeccing that way, then that is how you play games with respeccing. For people like me, we respec our builds and fine tune them to have a more enjoyable experience and spend time exploring different types of weapons & builds that the game has to offer. Again, respeccing isn’t just about “redoing choices”, it’s also about exploring what the game has to offer. If you do that by replaying the game over and over again, great. I simply do not like doing that simply for trying out new builds. I’d rather try out new weapons & builds on my first playthrough and then if I replay the game, I’ll try it out with the build I prefer. But I’m not the type of player to even keep replaying solo games. I will when there’s co-op since I like playing with friends. I like spending time on one playthrough if I’m just solo. That doesn’t make me “less of a gamer” because I’m not playing games the same way you play them.
What do you mean by “real” endgame?
I’m not suggesting free money and crafting material generation at all - this is a false equivalency. I’m writing what is descriptively true within the context of the post, and you seem to believe that I’m implying that the game should just be entirely sandbox without any choice permanency - that everything should just be freely given to the player. I don’t understand why you come to this conclusion when the only thing I’ve posted in the feedback forum is about easily accessible respeccing. I am legitimately bewildered that people like you have this visceral reaction to anything that isn’t immediately appealing to 1337 h4rdc0re g4m3rz. I’m going to guess that now’s not a good time to start talking about how many hrs I’ve spent playing The Sims over the past 25 yrs since it first came out & how this game was appealing to me partially (maybe even largely) because you could own a house, decorate it, fix up a village, etc…
you have to challenge your char and take risks to gain exp and lvl up, you have to farm and loot to get gear, and u have to do quests and get resources to upgrade your gear. u have to kill bosses to advance the story and so on.
why should u just do absolutely nothing to respec? a feature that is so powerful it basically invalidates each perk u chose previously? find an axe yeah i lvl STR, 2 lvl later u find a wand, ok respec and pump it all in INT and so on. that is in fact quite shallow.
and u can access respec at lvl 15, its not like u are fighting lvl 30 mobs with a toothpick. u should be clever about how u face that challenge, chose your gear wisely, upgrade it, slot runes etc. and then it is absolutely no issue to reach respec. plus its a one time challenge and from then on u can freely respec each char u will ever have. so its actually easily accessible.
nobody here says that respec should not be there or should only be available when u basically did everything there is to do. the argument here is simply, that every progress is a risk reward scenario and a challenge for your character. so naturally respec should be too.
besides, there is not a single game out there i know of, that lets u freely respec your character from the start and multiple times, whenever u want. it always costs something, needs something unlocked etc. and thats just the natural psychology of games. rewards only feel rewarding if u actually did something for them. and thats not bad gamedesign, thats simply how things in games work.
and to take your own example the sims: how much fun would it be to decorate your hosue and foster your relationships, when u could just click a button and magically your whole house decor is now marble instead of wood etc? how much time would u really invest in your home if everything u do can simple be changed and upgraded with no investment? i assume that would shorten your playtime and enjoyment by quite a bit
Bro do you not see the contraction in this statement?
If it’s so easy and ultimately meaningless in the freat scheme of things, why not just make it effortless and accessible?
I am all for keeping the game challenging but this one thing is really just a pointless squabble.
Keep the cost associated, just take it out of the Crucible and make it part of the story preogression. Lies of P does it and this game is a cake walk compared to that.
just as a general tip for civil communication.