I have no interest in further addressing any of your points since I think what needs to be said has already been said, but I'm curious about this -
Originally Posted by Gyson
And a single poorly implemented respec option partway through the game doesn't change that.
What's poorly implemented about it? Haven't used it, so I'm curious what all the problems are. I know about the loss of all learned skills.
Well, you've hit on it. When you respec you lose your skills/spells. Combined with the RNG-based itemization, you can potentially (and permanently) lose skills that you won't find again, even if you only want to make changes unrelated to those skills (getting rid of points spent in crafting, for example, or a particular school line that you're unhappy with). It's an overly harsh setup for a system that leaves players so at the mercy of complete randomness.
