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ecliptics
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
I would like to post some constructive criticism here without the typical rage found in most of the other threads.
The way I see it is this:
1. One major factor that keeps players playing a certain MMO is class experimentation, and finding new ways to play.
2. Another major factor that keeps players playing is the diversity in content (PvP, PvE, etc).
3. Players like to (try to) excel in said facets. Doing your best typically includes speccing your character for each style of play.
Now, what Neverwinter is doing here contradicts all three points above. Instead of encouraging these things:
1. We are punished if we want to experiment with our class.
2. We are punished if we want to spec our character for PvE.
3. We are punished if we want to spec our character for PvP.
While I understand a F2P game needs to support itself, this (in my opinion) is doing the complete opposite. I believe you'll have potential long term players not being so long term if they're intentionally screwed via the wallet every time they want to try something new, or if they simply want to play both PvE and PvP.
How would I fix it? I would add something to the Zen shop for $20 or so that would allow unlimited respecs for one character.
Remember Cryptic/PWE, people enjoy games and stick around when they feel happy to play (and spend), not the other way around. Make money by making gamers happy, not by forcing them to do so to play.
Just my 2 cents!
The way I see it is this:
1. One major factor that keeps players playing a certain MMO is class experimentation, and finding new ways to play.
2. Another major factor that keeps players playing is the diversity in content (PvP, PvE, etc).
3. Players like to (try to) excel in said facets. Doing your best typically includes speccing your character for each style of play.
Now, what Neverwinter is doing here contradicts all three points above. Instead of encouraging these things:
1. We are punished if we want to experiment with our class.
2. We are punished if we want to spec our character for PvE.
3. We are punished if we want to spec our character for PvP.
While I understand a F2P game needs to support itself, this (in my opinion) is doing the complete opposite. I believe you'll have potential long term players not being so long term if they're intentionally screwed via the wallet every time they want to try something new, or if they simply want to play both PvE and PvP.
How would I fix it? I would add something to the Zen shop for $20 or so that would allow unlimited respecs for one character.
Remember Cryptic/PWE, people enjoy games and stick around when they feel happy to play (and spend), not the other way around. Make money by making gamers happy, not by forcing them to do so to play.
Just my 2 cents!
Post edited by ecliptics on
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With feats this is more tricky, admittedly, though at least for Control Wizards the PvE choices are almost the same as the commonly recommended PvP choices. There are differences, but they are not quite as substantial as one could fear. Guardian Fighters also have hybrid builds that work well in all areas without the need for respeccing.
Before I get snapped at, let me add that I would love a dual spec feature and that I would not mind better ways to try out new builds (hopefully we will get this in form of the public test shard). I spent over sixty bucks on respeccing for experimenting and tweaking my build(s) so far.
Does everyone NOT know the class features only work if they are slotted ? My level 60 has 11 unspent power points . I have a full set maxed and 5 others I change in for PvP . You have plenty of power points , and respect token only respecs powers. Feats cost AD to respect not zen . And respecting feats cost more per level , so fix them early .
It was not that log ago , that a ' respec ' meant you got switched to empty stats and you had to relevel . Just think of it similar here , once you play long enough to get the AD you can respec . If you want to change every day , well that is a convenience and that is where the game makes it money . You can wait and do it for free , or you can pay to do it now .
If everything in this game was free, the economy would really spiral out of control. Respeccing is premium as is buying R7 enchants in the AH. It's not meant to be cheap for everyone who doesn't research the 'perfect' build. Even wow in it's early days was prohibitively expensive to respec.
Respec costs about 200k AD. Not much for level 60 if you know AH.
Here's how every thread regarding this subject goes:
-Make a thread inquiring as to whether the prices can come down to something that is reasonable.
-Get told that you want "everything for free".
He's talking about retraining and you know it.
Oh, and once they introduce the new BOP system for "need" roles, I'd love to see how well you can "play the AH". What a joke.
Lerdocix was, too. The respec token costs 600 Zen. At the current exchange rate of 370:1, that is just a bit over 200k AD, as he said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-xKUU5sWS4
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If you have 11 unspent points, that means that you haven't even tried your classes 3 highest tier abilities. Are you not even a little curious about them? I don't think people should be changing spec every day or anything but it's nice to be able to try a few things to find out what suits you best, or to see a post in the forums and give it a go your self.
$6 is prohibitively expensive and prevents any experimentation. Maybe a hefty gold cost would be better so that people can only respec every now and then or have to work for the gold first (or trade Zen for it if they want to speed it up the freemium way)
All those who think this is ok - have never been involved in any real software testing and are just fan boying it up. They do not need to charge 6 bucks a go for respecs just to make money - don't be foolish.
1) I'm yet to play an MMO with free/cheap respecs. RF Online, RaiderZ, Aion, Path of Exile, DDO... I dunno, just about any game with a F2P model in place. There are two reasons for this. First, obviously, this is how they make money - not that huge a price to pay for having ALL content ALWAYS free to EVERYONE. Second is true even from a design perspective, leading me to
2) It's bad game design to offer free/easy respecs. Even single-player games don't do it. To an extent, this is to artificially improve replayability, yes, but think about it. Giving the "easy" respec button would draw the fun out of the game the same as if they gave everyone free T2 epic gear. Part of the charm is to play and experiment with different builds, and with easy respecs you wouldn't even have to put thought to building, since you can just change stuff at any time. And that's why I'm against it.
Now, I would very much like them to dump the respec tokens and add something that would allow you to completely reroll your character, just like LR/GR in DDO.
Surprise, respecs were free in earlier testing stages. You could reroll and relevel to any level in seconds. That test server they'll set up will probably have something similar as well. In OBT, on the other hand, they're testing the game build, which will eventually become the live build, and want the people playing naturally. Otherwise, they'd have people complaining endlessly that content is too hard because they rolled straight to 60 without learning to play their class (that actually happened).
There's room between "free and easy respecs" and "six dollars every time you get an urge to experiment". Game's supposed to be fun and honestly, the cheaper things are the more willing people will be to spend money. That's why iPhone games are so profitable and big budget AAA games are dying. I don't know why some people can't get it through their heads that gouging people doesn't lead to increased profits. That era is over.
I'm sorry but you didn't address anything in my post and just provided your own reasoning as to why you feel it's fair to charge money to retool a character on a server described as B E T A. I make my living finding software bugs (not gaming related) and it's completely unheard of in any other space to have customer's PAY YOU MONEY for the right to test your software. "It was free in the early stages" (alpha/closed beta?) is probably the weakest reasoning I've ever heard. "Beta" is constantly thrown out by people as justification for the amount of bugs and unfinished parts to this game, but in other aspects this is treated like a live production product. You can have it one way or the other; not both.
it's a cash grab and it goes against everything Beta is supposed to stand for. Justify it all you want - you're wrong.
edit: 6 bucks is also WAY WAY too much money for a single respec, with each character having 3 paragon tree's at somepoint 18 bucks just to try each spec for 1 class? That's more than month's sub for non F2P games. Asinine.
Also the game is fairly new, they call if beta for some reason, it might help the game if people could experiment with feats, see if some don't work as intended, if some are too powerful, etc but it's my impression the point of this game is to make as much money as possible, not be as good as it can be.
Actually, I love Rift for their character creation and wish more games would move that way; easy infinite respec, and even multiple roles on a single character (One mage can have DPS, CC and heal specs for example; how many other games ever did that?). I don't feel cheap respec does any of what you are describing, especially not 'drawing the fun out of it'. Rift even gives you a little button so you can shift from your PVP to PVE role instantly (Each character can have up to 6 saved roles or so). It is awesome to be able to really try 100 different things on a character without having to wonder 'OMG am I doing this right?' Seriously, I don't want to have to spend 15 hours researching on the internet because I might screw up my build, but I've already wasted at least that much time reading and not playing because I want my end game char to at least be playable. $6 for a respec is ridic, and that is not a 'small price to pay.' $.25 is a small price to pay; $6 is 10% of the price of a brand new game. I'd gladly pay the former a couple of times; I'll never pay the latter even once. No, I'm not a FTP leech, I gladly pay for lots of things in games I enjoy (I've dropped hundreds on FTP games in the past few years), but only on things that have (obviously IMO) decent value.
Plus, you think its bad game design to offer players more choices? You contradict yourself...'Part of the charm is to play and experiment' (I agree with this wholeheartedly)...well, at $6 a pop, there isn't going to be much playing and experimenting here. Instead, there is going to be 1,000,000 people on the internet looking for a website that tells them what the 'optimum' build is, and almost no 'experimenting'. A lot of the fun in games comes down to choices, and NWM, for all it has some good things going for it, has very little in the way of meaningful choices when it comes to building chars. (much of that is not PW's fault, but the lousy 4th edition rules)
I've played a lot of FTP's now and I hate to say Neverwinter seems even more nickel and dimey than most. That very well could be just my impression, but at least for me, I'm having a lot less fun than I could be if I didn't have to stress out about how I build my character.
agreed in game gold. simple enough.
1. unlike any other MMO, NW doesnt let you bring your entire arsenal of Power, so you can be more specific in your type of playing. you can try by put rank I on a power and added 2 and 3 if it match with your style, still you get extra power point to spend.
2. Feat is more tricky, Yes, but isnt it already came up with respec with AD which you can get through AH or daily quest.
but, like I said at the beginning that I agree, some MMO give you respec option when you at class level advancement, perhaps devs can put a free respec. token at level 30 when you get to chose paragon, which is only one option only at time, so you can change them accordingly.
And let's not beat on the "beta" issue horse. It's very very dead.
It's not all that much in AD once you start farming for it, though. It's a bit pricey, but if that's the tradeoff for having all content always free, I'd rather have it this way.
If you want free respecs, then go play another MMORPG that charges you $10 to $60 to buy and own the game, then possibly spend another few $10 to $60+ for all the expansions, and then start paying $15/month!
Or, you could play NW for free, and whenever you need a respec, you spend a puny little $5, respec and get it over with! Even if you did respec 4 to 5 or maybe even 10 times! 10 respecs = $50 !!!!!!!!!!! That is still nowhere near the amount of money you will spend playing a subscription based MMORPG! Or even Guild Wars 2! You gotta pay $50 for GW2! It's not free!!!
Obviously I'm refering to being able to set up 2 specs and toggle between em free of charge, if they implement that they can keep the respec cost relatively high for all I care.
Main: "Daxt", Trickster Rogue @ Beholder.
Alt: "Daxt-Two", Great Weapon Fighter @ Beholder
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This would be nice. For now, however, you can roll 2 different toons with completely different specs. Also, IMO, the game's flexible enough to let you play different content with the same spec - sure you can't min/max it, but can't expect them to cater to this niche minority.
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