Lost IOs

So, I'm sure most folks have run into this problem and it may be that there have been several other posts in reference to this issue but... Why can we not remove enhancements from our powers? Especially during a respec does this become an issue. I cannot respec my scrapper unless I choose just 10 of the 26 enhancements that would no longer be needed and have NO place in any slot so, therefore, would be lost completely.

I'm trapped in a build that I want to change, but can't, due to the ridiculous loss of time and energy investment that are represented by all of those lost IOs. It's just not happenin' and so, I cannot respec my main character.

Using alternate builds doesn't remedy this either. The only thing to be done is to burn several respecs wherein I choose powers that have a slot for the enhancements left behind so that they no longer would be. After doing this 3 times I would be able to get the actual build I wanted from the beginning of this ridiculous journey.

Thoughts? My friend mentioned some sort of a holding area where any enhancements that you didn't want in the final build would go until they are claimed after the respec is completed. They could expire in that bag after 24 hours or something, etc. The bottom line is there would need to be a mechanism by which it doesn't become some extra storage that's usable by the character for any other reason.

Again... thoughts?

It is because io's were meant as an infl sink. Due to this, the devs have gone on record as saying that we are lucky to even be able to pull 10 off.

Eh, I just burned multiple respec. You could of used 2 respecs to get 20 of them off, as they gave two free respecs.

"It is because io's were meant as an infl sink. Due to this, the devs have gone on record as saying that we are lucky to even be able to pull 10 off."

They're lucky they came up with the respec option as it allows folks to make CHANGES to a character that you have no way of knowing how it will actually end up until you're there aka seeing the future. If this wasn't an option, this game wouldn't be as popular as it is and they would lose money/subs.

"Uhm.. no, you're not. You're making a choice..."

Again, this game is all about choices but there's no way you can know how you're level 50 scrapper will feel when you're still level 1. Making those choices permanent is a bad move on the devs part for many reasons, not least of which is alienating your players as they realize their favorite character made a mistake not picking up fitness and now can't keep up with the rest of his friends in a prolonged melee. It's just not FUN...

I guess the problem I see with some of these responses is the draconian mind-frame surrounding the magical and mystical respec. Put it on a pedestal why don't you?

It's a respecification, folks, a way to completely re-pick your powers and slots. If the enhancements for those slots are just "oh so hard" to remove and store then why give us the option to re-choose at all? It's ridiculous to think that we will actually use this option and have only 10 possible enhancements that don't fit into the new version of our character.

The entire character (enhancements, slots, powers, costume pieces, badges, etc) is an investment of time. You can't start splitting that up into partial investments that are more important than others. It just becomes arbitrary if you look at it for what it truly is.

So, you're saying the devs are giving us this precious gift of the respec option, sometimes due to things like i19 where fitness becomes inherent, but are going to be sticklers on the fact that we invested time in the enhancements we have currently... um, just cuz they can? Cuz they wanna be mean? Cuz they're so worried that if we keep the enhancements we already earned it will topple the fragile game balance? Are you kidding me? Where's the problem? You think that by keeping me from being able to use the respec option due to this one limitation is going to keep me around as a player, knowing that I'm stuck with a build I no longer enjoy?

Oh, I know I know... I can't threaten to stop playing, due to the flaming that will ensue, plus I'm not going anywhere, let's face it. But, if my very long-term scrapper needs an updated build to take advantage of the new issues and changes in the powers he has (there have been tons, he's /regen) then he should not be able to unless he loses billions in enhancements? Am I being punished for something I earned?

This has nothing to do with moving to florida, and everything to do with a game wherein the devs have full control over this and every aspect of the mechanics (in your florida example the devs would be able to manipulate the worth of my old stuff and my abillity to sell it at full value).

Apparently, they do think that we are "lucky" to have the respec option but I disagree. They knew that doing so would make the player-base as a whole happy and keep them around (due to those same permanent choices making us feel like our level 50 needs to be re-rolled to be "just right"). Punishing a percentage of that player-base because there are issues with just throwing away excess enhancements during this "gift" process is ludicrous. It seems to me that this just wasn't a big deal back in the days of SOs being all there was. I had tens of millions of unspent influence at that time and nothing to spend it on so if I lost ALL my enhancements, oh well! But, the landscape has changed, the game is different. There should be an option to save months worth of time investment as represented, in this case, by my enhancements. Just like the respec was an option to KEEP your investment of time (aka your character) instead of rolling a new one that was almost identical but with some changes to slotting, power selection, etc.

Bottom line is, it's a good idea. It will help thousands of players, if not all of them, during respecs of any kind. So, draconian thinking or not, respecs need to be looked at with all the changes that have been made since their introduction.

The Devs, when they first gave us the ability to respec (which wasn't until a couple of issues in), didn't want us to be able to take any enhancements away from it at all. But since you could go into a respec with a tray full of enhancements on top of what was slotted already, they didn't want you to have to sell those at the same time. There were also technical issues with getting it to work right without you being able to take those 10 away, so they left it in.

This isn't to say that they were arbitrary with letting you swap out all of your powers and slots, but not your enhancements, it's that at the time, they couldn't get the system to work right without letting you keep the 10, even though they didn't want you to be able to take any away.

Enhancements are meant to be mostly permanent on your character. The ability to take 10 away when you do a respec is the Devs being nice, because they didn't want you to take ANY away.

When the Devs make changes to sets (and even in some issues when they don't), they give you a free respec to make those changes, and take out any enhancements that you might have had in those powers. Now, if you haven't respec'd a character in a while, and a lot of changes have gone on in that timeframe, then it's going to take you more than one respec to get those enhancements out. But if you had done it over time, and used the freespecs as they had been given to you, it would have been simpler for you to do. Not doing that isn't the devs fault. They gave you the tools to make the changes over time. Not using those, then complaining that the system is a bad one doesn't make you right.

A. I'm not complaining. This is a suggestion forum. Hence, this is a suggestion.

B. I have a ton of respecs available to me, I have been around for a long time and have not taken some major break from the game wherein I came back and found my world upside down.

C. My point in saying there have been changes is because there have been changes... major changes to the game. The system is much different now than it was back when respecs were implemented. There was no economy... at all. No IOs, no invention system, nothing to worry about regarding this issue. That has ALL changed. I am SUGGESTING that the devs look at this and look at what they are essentially asking the players who have already done what the devs have asked in spending tons and tons of time on making a single or handful of characters really powerful by using the enhancements and recipes THEY MAKE AVAILABLE. The things (purple IOs) are rare enough. Once you have them, why would they say we can't keep them if we swap out inherent fitness or some other change made during a respec? No valid reason other than this draconian thought process of "oh man, we're sooo lucky the devs have made the game more viable and fun by handing us this awesome gift of a respec! I feel they have every right to make us go through a huge messy process wherein I could lose a crapload of my mega-expensive enhancements to use this precious and "rare" gift! Fanboi am I!!"

D. This is a game. If something makes a large enough number of players groan when they think of the daunting task of respeccing 3-4 times to save all the enhancements they have legitimately earned, then it should be fixed. It's about fun and this respec process should be as quick and painless as possible so as to promote getting that player back into the aforementioned game itself. This is a metagame process all the way and so should not be something that everyone needs to spend countless hours on thinking about and planning, then more hours actually carrying out said multiple respecs, and/or recovering from losing all the enhancements they lost by just doing "what the devs barely and grudingly ALLOW us to GET AWAY WITH".

E. I think anyone who doesn't think I'm right is also "right". I'm not saying anyone is wrong here. I do have a valid point though and, "right" or "wrong", I'm using this tool (the forums) to ask them to fix another of their tools (respecs). Because it doesn't work for me and many others. The same reason they brought about respecs in the 1st place and made every other change to this game... it helps the players have more fun and stick around.

F. Ask yourself what would really happen if we had a chance to cache our unslotted enhancements instead of throwing them away using a single respec like I mentioned? Any horrible consequences? I can't think of a single thing. Now, using the current system, we have posts like this and people who need to spend multiple respecs and possibly real money to buy said respecs in order to accomplish the same exact result, it just takes more effort and/or money. And the fun in that is... where? I think a lack of fun in a game setting is a horrible consequence...

Are you saying that the devs want us to spend more real dollars?!!? LOL of course they do! Are you saying that they want us to spend more time re-earning those same enhancements by giving them more real dollars to play this game for a longer subscription period?!?! LOL of course they do!

Are you saying that they think those affected will bother? Some will and some won't. But, either way, it gets done and the game itself isn't affected at all. They seem to think that by making these precious respecs painfully difficult in this ONE aspect it will net them some additional income? Maybe, but indirectly they may lose more than they gain in the end. I dunno. All I know for sure at this point is that it's a huge headache for me and, regardless of how many respecs or freespecs I have or will have, this is a large enough timesink for me to post about needing a fix. I've spent thousands of hours on my scrapper, even more hours thinking about his build and testing out variations on the test server. I don't think spending even more time on the actual respec itself makes it more fun for me, more game-balancing for them and us or even more lucrative for the devs. It's just a hassle, plain and simple. Last time I checked, the devs don't want their players considering anything about a game to be a major hassle... like grinding for shards...

I would welcome a way to store all the IOs after respec. While I agree that enhancements are supposed to be permanent after slotting (for thematic reason or as an inf sink), the rare and ultra rare IOs are huge investments by players and it is a shame to lose them after respec. Although all of them can be retrieved with multiple respec, it is better just to do it in one shot. I don't think it is necessary to ask players to go through such pain.

On the other hand, I believe it is a significant effort to implement such system by the dev. I think the total number of enhancements in a build is ~100. Obviously, they can't simply be dumped into the inventory of a character, or the transaction slots in the market. A new storage space and user interface need to be created. It looks like a big project which I'm not sure if the dev think that it worth the investment.

Good point. I have a suggestion though. They could open up the in-game mail system so you could then email at least another 20 or so to yourself. Not sure if there's some negative to this but, I admit, it's possible. Maybe all of the emails would be sent after the respec is actually completed so you wouldn't have an unfinished respec result in the players being able to fool the system and truly make enhancements anything but permanent.

I don't agree they should be permanent though regardless. This game has remained viable and healthy due to the direct fact that we have the best dev team on the planet. One major reason this is the case is the fact that they listen and change with the players and the lack of a crystal ball. No one, not even the devs, can see the future and how this game would change and evolve, but it has regardless. Their ability to roll with the punches is one of their greatest attributes. If we can change what POWERS we even have for our characters and how powerful each one of those is through the number of slots, which is a LOT more fundamental and hard to justify than the little enhancements we have in them, then why does this part have to be so harshly regulated as permanent. The fact that we have the ability to do the 10 per respec thing is a complete breakage of any semblance of permanent.

The cat's already outta the bag on the permanency issue, guys. Learn, grow and move on. In this instance they can learn from my post, grow to at least address it or implement it and then we can all move on...

Hysterical. Arrogance? If you knew me, you'd realize how wrong you were. I was trying to compliment the devs for listening to their players, of which I am a member, and I am accused of arrogance. Maybe you should look in the mirror? The arrogance of assumption perhaps?

Besides, I wasn't insulting anyone about not being able to move on. I wanted that person to be me, the one who posts like once a year and just wanted to suggest something and hope it happens, so I could move on.

IOs are a "BFD"? No kidding... /boggle. If you can read properly, the context in which I am speaking about them being little is in the reasoning behind why they are revered as so high on the "gotta-be-permanent-or-the-game-will-break" chart. That's like saying changing what my character can do like, levitate an enemy or shoot him from a long range with a snipe is LESS important on the permanency scale than merely how he/she has made those powers better? That's a bit daft imo. Have you even looked at the argument here from the devs side in ANY context or are you just agreeing cuz that's who said it? What it boils down to is a "just cuz" mentality. They said it was important so it is but everything they say is less important, is less important which is mathematically insane to say. Are these guy infallible? They've already literally fixed mistakes thousands of times!

Me>speak>wall

Just realized I'm feeding into the flame-nature of where this has been steered...

fin

First off.. the "gift" was that we get to keep 10 enhancements during a respec, not the respec itself.

Secondly.. I've yet to see one reason from you as to why we should be able to pull out more than ten enhancements during a respec. I won't say "Because I want to" and "I spent time gathering them" aren't valid reasons, because those are personal values, and you can think they're valid all you want, while I can disagree to the same level. You said you don't see how it would hurt the game, and that it is a good idea... but why is it a good idea? How will it help the game become more successful?

And before anyone says "It'll make a portion of the player base happy, by giving them what they want", don't. Not unless you have some hard numbers. Remember the Pop-up with Mystic Fortune? People complained about it, so they took it away. People complained about it getting taken away, so they put it back in. I would think more people would want that pop-up taken away, but evidently, there were enough that want it there. So while you might think more people would be happy by giving the ability to take enhancements out of their slots, not everyone will, and it could be the majority.