MXL-2017 Belladona Elixirs (respec potions) monster drop only

[Marco]

You're saying this like its a good thing? In order to make ubers interesting with diversity of mechanics, respecs are required. It was part of the original design choice.

Say what? Respecs only exist since 1.13, median exists since 1.09. If I'm not mistaken, all uberquests introduced in classic Median XL were created before 1.13. As far as ultimative goes - and uberquests like void which require respec - it wasn't a design choice, but a design requirement. You cannot attempt to create a hard uberquest and not contemplate the use of respec. It is our intention to drive the game towards requiring less respecs. The issue now is that people are used to it and think that's how the game should be. FYI: ureh used to be considered a hard uberquest once.

Not sure what's the point of punishing experimentation.

That was not the objective of the change. The main issue with unlimited respecs is that people abuse it to defeat ubers, since you can spec a build to beat a certain uber, and skill points are a really powerful tool in median. Judgement day uber is a great example for this - you can do this uber with pretty much any spec, say xbow necromancer. But you can also respec to full summoner build, and guess what, you will have the trophy in about 5 minutes. Defeats the whole purpose and design of the uberquest. In the end, it's the most experienced players that get the benefit of unlimited respecs, because it allows them to finish the game in as little as two days and exploit the economy afterwards. Conclusion: respec reduction ends up being more beneficial to new players, as we rebalance the hardest quests not to require respeccing.

Respec is still very affordable - but if you're cheesing uberquests, it's harder - because you need two respecs, one to spec for uber and one to get back to your main build. If you simply want to change the build or improve your current one, all you need one potion. This is ultimately what we intended to achieve.

just saw first time player streaming who respec'ed at level 25 because they found a nice TU for a different build, but instantly hated the new play style of the new build. they continued on to a3 around level 35 and still wasn't enjoying the new build and decided their only option was to start over the same class back to the original build.

That's pretty stupid from his side if you ask me. With respec recipe removed, it's pretty obvious that the den of evil respecs should be saved for as long as possible. It's not intended to be used because you found an axe with "Call Treewarden" oskill and you want to make a build around that.

[HechtHeftig]

just saw first time player streaming who respec'ed at level 25 because they found a nice TU for a different build, but instantly hated the new play style of the new build. they continued on to a3 around level 35 and still wasn't enjoying the new build and decided their only option was to start over the same class back to the original build.

That's pretty stupid from his side if you ask me. With respec recipe removed, it's pretty obvious that the den of evil respecs should be saved for as long as possible. It's not intended to be used because you found an axe with "Call Treewarden" oskill and you want to make a build around that.

I agree that it's stupid from him. You shouldn't make a build just because of 1 axe. But as my driving teacher said: always consider other people's stupidity.
In this one case for example a total noob has a disadvantage just because he didn't have the experience with other builds. So basically this change of the belladonna elixier didn't change much: those who know what they do, won't require respecs while those who are still trying things out are punished.

Don't get me wrong, I fully agree with you and I myself don't have a great disadvantage just because I can't respec 24/7. But I think what you wanted to achieve has failed because it changes nothing, except that new players have a harder time finding the correct build for themselves.

[Crash]

just saw first time player streaming who respec'ed at level 25 because they found a nice TU for a different build, but instantly hated the new play style of the new build. they continued on to a3 around level 35 and still wasn't enjoying the new build and decided their only option was to start over the same class back to the original build.

That's pretty stupid from his side if you ask me. With respec recipe removed, it's pretty obvious that the den of evil respecs should be saved for as long as possible. It's not intended to be used because you found an axe with "Call Treewarden" oskill and you want to make a build around that.

I agree that it's stupid from him. You shouldn't make a build just because of 1 axe. But as my driving teacher said: always consider other people's stupidity.
In this one case for example a total noob has a disadvantage just because he didn't have the experience with other builds. So basically this change of the belladonna elixier didn't change much: those who know what they do, won't require respecs while those who are still trying things out are punished.

Don't get me wrong, I fully agree with you and I myself don't have a great disadvantage just because I can't respec 24/7. But I think what you wanted to achieve has failed because it changes nothing, except that new players have a harder time finding the correct build for themselves.

To make my point before continuing, I like the new system, not to mention Belladonna's are pretty easy to gather once you hit Terror. Hatred was made easier too, so the only respec issue in hatred should be "I didn't read docs and didn't know how much strength this next tier needed," at which point it becomes the player's fault.

However, should this have to be changed again (keep in mind I like how it is, but trying to provide a suggestion even though I'm not a fan of catering to criers cause they didn't check something before making something, etc), perhaps make the Anya reward a Belladonna Elixir instead of a rare amulet like she normally gives.

It could be an option, but I really don't like the idea of that because now you get 6 free respecs through normal gameplay, which kinda defeats the purpose. On the other side of this argument, perhaps Anya's reward is a Max Lvl 50 Belladonna (to help usher people towards LC1)?

Again, I like the system as is current.

[HechtHeftig]

To make my point before continuing, I like the new system, not to mention Belladonna's are pretty easy to gather once you hit Terror. Hatred was made easier too, so the only respec issue in hatred should be "I didn't read docs and didn't know how much strength this next tier needed," at which point it becomes the player's fault.

However, should this have to be changed again (keep in mind I like how it is, but trying to provide a suggestion even though I'm not a fan of catering to criers cause they didn't check something before making something, etc), perhaps make the Anya reward a Belladonna Elixir instead of a rare amulet like she normally gives.

It could be an option, but I really don't like the idea of that because now you get 6 free respecs through normal gameplay, which kinda defeats the purpose. On the other side of this argument, perhaps Anya's reward is a Max Lvl 50 Belladonna (to help usher people towards LC1)?

Again, I like the system as is current.

As I said, I don't have any issues with that. But I do can relate with people starting this mod as completely newbies.

I personally think there are only 3 options:
1: Completely remove the possibility to respec. That would harm the gameplay the most, as most builds would become completely useless. So that would require a complete overhaul of all ubers and all builds. BUT this would give more players the need to play on the server. Some builds require level 120. So playing a certain build of a completely new class would require a new character at level 120 --> You need to be rushed and leveled to 120. That's easiest done on the server. But this on the other hand would completely defy the purpose of a noob friendly game since some builds still only become viable once you reach level 120 (/made some friends online...).

2: Leave the player with only the 3 respecs you get from akara. That would still harm the game. You can respec BUT only 3 times. This would also require a complete overhaul of all ubers. Because you need to make every uber viable for every build, so there is no build that can establish as the best one that beats every uber single-handedly. However this would defy all logic since there have to be ubers that some builds can't beat in order to make the game interesting.

3: Give everyone the possbility to respec at any time given. This isn't only noob friendly. It's also giving more options for possible builds because you can try out new stuff and new variants of your build to beat certain ubers (for example in the patch before MXL 2017 I found it the easiest to beat fauzt T for BRC by maxing Rampagors for those Neon Fiends. It already took me 3 respecs to figure out which skill was the best for that (Rampagors, Boneyard or Rotting flesh) and I finally got it by maxing rampagors. And this wasn't even a destructio uber. It was still only for a single challenge.)

But as it is now there are 2 problems:
1: Noobs can't try out several builds without creating new characters as seen in the example above. They are basically forced to play a certain (working) build at least until terror.
2: Once you hit the midgame, you still have basically unlimited respecs. Limiting the respecs in early game doesn't mean you're limiting the respecs in mid-game. So what marco said, that people abuse respecs to defeat ubers did NOT change at all.

Considering these 2 problems... What we have now is: basically half of option 2 and 3 as stated above: It's not newbie friendly, while maitaining the builds variants and thus the cheesability(is this even a word? Well, you know what I mean. Respeccing to a new build that can easily beat the uber) to just respec for a certain uber.

That's why I'm saying: the system as it is now doesn't change anything, except make it harder for newbies to actually enter the game.
So either: Make the Belladonna elixier farmable (compromise option) or completely overhaul basically everything in the game, which neither the devs nor the community wants. For the devs it just becomes even more work and for the community it will turn into another 3 years of waiting for the next patch.

That's why the only option that makes sense imho is to make the belladonna elixier farmable.

And as I said before. I do understand Marco's opinion. I do understand why the devs were implementing this, and I don't have a problem with that either. However, I don't have a problem because I have experience. I know which builds works good. I know what skills to use to get easily to 120 and earn 3 respecs for free with 5 of 7 characters.

In any case, I can relate to newbies. I do understand how hard it is to get into this mod. I can put myself into their position. And thus, even though I myself fully agree with Marco's decision and even though I'm not personally affected by that decision, I have no choice but to disagree with this one decision because I can relate to the new players, who can't try out and find the build they want, while those who have experience still abuse respecs to beat all ubers.

[shnurr214]

honestly initially i was quite salty about this change as well. But the current drop rates and the ability to buy pots if you need from others on TSW makes it fair TBH. The biggest issue with making respecs rare is that the game is balanced around requiring a respec for certain content. However as long as you play intelligently and dont just waste your pots you really should never run out. The drop rate is fair enough now where they dont rain from the sky so you have to be intelligent but i never feel starved for pots. All people that are complaining about not having pots just do a few cow runs and you are likely to get a little less than 1 per run on average, if your gear sucks or you messed up do tcow games instead of dcow since they drop in any ilvl 85+ area i believe.

respec pot drop rates are fine as they are now.

[HechtHeftig]

honestly during alpha phase i was quite salty about this change as well. But the current drop rates and the ability to buy pots if you need from others on TSW makes it fair TBH. The biggest issue with making respecs rare is that the game is balanced around requiring a respec for certain content. However as long as you play intelligently and dont just waste your pots you really should never run out. The drop rate is fair enough now where they dont rain from the sky so you have to be intelligent but i never feel starved for pots. All people that are complaining about not having pots just do a few cow runs and you are likely to get 1 per run on average if your gear sucks or you messed up do tcow games since they drop in any ilvl 85+ area i believe.

respec pot drop rates are fine as they are now.

This only underlines my post. I play SP and never run out of potions. But for newbies, who want to try out other builds in hatred already this is simply the worst case possible. They are stuck with a shitty build just because they were curious on what's possible. That shouldn't be the case. We experienced players aren't affected of course. And that is why the system as it is now is not improving the game, but making it worse for newbies.

[SwineFlu]

There is a cool feature for those who plays in SP and using a Plugy: you can redistribute your stats for free anytime.
So the only time you really need to respec is when you decided to change your build drastically or when you get +max skill levels from charms and already out of free skill points.

From my experience on this patch, I used respec only a few times.
As you can see, I don't even need so much belladonna extracts and no, I don't bother to dupe them.



In my opinion this feature can be added in the Median core.

Just my 2 cents. Sorry for my bad English.

[momope]

That's pretty stupid from his side if you ask me. With respec recipe removed, it's pretty obvious that the den of evil respecs should be saved for as long as possible. It's not intended to be used because you found an axe with "Call Treewarden" oskill and you want to make a build around that.

it's not stupid, there's no way to try out builds on the realm right now. i ran into the same problem with my roomates who never played, they have no idea how any of the skills work. they cant experiment till mid terror? make them relevel the same class to 24 which takes a good hour, 5 times? i told them about -act5 but that's janky.

Say what? Respecs only exist since 1.13, median exists since 1.09. If I'm not mistaken, all uberquests introduced in classic Median XL were created before 1.13. As far as ultimative goes - and uberquests like void which require respec - it wasn't a design choice, but a design requirement. You cannot attempt to create a hard uberquest and not contemplate the use of respec. It is our intention to drive the game towards requiring less respecs. The issue now is that people are used to it and think that's how the game should be. FYI: ureh used to be considered a hard uberquest once.

ureh was hard and what people did if you wanted trophy pre-1.13 was leveled a runner specifically for that level. this is a problem you're not going to be able to get around. take away respecs and make an uber level hard, this is the solution.

i applaud your goal of wanting to make content accessible to all builds, but i don't think youre going to be able to walk that tight rope. youre wanting to make things challenging enough but not to the point where people respec or level dedicated characters for it. you're going to be rebalancing and tweaking every encounter for a long time and itll never be even close to perfect.

and i think is you end up with something like boring POE, like the maze thing to ascend is generic, long, and boring. any class can do it and the strat is always the same. run in, dodge stuff, find the end.

i'd just embrace respecs, make it a part of the game. every encounter is doable by any class, but maybe only a few builds per class. your class is your tool and you modify it to the encounter.

[Wulf]

it's the most experienced players that get the benefit of unlimited respecs

Is it not possible to make a vendor respec potion that can only be consumed by a character of level 119 and lower? That way it wouldn't punish new players who want to experiment early game and it would also slow down hard uber farming.

[BeetleHunter]

I hope this reaches you Marco. What you did on top of Brother Laz is great and you have a really good community.

Return the belladonna to shop.

I've played the mod for around 50h.
I've played 6 classes.
I've farmed the gift box around 300 times.
I've memorized almost every single tired unique and runeword below level 50.
I've reached terror alone once.
I've been given 8 arcane crystals for free, farmed 30 more with a boosted amazon.
I've used around 70 potions and every possible Akara respec.
I've unistalled the mod and deleted the game.

The impact early game is so huge and veteran players dont care at all because they can cheese the game however they want.

In essence what i learned about the mod is that :
You never need to do the Ennead Challege, you can just make a new character and give him the charm.

You never need to do the Level Challenges as you can find someone with the same class.

The best way to get to 120 fast is to farm from 1 to 18 in tristram (1h-2h). Find someone to boost you to terror (1h). And tcow to 120 with emerald tp cheese.