Retcon's and how to make it simpler.

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That is a terrible title, sorry. What I'd like to have, and hopefully somehow no one ever suggested it and you guys will totally rush this into production soon, is the ability to retcon one individual power without having to unlearn everything. As an example, you just released Distortion Acrobatics, which I am happy to buy for my level 40 martial artist, as he rarely gets brought out anymore, but acrobatics has long been my favorite travel power. But since his travel powers were one of the first things I picked, I need to remove everything else to do this.

I am not asking for the price for removing it to be changed (though I wouldn't be opposed). I get that it costs more to remove earlier chosen powers. But it would be nice if I could just pick that one power to replace (and any corresponding advantages) without having to write down all of the powers I picked after the offending power. One additional problem with the system as it stands now, that I have run into in the past, is not knowing how much total retconning would cost me since the price is listed for individual powers, not for the total. And I have definitely fallen short before (back when it was a lot harder for me to get funds from one character to another).

Possible? It might require a fair bit of work to the UI I understand, but it would make life so much less complicated.

-WT

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The reason the system is like this now is because of the way the power's are designed in terms of acquiring them. Were you say to choose to retcon one power in the middle of your selection, then every power above it that uses that power as a requirement to be obtained would have to be gone also. Some powers take X amount of that power slot to make power Y available. But if you choose to get rid of power X, then every power you chose leading up to Y would also have to be removed as well, since X can be seen as a requirement.

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The key would be to separate the things that don't interact - for instance, talents have nothing to do w/ powers or advantages, so they could be made into their own "track". Another key would be travel powers and their advantages - they could be made into their own track as well. Your choice of travel power and advantages aren't really based on any prerequisite or tier restriction, other than having to be level 20 to get rank 2 and level 4 to get rank 3.

Super stat and innate ability choices are similarly unrelated to other picks, and as such can be given a simple level-based cost to undo.

That basically leaves us with the 800 lbs gorilla in the room that is powers and their advantage points. The issue, as has been pointed out, is the interaction between power prerequisite/tier requirements, and any associated advantages tied to them.

The only way I can see to address the above would be to create a sort of 'meta system' for powers, which would check to see what (other) powers and advantages are dependent upon one you are trying to undo. A shortcut would be to display a combined cost to undo all power and advantage point picks up to whatever power you want to undo.

Now, if all you wanted to do was to move around some advantage points, well that would be a bit easier - they could simply calculate a cost for removing a certain amount of advantage points, and just ignore any sort of hierarchy, since you can already use a full retcon and choose all your powers then all your advantage points. As long as you aren't undoing a power, just come up with a cost to "buy back" advantage points and apply a modifier (if so desired) based upon how early into your build said advantage points lie.

Honestly, I feel that breaking things into various tracks would be best and simplest...

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Perhaps this is just me and this is completely speculation...but maybe the specialization trees that are coming are a part of the building blocks for the solution to this problem. Once again this is not fact, just an innocent observation.

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I think biostem has the right of it. ssgoldus is definitely right in that it would cause some tumbling of available powers if you removed something critical too low, but I refuse to believe there isn't an easier way to go about retconning old powers. If, like biostem suggested, they were all on separate tracks, and to remove acrobatics at worst what I would have to do is remove all of the advantages I put into those travel powers, and my level 35 travel power before I got to Acro, even that would be less unwieldy than the current system.

And USUALLY, I don't run into this problem with anything other than travel powers or rarely my talent/stat picks when stats get changed around, so personally I wouldn't run into the problem of removing a tier 3 MA power and thus losing access to my tier 4 of the same.

And Xander, if the specialization trees don't contribute to fixing this issue, I believe they also said they would be lowering the requirements for how many powers you needed to have in any one tree before being able to get the higher tier powers, so maybe that will?

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Iatroi wrote:

I am not asking for the price for removing it to be changed (though I wouldn't be opposed). I get that it costs more to remove earlier chosen powers. But it would be nice if I could just pick that one power to replace (and any corresponding advantages) without having to write down all of the powers I picked after the offending power.

Get Champion Builder and store or preplan your build... that way you won't have this problem.

As to the intent of your OP. While I agree it would be nice, I can understand why they might not do this. It's possible they way the power structure is programmed it could take a large rewrite to implement that may not be worth the trouble or take a very long time.

Maybe upcoming changes might have an effect on this, but who knows.

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MoonlightKnight, you are absolutely right, using such sites and tools would solve this problem, however in my case, almost every time I run into the problem from my original post, it is because they have added something new to the game, or changed some powers in such a way to make me not want them any longer, or the reverse. In my case at least, it is never an issue of a lack of forethought, as much as the times having a'changed. And when I redo my actual powerset selections, I actually don't mind just using a retcon to redo the whole thing, it is when they add a new power set or change what stats are best for my powerset that this bears its head.

And I would not be shocked to find out that it would be impossible for them to change this without a huge amount of investment, and as annoying as it is for me, it is not something that I feel needs to take precedence over the addition of new content. It would be swell to have, but I will live if not. Especially now that I know I can go to the Test server and mess with some things there first (though not everything, until the C-Store returns there).

-WT

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Honestly, there is no substitute for actually field-testing a power. You can test things extensively in the PH, but things never quite work the same. They could add ways to simulate every type of scenario you might encounter, and people would still want to change powers...

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Well Latroi, last time I checked, champion builder was pretty well up to date with the new powers. They just announced Wind powers not long ago and they are already included.

True, CB can't be up to the minute updated, but it seems to be working well right now. Hell I keep mine running on a second monitor and play in windowed mode just so I can refer to it as needed while I play. That way I can make the decision to make changes on the spot and incorporate them into my build immediately.

I agree, I'd rather see content than a change like this, but if they can get it working, I can definitely see the benefit.

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ah, sorry Moonlight Knight, what I meant is, that I cannot use the tool at this moment to take into consideration that in six months, there might be new travel powers, or even powerset powers that I will want at that time. I agree it is a fine tool for a lot of situations, just that the particular one I keep finding myself in makes it a bit harder to apply.

-WT