Level Respecing

[ArkoHighStar]

Well, yes and no.

It'd be relatively easy to do a "Last Level Only" type class respec.

But I guess you're right, that doing anything else would require a more full rebuild.

I guess the question you need to ask is whether you want to make it easy or hard to do for players. If you want it to be something players will do all the time then make it cost in game plat. If you want players to really think about whether they want to do it then make it a premium thing.

[Gornin]

I guess the question you need to ask is whether you want to make it easy or hard to do for players. If you want it to be something players will do all the time then make it cost in game plat. If you want players to really think about whether they want to do it then make it a premium thing.

It should not cost the players a thing. I did not know they were going to allow 32 point characters, along with many other changes and rewards that changed game play. I should not have to pay extra to gain access to things I already earned, or to allow my 28 point character to be respecced to a 32 point character, especially since that is the one I earned the 32 point favor with. It is already too costly to respec feats and enhancements, imo.

A total reroll is needed in this game, as per the thread Kargon started. I just want to to be able to reward my initial characters by allowing them to benefit from the rewards they earned. As for int tomes, I don't care if people get some extra skill points, with the inflation in this game it won't hardly matter.


And don't get me started on how much money people have in this game.

[DasLurch]

It should not cost the players a thing. I did not know they were going to allow 32 point characters, along with many other changes and rewards that changed game play. I should not have to pay extra to gain access to things I already earned, or to allow my 28 point character to be respecced to a 32 point character, especially since that is the one I earned the 32 point favor with. It is already too costly to respec feats and enhancements, imo.

A total reroll is needed in this game, as per the thread Kargon started. I just want to to be able to reward my initial characters by allowing them to benefit from the rewards they earned. As for int tomes, I don't care if people get some extra skill points, with the inflation in this game it won't hardly matter.

I'd love to turn my original Character into a 32 point build. I'd also want the +2 Int tome I took for his favor back BEFORE I did that I also agree that this should NOT be an extra fee type premium service. It SHOULD be an incredibly rare and a 1 time type of thing. But the last thing you said I think is the one that some people will have some issues with. You may not care if someone gets some free skill points (I really don't care outside of my own chars), I find it hard to imagine that Turbine would be as carefree as you are about this. There are already enough people that scream unfair about unough things in this game already. Imagine the ruckus they would raise if only certain people, and a small % at that, were to gain something that they did not. I can see the pages of flames already...

[Hence]

Allow us to start at the character creation screen and start completely over one time. Have it be very costly. Allow used tomes to benefit you from the start. The extra skill points gained are not a major thing.

[jjflanigan]

I'd like the idea because it would be useful, but I'm against it because it would be abused. At early levels certain classes are easier to level up than others and then things shift. It seems...wrong...to me to allow someone to level up a character as a fighter until melee begins to taper off and the damage from casting begins to gain ground by large margins and then immediately switch.

"Yes, I've been only trained to fight melee for 8 levels, but now that I'd be able to cast wall of fire if I was a sorcerer, I'd like to be one of those instead!"

[krud]

reroll

[Serpent]

but I'm against it because it would be abused.

You are right it could be abused. I doubt it will. Digitally our characters are laid out so when we made changes such as tomes those should be known. If they still don't know the only abuse will come in skill points from int tomes and frankly that will not be that much. A few extra skills will not make or break anyone. If we make it a one time full respec or a purchased full respec or have it require 5 dragon shards then it will not be abused near as much as it would have been before, which wasn;t going to be much.

And to those that say reroll. Is it because you already made a mistake and rerolled yourself? So you don't want others to get a benefit from this idea because you went the hard route. trust most people would never reroll, their characters are not gimped to that point. They would like to repec though since elements in game have changed. take for instance STWF if it goes in as made. I know many a str ranger who will want to respec a few points into dex just in case. Did they screw up? No I think not.

[krud]

And to those that say reroll. Is it because you already made a mistake and rerolled yourself? So you don't want others to get a benefit from this idea because you went the hard route. trust most people would never reroll, their characters are not gimped to that point. They would like to repec though since elements in game have changed. take for instance STWF if it goes in as made. I know many a str ranger who will want to respec a few points into dex just in case. Did they screw up? No I think not.

No, I usually reroll early on. Highest toon i deleted was 8th level, most were 5 or 6.

These are the main reasons i see people clamouring for full respec:

1. "I've reached 1750 on my 28pt build and don't want to reroll him as a 32pt build."
hmm.. he was good enough to grind to 1750, and reach cap, and gather a bunch of raid loot that's worthy of passing down, but now he needs to be rerolled? I don't get it. I still got my original 28pt build going strong. For those who suffer from stat envy, instead of a full respec option, just give any 28pt build who reaches 1750 four extra build points to be spent the same way you do at character creation. Puts them right on par with 32pt build. Problem solved. Much simpler than a full respec.

2. "My toon is less than perfect"
no respec option will ever fully satisfy this group. No reason to waste dev time trying to appease this very small vocal minority (they're never gonna be happy anyway).

3. "I made some mistakes when building my toon"
Why would someone bother accumulating tons of favor, tomes and raid loot on a "mistake" anyway? It doesn't take that long to figure out a mistake. If you did manage to get that far with a "mistake", then it probably isn't much of a mistake to begin with. If it is a matter of mispent skill points, then, as you put it, "A few extra skills will not make or break anyone".

4. "They changed the rules and now my toon is gimp"
This is probably the only valid reason, however, there probably are very few characters that were truly made gimp by some changes.

[ahpook]

Simplest way would be to allow you to delete a level.

Drop your character back to the XP that is one short of your current level and removes the level, skills and action points that level gave you. You can do this repeatedly and roll back a few levels if you really want to. You will then have to relevel your character. Not a whole lot of room for abuse as far as I see it but it would let you try out a multi class option and change your mind if it doesn't work out or you picked some wrong skills.

The longer it takes you decide it doesn't work, the higher price you pay...

[gpk]

I dont see why ppl are so concerned about "exploiting" the system, taking out that last level of rogue will NOT let you keep the skill point's you gained, those will be rolled back too. It's easy enough to put safeguards in for little things like that.

Speaking of safeguards, it's prolly pretty easy for the respec system to see that you have a ranger 13/ftr1 and to not allow you to become a sorc14 instead you can put in some safeguards for things like that, like not allowing you to deviate more than 4 levels or a partial class respec that only allows you to respec out in a few other class levels, There are a lot of things that can be done here. If someone want's a full blown respec you can alaways just drop em to level 0 and have them level up again. We're all jsut shooting out idea here, I'm sure if we all sat down and took some time to really think good of somethink we could, and if we can the devs can.

And dear gods, let's stop talking about premium services for stuff that should be integral to MMOs, there's NO way a class/skill respec should ever EVER be a pay service.

[Riminy]

I think a 1 level respec could be possible just like a feat. You take one level at a time and switch it around for whatever. Although, say you took out a level of fighter at level 12 (basing it on a 14th level toon) you would be able to reselect that level and spend the possible skill points. It would be nice if you could reselect the attributes spent at the certain level like 4,8 and 12. I think that changing all stat points will never happen. Whats the point of leveling say a Rogue but then deciding that youd rather be a Sorcerer. IMO, that would ruin the game.

But say we did have this implemented, for every level you wish to change you would need a dragonshard or the equivalent and some plat. However every time you wish to change a level the sum of plat increases. If the some of plat increases i think it should be at a high rate increase. Eventually resulting to a ridiculous amount. Eg: 1 level is 50k pp 2 levels 115kpp, 3 levels 225kpp and so on.

Making it a premium service would also work. People would be more hesitent to pay real cash then to pay with game currency. However i think with a premium service there are alot of variables. A complete level change? does that include stat points, skills, feats? Real money per 1 level changed? i guess something like $7 US per level. But as gpk said

there's NO way a class/skill respec should ever EVER be a pay service.

[MysticTheurge]

Speaking of safeguards, it's prolly pretty easy for the respec system to see that you have a ranger 13/ftr1 and to not allow you to become a sorc14 instead you can put in some safeguards for things like that, like not allowing you to deviate more than 4 levels or a partial class respec that only allows you to respec out in a few other class levels, There are a lot of things that can be done here.

I like this idea.

[Demitris]

sorry to be the barer of bad news, but Turbine has already addressed this suggestion a number of times in the past.

The simple answer is they cannot do a level respec due to not retaining historical records of your character from previous levels, in addition to this they also stated that even if they did retain records a character roll back to this point would also cause the loss of tomes and many other factors. They've said it just can't be done without a major re-vamp of character creation which would tie up resources far beyond its potential usefulness.

In order to hunt down the dev posts you'd have to be talking going back 6 months or more (and to be honest I'm not even sure with all the forum alterations they still have the posts on here. But it has been a topic to come up several times before.

[krud]

you ever use the character planner, and try change one of the midlevel classes? It usually screws up enhancement choices, feat progressions, etc at the later levels. It wouldn't be all that easy to program, especially when you add in tomes. Is it really worth all that dev effort?

Everyone seems to want one big "easy" button.

Why not go one step further and say when your first toon hits 1750, you can then plan out all following characters in the planner, and *poof* there they are, ready to go at whatever level you choose.

[Serpent]

sorry to be the barer of bad news, but Turbine has already addressed this suggestion a number of times in the past.

The simple answer is they cannot do a level respec due to not retaining historical records of your character from previous levels, in addition to this they also stated that even if they did retain records a character roll back to this point would also cause the loss of tomes and many other factors. They've said it just can't be done without a major re-vamp of character creation which would tie up resources far beyond its potential usefulness.

In order to hunt down the dev posts you'd have to be talking going back 6 months or more (and to be honest I'm not even sure with all the forum alterations they still have the posts on here. But it has been a topic to come up several times before.

I have never heard this can you link the thread they said this in.

[gpk]

you ever use the character planner, and try change one of the midlevel classes? It usually screws up enhancement choices, feat progressions, etc at the later levels. It wouldn't be all that easy to program, especially when you add in tomes. Is it really worth all that dev effort?

Everyone seems to want one big "easy" button.

Sorry that doesn't fly, you're comparing a freeware app written from a guy who does it on his spare time to DDO?
Are you a programmer? Have you ever released any freeware apps? I amd and I have. Freeware is written in one's free time when one is in the mood. You can't expect the same level of bug-free-edness from a freeware app, I'm sure the author would rather be playing DDO than fixing some issues, I know my littlr freeware projects have suffered since DDO came out
You make it sound like it's a herculean programming task and it's not.
Historical records be damned, you can start keeping once the respec system is in place. Like I said before there is a LOT of room to play with here, and if there is a compromise to be made it can be a good one.

To repeat myself say you're a Rng 13/Ftr 1.
The respec system can take a look at your classes and not allow more than say a 4 (or &#37 level deviation from your current favored class.
Rng 13 cannot become less than Rng9 but you can swap out the Ftr 1 to become Rng13 or Rang14 etc. Again, these are just quick idea but you get the drift, sit down for more than 5 minutes and I'm sure you can come up with something good and fair while at the same time not allow too many "exploits".

[Demitris]

I have never heard this can you link the thread they said this in.

clearly you didn't read the whole of what I said.

[Serpent]

clearly you didn't read the whole of what I said.

No I did I was asking if you had found the thread. I see you did not know if it still existed but i thought you maybe would have looked. I tried but was unable to find it. Maybe you remembered a key word or which Dev said it in order to narrow the search. Simple questions really. Not in any way deserving a snide reply.

[redoubt]

The respec thing is not really even about "mistakes."

I made a mistake on my ranger/rogue. She has no UMD. I knew what it did, I just did not think it was worth it at the time. That was a mistake. I plan to fix it in future levels. I'm not looking for a respec to fix it.

Say someone builds a 15fighter/5 barb. Right now they are at 9 fighter and 5 barb. Turbine announces that level 17 fighter will have class ability xxx and feat yyy. If you knew that when you built the character you might not have taken 5 levels of barb. You would have taken just 3, so that you get get 17 levels of fighter for those abilities and feats. I think this is more where the respec is being requested.

There have been lots of good idea on how to make it happen. Personnaly I see no problems with making the character re-earn the changed levels. SWG, while a very different system, supported the concept. You could "unlearn" a skill to "make room" for a different one. Then you went out and earned the xp to buy the new skill. (Obviously this would take some tweaking to apply here.)

I don't think its so much about fixing mistakes, but adapting to how the game is changing as we go.

[Draiden]

The easiest way to do this, and to keep both parties (turbine and players) happy, is to simply create a "reroll"/"enervate"/"gimp" button that takes your toon back to first level (with a "type this characters name in the box below" confirmation, of course). Using this feature will NOT DELETE your toon, losing all inventory and such, but simply reduce the total xp to 0. You get to keep your gear, and Turbine gets more of your time and money as you work on getting a million xp points back. Tomes you get to keep on your stats... consider it a small bonus for being willing to do it all over again.