Last night, I decided to use my first retraining token ever. I figured, I have learned the game enough I should be able to improve myself by revisiting my newb decisions.
After an hour of doing a lot of pointless stuff in order to change a few things... (ok I will stop to explain that) I had to re-spend all of my power points! I am maxed out on power points! That alone was a major chore. Then to go through every campaign and choose every boon over.... (end explanation) After changing a few things I go do something I did over and over and over only 2 days earlier. I knew what I should expect from that thing. Only, when I did it this time it was taking me 125% as long...
Could I have messed up my build choices THAT bad?
I went and did the thing with another char that I had done the thing over and over and over with 2 days earlier. It seems my build changes were not the ONLY problem. That character was taking about 120% as long to do the thing.
The only way that could happen is if the devs have been tinkering. The 2nd char was not changed AT ALL.
In literature there is a concept known as, "the willing suspension of disbelief". When a reader reads a novel, they may realize that goblins don't exist but they will allow themselves to get lost in a story about goblins for the sake of enjoyment. The author wants to make the whole story of goblins seem possible. They want the reader to get lost in the story. They don't want logical flaws reminding the reader that this is a fiction created by some guy who lives in the next town. Ideally, the reader should FORGET they are even reading a book. This is the difference between selling a lot of books and going to work at mcdonalds.
A good author does not, on page 365, state that the name and address of a character you have been reading about for a long time has been changed to something else because in the next chapter they are going to need to have different parameters to make the story work out.
A good author does not make a cameo photo of themself in the middle of a climactic scene and ask, "do I look good in green?"
A good author should remain invisible to the reader until the book is over.
A good author does carefully consider how all of the various story pieces fit together BEFORE putting the book on the shelf.
A good author does not get scared when you approach the last chapter and demand that you go read all 1200 pages of the dictionary before you may see the last chapter.
A good author does not demand you read the first book 1000 times before you can read the sequel.
A good book might get read over and over until the pages wear out.
I want to get lost in the game. I can't do that because there are so many flaws and so many reminders that there is a group of people who do not want me to reach the end of this book. There are so many changes that I feel paralyzed not knowing what to do. My success or failure doesn't seem to depend on the decisions I make but rather on the decisions the local gods and they can't even make up their own minds. I can only think of one person in this world who is as fickle as the developers here.
If you want a good game. Make no changes at all besides changes made during new releases. If you make a mistake, learn from it and make adjustments in future content UNLESS a change is absolutely necessary. i.e. bug fixes. You have some talented people working for you. Don't waste their time and effort. Don't be one of the many games that show a lot of potential but fail to be complete.
There are games I played for 10 years and paid for for 10 years without the developers ever attempting to keep me trapped there. There are games I played for 10 years where I never felt it necessary to contact them or go to their forum to tell them what they are doing wrong.
3
Comments
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
just my 2 cents
Just sit tight, and join the big how-do-I-build-my-character uproar when mod 16 launches
Or jump on Test server when it opens to get a head start.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
It's usually better to find a good build online and copypaste it unless you're a dedicated theory crafter. There are too many misleading tooltips and trap feats (like CWs increased damage to targets without chill when you literally apply chill to everything by just sneezing) in this game. It seems as if he was either forced to do a complete respec or accidentally choose a complete respec instead of the partial ones (which allow for example to only change feats, or boons for one specific campaign) which made one of his characters noticeable weaker then before.
I do realize that the devs have messed up a lot of things unintentionally with patches before but again nothing would have changed over the weekend while you were changing your character.
As Aerhythia said take another look at your choices. it is likely you have a power or feat chosen incorrectly, or even the wrong companion summoned or added that is likely affecting your build.
Any tweaking knowledge you gain from testing on a current state build is doomed to immediate irrelevance when Mod 16 drops.