Change Powerset - How would that work?

[Troo]

If we could change a powerset, how should that work and what should the cost be?

 

I would guess it could be done through a Respec. The cost could be dropping 10 levels or to level 40 which ever is greater, 1 billion, or a specific challenge.

 

There may be a similar topics I was unable to find through search.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I think the cost should be free.

 

1.  Select server.

2.  Create character.

3.  ...

4.  Profit!

 

If you wanted a higher level character, then I think the test server still allows insta-levelling?  Try it out first.

 

[Oubliette_Red]

It is something that has been brought up before.

 

Not something that I believe should be allowed.

 

Besides, the game has always been about alting.

[Doc_Scorpion]

5 hours ago, Oubliette_Red said:

It is something that has been brought up before.

 

Not something that I believe should be allowed.

Quoted for full agreement.

[THEDarkTyger]

14 hours ago, Troo said:

If we could change a powerset, how should that work and what should the cost be?

It shouldn't. Period.

[Psyonico]

15 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I think the cost should be free.

 

1.  Select server.

2.  Create character.

3.  ...

4.  Profit!

 

If you wanted a higher level character, then I think the test server still allows insta-levelling?  Try it out first.

 

This

[Greycat]

As I recall, the issue isn't "shouldn't be allowed" but "can't be done," due to how the character is set up. You can't change AT, primary, secondary or origin - they're baked into a character. Everything else is fair game.

 

But yeah. 1000 slots. Go nuts.

[gameboy1234]

Considering how quick and inconsequential leveling is right now, I don't really have a problem with it.  The AE makes it almost trivial to level if you really want, so why not dispense with the formality.  If folks just want to swap sets, let them.  If this were a "real" game with more investment required to level, I can see how it might cause resentment.  But under the current rules it doesn't seem like a big deal.  As an advantage there might be more names available if people were swapping powers on their current favorite toon instead of rolling every combination available.

 

Some thoughts how it might work:

 

1. Mulligan.  You roll up a new toon and it just doesn't work for you.  Below level 21 you can swap for free and try new ideas out.

 

2. #1 Limited.  As #1 above but you can only do this once or twice with a given toon.  Would require people to think a little before making a choice.

 

3. Repec.  Add a new token for a repec that allows changing power sets.  These are relatively hard to get, requiring some longish quest or similar.  (Would this make the Shadow Shard actually relevant?!)

 

4. P2W.  As #3 above, but the tokens are also available at the P2W vendor for a non-trivial amount.  Something like 100 million Inf and 500 Merits might be a suitable investment.

 

 

[Doc_Scorpion]

50 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

Considering how quick and inconsequential leveling is right now, I don't really have a problem with it. 

If leveling was actually quick and inconsequential - seems to me that there wouldn't be a call for this, as it wouldn't be needed.  People would just go "ah, it's not already easy enough for you?"
 

56 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

If this were a "real" game

Sorry, this is very much a real game.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Leveling is as fast or slow as you decide it to be. We have 1000 character slots. There is zero need for such a change. Delete and rebuild or just build new. I've already deleted at least as many lvl 50s as I currently have on Excel. It ain't rocket surgery.

[freelampie]

Technically it's possible for secondary powersets. I have done this on my own private server , you can change the secondary powersets easy enough with a DB edit but I had issues when trying to change primary powersets.

 

I can see why some people would like it to be a thing but I don't think it's worth it considering this game is about creating multiple alts.

Edited April 18, 2020 by freelampie

[Twisted Toon]

Even if it was possible, there's the exploitation aspect to look at.

By that I mean, a player grabs a powerset combo that is awesome at lower levels.

plays it up to where a different powerset combo starts to shine near the end game.

 

 

Not the way things were intended to go.

 

I certainly wouldn't create a game with such an exploit in it.

[Zombie Hustler]

How about changing the Terra Volta respec? The radiation mutates your character and allows a power retcon. Just like you'd see in comic books! ☢️🤢🤪 

[ZeeHero]

The change powerset I want most is change Energy Melee to be as good as Super Strength.

[GastlyGibus]

I'm gonna have to say no to this, I don't think it should be allowed.

 

 

As others have said, this game is all about creating alts. Furthermore, for some players it can be a detriment. The whole point of leveling up at a steady pace is to learn all the ins and outs of your character; how the powersets work, what scenarios to use which powers in, how effective they are, etc... Being able to just respec into a completely different set throws all that learning out the window. 

 

Some folks might be really knowledgeable about how sets work, but others aren't. Even from me, having played this game since live and having rolled literally hundreds of different characters over that time, there are still power sets I've never even touched, and I have no idea how they function. If I were to respec my Trick Arrow defender, one of my main, most played characters that I know inside and out, and change him to, say, Thermal Radiation (a set I've never played) I'd be totally clueless and slot him all wrong, not to mention having all of my enhancements and IO sets rendered useless.

 

It's why I've never powerlevelled any of my characters and why I always advise against it. The leveling process is there to help you learn your character. I was there on live to see the scourge of the AE babies, the new players who skipped straight to 50 and had no idea how to play their character. Even though a lot of us here are vets, there are still new people joining the servers who are just learning the ropes, and I'd really hate to see them accidentally ruin their character by switching to a totally different set.

 

Just roll an alt. It's as simple as that. 

[Troo]

interesting..

 

[Luminara]

I think it could provide some interesting moments.

 

For example, the moment when the player shows up for a TF/SF and only, at that instant, realizes he/she forgot to dump all of the now useless enhancements left over after powerset respecing.  And, consequently, also forgot to enhance multiple powers.

 

Or the moment when the entire team wipes because the player, having leveled with one powerset, jumped into the fray and hilariously screwed up by using all of the wrong powers at all of the wrong times.

 

Or the moment when the team spends more time waiting for the player to finish shopping at the AH, crafting and slotting enhancements, than they would've spent in that TF/SF overall.

 

Or the moment when the player decides he/she despises the powerset he/she just respeced into and floods the chat window with complaints.

 

That's comedy you can't buy, at any price.

[Hexquisite]

Only if it drops them all the way back to level one.

 

With no inf. And no salvage, recipes, merits, enhancements, earned costume slots...

 

They keep nothing. That's the cost.

 

 

Say, that sounds remarkably similar to just... rolling a completely new character.

 

Well, golly, doesn't that seems so much simpler...

Edited April 19, 2020 by Shivertongue

[Myrmidon]

On 4/17/2020 at 8:09 PM, Oubliette_Red said:

Besides, the game has always been about alting.

This.

[DSorrow]

I have no idea about the technical side of things (my bet is on it being really difficult), but besides that I don't see why it couldn't be implemented as another influence sink.

[Drazah Krad]

My opinion it would be easier to just pay off someone to power level you then for the devs to waste time on this.

 

My controller power levels people all the time in AE

[Troo]

On 4/17/2020 at 6:09 PM, Oubliette_Red said:

It is something that has been brought up before.

 

Not something that I believe should be allowed.

 

Besides, the game has always been about alting.

Alting = I completely agree.

 

We might as well have 10,000 character slots, I can really only utilize 5 or 6 pages of them. Beyond that it is a heap of broken or forgotten toys.

 

Minor benefits:

• Reducing the piles discarded alts
• More character names available
• Not needing to start over
• Shifting the focus from low level power leveling
• Could softens the blow of nerfs

really, I was hoping for a link to an earlier discussion rather than folks needing to rehash it..

[Chance Jackson]

If it was going to be done than in order to give players a higher level taste of an alternate set while reducing the consternation likely to be felt by people you team up with who would have a reasonable expectation that you would be as competent with your power sets as a player who has leveled up said power set combinations

 

-you can only change 1 powerset at a time

-you can only change a powerset for 1 hour, every 3 days

-you are ineligible to be a member of any team or league engaged in Trials, or TFs

[freelampie]

22 hours ago, DSorrow said:

I have no idea about the technical side of things (my bet is on it being really difficult), but besides that I don't see why it couldn't be implemented as another influence sink.

It's difficult to do manually, but you could script it to change the secondary powerset in SQL as from memory it's just an ID value. It was very useful for testing scenarios on my test server for trying different secondaries against a standard primary (like Invul for instance).

 

The primary powerset however I hadn't worked out exactly why yet is a lot more complex than that and I couldn't see a way of changing it. 

[DSorrow]

4 hours ago, freelampie said:

It's difficult to do manually, but you could script it to change the secondary powerset in SQL as from memory it's just an ID value. It was very useful for testing scenarios on my test server for trying different secondaries against a standard primary (like Invul for instance).

 

The primary powerset however I hadn't worked out exactly why yet is a lot more complex than that and I couldn't see a way of changing it. 

Interesting. How does changing powersets interact with already slotted in enhancements and distributed slots?