Unlocking Power Pools at Level 0 on earned respec

I floated this idea a long time ago with mixed feed back. I thought I'd try it again to see if the climate has changed. I think there are certain builds where the forced selection of beginning powers is detrimental or results in powers that essentially will be lightly or never used. While I understand that there may be concerns about new players gimping themselves in the beginning of the game if pool powers were opened at character creation, I think by the time an earned respec can be had, they should know enough to avoid that pitfall. So, what do you people think about opening up power pools at level 0/1 upon an earned character respec?

Pointless, completely missing the point of the first couple of levels, and a general lack of how the leveling system works is what I think

The fact is, the developers current power selection forces players to take at least one attack, one defensive power if they are a defense type, one control power if they are a control type, and so on.

This means that even the worst players have to have the basic powers for their archtype. Allowing players to select power pools from level 0, even on a respec, would allow some players to completely bypass a primary or secondary power set choice. As of now, if I ever see anybody with more pool powers than their primary or secondary powers, I know automatically to one-star them and never work with that player.

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C'mon now - there are plenty of ways to gimp yourself in this game if you are uneducated -even given the current methodology. Your position limits that perhaps, but it does not prevent it. Conversely, especially with respect to PvP builds and certain others, builds can be very very tight. Any inclusion of a primary or secondary power that will not be used but is currently required at the expense of including a pool (or epic) power that would be useful is a waste.

Such malice in your post. You may think this idea has no merit and you might be right. I suspect, however, that you are not necessarily in the high majority of the people, if you are there at all. Therefore, I will retrieve my crumpled up idea from the trash and recirculate it some.

I believe the lowest level powers you can have while exemplared is level 6. You can exemplar to a level 1 character and to their missions, right? If so, then...you're still using powers that you would have gotten by level 6. Which, coincidentally, is when PPs are opened up.

Personally, I would go with the not very useful crowd here.

The only low-level changes I'd make would be allowing the tier 2 power in secondary available at level 1, so we don't always have to get stuck with lame power choices we aren't going to use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Wendy, the benefit is not necessarily that the pool powers will be more useful at those low levels than the primary/secondary powers - note that this is a suggestion for pools to be opened up at level 0 on an *earned respec*, not while initially leveling. The benefit is that a higher level player who has no need whatsoever for some of those early powers is not forced to take them, and can instead get some of his pool power prereqs out of the way early on.

For example, if this were allowed, my grav/storm would drop gale in a heartbeat (and take, say, hover) so that he can actually fit in all of the powers he wants, such as snow storm. Tell me with a straight face that that does nothing to help me or my teams.

And yeah, some will just use this to gimp their builds even more, but frankly it's not like it would make any difference at that point. What do I care if that emp has no attacks at all instead of 1 unslotted attack that they never use? Either way they're not going to be killing anything, after all. And I imagine that such characters won't be on very many successful respec teams anyway.

I'm with Wendy on this - I just don't really see a point to it.

Some have said that it lets us omit a "useless" initial power that we "never" use. I guess I really don't have any of those, in any of my 60 alts. I have some characters who use that intial secondary power rather infrequently, but I do use them all at least a bit.

I suppose it would also give someone an additional power pick at some point later in the build, but I have rarely had a character where I felt that I *needed* just one more power pick to get a power I can't fit into the build.

I guess I think that the uselessness of the initial forced secondary choice is vastly overstated and this is a solution in search of a "problem".

We might want to have this moved to the Suggestions forum, BTW, since it's a suggestion, not a general AT or Powers thread.

I don't have a problem with this (OP). There have been occasions where I've been forced to take a power I didn't want, simply due to the fact the power pool wasn't open yet.

From my very first week in the game I've wondered why pool powers weren't made available at the outset. I think it is a design mistake. If the concern is that players will choose less effective pool powers over much better primary and secondary powers, then why not put up a big, visible warning upon opening the power pool, reminding players that primary and secondary powers are typically more powerful than pool powers? In addition to this, you can make a pop up for confirmation: "You have selected a Pool Power, which may be weaker than your available Primary or Secondary power choices. Do you wish to keep this selection? Y/N".

If necessary, this could be followed with: "You have not selected any powers that do damage, which may make it difficult for you to play this game. Do you wish to keep this selection? Y/N".

Shouldn't that fix it?

Also, things have changed in the game from the days of i1 and i2. Now, as a vet, I have Sands of Mu/Ghostslaying Axe and Nemesis Staff/Blackwand in addition to Brawl and my origin power. With these powers, at level 1 I am far more capable than I would otherwise be. So why shouldn't I be able to open my Fitness pool at the very start, or take a combat power from the Fighting pool, or take the prerequisite for my travel power?

I think the present situation is an unnecessarily limiting approach. If you make this change in an intelligent manner I think you can open up possibilities for everyone while at the same time providing useful instruction for new players.

*fight, fight, fight!*

as for pool powers on the get go for respecs, I think the OP's intent was to get rid of "useless at lvl 50 w/IOs" powers such as swipe on my claws scrapper, which at lvl 30 I already have the recharge in slash to stop using in chains for the most part (at 50, with any ammount of global and/or hasten, it should be gone entirely.) I could have assault or something instead of that. I do not think the OP's intent was to have people come in complaining about people choosing hover/CJ at lvl 1

On second thought, I could get behind this suggestion or Dispari's if it meant my Grav/TA could ditch Entangling Arrow. I could manipulate things one way or another so I could get Crush, Flash Arrow, or Poison Gas Arrow instead. Or maybe Dimension Shift if I felt like annoying teams.