Make respecs (or obtaining Respec Recipes) free and unlimited

[Rudra]

5 hours ago, No Characteristic said:

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.

Not true. If respecs are available free anywhere, then the player selling respecs is not likely to get anything. Why should anyone pay that player through the AH for a respec when that same person can just go get the unlimited freespec?

[No Characteristic]

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.

[Rudra]

The AH requires a posting cost which is a fraction of the listed price and takes a payment fee from the buyer which is a fraction of the funds spent. That is inf' on both sides that is gone forever. That counts as a sink. And it still deprives the lucky player that got the respec recipe drop from getting inf' from it, exacerbating their lack of funds by denying them the ability to get more from that source. (Edit: And no, they would not 'not be able to sell for as much any more'. They would not be able to sell because everyone with even half a brain will just go get the freespec from P2W.)

Edited November 22, 2022 by Rudra

[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.

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, No Characteristic said:

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.

 

Every transaction on the market incurs fees.  5% listing fee based on the price at which the item is listed, and 5% sales fee based on the price paid for the item.  If you list an item for 1,000,000, you pay 50,000 for listing that item, and you're not paying another player, the inf* is destroyed.  It no longer exists.  Same thing for sales fees.  When an item sells, 5% of the inf* you would collect is destroyed, it no longer exists.  The higher your list price, the higher the listing fee.  The higher the price paid by the purchases, the higher the sale fee.  And all fees are an inf* sink, performing the solitary function of permanently removing inf* from the economy.

 

So no, it's not equivalent if respecs are changed to unlimited and free.  The transaction fees are the larger sink, not the crafting cost.

 

I recommend reading through posts in the Market forum before making any other assumptions about how the market or the economy work.

 

4 hours ago, No Characteristic said:

This is just obviously true, but I don't see your point.

 

My point is, the cost of buying a respec recipe is a negligible expense in comparison to the cost of outfitting the new build.  In the same way the inf* sink represented by respec recipe sales is a drop in the bucket (presuming the average sale price of those 3432 respec recipes was 1,000,000, that would be 343,000,000 inf* removed from the economy by transaction fees... but the economy has trillions of unspent inf* floating around.  ergo, drop in the bucket), the cost of a respec recipe is a drop in the bucket compared to the overall cost of replacing enhancements.  Replacing enhancements is the relevant, and much more significant, expense.

 

I can buy 100 respec recipes and mail them to you, but I guarantee that you'll still find yourself struggling because it will be replacing enhancements where you incur the real cost,  And the more you respec, the higher that cost will be, as you rip out one set of enhancements after another and cram new ones in, over and over again, constantly changing things.  How many of those respecs would you use before you'd be flat broke and going out of your mind with frustration and anxiety over finding a way to pay for the next attempt to "fix" the build, with said build incapable of running content at -1/x1, missing enhancements and zilch in your pockets to do anything about it?  Ten?  Fifteen?  And then what?  Start a thread about the necessity of enhancements being free and unlimited?

 

This is where phrases such as "hoist with your own petard" and "enough rope to hang yourself" come into play.  And yes, I do, in fact, agree with you that it's a restrictive design, I'm strongly averse to this kind of nanny state bullshit, but in this particular case, it does serve a purpose and do a lot more good than harm.  If you have to use some semblance of caution, if you have to stop and consider the consequences of respecing your build, you're less likely to find yourself at a point of not being able to play that character at all.  Being flat broke and staring at a couple dozen empty enhancement slots is a sure-fire way to lose all interest in a character, if not the entire game.

[GM Crumpet]

Closing this thread as it's moved wildly off topic