I seem to recall a thread concerning whether or not a character will be able to respec an ability once they have purchased it. While I can understand the arguments on both sides, one thing that I would like to see is a method that allows players to "test out" an ability, in a controlled environment, before they completely lock it in. By allowing a player to do so, you would eliminate some of the ambiguity inherent in the power selection process.
For example, if an ability is called "Blast" and you have the options to select "increased range" for that blast when you level up, how much of a range increase is it? Likewise, if you add the option "bleed" to it, is the bleed damage static, based on stats, base power damage, or the sandwich you ate for lunch? While these suggestions are mostly for min/max characters, I am also concerned with how a power appears. One of the Kickstarter updates mentioned the ability to choose the origin point for an ability. While purely thematic, I would like to see what each of the different origin points look like and determine which would be the best "fit" for a character of a specific theme.
Maybe a Danger Room type building?
20041004-20120910
CO has its Powerhouse which let's you try out powers before "locking" them in. I certainly wouldn't mind if CoT had some version of that as well but I would never want that INSTEAD of being able to respec a build. Respecs should always be allowed regardless - something like a CoT Powerhouse would just be icing on the cake.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
This brings into question of how easily are respecs available. Is it going to be something like in WoW where it is (effectively) an ingame currency option, or like COX where it was predominantly a Trial completion/Vet option (yes, I know that they were available on the AH, but I rarely saw them or they were *way* overpriced when I did see them).
Also, how easily would it be to change to the origin of powers as well? Just in the powerhouse, or just by hitting an ingame menu (which could incur a higher cost.. who knows, just throwing ideas out here).
While I agree that exactly what a CoT "respec" is or how easy they should be to get is probably up in the air at this point I still think there should be some way to change a character's build regardless. I was just making the point that "build planning tools" (no matter how cool they may be) should not serve as an excuse for not giving us a way to change things after the fact.
Again respecs are a fundamental feature we need - anything else would be secondary to them.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
One feature I regularly use in CO to test my builds is the battlestation, which is part of the power testing station of the powerhouse. Whats awesome about it is that you can set any number of mobs and fight them as if your fighting the real thing as a way of testing your build in detail. What sucks about it is the testing dummies people use to check the raw damage of an attack, though, as that room is shared with others in a local instance, but a private instance would be especially useful.
CO didn't have good respec options though, it took a huge amount of in-game currency to respec(about, I think, 250 globals at level 40). And there was no way to earn a retcon in game without paying money in some form or another(either by being around for a long time as a subscribing gold member, having a lifetime sub, or spending I think 15 dollars on a respec. City of heroes offered ways to earn respecs in the game itself.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
100% agreed on this, particularly with the "Build planning tools" part. In my mind this was due to the *huge* number of various enhancements and set bonuses, it felt almost essential to use one (partly as well due to the "no more than 5 of a certain size bonus" rule on TOP of diminishing returns).
The above, also tied in with the destructive "Lock on equip" system that CoX used, made it annoying to try out various builds.
Another option is to allow me to "Undo" what I just did when I levelled up to 1HR of GAME TIME (made that CAPS for a reason).
So I level up from 15-16.
I get a new power and select Secondary_3.
I now have 1 hour of game time on THAT character to play with the power and if I feel I don't like it can go back to a Trainer (or however we level up) and remove that swap that power for something else. Also (assuming the same slotting that CoH did) unslot whatever ENH I used in that Power for free.
I change Secondary_3 for Primary_4 and put in a different ENH.
I have 1 hour of game time on that character to try out the power.
If I don't slot an ENH for the first 40 mins then I can only unslot it for the next 20 mins.
Or maybe 1hr is too long and only 20-30 mins is enough??
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer