Full power set respec's

Originally Posted by Edana

Suggestions go over there.

It is a bad suggestion, but still ought to go in the right place.

Originally Posted by magikwand

One of the worst ideas ever. The game isn't that hard. If you want a 50 in a new powerset, roll a new toon and get started. Even without powerleveling or farming, the ride to 50 can be much shorter than you might think. Allowing players to change powersets would be an awful way to ruin the game.


This will never happen. The devs work in the interest of keeping people subscribed to the game as long as possible. If they were to allow such a shortcut to allow you to experience playing as a level 50 with any powerset you want instantly, many people would get bored and move away from the game in a shorter time than if they would playing regularly.

It sounds lazy and shortsighted.

Originally Posted by Edana

Suggestions go over there.

It is a bad suggestion, but still ought to go in the right place.

Originally Posted by Everfree_Fire

I'm still trying to figure out how this is a good idea or how this would help anything, personally.

Originally Posted by Purge

Good suggestion and I will, but I am also trying to get a discussion out of this too.

Originally Posted by Purge

Also, can you specify why it's a bad suggestion?

Originally Posted by Everfree_Fire

So instead of telling me how, you ignore it and just tell me to think about it?

How about this?

Let's say I get to fifty. I want to try something new. What good would it be to just have that as a fifty, with potentially no idea how the powers works or how they mesh together without those 49 levels of playing with them?

You're essentially asking to skip the 49 levels that you learn how to play a power, just for the sake of trying something new directly at 50.

Originally Posted by je_saist

You won't get it. The developers have flat come down against power-respecs in any shape or form. You cannot, under any conditions, convince them that power-set respecs are a good idea.

The developers themselves shot down power-respecs as a never earlier this year during a Q&A session: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=218838



Literally less than 72 hours after Mr. Miller torpedoed the idea, somebody, once again, tried to raise it: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=218960

Then less than 24 hours after that, tried again: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219010

Castle again shot down the idea later in closed beta thread when responding to Zombie Man, confirming that the position taken by Positron was shared by the development staff, an interchange mentioned on the public forums here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=3077295

More recently, somebody else tried to raise the topic again just a month or so ago: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=240452

All of the threads about Power-Set respecs, Ultimate respecs, and so on, every single one terminate with this is a topic that is not up for discussion, and there is no way you can gussy it up for the developers to think it is in any way a good idea.

I'm sorry if you don't like that answer, but the developers have been very explicit about how they want to make an alt-friendly game and encourage players to have multiple-archtypes. They have not, as far as I have observed, ever linked the lack of a power-set and archtype-respec system to any technical hurdle.

It is not a matter of the developers cannot make such a re-specification system. It is that the developers will not make such a re-specification system.

Originally Posted by Pyro_Master_NA

Can you specify why "your opinion" of rerolling is "stupid" or why this is a good suggestion? Because the argument that rerolling is stupid just shows that you don't have any real reason for this change to be made.

Reasons why this is a bad idea:

People have no reason to make more than one of each At, since they can just swap powersets.

Low level content will die out.

Those switching to new powersets would have 0 experience with playing the new set and would be frustratingly horrible with them, since they had no time to learn how to play the set.

People will get bored with the game if 1 lvl 50 means any combo of the AT can be made, thus limiting players to really only needing 14 characters to experience every combination possible.

^People getting bored with the game means less people to team with.

And I'm sure others could come up with many reasons I missed. Your opinion of rerolling being stupid (which is like saying playing the game is stupid in MY opinion) is not a good enough reason for this kind of thing to be taken seriously. And name changing and server changing don't even remotely relate to this, so they are a bad argument to use.

Originally Posted by Purge

...You wouldn't have to...you could if you wanted to, like name change or server change!

Originally Posted by Emberly

No need to discuss this; it's a terrible idea and the devs agree that it will never happen. The end.

Originally Posted by Purge

It's not a bad idea, because people have asked about this before in other events! But, TY for your answer and I no longer will post on the forums due to this Dev nonsense!

Originally Posted by Purge

It's not a bad idea, because people have asked about this before in other events! But, TY for your answer and I no longer will post on the forums due to this Dev nonsense!

Originally Posted by Purge

TY for your post Pyro, but I have found that this topic has been raised and is a non-issue for the Dev's. Hense, I will no longer post on the forums anymore.

Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill

Now, where'd that copypasta go...

Why a full respec is not a good idea for COH.

So, you've played your Apathy/Dual Wet Noodle Tank to 50 and decided you don't like him. You've come to the forums and said "Why not let me completely respec the character!"

Well, people consider a "full respec" to be different things. I'm going to cover a complete and total character respec. If some of them don't apply, well, this comes up enough for this to be a copy and paste reply.

There are four things that the developers and game see as defining your character:
1. Archetype
2. Origin
3. Primary powerset
4. Secondary powerset

When people talk about a full respec, they're either talking about the powersets or the whole enchilada.

A Respec is short for respecification - altering what your character can do. This can be through reordering the levels you took powers, reassigning slots, and/or changing power pools. You'll note that none of this touches on changing the four listed items. The reason being that if any of those change, it's not the same character. A respec is not recreation or reimagining. It's tweaking your character a bit.

Now, let's go through some of these "full respecs."

Primary/Secondary

You're sure to hear this repeated a good bit - Just because you've played one set, doesn't mean you know how to play them all.

For instance, my namesake tank is a Fire/Superstrength tank. I know how he plays. The most similar powerset to him at the time of writing is Dark Armor. It's resistance based, it has no knockback protection, it has a damage aura, a self heal that does damage - it even has a self rez as its tier9.

They don't play anything alike. (I can say this, because I also have a version that's DA/SS.) Fire has no Psi protection. It has no stealth. Burn has a far different effect than Oppressive Gloom, and nothing similar to Cloak of Fear. It calls for a thoroughly different style of play. With Fire, I can leave my toggles on and go to town. With Dark Armor, I have to be selective, or the times I have to herd stragglers (for instance) won't work exceptionally well. Dark Armor also does not have anything like Consume to help out with Endurance - that's in Dark Melee.

With "similar" sets being that different - try Fire vs Stone. Or Invulnerability. You now have a set at or near 50 (when most people seem to mention wanting this - "I have a 50 that...") that you don't know how to slot effectively (which means you'll be doing *at least* one more respec) and don't know how to play effectively.

That's just changing *one* side of the equation. Now add in, say, going from Stone Melee to Dark Melee. Different effects, with *very* different affects on your survivability. And you won't know how to slot that, either, or how well they synergize.

Similarly, a Stormie plays vastly differently from an Empath, or a Dark, or a Rad. Earth Control is nothing like Illusion. Combo-chasing with Dual Blades won't help you with Martial Arts.

How do I know that this ends up being a mess?

Beta testing. The devs have, on rare occasion, bumped up characters to specific levels. The most notable was when Recluse's Victory came out for testing. Everyone was made level 40 - and it was a *mess.* Sure, people made copies of their own characters, and those worked out. Then there were those (many, many of those) who said "Hey, I've never had a X/Y before, I'll make one of those!"

Like I said, it was a mess. You could very easily tell who had done that versus making copies of characters they knew.

Now, yes, over time you'll learn your powerset - but in the meantime, you're not going to be very effective, or very happy.

Archetype

Now, given what I just said about powersets, imagine a *whole different AT.* Your tank is now an Empath? Really? You know how to survive as a Blaster because you played a Scrapper? And don't even get me started on epics.

If *sets* are that different, Archetype is that times ten.

Impact on enhancements

IOs are a big part of the game right now. Think about IO'ing out your character. You get your KB protection, sets and the like, potentially spending millions (or more) on finishing up these sets, or working on merits or whatnot.

Now, you change your primary - again, we'll take a tank - from a resistance based one to a defense based one.

Guess what is now useless to you. You *may* have a power to stick that resist set in, somewhere, but now you're defense based - and those resist sets dont' work for you any more. That Knockback set isn't taken any more. It's even worse when you say you want to switch AT - what is a Blaster going to do with a resist set? What is a Scrapper going to do with Sting of the Manticore or Malaise's Illusions?

This isn't even touching on the fact that *you could only retain ten enhancements.* That's 1 2/3 six-slotted powers.

And you'd have nobody to blame for all that lost time and INF but yourself...

Origin

Origin holds a strange place in this list. I'm just going to touch on it briefly.

Origin used to matter *vastly,* back in pre-beta. It determined how many powers you could learn and how skilled you could get with them. The system was scrapped, and for a long time it was mostly an RP item, as well as determining which enhancements you could use.

It now has *some* impact in the game with some temp powers - the "helper" power you get at level 1 (throwing knives, taser, mutagen, etc.) as well as some of the vet powers. The main impact, though, would be if you'd equipped with DOs or SOs, with the lost INF. That said, you would be able to get some of it back. Origin's probably the least of the problems with a full respec. Though some would, of course, complain that they no longer get a damage bonus or what have you - and who knows what the devs may do with this in the future.

Gameplay

There are also three other things to consider.

1. The game is designed around alts.

Seriously. If this were Guild Wars, for instance, with severely limited slots, I could see wanting to do a complete respec. But by default, you can make over 100 characters before feeling a pinch - and can purchase up to 24 additional slots per server, if you so choose. Don't like one set, make some others and try them out.

2. It's just not that hard to level.

Seriously... it's not. With half debt inside missions, patrol XP, double XP weekends, XP smoothing, XP adjustments (typically up,) debt reduction everywhere... it just *isnt'* hard to level. And levelling "honestly" means you're learning your powersets, how they work with each other and others and hopefully how to use them best - which will only make you a stronger player.

3. The devs say "no."

The devs have said no. They devs will continue to say no. The most recent "no" being the 4/2010 Q&A. So this is not just player opinion.

In closing, let me just say "No. Roll an alt."

Originally Posted by BrandX

I'm still okay with it setting you back to level 1, so you can keep the badges, myself.

So, yes for the power set/AT respec, and no for the level 50.