Incarnate Respec Options

[dmaker]

I was musing the other day about how it would be handy to have a respec option for Incarnates. Perhaps a 10 million inf price tag or something and you get refunded all components used to date and your incarnates are reset, but remain open of course. Basically a way to try different ones out. 

 

I know we can continue to grind vet levels and earn the needed salvage, and I know we can earn multiple options per slot, but that gets pretty time consuming in the higher vet levels. Would be nice (outside of the test server) to either correct errors made when originally selecting and upgrading incarnates or simply curiosity to see if incarnate X works better than incarnate Y with this character.

 

 

Edited September 19, 2019 by dmaker

[macskull]

I suspect that 10 million inf would be way too cheap, considering you probably put in at least 276 Empyrean merits (30 for each of 6 very rare salvage and 8 for each of 12 rare salvage) to T4 each of your six slots, an Empyrean merit is worth 10 reward merits, and you could probably make around 250-300 million inf from buying and selling enhancement converters with the 2760 reward merits that'd be equivalent to. There are other, faster ways to earn Empyrean merits than just grinding out vet levels (which isn't really efficient at all once you pass vet level 50 or so).

[Sura]

You can also repeat that opening arc in DA (Heather something) and get a random level of Incarnate salvage at the end.  Whole arc takes 15-20 minutes or less.  If you make a list of what you need all the way up the ladder it's not too tough to be getting something relevant every time through.

[dmaker]

Well, really, the cost of the respec is not that important, nor do I see why it should be related to how much effort or costs went into achieving the incarnate upgrades. It's just more about having an easier option to correct errors or explore other incarnates on a given character without having to earn multiple options per slot. 

 

We can respec our power choices, but not incarnates.  Incarnates can have a huge impact on your character end game and can represent a big time investment as well. Would be nice to have some redo flexibility. You would not be able to keep previous ones if you respeced. It does not provide any unfair advantage or anything. 

 

We can respec our powers as often as we like, and quite easily I might add given anyone can buy the recipe for 250K on the AH. Why should incarnates not have some easier path for exploration/do-overs?

 

Edited September 19, 2019 by dmaker

[macskull]

I don't think comparing an incarnate power respec to a regular respec is a fair comparison - sure, you can change which powers you pick from your primary/secondary/pools/APP/PPP, but changing incarnate powers is more akin to changing what powersets your character has. You can already have as many incarnate powers as you want and they're pretty easy to get. The only semi-annoying part is at the T4 level.

[MunkiLord]

Make it a difficult task force and disallow Incarnate powers during it and I'm in. That sounds like fun. 

[QuiJon]

13 hours ago, macskull said:

I suspect that 10 million inf would be way too cheap, considering you probably put in at least 276 Empyrean merits (30 for each of 6 very rare salvage and 8 for each of 12 rare salvage) to T4 each of your six slots, an Empyrean merit is worth 10 reward merits, and you could probably make around 250-300 million inf from buying and selling enhancement converters with the 2760 reward merits that'd be equivalent to. There are other, faster ways to earn Empyrean merits than just grinding out vet levels (which isn't really efficient at all once you pass vet level 50 or so).

If it is a respec the 10m influ is just a few to get back to nothing. You dont keep what you have made so you would lose all the powers you had and have to make again from the start. It is basically letting you fix a good, which is ex as ctly what a respec should do.

[Burnt Toast]

You can also do actual Incarnate content/trials to earn a lot of components. I generally only go up to like vet level 15 with my characters and still have multiple t4s in some powers because... I do actual incarnate content and get loads of drops. Just saying.... I see no need for this as components etc are easy to get and you can simply switch between which ones you use. 

[Steampunkette]

I don't think there is a reasonable way to set up an "Incarnate Respec"... You're basically buying those powers from an invisible vendor, with the "Price" of some powers being other powers.

 

Maybe they could set up a "Trade" option, by tier and type, on a real-world 'Incarnate Vendor'... but it seems iffy.

[quixoteprog]

1 minute ago, Steampunkette said:

I don't think there is a reasonable way to set up an "Incarnate Respec"... You're basically buying those powers from an invisible vendor, with the "Price" of some powers being other powers.

 

Maybe they could set up a "Trade" option, by tier and type, on a real-world 'Incarnate Vendor'... but it seems iffy.

Actually it would probably be pretty easy. As other people have pointed out, you can kind of do it NOW. You just need to build out the new incarnate power you want to switch to, through emp. merits and threads or shards or whatever. You can have as many of them as you want, just not slotted at the same time.

 

The only sensible equivalent of a "respec" would just be a matter of allowing someone to "trade in" a currently built incarnate button for another one at the same level. Or break down one they have into components that could be used to build another one.

 

Whether they ever WOULD do it is another matter altogether. The game was designed to make it a pretty serious choice. Each one is expensive and time consuming to build.

 

10 million inf. would be nothing to someone at that level. A more reasonable cost might be 10 empyrean merits or 100 threads. Or, 2-3 merits/10 threads to break a tier 4 into the 2 tier 3 + components it cost to make the t4, and then another 2-3 merits to break t3>t2 etc.

 

10 merits would break a T4 down into just threads and merits.

 

 

[Steampunkette]

1 minute ago, quixoteprog said:

Actually it would probably be pretty easy. As other people have pointed out, you can kind of do it NOW. You just need to build out the new incarnate power you want to switch to, through emp. merits and threads or shards or whatever. You can have as many of them as you want, just not slotted at the same time.

 

The only sensible equivalent of a "respec" would just be a matter of allowing someone to "trade in" a currently built incarnate button for another one at the same level. Or break down one they have into components that could be used to build another one.

 

Whether they ever WOULD do it is another matter altogether. The game was designed to make it a pretty serious choice. Each one is expensive and time consuming to build.

 

10 million inf. would be nothing to someone at that level. A more reasonable cost might be 10 empyrean merits or 100 threads. Or, 2-3 merits/10 threads to break a tier 4 into the 2 tier 3 + components it cost to make the t4, and then another 2-3 merits to break t3>t2 etc.

 

10 merits would break a T4 down into just threads and merits.

"Buy more" isn't so much a respec as it is a side-grind... but yeah. It's something you can do, already.

 

But a straight "I have this one, I want that one, let me respec this one to that one" doesn't work without the 'Trade in' option because it's essentially a vendor. Which is what you mention in the second line of your post after quoting it from my post.

 

... You're just using a lot more words to express what I previously expressed and implying I'm wrong about it... I don't understand your intention, here?

 

 

[MunkiLord]

I would want this as an Incarnate respec trial. Similar idea to Terra Volta respecs, but less lame. I'm sure someone more better at writing could come up with all kinds of story reasons to make this work. One successful trial would give the ability to respec one Incarnate power. So if you want to do all six, run it six times.

[tidge]

On 9/20/2019 at 3:27 PM, Burnt Toast said:

You can also do actual Incarnate content/trials to earn a lot of components. I generally only go up to like vet level 15 with my characters and still have multiple t4s in some powers because... I do actual incarnate content and get loads of drops. Just saying.... I see no need for this as components etc are easy to get and you can simply switch between which ones you use. 

I'm aligned with this way of thinking. It is a little 'grindy' to go after extra Empyrean merits and random incarnate salvage drops, but it is very easy. I suppose if you somehow made a complete flub of a choice (and really committed to it by crafting multiples of T3) you might feel burned, but even the most straightforward Incarnate grind ought to be netting you plenty of threads (for common/uncommon components) and even shards (which you can waste in all sorts of ways, like extra Alpha powers).

[Jeagan]

I rarely build past tier 3 in all of my slots, but I have t3 in ALL of my slots for my 50s, and it doesn't take any real time to do so. A day or two, and then if I have other powers I want it take a bit longer. Tier 3 is more than you need for the vast majority of content, and by that time you should have a decent idea of what incarnate powers you want. I even have a character with a few optionals to change between for RP purposes (a Space Marine with different ammunition types). This is a non-issue.

[Robotech_Master]

I don't really think this is needed. If you want other/different Incarnate powers from the ones you originally picked, all you have to do is craft them. You're not locked into keeping the same powers permanently. That's a major way Incarnate powers differ from regular powers, where you are locked into your choice unless you put in the effort to re-choose it.

 

Sure, it costs extra time and effort to get the components and merits and such necessary to craft the powers you want—but that's part of what makes Incarnate powers special. 

 

So many of these suggestions seem to be people wanting some new bonus ability that would totally throw off the balance between how good something is and how hard it is to get, just because they want them. I think the balance we've got right now in this regard is pretty good.

[Crysta Clear]

It would be nice to be able to 'disassemble' incarnate powers in a very lossy way (get back less than 25% of the resources put into them, and none of the orange or purple components ever), or just to flat-out delete incarnate powers you didn't end up liking so they don't clutter your list of slottable powers.

 

But a full, lossless incarnate respec, or even a less lossy respec than ~25% and nothing rarer than uncommon, would really just be stupid power creep.

 

Example:
A T1 costs 60 threads (three 20-thread white components). You could 'disassemble' it into 15 threads (25% of 60).

A T2 costs 160 threads (the 60-thread T1, two 20-thread white components, a 60-thread yellow component). You could 'disassemble' it into 40 threads (25% of 160).

 

A T3 costs 200 threads (the 160-thread T2, two 20-thread white components) and one orange component. You could 'disassemble' it into 50 threads (25% of 200), but you will flat-out eat the loss of the orange component's value.

 

A T4 costs 440 threads (two 200-thread T3's, two 20-thread white components), two orange components for its constituent T3's, and one purple component. You could disassemble it into 110 threads (25% of 440), but you will flat-out eat the loss of the orange and purple components' values.

 

This encourages people to think about their choices, while also letting them recoup a small amount of their effort if they decide they'd rather not have the incarnate power they've already crafted. Note that it gets worse and worse the farther you go into a given slot -- this is good and okay, because you should be able to tell whether you like an incarnate power within the first two tiers, and investing that much into something you don't like is silly.

 

 

Edited September 24, 2019 by Crysta Clear

[Megajoule]

I "Liked" that, because it seems reasonable.

Of course, I'm equally certain that those who want this will never ever go for it, for that same reason.

[Crysta Clear]

Most people who ask for blatant power creep are not reasonable people. It's why I blocked PaxArcana in that other thread. XD

[MunkiLord]

I like your idea, it's a good cost to pay in my opinion. But I really want a difficult Incarnate respec trial, I think that would be a blast. I don't mean a league thing like normal trials, but a normal team like Terra Volta respec. I don't even think it would have to be a power swap thing either, maybe give back 50-75% of components in threads if completed.

[Corruption]

I don't think it's needed. It's relatively easy to unlock incarnate powers and you can theoretically have them all crafted and switch them out whenever you want. 

[Lost Ninja]

On 9/19/2019 at 10:34 PM, MunkiLord said:

Make it a difficult task force and disallow Incarnate powers during it and I'm in. That sounds like fun. 

Back when I first played during live (EU Launch i3) I made a Dark/Dark scrapper, I didn't take Stamina. I literally couldn't get through the first respec trial my build was so gimped. So no, don't put something as useful as a repsec behind a trial. Perhaps a difficult non-incarnate trial could be added that allows you to pick a respec as a reward but that shouldn't be the only method to acquire it.

[MunkiLord]

17 minutes ago, Lost Ninja said:

Back when I first played during live (EU Launch i3) I made a Dark/Dark scrapper, I didn't take Stamina. I literally couldn't get through the first respec trial my build was so gimped. So no, don't put something as useful as a repsec behind a trial. Perhaps a difficult non-incarnate trial could be added that allows you to pick a respec as a reward but that shouldn't be the only method to acquire it.

This is fair request, I also remember failing the TV trial more than once. I also remember one time having Super Speed as my only travel power, not even Combat Jumping and before the various temp/vet rewards. Just getting to the final mission door was a nightmare and took me forever. Perhaps if possible, have the reward scale? The more Incarnate powers that are deactivated for the run, the most you can swap out at completion? For those that want/need an easier run, go in full strength and swap out one or two. Those that want to hate themselves deactivate them all and then get to repick them all? 

[Snakebit]

On 9/26/2019 at 1:29 PM, MunkiLord said:

I like your idea, it's a good cost to pay in my opinion. But I really want a difficult Incarnate respec trial, I think that would be a blast. I don't mean a league thing like normal trials, but a normal team like Terra Volta respec. I don't even think it would have to be a power swap thing either, maybe give back 50-75% of components in threads if completed.

Heck, we could use the OG TV respec, just replace the Sky Raiders with Malta/Knives and throw in an AV or 2 in the last phase. Locked in at +4, of course. 

[Lazarillo]

After accidentally blowing what was effectively several levels of precious early Veteran experience that I can't get back this morning, crafting a Barrier Radial Epiphany when I actually needed a Barrier Core Epiphany, all I can say is...

 

Please?  Pretty please?  I'll be your best friend?

[Megajoule]

With some sympathy, 'cause I've done similar (but only with lower-tier powers... so far...)

IMO, no.  Consider this one of life's lessons - be more careful and read before you click "create" ("buy", "sell", "combine", etc etc).