Haetron

I don't believe it does, but server activity and trends tend to show places where it can happen are favored.

Well... you managed to go a mini-paragraph without bringing up IOs.

See, now that sounds like a challenge. What server do you play on? And do you have a level 50 /DA Brute where I can lay out a counter challenge?

Edit: (Actually, server doesn't even matter, we could copy over to test.)

Now see, this post doesn't seem so much like you're concerned what the person paying for the respec and instead are concerned on what it'd be like playing with the person after a respec.

But, Red Name statement is "Unlikely." It's a step up from No, but hey. Not by much.

I have two level 50 Accuracy IOs, two l50 Endurance Reduction IOs, two l50 Recharge IOs. So all three stats aren't quite capped, but they're close.

I should point out that as much as I rag on Dark Armor I still play it pretty much daily while Im subscribed. It "works" without IOs as long as you keep your difficulty levels fairly close to the default.

(Actually, the most enjoyable thing I've found with my DA brute now is setting the difficulty to -1 with no bosses, but setting the spawn for a team the size of four. This is on a build devoid of any IO Set bonuses. I have "plain" IOs replacing my SOs so I can maximize slot efficiency and one Steadfast to help with Knock, though it still occurs.)

Once you bring IO's into the mix, it's not really that Dark Armor is all that great, it's that you're experiencing the joys of capping out defense. That's my main complaint with people that paint Dark Armor as being this awe inspiring great set. I've yet seen anyone that claims it that hasn't decked out for extra defense with IO sets.

Don't get me wrong, it definitely has it's strengths. I joke about how horrible it is, but it's not unplayable. After all, I got mine to level 50 shortly after Inventions were introduced, but went the entire way on SOs. It just, on an SO build to SO build comparison, underperforms in personal practice.

And yes, I realize, "MATH!" has determined that it's one of the greatest sets, because it has "the best self heal in the game". But the entire set is crutched up by the one power, in a way few other sets experience. Sure, every powerset has "Must take" powers in common opinion, but Dark Armor's reliance on Dark Regeneration is much more severe. One reason I had a negative experience was because I ran for a long time (longer than I should have) without DR.

Add in the fact that DR has some unique problems as a self-heal that other sets do not have, and in my own personal experience, the set fell short.

This is something I absolutely agree with. On a comparison with all other damage aura powers, it just -sucks-.

I think you're overestimating the difficulty it takes to pick up a powerset and learn it, personally. But this still isn't really an argument against providing it as a paid service, because worst case scenario, if the person was completely incapable of learning the new set, they could always pay for a revert. Or perhaps PS could even include a 24-48 hour buyer's remorse "reverse" change. The ability to just roll back to a saved copy of the character prior to the powerset change. But this would likely be extra work, if I was in PS shoes I'd just sale the service with an appropriate disclaimer and if the person wants to reverse it anyway, let them pay for it again.

So what you're saying is people can get a character to level 50 with no clue as to how their powers work with the existing system with minimum effort.

How is this an argument against letting PS go ahead and make a profit by providing it as a service again?

See, I disagree, and there's really no way of knowing if the Devs thought process has changed or not. I personally do not think that the absence of this feature is going to be a driving cause for people to sub. If a premium/F2P character wants more characters, they can simply buy more slots for a one time fee. PS seems happy with this idea.

And the core source of most powerset respec requests is wanting to keep an active character and their badges. The individual reasons deviate from that core reason, generally speaking. It has nothing to do with wanting more characters. That's the reason it currently comes up quite a bit even now. Do I have the extra slots to just rebuild a character to level 50? Yeah. Could I pay for a name change, or even better, which I've done, just slap a hyphen in there or make a variant of it? Yeah, and I've done it. But that said, there's at least 3 characters on my account that, if I could, I would pay for powerset respecing. And this is money that PS could be taking from me, even with my current subscription.

The Microtransaction/subscription Hybrid system thrives on providing unique things to subscribed players that are not included with their subscription, and providing the services enjoyed with a subscription to the free player crowd for a one time fee. If this were to be provided, it would be doing both, and should be priced accordingly. Price it above the cost of subscribing for a month, and above the cost of character slot and name change tokens. Then you can have premium players paying a large one time cost to keep a character and change sets, instead of lesser cost to restart in a new slot, if they want the option. Plus, it's a new "VIP" service that subscribed players can either retain and use their stipends on, OR, even better, pay more money for.

I simply, financially, don't see any reason for NCsoft/PS to not offer this with this transition (or shortly afterward) other than if the cost of developing it would be exorbitant enough to the point it'd be hard to turn a profit on.

Now, there may be ideological reasons not to, and that's something entirely different, and if it is the case, it's pointless to argue.

(And a note because I always see this when Powerset Respecs/AT Respecs get suggested. The "Ok, but make them start over from level 1!" option. That would be a great idea for an in-game earned reward, but it would be horrible as a paid service because it'd be just as simple to delete the character and remake it, and not pay PS anything.)

Looks, no.

It's a buff/debuff set, and rumor I heard is it has two "core" powers and then other powers affect the target differently if under one of those two core powers. One buff, one Debuff.

It's not a control set, but controllers will get it in the secondary.

It's a long well thought out argument, but it can be pretty easily debunked.

1. You don't just magically quit learning how to play because a character is 50. Or if you did the respec at earlier levels, the learning process isn't completely derailed, unable to be followed. Are you going to be less effective while you try and grasp the new sets? Quite possibly. (I think that the differences between sets in the same archetype are not quite as drastic as Memphis points out, personally.) The example he pointed out? It was a 48 hour crash test. Some people only hopped on and played for less than an hour. And it was mainly for PVP only. Sure, some people ran off to do PVE content, but most were compounding the difficult learning situation with first time PVP experiences too.

Memphis himself even debunks the entire difficulty argument later, I'll point out where.

2. That last line? You can't predict another person's happiness. Honestly, happiness is pretty much a fickle and non-measurable statistic for the most part. (Im sure someone will break out a math example here to prove me wrong.)

Learning Curve Argument is Learning Curve Argument. Skipping that, was addressed above. Sure, AT to different AT WOULD be a big difference. I'd dare say AT respecs, if offered as a Paragon Points incentive, should be double, if not 4 times more expensive than a "same AT" powerset respec.

The enhancement/IO issue? Where's it any different from respeccing now and losing enhancers because you swapped out powers? It's just a more extreme example. Put shiny warning labels (just like there is with server transfers and losing names) stating that all enhancements will be lost. Some people will be fine with this.

I'll be honest. I do not at all see the appeal of an "origin" respec. I doubt it'd hold much marketing appeal. It might be neccessary for an AT respec, just to keep UIs synchronized. That's it.

The "Problems" it would cause? Easily solved by Disclaimer text: "Warning, selecting a new Origin may affect certain powers that are affected by Origin. You may lose enhancements not appropriate for your new origin. Proceed with caution."

This is changing. Free players and Premium players will be working with limited slots. Sure, Paragon can and will make money on character slots. But, what's the harm in offering powerset respecs along character slots? Some people will want to keep their current character due to badges, some people will not want to regrind to 50, some people will just want to throw away the money for the fun of it.

And here's that part I mentioned earlier..

If it's not that hard, the game isn't that difficult, etc.. Then that debunks the entire "Learning powersets is a hard and long process!"

And worst case scenario, person respecs, does utterly horrible, and hates the entire experience..

They can purchase the ability again and respec back to what they knew.

That's over a year ago. Things have changed with CoH Freedom. Im hoping the devs will change their minds and say "yes." With the switch to a more micro-transaction based system, Powerset Respecs are a valuable service that could serve to increase profit. In the past, when people were suggesting it as some kind of in game reward? Yeah, that would just be an unprofitable hassle for the dev team to institute. But now that it can be sold as an extra service, not just to the new F2P crowd, or the returning premium players, but even VIPs can use their stipends or purchase new points for it. It's pretty much guaranteed to generate money. It all comes down to how much it would cost in coding/work time for the feature to be developed.

And let's just go ahead and address another argument. "This will cause a negative play experience for other players, as they will have to deal with people that are learning how to play the new set/AT."

Any player that just can't stand someone "underperforming" on their team/league can always ask the group leader to boot "bad" players. Or if they're the leader, they can do it themselves. You can flag them with the player rating system just in case your memory is faulty. One good thing about this game is, well, if you don't like a player or how they're playing, there's always ways to deal with it.

In closing, we're entering a new era to the game. Powerset Respecs, (and AT Respecs) are something that could bring in extra cash flow to Paragon/NCsoft. I honestly can only see one reason why they wouldn't do it, and that's if the cost of having a team develop/design the process is so exorbitant, a profit couldn't be made.

You're absolutely right, but I wish they'd let us purchase Incarnate play for certain characters if we drop to premium. It's a sure way to still get some money as opposed to none.

To be clear, it's just a "Sub or you're out of luck" situation? Not even purchaseable on a per character basis with Points? Or is the jury still out on that?