It's going to come up sometime so I wanted to beat the holiday rush.
Respecs...we all know we're going to need 'em so we might as well hammer out the rough details. How do we want them to work?
Personally I HATED most of the CoH respec trials. By level 24 you've either deleted a bad toon or they might be terribly broken. So then you had to call for a Trial. If nobody else wanted to run it then you had to...without knowing how they worked. The Reactor of Fail was a demonstration in boredom and several guys with high Regen getting damage badges standing in the reactor.
CO gives out a few free respecs like CoH did, mainly when sets are changed in some way, plus a few freebies scattered about. However many respecs can be avoided by training in the Powerhouse and testing your powers before you leave. Anything you don't like you can swap for free.
I also hated that a respec was an all or nothing deal. You couldn't just remove the last power you took or move 1 slot, you had to rebuild the WHOLE character. Like I said...PITA.
I would like to attempt to include the following in the final version of CoT:
1 free respec at level 20 for all characters. No trial, a short mission arc that is more of a walk-through as to how the respec process works and you're done.
Every time you level, you can train at any normal Trainer for convenience or you can go to the Titan City Training Center (tm). At the TCTC you can train up, test your powers, adjust the colors of powers and animations, etc.
A repeatable arc that lets you respec your last five levels. This would be an actual challenge and any and all participants can use the respec at the end. This does not become available until level 20.
IMHO the idea that you can test powers and swap the ones you don't like before finalizing the choice makes respecs at early levels less necessary. By level 20 you might NEED a total rebuild or simply want one. The repeatable arc allows you to dabble with a build idea, test it out and if it doesn't work you can tear it out without rebuilding the whole character.
The floor is open for discussion and civil debate *runs and hides*
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
How about this?
What if you earned "free" respecs simply by leveling? Something like 1 free respec for every 10 Levels earned.
Ah ... but what happens when you hit the Level Cap? How are you supposed to keep earning Respecs then?
Simple.
Instead of earning "zero" XP at the Level Cap, you basically throw any XP you would have been earning into a "respec pool" and once you've earned the Level Cap Level Up x10, you earn another "free" respec. So if the Level Cap is 30, just earn 10x the amount of XP that the Level Up Formula would assign for going from 30 to 31 if the Level Cap at 30 were not present. That then earns you a respec token, which you can pick up from a Trainer by "cashing in" your "respec pool" earnings. Note that any XP diverted into the "respec pool" by playing at the Level Cap is not "banked" for Level Up advancement should the Level Cap ever be raised, so that there isn't any "hoarding" of XP in anticipation of raising the Level Cap.
That would take care of the "free" respecs option, and would make earning them essentially a repeatable goal of continuing to play the game, even once the Level Cap has been reached (thus giving Players "something to do" once they reach the Level Cap). I'd recommend that any "free" respecs earned every 10 Levels on the way up to the Level Cap be Bind On Pickup, and thus locked to that character ... but that any "free" respecs earned by the x10 XP "cash in" at a Trainer when Level Capped by bound to the account, rather than to the character, allowing such freebies to be "twinked" to alts on your account, thereby creating an opportunity for Supply And Demand within an individual Player's account.
Respec tokens could also be sold through the cash shop for a nominal fee (think like $3-5) and those tokens would NOT be Bind On Pickup, and thus could be traded in the in-game marketplace. This would then turn such tokens into a commodity. If using the subscriptions discount business model I outlined [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/35169#comment-35169]here[/url], all you'd need to do for subscriptions would be to put a cooldown timer on how fast respec tokens could be purchased at a discount (1 per 2 weeks?) while leaving the option to purchase tokens at full price (for "real" money) unlimited ... and making the discounted tokens be bound to the account and thus not tradeable, while the full price tokens are not bound and thus tradeable.
As for having a Respec Trial ... I have to agree with Positron on this point. The whole purpose of a respec is to get rid of a build that isn't working for you (or simply isn't what you want), so forcing you to USE a potentially broken build (especially if it is a badly broken build) to clear a high hurdle in order to be ABLE to respec is in a lot of ways counterproductive. This problem gets compounded if the Respec Trial is "hard" enough that a chance for failure is a significant factor to be considered ... because a "trial" that isn't a challenge just becomes a grind chore, while a "trial" that actually IS a challenge potentially becomes a barrier (rather than an achievement) to being able to get out of a really bad build. A Respec Trial that is actually a "trial" then becomes a reward for the HAVES and a punishment for the HAVE NOTS, effectively reversing the reward structure from what is most needed ... which is a challenge for the HAVES and a "go through the motions" formality for the HAVE NOTS so that the latter can escape from a broken build.
For this reason I'm quite leery of there being any sort of Respec Trial in City of Titans, and think that the better option would be to NOT recreate any kind of [b]Terrible Volta[/b] experience or content.
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Personally, I am against the whole "earning of respecs", especially after playing other MMO's out there.
WoW for example lets you respec at (effectively) any time, and all you have to do is spend some ingame cash to do so.
Guild Wars/Guild Wars 2, to respec your traits, you just pay in game cash as well (although the usage of a couple of "manuals" (which allow you to spend more points into your traits will reset them as well). You can swap in and out *skills* though whenever you are out of combat.
Wildstar is planning to do something similar to Guild Wars 2. You can swap skills in and out whenever you want. To respec your *AMPS* though (think passive/active trait trees), you have to spend ingame cash to do so.
Tabula Rasa you just needed to trade in some tokens which you got from defeating mobs at Control Points (I forget how many you needed), and then you could get a respec token.
I have nothing against "do a mission/series of mission to get a *free* respec token", even better if it is repeatable (once per week token gain though?). But the problem with CoX was that any choice that you made was *very* hard to sort out, so the more flexible you can be before you are committed to making a permanent choice would make it better.
Considering leveling speed, 1 respec per 10 in not unreasonable. So by lvl 10 if you like the toon's background, friends and so forth then respec them and move on. However if you find the first ten levels go fast just reroll.
I see your point with regards to a respec trial possibly being unfair due to the fact that a broken toon makes it all the more difficult to run one. However there will always be some form of haves and have-nots unless you just give out respecs free all the time. For example: A player gets to 20 (under either of our ideas) and does a respec for free. By level 25 they've somehow managed to do something wrong and they want to do another respec. If there is no recourse other than buying one at the store (assuming they can't earn one on another toon) then we're forcing them to spend real money for a simple respec. Even if they get another free one at 30 they may make their character a mess in ten levels, making it difficult to even finish ten levels without help. Then again, if they have help, why can't they just do a trial?
The other recourse is to spend Inf earned in-game to do respecs similar to how CO does it. This might be a good option since you can do it any time, it acts as a money sink at any level (a respec for a 50 should be pricey) and it's easier (presumably) to simply send cash to a character from alts than it is to send earned respec tokens.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
For the record, Star Trek Online awards a respec every 10 levels if you're a subscriber.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
What if instead of tying it to levels, the respecs were given out at certain intervals in time? Maybe allowing them stack, too, at least up to three. Let's say every the 1st in a month, a free respec is granted. You need more? Well, some ingame way to get a respec would be nice. If CoT goes with the whole merits thing for doing pretty much anything like Coh did, i'd say it should be a moderately priced merit reward. Or et one from the cash shop. Might be a little on the underhanded side, but if someone really wants a respec, and have spare money, well... why not?
Locking it behind difficult content is a bad plan, but CoH already showed why. So Terror Volta was toned down and became a boring trial. I wouldn't mind having things in game directly award a respec, though. I'm sure there's some way to plug a respec into the story. Or not, just allow people to make up their own.
I like the concept here. Similar to what CoH did with their vet-specs, but available to all players, regardless of how long they've played, simply based on how much work they've done with that particular character.
The original plan of the Trials in CoH as the only way to get a respec... ... how they thought that was a good idea boggles the mind.
I wouldn't mind something similar a Terra Volta trial, just as long as it's not the planned way of getting a respec.
Which is why I set up a route to putting unbound respec tokens on the market so that they can be bought with INF. All that would mean then is that such tokens were bought with Real Money by SOMEONE ... not necessarily the Player who winds up using the token. Unbound respec tokens thus represent a real money cash flow stream via cash shop for Missing Worlds Media, but because they can be traded as commodities on an in-game exchange, they can effectively be bought using only in-game currency if desired. Supply and demand then determines the INF exchange rate that these tokens sell for without requiring an intervention in the market by Missing Worlds Media, creating an entirely player run exchange rate.
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If you're keying that to Time Played then all you're doing is giving people an incentive to go AFK (not recommended). If you set it to being something awarded on a specific calendar day, then you wind up creating "surges" in the ebb and flow of availability that can produce some really weird/perverse incentives such that people get encouraged to "game the system" simply because this aspect of it is predictable in a way that affects everyone.
It is true however that ANY repeatable purchase of tokens (and this includes reward packs and the like) NEEDS to be somehow time limited if Real Money is not getting spent. That way, if you pony up some cash to Missing Worlds Media you aren't limited in how many tokens you can buy at once (and MWM has every incentive to create "buy in bulk" package deals) because you will have, quite literally, Paid For The Privilege. But if you're able to "buy" tokens on a discount (up to and including "free" because the discount is 100%) then there needs to be some sort of Cooldown on making such purchases so that you don't wind up with a market flooding of supply that completely satisfies demand such that no one ever wants to (or needs to) spend real money in the cash shop.
Closest thing you can get to this would be to make respec tokens available through [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Merit_Rewards]Merit Rewards[/url] or something similar. Point being, it's fine to make respec tokens available as a result of doing/completing content in some form or fashion. My XP x10 At Level Cap idea just basically makes this more egalitarian, in that doing ANY content advances you along such a path, rather than it being something awarded for doing THIS content rather than THAT content thanks to variables in the Merit Rewards multipliers (including a x0 multiplier for doing content that awards no Merits at all).
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I'd say have a way in game to spend in game currency (a good way to money sink) and purchase retcon/respect token for a full retcon/respect in the cash shop. Just remember to make them cheap enough in the cash shop as to be worth purchasing.
In CO for instance, if I want to do a retcon, I buy 8-10 keys, sell them in the Auction House and then just do a in game currency retcon. It's just cheaper that way, than buying the retcon token.
I think that when you level up you get 1 hour of gameplay to go back to the trainer and change your mind.
This gives you enough time to use the new power or slot allocation and decide on if you like it. You run around attacking good/bad people, doing a mish or three and by then should know if you want it or not.
If not head back to the trainer and say "Umm yeah Power T doesnt really suit my style. Can you show me something else?"
Also different types of Respecs.
A Whole Character respec (including Secondary/Spec as hinted by some of the Devs).
A single slot move
A single power - Minor change (number of slots allocated do not change)
A single power - Major change (includes the slots allocated can be moved)
etc
Also maybe a way to combine them. I have 3 Single Slot tokens I can combine them into a Single Power (Minor) token???
I would also like there to be a way to "upload" my build from a Mids-type external program/app.
Again after respecing I have 1 hour of gameplay to confirm my choice. If I dont make it to a trainer within the hour my new build is locked in.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
I think this thread raises the question of "Cash shop or no cash shop?". If the game is going to have a cash shop at all, I gotta believe that respec tokens will be an item you can buy. If that's true, I gotta believe that a respec would be fairly difficult to acquire outside of the cash shop option. Okay, so if there is a cash shop, I'd expect the respec to be a type of thing you can only get a finite number of without spending money, and I'd expect it to be a reward for some kind of Trial or TF. Whether or not that really has to be group content as opposed to soloable content is another question.
If there is no cash shop, then any type of vet reward or XP-based respec earning would work, I suppose. I also think just making it a thing you can get for Influence (or whatever we're calling it) would be fine too.
For me, even if the game is going to be subscription-only, I still don't think a cash shop is necessarily a bad idea. I was paying for VIP on CoH and I still bought stuff from the cash shop anyway. I know it bothered some people, especially the Magic-card-esque Superpacks, but nonetheless I didn't hate it.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I liked the Superpacks :). I normally used my bonus points that came with my Sub (unless I was waiting for something to be released or wanted something else).
But whether there is a Store Bought option for Respecs or not (and Im pretty sure like most people there will be a store and respecs will be able to be bought) we still need to work out how the respec(s) will work.
As Redlynne mentioned before Positron posted that performing a difficult task in order to fix your broken build doesnt make sense. I dont mind the idea of having to complete a story arc but not a Trial/Raid/TaskForce/etc - simply 2-5 missions that are doable. And look if your build is seriously THAT BAD then you may need to ask someONE to help (not someFIVES) or lower the difficulty of the mission.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
I quite enjoyed the respec trials, with a good group you could have quite a lot of fun while you were waiting around for mobs to spawn. Lets face it - how many times would you have to respec? Surely not so many as to get completely tired of the task you have to accomplish to earn it.
Oh, you want a little respec? Just a little bit?
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
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I get no respec.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Ooh aaah just a little respec, ooh aah a little bit more, ooh aah just a little respec, you know what im building for...
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
What you want
Baby, I got it
What you need
Do you know I got it
All I'm askin'
Is for a little [b]respec[/b] when you come home...
So, in service of respecs and just plain leveling and training up, I think it would be cool to be able to load a build from a build-planner like Mids. I do see how actually uploading such 'third-party' data could cause problems. Without some error-checking, it might be possible to trick the game into an 'impossible' build.
Still, having 'your build on rails' is one of the features that I found nifty in Champions. Granted, that only worked if you were using one of their pre-built ATs, but CIty could do it better. Perhaps this feature would not actually load the powers and slot them automatically, but simply form a set of clues, a template for the actual construction process.
It would be neat if it Could 'bamf' and apply the whole build. Even neater if it could check the player's inventory or a vendor's sales-list and set up the Boost-slotting. Or pop up a window that says, "Your build-plan calls for 6 Accuracy, 3 Energy, and 12 Damage Boosts. You need..." and it would help you craft the shopping-list.
What are the chances of that?
Be Well!
Fireheart
I had close to a hundred characters on CoH when the lights went out.
Of those at least 50 had been played to the point where I felt they needed a respec. In some cases it was because of slotting choices, power choices or changes to Powers. Several of my mains were changed several times each. I likely did a hundred respecs or more.
Believe me, you can get tired of anything if you have to do it often enough.
We have to try and keep an open mind and not impose our feelings and ideas as the only viable option. I didn't PvP but that doesn't mean I begrudge others that part of the game.
If we took a poll as to how many people enjoyed the various respec trials I think you'd find a good percentage of players hated them.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I did the Respec Trials a few times, mostly to help other people out. I rarely used Respecs myself. If I made a mistake on my build, it was usually in the timing of picking a specific power, and not picking the wrong power. So, that problem would usually be resolved the next time I picked a power.
I didn't really care for PvP either. But, I knew people that enjoyed it...as much as anyone could enjoy PvP in CoH with its Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock setup.
Uhh uhhhhh. i know this one... Its ahhhh... its ..... the Big Bang Theory!? ;)
Some people hated respecing and the respec trials, I did a lot of both. I had a LOT of vetspecs per character, so didn't need to do the trials, but did them for fun, usually at enhanced difficulty and increased numbers hero side to reduce the amount of waiting time. I really hated the villain respec.
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I like this idea.
Also, I like the idea of being able to buy service consumables then turn around and sell them at the auction house to make some quick in game currency. Makes it possible for people who'd rather not spend money but have all the time in the world to earn enough in game currency to buy them off other players.
And it could sometimes get a little silly; I have a screenshot from back in the early days of a first respec -- my Fire/Rad Controller, another Fire/Rad Controller, an Ill/Emp Controller, and a fourth Controller I don't recall the powersets for -- where we were blowing through the mobs so fast that we had time to run out and summon our pets into the bubbler to give them their own protection (this was back when your pets didn't go up or down elevators with you, and had a limited lifespawn -- but you could summon multiple sets if your recharge was good enough); all my little imps, each with their own little anti-radiation bubble to protect them.
Yes. Sometimes, I think they did that because of the way PvP worked in CoH. I mean, they had to know something about the game. What with Captain Sweatpants wearing a CoH shirt and all.
...Captain Sweatpants, the DIY Hero!
"Fear not, Citizen! I am here to save the day!" *sprays the bad guys with mace*
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
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I am resurrecting this thread because I believe in recycling and I don't think we hammered it out terribly well. Not many comment, for or against, and one vague comment from a Redname. Also, I was just reading one of the threads regarding Trials.
How tough should it be to do a respec? Should the soloists have a mission arc they can do alone or should it always involve a team Trial? How many freespecs should we get?
I'm assuming that there will BE freespecs because the Devs will have to tinker with powersets and such from time to time and players will get salty if they can't adjust their powers accordingly.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
As has been mentioned by a number of people in other threads, as well as the OP, the ability to test drive a new power will mitigate the need for a respec. Past that, all I can say is that respecs should be available for those cases when someone really needs them but not so freely available that everyone can tweak their FOTM build once or twice a month. Perhaps limit each character to one or two respec tokens, unless they purchased them from the store (since those will presumably be offered in bundles, at least from time to time).
There is also the question of what a respec can accomplish. If one of the power sets (I forget which term MWM was using to denote what we'd have called the secondary power set in CoH) can be switched out completely, then I would argue that this is another reason to avoid making respecs too freely available.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Bit of a Necro, but I'll throw my thoughts in on this:
One the things I hated about CoH was the all or nothing nature of respecs. Sometimes you just wanted to change one power, so here is my suggestions:
Make powers like equipment. As you level you unlock slots. Each power is a certain level, each power you can select is a certain level. (IE: Your level one power is a level one slot, you Tier 1 powers would become level one powers and so on) Each slot can hold its level power or lower. Once slotted a power is fixed to that slot.
As you play you earn respec tokens through various means. Some are given freely as you level, some are mission rewards, you can spend XP on respecs (increasing expensive as you level), and so on. A single respec token can be spent to remove a single power from its slot. Resloting would work just like equipment in other games, you would have a list of powers available to that unfilled slot level (just like an inventory) and could then move any of those powers into that slot. Of course, with this system Respecs will need to be more numerous in number and there will still need to be some sort of full respec for situations where a balance pass happens and players need to rebuild their entire character to accommodate.
If their boosts setup is similar to CoH's Enhancements then you would need to do something similar with enhancement slots, This isn't really a problem mind you, you would use a similar method to powers. To remove select the Enhancement slot you want, click the respec button, and that enhancement slot goes from the power it is tied to back to some sort inventory of unused enhancement slots. You then select the power and select the enhancement slot from inventory and it is added back onto your power.
I really liked the way COX did it. You get one as a very rare drop (which you could sell at Wentworth's if you wished), you could do a trial, you got a freespec every time they did major tinkering with the way powers worked and if I remember right, couldn't you buy one at the cash shop as well? Also there were vet rewards (which in my opinion they were too generous with). If respec tokens at the cash shop are a good form of revenue to keep a game dear to me going then other forms of respec should not be handed out like candy on Halloween. They should be fairly hard to come by.
I also hope that the DEVs will be more mindful of nearly useless powers (Gale from the storm set comes to mind). This may cut down on the amount of respecs desired although being able to try the power out in a danger room setting would be nice before you choose it as well. Even if I have to buy a token with either in game and/or a small amount at the cash shop for the danger room add on to my SG base. I believe if you want these little benefits you should be willing to pay someones salary in part with very small real cash transactions or put up with the fairly rare/hard or time consuming in game way to get a respec. Most of us wouldn't bat an eye at paying a buck for a soda, a respec should sell for at least that much perhaps more, let the market decide. If you don't think it's worth the cash value on the item offered don't buy it. If enough people feel the same the price will drop. They want to sell items to pay salaries and overhead to perpetuate the business. If this doesn't happen, none of us get to play for long. And I want to play in Titan City for a long long time.
I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.
I love Task Forces and trials. I want as many of those as possible. I want there to be a reason why people need to team up to do content, so that there will be teaming up and people don't just turtle-up and solo everything because they can. That said, if your toon is totally unplayable to the point that you know how badly you messed the build up, having to A) form a team and B) succeed in a TF with that team to get the respec you need is probably now good. I did them a lot, I loves the blueside respec trial. I did it just to help other people out or just to have something to do on a random weeknight or whatever. I'm not saying I don't want there to be Trials and TF for things, I'm just saying this particular thing maybe needs to be unlocked some other way. There are in-game things you can do that don't require defeating badguys, right? You could award a respec for things like getting history badges or getting all the exploration badges in a zone or something. I also think the cash shop option is definitely necessary. Being able to buy/sell on the game market is another good thing. I don't like respecs as a randomly dropped recipe/IO.
They've said the avatar builder will be it's own module right? Like you can load it and play with it while you're offline. I think the respec could be it's own module as well. You'd need internet access, but you could open it, access your toons, do up their re-builds offline in a MIDS-like program designed and written by MWM, and then when you log on, you're respecced. Obviously, like the costume editor, you'd want to be able to do this while online too. In fact, it would be extra awesome if we could edit one toon's costume in a window, while at the same time having his or another toon's re-build up in a different window, while simultaneously playing toon #3 who is currently waiting for a trial to start or something.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I'll say it. I'll say it flat-out. What's wrong with infinite respecs?
Put in a different way, where is the gameplay in limiting it?
For most of the game, being a subscriber up to the bitter end, I had basically infinite respecs. I had several from trials, and had thrown out a lot more than I ever used from the free ones they gave out from time to time.
At least twice, I found I had missed some power on a respec, and immediately re-respec'd.
This was always about fine-tuning, and not about shifting powers for one thing (PvE) then another for PvP then a third for Hamidon or something. Those should have different choosable respec builds anyway.
There just is no gameplay in limiting a respec. Something like Champions where you could 100% redo a char, well, that's their design problem. Any game with classes or ATs or whatever where you have sets of powers (primary, secondary, patron, etc.) that you cannot change, there is no issue.
I'm fine with trials to gain them, as long as you can re-run them again and again as needed. But...
(Throws down glowy gauntlet) There is no gameplay in limiting it! The emperor has no clothes!
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
If the respec is not tied to a piece of content (in CoX it was) then I can see your point, Gorgon. But the respec trials in CoX did increase game play. Those trials got more people doing them because they were the respec gate. I believe people did those trials because they wanted a free respec, and/or because they wanted to help someone who did.
Now, since I've come out in opposition of Task-Force-gated respecs (in other threads), I will respond to the challenge of "Where's the value added? Why not just give everyone infinite free respecs all the time?"
1. If the respec could be done quickly and easily, as often as the toon wants to do it, you get people saying things to you like "Wait a sec, I gotta respec my toon before we do this PVP match/task force" I think it makes the game too easy when people can rebuild their entire toon for whatever thing they're going to do in the next hour. I like the more challenging puzzle of having to build a toon that's versatile enough to deal with multiple different types of threats.
2. The respec has some real value to the player, and as such can be used as a carrot to play the game and do stuff. Maybe not really hard stuff, but some stuff nonetheless.
3. The respec, being valuable to the player, can also be a form of monetization. Why pay a sub? I'll tell you why, because it get's you enough cash shop credit to respec your guy as much as reasonably might be needed. Or if you don't need the respec, you can use the credit on other wonderful stuff, like the newest costume bits, powersets, missions, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I'm not sure about Limitless Respec's, but I'm sure about wanting a way to Preview a power in a Power-set before I pick it, on a crash test Dummy.. or 10 if its an AoE. ;)
This was only an issue when I was totally unfamiliar with a new power-set and didn't know how it would work or how it would look. And depending on how it would work (sometimes how it would look, but very rarely based on animation alone) i can Skip It and choose another power from the same set, or a different set even.
That way, i don't have to worry if I have enough respects to remove a power later.
Isn't pre-testing powers/set more or less a function that the "Test Server" served in CoX? And if so, will CoT have something like that?
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
As mentioned, I'm fine earning it. I didn't like "3 different trials, once you get your respec from each, that's it", i.e. 3 max total. Ever.
Not necessarily literally free, but you can earn as you need, while saving up at least 2 or 3 (see my problem regarding having to immediately re-respec because I stupidly missed picking a travel power)
I don't think this is a serious problem. A solution should be for a problem, not looking for one that, AFAIK, does not exist. And even if sometimes people did it, so what? Respec takes a long time, and that is what will limit people from using it before missions all the time. Nobody wants to wait around.
This was never my experience. I had plenty of respecs and never did this. Again, you are solving a problem that I humbly submit does not exist.
This could generate money, I suppose. Money's a different issue (like people who are not poor or college students going apoplectic about paying $15/month for a game they spend 80 hours on.) Pay-2-respec might generate accusations of pay-2-win though, and wouldn't solve your problem above that people will use it before different missions.
As someone who has a real job and paid about 10 years total on CoH over two accounts, right up to the bitter end, and bought many "super booster packs", I have no problem buying them on a cash store.
This I liked from CO, their "Powerhouse" where you could add (multiple) powers at once, test them, and revert and try others, never committing until you left the Powerhouse.
That still wouldn't solve the re-respec for missed powers issue, though. I have left Powerhouse while STILL forgetting to take a travel power, lol.
Here's a suggestion if you go that route: When leaving and forcing a commit, show a list of all the new and all the removed powers, so the person can review for goofs. Perhaps also special-flag if they forgot to take a "special slot" type power, if this game has them, like travel or block.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
The CoX style respec, which required you to rebuild your toon from the ground up, took a long time, I agree. There have been people suggesting, however, that one might be allowed a quicker, partial respec option. They way that would work is like this: Say you're level 50 and you want to go back and change the last, say, the last 3 levels of your toon. If you're willing to blow a whole respec on just that, you can go ahead and do it. The respec software asks you how many levels you want to undo, or what level you want to start at, or whatever and you go from there. This would make respeccing somewhat faster and more convenient for people, and would, in my opinion, open up the possibility of the on-the-fly respec as a way of making the game easier. Now if the respecs were just a free, dev-given right and a thing you could literally do any time you wanted, as often as you wanted, it could get crazy. It didn't in CoX, but I think it could. Just my opinion.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I think (as mentioned previously above) that there should be different types of respecs from a single slot move to a whole new build (inc Secondary powerset/Mastery if allowed).
This allows different Tiers of Drops and could even allow multiple Respec Trial or Difficulties:
- Single Slot Respect = prob not worth a whole Trial
- Single Power or Mastery Respec (along with all linked Slot respecs) = Normal or First Respec Trial
- Multiple Power Respec (along with all linked Slot respecs - maybe up to 5 Powers?) = Harder or 2nd Respec Trial
- Secondary Powerset Swap Respec = Even Harder or 3rd Respec
- Complete Respec (all of the above - no limits except cant change Primary Powerset) = Hardest or Final Respec
Now the only problem with the increased difficulty respec is again if your build sucks rotten eggs it will be very hard to do the harder versions and if the entire team sucks rotten eggs then your in trouble. Respc trials shouldnt be an easy walk in the park but whether they are able to be done solo or as a team it shouldnt be impossible. If your build sucks rotten eggs then you may need to ask for help - and that's ok that what Heroes do.
The other problem with making the respecs into Tiers (1st Respec - 4th Respec) is at level 25 you may decide to do a complete Respec but if its gated to level 30 (for example) you have to wait another 5 levels of sucking or not liking your build. You can run multiple of the other respecs though and in that way do a complete respect.
There could also be a way to combine lower respecs into a higher respect (like 5 T1 > 1 T2, 5 T2 > 1 T3, etc).
As for how many you can have, why put a limit on it. I had over 10 Respecs per toon with 3 Respecs in Storage at the end. I usually respected around level 30-40 which is when I started to IO my toons and again after hitting Max Level and getting the IO's I wanted. And yes I occasionally had to respec a respec due to putting a slot in the wrong power, etc.
If we had more Respecs more could also be sold in the Store so if I don't want a Full Respec I don't pay the $20 fee (or whatever) but if I want to change my Mastery I can pay $2 for that Respec.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
I like the idea of the respecs at different levels. If you just want to move a slot (up to three?) then that's a free trip to the Training Center.
You want to change out ONE Power and the attached slots (by this I mean remove exactly one Power, replace it with another Power available at the same or lower level plus the attached slots) then maybe that's a mission.
You want to change out either your whole Primary or Secondary then that's a mission arc.
Total rebuild is a Trial but it can still be soloed because sometimes putting a team together sucks.
You can get the second and third level respecs by building up the freebies earned by subbing every month. Level One is free. Level two costs three tokens (you earn one a month) or you can do the Mission. Level three is four tokens or the mission arc. Level four (total rebuild) is six tokens or you do the arc. Freespecs handed out by the Devs to account for game changes would be Level four of course. Maybe also one Level four granted annually on the anniversary of launch day.
Also, we haven't discussed it but I'm against being able to change out the Powersets. Some sets will level easier than others no matter how much the Devs tweak things. It's the nature of the game. It would also erode the impact of alting which I think is a strong draw to keep players returning.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
As Fireheart mentioned above, I would like to see the ability to import builds from whatever build planning tool is made available. The importance of having to remember which powers needed to be taken at which level, and in particular assigning the enhancement slots correctly, was quite irritating. It would have been useful if the enhancement slots at least had had an indication of the level at which they'd been assigned.
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Something I suggested in the very early days of the project that seems to have gone by the board was that when a power was chosen, it wasn't locked in place until you picked your next power. That means if you picked what you found was a turkey, you could fix it after trying it for a bit without a respec. Would this help a little ?
There is a balance required here. A combination of multiple builds and freely available respecs can mean very little need to alt as much as if respecs were less available. The ultimate example of this is RIFT, where there is absolutely no need to have more than one of each class (or at least that was the case when I left some time ago).
I liked the way CoH did it, but then I got a load of vetspecs and usually did all 3 respec trials as well.
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I like this even better than my idea of borrowing the Power House from CO. Pick a power...take it out for a test drive.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Personally, l believe that all of the ideas of players that basically amount to "Hey, I know, let's make the game easier..." are counterproductive. CoX was one of the least grindy games in the first place, as far as I can tell, so making CoT any easier than that is probably giving away the store. I think the game, in it's basic rules, should be MORE restrictive than I personally would feel like I want it to be while playing it, so that when I do want a respec, even just a partial one, I have to go and do something (or pay inlf, or money) to get one. This keeps giving people reasons to keep playing the game. It also creates a space which can be filled by things like double XP weekends, weekly strike targets, reward merits, etc. All this may sound counter intuitive, but really, as soon as you get your toon "done" in terms of respecs and gear, you tend to stop playing them as much as you did when you were "building" them. So let's make the building process take a little more effort. Maybe you need to try out a dud power and live with it for a while before you can afford to respec out of it. I think that's a GOOD thing, not a bad thing that you have to do that. It makes the respec itself more valuable, which in turn makes the game play you had to do to get that respec more valuable and thus more desirable to do. This in turn gets the people out there doing more content for the rewards.
When I was playing CoX in the last year or so, I was still interested in getting merits (Hero Merits, Astral Merits, Rewards Merits, etc) and influence and purple drops. I used to solo my demon mastermind by day for the ultra-high swag accumulation rate and do iTrials to pimp out my other toons by night. At the end I had 100 extra Empyrean Merits on Radiac which I was originally saving to get some really expensive PVP recipe, but ultimately ended up using to get those "+1 level" insps to help with the "REALLY Hard Way" badge runs we were doing on Triumph at night on the weekends. I was really never done building even my main, because there was always some really expensive piece of gear I still didn't have, and I had like 10 alts who were all in pretty decent shape, but by no means totally twinked out. Basically what I'm saying here is, I knew even then that it was the journey, not the destination that was the fun part.
Short-cutting that journey removes fun.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
QFT.
At the very least, it removes the longevity of the game. This is why I am also against such things as the sewer trial or XP boosts until the game has been around at least five or six years. Let's not forget that, in spite of CoH's legacy, this game will be brand new at launch.
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Two words: FOR YOU.
Short-cutting the journey removes fun for you. Not me. Please don't try to impose your style of fun on me. Most of your post had nothing to do with respecs which is our overall topic here. Merits are a topic for a different thread...sorry.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I like Minotaur's idea and posted something similar elsewhere but I had a timer of 1hr of game-time to change your mind, including unslotting whatever Boosts you added.
Which is similar to the "Training Room" idea but less work is needed (imo) as the TR needs to be a separate instance with summon foe commands, whereas the timer means you just run around to any area with bad guys/good guys and do your thing.
Im note sure Im 100% behind the idea of being able to respec my Secondary powerset. As someone who made a lot of Alts and deleted a lot due to not liking my Powerset choices I can see this being a good thing. However I think I'd rather the option of changing my Secondary Powerset at any stage before level 12-15 - no Respec required. After that you are locked in.
Alts are what made me REALLY LOVE CoH. I loved the game but being able to make a Brute with Claws/Inv, Claws/SR, Claws/FA, Claws/DA, Claws/EnA, Claws/EA, etc made me really love it.
Im playing FFXIV currently and The Secret World previously and both allow a single character to have all 'classes' on the one character - so there is almost no need to Alt except for a bit of Story-line changes (TSW/FFXIV) and Race/Appearance with minor stat changes (FFXIV).
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
Fair, enough. I suppose each of us can only explain our own personal point of view on this game, really.
Going back to the topic at hand, the respec, I want the following, (you might not):
1. A way to obtain a respec by playing the game. Not a trial or Task Force per se, but some way of getting at least one respec for my toon by playing the game in some way. One idea I've floated here and elsewhere is "collect a set of exploration badges, get a respec" or "read all the history plaques, get a respec" or something. The halloween thing that unlocked the 5th costume slot in CoX is a good example of what I'm talking about. Content (the kind that doesn't require successfully completing team stuff like TFs that's really challenging) somehow giving you a respec without having to pay influence or money, just grind for it somehow, preferably in a way that might take some time, but not a great build nor a great deal of skill.
Edit: this type of recpec would, in my mind, be something you can unlock one time only per toon. After that you have to rely on other methods to get your respec on.
2. Respecs you can buy with influence and/or cash shop money/credit.
3. No infinite free respecs, no infinite free configuratiability of toons. I want the choices I make when building a toon to mean something, and to feel like I had to sacrifice one area of the build in order to bolster another. If I can always just press a button and redo the whole build or any arbitrarily small or large part of it for free, the choice itself becomes pointless. One thing I REALLY dislike is the idea of being able to change your build on the fly from one situation to another. I want speccing to require us to come up with a build that is versatile enough so as to be able to deal with a variety of threats reasonably while having to make meaningful decisions that affect the way our toon plays, for example, having to make a choice of "more dark resist or more poison resist, hmmmm".
4. Set up the rules, in terms of respecs, such that you feel like you'd want them to be cheaper/more easy to get so as to allow the devs to give us things that might get us a wanted respec for doing something, like a weekly strike target or something. The cheaper the respec is, the less people will be willing to do to get one. Make them valuable and create demand for them instead of making them dirt cheap/free and creating entitlement and the expectation that they are a devs-given right.
5. Make the respec experience something detailed and user-friendly, like MIDS, where you can really look at the stats and kick the tires on the build.
6. Make the respec module/applet a thing that runs in it's own window so I can still see what's going on around me and chat with people as I do it.
7. Occasionally, when they tweak the powers/sets/pools getting a free respec token or something on all my toons that already exist at the time. I don't want them handing out "legacy" respecs to toons I make later on like CoX did. By the beginning of year 8 of CoX, when I made new toon it began life with like 100 free costume change tokens and gawd knows how many free respecs. Did it need that, no. Was it affected by changes made in Issues 1-18, no. I just made it, so it doesn't need that stuff. Only toons that exist at the time should get those free resecs, and they should be non-tradeable. The whole spirit of why they give out freespecs when they change the rules is because changes to the rules will affect the way you would have wanted your existing toons to be built, had the rules been that way before.
8. People paying a monthly sub get some amount of monthly credits in the cash shop, which can pay for a respec among other things.
9. The ability to spec up two builds for each toon, one for PVE and one for PVP and the ability to switch from one to the other by making the PVP build only available (and the default build) in PVP areas/maps/matches/content and the PVE build the default when not engaged in PVP.
10. The necessity to have to live with a build that I'm maybe not 100% happy with for a while until I finally get that respec I need. I can understand that having to live with something which you've decided is sub-optimal in your build for a length of time can be frustrating. I think it's better to have to live with it for a while. It gives you the opportunity to say "Well, I know I'm going to need a respec soon, but that frees me up to try out a bunch of other stuff I'm not sure about in the meantime. I can use this as a chance to see if I like Teleport or Super Jump better then get rid of one or both when I respec this toon later."
Edit: While I'm ok with the idea of being able to buy a respec with influence, I don't like the idea of the respec as a random drop recipe item nor do I like the idea of making them a traded commodity on the auction house. Better to have them as a thing a toon can buy from an NPC vendor for a set price (influence, merits, whatever), and once you do, it's bound to that toon on purchase.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
1) I'll go for this. However maybe not one time per toon but still very limited (like every Halloween event maybe?)
2) Yeah this always works. The players that take things slow and plan their builds won't need this unless they made a goof and the 'gotta have it NOW!' crowd will be willing to pay.
3) I can agree with this but more so if we have one of the 'Try before you buy' options. A big reason for this was the infamous Jump Kick power from CoH. I took it for my Brute and the first time I used it I sat stunned as the ridiculous handstand-kick animation fired off. I wanted shed of that power FAST. But I had just completed a respec trial, didn't have another available for ten levels and it was before vets had scores of them.
4) I could go for this
5) Agreed
6) Way agreed
7) Originally I liked the piles of freespecs and vetspecs but upon reflection I can agree here. You shouldn't have 11 respecs on a new toon just because you've played the game for 5 years. Gotta be enough to be useful (1 is a good start...for emergencies) but few enough that they aren't taken lightly.
8) Agreed
9) I don't PvP but this could work. We had multiple builds in the late phases of CoH and players loved them. Being able to spec out a PvP-only build with 'only in PvP' type powers could solve a lot of PvE vs PvP build issues.
10) I can see this working too. I've actually done this with toons when I knew a respec was coming (new release, holiday event or whatever) and we could only ever have 1 freespec at a time. I'd burn one, make up a wacky build to test powers I'd never taken and then rebuild it a week later when the freespec released.
Details to be worked out of course but I like a lot of what I see here.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
The only reasons I can see to limit a respect are to provide it in the cash shop for additional game revenue.
I like many here had multiple respecs by the end and never once found I was shorted content because I didn't do the trials anymore. I never stopped making new characters because there was always something new I wanted to try. I could spec pretty much as often as I wanted and it never felt like I was just going through the motions. Saying you want the choices to mean something is a complete personal feeling. There is nothing saying you cant personal limit how many respecs you can do.
I just cant see a reason to limit the respecs beyond the cash shop (which I can agree with), a time sink (which I don't agree with) or another trial (which should be a bit more creative than Oh by the way you can pick new powers cause you hung around magic or radiation).
That being said I would not like to see a respect that allowed you to change the actual powerset or archetype. If someone wants that then make an alt.
Am I the only one that actually enjoyed the (hero-side) respec trial(s)? I didn't play many villains so I don't have much experience with their trial.
I used to run those for the fun of it even after I had already unlocked the respec from it. What I enjoyed most about the Terra Volta trial is that it gave a thematic explanation for why your toons powers suddenly changed -- being exposed directly to the radiation in the interior of a nuclear power plant for a half hour.
Some have said that the time-gated mechanic of the last mission in the trial was annoying. Others have pointed out that toons in NEED of a respec are not performing well. I see the time-gated mechanic as a safety-net to give players that badly need to adjust their build a reasonable chance at success. If you were part of a group that was just standing around, waiting for the next spawn to rush in then you should be happy! Your team did not have to work with terrible builds!
If I had to tweak anything about the Terra Volta Trial I would probably change the architecture in Terra Volta itself before I changed anything with the missions of the trial. As a SuperSpeeder, Terra Volta was a pain to navigate! I got pretty adept at a few workarounds (Good vs. Evil jetpack, scanner mission temp travel powers, teammate with Recall Friend) but as someone who really enjoyed soloing, I never wanted to feel like I was being carried by my teammates and using the jetpacks felt... gimmicky.
Hehe... i remember way back when travel powers were given at level 14, was it? When i it was common to form a team to form for the Sewers Run, Not to be mistaken with the new Sewers Trial "Death From Below" i thin it was named. And we would have to traverse to the Depest Debths of Hell and make our way all the way to Kings Row.
And by the Time we got to KR, we were all close to level 10 or so. And there someone would pick up the Radio Mishes and we would do those 'till we got the Bank Mish. We were all after the reward for defeating the AV, the Jump Pack. ;) Even though the Jump Pack was a Temp power and was close to what Super Jump was, it came in handy in the Hollows when you were trying to get past the Pumice's and the walls were just a little too tall to jump up to. :/ And i would always try to conserve it till i was close to level 14 and got my travel power. :)
I am behind this. The respec need not be available right out of the door, but once the character has enough powers or the player has had to make sufficient choices (say, around level 15) they are provided a respec just in case. Perhaps with an optional tutorial type mission to provide an insight how they function - including tips for any out-of-game tool that can help (assuming that it isn't from a third party).
After all, the game will allow us to import character builds from such a tool, right? Right!
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From a PvE standpoint that's fine. However, unlimited respects (perhaps with a cool down timer) for PvP would be a good thing.
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The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
I'm not a PVPer (so you can ignore what I think or tell me I'm just wrong, and I'm fine with that) but I personally have to disagree.
First, I don't think people should be able to respec their build based on the match they're about to get into. I don't want to live in a world where every time you try to get a PVP match together all of the combatants respond with "Ok, I'll go, but give me 20 min to respec my guy for it, cuz I just got finished doing something else. Oh, and tell me what kind of opposition I'll be facing, because it affects my build."
Second, I think it's better to make people have to grind for gear and respecs and whatnot in PVP too. Being a PVPer shouldn't entitle you to start play with a totally geared-up, level 50 toon which you can respec at will for any situation that arises. I think you should have to play your toon from level 1 to the cap, even if just by doing PVP for XP. I think you should have to acquire gear for it by playing more and getting influence and drops etc, even if you do that entirely in PVP too. and I think you should have to invest some kind of time and/or influence and/or money and/or game grinding to get a respec, again, even ifall of that is earned in a purely PVP manner.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
As a writer, I am very attached to the idea of bundling respecs with content.
However, I also recognize the fact that you should not have to jump through hoops to make your character playable and fun by correcting a mistake.
I think there are several happy mediums that present themselves, and I especially agree with the concept of different levels of respec available by various means.
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It is not about changing your build for every mach, it's about being able to tweak your build as you find what works or doesn't work for you, or as stagey in PvP changes and/or evolves. Not to mention a cool down timer would discourage constant rebuilding per match. And then there are the social pressures against it. After all, who's going to wait 20 min for someone to respec just to fight them?
Actually, that is exactly what GW2 does for PvP, you are level 80 with exotic equipment (the highest reasonable to get equipment in the game) in the flavor you like, and all the skills unlocked. Once you enter a match you are locked in, but outside you can tweak and mod it however you choose.
For a lot of PvPers leveling up to the cap is just a waste of their time. With PvP being separate to PvE what does it matter anyway? If they jump into PvE they would have to level up and equip that build just like anyone else in PvE. The investment for them is in the build and the skills not the journey to the cap.
However they want to handle levels and equipment in PvP, I do still believe unlimited respecs are the way to go.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
As a player, I have no problem with the idea of having to jump through some hoops to be allowed to go back and change choices I've made in the past vis a vis the powers I took, how many slots I put in them, etc. provided that the hoops I need to jump through are a piece of relatively entertaining/fun content. Life in general doesn't usually give people the ability to go back in time and unmake our mistakes. While it's true that this is totally possible in a computer game, I personally don't feel as though that fact alone entitles me to have it for free any time I want. Anyway, I have stated my reasons for why I like a more restrictive rules system before I shall restate some of them now, in regards to the respec in particular:
1. It could add replayability to the game. Granted this is mainly if the respec is gated by some kind of content, which content would be the kind you then have to replay to get the respec you feel you need. CoH had Terror Volta for this and different people simultaneously complained A) that it was too easy and boring and B) when you really had a horrid build that needed respeccing, that just made the content harder to do, which was frustrating, not to mention C) the requirement that you form a team of 4 people to even be allowed to try. The team requirement can be easily discarded. You just make a soloable mission or something for a respec.
2. It could be a way to encourage people to team up and reward people for being nice to eachother at the same time. Bear with me on this. The problem is this: if you make the respec mission so easy that a badly specced-out tune can do it, it's probably too easy and boring, but if you make it something interesting and a little challenging, like the Warburg Nukes thing was or the jellomen thing, you end up with some people screaming that they need a respec but can't earn one. To me this is an opportunity for the community to come riding in on it's white horse and people can CHOOSE to form teams to help the player get the respec he or she wants. I think if you tie it to some kind of badge or XP bonus or weekly strike target or merit payout or something, that might work. Like for instance, say you make a series of badges for doing the respec mission 1, 10, 50, 100, and 500 times, you might make badge hunters more willing to help people. Or if the respec mission got everyone doing it enough merits to buy exactly one respec, the helpers could use those for something else, maybe. If you make it a thing that's only offered for a limited time each week or each month, you could cause people to plan on doing the respec mission at that time and thus create better opportunities for people to team up to do it together.
3. If what I proposed in 2 above actually works, you might have to impose limits on how often you can do the content that unlocks the respec. That would be a nice kind of problem to have. People screaming "Please offer us that content again, we want to redo that content." imagine that.
4. If there's going to be a cash shop, there will likely be a "buy a respec" option. CoX was wracking their collective brains for ideas for stuff they could try to sell people in the cash shop, so this will be on the list, I gotta believe. If the "just buy it" option exists for the respec, it's definitely the option with the least amount of grinding, but if the "use influence to buy one" option also exists, and if the influence cost is dirt cheap, you're never going to sell any respecs for cash, so you're never going see that "respec money" that's out there. All other options for getting a respec therefore must require some grinding to get, or else the cash option is moot. I'm all for having a cash option, I want to support the game and see it succeed, so I say give us the proposition of either grinding for respecs or paying through the nose for them.
5. I say what I say in 4 above with the assumption that I, as a paid subscriber, will probably have enough free cash shop credit to get a respec if I need one, once in a while. Even paid subscribers shouldn't be able to respec their toons every day or anything like that. I feel the cash shop should be the last resort for people who feel like they absolutely cannot wait to respec their toon and don't have one now, so what else are you going to do? you just buy it.
6. As I've already said I'm not against the idea of the devs throwing us a bone once in a while and giving us as freespec after they change the powers around, which I believe they will do more than one time. But I think that should be done in a way that's consistent with the spirit in which it is being offered. You don't retroactively give every toon respec, even the ones that didn't exist when the rules were changed, you don't give people a trade-able respec token that they can sell on the market for profit, and I personally would put an expiration timer on the "we nerfed the broken thing, here's your respec" style freespec such that it disappears if you don't use it after, say, a month.
7. I'm still in favor of the idea I floated earlier of being able to get a respec by collecting some Exploration badges or something, I just think that should only be allowed once for each toon. Essentially, that's the one freebie you get that "comes with" the toon when you make it, but you need to find your way around a map or something to unlock it. That could be, as some others have suggested, a part of the tutorial or a reward for doing the tutorial, or something. You could use that particular set of "hoops" to educate the newbs.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I think reinvestment should be for "correction" of character and not available for full retcon of a character. It encourages alting, AND encourages single character usage. That means there's much more to sell and deleting characters (while easy enough) becomes a weighted choice.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Since the idea of switching secondary power sets is not off the table, to the best of my knowledge, there is the option of having two levels or types of respec. One, which is more difficult / involved / expensive / etc. to obtain, allows for the full, classic respec (including changing the power set). The more easily obtained variant work akin to the respec points (I think that's what they're called) in Path of Exile. Each point refunds the last power purchased.
Otherwise, just to have it said, on the whole I agree with Radiac.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
It sounds to me like you'd rather play a first person shooter than an MMO.
Also, if respecs can be done, say, once per toon per day for free (to avoid SOME amount of abuse which I think you agree with me is at least possible), then clearly nobody has any reason to buy one in the cash shop. How do you plan on replacing that "respec money" which we assume is out there that people would have been paying? And don't tell me something like "I don't know, that's the company's problem." You're requesting something for free. Explain to me how a company makes any money if it gives stuff away for free like that. What other revenue stream are you proposing will compensate for the free unlimited respecs? I'm asking this in all seriousness, because it's entirely possible, but I'm not sure I see it. I mean, in London, you have to play extra money to get ketchup packets at Mcdonalds. In most parts of the US they come free with any purchase. different markets have different constraints, demands, and expectations, but after all, money is money , everything costs something to produce and any business eventually needs to charge somebody some amount of money for something or else it's doomed to fail.
Or to put it another way, why am I paying a sub if everyone get's unlimited free respeccing even without one? I thought one of the main reasons for paying a sub was that you got a better deal on in-game perks like costumes, respecs, etc than the non-subscribers did. What exactly do I get that the non-subscriber doesn't get for my $15 a month, in your proposed system?
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
And to everyone, I apologize for the length of my posts. I'm off this week and have a lot of free time to type. :)
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Its worth noting that before CoX went Free2Play, I believe that they offered respecs via the cash store, where you could buy rename and server transfers as well. I could well be wrong, but I believe that paying real money for a respec was not a "new option" for the developers.
In the early days, CoH was playable by sub only, and that was after you bought the game CD in the store. And they still made the respec a thing you had to unlock.
Following the money, let's look at the effect free respeccing has on subs for a minute in more detail. If you assume its going to be something like CoX was, that means you'll have to pay an upfront fee to install the game and then you have the option of paying amonthly sub or not after that. If you choose the non-sub option, you have to pay for stuff like new costume pieces, new powersets, occasionally respecs, etc. If you subscribe, presumably you get a lot more stuff than your $20 a month or whatever it is would have bought you "a la carte", including, let's say, enough store credit to buy one respec a month, if that's what you want to spend it on.
So now, if we are going to modify that system to make the respec totally free, but with a cooldown timer, clearly nobody ever buys a respec whether they have a sub or not. This in turn makes the sub itself less valuable, because one of the things you had been supposedly paying for in the old system is now just free for everyone. This leads to the following problem: the company, in making respecs a free-for-all, has made subscriptions less attractive AND lost the money it would have gotten for selling respecs a la carte to non-sub players. What are you going to do now, RAISE the price of a subscription which contains LESS real value than it did before to make up for the loss of revenue that the paid respecs were giving you before? That's making your most loyal customers pay more for the right to receive less in return. In a business sense, that's a recipe for disaster.
The only way I can see making respecs unlimited and "free" is if that deal is packaged into the monthly subscription itself. For what it's worth, and since I don't PVP anyway, I'm willing to live with the ill effects of the respec free for all if it get's the game significantly more subscribers which can be retained in the longterm. It's not how I would prefer it be dealt with, but if it makes the developers money and keeps the game rolling, I'm all for it.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
It is worth noting that in WoW, the only thing that limits the number of times you can "respec" your character is the amount of gold you have.
It gets more expensive the more you do it, but after a period of time of not respeccing, it would drop down to its low price (introduced in June 2006). And World of Warcraft was in the same boat as CoX was.
They don't *sell* these on the market, you don't have to do a *trial* or a quest line to do it... you just need to talk to the NPC.
So from the point of view of the "800lb Gorilla in the room" it was something that made sense. However, they do charge (quite a bit) for race, appearance, faction and server changes.
*shrugs* Then again, WoW doesn't have a F2P option (well not really true, you can play up to level 20 without having to subscribe... so a "time unlimited" demo is a better way to put it), so whatever they can do to keep people around is a good thing.
But here are two different games, released at a *similar* point in time, and yet both of them took different points of view on how respccing your character would work. One of them made it a case of "just hand over the gold, and you are good to go", the other made you go through a (relatively) hard trial, to get the *right* to respec your character *ONCE*.
Wildstar, it will let you respec your LAS whenever you are not in combat (or swap to another active build) but you get to respec your AMP (think passive abilities/some LAS abilities) when ever you are out of combat and you hand over the cash.
Hell, Wildstar actually allows you to level up in the field as well (even though you have to "buy" abilities, if they are not on the AMP screen, you can buy them in the field... AMPS you might have to buy from a vendor)
Guild Wars 2? Want to respec your character? Do it in the field (or for traits, you have to buy the unlock I believe... but it is something that means you dont have to do a trial to do it).
So here I am. I have listed a Buy to Play game (Guild Wars 2), and 2 subscription games (Wildstar and WoW), and ALL of them don't force you to go through the long winded trial to respec your character.
However, if I ended up being *Forced* to play through a trial just to "respec" my character, I am more inclined to just delete him *ESPECIALLY* if it takes me more than an hour to find a team to get it sorted, and pray that I get him "right" the next time around.
Whether they want to earn money off it from a cash store is completely separate from the wisdom of the ease of availability.
My point is fears of abuse are overstated in my experience. And while I can respect the idea that "choices should mean something", again, that is not my experience. Every respec has been to tweak or remove a singularly bad choice. I have never done whole hog power redos, [i]and can't imagine many would ever do that[/i].
The vast majority of the time, your spec is pretty close to how you want it anyway. The only time it's not is the first char or two you make, where you're goofing left and right in power selection (my first char 3-slotted hover, for god's sake!) and in that situation, there is no "meaning" in the choices lol.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
You lucky so and so :)
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
To gangrel's points:
I'm for the option of paying influence for as respec, or money, or merits. Money is money and everything else amounts to some amount of grinding.
I also like the option of having a specific piece of content that will get you a specific reward attached to it, like a respec mission or trial, etc.
Any game the requires a sub to play can handle the respecs any way they want as far as I'm concerned. I intend to pay a sub, and if that gets me unlimited freesepecs any time any place, fine. Makes me feel like a high roller. But that too is a form of money payment for a respec. You're paying money for all aspects of the game in that case. in a game where there's a non-sub play option, I feel those people should have to either pay money, or grind for ingfluence, or do a task force, or something to get that respec that the subscribers are getting when they pay their monthly bill.
You might delete and reroll a level 45 toon before bothering to grind out a respec, but I would do the respec trial, personally. I like task forces and trials, I used to do them as much as I could in CoX, and I intend to do them in CoT when they're there for me to do. I'll probably do every trial and task force more times that I would bother to count on all my toons then proceed to not even us most of the respecs I earned anyway. But that's just me.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
To Gorgon's points (apologies for the non-markup tag quoting style):
Gorgon wrote: "Whether they want to earn money off it from a cash store is completely separate from the wisdom of the ease of availability."
Are you saying that creating the option of a respec that is for sale in the store for real money is unrelated to how often you ought to be allowed to respec and the needs for limits on that (or the lack of a need for those limits)? Because if so I sort of agree in the sense that if the market conditions are set up such that buying a respec for, say, $5 seems like a reasonable deal to people, I doubt they'll plop down $50 for ten of them then start respeccing their hearts out right away. If I'm spending money on respecs a la carte, and that's my mode of choice for acquiring them, I'm going to try to minimize how many I have to buy to save money. That alone prevents people from respeccing overly often I feel.
On the other hand, if "ease of availability" means "How much do I have to grind/pay to get one" then that IS very closely related to whether or not you intend to try to sell them in the store and what the money price is.
Services you're going to charge real money for in the store will only sell for money if they're not free. Some items will sell because there's literally no other way to get them (necessity). Account related stuff like additional character slots, server transfers, changing your global chat handle, etc. are like this, I think.
Some other items will sell because the only moneyless way to get them takes a long time (the thing is so new it's only being offered for money NOW, but may be free by grinding for it or something in a year or something) and you want the item now, so you pay because you're in a hurry (urgency). Things like new costume sets, new power sets, new archetypes, new story arcs, etc. might fall into this category.
Some items might sell despite the fact that they're immediately available for free if the grind you have to go through to get them is more than you want to do (expediency), in this category I would put things like respecs, unslotters, recipes, salvage, etc.
Gorgon wrote: "My point is fears of abuse are overstated in my experience.".
Maybe I'm wrong and people won't ever try to respec as a way of tweaking their build for the occasion at hand, I don't know. But if the respec itself is not gated by influence or money or merits or a timer or something, I think possibility exists, and if the "quick and easy partial respec" that allows you to just tweak a couple of minor things without having to rebuild from the beginning happens, then I personally believe this sort of thing will be a lot easier to do and people will be tempted respec more for different PVP matches, or for the task force they're about to undertake, or for the mission arc they're about to start.
If it took like 5 min to respec into a build you heard was better for you to have when doing the ITF, or the most popular Incarnate Trial, wouldn't you do it just to help the team and make it go faster? I would have done an old-fashioned CoX respec on my toon for some of the badge runs I was on if I knew what I neede to do and if people in my SG or among my closer friends asked me to. I would have let people borrow IOs I wasn;t using too if I trusted them to give them back.
And I can't believe that a competitive type of person like a PVPer would pass up such a clear and convenient way of gaining a competitive advantage, I don't care what the social pressure is. If the game mechanics allow it, and if there's no enforceable rule against it, people will tweak their toon for the win. I personally believe that. Especially if it means taking a scant 5 min to temporarily slot in some different gear they already have.
Gorgon wrote: " Every respec has been to tweak or remove a singularly bad choice. I have never done whole hog power redos, and can't imagine many would ever do that."
I did it. I had to do it when thet made Fitness inherent, and any time the devs have to do any kind of large scale revamp to a power set or they change the numbers on how some of the boosts work or something like that, people may want to do a full scale rebuild. I did this on more than one toon when MIDS came out after taking the time to get the redesign right. Some people LIKE the intellectual exercise of trying to optimize their toon's build for the amount of influence or money they want to spend, etc. And then there's always the multi-build option we had. People did TWO or THREE different builds for their toons from the ground up in some cases. All this said, these are very often done in the wake of some rules changes or the addition of new information. In many of those cases you got a freespec and redid the build from scratch one time to fix it. but the full rebuild is a thing, I want it to exist as an option.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
In these listed games, what are the odds that a respec will require you to have or obtain a new or different set of gear, and how easy or difficult is it to obtain such gear?
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Depends on how much you are changing. It really does.
A complete "role swap" in Wildstar, has a different focus on stats than the other. However, seeing as the *base* effectiveness of a power is linked to "Assault" or "Support", which ALL items have (some lean more towards assault, other leans towards support), you can swap between the two fairly well. There are other attributes that are in play, but they provide more of a *secondary* bonus than anything else.
However, if you WANT to be the best, then you would be required to have the BEST gear for each slot for each role. And in Wildstar, there is *nothing* stopping a DPS medic (for example) from having some healing abilities in their LAS bar.
Yesterday, I flicked between healing and DPS in an adventure (think a "branching storyline" instance content), and I didn't have to change the gear I was wearing. I was only level 17 so had limited access to the stuff anyway.
Was I as good as someone who chose to *focus* on healing? Nope... but then again, the Healer person was not as good on DPS as I was either. But that didn't stop us from swapping roles as and when needed.
But then again, in City of Heroes, a complete respec can result in you having to rebuy a LOT of enhancements as well (especially once you start including IO set bonuses). It all depended as to how much of a change it needed.
You couldn't be more wrong on that one :)
Actually, I'm not even a PvP player. I do , however understand their needs and wants are different from a strictly PvE player.
First of all I was [i]only[/i] referring to free respecs in PvP. In the PvE environment I am all for limited respecs (and selling them in the store). Even if PvP is handled perfectly and is a joy to all of its players it will still be a smaller segment than the PvE exclusive players. Although I gave the GW2 example, I was not advocating it per se, just showing that it [i]is[/i] an option for PvP. I am certain there is money to be made on a PvP exclusive player even with free respecs. Maybe even if the free respecs were gated behind being a subscriber.
I understand your position on making sure the game will make money. Bare in mind, I am not trying to tear this down, I was just pointing out a specific situation where giving something for free could be a good idea. I don't believe everything in the game should be free after buying "the box". I want CoT to make money both through subscriptions and the cash store. I just didn't feel that "unlimited free respects" had a binary yes/no answer.
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The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
This would be awesome. Although it might lead to "best in class" type builds as minimaxers and deep analysts publish their builds, the idea for calculating this offline would be very cool. These tools will be built by fans, we know already, and people look up best builds already.
We also seem to be assuming you get one build and that's it. If you could have a PvE and PvP one you could switch on the fly, as well as several more unlockable by some means (trial, store purchase), then people can pre-set up desired builds.
CoH had this, I think I stumbled into it once by accident, but I never actually used a second one.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
The devs mentioned that when you hit max level that you will unlock an extra character slot . How about when you hit max level you get a free respec too for that character so if you made a bad choice now you can change it
Responding to an earlier post by Radiac.
1. I like the idea of an in-game mission which can reward a respect, but it should be repeatable, perhaps with a long timer, bur repeatable.
2. I would have no problem with a cash store purchasable respect.
3. Infinite respecs may be a bit much, but being able to run a mission or purchase them seems like a good time/money sink for those with money/time to invest.
4. If respecs work similar to the ones in CoH, the time invested in doing a respect is prohibitive enough IMO.
5. If the capability is there I agree totally with this idea.
6. That would be a good addition IMO. Being able to discuss the build/stall for time getting to the mission would be worthwhile.
7. I don't need a heap of respecs on an alt I have had for 18 months. In fact I think respect should only stack to 2-3 at most.
8.Veteran credits toward the cash shop seems fair to me.
9. If we have the capability for two builds we should be able to switch between them without entering pvp/pve. If I have a build for soloing and a more team friendly build I see no reason to have to use one for pvp. I don't pvp.
10. That is a good way to look at it, but that won't satisfy a good portion of the playerbase. I think that is the reason to have them available for purchase or by mission completion.
Being able to buy a respect with influence is a good idea but the difficulty would be determining a price. Too high and the become only for the "Haves" too low and people may buy them and horde them for when the price at the vendor get increased.
I think having them as a drop is also a good idea if they are available for in-game cash that will control the upper price they should reach on the market.
I did use the dual build concept on a couple alts, but probably not in the usual way. I tended to use the second build as a way to slowly IO my character. A LotG here, a set of 4 resistance IO's there. When I managed to afford them or get one dropped I would look at Mids to remind me where it should go. Then when I logged onto that alt the next day I would swap the build back to the SO/common IO build.
Sorry, haven't been awake long enough to properly organize comments and responses, so here's most of what I remember that I think about this topic:
I love almost everything CO's Powerhouse offers. I think there's room for improvement, but I find it to be better than CoX's variants in every way. I would prefer if individual powers could be changed out without having to do all the more recent ones, just from a QoL view. Don't care if the price reflects what it would have cost, that's fine. I especially hate having to retcon a whole list just to change a travel power. I especially like being able to test drive powers before committing to them. It's a pity they don't let you test drive travel powers before buying them from their Z-store :/ I don't think people should be expected to depend on a test server for something like this. Test server's often don't have the same build as live, and the powers may not work the same. Also, if you don't use it on a regular basis, it may have hours or even days of patching before you can log in to it.
I agree that when doing a respec for convenience, there should be a cost. That cost should be an option of expending resources/inf/favor, cash shop credits (We're going with "Stars" right?), or completing content, or as a VIP benefit for contributing real money to the production coffers. Of course there should still be free respecs when there are major changes to the game that significantly affect the performance of existing powers. I think CoX was a bit liberal with handing these out sometimes, but better than shafting the player. If à la carte respecs are possible, perhaps more limited freespecs could be awarded when the game changes are not as wide-spanning.
I've done at least two "total character conversions" using CO's retcon. They were characters that had been built years ago, and weren't up to par with existing rules, yet had old legacy gear that was character bound that I just didn't want to part with by deleting and rebuilding. (Also, with two pages of alts, what real benefit is there to going through the tutorial and West Side, again, when a character in the teens just isn't holding up to any standard of desirability to play?) Bound Legacy Gear may be the problem, but that's the kind of thing you just can't guarantee will never be an issue in the future of game development, unless you're willing to break from antiquated traditions like character bound gear, or even gear in general, which I don't think is likely to happen :(
While not directly tied just to respecs, I do really like Redlynnes concept of having a level capped character continue to earn XP that is shunted into some alternative currency, either to buy things like boosts or respecs or maybe even convert to Stars. Something that lets a max level character benefit from continued play mechanically.
Ultimately, the way the game is built should support options. We should strive to never tell someone "Well if that's what you want, just go play that other game." We should be looking for ways to make the game a structure that supports players playing the way they want to play, and getting what they want from the game. The only people I don't want having fun in my game are the people who's primary enjoyment is ruining the game for others.
There are 2 main reasons why I would want to respect:
1) I made bad power choices while levelling
2) I have BuildA for levels 1-10, BuildB 11-20, BuildC 21-29 and BuildD for Max Level [30]
If im in category 1 then it may be a small change such as put the slot in the wrong power or as drastic as I need a total respect. Assuming the later then I may be totally unable to complete a solo respect trial so it makes sense that these trials are designed for groups. However that makes it a cake-walk if im in category 2. But also if I am in Cat2 then I can just run it solo.
What am I rambling about?
Let the Respec Trial be done solo but also design it so if you have a team of 2, 3, 4+ people who have all stuffed up their builds that it CAN be done.
Ohhh and no "must wait 4+ mins between spawns" like in the Reactor "Borespec" Trial.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
*shrugs* Who says that you need to do a respec trial/mission to do it? Enough games out there actually allow the respec without needing to complete content. A lot of the time the only limitation is the amount of ingame currency that it costs. Sure, with my first character, there might have been a few times where I couldn't afford it (saving up for X/Y/Z items. I had to make the choice when levelling up in CoX as well, because I had the rule of all characters must be self sufficient). But at no single point in time was I ever left without a means of earning of the cash to afford it.
Guild Wars/Wildstar both go for free skill changes whenever; traits and AMP respec's cost ingame currency (Guild wars I believe is fixed cost, Wildstar cost scales with level)
But for those who say "but I wont be able to afford it", that is a balancing point. And as long as you are able to kill a *single* mob in the game, you will be able to afford it *at some point*.
By making the respec the reward of completing missions/trial. That makes it a bit harder. I am not saying that this should NOT be a way of earning them. But it shouldn't be the ONLY way of earning them. I personally feel that if it is the only way of earning them without spending Real Money, then that would just force me to scrimp and save at all points during the game.