Marco wrote:These things have been mentioned/commented so often at this point, that I'd just be repeating myself. So i'll be super short this time. There's at least a few more topics about this if you want to check for a more elaborated response.
Respec:
- tl;dr free respec is harmful to progression. To a degree it promotes build promiscuity as people just give up too quick, especially new ones. If you're failing on a build (because you're new and turns out there's quite a lot to learn/understand), I can almost guarantee respec will not yield a result for the time invested compared to staying with your current build (and gear you already have).
- on a more macro level, free respec just allows you to get away with build juggling & abusing certain stat combos to get ahead in dungeons really quick. We want to reward players who stick to a plan and character, this is a much better foundation to balance the game around than free respec, which is upredictable and cheesy by nature.
- mistakes & boredom do happen, so respecs are still quite available & cheap if you need them. Lots of people do the mistake of farming 100 zones for respec when the chance increases with alvl. So they get the wrong picture on their rarity, they drop quite often from dunc onwards.
Level requirements on zones
- there is a similar argument here to the previous one. A lot of the very endgame ubers (void, laz) require really specific gear, a lot of times gear which you can reliably do yourself quickly. The issue? the most "efficient" way to beat the game is turning progression upside down, selling laz/void charms on first day, making bank, then reinvesting into farm gear and you're set.
- lets just do a quick comparision of progression vs M12. In m12, an optimal way to progress, if season is 5h old, you prob start with a tcow, lets say assassin. Then you wychwind-cheese all summoning quests (was literally doable with t1 magic knife). Then you have leverage to beat a decent amount of dungeons. Finally u are able to do laz/void for example, within same day still. At this point there's a big market of people who want to buy all charms (because they are also lvl unrestricted and 120 was free). Surely feels great to outplay everyone who played normally, but is this the way of playing that should be rewarded the most?
- current progression, you actually can struggle against mid/low tier bosses and need to figure them out rather than just picking charm up, each new bracket is balanced to be beatable with the previous charms, much better streamlined than before. I'm not saying it's quite there yet, sigma was a very experimental patch so there's still a room for improvement. But I think we're on a much better direction now.
- as far as the "exp gating artificially forces you to farm" I dont think is true at all, at least pre-125 where exp yield starts getting low. How many people/builds can complete the 120 bracket *as soon* as they are 120? So in a good amount of cases, its not like you could even beat the zone if it was unlocked before. If anyone thinks exping to 120 takes too long it probably means your killspeed is fairly bad and you could really use some farming/upgrades to prepare for what's ahead. I also disagree with zones being unrewarding, you start rifting at 110 at which point TJungles is fairly rewarding to farm, those gold sigs do some work and the rate of sigs/exp isn't bad. That point onwards k3k is super rewarding (up to the point people want to farm it post 120+), same goes for dunc, fauzt.
One last thing, the "objectively more fun" argument doesnt really do much. Not only because fun can be different for other players, but because short-term fun doesnt necessarily equal long-term. Simple example, let's say we add a recipe to make any SU for free, surely everyone would be having lots of fun making their dream builds. So do we just go forward with all "fun" ideas? There's many layers to all changes, and lots of things to consider. We thorougly discuss any ideas and balance out the pros & cons, as well as community acceptance. It's not like we weren't fully concious that topics such as exp/respecs/lockdowns/no plugy/running would receive a certain amount of backlash, but they were all necessary changes discussed over months and we fully believe in them. But you'll need a decent amount of patience because we're a small team, with a lot on our plate, so much more than just modding (docs, launcher, support, armory, community, translations, tg center, list goes on) so we do the best we can.
Anyway i failed myserably as usual to keep this short. As long as feedback is presented politely and not rushed by emotions, we are always happy to listen.
Appreciate the response, my man. Good explanation and I definitely see where you are coming from with Removal of respec making balancing easier (Sigma certainly is better balanced than Ultimative was). Though as for level req, it does seem like that problem could be solved by just keeping level req on charms. Though, I do admit I never gave much of a shit about in-game economy or ladder bullshit (I hate the ladder system, but I guess the reset makes it more fun for some people/gives them more of a reason to keep playing)
I guess what it comes down to is that multiplayer Median just isn't for me and I should just play single player/direct IP with my friend. I don't engage in trades, I don't do runs with anyone but my friend. I might as well play single player mode as it pretty much allows me to do what I want to do.
Unfortunately now I'm in too fucking deep. I ended up starting like a week before season started not realizing, and then had to restart, now that I'm almost a month into season I'm realizing my problems with multiplayer, but I have two characters my friend already has one (and I know they will quit on me before they have to start all over again). I have all these SUs and Set Items, and I just can't stand to start again just to be able to sort my items and respec my character, particularly since there is no Character Editor to remake my characters/add gear I've gotten.
I don't suppose there is any method of copying your TSW characters to single player, eh?
I don't know I just feel stuck in a rut with my Amazon and Necro and it feels like I've wasted so much effort it keeps getting harder for me to want to play.
Thanks again for the response and the Mod.
Ywinel wrote:I About lvl requirements - gosh, W T F?! JUST FEW RUNS and you get another 5 lvls. Up to 125 it's almost 1 level per rift run, a bit lower for 125-130. And later? - you need more only for Samael ... Me this season: wanted to farm XIS, 6-7 runs (3 hours?...) and I've reached 125 by the way (with barely started 120 charms :v). I'm usually reaching 117-119 just by looking for better rolls of easy/medium charms.
Honestly, thanks to lvl req new people finally stopped going in areas they shouldn't be in and are aware were should go at current state of progress. It's better this way, mod finally doesn't discourage new player.
Rift Run? What's that? Where do you level?? What is your build???
6-7 Xis runes in 3 hours???
I'm glad you have gotten really good at this, but some of us are casfags. I can't even do Teganze with my 125 Melee Necro, and I have to go real fucking slow and painstakingly do it now that I switched to Xbow (which supposedly is SOOOO much better, but in reality is almost completely identical - except I can't seem to get enough life steal to have half the survivability as my melee necro, at least going off Guide center guides, because guess what I don't wanna try to do my own build because respecing is a pain in the ass)
(Edit: wrong quote)
(but it's possible too, with average 2 essences in one teganze and clear under 20 minuets it's easy). I think that you changed to xbow too quickly, just stopped in progress. Teganze may be painful but duncraig is rather easy for melee necro, also triune is fine too(triune can be farmed easily by most of the builds). At 125 bremm welcomes and there your melee nec would work fine.