No Characteristic

Then the respec recipe could simply cost a little more than 0 influence from the P2W vendor, but below the current (in my eyes unreasonable) price, to account for the loss of AH fees. Even up to 100,000 influence, a standard price point at the P2W vendor, I think would be very reasonable for the ability to buy it whenever you want. Personally I think more respec recipes would be crafted, and that alone would balance it out some, but I can't prove that. And again, I don't think any MMO should be balanced around its market to this degree, when it comes to denying quality of life upgrades. If the main argument against this is that it might, very minorly, remove part of the sunk cost while retaining the rest, then it could be implemented in a patch that includes new sinks.

You don't seem to understand what a 'sink' is in this context. A player who lists a Respec Recipe that they got as a drop is not taking money out of the economy (nor are they making it, it's neutral). They are simply causing money to go from one place to another. It is the crafting cost on the recipe itself that is eaten by the game, when you click craft. This is the 'sink', and this is what can cause deflation. Players who sell (or even re-sell) respec recipes are not generating inf nor are they destroying it, and that is outside the scope of inflation/deflation. You're right, though, people wouldn't be able to sell Respec Recipes for as much anymore. However, I don't care to discuss that as I covered it in the original post, and as I said there I don't believe it's anyone's primary income. As it wouldn't to my knowledge effect the overall 'balance' of the economy and it tends not to be for amounts over 1m inf and you can't to my knowledge farm them, the change, to me, would be worth it for the convenience and quality of life improvement of free respecs for everyone. The privilege of those players who receive Respec Recipe drops randomly to sell them at 200k-1m inf is doesn't seem to outweigh the greater improvement. Anyway, I think we've had all the useful discussion we're going to get out of this. It's quite alright if you don't like the idea, if you personally wouldn't use it, or you think it's not needed. I stand by what I said in this thread. But I'm very tired of answering the same questions over and over that I've covered in my posts, and I'm even more tired of responding to criticisms of my playstyle as a reason my very broad suggestion is weightless. So I'm requesting this thread be locked as it seems likely to go off topic further.

Again, this would benefit players that are too shy or overwhelmed to do things like take up generous offers from others for free respecs, or ask unseen for respec handouts in /help. I'm quite shy, and I've finally gotten over my anxiety about asking for things in /help. But there's a lot of players that won't. I used to be one of them. And as you've seen from this thread, not everyone likes to use a lot of respecs. It's just playstyle. As to your question "on average how many do I need", I'm too bad at math to give you an answer in 'on average'. I simply ignored your question because it isn't relevant to the suggestion, but I'll give you an example since you want to know. It depends. Right now, take my solo-play characters. I'm trying to level a farmer to level my 40 or so alts. But since I don't have any max levels, that means I'm still leveling the hard way. I have 3 accounts that I bring in to missions with me (for three total, don't worry I read the ToS). My main account has the bulk of my alts, but my second two also have several. The majority of them are built just cause I like the archetypes, and some of the newer ones are supposedly more profitable farmers that I'm using my first farmer to, theoretically, in the future, level. It depends on the character, but for instance, when I first tried rad/fire brute, I wanted about three respecs sub-20, because it was extremely tedious doing level 1 farm missions with only 2 attack powers, I decided I wanted to take boxing at level 4 rather than where the guides (almost certainly built with either respecs or door-sitting powerleveling in mind) say to take it, and then when I started to do harder missions I realized how much I wanted temperature protection earlier cause I was getting smoked, and on top of that I decided that I needed hover and fly before 20 because I wasn't just farming, I couldn't bear to level a character using any method that isn't an RP character, and for whatever reason, maybe just poor planning (or you could call it inspiration), this character needed both of those in rp. Each of these changes felt necessary, worth it. Not one-slot trivial. But this is not 'average', it's just one example. Just one character. I haven't respecced my first farmer, a spines/fire brute, at all yet, but I'm going to now that I'm 31. I've respecced my warshade before, and need to again. Overall, I've used less respecs than people think--everyone sees my suggestion and thinks I'm some kind of respec addict, but I don't think I've used more than five, ever. Total, not just per character. That doesn't mean I don't think this would be a big quality of life change. In fact, I've used so few because of how it currently works. I would use a lot more if it was opened up. Edit (addendum): But again, all that is to say...it's a lot of work. And if I wasn't the kind of player willing to multibox, or didn't have the hardware, or didn't ask a lot of annoying questions about what kind of farm missions even still give XP, I wouldn't even be one step closer to solving any of my problems other than maybe inf, with one lone farmer that can't give any of my other alts XP. And had I been playing that rad/fire brute in that environment, I probably would have gotten discouraged and full on rerolled her, or given up on the concept, or moved on to another game and thrown my hands up at this one. Can you see my point?

I'm just not sure where you'd hear it other than somewhere like here, as you are hearing now, and you can see from the response that this isn't exactly an environment where people can ask about changes to the game that make it 'easier' and not get dogpiled. It's not something I would have considered asking for until I learned exactly what it takes to get as many respecs as I need, and that, frankly, is a fair amount of work compared to how easy it is to respec in other games (free, instant). I had to learn what makes money and what doesn't, figure out AE, figure out what items to sell for inf, etc. That's to say nothing of the actual time it takes to do that stuff. After learning this I thought, y'know this is a bit too hard for what it is, so I made the suggestion. It's not something I ever would have asked for before learning all that, but I did think it, immediately. Of course I've always thought respecs should be free, even on live when they did not exist. But I just as easily could have burned out before learning about how to actually fund my own respecs. Selection bias is heavily at work here, on the forums even moreso than in the game. The kind of players this would benefit the most are the kind of players who have already quit playing the game (and future players who might be incentivized to keep playing, with a feature like this). The kind of players too scared to ask 100s of dumb questions to learn the ins and outs of this game's arcane logic. They're not the ones who stuck around and adjusted to the system as it is. They're not the ones who are going to wade into a forum like this. That said, everyone who uses respecs would actually benefit some. And as in my last post, the economy may actually benefit too, if the implementation keeps the recipe crafting cost, as if more people do respec with unlimited respecs, it would mean more inf being destroyed.

I just want to point out, per my original suggestion/idea, which is a free Respec Recipe from the P2W vendor, all the 'sink' qualities of respecs still exist, no? Players selling Respec Recipes that drop earns them money; this doesn't add anything to the economy, but it doesn't take anyway away, either, just moves money around. The player who buys the recipe and then crafts it is the one sinking money, the game eats it and no one profits. As per my original post, one of the possible implementations and my first thought: a 0 influence cost Respec Recipe from the P2W vendor (this may still carry the cost of the recipe, but thats ok) So how could this cause inflation? If anything, I think more people would respec more often=more inf sunk. Anyway, I just can't agree with your logic that making respecx free/infinite won't reduce respec expenses (even in a scenario where you still have to pay the recipe craft cost). But it's not about the cost in the first place, it's about the ease of access and ease of use. This is just obviously true, but I don't see your point. Maybe this logic only works with frankenslotting, which I haven't done yet. But to me it still seems as simple as 'the whole ordeal costs at least 200k-300k less', and there's always going to be a player who is just missing that 300k.

You're right, obviously, I think it's something everyone should get at all times. I was just willing to concede it because at 50 it actually doesn't matter as much as everyone (with tons of 50s) says it doesn't matter for lowbies 😫.

If this is really true, though I don't at all see how unless players were somehow pressured into it--and I can't see that happening--if it really would happen somehow, then make the unlimited respecs only available to sub-50s. By the time someone is 50, they will have had time to experiment as much as they wanted and truly be at a point where they can spend 1mil influence like it's nothing. I definitely don't think having the ability to respec freely would take away from those who have adaptable builds (or from those who spend more money to have two or three fully enhanced builds for multiple content). It's just different playstyles. I don't think having access to free respecs would really allow a player to just pick whatever's best right now. At the very least, that would mean having a second set of enhancements, to swap out, at least partially. And once you get to that point, no one is going to want to do that manually every time, especially as Rudra said you need to redo your trays, too; they'll bite the bullet, buy a full set and just use build 2 or build 3. It'd be more for people who actually want to respec in the traditional sense rather than used tactically, I think by the time you hit 50 and experiment a little, after one or two respecs you've probably found the kind of content you want to do and you'll optimize for that, right? Again, this is for post 50...players who are leveling, depending on the kind of player, might want to respec quite a lot as they move from one kind of content to another or experiment. So it's mostly for them. I do agree that build design is a major part of the appeal. It's very cool. It's so cool in fact that I wish players were given the ability to use new builds freely. Edit: As an aside, paying to swap out enhancements with slotters in pvp does seem like a hassle. PVP only characters should just get Brainstorm style access to free enhancements 👀 but I've read elsewhere that the devs said that'd be a ton of work and it won't happen so they gotta farm a lot.

I guess you're just...built different. 😎

I just don't think that's true. As in my example about my non-farmed, noob-trapped warshade, I think there is a sweet spot where one can afford a respec OR new enhancements, but not both, AND that that point represents a pivotal point that makes or breaks a player's resilience to burnout. It was one of the reasons I dropped the character and the game before; that's burnout (nostalgia and misplaced youth brought me back). Now is this statistically a huge number of players at any given snapshot of the economy? No, of course not. But it is a non-zero number of players. Anyway, as I said, I'm perfectly fine living with it if it can't be changed. I just think it should be, for players who come after me. And let me tell you, this is exactly what I've been doing 🤣. AND it's what's made me want more respecs than ever, as I trial and error what works for farming at different difficulties and what doesn't, and switch over to different kind of enhancements and so on (and why would I want to do that on Brainstorm! That won't get me any XP or Inf...). So while you say it's the solution, and in the current environment it is, it's this very activity that prompted me to make this QoL suggestion.

Alright. I mean, I did. I handled the accusation that I'm making this request from personal entitlement by providing counter-examples, and the accusation that I am somehow 'lazy' by giving examples of things that take effort in the game but don't make inf, like base-building, which you yourself said takes a lot of work. You just didn't like how I did, I guess because it was supposedly off-topic? I guess I'll handle it a different way. But your tone policing here is also off topic, so let's move on. So far, I haven't seen any real reason not to do this other than 'it makes work for the devs', which, yep it does, but it's up to them to decide if it's worth it or not, and 'it'll mess with the economy'. The latter, yeah, maybe but personally I don't think MMOs, especially MMOs that aren't actually funded by cash shops, subscriptions, and the Skinner Boxes that contain them should be balanced around their markets first and foremost. So the question is how bad would it mess with the economy, which I can't answer without access to data (and probably not even then), but someone smarter with more information might be able to.

Misrepresented point. WumpusRat called me lazy for not grinding inf and buying respecs. I was grinding AE for inf to buy respecs while posting in this thread. It literally was a direct reply to something they said. I guess it's misrepresentation to defend myself against personal attacks, which I keep receiving no matter how many times I state that this request isn't about me, personally, I'll be fine if respecs never become free, I just think the game would be improved with this feature. And yes, obviously, the thread isn't about base building. It was an example of the kinds of content someone might choose to spend their time engaging with that isn't necessarily 'lazy' because it doesn't make money. The kind of thing it might be rude to call someone lazy for doing. And again, this is not what I was actually doing today, I was leveling and getting influence.

Again, it's not about my warshade, idk how much you've looked at warshade builds either, but they are incredibly diverse and it's hard to know how you want to play them. Do you slot human form stuff? Nova? Dwarf? Which abilities do you leave unslotted? They're probably one of the most slot hungry ATs in the game, at least off the cuff. That's leaving aside decisions about whether to play them human form, 2 form, tri-form, tri-form with multiple roles per form or all blaster, etc. Not to mention they are pretty damn squishy. We're getting off topic, but as a new player warshades are definitely hard to build, and it's easy to realize you want to build a different way, so it's a good example. I get that that's the culture here, you test everything on the test server, but I simply want to play the game, right? I don't want to test everything ahead of time. I want to be free to learn by doing, and making mistakes. I don't think it's so unreasonable to want to be able to learn how to do something right by doing it wrong first, and I don't think the go-to advice for anything other than real expensive builds should be 'just roll on Brainstorm'. Anyway, this has definitely derailed into personal attacks if you're calling me lazy. In fact I have, many times in the thread, stated that I grind out influence to buy respecs. In fact at least one or two of those 300,000k respecs Greycat mentioned seeing sold on the AH were bought by me. But that's beside the point. You don't get to decide how other people should spend their time in game. I don't personally consider working on bases lazy, nor do I consider the AE 'farming' I do on my needs-to-jam-every-insp-key to keep alive sub-50 brute lazy, nor do I even consider roleplaying lazy, though I can see how some might. But if someone told me they spent their time in this game doing any of those things, I wouldn't call them lazy. If it's entitlement, fine. I don't mind if people see me as entitled for wanting a basic quality of life change like this. It's a suggestion I made to let people play the actual game more, and grind for busywork less. I'm already past the point where respecs keep me, personally, from playing how I want. But personally I don't think the hurdle should be there at all, having cleared it. Edit: I should note, I'm privileged to have a lot of free time, so farming for 10 or 15 minutes to buy a respec is relatively 'painless', but I wouldn't consider it 'painless' for people who have more limited time, especially people who have less time to study how builds are made, which is why I included them as a group I think would benefit. So saying 'just cause you do it means everyone can, and like it' doesn't hold any water for me, since I really don't think they should have to. But just as an aside, just off the top of my head, none of the MMOs I've played in the last ten years ask for money when you respec. Guild Wars 2, as far as I recall, nope. Only thing that costs money at all is buying runes in PVP I think? Maybe you have to pay to learn new traits but you can swap them freely out of combat. WoW? I'm fairly sure it's free, and Classic uses a decaying price. FFXIV...doesn't even have specs, and you can freely level every job. So I wouldn't say 'most' cost money.

Unless I'm mistaken, respec trials are only repeatable infinitely for merit rewards, the actual respec can only be obtained only three times, once at Levels 24-33, once at Levels 34-43, and once at Levels 44-50. After that, you have to take the merit reward (28, 20, and 20 merits, respectively, according to the wiki for the 3 level ranges), which means repeating the latter two trials three to afford one Respec Recipe from the merit vendor for 50 merits, or repeating the first one twice (Edit: this is assuming you buy the Respec Recipe from the vendor, as you might if you are a new player, rather than something you can sell for more profit and buy the respec from the auction house, but I digress). Of course, you can do other content for merits as Wumpus pointed out. But I don't think this is the same thing as the respec trials being infinitely repeatable, and frankly I highly doubt it's faster than selling salvage from AE to obtain a respec. (Note, this could all be wrong, I've never done a respec trial as I quit the game right about when my warshade hit 24 last time, and this time around I've found AE farming to simply be easier than messing with them.) So yes, you are right, it's a solution to a problem that already has many solutions. If implemented wholesale, with no cooldown, it would be a unifying solution to what is currently a problem with many solutions with many steps. If implemented with a cooldown, it would be closer to what you say, but still I think it would be the first layer solution for basically every respec. That's why I'd describe it as having a streamlining effect.

Yeah, I'd agree with it being bout ten minutes (if you don't have any freespecs left). Maybe a little longer or shorter depending on the character. All I'm saying is that it shouldn't take even 10 minutes, since it's something that in other games is instant (minus all the time it takes to re-slot everything...). When I played my warshade back in 2020, I only did regular content (okay that's not true, I did exactly one AE mission, not a fire farm.) And I bought maybe one set of Training Origin enhancements and one set of Dual Origins after that. I've never sent the character money from my now more profitable level 30 alts. She's level 24 now, I haven't played her at all since coming back. And she has a little less than 500,000 influence. I don't remember, but I'd guess at over half of that is a hand-out from a friend. Which is enough for one respec if I bid low and hope, two if I'm lucky or wait to let a bid for 200,000ish go through, which can take several days if you're trying to be that cheap, and exactly zero viable enhancements, only outleveled DOs. So that'd be all my money right when I'd want level 25 IOs or SOs. Now, you can say I was playing the game wrong back then to have only ended up with that much influence. And I definitely was. But that's not really my point. (Also, I don't need advice on how to fix up my warshade, I now, only after I learned how to game AE as you describe, have plenty of respecs and IOs for her. This is just an illustration of how 'just playing the game' means that while you can still afford respecs, it's a significant chunk of change, even though that stops being true for most players past a certain point.) Personally, I just don't think players should have to learn how to game AE or do it even if they do know, over just playing regular content, to fund respecs. However, I do do it, and I try to make it as fun for myself as possible my making my own missions. Would I rather be out there doing regular content? I'd rather be in the sewers, to be honest (it's where I belong).

Thanks for your reply. It seems you actually do think it would destabilize the economy, and to be honest maybe that is true. I wouldn't know. That's about the one actual criticism of it I can see being viable. As to whether or not it's true, I'll leave that to the devs, but I do think it's the one thing that would need to be considered. Personally, I don't think the instability caused by something that only gives 1mil profit a pop would impact much, given what other people have told me about the economy, so I'm still for it, but again, I think it's worth a look. This may also be true, but most MMOs that are still around today and highly successful either don't have respecs at all because they don't have specs at all outside of gear, or they have moved to free respecs. Take original WoW, that was very much a 'choices matter' type deal. But modern WoW, it's easy and free to respec. Choices matter more in your gameplay. Whether or not Cryptic ever would have implemented it, I can't say. I haven't played any of their still-living games beyond a toe-dip into Champions back when it was released. Still, I don't know if this is against the spirit of HC. To me it seems in line with the idea of making all costume pieces available at level 1, free costume changes, etc. But I don't know the team and I can't speak for them. You're right lol. I don't only do those things, though. I want to get into content. It's just intimidating, in part because I make a build, it sucks, I run out of respecs, or realize that I need to spend a lot of money on better enhancements but I was slotting for common IOs, etc. When I first started playing Homecoming a bit ago, during the height of the lockdown, I only had my legacy knowledge from live about how enhancements worked, and on live I only ever got to like level 20. Back then I didn't have any friends that played the game until much later, and we only played it together a little bit before they all got bored and wanted to go back to other MMOs. Sorry for the life story...but I really do do content, too. I want to get to 50. In fact I have a great number of characters that I'd like to get to 50, to secure their names with the upcoming name release policy. I posted about that just to show that I'm not someone who has lots of influence lying around by default, even though I spend a lot of time in the game. It's not to say that that's the only part of the game I like or participate in. In actuality, I love the combat in this game. It's the main thing that keeps me coming back. This seems to be true, from the original design perspective. And, speaking personally, entirely my own emotional bias here, I don't like game design like this! When I play an MMO, I don't want my every little choice to carry lasting consequence when it comes to my build. I especially don't want to be punished for not doing a lot of homework ahead of time. If I wanted every little decision I made to matter in a life or death way, I'd play a fighting game. But this kind of decisions-matter game design applied on live even to costumes to some extent. That's not true here, so I question if it has to be true for builds as well. And as an aside, it seems people are saying I think this will only benefit new players. I primarily think it will benefit players who don't have a lot of influence, time, or max levels, for whatever reason. Whether or not they're actually 'new' is beside the point, I just think new players are one category of player that might find the change nice.