Another reason we need respec

[Grey]

I'd say it's an argument for talent rebalancing. There's something wrong with the game if talents become so useless later in the game that you're willing to incur some high in-game cost to have them redistributed. Adding respec would just be brushing the problem under the carpet.

[gruevy]

Unfortunately the respec is a lot more likely to actually occur. If I could code, I'd make a balance testing arena. If someone else made one, I'd help gather data with it. It's not going to happen, though, so the game will never really be completely balanced.

Besides, the other aspect of the issue is that it's simply more fun to be able to play around with your talents instead of being stuck with whatever you until you die. How many people will come to the game, make bad choices with their first 3 or 4 characters, die a few times at level 15, and never come back? I suspect that some of those people would stick around if they were able to respec and get to level 20.

It should be added because it's more fun. The balance argument against it doesn't hold water.

[Frumple]

Throwing in $0.10 on a few things.

Re: Topic. Add respec to debug menu. It's already possible via lua console, if time consuming. Good for testing, yes. I can see this substantially adding to the game and the beta process in general.

Leave it out of the main game or, at most, incredibly minor and highly limited. Five point talent shift or one point category point shift, with loss of any talent points invested in within that category.

Alternately, add free respec to discovery mode, and keep it out of adventurer and up. This has been suggested a number of times, and would be an excellent 'middle ground'.

Roguelikes are supposed to kick you when you're down at times, and giving you a boot to th'shin for making a poor or poorly informed decision is one of those ways the genre gives a swing. More fun or not, it's not arguable that the option would reduce the challenge of the game. I'd rather not see that when T4 is already one of the easiest RLs around.

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Re: Balancing, however. Note: Perfect balance is unobtainable, period, in a game of any complexity that's not absolutely symmetrical -- and even then, there often exists minor imbalances (Take Go, for example, which has certain advantageous starting moves). Roguelikes are not traditionally symmetric systems, and T4 most certainly isn't.

A testing arena, same as the current arena, isn't going to help terribly much -- the situations that develops from it isn't going to be an accurate depiction of the situations that develop in an actual game. If you want to create a genuine -- or as close to genuine as possible -- balance "arena," then you should take every boss level map and every encounter map in the game, and stick it on the same map as a gauntlet of all the vaults in the game, then populate appropriately.

Since it would be only accessible through the debug menu, cheat teleport would allow for movement between areas and, with the inclusion of a respec debug option, a non-godmode option to adjust the player's level, the ability to 'forget' explored areas, and the create item command, the situations classes encounter, with different talent set ups, different kit, and at different levels would be able to be tested on a one on one basis.

It would be relatively simple to create, if abhorrently time consuming and much simpler to merely debug-teleport to the zone in question and cheat your way to an appropriate level of character and kit.

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Re: 'Fun.' Agreed that playing around with talents is a major part of the enjoyment of T4. Not agreed that adding a legit respec is the way to go with it. You can currently respec to your heart's content, either via console commands or starting a new character and debug-cheating your way up to your desired level and kit. The existence of this capability does not seem to expand my enjoyment of a full game of T4. I can definitely see how its inclusion could reduce my enjoyment of T4. Part of the joy of playing roguelikes in general is finding the optimal path while under the restriction that some -- most -- actions are final; you screw up, you screw up, do-over means start over. The inclusion of respec would force the optimal path down a route that's inherently counter to the 'don't screw up' ethos. Prevention, not reaction, is and should be the name of the roguelike game, and things running counter to this ethos should be looked on with suspicion.

[edge2054]

So your reason that we shouldn't have respecs is that some skills are crap in the end game, and others are crap in the early game, and you're perfectly happy if that continues to be the case?

The existence of skills that are really awful at low levels, or really awful at high levels, is an argument FOR respecs, not against the

Now who's straw manning?

Or are you just misunderstanding the term worth less and implying that I said worthless? (Big difference there.)

My argument, my whole argument, is that I'm okay with some talents being more valuable (or worth more ) at different points in the game because it's part of the strategy of planning and building a character. I think I summed it up really well last night.

They could have started with but they didn't. What they did was they was either planned for long term success or short term gain. In any system that offers respecs (especially any sort of full respec) you almost always take short term gain because long term success isn't as big of a concern. In other words, the short term gets you where you need to be and the long term is where you want to be. Without respecs the player must carefully consider both. With them you make no choice between the two.

[Final Master]

A ... question to those in favor of it due to not having knowledge on the talents, or the talents loosing viability in late game.

What do you want to know about the talents? How do you want to know this? [a ReadMe.doc , in game spoiler menu, tooltips, ect?]. What would you do differently to give this information to the players?

What talents are the offenders? What makes them worth using in the early game, but not so in the late game? What makes a talent not good early game, but good late game?

I'm working on making a laymen talent spoilers, so that the players will have access to all the information on all talents, and can look at them if they want to, or not, if they desire not to. However, if I don't know what is needed/wanted, or where to 'start' - then ... it just won't happen and a bandage would be put in this place [which, the bandage is the respec, in case you [whoever 'you' are] didn't understand.

[edge2054]

On that note, we do have a scroll bar. Maybe talents could display every level increase on the scrollbar instead of just 'next' level.

[evouga]

A ... question to those in favor of it due to not having knowledge on the talents, or the talents loosing viability in late game.

What do you want to know about the talents? How do you want to know this? [a ReadMe.doc , in game spoiler menu, tooltips, ect?]. What would you do differently to give this information to the players?

What talents are the offenders? What makes them worth using in the early game, but not so in the late game? What makes a talent not good early game, but good late game?

I'm working on making a laymen talent spoilers, so that the players will have access to all the information on all talents, and can look at them if they want to, or not, if they desire not to. However, if I don't know what is needed/wanted, or where to 'start' - then ... it just won't happen and a bandage would be put in this place [which, the bandage is the respec, in case you [whoever 'you' are] didn't understand.

I can say a few words about Archmage skills.

In terms of sustains, Arcane Power, Essence of Speed, and Probability Travel are clutch. Arcane Power is cheap and boosts Spellpower -- in the early game this substantially increases the damage of all of your spells, and even in the lame game it's essentially a bunch of free Magic. 200 mana for a 50% speed increase may seem a bit steep, but 1) essence of speed stacks with any other speed boost you might have, and 2) even just a 50% increase in your speed means that you will be able to stun-lock using Freeze, as opposed to giving enemies a one-turn window between activations... the importance of this difference should be obvious. I'm not going to say too much about Probability Travel because it is completely nuts at the moment, and will probably get nerfed very shortly.

*Both* Phase Door and Teleport are needed. Phase Door at high levels lets you control the target and the target area; note that if the target area is not in your line of sight there is a very large chance (35%) that Phase Door does absolutely nothing... and therefore the skill should never be used in emergencies unless there is a safe part of the level in your line of sight. For other escapes, use Teleport.

Teleport works OK as a one-point wonder, but since Archmages don't have really have an abundance of useful generic skills, might as well invest points to make it controllable.

Each of the basic damage spells becomes a beam at high enough level:
Lightning - Level 1
Manathrust - Level 3
Flame - Level 5

Note that due to mastery you only need to invest e.g. 4 points in Flame to get the beam effect. Obviously, leveling up these skills to where they become beams should be a high priority.

Freeze is a one-point wonder: there's no point investing more than 1 point in it, as doing so only marginally increases damage the spell deals (and damage is not the reason you use this skill.)

Other useful skills: Stone Skin, Feather Wind, Heal, Health, Ice Storm
Other useful one-point wonders: Heavy and Massive Armor Training


Less useful skills: Many. Two that come to mind:
Temporal Prison: too expensive for the effect it gives, although it does come in handy during escort quests in the all-too-common situation when the NPC you need to escort spawns surrounded by a bunch of high-level casters. For taking enemies temporarily out of combat, Rune of the Rift costs infinitely less mana and also deals a good amount of damage (300+) to boot.

Tidal Wave: The wave itself is marginally useful for keeping melee enemies away, but you will almost certainly find the Vargh Redemption while exploring the West, which activates for Tidal Wave.

[efr33t]

In my opinion, the fun comes from experimenting with new skills, not being told which are good and which are bad. Also, descriptions aren't always enough to help player choice. Playing with lightning speed the first time was super fun, however I wouldn't have chosen it based on the description alone. Given that the norms for this game seem more oriented around making things fun and interesting rather than the typical "kick in the face" rogulike, I would imagine that supporting exploration and experimenting would be a good reason to support respec (at below-roguelike difficulty, at least).

I understand and respect the argument for not wanting players to shift their skills from early-game to late-game skills. Is this a really serious problem though? Could some people provide examples of this so we can get our heads around what the issues are and potential solutions that address them?

[Harmless]

I'm befuddled as to how this is even a discussion. Nobody has yet given a decent reason why respecs should not be allowed. If you don't like em.. Don't use em. "But OMG this is a roguelike and nobody's ever done that in a roguelike before." Really? That's what you're hanging your hat on? Nobody had been to the moon, I don't think that stopped NASA.

It comes down to this.

Choices in a game are great. Spectacular. It's what makes the game fun. Do I wear this equipment or that equipment, do I grab 200 more damage, but lose stun resist. Do I push into that dungeon which might kill me, but the rewards are stellar and I think I can take it. Choices ARE ToME.

People should be arguing for more choices, not against them. If some spells are good early, some late? That's great! When do I want to blow a respec to switch? More choices!

The only valid question I can see is how it's implemented. The reason people respec is because they feel like they will be more powerful after the respec, and gaining power be it equipment or respec needs to have a price. Quest, gold, xp, any or all of them are valid.

Give us that choice, it will help elevate ToME above all other roguelikes.

[edge2054]

Alright... let me list a few more cons then.


Replay Value
As was said earlier by someone on the pro respec side...

In my opinion, the fun comes from experimenting with new skills, not being told which are good and which are bad

This sounds like a great opportunity to roll up a new character and try a different build. If you can try every possible character build for the class on a single play through then you only ever need to play that class once. Mages are a great example of a class with lots of great ways to play them especially with the advanced trees. Rolling a mage isn't just playing 'a mage' it's playing a certain build of mage and the fact that we can't respec is a chance to play that class again in a completely new way.

Technical Difficulties
I bring this up mostly because of category points which was a big reason it sounds like this thread got started to begin with. Because of the nature of category points they'd be harder to respec. It's easy to set all talents to zero, bam, respec done. It's a lot harder to refund category points because for one it's not a set value (was that mastery at 1 or 1.3 before the cat point was invested?) but also because category points are used for rune and inscription slots. Should the rune or inscription slot be lost when you respec? Would your nice rune of the rift be destroyed?

Game Balance
This is what I've been pointing out all along. Not all talents are equal at all parts of the game. I'll point out another reason this will disturb game balance. If I can respec I no longer have to plan for the future. I will dump all my talent points into whatever is available at the time because I know that's not a permanent choice. If maxing stunning blow gets me through the starting dungeons I'll max it because I'll have the stats for the requirements early and I don't have to decide rather or not it will be useful to me later. It's like in WoW when you have a leveling build and a raiding build. People will do that here too. You'll have an early game build and an end game build.

Now I'm not saying people can't do this anyway because I know they can (talking about maxing stuff early here) but I am saying that in a "Topdown Tactical RPG" I like the Tactical aspect of deciding how and when I invest in my talent points. I like deciding if I'm going to prepare for the future or just make sure I make it through today. For me it adds to the game. I enjoy agonizing over my talent points and how I spend them. In fact it's probably one of my favorite aspects of the game.

Anyway, Darkgod's going to do what he feels is best for the game. I only ask that if respecs do get introduced it's kept very limited (like the one tree thing shwqa mentioned), left in discovery mode if it's more than that, or at the very least kept out of roguelike mode if it's anything more then a single tree the whole game. Maybe the potion of amnesia thing could work for the general game and then let easier difficulties trade lives for respecs. But please keep full respecs out of roguelike

[Grey]

I don't think it would be such a technical challenge, though there is the question of whether it's worth DarkGod's time when he's busy adding cool new things to the game instead.

Replayability is a key point, and the archmage is a good example of this. How you build your archmage is as important a decision as what class you choose at the start of the game. (And no, please don't suggest reclassing as an option...) Most roguelikes take years to master and fully appreciate, and part of the joy of them is discovering new things and new ways to play over the years. If you get to experiment too fully with a class in one go then the game loses some of its lasting appeal.

On the other hand the arena does allow a way of quickly progressing with a class and trying out new builds, whilst also being very fun. It works very well as a testbed for new ideas or skills that you don't want to invest a whole main campaign character into.

But I admit that overall I'm not too fussed as long as it's not overdone and preferably kept out of roguelike mode. Trading an Adventure/Discovery mode life for a 5-10 point respec seems reasonable to me.

[tiger_eye]

Even though I'm squarely in the "no respec" side, I don't deny that many characters spend a couple points that they would really just like back. For example, perhaps you learned "Exotic Weapon Mastery" from a lost warrior and you found a kick-ass whip or trident. This character would *love* to transfer the talent points from "Weapon Mastery" or "Knife Mastery" to the "Exotic Weapon Mastery", seeing as though this wasn't an oversight or accidental spending of talent points by the player.

So, here's an idea for respec'ing I could live with:

"Taint of Unlearning" artifact that allows you to unlearn talents and recover class/generic points, but permanently reduces your luck by 1 for each point regained. Cannot unlearn category points.

Hence, it slightly reduces your defense, accuracy, crit chance, saves, and a couple talent chances whenever you use it, and the taint occupies a valuable inscription slot. Both of these facts would discourage abusive respec'ing. If you want an even greater penalty for respec'ing, perhaps -5hp per respec would be appropriate.

Thoughts?

[Tom]

At lvl 20 I was going to open up a new infusion slot.
But before I did, I peeked into the new Talent tree at the bottom.
Somehow, before I left the screen, I could not redo it. I right clicked the tree, but it refused to close.
I was stuck with this new talent tree and had to do Dreadfall with only 4 infusions.

Not sure what happened, but I might have opened the tree, then selected some other talent, class or generic, I dont know.
Then it was stuck.

Tom

[Flare]

I would like a zone in the game that does 3 things:

1. Activate Precognition, with, say, a thirty turn timer.

2. Place the player in a no-escape zone, just to prevent shenanigans. Possibly include a punching bag. (And an achievement for breaking the punching bag.)

3. Level the player up to 50.

That's it. No permanent respec, nothing that would upset gameplay. If there is an ability that isn't useful in the late game, I trust that it will eventually get fixed. I just want to look at my abilities and decide how they will interact with my stats and equipment in the future. Then I can really plan my character, instead of just hoping that the ability scales like I think it will.

I could go into cheat mode, but I feel that the ability to plan a character should be part of the main game. It would cut down on buyer's remorse.

Maybe this could be some sort of VR room in the Sher'Tul home or something. Though it would be more useful the earlier it appeared.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I would be certainly okay with a special game mode that lets you level up, undo and redo levels, and fight appropriate level monsters for testing purposes. Make it a separate thing like arena or infinite dungeon, and I have no issues with it. You can test to your hearts content, then go use that knowledge in the main game.