Simpler (Cheaper) Respec Option

[HumanJHawkins]

Ok... Everyone is floating really cool "complete Respec" ideas. But I kinda doubt that these are going to make it off the whiteboard due to dev time and cost.

So, here's the rub: Player mistakes or rule changes can now leave a player feeling irreversibly nerfed. And Those without a lot of time on their hands can be really bummed out at the thought of a reroll. We have a fix for feat mistakes or changes (Fred), but do not have a fix for Skills, Lvl 4, 8, and 12 attribute points, alignment, or initial attribute allocation.

SO, add all of these as options from Fred:

ATTRIBUTE POINTS FROM LVL 4, 8, 12: Let a dragonshard move one previously spent point to another attribute. This should be fairly easy since there are no prerequisites nor point costs to consider.

ALIGNMENT: Again, just a simple dragonshard and money deal to have Fred warp your brain. You could make it a gamble where he has a small chance to get it wrong or something if you think this is being too nice to players...

INITIAL ATTRIBUTES: Maybe 2 dragonshards and double money for this... Just drop the player back into the initial attribute screen with it preset to their original choices. If they were 28 pt, but now have 32 point option, put those extra 4 points up in the "yet to be spent" part. Don't reset any Tomes or other buffs since creation, but let the user redo their starting point. Then when the user is done, put all of the tomes and other attribute buffs back on.

SKILLS: Make it take maybe one dragonshard per class the player has taken... Let this roll all of your skills back to 0, and then let you spend them again in groups for each class you have. (I.e. if you are a lvl 5/5 Fighter/Cleric, you would spend all of your fighter skill points as a fighter, then spend all of your cleric points as a cleric, etc.)

The best thing about this is that it doesn't have to all happen at once... If one of these things is easier, try to squeeze it in to mod 6... If one of them is not technically feasible, do the other ones and call it good.

[Hence]

Good ideas. At this point, I would like to see anything.

[krud]

Although on the surface it may seem easy to only allow one type of respec, when you start moving around stat points (mainly INT) you start screwing up other aspects.

Here are some of the problems I foresee:

ATTRIBUTE POINTS FROM LVL 4, 8, 12: Let a dragonshard move one previously spent point to another attribute. This should be fairly easy since there are no prerequisites nor point costs to consider.
Since DDO does not keep track of which point was raised and at what level, it is hard to determine which stat points are allowed to be moved around. You may create characters whose stats end up higher than could have normally been achieved.

ALIGNMENT: Again, just a simple dragonshard and money deal to have Fred warp your brain. You could make it a gamble where he has a small chance to get it wrong or something if you think this is being too nice to players...
no problem there

INITIAL ATTRIBUTES: Maybe 2 dragonshards and double money for this... Just drop the player back into the initial attribute screen with it preset to their original choices. If they were 28 pt, but now have 32 point option, put those extra 4 points up in the "yet to be spent" part. Don't reset any Tomes or other buffs since creation, but let the user redo their starting point. Then when the user is done, put all of the tomes and other attribute buffs back on.
Skills screw this all up. What's preventing someone from rolling a toon with more points in INT, then at high level respeccing his attributes with a lower INT? How do you deal with skill points then?

SKILLS: Make it take maybe one dragonshard per class the player has taken... Let this roll all of your skills back to 0, and then let you spend them again in groups for each class you have. (I.e. if you are a lvl 5/5 Fighter/Cleric, you would spend all of your fighter skill points as a fighter, then spend all of your cleric points as a cleric, etc.)
Yes, but people want to keep all the extra skill points that they got from eating tomes. It makes a big difference if you ate that INT tome at lvl1 vs lvl12

All these are interrelated through skill points. Changing attributes (INT) affects skill points, as does changing class levels. If DDO kept track of your attribute raises it would be much easier. Since they didn't, it is next to impossible to do partial respecs. The only option is to allow a full ground up respec. Take the character planner and instantly create your character at whatever level, bound items, tomes and all. Is that what everyone wants? That would be kinda lame if you ask me.

[GuitarHero]

i'm willing to bet there is SOME stored data keeping track of when you ate a tome or when you increased what ability, so those arguements aren't as strong as supposed. The skill points are pretty much in the same boat. If your Int goes up due to a respec, you get some bonus skill points to distribute, if it goes down, you lose some. easy enough. It could take them from most recent spent, leaving you to get a skill respec if you had alternate plans for your skills, and making that a less enticing option.

[Serpent]

Tomes are listed as an inherent bonus, so in actuality we could just have them apply only after you respec so no one gets int bonus. Now we have no problems with skill points at all. none, nada, zip.

[mgoldb2]

Tomes are listed as an inherent bonus, so in actuality we could just have them apply only after you respec so no one gets int bonus. Now we have no problems with skill points at all. none, nada, zip.

Won’t some people loose skill points then? I know I taken int tome at level 1 to get the extra skill points for level 2-14. That 13 skill points I would loose. Unless you know when the tome was taken the only thing you know for certain is the inherent bonus should not count for level 1 skill points.

Now am not certain there is not a way to predict what level you took the tome. If you count up total skill points spent and you know what level each class was taken at (since feat respec know your BAB for each level I assume that is kept track of). Then there should be a way to figure it out.

[Serpent]

Won’t some people loose skill points then? I know I taken int tome at level 1 to get the extra skill points for level 2-14. That 13 skill points I would loose. Unless you know when the tome was taken the only thing you know for certain is the inherent bonus should not count for level 1 skill points.

Now am not certain there is not a way to predict what level you took the tome. If you count up total skill points spent and you know what level each class was taken at (since feat respec know your BAB for each level I assume that is kept track of). Then there should be a way to figure it out.

Well of course you will lose skill points. But thats the only way the negative posters will be happy. They seem to think that what you did is bad, that since we can't know when an int tomes was eaten and those 13 skill points might unbalance the game, that we just can't have a level or class respec. I know it would suck but then again i jsut can't see a way to make everyone happy adn have you keep your skill points. Maybe someone can.

[mgoldb2]

Well of course you will lose skill points. But thats the only way the negative posters will be happy. They seem to think that what you did is bad, that since we can't know when an int tomes was eaten and those 13 skill points might unbalance the game, that we just can't have a level or class respec. I know it would suck but then again i jsut can't see a way to make everyone happy adn have you keep your skill points. Maybe someone can.

oh well in that case why not I just wont ever reroll that char. But are you sure they dont keep track of when you took your tome. If they dont people can cheat with feat with the current system. Example dodge feat 13 dex required. Base 10 dex but find a +3 tome at level 14 then respec a level 1 feat to pick up dodge. Only way to avoid that is if they have been keeping track. I not sure if you could do that or not.

If they have been keeping track that solves the problem with skills also.

[krud]

Won’t some people loose skill points then? I know I taken int tome at level 1 to get the extra skill points for level 2-14. That 13 skill points I would loose. Unless you know when the tome was taken the only thing you know for certain is the inherent bonus should not count for level 1 skill points.

Now am not certain there is not a way to predict what level you took the tome. If you count up total skill points spent and you know what level each class was taken at (since feat respec know your BAB for each level I assume that is kept track of). Then there should be a way to figure it out.

Also, if someone took an attribute raise in int, it makes it even worse to figure out, because the timing of that raise is also unknown. It would be great if DDO kept track of when you ate your tomes and did your attribute raises. It would make respec a whole lot easier to figure out. Unfortunately, it appears they didn't. I've tried to figure out the math for determining skill points, but there are just too many unknown variables to get it right.

Though, I think respec is too much like hitting the "easy" button, I can see where some people could use it. If it were just a matter of being able to redistribute points without getting more than what you started with, it wouldn't matter so much. However, if you are able to get more than what you started with then it is not that hard to envision builds where the only way to make them would be to respec.

If they dont people can cheat with feat with the current system. Example dodge feat 13 dex required. Base 10 dex but find a +3 tome at level 14 then respec a level 1 feat to pick up dodge.

At least when you respec a feat that way, it is not possible to come out with more feats than you currently have.

[barabel]

I think the best way is a total respec.

Assuming that the devs know which/how many tomes a character has used, when they go through the respec process, the following could happen.

• The highest level tome for each stat currently on the character is returned to their inventory. (i.e. if the character had used a +1 and a +2 INT tome during their career, only the +2 INT Tome would be returned to their inventory).
• All class levels are removed except the first one (assuming they know what the first class was the character was created).
• All XP Gain by the character is retained.

Players are then able to go to a Trainer and level their character up beyond 1st level as they see fit. They can spend their skill points/attribute points just as if they were levelling a brand new character.

Several caveats I see with this is the Tomes and starting attributes. Returning the tomes allows the character to re-add them later or move them to a different character. This is mainly done to elmiinate the problem of knowing when the INT tomes were eaten. Most likely players will re-eat their INT tomes at 1st level to maximize their skill points. So, right now there is the potential with this system to grant a player more skill points then they could have had. However, the most they can get is 14 right now. That doesn't seem too overpowered considering what's going on.


I also don't think it makes sense to allow for respecing the starting attribute points. Right now, all of that is done in a completely different UI and I imagine it would be probably too costly to reproduce the character generator functionality in-game.

[Dworkin_of_Amber]

Ok... Everyone is floating really cool "complete Respec" ideas. But I kinda doubt that these are going to make it off the whiteboard due to dev time and cost.

So, here's the rub: Player mistakes or rule changes can now leave a player feeling irreversibly nerfed. And Those without a lot of time on their hands can be really bummed out at the thought of a reroll. We have a fix for feat mistakes or changes (Fred), but do not have a fix for Skills, Lvl 4, 8, and 12 attribute points, alignment, or initial attribute allocation.

SO, add all of these as options from Fred:

ATTRIBUTE POINTS FROM LVL 4, 8, 12: Let a dragonshard move one previously spent point to another attribute. This should be fairly easy since there are no prerequisites nor point costs to consider.

Besides the problem that Turbine has stated that they don't track those (but let's assume they did)... you could invalidate other feats by this method. ie: Roll with 15 Dex, take +1 Dex @ 4, and then STR @ 8,12. You took ITWF (Dex 16 required) at L6... you just broke your feat, but DDO won't "check" it, so you get ITWF without the Dex requirement.

ALIGNMENT: Again, just a simple dragonshard and money deal to have Fred warp your brain. You could make it a gamble where he has a small chance to get it wrong or something if you think this is being too nice to players...

This one I do agree with. Especially for those of us who rolled a LONG LONG time ago (during Pre-Order), and have lots of Raid Loot and Tomes and don't want to reroll... an Alignment respec would be VERY nice... especially as in PnP you can change your alignment through RP.

INITIAL ATTRIBUTES: Maybe 2 dragonshards and double money for this... Just drop the player back into the initial attribute screen with it preset to their original choices. If they were 28 pt, but now have 32 point option, put those extra 4 points up in the "yet to be spent" part. Don't reset any Tomes or other buffs since creation, but let the user redo their starting point. Then when the user is done, put all of the tomes and other attribute buffs back on.

Again, ignoring the statement that Turbine didn't track that... you have the same problem of invalidating feats, as well as your skill points. You would have to do a complete reroll (reset to 0 XP, keep all Tomes, Favor, & Loot, re-set base stats, and level back up to 14 immediately)

SKILLS: Make it take maybe one dragonshard per class the player has taken... Let this roll all of your skills back to 0, and then let you spend them again in groups for each class you have. (I.e. if you are a lvl 5/5 Fighter/Cleric, you would spend all of your fighter skill points as a fighter, then spend all of your cleric points as a cleric, etc.)

Again, it will not correctly take into account Tomes and Level-Up points into INT... nor will it guarantee the correct progression and class vs. cross-class skills. Again, the only way to do this would be a Complete Re-Roll.

The best thing about this is that it doesn't have to all happen at once... If one of these things is easier, try to squeeze it in to mod 6... If one of them is not technically feasible, do the other ones and call it good.

So, the Alignmnent change can work... but the others can't....

[Serpent]

So, the Alignmnent change can work... but the others can't....

These are just your opinion of course. The statement statement above is not necessary true.