Can we come to a compromise? - My respec proposal

[nytewolf]

Not sure if this has been addressed but since changes are being made in MOD 9 that can potentially affect all characters (Capstones being the major one) For those against Respecs what about Turbine setting up a one time per character respec that must be usable within a certain time frame to allow corrections due to game changes for all characters active before MOD 9 release. Then down the line if other major changes to game play happen they can offer the same thing again. This would keep things under tighter control would it not?

[FluffyCalico]

Why not just make them regain all the XP? This, combined with first time bonuses and the "You have repeated this quest X times" mechanism, would limit the frequency people would be able to respec.

Some benefits:

1) more low/mid level content being run as people relevel
2) more of the less popular quests being run (repeated STK 15 times, where do we go this time?)
3) less coding (no need for tokens)

Hm I think I like that. Once you burn up GH level 9-13 is going to have to be worked for.

[Dexxaan]

I believe it´s a good way to implement some of the needed changes people want in their builds.


I do believe that once the cap is at 20; the rules and all Pre´s are out...then you get your respec-coupon and you get 1 (maybe 2 shots for those who´ll whine they screwed up the 1st time )

After that it´s over...you get your chance at changing some non-core build features and stop complaining.

If in the future you really want to do this again then you contact Premium Services and dish out say $ 60+ per Toon, and you get a new respec coupon.

Anything else is abusive IMO.

[Thanimal]

Ya know, what I want to do is to try to play Evil Abuser Guy, and see if we can come up with some way to do something unintended or undesirable under this proposal.

I'm not sure I'm quite Evil enough to do this, but I'm gonna try anyhow. I'm posting this publicly in case anybody more Evil than I can find a way to abuse.

Then Borror0 can patch any holes NOW instead of the usual mad scramble to patch holes after a new system goes live.

I think the main evil thing I want to try to do is figure out some way to re-optimize my character for each phase of the game. (I realize this isn't the most evil thing possible, but it feels like the most promising line of "attack" to show some weakness in this proposal.)

To some extent, this is already possible. A friend is leveling a Ranger currently and swapping favored enemies around pretty much every time the respec timer runs out. Although this is midly cheesy, I don't think it really harms the game and is far from the cheesiest thing out there anyhow.

But might a broader respec elevate minor cheesiness into something more objectionable? To be honest, I can't think of how under Borror0's proposal. But perhaps somebody else can?

[Thanimal]

I do believe that once the cap is at 20; the rules and all Pre´s are out...then you get your respec-coupon and you get 1 (maybe 2 shots for those who´ll whine they screwed up the 1st time )

I disagree because an MMO must continue to evolve or it dies out. So I hope that DDO will never reach a completely static state where there is never again a need to adapt your build to the changes in the world. I think that would surely be worse for the game than allowing respecs.

[Cinwulf]

I disagree because an MMO must continue to evolve or it dies out. So I hope that DDO will never reach a completely static state where there is never again a need to adapt your build to the changes in the world. I think that would surely be worse for the game than allowing respecs.

Exactly, the respec should be used as a tool by both the developers and players to continue to improve the game.

[Marabias]

You could just drop the tokens all together. Have what almost looks like exp from when we used to lose exp from death. Every time you talk to a trainer if you take the class you had for that level before it could just pop your exp up to the next level for the next trainer. If you change classes for a level you get no exp and must level. So you only level for the levels you change classes. So even if a 16 fighter wanted to change over to a 16 sorc they would have to level all the way to 16.

[Dexxaan]

No one is talking about "Completely Static States", yet the comfort of knowing Daddy Turbine is going to save my Toon everytime is called Paternalism and I do not support it more than once.

Design a build, Invest in it, but don´t swap (sell out) your essence for the sake of a Flavor of the month, nor because "everyone else wants it and is doing it"

/puke.

[Jay203]

i still think it's more fun to watch them squirm until they eventually suck it up to reroll
part of the fun should be bringing your toon up, if you're not having fun playing a character, why make it? :O

[Thanimal]

Since this means we will rerun quests more often, it would be nice if the 'You have run this quest too many times' message would slowly decay over time. This would avoid running into a scenario were all the low level quests would have been ran to death in a few years (ie it's not a priority but it will have to be done at one point in time0.

I'm not *quite* sold on this particular detail. To some extent, the possibility of eventually exhausting *all* of the leveling content could be a barrier to long-term abuse of respecs. At some point, I may be OK with saying "Ok, you've completely reworked this character and releveled it 5 times. 'Obviously' you didn't just make a mistake and are instead abusing the system. Now you are forced to start a new character if you want to non-trivially respec yet again."

Finally, I would hope that new content will continue to be added at all levels, so if you wait long enough, you'll have *something* to run.

So I may be OK with NOT making a change here, and allowing this to be a subtle barrier to long-term abuse.

[Quanefel]

"""*Since there is no restriction as to what levels one has to use his tokens, most players will retrain their new class levels at lower levels."""



So instead of a player paying the XP cost as would normally be required from being at a higher level, allow them to exploit the system to use the lowest possible XP cost from the lower levels even if that character had already attained higher levels with that original character.


2-3 month timer(or less) to allow players to adapt to changes in game? If mods are put out in a 4-6 month period then it is not about adaptation as claimed since nothing is being changed so drastically that a player would need the chance to change their character multiple times between mods.

[Borror0]

Finally, I would hope that new content will continue to be added at all levels, so if you wait long enough, you'll have *something* to run.

It still creates a problem between rerollee and new characters. New characters may not want to do quests with bad XP. There are better ways to make players run more content than the usual stuff but I don't think it should be included in the respec.

[oogly54]

/not signed

What comprimise?

This is still all about the loot. Iit is not about some build mistake it is about loot. If your toon had zero loot you would re-roll them in a second if you found a flaw you didnt like. But because you have X number of pieces of raid loot you wont do it. I am in favor of this if ALL loot is destroyed at respec. The problem is nobody else would be in favor of this becasue this is still all about the loot. I am not in favor of this if you received zero respec tokens and had to grind XP back to level cap 100%. XP is not a limiting factor. Plat is not a limiting factor. If this is for the casual gamer who plays 5 hours a week, they don't have the stacks of uber loot anyway, so a respec that eliminates loot won't hurt them.

Someone stated in a previous thread that they are in favor of a respec becasue they only have one toon they play. They have finally gotten every piece of loot they want but they made some poor decisions while creating the toon so it is not perfect. They wish that that toon was perfect and want to have a re-roll to do so. What does that person do after that toon is perfect? What keeps them playing? There is no point to running that perfect toon any longer. Do you roll another toon? Isn't that the same as re-rolling? We need motavation to keep playing and striving to make the perfect toon is it. Eliminating that journey towards the perfect toon eliminates the need to play at all.

I will not agree to a respec that allows a faster method to the perfect toon with all the perfect gear to go with it. Is there a game out there that takes less time to get to cap?

[Grenfell]

Please don't respond to the unhelpful /puke comments and whatnot -- they don't help drive the debate forward in either direction (pro and anti).

Borror -- FWIW, I think this is relatively close to what I've been considering. However, the token system does appear rather clunky to me. Plus, it isn't clear that this sort of respec is painful *enough*.

What I would do, perhaps, is modify it slightly as follows:

(1) When Mod 9 is released, every character then in-game receives a FCR token. Popping this token brings you to the Character Creation screen, you create the character as you want (a lvl 1), then when you select "Done", you re-enter the game with all the XP, loot, items, favor, etc. that you had. This is the so-called "Reincarnation Option".

This particular FCR is a one-time only deal to recognize that three years of DDO has passed. This FCR token disappears in 2 week's time and must be used by then.

(2) After this one-time "reset button", then the actual respec mechanism replaces your tokens concept with more of a Fred the Mindflayer concept.

You go speak with an NPC (on a 7-day timer) and select a level to reset, and a class to respec into. Doing this brings up the familiar "level-up" screen where you go and make various choices.

The cost for doing this scales with the level of the character doing the reset and the # of times someone is respec'ing.

Costs include Plat + Collectible (like the Siberys Shard), and can conceivably get quite costly after repetition.

For example:

First reset - 1 Respec Shard + 5K gold/lvl of respec'ing character
Second reset - 2 Respec Shards + 10K gold/lvl
Third reset - 3 Respec Shards + 20k gold/lvl
Fourth reset - 4 Respec Shards + 40k gold/lvl (doubles each time - steep curve)

etc.

So under this, a newer player who didn't really know what he was doing, started out as a paladin, got to lvl 4 and saw he didn't have much SP's so decided to take lvl 5 as Sorceror for huge SP gain, isn't severely punished.

At lvl 6, if he respecs that mistaken sorc level, his cost is 1 Shard + 30k gold. Not extreme. He's back to being a full pally, and goes merrily on this way.

A veteran who wants to respec several levels, however, faces some challenges. Let's just say that someone has a build (like mine) that is currently a 12r/3pal/1mnk and wants to remove those 3 pally levels.

That would require, first, 21 days to complete (7 day timer in between respecs). Hardly a "flavor of the month".

Second, three total resets leads to:

First respec = 1 Shard + 80k gold
Second respec = 2 shards + 160k gold
Third respec = 3 shards + 320k gold

And that's assuming I don't level past 16 on that character for three weeks.

If I'm fickle, get to 20, and decide I want those pally levels back, now it's another three weeks, plus:

Fourth respec = 4 Shards + 800k gold
Fifth respec = 5 shards + 1.6m gold
Sixth respec = 6 shards + 3.2m gold

I think this makes going from a 20 Barb to a 20 cleric a prohibitive exercise and reroll would likely be more worthwhile in virtually every situation. It would take, for the record, 140 days, 210 shards, and 105 billion gold to go from a 20 Barb to a 20 Cleric.

/gren

[Thanimal]

It still creates a problem between rerollee and new characters. New characters may not want to do quests with bad XP. There are better ways to make players run more content than the usual stuff but I don't think it should be included in the respec.

Hm. Good point.

[Borror0]

So instead of a player paying the XP cost as would normally be required from being at a higher level, allow them to exploit the system to use the lowest possible XP cost from the lower levels even if that character had already attained higher levels with that original character.

Well, I wanted them to run the higher level content too but I thought that increasing the activity at lower levels may be a good side effect.

2-3 month timer(or less) to allow players to adapt to changes in game? If mods are put out in a 4-6 month period then it is not about adaptation as claimed since nothing is being changed so drastically that a player would need the chance to change their character multiple times between mods.

Well, I don't see the point of a timer longer than 2-3 months, really.

Why would someone respec every 1-3 months if there was no update at all? What is there to gain? It may be me not seeing something obvious but I don't see the problem with being able to respec once every month. If the timer was too short, I could see why but we are talking about one month.

Not saying you are wrong but rather that I don't see it.

PS: A bit OT but I think M9 was an exception and we're not going to have such a lnog wait for other modules.

[Thanimal]

So instead of a player paying the XP cost as would normally be required from being at a higher level, allow them to exploit the system to use the lowest possible XP cost from the lower levels even if that character had already attained higher levels with that original character.

I *think* you are misinterpretting a detail here -- or else I am misinterpretting your point. Suppose you are Fighter 16 and you want to get to Fighter 16/Paladin 1. (I don't know why; just an example.)

If you do this through the proposed respec system, you *could* choose to go all the way back to Fighter 1, then get Paladin 1 "the easy way" by running low level quests, and then re-level to Fighter 15/Paladin 1 with your tokens. BUT, according to my understanding of Borror0's proposal, your remaining token is "labeled" as 16-or-under and cannot be used to level to 17 as a Fighter 16/Paladin 1. To get to 17, you still have to play as a level 16 in high level content.

In the end, you've actually done strictly MORE work than simply running your Fighter 16 to level 17 and then choosing Paladin.

So I don't think there is abuse potential there, but again I may be missing your point.

[Turial]

/not signed

What comprimise?

This is still all about the loot. Iit is not about some build mistake it is about loot. If your toon had zero loot you would re-roll them in a second if you found a flaw you didnt like. But because you have X number of pieces of raid loot you wont do it. I am in favor of this if ALL loot is destroyed at respec. The problem is nobody else would be in favor of this becasue this is still all about the loot. I am not in favor of this if you received zero respec tokens and had to grind XP back to level cap 100%. XP is not a limiting factor. Plat is not a limiting factor. If this is for the casual gamer who plays 5 hours a week, they don't have the stacks of uber loot anyway, so a respec that eliminates loot won't hurt them.

How about a Legacy token system that works in addition to Borror0's respec system? For each Legacy token you find/earn you would be able to keep 1 bound item or 1 previously used tome. This system would mandate that a respec removed all bound loot etc and a respec means starting over wealth wise.

Tie these tokens into the game some how that is less efficient for powergamers to accumulate them but likely that a more casual gamer might accumulate them so that a casual gamer could keep the 1 or 2 nice things that they have found if they choose to respec.

[Gunga]

Very nice job. You've obviously put a lot of time into this.

I don't agree with the concept of not being accountable for your choices, but I do appreciate the work you've done.

[Dexxaan]

Please don't respond to the unhelpful /puke comments and whatnot -- they don't help drive the debate forward in either direction (pro and anti)......snip....

Fourth respec = 4 Shards + 800k gold
Fifth respec = 5 shards + 1.6m gold
Sixth respec = 6 shards + 3.2m gold

I think this makes going from a 20 Barb to a 20 cleric a prohibitive exercise and reroll would likely be more worthwhile in virtually every situation. It would take, for the record, 140 days, 210 shards, and 10.5 billion gold to go from a 20 Barb to a 20 Cleric.

/gren

I have no authority to tell people to not pay attention/respond to your post, (Neither do you; yet I believe in allowing people to form a criteria...in whichever way they can and is available) But do consider this as a major augmentation to an already out of control Plat Farming Frenzy.

/cough