Why again the intentionally skillpoint misguiding?

[Druuna]

In A16 there were this skillpoint "traps" where unexperienced players could do the mistake of wasting skillpoints into self-learning skills. "Do not spend skillpoints into the 100-skills" was the first advice to every newbie. This nonsense was removed with A17 ...

 

... but came back in another form in A18. "Don't spend skillpoints to unlock recipes" is now the new advice to newbies. Ok, it isn't as bad as before, because you can use reset potions now. Means, you can unlock important recipes early with skillpoints, then later use the potion to get back the "wasted" skillpoints.

 

But is this really a good concept, if players are led intentionally into skillpoint wasting traps?

I think it's only confusing and not an improvement.

[Psychodabble]

Apparently, the idea is that there should be no perks that only give recipes. Every perk should be recipe + bonus of some kind, the bonuses just haven't all been implemented yet.

[Ghostlight]

I despise the way it is now. What am I supposed to do? I know I will need a lot of Steel for the day 28 Horde. Do I head straight for Int 10 and Engineering 5, thus completely gimping my character, or do I assume a Crucible will drop before then knowing if it doesn't I'm screwed? Neither approach delivers a pleasant experience.

 

 

 

 

... but came back in another form in A18. "Don't spend skillpoints to unlock recipes"

 

"Don't spend skillpoints to unlock recipes...except when you should..."

 

Pretty poor advice to have to give a new player, huh?

[Ganeden]

IMO the Fergettin Elixir negates most of that worry. Spend points to get what you need if you can't find a schematic then reset your skill points and spend them elsewhere. For iexample I'll go into grease monkey and engineering to get my vehicles and craft all the electrical components I'll need then I just reset my skill points and get them all back to spend in better places.

[Ghostlight]

For me that would not be a pleasant experience either. I like a "choices matter" approach to games, and dislike the ability to reset skill points in general. Perhaps if it cost more, or the elixir was super rare, or it only refunded a couple of points per dose. As it is, it's far too cheap and easy to reset all perks which cheapens the experience for me. And yes I am aware of the irony that I am forcing an unhappy choice on myself.

 

Sigh. I may just jump on the band wagon with the elixir and see if I can still sleep at night afterwards...

[asmosnuts]

Ghostlight makes a good point , choices should matter. But it seems the path of great ideas and originality has been abandoned for generic fps/rpg hybrid dumbed down to a ridiculous extent and shortening the gameplay longevity as a result.

Probably in the minority on this , but losing so much that was good isnt making the game any better imho.

[Sjustus548]

I don't see it as misguiding at all. If you are unlucky enough to find the recipe then have the option to put points in to it to unlock it. Then after you find the skill point you can use the potion to put those points in to something else that's better. I think it's a pretty good system.

[Limdood]

If only TFP implemented some way to get your skill points back. Maybe a drink or potion or elixir that let you go back and undo your skill point decisions if you decided you didn't like them...

[Orclover]

Honestly without the reset potion in place a lot of people would be rage quitting and leaving bad reviews at this point. At some point they will probably remove the reset potion in some hotfix.

[canadianbluebeer]

eg: points into chef early to make food. Later on, can then reset the points once you find all the recipies.

 

Knowing that we CAN reset means you can do early builds, then mid or late game builds.

 

In WoW this has been there forever. levelling specs to stay alive solo, then dungeon/raid builds once you have everything and support.

 

Drop the price of the elixir is what I would do though. 10k seems a decent price. (it's not cheap, but not insane)

[Gazz]

IMO the respec potion is broken.

It should also clear all book perks and found schematics.

 

That would be an actual cost.

[Orclover]

eg: points into chef early to make food. Later on, can then reset the points once you find all the recipies.

 

Knowing that we CAN reset means you can do early builds, then mid or late game builds.

 

In WoW this has been there forever. levelling specs to stay alive solo, then dungeon/raid builds once you have everything and support.

 

Drop the price of the elixir is what I would do though. 10k seems a decent price. (it's not cheap, but not insane)

 

 

Make it a random reward (10% chance) for Tier V Clear quest, and only for those. Honestly if those particular quest had a random chance of some insane loot item (like a helicopter, pet zombie dog, Bear, unrepairable super weapon) then those quest would actually get done by players.

 

IMO the respec potion is broken.

It should also clear all book perks and found schematics.

 

That would be an actual cost.

 

Yikes, people would avoid it like the plague at late game though. If you made it cheap though it would be an early game "fix" for that first week. Or people would stock up their books/schematics/recipe's in a box and save them for later. I have 4 completely finished book trees, if I lost all those I would just give up on that character.

[Ghostlight]

IMO the respec potion is broken.

It should also clear all book perks and found schematics.

 

That would be an actual cost.

 

I absolutely agree with this.

[Gazz]

The admin respec potion (that I use for testing perks/books) does clear all book perks as well, just not the schematic unlocks.

[enragedcamel]

I also agree that the current system of tying skillpoints to recipes is bad.

 

I think it's because books are way, way too common.

 

IMO the respec potion is broken.

It should also clear all book perks and found schematics.

 

That would be an actual cost.

 

IMO that would make it totally useless.

 

A better option would be to make the player lose a few levels as well (along with their skillpoints). Kinda makes sense if you think about it: the blackout effect makes you forget the most recent stuff that happened, and the experience you gained from it!

 

It would also be good in the sense that, early on, it wouldn't be a big deal, but as you develop your character, the cost of respeccing increases (since leveling up becomes slower).

[Brian9824]

The admin respec potion (that I use for testing perks/books) does clear all book perks as well, just not the schematic unlocks.

 

Or make it so it only clears out perk points and not stat points. So you can never do a full respec but you can change your specializations.

[Roland]

I also agree that the current system of tying skillpoints to recipes is bad.

 

I think it's because books are way, way too common.

 

 

 

IMO that would make it totally useless.

 

A better option would be to make the player lose a few levels as well (along with their skillpoints). Kinda makes sense if you think about it: the blackout effect makes you forget the most recent stuff that happened, and the experience you gained from it!

 

It would also be good in the sense that, early on, it wouldn't be a big deal, but as you develop your character, the cost of respeccing increases (since leveling up becomes slower).

 

Losing levels just means you get all those points back and then more easily earn the next few as well as lower the gamestage.

[enragedcamel]

Losing levels just means you get all those points back and then more easily earn the next few as well as lower the gamestage.

 

Yes, but you lose time, which matters.

 

(And lowering the game stage can be a bad thing, since loot quality is (AFAIK) based on it, so it'd be another cost.)

[Brian9824]

Losing levels just means you get all those points back and then more easily earn the next few as well as lower the gamestage.

 

Could also make the elixer have a strong debuff that persists after death and lowers xp gain. If the debuff could be tied to your level that would be nice. Something like 50% xp reduction for 1 day (per 10 levels)

 

So at level 50 for 5 Real life days you would only get 50% xp.

 

Or make it so it only resets perks not points into stats like intelligence.

[Roland]

Time would only matter if the gamestage didn't lower as well or if difficulty was day-based as it used to be. Lowered loot would only matter in the beginning. Presumably when you are ready to respec you probably also have a good set of gear that won't disappear.

[Voqar]

Much like map gen, this is another topic where I don't think the current system is better or worse than the previous ones, it's just different again.

 

I would say this one of the better systems so far but it still feels lacking as a consuming player and I really don't like it solo (I'm usually doing highly organized co-op where we split roles/skills).

 

For me this is a philosophical issue of sorts. This is the kind of crafting/combat game where you want to be good at all things. It's not really an RPG or MMO. The gameplay, content, difficulty curve - all scream at you to advance and become good at all things - fighting the ever increasingly difficult zombie variants, crafting/tech to work towards better gear you ALSO need for said zombies.

 

Unless you are in military style organized co-op or are some kind of freak, you most likely do not play this game to be ONLY a builder, or ONLY a crafter, or ONLY a gatherer, or ONLY a zombie fighter, or ONLY a looter, or ONLY a farmer, or ONLY a miner. Even if you do play with friends you probably ALL want to be good at many things.

 

The skills systems they put forth have all felt like massive hindrances to being good at all things. Somewhat necessary because it's equally silly to have players in top tier gear on day 1 (you would all be smelting steel day 1 if you could). But I think they all go too far, and cripple us too much early, with the payoffs from skills often being ridiculously overpowered making the difference between no skill and any skill so ridiculous that you rarely feel like you can be without out so many of the skills.

 

Plus, the system in 17 was heavily attribute-oriented. 18 shed a lot of the attribute flavor such that there is very little point in attribute groupings - they've just become artificial buckets for skill groupings. All this does is make the system suck more because you get MORE gates. Need X skill points to raise a skill and need X skill points to raise related attribute even though raising related attribute is otherwise pointless (IF you happen to use weapons from that group it's ok, all attributes raise head shot damage making it nothing special.

 

If there must be gates, the character level restrictions were less obnoxious. At least with that you could freely spend on your skills without also considering whether or not to dump points in attributes you don't give a crap about.

 

The skill book thing has come and gone over time. It mostly sucks. It was ok when you could ONLY get some skills via books and had to hunt for them, except for those times you could never find a forge recipe and the tsunamis of tears flooded the forums. In theory the system in 18 sounds interesting but in practice, it's like a kick to the nads when you spend valuable points on some skill that you could've just got thru a book. This could be balanced better. If the xp gains were faster so that skill points didn't feel like screwing them up was major trauma to the point of wanting limitless respec, then maybe the books wouldn't be such a huge insult.

[Voqar]

IMO losing a level worth of xp to respec sound reasonable as a significant cost, but apparently that can't work so well with the way the game rolls.

 

To me there is a problem when this

 

IMO the Fergettin Elixir negates most of that worry. Spend points to get what you need if you can't find a schematic then reset your skill points and spend them elsewhere. For iexample I'll go into grease monkey and engineering to get my vehicles and craft all the electrical components I'll need then I just reset my skill points and get them all back to spend in better places.

 

sounds perfectly reasonable.

 

There's a problem when so many people think ability to respec is badly needed. The answer isn't to remove respec. Fix the things that lead to respec being so desireable, like how impossible it is to create a decently rounded character solo without being level 200. Fix it so no skill vs any skill is so dramatic in too many cases so some skills feel less mandatory. Split skills into combat/noncombat and have separate point pools per level for each so we can work both combat/non combat at the same time without feeling like something has to be gimped.

[myrkana]

I'd be fine with losing level as the drawback, it would still be worth it. If you were to lose any recipes or books it would be useless to me unless I had backups of every single one.