Arguments against respec?

[feynman]

****NOTE: Not trying to be snide or sarcastic in this post, just honestly asking questions****

OK, we've got a dozen posts on character respec now, including a fair rundown of the arguments in favor of allowing respec. However, I have yet to see a cogent argument or set of arguments against allowing respec; most of the anti-respec crowd that I have seen either attempt to refute the pro-respec arguments (without much success, IMO), or simply state that they are against it without giving any reason at all.

So, I am honestly asking: What is wrong with allowing players to respec attributes, skills, classes, races, and/or any combination thereof?

(In other words: If you have a reason for not allowing race change, that does not apply to not allowing skill changes, mutatis mutandis. Also, I believe that the "respec's are not necessary" argument has been thoroughly buried, so I'd like to hear something else)

[baylensman]

I'll try, but I am a pro re-spec. I'm trying to be intelectually honest and look at the other side.

1.) Re-specing would cause many to rebuild along the lines of the most successful Hybrids out there, reduceing the number of pure builds, and creating a vanilla end game content.

2.) Allowing re-spec does a disservice to those that take the time to study build guides, game mechanics, and number crunching and get it mostly right through effort and determination.

3.) The time spent on developing a re-spec mechanism could be better spent at Turbine in the areas of lag control, bug elimination and new content.

4.) Any re-spec mechanism would favor one type or method over another. It is so frought with possibilities of screwing up, it wouldn't please everyone who has had problems with build beucase it would go to far or not far enough or whatever, so it shouldn't be done.

[Missing_Minds]

1. turbine does not have budget in the current plan to allow for work to be done to implement a respect.

2. Analysis of a respect has yet to be done to allow for budget planning of a respect option. (Kate's comment of "oh.. the players don't seem to really want a barber shop" 1.5 years back seems to scream of this.)

3. The database has been organized in such a fashion that their admin/expert does not believe it is possible to do a respect of characters.

[nytewolf]

1. turbine does not have budget in the current plan to allow for work to be done to implement a respect.

2. Analysis of a respect has yet to be done to allow for budget planning of a respect option. (Kate's comment of "oh.. the players don't seem to really want a barber shop" 1.5 years back seems to scream of this.)

3. The database has been organized in such a fashion that their admin/expert does not believe it is possible to do a respect of characters.

Not trying to be argumentative but can you provide any basis of fact to backup your points?

[Impaqt]

Most of this seems like speculation. We really don't know if adding this feature would take away from content production or have a significant impact on the development teams budget. Only Turbine knows that. There is obviously time (and money) being spent on features that are not content related. For example, would you rather have shared bank space, first person view, or respecs?

The best reason not to have them, IMO, is that it would cause more players to gravitate toward builds that are considered to be the most powerful. Of course some people already do this, but its limited by the time the person has to invest in a reroll. The same limitation could be designed into a respec system by limiting a player's ability to respec. The length of the time investment required for a respec could be equal to or less than the time it would take to reroll. The only reason we want respecs is for it to take less time than it takes to reroll.

Do you really think alowing us to Zoom the camera in another couple clicks and adding a database thats shared between our account takes the same amount of time to code as a complete character respec? I can assure you thats far from the case.

I'm not against reroll/respec. I just look at things from a realistic perspective. The more Limitations you put on a Respec, the longer its gonna take to develope.

Not trying to be argumentative but can you provide any basis of fact to backup your points?

Pretty sure that was just Speculation..... Sound speculation IMO.... But Speculation nonetheless.

[Dexxaan]

The more Limitations you put on a Respec, the longer its gonna take to develope.

Database Management Skills are not foreign to me, and although the actual programming to alter a DB is, I´m going to venture forth and say the limitations need to be 1st out of common sense, secondly out of Dev Time, and the limitations may actually prove time and $$$ saving.

Therefore I disagree.

[Missing_Minds]

Not trying to be argumentative but can you provide any basis of fact to backup your points?

As well as to feynman,

1). basis of fact. It has been stated by devs/mods that the game has been planned out for the next few mods of the direction they wish to go. Because this planning is already layed out, there is only going to be so much budget for "additions" beyond the standard bug fixes. If you have ever worked with a large project and worked with managment, it becomes rather apparently. You ONLY work that which you are budgeted to work.

While yes, Feynman, it does become a priority, the one that declares the priorities is the manager, NOT the programmer. The priority first and foremost is to only do the work budgeted for so that the "deadline" is met.

2) This falls back on part 1, but the comment make by Kate was either in a video showing her showing off monks or in a cast done by Jerry. I forget which. It was a long time back. Given her position is producer, she has final say of what really gets budgeted for what. Her lackluster approach to the gamer population that likes to look good while kicking ass is highly apparent, so I make the assumption that she would take the same approach to something as player useful as respecs.

3. I am not a database engineer so I do not know what can and can not be done. I bit bang and model simulations. But even I know, Feynman, that I can only work with the data that is AVAILABLE. If the data is not there... what? Make it up and pray it works? One of the problems with the current structure of the data base is that it does not keep track of when you ate a tome, only that you did. This leads into issues on how to solve the issue while not ripping off the player. This has been stated on the forums before. I have not read threads in detail, of which I'm certain a player has listed off how to handle such issues in an elegant manner. However, fact: the player does not work for Turbine, hence has no actual knowledge of what data is stored, how it is stored, and what tools and methods are allowed to "fix" said issue. Like the rest of us, said player can only speculate and give a best guess.

And before you get into a huff, I am in favor a respec ability, and these things can be done, but it has to fit the guidelines that Turbine has laid for itself, and as per players, done correctly. All of this takes money, and money is never easy to come by for the average person. Add to this the economy, Turbine has laid off people, and well.. I am happy we are still getting free content. The scenarios I listed off are based off my real world experience and tempered by the feedback we get from turbine employees, and 3rd party sites.

nytewolf, if you were looking for hard links, you will have to find them yourself. They exist, you just need to go looking.

[Aganazer]

All of this takes money, and money is never easy to come by for the average person.

I generally agree with what you're saying, but I think you're putting a little too much emphasis on money driving all development decisions. Development resources aren't so liquid. Programmers aren't a commodity to be bought and sold on a daily basis whenever they are or aren't needed. They have programmers on their payroll and they try to use them as efficiently as they can. They may occasionally add or remove programmers from their team, but the amount of development work they do is relatively static. The management may choose to use those resources for one task or another, but the programmers cost the same either way.

I am a full time programmer and have been for over 15 years. There have been plenty of times that I didn't have a project to work on and I wasn't let go. There have also been times that I was assigned a non-essential project just to keep me busy until I am truly needed. My cost was fixed, my assignments on the other hand, have not always been driven by a strict budget but rather a need to utilize resources.

Personally, I can't think of a better way to utilize DDO's programmer resources. We know that they have already spent a fair amount of time on shared bank space, first person view, and probably a ton of time on hirelings. Adding a respec feature seems like it would be right up their alley.

[Steiner-Davion]

Not trying to be argumentative but can you provide any basis of fact to backup your points?

Well Turbine has come out and said point blank, that the Character Database DOES NOT record when you use tomes, so that make the question of Sill Point respec and INT Tomes a tricky question.

In my opinion, Turbine should simply suck it up and Have the Int Tome be applied as early as it normally could be used, ie immediately after initial character Creation. EXAMPLE: Your Rogue started with a 13 INT at level one when you initially rolled him/her up you would have 36 ((8+1) x 4 = Skill Points at Level 1. If you character who was respeccing thier skills had used a +3 INT Tome previously, the INT Tome would be reapplied immediately after the Intial "re-creation" of the character was complete (ie level 1 was respecced). So before you re-do level 2, the INT Tome is applied and you INT would now be 16, giving you +3 skill points, instead of just +1. Now your rogue would get 11 Skill Points a level, instead of 9.

Yes in the long run you would end up with a couple more skill points depending on when you used the tome, but it is not game breaking in any fashion.

[bobbryan2]

1. turbine does not have budget in the current plan to allow for work to be done to implement a respect.

2. Analysis of a respect has yet to be done to allow for budget planning of a respect option. (Kate's comment of "oh.. the players don't seem to really want a barber shop" 1.5 years back seems to scream of this.)

3. The database has been organized in such a fashion that their admin/expert does not believe it is possible to do a respect of characters.

1. Ok... they know which way they're going. But you don't know if it's included or not. So this point could be better phrased as If Turbine wasn't planning on doing a respec already, then they don't have it budgeted... but if they do, or if they fit it in, they'll figure out how to put it in. Basically.. you don't know what's in their budget or not... not for certain.

2. Again.. that's a stretch. Kate seems to have a bit of a disconnect with the players; I won't debate you on that. But to say the devs haven't kicked around the idea and brainstormed is just false. How many interviews have come up where this question is posed, and the answer comes out similar to.... well, everytime we think about adding a new skill, the subject of a skill respec comes up again. They obviously talk about it in a cost/benefit scenario.

3. That's not really true. Due to the complexity of the level up system, partial respecs are very very tricky. The idea of a 'full respec' actually arose out of this fact, as a way to sidestep all the tough-to-code issues of a partial respec.

[bobbryan2]

And guys...

RESPEC

not RESPECT

Short for Respecialize.

[Gunga]

Respecialize.

What an utter insult.

[feynman]

I'll try, but I am a pro re-spec. I'm trying to be intelectually honest and look at the other side.

1.) Re-specing would cause many to rebuild along the lines of the most successful Hybrids out there, reduceing the number of pure builds, and creating a vanilla end game content.

I don't see that happening; I would actually take it as an opportunity to make even more bizarre hybrids.

2.) Allowing re-spec does a disservice to those that take the time to study build guides, game mechanics, and number crunching and get it mostly right through effort and determination.

I just can't bring myself to care

3.) The time spent on developing a re-spec mechanism could be better spent at Turbine in the areas of lag control, bug elimination and new content.

/sarcasm on

Oh, yea, because not implementing a respec mechanism has allowed them to make huge strides in those areas.

/sarcasm off

4.) Any re-spec mechanism would favor one type or method over another. It is so frought with possibilities of screwing up, it wouldn't please everyone who has had problems with build beucase it would go to far or not far enough or whatever, so it shouldn't be done.

This is just #1 all over again; I maintain that people are more likely to experiment with different builds if they know that their effort will not be wasted if they are wrong.

Anyway, thanks for the list, let's keep them coming!

[Cap_Man]

Bingo!

3.) The time spent on developing a re-spec mechanism could be better spent at Turbine in the areas of lag control, bug elimination and new content.

All other arguments seem to be mostly speculation on what can and cannot be done or what is fair what is not.

Personal I don't care either way about this respec. If it was available I do have one toon I might pull out of retirement and redo his skills, but I would prefer to keep him retired and see Turbine work on other things.

It comes down to priorities, did that many people screw up their builds so bad they have to respec them? Is it that big of a priority ... more so than bugs, lag and new content?

If it's not about your build being so bad then wouldn't some more character slots be an easier and more realistic solution? Or do people want this so they can turn their 16th level wf barb into a 16th level elf wizard just because they don't want to start a new character and level him up? I shudder at the thought of a 16th level caster that has never cast a single spell before.

[feynman]

While yes, Feynman, it does become a priority, the one that declares the priorities is the manager, NOT the programmer. The priority first and foremost is to only do the work budgeted for so that the "deadline" is met.

OK, but all that says is that we need to convince the managers rather than the programmers; I had always assumed this to be the case.

2) This falls back on part 1, but the comment make by Kate was either in a video showing her showing off monks or in a cast done by Jerry. I forget which. It was a long time back. Given her position is producer, she has final say of what really gets budgeted for what. Her lackluster approach to the gamer population that likes to look good while kicking ass is highly apparent, so I make the assumption that she would take the same approach to something as player useful as respecs.

Well, people get fired sometimes, right? We can always hope...

3. I am not a database engineer so I do not know what can and can not be done. I bit bang and model simulations. But even I know, Feynman, that I can only work with the data that is AVAILABLE. If the data is not there... what? Make it up and pray it works? One of the problems with the current structure of the data base is that it does not keep track of when you ate a tome, only that you did. This leads into issues on how to solve the issue while not ripping off the player. This has been stated on the forums before. I have not read threads in detail, of which I'm certain a player has listed off how to handle such issues in an elegant manner. However, fact: the player does not work for Turbine, hence has no actual knowledge of what data is stored, how it is stored, and what tools and methods are allowed to "fix" said issue. Like the rest of us, said player can only speculate and give a best guess.

Easy: You go to respec, character creation screen pops up, stats are modified for tomes you have eaten, and you proceed from there. No need to know what tome was eaten when, just lump it all together and make it easy and cheap to code.

And before you get into a huff, I am in favor a respec ability, and these things can be done, but it has to fit the guidelines that Turbine has laid for itself, and as per players, done correctly. All of this takes money, and money is never easy to come by for the average person. Add to this the economy, Turbine has laid off people, and well.. I am happy we are still getting free content. The scenarios I listed off are based off my real world experience and tempered by the feedback we get from turbine employees, and 3rd party sites.

No huff, didn't take any offense

I still think that this could be done simply and cheaply, but again, those are things to be decided after we convince them that it should be done to begin with.

It comes down to priorities, did that many people screw up their builds so bad they have to respec them? Is it that big of a priority ... more so than bugs, lag and new content?

1. It's not about screwed up builds, although it would help those people, too; it's about the rules changing and allowing us to fix things that we wouldn't have done if we had known what those changes would be.

2. I've given up on bug fixes, and I think many others have, too. Also, many of the "bug fixes" we do get are part of the problem.

3. Content is nice, but that couldn't possibly take up all of the programmers' time; they can work this in while the other details of content are being worked on (graphic design, quest mechanics, etc).

If it's not about your build being so bad then wouldn't some more character slots be an easier and more realistic solution? Or do people want this so they can turn their 16th level wf barb into a 16th level elf wizard just because they don't want to start a new character and level him up? I shudder at the thought of a 16th level caster that has never cast a single spell before.

No, and that's the point; it's mostly about not losing raid loot from a character that has been rendered obsolete (or even unplayable) by changes to the rules. While I would like more character slots, it doesn't address the problem, and I don't see anyone doing anything as drastic as changing a barbarian into a wizard, since very little gear is cross-compatible, but I also don't see the problem with that happening.

[Zenako]

OK this was mentioned in at least one thread...

Sharing during raid loot division time. Currently someone pulls something that their current character cannot remotely use, it is almost always put up for someone else to get. If every character COULD become any build they want, that would mean that ANY raid loot COULD be useful now or in the future for a build or rebuild, which would affect the reactions of some players I am convinced. Sure I don't NEED this +3 CHA tome on my 8 CHA Fighter, but I have been thinking about making him a Paladin so I am gonna eat it/keep it... stuff like that.

[feynman]

OK this was mentioned in at least one thread...

Sharing during raid loot division time. Currently someone pulls something that their current character cannot remotely use, it is almost always put up for someone else to get. If every character COULD become any build they want, that would mean that ANY raid loot COULD be useful now or in the future for a build or rebuild, which would affect the reactions of some players I am convinced. Sure I don't NEED this +3 CHA tome on my 8 CHA Fighter, but I have been thinking about making him a Paladin so I am gonna eat it/keep it... stuff like that.

I think even your example is stretching it; how good of a paladin will you get with a base 11 CHA? Not to mention that as a fighter, he is most likely chaotic good, and won't be able to use those true chaos weapons anymore, etc, and that's with relatively similar classes.

I can see it causing problems between similar builds (bards/sorcs, etc), but then they already want a lot of the same stuff.

[Dexxaan]

****NOTE: Not trying to be snide or sarcastic in this post, just honestly asking questions****

...snip....

So, I am honestly asking: What is wrong with allowing players to respec attributes, skills, classes, races, and/or any combination thereof?

I believe there needs to be an evaluation of each aspect within the term all use as a Respec.....

Respec Attributes: Someone screwed up at creation and not much should be done to remedy this IMO; i.e. You made your Drow Sorc with CON 8 and maxxed other attributes....why a respec for you? No, Attribute respecs are lack of Core Build design...suck it up and deal with it.

Respec Skills: I´m in favor of this since the Core of the build isn´t being transformed, yet the skills required to be useful and/or useful to the build many mods later have changed. So yes Skill respecs are a go IMO.

Respec Classes: Tough one for a select few cases and mostly due to PrE´s. Still i don´t think a minority of people that could benefit (including 2 of my 11) builds should jeopardize and allow widespread abuse of this feature. So NO, no Class respecs.

Respec Races: You´re kidding right? Don´t get me started on this path.

Imagine waking up one morning and having Gunga show up as a Dress-wearing female Halfling Bard-Cleric. And he does it for ***** and giggles? Friends are what they are...the ugly dwarf can go to college and relearn his stuff, but he´s still an ugly dwarf. And unless Michael Jackson Doctors overrun Stormreach the answer is simply....NO.

[Impaqt]

Personally, I dont think Turbine hates us. I think if adding a respec system was easy, we'd have it already.

Character Creation is incredibly complex. The game engine and databases were not designed around people changing every aspect of their character whenever they felt like it.

A respec system, no matter how "Easy to do" would take a TON of time coding, recoding, and testing before it could be introduced. Thats lots of time taken away from Content develeopment.

Maybe now that we're hitting level 20, Turbine can work on it without people asking every other wek when the next level cap raise is gonna be....

Of course, we're still waiting for Druids, Half Orcs, Crafting, Housing, and many other things that are simply higher on the priority list.

[Aganazer]

Most of this seems like speculation. We really don't know if adding this feature would take away from content production or have a significant impact on the development teams budget. Only Turbine knows that. There is obviously time (and money) being spent on features that are not content related. For example, would you rather have shared bank space, first person view, or respecs?

The best reason not to have them, IMO, is that it would cause more players to gravitate toward builds that are considered to be the most powerful. Of course some people already do this, but its limited by the time the person has to invest in a reroll. The same limitation could be designed into a respec system by limiting a player's ability to respec. The length of the time investment required for a respec could be equal to or less than the time it would take to reroll. The only reason we want respecs is for it to take less time than it takes to reroll.