Reincarnation/Rebirth

Someone suggested that I post an idea I posted in a thread about respeccing primary/secondary sets (and ATs). This is said post.

I'm not going to go into detail as to how this would be spun in game (eg Lore) because I don't know how it'd fit.

In DDO (where I first came across the idea) there is a mechanism that allows a capped character to do in effect a respec that allows them to change their class (AT). This system is called True Reincarnation. It functions as a purchasable (or I think earnable in game) item that when handed in to an NPC you are allowed to shuffle off your mortal coil and in effect start the character from scratch. There are some details that don't change, the character name and gender remain the same. (details).

Now I'm not advocating a like for like game mechanic in City of Heroes, as what we have now works for most people, you can respec now. However for some charatcers you cannot become more than you once were because the game has changed (and hopefully will continue changing) meaning that charatcers built for one purpose may perhaps no longer fullfil that purpose.

Or perhaps it is merely a story that you want to follow for your character currently you'd have to re-roll to change your AT and the new character would no longer have a connection with the older version.

So add a Rebirth system into CoH.

What would this entail:
At level 50 you would somehow earn the ability to Rebirth as a new person. You would lose all your existing powers, your very being would wiped clean and you would gain the ability to re-level the character from scratch.

Why would this be different from re-rolling?
When you delete a character you lose everything attached that is badges, costume parts, titles... etc. Rebirth would let you keep every non-physical part of the old character. You'd also keep any enhancements (or perhaps just a tray full), Inf, SG membership & Prestige, salvage, recipes, etc.

So basically you lose:
49 Levels
Incarnate Slots (but not the abilities).

Take me through the idea:
Do the event, hand in... whatever.
Then you get taken into the character creator (as if you were starting a new character. You can pick anything you would normally have access to. You won't be able to change origin. Once you're finished you enter the game as normal.
Levelling as a re-birthed character would be slower, because each level of rebirth takes twice as long as the previous. That is when you rebirth the first time it takes twice as much XP to get back to 50. If you then rebirth again, it would take three times as long.
Once you regain level 50 you gain a buff that is linked to your previous class, which would confer some benefit to the current one. These buffs would be less impressive than Incarnate level buffs but more impressive than those associated with accolades. Would not be lost through exemplaring and you'd keep subsequent buffs the next time you rebirthed. That is:
If you start as a controller, then rebirth into a tank. The tank would gain a buff called Controller's Buff once it hits fifty. If the tank then rebirthed, while levelling to fifty in the next AT he'd keep the Controller's Buff. Once he hit 50 (for the third time) he'd gain a Tank's Buff in addition to the Controller's buff.

In general you'd gain a title dependant on the previous class (if you want to use it), a badge for each rebirth to a new AT and an accolade for all normal ATs and another for all epic archetypes.

I dare say there would be extra stuff added to the idea too. After all rebirthing more than once would soak up an impressive amount of time.

Some further thoughts:
Incarnate abilities IMO should be dropped. That is when you rebirth you lose the physical slots but not the 'enhancements' that you slot into them. Once you hit 50 again you can re-earn the slots and then re-slot the abilities.
Incarnate Salvage - Shards. Should drop as they do now for all rebirthed characters. So you'd have a nice nest egg once you hit 50 with shards dropped as a lower level character.
Rebirth should be available for VIP & Premium players (and free players, but they would need to buy them, becoming premiums). But only VIP players could earn them in game.
Item (if that is what it becomes (rather than a trial reward) should be available in several forms and from several locations:

1. Guaranteed drop of boss mob in a story arc/trial for VIP players. This item would be locked to the account that earns it.
2. Extremely rare drop from any Lt or higher NPC in the game (not including AE ofc). Not listing in any of the reward tables for other drops. This item will drop for any player (with perhaps a slight skew toward VIP players). This item is trade-able in all normal ways including the auction system.
3. Store bought item, again locked to account.

You really don't need such an elaborate explanation when what you're suggesting is a form of reroll which allows you to keep your bragging rights staus but lose everything practical like loot, levels, cash and so forth.

I've always been a fan of these ideas, myself. As long as the player has to re-earn everything that makes the character strong, then I have no problem with people keeping their badges, titles, SG standing and whatnot. The one caveat I make, however, is accolade badges. If you do this, you have to either lose ALL accolade prerequisite badges, or have them renamed and the originals taken away. Point is, if you want to reroll but keep your badges, you'd still lose your accolades. Nothing functional can cross over with you. Only cosmetics and no-effect collectables.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Glad to see you put this up. I like the basic idea and what you have added to it here. I think you are right about the time it would take to get it made unfortunately.

Aside from the other arguments you're going to get about this, since at its heart it's the same AT/powerset respec the devs have said no to -

I absolutely disagree with the "Death gives you a buff." And disagree more with them stacking. Why? It takes 5 hours or so to get to 50, *without* exploits. The min/maxers would be *all over* this. A few hours - even "taking longer" each time - and getting PL'd each time for a fairly decent buff? Meanwhile penalizing those who are actually *happy* with their characters and DON'T want to go through this?

No. Absolutely not.

(And by the way, there are no "gimped" powersets. You may not *like* them, but there aren't any that are "gimped.")

Now, setting it up as "Retire the character = the character is no longer accessible (IOs, etc. get sent to a bank or some such,) the name/badges are held for you to use with an *actual* reroll (with the caveat about accolades above,) and you get a 20-25% XP and INF boost from 1-22 (since your "retired" character is "mentoring" the new one,)" or something similar to that... ok. It'd let you keep a few things and give a *reasonable* boost to get them off the ground sooner without being overpowered.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I do like the concept, but I am not sure of the details. Still though, it's worth further investigation!


"Reincarnate, the next step past Incarnate!", that has some appeal!

I read the opening post and thought "sounds good to me!" right up until I read the psot saying that the buff would effectively punish players that dont decide to reincarnate.

Perhaps lose the buff but instead give an XP bonus (after all, drawing on their previous life the new toon is likely to learn quicker!) of 5% per reincarnation.

Lose *everything* physical. temp powers etc. slotted enhancements. Inf stays as inf is linked to the character and not the build. Keep SG status and prestige earned.

No idea where the figure of 5 hours came from (I've never levelled to 50 in 5 hours! but then agian, I'm a slow player, I take my time and enjoy the game rather than push through to get xp - even when doing missions I've done a hundred times). But yes, PLers would be all over it to earn a buff of some kind (especially if it was a blaster with +25% HP and +1 mag on all mez effects).

The ability to reincarnate, to me, would be reward enough. Slightly improved levelling speeds would just help avoid the grind a bit

I really like the idea. I've deleted tons of toons after 50 because they weren't quite what I wanted them to be. So I lost everything that I'd earned and just rerolled the toon with another AT. This is much better in my opinion.

let them re-roll from level 1 with everything stripped if they want to change AT/powersets, fine. Accolades they can keep i don't care.

Absolutely UNSIGNED to nth degree with getting a buff for doing so.

SELLING the ability in store to do this, I'd be for.

Yeah, no buff. Sell it in the store, very pricey.

Glad that I'm not attached to my badges and don't mind re-rolling, but I support the option for people that feel that they want to keep their badges.

Actually, I'd think the buff would be okay only if, if it only lasted 'til like level 20, like the new lowbie Sewer Trials.

hmmmm or you could make it a PvP event...

a light appears at random (once every 1-360 hours) in RV and the first X number of toons into the light get a reincarnation token (non-tradable/sellable locked to that toon only)

the light teleports randomly around the level at random intervals (1-5 minutes) for a random duration (10 minutes - 10 hours)

the first X (where X is a random number between 1 and 10) toons that enter the light get the token and targetting the light lets you see how many have already been awarded so the higher the number gets the more chance that someone will stab you in the back to take your place

or, you could run a whole Logans run mass melee affair!

(the above is just joking...but could be fun!)

I, personally, disagree with havign the option for sale in any shop or store as it would either be so cheap that it is commonplace and nothing special or insanely expensive so that only those who speculate the market or farm could ever afford it.

I think its something that should be earned. In game.

I posted an idea before for an "ultimate sacrifice" - a task force or trial zone where the medical teleport facility was not an option and you either self rezzed or had a team mate do it for you. Death on the TF meant perma-death for the toon (with a nice bonus of having your name carved somewhere in-game). I never considered what could happen if the players survived the event.... reincarnation makes a lot of sense and you have to risk "death" to achieve it!

re-roll with badges/accolades etc ;thumbsup

re-roll with buff ;thumbsdown

The premise is sound.

People and their playstyles change over time. It's inevitable. The way I play now, blaster or tank is different from how I played 6 years ago.

From a "story" perspective - take a fire/fire blaster. A good portion of the secondary attacks are in melee. When teamed with a tank, heading into a mob and execution Combustion and/or Fire Sword Circle can be a lot of fun with nice results.

Who's to say after years of this activity, your toon wouldn't get more capable of doing such things, with less need for another toon to absorb the alphas?

However, as for practicality, even if the Devs loved this idea, I think it would be years away from becoming reality. That said, being logic oriented thinkers, my *assumption* - and that's all it is, not trying to tell anyone what anyone else is thinking, only me - would be that it's just easier to reroll.

Badges can be re-earned, as well as accolades. Costumes can be saved and loaded. There's no reason why the same instance of your scrapper can't be reborn as a tank or kheldian on another server with the same name.

I'm sure you're aware of all the alternatives.

Please don't get me wrong - I do like the idea. I just don't see it being implemented. But - I never thought Speed Boost would be an AoE, nor did I think a lovely option from Null the Gull would be a reality either.