Cost to Respec Too High

First time PoE player, the game is great! However, my biggest pain point right now is this.

Logged in to play some PoE2 this morning and discovered that my build cast on freeze was nerfed. Its not as fun to play anymore since it takes 10x longer to kill simple enemies. I wanted to try a new build but can't. I am not allowed try something else because I don't have enough gold. I just spent it all to make my current cast on freeze build. Now I am stuck with a heavily nerfed build... Now I need to farm gold on a weak build, how fun.

Is there a valid reason it cost gold to respec passive points? The most enjoyable part of a game is trying out different builds and experimenting yourself to figure out fun ways to play the game. With a cost to respec passive points you are heavily incentivized to look up a guide and follow other builds because you can only respec once at a time and its not worth the risk of ruining your character and struggling for hours before you are allowed to change a few passive points.

I recommend completely removing the gold cost to respec passive points so that players can freely change their build and tune it to their liking instead of being incentivized to follow a guide. Its more enjoyable to experiment yourself.

I've never understood this "feature" and I'm not sure anyone enjoys paying to respec compared to being allowed to change their build at any time for free.

A good example of this is Wukong. Unlike other souls like games you can freely change your skills at any time. It's one of the best features in the game IMO and allows you to try different skills/builds and figure out what you like.

My friend argued that it would ruin game balance and reduce build variety. I disagree. If I had the ability to respec my build for free I wouldn't be afraid of trying something different. Even if I am using the best meta build, eventually I might get bored of it. How great it would be to try out many different builds and discover a new way to play.

Let me know what you think

the only real drawback i can think of to such an approach would be players feeling like they were missing out by not respeccing their build prior to doing certain content (ie: respeccing into more lightning res before fighting a map boss that deals high lightning damage). If this form of min-maxing became meta it would make players feel like they need to choose between doing something extremely tedious and losing a lot o player power.

In general it seems like a good idea to me though. I imagine having some cost to respec improves the game in a number of hard to notice ways but particularly in a game like this where errors in building a character can result in progression halting having the ability to more freely experiment feels like it would provide an engaging way for players to learn about the game and improve over time, an that would probably outweigh those invisible effects.

Imo lower the cost significantly, but not remove completely, at the very least for the duration of early access and constant balance changes.

100% I agree respec cost is ridiculous right now if GGG is going to be changing the balance drastically like in last night's case. At the very least they should be handing out a total respec item with every patch.

Respeccing is really important, and should be kind off easy, and not to expensive. my 2 cents

respeccing should be 100 times cheaper in the campaign ... how can you experiment otherwise?

Really enjoy PoE 2 but this respec costs are waaaaaay to high. Would like this try that or maybe something completely else but no.... You are stuck with your build and grind like mad to get enough gold to respec few skills. I like grind but not for simple respec to try things and if you are not satisfied with results you need to grind even more to respec and then rethink should I try something else or just start new char from scratch.

where our respec points? this takes much to long, i cant enjoy the game :(

I totaly agree lately i do nothing but farm gold for another respec. This is ruining my fun of the game. I am a total min maxer and I love experimenting with my build and right now i feel totally punished for it.

No just no! I really hate the "everyone should be able to do everything whenever he wants" mindset. Respeccing is already cheap making it even cheaper would completely remove every meaning out of "making a choice". It's a little like in rl, choices do have consequences and they should.