Make respecs (or obtaining Respec Recipes) free and unlimited

[WumpusRat]

35 minutes ago, No Characteristic said:

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.

So why exactly would you NEED to respec your warshade? Just to pull those few enhancements out? That's definitely not what a respec is meant for.

 

Again, I have to ask WHY you would need to constantly respec your character. You don't need to respec to fix a single slot; respecs are done to rebuild a character, not to minmax every level or two just to tinker with your build. You can do that all you want on the test server.

 

And saying "it shouldn't take ten minutes" comes across as pretty entitled, imo. SOME games allow free respecs. Most don't. Most use it as a way to get you to spend money (either in-game currency or in some games real life money). Asking for free respecs simply because you don't want to bother spending ten minutes getting the money for one seems really, really lazy. You're asking the devs to change the code because you don't want to spend a couple minutes doing something that you acknowledge is easy and painless.

 

Just grind out a few million inf, and buy yourself some respecs, if you're that addicted to respeccing your characters. Don't be lazy.

[No Characteristic]

19 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

So why exactly would you NEED to respec your warshade?

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'.

 

19 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

if you're that addicted to respeccing your characters. Don't be lazy.

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.

Edited November 22, 2022 by No Characteristic

[Rudra]

12 minutes ago, No Characteristic said:

I don't want to test everything ahead of time. I want to be free to learn by doing, and making mistakes.

You are. And using the test server is not part of the culture. I have no presence on the test server. I test my characters as part of playing them through the content. No one is saying you have to use the test server, just that using it to test builds and concepts is a viable option and would reduce the need for constant respecs.

 

12 minutes ago, No Characteristic said:

I don't personally consider working on bases lazy

Misrepresented point. Base building has nothing to do with the discussion or anyone else's point. (Besides, base building takes a LOT of work.)

 

12 minutes ago, No Characteristic said:

nor do I consider the AE 'farming' I do on my needs-to-jam-every-insp-key to keep alive sub-50 brute lazy

Misrepresented point. AE farming, and other farms, are not part of the discussion. Though they are viable sources of inf' for respec recipes.

 

12 minutes ago, No Characteristic said:

nor do I even consider roleplaying lazy

Misrepresented point. Noone is saying anything about roleplaying or roleplayers in this thread.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to correct the spelling of "just".

[No Characteristic]

6 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Misrepresented point. AE farming, and other farms, are not part of the discussion. Though they are viable sources of inf' for respec recipes.

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.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by No Characteristic

[Outrider_01]

4 hours ago, JasperStone said:

do not use Mids and tinker a good bit with a build.

You should use mids. If just to keep track of slotting/power levels/level picks, not min max a build. The mental gymnastics cuts into play time.

[Rudra]

40 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

Just grind out a few million inf, and buy yourself some respecs, if you're that addicted to respeccing your characters. Don't be lazy.

There is nothing in this comment about AE farming, base building, roleplaying, or anything other than grinding out a few million inf'. Which as you said, you were doing in AE. (Edit: So your response could have been that that was what you were already doing instead.) So you are involving game aspects that have nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

 

Defend yourself from comments, by all means. When someone makes a personal comment, deal with it. However, your response was wide ranging over fields that had nothing to do with the comment.

 

Edit: And my perfect timing strikes again. Apologies @WumpusRat, this comment is not for you. And apologies to others for not linking what this comment was about. This is in response to @No Characteristic's comment 2 posts up.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Rudra

[No Characteristic]

2 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Defend yourself from comments, by all means. When someone makes a personal comment, deal with it. However, your response was wide ranging over fields that had nothing to do with the comment.

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.

[Luminara]

15 minutes ago, No Characteristic said:

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.

In a vacuum, it wouldn't be important.  This is just one sink, not a large one, and in that vacuum, it probably wouldn't make any difference.  But our economy is multi-layered and multi-targeted.  Consider amplifiers, for instance.  Superficially, they're fantastic inf* sinks, but that's only superficially.  The 2.5 million inf* cost at level 50 looks like a huge sink, but if players aren't buying them... well, they're not very good sinks, are they.  If a player spends 24,000 inf* on eight hours of all three amplifiers at level 1, and never touches them again, they're not even as good at being a sink as a single respec recipe sold on the market for 1,000,000 inf*, as that transaction destroys four times as much inf*.

 

Every sink is vital to the economy, and considering that inf* is added to the economy faster than it's destroyed, we need more sinks, not fewer.  Removing one won't destabilize the economy significantly, but it would have an impact.  And every step away from a stable economy is a step toward inflation.

 

1 hour ago, No Characteristic said:

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.

 

Adding a Sybil belt to your costume won't increase your hit chance or buff your damage.  Respecing out of a power to add Aim or Build Up would.  Replacing a cape with a backpack item on your character won't make any difference in combat.  Respecing to move slots to a newly acquired T9 power so you can blitz missions in half the time would.

 

Costume items being unlocked isn't the same as changing a basic aspect of the game in a way which would bring a notable amount of power creep with it.

 

1 hour ago, No Characteristic said:

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.

 

I understand all of that, but... you don't need a killer build to hit 50.  I've played some mind-bogglingly bad shit to 50.  I took a Trick Arrows/Archery defender to 50, most of the way solo, between Issues 5 and 7.  I leveled a Kin/Elec defender to 50 without using any of my /Elec powers, I used Flurry, Kick and Air Superiority, and, again, most of the way solo, in the same period.  I took a Bots/TA mastermind to 50 when Bots were the worst mastermind primary and TA was the worst set period.  It's ten times faster and easier now, with P2W buffs and a stable economy.  You can get there, if you want to, even with the worst build you can make.  The ride is definitely more enjoyable with a solid build, but I've never let a build stop me from going the distance.  A build can always be fixed later, but if you avoid getting to later because the build isn't just right, you're just making it take longer.

 

Join a team once in a while, only one person in a thousand gives a damn what you're doing or how you're doing it, as long as you're doing something.  Participate in group events, like Giant Monster fights or RWZ raids.  Use the P2W buffs.  Adjust the difficulty to suit the character.  Select missions against enemies which don't push the character past its limits.  Grab some cheap recipes from the market, craft them, collect exploration badges to acquire merits, use the merits to buy converters, voila, all the set IOs you could ever want or need for a leveling character.  Or grab a farm build from the forums, make a second account and use it as your farming account to power-level characters.  Infinite respecs aren't the answer to getting to 50.  You are.

 

2 hours ago, No Characteristic said:

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!

 

I don't like the hit roll system.  But it is what it is and it's unlikely to change, so I live with it.

 

2 hours ago, No Characteristic said:

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.

 

People who don't have inf* for respec recipes also don't have inf* for new enhancements, so unlimited respecs won't improve the game for them.  Broke is broke.

 

People who don't have the time to log onto the test server, instantly bump a character to a specific level and use the provided popmenu to enhance it for free aren't going to have more time by going through multiple respecs on the live servers, leveling up the slow way and manually buying and slotting the enhancements.

 

And no-one has to be 50 to be wealthy or well-enhanced, we have players posting their results from marketeering with level 1 characters who start with nothing but the inspirations they receive from the tutorial and turn it into a billion inf*.

 

There's no equivalency between respec availability and these things.

[Luminara]

45 minutes ago, Outrider_01 said:

The mental gymnastics cuts into play time.

 

Not if the mental gymnast is naked...

[No Characteristic]

2 minutes ago, Luminara said:

People who don't have inf* for respec recipes also don't have inf* for new enhancements, so unlimited respecs won't improve the game for them.  Broke is broke.

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.

 

5 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Or grab a farm build from the forums, make a second account and use it as your farming account to power-level characters.

 

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.

[lemming]

I suppose I could try to use up my respecs, but there's only so many times I want to rearrange my trays.   I tend to just wait until I hit 50 before I do one, but by then I have five on hand, if I haven't done something else that grants one.  (Patron Pool, Respec Trials, the devs hand them out if a power gets changed, vet levels start adding them in, I don't even know how many I have from Super Packs)

 

I doubt this is needed, it's more a solution looking for a problem.

[No Characteristic]

15 minutes ago, lemming said:

I suppose I could try to use up my respecs, but there's only so many times I want to rearrange my trays.   I tend to just wait until I hit 50 before I do one,

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

[Rudra]

18 minutes ago, lemming said:

I suppose I could try to use up my respecs, but there's only so many times I want to rearrange my trays.   I tend to just wait until I hit 50 before I do one, but by then I have five on hand, if I haven't done something else that grants one.  (Patron Pool, Respec Trials, the devs hand them out if a power gets changed, vet levels start adding them in, I don't even know how many I have from Super Packs)

 

I doubt this is needed, it's more a solution looking for a problem.

I very rarely respec. If I can solo the content, I'm doing fine. That said? A quality of life improvement I would like to see but am fairly sure will never happen? Is power trays retaining their settings for powers not replaced during a respec. Trying to rebuild the power trays after a respec is just oh so annoying. Especially on a fully incarnated 50 with trays of saved temp powers for times when they are needed. At least let me lock my temp power trays maybe?

[Zect]

One thing I like about CoX is that your build and power selection are generally static. When you run into a fire-immune enemy, you can't just pull out a water sword from your backpack and go on your merry way. Perhaps you'd need to pull out some long-forgotten temp power, use inspirations strategically, or play more cautiously. Perhaps you'd learn a thing or two about not relying on fire attacks too heavily, or even have to ask for help from a friend (cooperation! Heresy!) It rewards good build design and players who take effort to develop adaptable builds fit for multiple situations. And build design, accept it or not, is a major part of the game and its appeal. (Incidentally, this is also why respeccing powersets is a stupid idea. Let's hope the spaghetti code prevents it from ever being technically feasible.)

 

The game offers some ways to overcome this, like multiple builds, unslotters and respecs, all at a small cost or with some limitations. That's because while nobody should have to live with a build mistake forever, there needs to be a little bit of friction between the player and the easy out of just picking whatever's best right now. Those limitations help make the gameplay challenges more about thoughtful strategy and design. Incidentally, one thing that turns me off the lolpvp in this game is the meta of slotting and unslotting enhancements (with enhancement unslotters) depending on the opponent. I want to be playing the game, not messing with the enhancement screen. It would be a severe QoL hit to the rest of the game if the pve meta became one of constant respecs for whatever powers are best suited to right now.

 

The current situation is ideal, being neither too restrictive nor too permissive, and no changes are needed. If cost is the issue with respec recipes, the Beta server is available for your use any time, for free.

[No Characteristic]

20 minutes ago, Zect said:

It would be a severe QoL hit to the rest of the game if the pve meta became one of constant respecs for whatever powers are best suited to right now.

 

 

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.

Edited November 22, 2022 by No Characteristic

[Rudra]

8 minutes ago, No Characteristic said:

then make the unlimited respecs only available to sub-50s

Not going to happen. At least, I'm pretty sure it will not happen. There is no reason to prohibit a level 50 character from having access to something because (s)he/it got all the way to level 50. You can't gate keep something like a respec's accessibility because the character "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." If it were to be implemented, you would see the forums light up demanding 50s get equal access. And those individuals would be right.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to correct mispellings. (I really should proofread before I hit submit....)

[No Characteristic]

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 😫.

[Luminara]

7 hours ago, No Characteristic said:

I just don't think that's true.

 

Let's pretend that, for some ungodly reason, I want to respec my level 37 Rad/Elec sentinel out of PBAoEs and take ranged AoEs instead.  If I'm too poor to afford a respec recipe at buy now prices, and too impatient to wait for a low bid to fill (there are 3432 for sale as of when i started typing this, last five sales ranging from 333,333 to 2,000,000), then I'm frankenslotting set IOs, because that's the least expensive option.  It's cheaper than SOs over time, same price as common IOs of an equivalent level and more combat-effective than either of those two options.  And, being poor, I'm buying inexpensive recipes and salvage and crafting them myself, rather than paying someone else to do it.

 

I have to replace 11 enhancements, so that's 11 recipes at 25,000 apiece, 22 common salvage at 250 apiece, 11 uncommon salvage at 2500 apiece, and 81,640 crafting fee for each enhancement.  1,206,040 inf* for the 11 enhancements I'm replacing.  If I am patient enough to make those low bids for enhancement recipes, I'm also going to be patient enough to wait for a low bid to fill on a respec recipe, so we can presume that I could get it for 333,333.

 

The miserly approach is four times as expensive as the respec recipe, and that's for a very limited respec, two powers and eleven enhancements at level 37.  If I couldn't afford that respec recipe, there's no way I could afford the enhancements I'd need after respecing, even if I make them myself.

 

Of course, it's possible to recycle existing enhancements, if one is using common IOs or SOs, but that's assuming that the powers can be slotted identically, and that's not a given.  I can't put level 25 Damage IOs in Power Sink or Energize.  I can't swap Neutron Bomb for Maneuvers and still use 1 Acc/3 Dam/1 EndRdx/1 RchgRdx SOs as my slotting.  In many cases, the player is going to have to replace enhancements, and that's where the inf* goes.  Not to respecs, but to the replacement enhancements needed after respecing.

 

Having done that respec, I'm likely to want to respec again immediately after testing, if infinite respecs are available, always pursuing that perfect build.  I'm going to spend more and more on recipes, salvage and crafting costs.  The price of a respec recipe is a pittance compared to what I'll spend replacing enhancements over time with unlimited respecs at my disposal.  I can offset that by selling some of my enhancements, but they'll always sell at a loss.  I can use converters to change my frankenslotted set IOs, but that's going to require constant play to keep the supply of merits coming in so I can afford to play converter roulette to turn my useless IOs into usable IOs for my own build, and I'm going to be doing it with a dissatisfying build that I haven't enhanced properly (if at all) because I've spent all of my bread on enhancements for the builds I've respeced out of.

 

At best, you'll still spend more on enhancements than the cost of a respec recipe.  Making respecs free and infinite in supply won't reduce your respec expenses because the expenses aren't in the respec itself, they're in the results of the respec, the new powers and required enhancements.

[No Characteristic]

9 hours ago, Luminara said:

Every sink is vital to the economy, and considering that inf* is added to the economy faster than it's destroyed, we need more sinks, not fewer.  Removing one won't destabilize the economy significantly, but it would have an impact.  And every step away from a stable economy is a step toward inflation.

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.

 

43 minutes ago, Luminara said:

At best, you'll still spend more on enhancements than the cost of a respec recipe. 

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.

Edited November 22, 2022 by No Characteristic

[JasperStone]

11 hours ago, Outrider_01 said:

You should use mids. If just to keep track of slotting/power levels/level picks, not min max a build. The mental gymnastics cuts into play time.

You are right and I am working on using it more, my current DM/FA Brute is under performing ... so Mids to the rescue

 

I should clarify that I will go into Mids to clarify in my mind what a build is doing.

I have a COH friend that meticulously builds a character in Mids and sticks to that build.

Two different approaches.

 

Back to the OP ... like the noble approach ..." just thinking of others after me"

To be honest ... never hear a cry for more Respcs.

 

@Rudra I thought we could lock powers in our trays (never done it myself) or does that go away during a respec?

[No Characteristic]

1 minute ago, JasperStone said:

To be honest ... never hear a cry for more Respcs.

 

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.

[JasperStone]

1 minute ago, No Characteristic said:

 

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.

Thank you for your response.

...

however

...

In my first response to your post, I asked "how many on average do you need?"

No answer.

My average - 2

Highest -9 This was my Peacebringer(an AT I know very well) and this was across its three builds. I was testing powers and swapping out stuff I realized I never used. Decision -keep them as mules or get powers I actively use. (Yes I will be using mids more)

 

New players being afraid to ask? I am split between Indom (super quiet) and Excelsior(busy). The Help channel is very active on Excel. Obviously new players asking for help and of course our player base responds. Also points them to the Forums as well.

 

When I say never hearing an outcry ... have not seen it here or during game play.

 

 

[No Characteristic]

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.

 

35 minutes ago, JasperStone said:

In my first response to your post, I asked "how many on average do you need?"

No answer.

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?

Edited November 22, 2022 by No Characteristic
edit: wanted to make it clear I wasn't breaking the tos with unclear wording

[lemming]

11 hours ago, Rudra said:

I very rarely respec. If I can solo the content, I'm doing fine. That said? A quality of life improvement I would like to see but am fairly sure will never happen? Is power trays retaining their settings for powers not replaced during a respec. Trying to rebuild the power trays after a respec is just oh so annoying. Especially on a fully incarnated 50 with trays of saved temp powers for times when they are needed. At least let me lock my temp power trays maybe?

I think something that saved power tray placement and then allowed you to reload it after respec would be a good way to do this.

I know we can do "macroslot 14 macrotxt powexec_name POWER" to put a macro in a particular spot, but I don't know if there's a way to do so with the power

 

Something like /tray_all_savefile would make a text file with the powertray setup for all trays, then an ability to reload them as well.   It would have to be smart enough to know powers from macros, but either would work.

[biostem]

58 minutes ago, lemming said:

I think something that saved power tray placement and then allowed you to reload it

The game is able to track where your specific power trays are and what shape/configuration they're in, as well as tracking what specific powers are in what slots, so it seems to me that an option to save that and attempt to restore said configuration shouldn't be that difficult.  Of course, that doesn't take into account the spaghetti-code of CoH, so who knows...