Respec
Respec is slang for respecialisation and refers to a game feature that allows players to partially or completely reallocate the points they have spent in various skills, 'talents', 'attributes', 'feats' or other character values. Most modern RPGs (including World of Warcraft) have respecs of some kind.
Respeccing in Diablo 3 will allow players to reallocate the points they have placed in individual skills, thus allowing players to change the focus of a character, or try out different skills.
Respecs were not allowed in Diablo 2 until the feature was added in the v1.13 patch.
Diablo III Respecs
The Diablo 3 designers have committed to including some form of respecs in the game, though the precise mechanism remains to be determined. Game Director Jay Wilson has said [1] that respecs will be one of the main gold sinks in Diablo 3, but no other details are yet finalized.
Jay again confirmed respecs in an October 2009 interview, but declined to give any more details. [2]
- Diii.net: Respecs. Cost, gold mechanism, any specifics?
- Jay Wilson: We will have respecs. We haven’t determined the mechanism yet, but we’re definitely trying to do something different than a wholesale pay a token price and get all your skills back. We want to have a higher price than that.
Diablo 3 Community Manager Bashiok described their design concept behind respecs in BlizzCast #13, in February 2010. [3]
- We’re still working on the respec system for Diablo III. For those who haven’t seen the Diablo II 1.13 patch the respec system in there, which is still on the PTRs by the way (or maybe not), is you can get three different respecs by completing the Den of Evil quests and then any additional ones beyond that by picking up item drops from bosses and using the horadric cube to combine them.
- For Diablo III we don’t have it really nailed down yet but some of the main points we do want to hit are that it’s more than just a gold cost for changing your mind. Although that will be a major component of it. That it’s targeted for specific skills so you’re not resetting your entire skill tree, but you’re able to target specific skills to reset those ones specifically. To also scale the cost of respecing so early on in the game it’s cheaper and easier to respec and as you go farther into the game it will be harder and more expensive.
- And all of those things together make it a very challenging system to implement, hitting all of those notes. And those are all pie in the sky, I guess, hopefuls for the respec system we may not get all of them in. We don’t have any specifics on what the actual respec system will have but those are sort of what we’re shooting for and of course it’s all up in the air still.
Bashiok again spoke on respecs in September 2010.
- 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.
Diablo II Respecs
In Diablo II, prior to v1.13, characters could not alter any of their attribute or skill points after they were initially placed. Not even a single point, just to fix a mis-click.
This change to D2 was largely instigated by the Diablo 3 developers, and Jay Wilson stated during an interview in August 2010. [4]
- 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
In Diablo I spell levels were gained by reading books, and higher level spells were always better (aside from a bug with Mana Shield in earlier versions, and potential sprite limits with Chain Lighting). There was therefore no need for respecs, and they weren't anything any player ever wanted or thought about.
