Another reason we need respec

[madmonk]

What you are after is the Killerbunnies Character Planner for T2.

Expanded and bought up to date for T4.

[Final Master]

As this is getting discussed again, I wanted to bump this up so people talking about it now, can see what was discussed before and why it's not in the game/see reasons why it should be.

FM

[jotwebe]

There's actually a lot of related discussions:

Flexibility Points

http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=3 ... 5&start=15

^^ This one starts with Infinitum suggesting "flexibility points" you accumulate as you level instead of unlimited juggling of the last few points. Several people don't like it though, and at the end there's a simple proposal of not allowing moving points from talents that are cooling down. It's pretty recent, from February this year.

Mid-combat point reassignment

http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=35067

^^ This one is a bit older (late '12) and has donkatsu suggesting disallowing respecs while enemies are in LoS, or putting respecced talents on cooldown. Main arguments against are that it's an annoyance when doing a regular levelup in combat. The last suggestion from the Flex Points discussion would avoid that, but it doesn't get made there.

respec

http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=24467

^^ This seems to be where repecs where originally proposed, in early 2011. Interesting that something that was originally intended for exploration and adventure mode ends up seeing most of its use by experienced players on higher difficulties.

[BoomFrog]

At minimum you should not be able to gain advantage by respecing mid combat. The second thread linked made a very good point that assigning points isn't an issue only removing points midcombat is abusive.

My suggestion is do not allow points to be removed from a skill that is currently on cooldown. That stops most abuses I can think of and shouldn't inconvenience anyone much.

Also I would like to see "talent points reassigned" in character dumps. It'd be an interesting statistic to watch.

[SageAcrin]

At this point, I consider this an unintentional feature of the game.

I'm not entirely sure what to do about it-the nuisance value of abusing it keeps it vaguely under control unless a player absolutely needs it, and I surely don't see a point to bothering with in-battle respecs on Normal-but higher difficulties to a fair level do need it.

Options include nerfing higher difficulties as well as fixing the problem-in and of its self something that has spawned long discussions of how to do-or just making it a setting somehow to have it fixed or not, a birth option like difficulties.

But considering my experience on Nightmare, my opinion of this problem has definitely changed. It's a lot more complex than I thought in previous topics about it.

[BoomFrog]

Yes ideally nightmare and insane would be balanced for not having combat respecing. That's true regardless of any changes made to respecing. Balance around nuisance tolerance is certainly bad design.

[jotwebe]

Balance around nuisance tolerance is certainly bad design.

Exactly. The goal should be to make optimal play also fun play, which to some extent is difficult in roguelikes, since cowardice is so effective. But then playing a coward is fun in its own way, if not Leroy Jenkins style fun. Juggling points on a sluggish (on my hardware anyway) mid-combat? Nope. Same principle with item switching really - back before items lost their charge on unequipping, every mage lugged around a couple of metaflow items in their back.

[Bobson]

I never even thought about having a respec until I saw this thread just now. Talents are generally pretty good about remaining useful (or at least as useful) through as much of the game as I usually survive through.

I don't really want to get enmeshed in the debate, but I do want to offer an idea to spark discussion (apologies if these have been suggested before): What if there was a permanent cost to respeccing? Such as:

• In addition to spending a category point to learn a category, improve one, or buy an inscription slot, you can also spend one to remove all class and generic talent points (not other category points, and not stats).
• You can only respec once, and you don't regain the second class talent point every 5th level (and you don't get a generic talent point instead). Possibly involving burning all future double-class levels' points, although probably not.
• Respeccing involves sacrificing your Rod of Recall.

[supermini]

What would be the point in planning how to build your character if you could just respec? There's a whole layer of strategy in choosing what to pick when with which class, in order to survive in the early, mid, late game. Some talent trees require heavy investment in order to get payoffs and you pay for them with a period of being vulnerable while you build them up. Some talents are extremely valuable early on but you could dump them later - stun resistance from talents is extremely useful up to the point where you get stun immunity from t5 gear. Should you just be able to dump that even though that's what got you through the early dungeons? I think not.
As for single talents, you can already shuffle both class and generic points to test out a skill, so there's a lot of leeway there for testing.

You don't need to be 100% optimal to get through the game, so even if it turns out that you chose poorly it's not always a game breaker. If it is, you're just going to die, which in roguelikes is a learning experience.

[BoomFrog]

We are not talking about full repecs here. We are talking about the already implemented ability to remove the last 3 or 4 points spent and move them around. Right now it is possible to put 4 points in a skill, use it at talent level 5 than remove the points and put them in another skill and use that at level 5. It's tedious but some people do it, especially in a very tough fight. The option being there bothers me because if people use it to win on nightmare than nightmare won't get balanced properly for people who don't use it.

[cttw]

Having read the creative uses people find for the limited respec we have, I suggest it be completelly removed.

It is ridiculous to respec talents on every shot, it just becomes a totally different game from what the rest of us are playing. I understand some players cannot stop themselves from using all (non-cheating) advantages, so this should really be removed for them. For the ones that respec on every shot. Take this away so they can enjoy their game once again without this insanity.

[darkgod]

Or just forbid it with foes in sight ?
Respec serves a point to new players

[PureQuestion]

Maybe give players a full respec once every X levels?

[cttw]

Or just forbid it with foes in sight ?
Respec serves a point to new players

Make it so that only accounts that have never killed the Master can respec.

[jotwebe]

Or just forbid it with foes in sight ?

Some didn't like that because it would interfere with their normal gaming experience - leveling up immediately and not bothering with respec. Same with the similar idea of disallowing respec while talents are on cooldown.

There was a suggestion that would take care of that: allow putting points on talents all the time, but disallow removing points when they are on cooldown. Instead of the "not on cooldown" requirement "no enemies in sight" would work just as well. Well, except that somewould would probably come up with a way to game it via line of sight shenanigans.

The only problem I can see with that is for someone testing out a talent, there would be a slight hassle waiting for it to cool down before reassigning points.