It is being reported players will be able to pay for mastery respecs. Doesn't this go against the player individuality push we have seen? If you give players an ability to swap their skills around they will create full min maxed cookie cutter builds to swap around depending on the need.
Personally I would much rather have the Eve style of effectively permenant choices. No rewriting history outside of things such as refunds if ability is nerfed. If the player chooses to go in a different direction, the player keeps everything they previously unlocked. They can't just fork over some gold and do a 180. Why can a turtling warrior tank suddenly turn into a two handed off tank who buffs melee DPSers as much as possible? Why could a wizard suddenly go from being specialized in flame for 50 levels to being specialized in cold?
Its not a specialization system. It is an over time unlocking of your true potential. - Joppa
Where have you seen/heard that reported? What was the source?
I'm not saying it wasn't said by Joppa, or someone, I just can't remember.
As for the issue itself, yeah, we don't want to see people swapping out and in their mastery 'builds' willy-nilly, but on the other hand, mastery points will not be dropping willy-nilly, so it's a very permanent choice to make and if you do something you regret it will forever niggle at you and annoy you if you truly can't respec ever.
Perhaps respecs should be once per level?
Something that means, as you progress (and realise you've been using mastery points in a direction that is utterly useless for your playstyle, for example) you can eventually, redo them, but not every time you get up in the morning and 'fancy a change' or your guild needs you to put a different emphasis on your role or whatever.
Sure, mastery points are never 'wasted' - it has been said that, eventually, you may even max everything - but I imagine, the way they are being described, you will actually forever be in a state of partial mastery and the 'build' you choose will very much impact your role emphasis.
I have only seen it from Bazgrim, a youtuber who makes nice summary and progress videos of the game. Edit: I missed it the first watch last month. Joppa does say they will have a respec options, like 2 minutes before he says there will be no specializations. Re-specializing in nonspecializations.
I expected the same as you with the "forever state of a partial mastery." That is why I think it is so important not to respecc them. My hope is the majority of players will not have everything before the level cap is raised on a new expansion. I want the individuality to last. Some will focus on playing alts, others wont buy endless mastery point drops, many simply cant put in enough time to grind everything. Pantheon seems to focus on adventuring and not end game raiding. The more you play the more options you have.
Eve (the space mmo) had massive problems in my opinion (learning to learn faster and such) but I believe the idea of progressing into playstyles is the closest mmo to what Pantheon describes. It would take a long time to master everything, but eventually you can. If you choose to focus on cold magic you will always know cold magic, but when you go to fight something all but immune to cold you may regret not having a backup attack. This happens in table top games as well. You didn't even carry javelins? Well I guess you just stand there... You could look for rocks to throw... These experiences inspire you to fix your problem. Learn a physical attack spell since nothing will probably ever be immune to melee damage. Carry ranged attack weapons for beyond pulling the target. Even if you regret one spell over the meta, it could still become really useful some day.
I personally support the idea respecs are only made through the progeny system, assuming mastery point count carries over to your kid. If you want to do a massive flip, you are effectively playing a new character. There are better ways to create money sinks than mastery respecs.
I heard them mention this in a stream, but they also said it would be expensive (like Fulton said). It's not going to be something people can just go do anytime and "experiment." It's meant to allow a character to "fix a mistake" they made along the way. Which is still a little odd to me because in the end everyone will have the same abilities/spells. The upgrades will be chosen in a different order but you'll always have the option to upgrade another so I'm not even sure what mistakes a player could make.
Where have you seen an individuality push?
All abilities can be attained. The only difference is the order you attain them. VR has made it clear for years they dont want either/or choices where you choose 1 thing at the expense of another. No specialization trees etc.
In the end, all characters of the same race/class can max out everything and will be identical.
But yes, you will be able to pay game currency to respec. The cost will increase the more you do it.
If you bring in something like Mastery Points, but than make it possible to Max out your mastery in every ability, you are kind of defeating the point of have such a system anyway, make it to where you can gain mastery points and you get only gain a limitied amount that way maxxing out an ability one makes that ability really strong but also slowly but surely making it to where if you keep maxing out abilities you make it to where certain abilities can't reach their highest potency.
It allows Builds without a talent system to actually exsist, also making a mastery system but still able to max all out abilities just sounds boring, and makes it to where you added in a system that at the end isn't even doing anything, so why even make it if it can be simply bypssed with time.
philo said:Where have you seen an individuality push?
That name is made up by me. They never named it, merely spoke of a common theme while talking about the mastery system. Joppa said "Creating variability in characters" and "Two different people playing lvl 30 shamans could have a pretty large discrepancy in abilities they have unlocked." in the shaman video. Perhaps I should call it variability in characters pushed? Either way multiple people have commented on the differences between PCs of the same class while maintaining the base class idea.
I have heard that eventually, you will be able to unlock all of your class's abilities given you invest the time. So, I really don't see the issue with letting people re-invest their mastery points. In fact, I think that it is a good thing because it allows a player to properly adapt to their current grouping situation/makeup and it puts another gold sink into the game.
Given the nature of MMO "balancing" and the way certain abilities, choices, spells, racials, etc get nerfed or buffed over time, having a re-allocation option is pretty much required. That is, if you want both the flexibility of being able to adjust things that need adjusting, and retaining subscribers. :)
But yes, otherwise, it's simple a temporary "specialization" because eventually, ~all points will be had by ~everyone, at which point, everyone has the same abilities within a class.
I have suggested complete skill, ability, and spell customization within caps a few times in the past 6 years, but it's clear this will not be the game to do it. (it solves this max-level homogeneity 'problem')
It's a tough one for me to decide on. I've never cared for respects just because I want people to live with their decisions (good and bad) and because I am against min/maxing. But I've also been in situations in game and RL where I've made decisions based on bad information.
I agree in that I don’t want people respecing daily just to meet the need for a new encounter.
I’ve always felt that a better solution is to allow players to gradually transition to their “new build” in that it allows you to change your mind and move to a different spec but it takes time. Say you want to move 10 points out of 1 ability and move them to another. If the game allowed you to set that in the game UI what you want, then as you go back to playing and over time as you use the new abilities (in a weakened state) it will absorb points from the previous skill and slowly increase.
I think a transitional approach to respecting would solve both problems presented here. What I would absolutely want to avoid is just immediately having all points refunded then dropped into a new slot, completely changing your character around in just an instant.
But I think respecing is something that doesn't need to cause feature creep to the game. You don't need a system like this in place at launch, it can be added later as most players won't have enough, or know enough about what they really want, invested months after launch to make this a necessary feature.
From what I could tell, the mastery system allows you to eventually max everything out over time, meaning, there's not a finite numbers of points you can obtain, which you then need to choose where to allocate them, prioritsing one ability over the other. If that were the case, however, respecs would be something very appealing. Having to decide which spells / abilities to upgrade from a finite number of points would be very difficult, and it would make it a real nightmare if you upgraded the wrong spell by accident! It does, however, create diversity between builds, and would eventually lead to very different play styles from one player, to the next. Well, until the templates start spreading across the Internet, that is. Once that happens, you're either specialized how everyone else is / wants you to be, or you're going to struggle to enjoy the game when everyone constantly complains that you don't have the 'flavour of the month' build. Dark Age of Camelot ended up like this, a prime example was the Runemaster, they had a spell line which pulsed every 10 / 8 / 6 seconds (depending on how far you specialized), and every time it did, it applied a shield to each person in the group which was guaranteed to completely block a single melee hit, or physical ranged attack. Having a group of melee classes that, every six seconds, were coated in a shield that blocked a single blow 100% of the time made healing so much easier. Combine that with slowing a mobs attack speed and you could almost make a tank invincible. Without that spell, you would struggle to find a group, and it was boring having to constantly medidate to keep your mana from dropping as the pulse took mana each tick.
I'd much prefer the ability to fully max out my characater over time, regardless of how much time it took to 'master' it. The cookie cutter scenario is frustrating, it would be nice to see some diversity between players as they're slowly mastering their class (choosing to upgrade differtent spells / abilities at different times compared to other players).
The Pantheon system seems to allow players to max out their level, then continue to hunt for mastery points to truly master their class. Almost like additional end game content beyond the usual level grind itself. It would take a lot of investment, but it would be worth it, and it makes respec completely redundant.
Dark Age of Camelot allowed you to respec once at level 20, and again at level 40. Beyond that, there was no going back. Over time they did add re-spec stones which dropped from Dragons, and now you can do pretty much what you want, when you want, in terms of the specialization of your class.
Jobeson said:I expected the same as you with the "forever state of a partial mastery." That is why I think it is so important not to respecc them. My hope is the majority of players will not have everything before the level cap is raised on a new expansion. I want the individuality to last. Some will focus on playing alts, others wont buy endless mastery point drops, many simply cant put in enough time to grind everything. Pantheon seems to focus on adventuring and not end game raiding. The more you play the more options you have.
Eve (the space mmo) had massive problems in my opinion (learning to learn faster and such) but I believe the idea of progressing into playstyles is the closest mmo to what Pantheon describes. It would take a long time to master everything, but eventually you can. If you choose to focus on cold magic you will always know cold magic, but when you go to fight something all but immune to cold you may regret not having a backup attack. This happens in table top games as well. You didn't even carry javelins? Well I guess you just stand there... You could look for rocks to throw... These experiences inspire you to fix your problem. Learn a physical attack spell since nothing will probably ever be immune to melee damage. Carry ranged attack weapons for beyond pulling the target. Even if you regret one spell over the meta, it could still become really useful some day.
I personally support the idea respecs are only made through the progeny system, assuming mastery point count carries over to your kid. If you want to do a massive flip, you are effectively playing a new character. There are better ways to create money sinks than mastery respecs.
This all sounds like an extremely silly thing to wish for in Pantheon. By all accounts they have been trying to avoid the idea of "specs" or having players trying to play their classes outside of the intended role (playstyle).
Even with the system as explained WITH respecs I have serious reservations. Either players who (for example) pick warrior and put all their mastery in DPS abilities will be a massive hinderance to a group who needs a tank OR the journey/majority of the game will be relatively simple and none of it will matter. Trying to hard lock players into these (likely poor/detrimental to other players) choices seems like an even bigger mistake. Especially if you want classes to be so hard to fully master that only the most hardcore would do so before expansions happen.
This individuality you are looking for is an illusion, it does not exist in game worlds. If you want to stand out then work on being skillful.
philo said: I have always been in favor of character individuality with either/or type of choices and various builds...
Those exist on character creation. If you want to play a healer then you are either a cleric or a druid or a shaman, pick a healing playstyle and master it.
Not really, we are talking about individuality between characters of the same race/ class...thats the whole point.
I guess you could argue that how you allot your stat points makes players different but it is so minor that it has little noticeable difference...especially with stat caps.
It's not the build or specialization type of individuality we see in other games...which is fine. There are many reasons why a dev team wouldn't go that direction. Its just not my preference.
TLogan said: I have no clue what most of you are saying with there was never going to be individuality as this mastery system pretty much dismisses that opinion. Or you could choose to master all skills equally and do as you suggest just be a basic Joe. It looks to me that mastery when combined with LAS could enable a druid (for example) to focus on dps mastery and at least for the first few months have a leg up on most druids at dpsing. Likely after that point since that would be that druids main focus and mastery was backup healing/dps the skill would come all on its own and as others try to catch up with their mastery you would still have a leg up for some time if not forever.
Hope it's readily available information for others to see what "spec" players are. Don't want any "dps" druids trying to fill a DPS slot OR healing slot.
Or I guess the game could actually end up to be pretty simple and none of it will matter and I can tap out.
It's likely either one of two things...
1.) The Mastery points don't amount to more than around 50% of the total points a class needs to maximize their Mastery Skills allowing for choices in how you specialize AND you get variable options to respec at a cost.
or
2.) The Mastery points can be obtained with no restrictions allowing a class to obtain every possible Mastery Skill so they have no specialization BUT you don't get variable options to respec.
I'm not a fan of having unlimited mastery points allowing everyone to end up as the same class via Mastery. I have issues with the current system being linear within skills where the next surpasses the former instead of by choice where you can select either or. With that said, I have to pick my battles and I would rather not see this system have an end point that defeats one of the very purposes of it existing and to have a player feel their specialization isn't unique.
If having respecs means limited mastery allowing for a chosen specialization, I'm all for it. If not, then it honestly has no purpose.
Janus said:I would rather not see this system have an end point that defeats one of the very purposes of it existing and to have a player feel their specialization isn't unique.
But their specialization wouldn't be unique regardless...I can't think of any MMOs with talent/spec systems in which a player of any given class is unique in their build. The only times you could be unique would be when purposefully (or ignorantly) poorly building your character toward any given purpose, which shouldn't even be a thing in Pantheon given the hard class roles they have always been talking about.
Iksar said:Hope it's readily available information for others to see what "spec" players are. Don't want any "dps" druids trying to fill a DPS slot OR healing slot.
Or I guess the game could actually end up to be pretty simple and none of it will matter and I can tap out.
I imagine it would be the latter for most content. Until you enter a dungeon type area and find out the dps focused tank and druid can't quite cut it for the survivability check. Stick the druid with root kiters and the like though to watch them shine.
Player permanence vs flavor of the month is my main objection. I doubt leveling will be fast, nor will the grind for all masteries. I want things to work towards, not simply press a button and remake my character.
Iksar said:Janus said:I would rather not see this system have an end point that defeats one of the very purposes of it existing and to have a player feel their specialization isn't unique.
But their specialization wouldn't be unique regardless...I can't think of any MMOs with talent/spec systems in which a player of any given class is unique in their build. The only times you could be unique would be when purposefully (or ignorantly) poorly building your character toward any given purpose, which shouldn't even be a thing in Pantheon given the hard class roles they have always been talking about.
That may be the case in some games, however, not those who for instance, build a warrior thats more support focused, or an Enchanter who's more Mezzing focused as opposed to Charm focused, or slow focused, or haste focused, or mana regeneration focused etc., I can go on. Similar with a Healer, where the Healer may not want to build so much towards being a main healer, some may and those who don't, will they be like Druids where they want to go more with detrimental role focus or a supportive role?
Some games don't allow for a proper variance that allows for a system like this to work, Pantheon isn't that. I agree however, a few classes may not benefit from it in that way, namely Wizards or Rogues.