Token to reset all story progress

[Dareel]

Spoiler

Current solution to replay stories:

• New character to redo the story.
• Possibility to do a story with a different Combat Style.
• Nothing else is done on that character, so for anyone who is not into many characters there is very little to care about it when story is done.
• Extra resourced for a data base (servers) to hold these characters (server limits).
• Possibility for an extra income for the company as players might want to unlock outfits/mounts/etc for these characters and thier companions. Not sure how good this possibility is, because for me and a few players I talked about it - there are no reasons to buy/unlock anything extra for a character that's going to be descarded when story replay is done. I'm sure there are players who go full new with extra purchases and unlocks even for characters like this, but there is no data available to me for any conclusion either way.

Suggestion - Story Reset Token:

• No need to create a new character. Progress outside the story is still there. Plus, probably less data to store in database, less recourses to consume.
• Character experience points / levels are reset to 1.
• Full story progress is reset. Main quest line, planets quest lines, expansion quest lines, side/bonus/exploration quests, romances choices... all do reset.
• Achievements, legacy contribution/unlocks, etc. do NOT reset.
• Gear upgrades quests, Seasonal quests, etc. any unlock quests do NOT reset.
• Outfits, unlocks, etc. do NOT reset.
• Selected Combat Styles do NOT reset. No option to pick different. Nothing resets here.

This token do NOT reset anything outside the story and experience/levels. The only important thing that is missing - possibility for an extra income for the company.

I personally like 600 coins price for this token, as it is in sync with 500 from subscription + 100 from OTP, also the same as an extra character slot, so players who're subscribed can do it on one character and if you would like more, you could do it month after month as a subscriber or by buying more coins. In addition, it's also a nice option for players who used a boost on their character, but later would like to do the story they had skipped without losing other things they achieved on that character.

Upper price limit - I don't think it should cost more than a 70 Boost / Character Rename. In any case, whatever price decision makers see as an appropriate one.

In a way, Story Reset Token is a reverse on Boost. It is basically a reasonable solution for quite a few cases, including another avenue to support the game.

 

Extra details:

• Light side / Dark side points should not reset, as it could add value to replayability. Someone could go for a story of a fall, someone would like to do a redemption arc with any replay. This little extra RP bit can significantly enhance the experience, as it could add to the character story in a way of "there was something before the game story started...".
• If there are technical difficulties with extra Combat Styles before level 50, then Combat Style could be locked till 50. The one player has active at the moment they use this Token is the one they run with until option to change is unlocked again.

 

Why not just make original story chapters and expansions the same way as KOTFE/KOTET?

I would like that, but... As I understand, original stories and expansions are developed in a fundamentally different way. To convert them to the same structure as KOTFE/KOTET would require rebuilding / re-developing them almost from the ground up. So it is something that would put a stop to a development of anything else for the game, as it would require all available resources and for a very very long time to do this. 

It would also require a lot of investments, and with how this part of the game is structured - overwhelming majority of players would expect it be as KOTFE/KOTET now (and how original stories are now) - for free (preferred, etc.), so it is a very small possibility to increase revenue in exchange for a very big investment. Lets be real - nobody in their right mind would go for it.

I would personally prefer a simpler solution, as all needed tech for Story Reset Token is already there, and developers would need to combine it all in a specific way to make it happen (for example, maybe, a code that autocompletes quests for boosted characters could be modified to run in reverse). 

So with that - major part of development resources would still go towards developing new content and/or fixing bugs, and both are much much more important for the game. Plus it will generate an extra revenue, so better for the game in the long run.

 

Possible additions:

• 2000+ coins to reset Story + Combat Styles. I personally don't like it, or care, but I'm sure there are players who would like that.
• Origin cosmetic Armor set + Weapons. After every story reset, if a player completes a class story (first 3 acts) they can pick ONE of the armor pieses or a weapon. Full set and weapons are unlocked in Collections when all pieces are collected, bound to Legacy, but can be used only by characters with the same origin story. Requires several resets/playthoughts to collect and unlock all items. Obviously they have to be Cartel Marked quality items, so maybe some of the older iconic sets with updated models and textures or even reimagined. 

[Dareel]

My own personal reasons (completely biased take) on this:

I'm someone who doesn't really like to have a lot of alts, especially alts of the same origin. Right now I have 8 characters, 1 for each story on my main server, and it is already much more characters than I ever had in any game and much more than I ever wanted to have. But at least having 8 make sense, as all have their own story and progress, so it's nice.

Also, I love the stories and I would love to replay them from time to time. Every time I'm to create a new character to replay a story I have this constantly nagging feeling of a waste - because I know that I'll never going to play that character again after the story is done. And that leads to a thing like - I don't want to make this feeling of a waste bigger, so I'm not going to get new outfits for that character or any extra customization, because if I would - it would feel even more of a waste in the end of a said replay.

As for my enjoyment of the whole process - this feeling of a waste also diminishes it. RPG game as a medium provides once huge advantage to movies/shows - players can play a story differently. And that possibility of a different playthrough is enhanced by a sense of progression. When I know that my only option is a temporary character that is going to be forgotten after the story is done - feeling of a waste also diminishes this sense of progression, and in the end it doesn't feel better than re-watching a movie/show.

I know that many players will see it differently. There are players who enjoy inventing a completely new character every time and they don't have the same feeling of a waste. Some even don't have a free slot for a new character at this point. It's all good, I'd tried to play like that - it is not my thing. My enjoyment of reinvention of a character already accommodated by Appearance Designer and Space Barbie, all options available are enough for me to reimagine anything I feel like about any of my characters. That is also a reason why I see any extra alts as just a temporary character for a replay.

Cosmetics. I really love to mix and match pieces from different sets to create something unique and/or fitting from whatever RP that's going in my head at that time. And I don't like to use full sets or to use the same outfit on more than one character. Also, collecting things just to have them is not my thing. I like to have only cosmetics I actually use.

For example, 

my main Inquisitor has a few outfits, mixed and matched to my liking and they are different from what I have on my main Consular. Some of the sets are unlocked so I can use different bits and pieces of them between my main characters. As for alts - because of the feeling of a waste - only use whatever left from unlocks for my mains.

There a lot of set that look cool to me, but I have no use for them, as they would be more appropriate for an apprentice or differently aligned character, etc. So there is no reason for me to get or unlock them as they won't be used in anything that would enhance my experience or enjoyment from playing the game, in addition to the feeling of a waste.

Story Reset Token - is a solution that completely eliminates this feeling of a waste for me.

And because this nagging feeling would be no more - other connected problems above would also be gone. I could replay and reinvent my character in any way I want or feel like at any time. Anything I do in one way or the other would, even if just a tiny little bit, add to the feeling of my character progression without diminishing anything or taking anything away. Extra cosmetics/unlocks/etc. I would get and use to have an extra enjoyment from visual progression in my replay or for any RP reasons wouldn't be diminished by anything and instead I would have an incentive to go for it. 

And then, after five/six/whatever months I would want to replay the story on this character again - no feeling of a waste to stop me from spicing it up with different cosmetics. And there are more than one story I would love to replay. So at least - this idea is more enjoyment for me, not for free, so it is more income for the company. Everybody wins.

Btw, Story Reset Token + Level boost for players who want to go max from the start = infinite loop of evergreen profit or New Game Plus. Yeah, it's silly, I know. On the other note, I quite often see players who come back to the game after years/long break and don't remember anything from when they left off asking if they should start a new character. Also quite often there are players who ask for original stories to be re-playable the same way as KotXX chapters. And more recently more and more players talk about New Game Plus. There are also players who used all available slots for characters and cannot create new. One more thing, sometimes you could invite a friend to play, and instead of creating a completely new character to play together you would reset one of your existing characters. Story Reset Token can be a decent solution/option for all of these cases.

[SteveTheCynic]

11 hours ago, Dareel said:

Achievements, legacy contribution/unlocks, etc. do NOT reset.

Achievement progress doesn't reset *ever* when you create a new character, and the same is true of pretty much all legacy unlocks.

[Dareel]

Just now, SteveTheCynic said:

Achievement progress doesn't reset *ever* when you create a new character, and the same is true of pretty much all legacy unlocks.

Text in your quote from my post is a point in a list to outline an idea of how Story Reset Token would work, as it is intended to be used for existing characters and not a new ones.

It is about, for example, when you get your first Inquisitor/Imperial to high levels and/or complete story, or doing farming of stuff - you get achievements, and various contributions to legacy, unlocks, alignment unlocks, etc.

When Story Reset Token is used - character story progress and levels are reset, but none of the above. All these things stay as they were and do not reset.

Basically, this Token has nothing to do with New Characters, and everything about how New Characters are stays as it is.

[SteveTheCynic]

On 6/24/2024 at 10:47 PM, Dareel said:

It is about, for example, when you get your first Inquisitor/Imperial to high levels and/or complete story, or doing farming of stuff - you get achievements, and various contributions to legacy, unlocks, alignment unlocks, etc.

Yes, I understood that, but my point was that there's nothing (short of getting Broadsword/EA to delete your account) that will reset those things, including deleting the character just because you didn't want to play it any more.  That makes it an irrelevant point, since it's equally applicable to neglecting or deleting the original character and starting a new one.

[Dareel]

5 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

Yes, I understood that, but my point was that there's nothing (short of getting Broadsword/EA to delete your account) that will reset those things, including deleting the character just because you didn't want to play it any more.  That makes it an irrelevant point, since it's equally applicable to neglecting or deleting the original character and starting a new one.

I have no idea how the structure of relations in the game database is. It could be that various contributions of a character to the legacy are stored without any relation to the ID of that character or anything else. Or they could have a relation by ID.

Googling the matter didn't produce anything conclusive, except that there are some recalculations in legacy level when transferring to another server. Assumption that this character achievements/unlocks/etc. probably also transferred - would mean that there are relations by at least character ID.

If those relations also have relations to specific quest/levels/events/whatever IDs - resetting those could mess thing up.

Character deletion could delete it only from select screen and free up the name, while keeping its ID and all connections. There is a possibility to restore deleted characters, so it's a safe assumption.

All in all,

There is no possibility for me to know how exactly things are connected. I've made an assumption of a worst case scenario, so to say, and added a point to the list, in a manner - Just to be safe.

If you have a first hand knowledge of how this database is - please explain - if there is no connection, I'll remove that point, no problem.

Additionally,

If this idea would be considered, and there was a discussion about what to reset and what to keep - this point is also "just to be safe" option to outline that it would be nicer not to reset them.

[SteveTheCynic]

17 hours ago, Dareel said:

I have no idea how the structure of relations in the game database is. It could be that various contributions of a character to the legacy are stored without any relation to the ID of that character or anything else. Or they could have a relation by ID.

Achivements are, except for a couple of specific things, not linked to a character in SWTOR.  This stands in contrast to ESO and WoW, where there are some linked to the "account" capable of being fed by any character, and some linked 100% to each specific character.

The exceptions in SWTOR (in my personal experience) are the "explore all zones of Planet X" achievements, where you must do it for that planet on a single character(1), but once done, it is done for all characters.

(1) The achievement is probably triggered by the character collecting all the "you uncovered the entire map of ((name of region))" thingies (?name).

17 hours ago, Dareel said:

Googling the matter didn't produce anything conclusive, except that there are some recalculations in legacy level when transferring to another server.

"some recalculations" is a big word (OK, two words) for "take the higher of the two levels".

17 hours ago, Dareel said:

Assumption that this character achievements/unlocks/etc. probably also transferred - would mean that there are relations by at least character ID.

Again, achievements are per-legacy, not per-character.  I've done transfers, and it takes all the achievements that *any* of your characters have finished.

It also takes all per-legacy unlocks (on the "other" tab of the Legacy panel) and *this* character's unlocks on the "Character" panel.

17 hours ago, Dareel said:

If those relations also have relations to specific quest/levels/events/whatever IDs - resetting those could mess thing up.

But they aren't, except for the Character-tab unlocks and "which missions has this character completed", which obviously travel with / get deleted with the character.

17 hours ago, Dareel said:

Character deletion could delete it only from select screen and free up the name, while keeping its ID and all connections. There is a possibility to restore deleted characters, so it's a safe assumption.

It is, indeed, a safe assumption.

Well.

Mostly safe.  Historically (it's been a while since I last deleted and restored a character), when the deleted character comes back it loses:

• All open sales in the GTN
• All the contents of the character's mailbox
• All its configured outfits in Outfitter

And it might also lose its name, if someone else used that name in the meantime.  (Yes, the name is not locked to the character once the character is deleted, but is still *attached* to the character.  If nobody else tried to use the name while the character was in the deleted state, the character keeps it when undeleted.)

And all of those things that are guaranteed to be lost while deleted *also* fail to transfer to new servers.  (And the name, if the name is already in use on the new server.)

Oh, and deleted characters don't survive server merges.  (There were a few folks after the 2017 merge who tried to restore characters deleted before the merge, and couldn't...)

17 hours ago, Dareel said:

All in all,

There is no possibility for me to know how exactly things are connected. I've made an assumption of a worst case scenario, so to say, and added a point to the list, in a manner - Just to be safe.

If you have a first hand knowledge of how this database is - please explain - if there is no connection, I'll remove that point, no problem.

I have no *inside* knowledge of how it's structured - I'm not, and have never been, one of the SWTOR development crew, ever.  Instead, I have the practical experience of how it works when seen from the outside, i.e. from the point of view of a player.

17 hours ago, Dareel said:

Additionally,

If this idea would be considered, and there was a discussion about what to reset and what to keep - this point is also "just to be safe" option to outline that it would be nicer not to reset them.

Fair enough.  In my initial post, I was just trying to reassure you that you don't need to worry about achievements on that basis.

[Dareel]

Just now, SteveTheCynic said:

• All open sales in the GTN
• All the contents of the character's mailbox
• All its configured outfits in Outfitter

And it might also lose its name, if someone else used that name in the meantime. 

The first two are definitely stored as temporary / with duration, so it's expected for them to be gone on delete/move.

Outfitter then also stored as temporary, that means Loadouts are probably too.

Yes, I've deleted a characters and then created new ones with the same name, so a name lock definitely removed when character is deleted.

Just now, SteveTheCynic said:

ALL THE INFO 

...

I've done transfers, and it takes all the achievements that *any* of your characters have finished.

It also takes all per-legacy unlocks (on the "other" tab of the Legacy panel) and *this* character's unlocks on the "Character" panel.

...

Never did any character transfers in SWTOR, except automatic ones when servers merged and it wasn't anything useful in this case.

Thank you!

That was a lot of interesting info!

Btw, the only characters I've ever deleted had nothing completed on them (at least nothing that wasn't completed before on another character). Achievement have names and dates in them - when they were completed and on what character. What happens to the names in these achievements when character deleted and (probably more important) is moved to another server (in the legacy than left on the old server after the move)?

Edited Thursday at 02:43 PM by Dareel

[SteveTheCynic]

8 hours ago, Dareel said:

The first two are definitely stored as temporary / with duration, so it's expected for them to be gone on delete/move.

Some mails are allegedly permanent (all those mails with "earned" gifts when you create a new character), but they are nevertheless deleted when you transfer or delete the character.