Outrageous Respec Cost

[Mephane]

Considering that you are not meant to change spec each day (or even multiple times a day), I think 50k maximum price is appropriate at level 50. Not too hard to come by, but still enough to think about it twice.

[kmars]

To all of the people that do not think the respec costs are outrageous, the next time you need a healer for a heroic you had better cough up the dough towards their respec fee or no heals for you!!!

 

The real issue is that each advanced class was set up BY DESIGN to support two roles. The game is also set up to be very solo content heavy. Do you think that I as a Sorcerer am going to spec heals through all that solo content just so I can heal for heroics when the time comes? Heck no.

 

That is why they really should have had the concept of a dual spec in at release or at the very least make respeccing a trivial cost until they release it. Healers and tanks are being unfairly penalized for wanting to be DPS throughout the normal gameplay and having to spec differently for group play.

 

This has been an age old problem in traditional mmo's, from which the dual spec concept evolved. TOR needs to get with the program and implement something like this otherwise the scarcity of tanks and healers will be even more pronounced.

[Thermopylae]

Top dollar is absolutely used properly in the context. You are paying the current top cost of a product within it's genre. If I say "I paid top dollar for this steak" I don't mean "I paid top dollar for this steak but chicken would cost more", it means that I paid a very high price compared to all other steaks available.

 

That makes it stop dollar.

 

Stop being to be correct and accept that you're wrong.

 

Then your argument would also apply to me saying I paid top dollar for this stick of gum. While entirely accurate, it's absurd in its application.

 

THAT, sir, is why I said, "I would argue," followed by my point explaining it.

 

You can't be wrong when offering an opinion, genius.

[Spatzimaus]

Do you mean like, once combat has started, or once something is killed the raid is locked and nobody can enter? Because I've played plenty of games (WoW included) where the first is true, but I've never played a game where the second is.

 

One that comes to mind for the second category was Star Trek Online. Once you started a boss fight in a ground-based area, it'd often lock the room; anyone who died and couldn't be resurrected on the spot by another player would basically have to stand outside the room, on the other side of an impenetrable forcefield, and watch the fight go on without him. It made a lot of people unhappy, but it did reduce some of the zerg-like tactics you'd see in other MMOs; people would actually be careful not to die. (What a concept!)

 

As to the original topic, I think the problem here is that we have several different sets of folks asking for changes, all for different reasons:

 

1> People who wanted to experiment a bit with their builds (like the tooltips suggested) and are now unhappy that the costs have become high.

Now, given that the costs reset every week, these people shouldn't be too unhappy in the long term; once you fine-tune your build, going a week without a respec is nothing.

Suggestion: Free respecs until you hit level 10, and a very low cap on respec costs until you hit level 20. At that point, you should have a pretty good idea of how each tree works and which skills are good for each, at which point you can go back to the quick cost scaling to allow for a small number of changes per week. Level 20 is the point where a single-tree specialist unlocks their first role-defining activated ability, so it's a good cutoff point for experimentation.

 

2> People who want to tweak their build back and forth between PvE leveling/PvE raiding/PvP at need.

Personally I don't like this concept at all, because I absolutely hate how in some other MMOs there's this eternal desire to optimize. If you're not using the exact best abilities to maximize your role, you're looked down upon for raids and PvP. Making players have to use a one-build-fits-all setup helps reduce this, as it's understood that each player will have sunk at least a little of his resources into abilities that aren't strong in the current situation.

 

3> People who are unhappy when an ability they depend on gets changed in a patch, or when an ability they'd previously viewed as weak is suddenly boosted by a patch.

Some other games (like City of Heroes) would give out a free respec at every major content patch, just so that people could avoid this one. It was basically viewed as a free respec every month or two. Now, I'd hope that TOR won't massively change things in patches, although it's always possible in the early days of an MMO.

The worst part of this is the "Flavor of the Month" syndrome, where someone figures out an ubercombo, posts it online, and lots of folks immediately want to copy it before it gets fixed in the next patch (at which point they'll look for the next optimum build).

Suggestion: Add an option for a "mini-respec". Call it whatever you want, but it'd basically be a skill tree modification where you can move a handful of points around to compensate for an altered skill, but nothing more severe than that. You DO get free respecs once a week, so it's not like we're that punished by having to adjust for patches, but being able to immediately tweak your skill layout right after a patch, without worrying about the respec timers, would be a nice addition.

 

4> People who want to be able to switch between filling two different roles in a group, because of the changing makeup of a group.

If they ever added dual-spec ability, then this'd become the norm. It does have some advantages; I was in a group last night that was doing flashpoints just fine, but then our healer had to log. My DPS Agent switched to a healing role, and I really wasn't set up for it at all; if I'd been able to build up a separate healer build, then it would have been trivial to switch roles.

Beyond that, I generally don't like when people do this. It basically eliminates any sort of character identity; that's what multiple character slots are for. Granted, two characters means twice as much time leveling, twice as much gear you have to buy, and so on, but you'd have the added flexibility of being able to use a different class for each role. (And, two storylines.)

 

Perversely, #4 actually opposes #2 in a way. If raids and PvP require completely optimized characters for each role, and no deviation from that is acceptable (as in quite a few other MMOs), then this sort of role-swapping is not desirable, because you'd have a DPS player trying to fill a healer role; he might have the right skills and talents, but he won't have the gameplay skill developed over months of leveling to make him know instinctively when to cast X or activate Y.

The other issue is that if the devs give us 2 specs, then what happens? Some people might make their two buildings PvE and PvP, while others use the extra spec to fill two roles instead (such as DPS or healer). And we're right back where we started, because now people will ask for a third build so that they can do both of those...

 

----------------

Anyway, my point is, when asking for a change in something like this, make it clear WHY you want the change; if you want cheap respecs for role-swapping reasons, then you should find out whether that's the sort of behavior the devs even want to support. Similarly, when responding to someone who asks for things like this, don't lump in everyone else who wants a change with them. There's a nice middle ground, where small changes can be made that help the reasons you see as legitimate without also helping or harming those who have other reasons.

[Otherlander]

Suggestion: Free respecs until you hit level 10, and a very low cap on respec costs until you hit level 20. At that point, you should have a pretty good idea of how each tree works and which skills are good for each, at which point you can go back to the quick cost scaling to allow for a small number of changes per week. Level 20 is the point where a single-tree specialist unlocks their first role-defining activated ability, so it's a good cutoff point for experimentation.

 

Do you even play this game? You don't get to choose talents until you hit level 10.

[Otherlander]

Considering that you are not meant to change spec each day (or even multiple times a day), I think 50k maximum price is appropriate at level 50. Not too hard to come by, but still enough to think about it twice.

 

Why aren't you? Some people want to participate in different game styles, why should they be held back from experiencing them?

[a_Stalker]

To all of the people that do not think the respec costs are outrageous, the next time you need a healer for a heroic you had better cough up the dough towards their respec fee or no heals for you!!!

 

The real issue is that each advanced class was set up BY DESIGN to support two roles. The game is also set up to be very solo content heavy. Do you think that I as a Sorcerer am going to spec heals through all that solo content just so I can heal for heroics when the time comes? Heck no.

 

That is why they really should have had the concept of a dual spec in at release or at the very least make respeccing a trivial cost until they release it. Healers and tanks are being unfairly penalized for wanting to be DPS throughout the normal gameplay and having to spec differently for group play.

 

This has been an age old problem in traditional mmo's, from which the dual spec concept evolved. TOR needs to get with the program and implement something like this otherwise the scarcity of tanks and healers will be even more pronounced.

 

No reason to argue with very casual players, they cannot even understand what you are on about.

 

I am not sure how game economics work, but certainly WOW has tried to appease all player types from extremely casual to expert and then elite (aka I have no life). As it has evolved it has become easier and easier however.

 

For example up to and including the first expansion (Outlands) the tank had great difficulty in holding aggro on multiple targets (anytrhing more than 2 was a challenge) and the healer would not dare heal because he'd pull aggro and die. Crowd control was of utmost importance and all classes would play a very important role. Fights were hard, really hard those days.

 

A lot of players whined how hard it is and...

 

The next expansion made changes so that a tank could easily tank one million targets and CC became obsolete. Some fights were also very very hard though.

 

A lot of players whined how hard it still is and...

 

They have introduced the LFR which basically is a system that builds a 25 man raid from all game servers and places them inside an end game instance where the mechanics and boss abilities have been toned down quite significantly. The fights are still hard, but not as hard as doing the same raids normally. Free loot basically. Some times I wonder why can't Blizzard simply mail the loot to the whiners to save them even running the dungeons.

 

This LFR system has allowed me to see all end game content very quickly, when otherwise it would have taken me and my guild many weeks of dedicated effort. While it opens up the content to more casual players, it also kind of spoils it for me as I now have no much interest in running the same raid in normal mode and endure many hours of wiping for what essentially is the same bosses.

 

It is partly this driving one million bored WOW players to WOW-SWTOR.

[Matte_Black]

Wrong. Switching between specs several times a day is not viable for me. I don't have that sort of time to waste, I'd rather do or play something else. If DS isn't implemented, I'll just unsub and I will be far from the only one. They'll put it in before that happens, though. If I get a character to 50, I should be able to PvE AND PvP with them. I picked my class for a reason; I enjoy playing it. Specs are not equally good so in both so it's perfectly right to want to have an optimal spec for both types of gameplay.

 

I did not pay for half a game.

 

That's boils down to, "It's not my way so I'll quit." Perfectly reasonable actually. You want to focus your play of the game in a manner it was not intended to be. Basically swimming upstream against their different philosophy of MMO design. You assumed they would do things as other popular games have and ended up buying the wrong game for how you want to play. I am sorry if only half the game has value to you but, I'd rather see players who expected a different game unsub as opposed to changing the game many of us saw being put together the way it is and now enjoy.

 

Then clearly you're missing the business & economics sensibilities needed to put any knowledge on the subject to good use. Competition is necessary for MMOs. People need to keep striving to be better, and that won't happen without difficult encounters, min-maxing and an elite developing.

 

You seem to fail to miss the fact this game has heavy doses of single-player RPGs mixed in with familiar MMO elements. Alot of their target RPG demographic cares more about story and using a build they feel is interesting than they do with all the competition you claim to be mandatory. Clearly, you and many who have been drawn to the game merely because it is an MMO and is Star Wars do but, BioWare has hardly highlighted any plan to cater to that type of play over it's primary feature, engaging plot and story.

 

Seriously, BioWare touts fully-voiced story and then only passingly describes what turns out to be mediocre PvP, doesn't allow 3rd party add-ons and is resistive toward extensive respeccing. This was all known prior to release if one even bothered to research it or read between the lines of it's sales material. SWTOR is not intended to be a hard-core competitve game. You aren't wrong for wanting one but, changing this into one would be flipping the script on those who paid attention to what they were getting into. No Thank you.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Matte_Black

[Ahlin]

ou seem to fail to miss the fact this game has heavy doses of single-player RPGs mixed in with familiar MMO elements. Alot of their target RPG demographic cares more about story and using a build they feel is interesting than they do with all the competition you claim to be mandatory. Clearly, you and many who have been drawn to the game merely because it is an MMO and is Star Wars do but, BioWare has hardly highlighted any plan to cater to that type of play over it's primary feature, engaging plot and story.

 

This is not how you retain subscriptions and keep the game alive. It's just not. Right now on these forums, the fanboys are the ones that are arguing for the death of the game, and they don't even know it.

[Anzel]

I should be able to respec any time I feel like it. It's a game. I'm paying to play. Why would anyone have any say over what I do with my characters? They are mine. I'm paying for them.

[zoofar]

Err I think respec cost resets every week. Might wanna check that...

[Thermopylae]

I should be able to respec any time I feel like it. It's a game. I'm paying to play. Why would anyone have any say over what I do with my characters? They are mine. I'm paying for them.

 

Nope. You are leasing the game from the real owners. It states in the EULA that anything can change at any time at the sole discretion of the owners. If you do not like the changes, you may cancel your lease at any time.

 

Further, it's not just a game, as is a single player title. Because you are online interacting with other characters, what you do with your characters directly impacts the play of others, meaning carte blanche is not acceptable or desired.

[boomxi]

My respec cost for 3rd change (testing out of specs) was 54K. So it doesn't cap at 50K, not sure about weekly resets.

[Pennyroyal]

Your cost resets every week.

[TrifKaylon]

Your cost resets every week.

 

Resets to zero though?

 

I don't think it does. I've respecced twice in the past two weeks. Both were free (as in, no credits were deducted), but a price was displayed and the cost went up. It wasn't high - only a few thousand because i've only respecced those two or three times - but it certainly wasn't zero.

 

It's possible - and not unexpected - that it's a bug. Still though, I'd like to get to the bottom of this. I can check tonight, of course, but I like to sate my curiousity on the forums whenever possible.

Edited January 4, 2012 by TrifKaylon

[ohboyscott]

Actually respec cost goes down over time. Wait a week or so and it'll drop to about 900. Wait long enough and it'll be free again. Try it.

[Huhn]

Your cost resets every week.

 

 

Thats not quick enough. I enjoy healing on my sage, but I also enjoy doing DPS having that DPS for solo questing.I like switching between the too specs.

 

I really do not understand how people can really defend the position of not having dual speccing added to the game. It will have no negative impact on the game at all and will make quality of life in the game so much better. It will be easier to find tanks and healers, there will be more incentive for those to tank and heal for those that have the classes capable of doing so, which makes for quicker group forming

[Matte_Black]

Resets to zero though?

 

I don't think it does. I've respecced twice in the past two weeks. Both were free (as in, no credits were deducted), but the cost went up. It wasn't high - only a few thousand because i've only respecced those two times - but it certainly wasn't zero.

 

I wonder if your respecs have sort of cooldown where each week it drops down your count by one instead of actually resetting?

[TrifKaylon]

Actually respec cost goes down over time. Wait a week or so and it'll drop to about 900. Wait long enough and it'll be free again. Try it.

 

This definitely makes sense - the game hasn't been out long enough for me to actually wait (and as I'm only level 35, I'm still trying out new things, hence the 3 respecs).

 

However, it still looks as though utilizing the free weekly respec raises the cost, despite deducting no credits. I'm wondering if this is intended or not. Seems silly if it is.

[Vidrak]

Ok many of you have been force to live with the fact the respecing so often is a no no because hey the devs do not like that and balancing the game around every possible spec is hard and game would be too difficult for players to analyze.

 

Bioware why dont you just copy and paste another one of Blizzard's game and allow for unlimited free respecs. Those people above me that complain about "sitck to one build" need to get out of that frame of mind the devs have forced onto you. Flexibility is a feature the gamers value and to deny them is bad product development. I am sorry if everyone here likes being boxed into one play style for the entire game but I rolled an operative to be able to heal and dps because it is what I feel like doing and helps in progression.

 

Only legitimate complaint I have seen on this thread is my math. yea it is roughly 25-30 games, but have many game will the 6th one cost.

I have a recommendation, go play RIFT. You get 4 specs that you can swap between, which was very awesome and flexible.

 

Not every game is the same, while sure, I would like to be able to switch between tank and DPS, it isn't necessary. I just stick with tank and kill a little slower. If you could swap to anything on the fly, it would make some things too easy, IMO. If this option was available, then dynamics of dungeons and raids should be changed significantly. Like fights where dual tanks are needed, or extra healers, or less healers and more DPS. The game simply isn't dynamic enough to support what you want. You just haven't played enough games to grasp those design decisions.

 

Seriously, try RIFT if you haven't, and you will see what I mean. Changing your entire group makeup on the fly for different bosses happened quite a lot, and made the game feel very different from others.

 

But overall, I completely disagree. I haven't had to respec once yet, and plan on waiting. The design choice they made seems to fit fine with how the game plays right now. We'll see what I think when I hit 50, but I don't mind staying a tank spec forever.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Vidrak

[Anzel]

Nope. You are leasing the game from the real owners. It states in the EULA that anything can change at any time at the sole discretion of the owners. If you do not like the changes, you may cancel your lease at any time.

 

Further, it's not just a game, as is a single player title. Because you are online interacting with other characters, what you do with your characters directly impacts the play of others, meaning carte blanche is not acceptable or desired.

 

1. I purchased a copy of the game. That copy is mine. I own it. There was no such lease agreement as you mention above. The term "lease" explicitly means that I would have to give my copy of the game back when I'm done, which I'm not obligated to do.

 

2. I have no problem with playing by the rules set forth by the developers/publisher and if I decide otherwise I will in fact cancel as it is my right to do so.

 

3. It is just a game. Period.

 

4. I can choose whatever class/spec I want. I can play whenever I want. I can cancel whenever I want. I can delete my characters whenever I want. It is not up to YOU or anyone else in the community to decide those things nor should it be anyone else's decision how often I change my spec.

[MattieP]

Working as intended.

 

 

Once DualSpec arrives, people will find something else to complain about.

Edited January 4, 2012 by MattieP

[Thermopylae]

1. I purchased a copy of the game. That copy is mine. I own it. There was no such lease agreement as you mention above. The term "lease" explicitly means that I would have to give my copy of the game back when I'm done, which I'm not obligated to do.

 

2. I have no problem with playing by the rules set forth by the developers/publisher and if I decide otherwise I will in fact cancel as it is my right to do so.

 

3. It is just a game. Period.

 

4. I can choose whatever class/spec I want. I can play whenever I want. I can cancel whenever I want. I can delete my characters whenever I want. It is not up to YOU or anyone else in the community to decide those things nor should it be anyone else's decision how often I change my spec.

 

LOL...

 

1. Try playing without their servers....all you own is the box and media, not the game.

 

2. Please do

 

3. It is not just a game when what you do affects others. It is called an "online experience." That is why there are rules for interaction and harrassment.

 

4. Wrong again. Changing how you respec changes the game across the board for the rest of the community. You getting it how you want will, a. give everyone else that ability, requiring content to be altered to accommodate those changes, or b. make you more superior if you are given that ability in a vacuum.

 

So you see, friend, you do not own a copy of the game, nor do you have any right whatsoever to dictate how it runs. The only right you have is to quit, which would make at least two of us happy.

[Matte_Black]

1. I purchased a copy of the game. That copy is mine. I own it. There was no such lease agreement as you mention above. The term "lease" explicitly means that I would have to give my copy of the game back when I'm done, which I'm not obligated to do.

 

2. I have no problem with playing by the rules set forth by the developers/publisher and if I decide otherwise I will in fact cancel as it is my right to do so.

 

3. It is just a game. Period.

 

4. I can choose whatever class/spec I want. I can play whenever I want. I can cancel whenever I want. I can delete my characters whenever I want. It is not up to YOU or anyone else in the community to decide those things nor should it be anyone else's decision how often I change my spec.

 

As long as you are playing the game and adhering to it's rules and acquiring your respecs as they are available in the game, I am pretty sure no one in the thread has issue with how you play or how often you respec.

[Garnet]

That's boils down to, "It's not my way so I'll quit." Perfectly reasonable actually. You want to focus your play of the game in a manner it was not intended to be. Basically swimming upstream against their different philosophy of MMO design. You assumed they would do things as other popular games have and ended up buying the wrong game for how you want to play. I am sorry if only half the game has value to you but, I'd rather see players who expected a different game unsub as opposed to changing the game many of us saw being put together the way it is and now enjoy.

 

 

You seem to fail to miss the fact this game has heavy doses of single-player RPGs mixed in with familiar MMO elements. Alot of their target RPG demographic cares more about story and using a build they feel is interesting than they do with all the competition you claim to be mandatory. Clearly, you and many who have been drawn to the game merely because it is an MMO and is Star Wars do but, BioWare has hardly highlighted any plan to cater to that type of play over it's primary feature, engaging plot and story.

 

Seriously, BioWare touts fully-voiced story and then only passingly describes what turns out to be mediocre PvP, doesn't allow 3rd party add-ons and is resistive toward extensive respeccing. This was all known prior to release if one even bothered to research it or read between the lines of it's sales material. SWTOR is not intended to be a hard-core competitve game. You aren't wrong for wanting one but, changing this into one would be flipping the script on those who paid attention to what they were getting into. No Thank you.

 

You're talking as if what you're saying is fact.

 

It's not.

 

We'll see what kind of game this is in 6 months, hmm?