Am I wrong though? The Spirit Guide is one avenue for spending bits and is more important while levelling, it also serves a purpose as of now for Aether Crystals other than crafting them into Shards for a small handful of components that use them. If it becomes free, Aether Crystals becomes close to useless.
To sum up the thread and my stance personally - I’m in the camp of “don’t try to fix a problem that doesn’t exist”.
Thing is, it’s not a real sink. It’s only prohibitive to those still learning the game which artificially makes the game harder than it should be. The existence of a cost on respeccing does not have any impact on the “iron bit economy” of endgame.
Only for Devotions, and you could remove the Iron cost but keep the Crystal cost thereof.
Well, it clearly does exist for some. That’s why we keep seeing this thread over the years. 
How are aether chrystals useless besides devotion respeccing? They are used a lot in crafting high level components, and although easy to farm they still get used up quite frequently.
If this is the case then I could just as easily turn the question around and ask again why does anything need to change? You are right that it’s not a sink even though I mentioned it’s a way to spend bits in my earlier post. Everyone gets plenty of bits so where is the problem? Is there a need for the Spirit Guide to change?
I don’t know about you but this is a topic I have almost never seen, and even then, it does not give an accurate idea of how many people have had the problem and if it is enough to make any change.
If every time 5 or 10 people have a problem, I don’t discount that they should be heard out first but should we make every change that they ask for?
You’re right, i forgot they’re used in a lot of standard component crafts as well. I’m so used to just making them on a dime that I forget nowadays 
LOL. Everyone was “learnig the game”, and everyone was spending some of the money to respec every now and then, but somehow no one died because of that? I mean, it starts at 50 bits per point! And it doesn’t skyrocket for a very long time. Respeccing 100 points will cost you maybe 20k bits, and you can make this amount of money in a few minutes. How hard and punishing can it be? No one knows, apparently.
Don’t know where you’ve been.
If you click those and read through you’ll find that, long ago, I had been an opponent of reducing or removing respec costs too. It’s only recently that my opinion has swapped because I’ve put more thought into it.
Back in the day people frowned on the idea of resetting attributes, alleging that those are things that “should be a core character choice.” Now we have Tonics of Reshaping (or is that the Devotion one? I always get them confused).
You are I are conversing in a thread created by someone who clearly thinks so.
But I already addressed this in my first post:
I can agree on some things being streamlined like respeccing attributes as I restarted quite a few new characters as a new player over it and later on installed Grim Dawn Defiler as a solution until Ashes of Malmouth became available.
But I don’t think making the Spirit Guide free is something that really needs streamlining, I suppose you and i can agree to disagree with each other in this case.
Make all faction gear free! It punishes new players to pay $ for gear they earned by building rep with factions! I put myself in harm’s way for them and that’s how they repay me? And those experience potions at 20k each? The nerve of these people!
XP pots are 40k, no?
Oh my goodness gracious, I was robbed blind all that time!
But yeah, thanks for correcting me. Was probably thinking of something else (or just stupid).
I agree the spirit guide should be completely free, but spec’ing out of a mastery shouldn’t be allowed (if that is such a big deal the player can just use a tool). It disproportionately affects players who are either new or don’t have much time to play/create more characters.
The respec function is too important to a new players experience to be restrictive. I’ve seen players not even realise respec costs iron until they blew all their iron only to then accidentally leave the menu and not be able to undo.
Faction gear is actually extremely cheap relative to a green item from a regular vendor, presumably purely to enhance new player experience. Perfect parity is not required, only a good reason to justify inconsistency, and there is one here imo.
Why should it be free? Sahdina’s gotta make a living too you know. And she gives her life to save DC. Least you can do is give her a few iron bits now and again so she can eat.
And if you think buying back points is expensive in GD you should try TQ; ranks up into the millions with that game iirc. 
Not the game’s fault. Should probably read the info provided on screen. But I see it’s a recurring problem nowadays, so maybe I’m asking too much ::shrugs::
it costs like nothing to respec in the beginning, how is this a hindrance for new players unless they respec too much compared to the amount they are looting?
first 20pts cost 25bits each
next 20pts cost 50bits each
next 20pts cost 100bits each
next 20pts cost 150bits each
next 20pts cost 200bits each
next 20pts cost 300bits each
next 20pts cost 400bits each
next 20pts cost 500bits each
next 20pts cost 750bits each
next 20pts cost 1000bits each
next 20pts cost 1250bits each
making a total respec of 200pts only cost 84500bits - which is less than a full kit of faction gear costs at lvl 35
please tell me how this is “too expensive” and “unreasonable” a cost to bear for a new player? - you can easily respec a lot and try every single skill and still have money left over
you have to respec an absurd degree, more than trying every skill in your class, to reach a point where the price is untenable - and that’s only if you don’t loot/sell stuff (or keep respeccing to an even more absurd degree after that)
Make sure you understand what it can be like for a new player. Lots of things can be unintuitive in this game unless you have familiarity or experience; FoI being an energy hog but the intensify node being dirt cheap, cooldown skills like Horn of Gandarr being abysmal for damage, missing information like lightning tether hitting more than once per second etc.
It is quite easy for new players to fall into these various traps that are misleading or yield very small value, and feel frustrated when they realise afterwards.
And when a new player has close to 0 iron because they bought a green item from a vendor, or was crafting gear. It is too much.
Why is lvl 65 FG faction gear as cheap as a random lvl ~20 yellow item sold from a vendor? Lets not pretend like iron costs in this game are balanced or logical.
Being new doesn’t mean you are blind and incapable of rationally reaching decisions. You can see what you can afford and can’t afford.
Furthermore, it is insanely easy to amass well over 100k-200k iron by the time you are around level 30.
Money is not an issue.
Have to agree with this.
Grim Dawn is not newbie friendly. Infact, I’d argue that it is one of the hardest games of its kind to get into. Hell, I have no idea how half the game works even now (though to be fair, running around not paying attention to what is happening onscreen isn’t the best way to learn how the game works…).
And while it can be rewarding once the player passes that initial stage of confusion and dare I say, frustration, it is also understandable that not everyone might want to bother with that and decide to simply quit.
Regarding the Spirit Guide, I have personally never had the problem mostly because I went straight to GDStash and downloaded it first before even installing the game after initially quitting back before AoM because I tried to make a Hybrid Pet Pyromancer with Rifle work and got frustrated because it didn’t, prompting me to decide to simply cheat my way through the thing instead.
Then… I fell in love with pet builds and yeah…
But, while I can understand people not wanting to have respec’ing come with a cost and wouldn’t mind if it was changed to be free, I would have considered not being able to choose a different mastery once you make your choice, to be more bothersome 
Well, it was made clear in the Kickstarter that the game isn’t really for casual players.
“Finally, we have a long-standing passion and commitment to making this a hardcore ARPG for PC, guided by the best of old school design principles.”
That said, I think expectations have changed over the years and more people think they should be able to chop and change on one character rather than starting a new one to try out different things.
Agree, but new players can easily be overwhelmed by UI elements and features in a game. You can’t make a rational decision without awareness. Plenty of players also get tired and impatient by the time consuming process of buying/selling at the vendor, some leave it for later even if their inventory is full.
100k, sure. That can only buy 2-3 greens from a vendor though, so it isn’t too hard to lose it without realising. Even if the cost were to be noticed then 1 misclick outside the vendor window and then you find selling the bought item only restores 700-1000 iron.
Is the average player hardcore? I’m not so sure. The game also doesn’t need to have such hardcore aspects from the start, like the cost of greens from vendors I mention, better to introduce them more gradually instead imo. Perhaps the cost could be removed only for normal?
You realize you are trying to justify noobies making noobie mistakes, right? Like misclicks, and trying to use this as the basis of your argument for… whatever it is you think you are arguing for?
This is part of playing a game and learning. If they fuck up, too bad. They’ve now learned to pay better attention. Good for them.
Crate can’t be expected to foresee and prevent or allow for all noob fuckups. It honestly sounds like you are nitpicking exceedingly minor and petty circumstances here. Honestly if I was Crate and this was the best argument that could be mustered to do away with respec costs, I wouldn’t be swayed at all.
If anything it would be more of an argument to have a confirmation button pop up before exiting any sales.