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Quarterly Producer Letter for Q2 2024 ×

Outrageous Respec Cost


Dinn

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I'm fairly new to the game and I'm not sure how making respeccing easy and painless seriously damages gameplay to the extent that the devs feel the need to gradually make it so tedious and expensive the more times you do it. What's the big deal with being able to respec at the drop of a hat? I'm no gameplay mechanic expert so if being able to respec easily will adversely affect the experience of the majority of players, then let's hear them and I'll change my stance if they are valid.

 

I highlighted the text above because reasons that aren't valid are those that state it 'makes the developers' life easier for balancing'. I'm not interested in making the developers life easier if it's at the expense of my enjoyment in the game. I'm paying every month for this product and the devs should be working hard to keep me paying by removing any and all tedium from the mechanics, otherwise I stop paying and look elsewhere for my gaming enjoyment.

 

I've come into this game to learn how to play by playing. I'd rather not have to wade through (often badly written), unstructured Internet guides and rant-filled forum threads to learn how best to play a class because that's time I'm not spending playing. Respeccing allows players to nail down thgeir gameplay experience to one they enjoy by experimenting with the skill trees, why make it a chore to experiment?

 

Losing craploads of hard-earned cash to respec because things are not quite working out as you level is an adverse effect to my gameplay experience. There's no dumbing down involved in being able to respec easily, the challenge is in figuring out how all the talents in the 3 trees work, customsing them to your playstyle and using your skills in encounters.

 

Like the OP commented, I suspect most peoples knee-jerk reaction against making respeccing easier is because they werre exposed to this restriction in other games and are just mindlessly parroting their complaints against because that's just how it was in other games rather than providing convincing arguments as to why it's bad.

 

So, If easy respeccing is bad, maybe some of the veteran MMO players out there can put a bulleted list of reasons why together? As I said, I'm open to valid reasons other than mindless, parroted "It would suck" drivel.

Edited by Seef
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There isn't a good reason, but there is a vocal component to the community who believes that artificial personal hardships (like expensive respecs) adds some sort of depth and realness to a game, rather than just adding annoyance. From a game mechanics perspective, the only thing that a cost to respec adds to the game is a credit sink, which definitely has its place in the game to avoid excessive inflation, but is of debatable value in this case. There are many ways to add credit sinks (the best being repair costs and ability upgrades) and I really think that respeccing costs add nothing but annoyance to the game. Flexibility is a great thing, and it all comes down to the standard rule with things like this: if you don't like it, don't use it. But don't prevent me from doing so because my choice does not affect you at all.

 

You'll never convince the folks here though, because they want to be arbitrarily punished, kind of like people who like being whipped because it turns them on.

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bioware did this wrong, wow did this wrong, rift did this right

 

rift has 5 specs, not 2 but 5!

 

rift's respec cost is 50g, this takes less than 2min to acquire!

 

please look at rift and redo your spec'ing system, while you are at it, turn on combat log kthxbai.

 

in case you are wondering, rift's money sinks came elsewhere, to gain 5 specs it was 30g for 2nd, 3p for 3rd, 22p for 4th 100p for 5th, 100p is alot of money for most people so id say 90% of ppl didnt have 5 specs, also to train 1 of your 8 skill trees to lvl 50 took 15-20p or so making training expensive, bioware could make the money sink like this instead of having 1 fk'n spec, ill never respec at this rate. i play a healer so respec'ing is mandatory to dps and heal, but i figured this game is so easy ill play a hybrid and heal when i need to and dps when i need to and still be 90% as effective at both, but that's biowares fault for putting ALL and i mean ALL of the useful talents in the first 3 tiers making all the end game talents worthless.

 

 

can you refresh my memory .. how well is rift doing these days?

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What is this weekly reset people are talking about... I just hit 47 on a character the last time I did a respec on him was weeks ago at level 20 or so. once... the free one. I just went to respec today and I'm looking at a screen saying that the cost is now 7375 This seems completely wrong to me. Is this right? free to 7375? and why such a strange number? it seems like everyone else is quoting multiples of 1000.

 

Am I bugged?

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What is this weekly reset people are talking about... I just hit 47 on a character the last time I did a respec on him was weeks ago at level 20 or so. once... the free one. I just went to respec today and I'm looking at a screen saying that the cost is now 7375 This seems completely wrong to me. Is this right? free to 7375? and why such a strange number? it seems like everyone else is quoting multiples of 1000.

 

Am I bugged?

 

 

It will initially tell you how much it is going to cost, then when you confirm it will say something like: "Oh it's been more than a week since you last respecced, it's now free"

 

Presuming they haven't changed it of course ( it's been a while since I've used it ). And yes, that is a bit annoying, it would be preferable to give you that info at the start.

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while i'm all for cheaper respec's, 50k at level 50 isn't really a huge amount of credits. Also, as people have said, it's not meant to be a dual spec, simply a respec, it's not supposed to be something you need to do every day. If you can't settle on a single play style, the respec system isn't meant to solve that. Personally I hope they add dual specs as I don't like being limited in that fashion but I don't think the current respec costs are too much for the system to function as it is intended.
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It will initially tell you how much it is going to cost, then when you confirm it will say something like: "Oh it's been more than a week since you last respecced, it's now free"

 

Presuming they haven't changed it of course ( it's been a while since I've used it ). And yes, that is a bit annoying, it would be preferable to give you that info at the start.

 

Thanks. it worked just like you said. That was very confusing

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I'm fairly new to the game and I'm not sure how making respeccing easy and painless seriously damages gameplay to the extent that the devs feel the need to gradually make it so tedious and expensive the more times you do it. What's the big deal with being able to respec at the drop of a hat? I'm no gameplay mechanic expert so if being able to respec easily will adversely affect the experience of the majority of players, then let's hear them and I'll change my stance if they are valid.

 

As I understand it, some cost to respeccing, or some CD on it, or some combination of the two, is usually favoured by developers to try and keep FOTM-chasing to a minimum.

 

IOW, if everyone can costlessly change to the latest FOTM, they will tend to do so, and variety in game experience will be diminished.

 

Another reason is that part of RPG design is that you make choices and have to live with them.

 

IOW, MMORPGs are not just arena games, or arenas with chat lobbies attached, they are RPGs, they are meant for you to be immersed in a character and story, and live with the decisions you make, whether they're good or bad.

 

Of course a hardcore attitude to the last is no longer possible these days, since many MMO players do treat them as lobbies. But some element of RPG has to be preserved othewise it's no longer an MMORPG, and some reasonable cost to respeccing, so that you have to weigh and ponder a decision, is the vestige of that.

Edited by gurugeorge
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I just hope that they add dual spec options quickly cause I like to tank but I don't always want to just tank. It's nice to be able to take turns with members of your guild when running flashpoints or raiding. This seems like a "must" to me and creates a "why wasn't this in the game to begin with", question in my mind. Very frustrating.
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Wait til you get to end game repair bills.

 

Even with half Columi gear, my repair bills from HM's and Ops can be upwards of 70,000cr. and that's before anything out and out breaks.

 

Then again, end game dailies on Belsavis and Ilum can yield several hundred thousand a day. Especially if you sell the mods you can get with daily tokens.

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Wait til you get to end game repair bills.

 

Even with half Columi gear, my repair bills from HM's and Ops can be upwards of 70,000cr. and that's before anything out and out breaks.

 

Then again, end game dailies on Belsavis and Ilum can yield several hundred thousand a day. Especially if you sell the mods you can get with daily tokens.

 

 

Oh gee... that's nice and dandy but what about low lvl toons trying this game out and trying to decide what spec is suitable for them??? I guess this is just another pathetic "oversight" on BW's part.

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Yeah, the costs resets after a week. You shouldn't need to respec so much. The nice thing about this game is the there are 3 tank and healer classes. This is the only game I've ever played that I occaisionally see groups looking for DPS in chat. Haha
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Oh gee... that's nice and dandy but what about low lvl toons trying this game out and trying to decide what spec is suitable for them??? I guess this is just another pathetic "oversight" on BW's part.

 

Some would say like you do.

While others would say working as intended isnt meaning that people should be able to switch speccs how many times they like each week .

For just a bare minimum of credits

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LOL

 

Is the Op serious? 50k? I made a bet with a guildmate that he wouldn't get to 50 before another guildmate and lost. Giving him 50k was nothing.

 

This is probably one of the easiest games to make money in. Just send crew out to do stuff, craft stuff, and sell stuff. I made over 180k today selling purple ship pieces. A couple quests can put you in the 20-30k range.

 

50k for respeccing 5 times is chump change. It should be higher. Why would you need to respec 5 times anyway?

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Oh gee... that's nice and dandy but what about low lvl toons trying this game out and trying to decide what spec is suitable for them??? I guess this is just another pathetic "oversight" on BW's part.

 

Oh gee.... maybe a new player can do some *********** research after their first two dozen repecs, all before mid-game, and not have to respec more than three times a week. What a novel idea!

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