Lacking a respec would absolutely make “online research to min/max” more prevalent; what are you talking about. 

It's not just the "correct" build but you may discover that your playstyle works better with different options. Respec helps fix is your guess wrong for YOUR preferences too.

Yeah, that was one thing I hated about Diablo 2. I love experimenting with builds, and being unable to respec when you screw up your build only to be forced to make a new character and go through everything all over again is terrible game design.

To be quite honest, I think respecs should be required if you can’t get everything. Some of the most fun I’ve had are experimenting with different builds, and being forced to go through the whole progression progress all over again just to try a different build is terrible and can be a complete turn-off on a game.

So, there’s this LPer I watch, and he did Valdis Story: Abyssal City. He was playing it blind, and he’s never played a game where you have to “build” characters before. So when he went adjusting the stats of his characters, he did what he thought was most sensible at the time: Balancing his stats.

No respec killed my first Diablo II character. I got to Diablo only to realize that I was terribly underpowered by picking one of everything instead of prioritizing something.

I don’t want perfect builds either. I think New Vegas does a good job of offering players many possible builds. Some are harder than others, but you beat the game using most builds. But if a game forces you into one of three builds, that sucks too! 

So long as the game’s designers included a reasonably painless way to respec, I am completely OK with not being able to unlock every perk in the tree. But when games fail to provide that? Horrible. I’m at a point in my life where I really don’t want to replay content just to do a build “correctly”. 

“failed to provide a safe and secure environment” for the participants, among other complaints.

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This is why i shake my head at those who say streamers “have no real job” or “have it easy.” Streaming can be, and usually is, incredibly mentally and emotionally draining. In most cases, say goodbye to your social life, any hobbies outside of it, and physical health. You stream for 8-10 hours a day, and there’s a…

Sure. Those are the days where they can spend even more time demanding their streamer slave entertains them.

I browse through the store fairly regularly (I wanna say twice a month). So I suppose yes we do exist?

Giving these moments strong, purposeful contexts. Plenty of stories tackle abuse or sexual trauma in ways that are both shocking but nevertheless empathetic. I don’t think Cage’s stories manage that, unfortunately.

Oh how soon you forget how women fighters in Battlefield 1 ruined the game’s realism.

Women fought in WW II.

This is established historical fact.

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Steps to learning any Paradox 4X game.

Hopefully they’ll learn from what worked/didn’t work in Europa Universalis: Rome from a decade ago.

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I agree, but “whatabout”-ing at the very start of your comment made my eye twitch.