Agreed with the op. There are simple fundamental baselines at this point that ring true no matter the game. When a precedent of excellence is set by other games, you follow the precedent and build on it.

I would argue that all ZOS game designers have never actually played a game... not an MMO, not a previous Elder Scrolls. It is as if they sat in a room with some gamers and other designers and "listened" really hard, but didn't take notes, then botched this together and missed some simple lessons-already-learned by other games.

Did they want to make this unique? Sure... but you still don't ignore best practice unless you want to screw up. My suggestion to ZOS: Just like every other successful business in the world, compare your product to the others out there and at least MEET the baseline designs and gameplay concepts.

I guess I can understand where overall respec costs come from. I mean, it probably wouldn't be very good if players could just respec every hour or something. PvP? Respec for PvP! PvE group dungeon? Respec for PvE group dungeon! PvE solo quests? Respec for PvE solo quests! Farming mats? Respec for farming mats, get all the eagle's sight there is! That'd be...bad, I suppose. Choices should have consequences. A build should have enough point for it not to be changed every day.

But paying 20k(I paid 18.5) to respec a SINGLE morph is ridiculous. SINGLE. I had 185 skillpoints spent. I was happy with 184 skillpoints there. Why should I pay for resetting all 185, and, even worse, actually remember where I put all of them and spend half an hour putting them back? This just doesn't make sense. If I were to respec every single point, change to another type of armor and weapon entirely, yes, maybe 18.5k would make sense. But changing Siphon Spirit to Quick Siphon? I don't think this choice should have that much of a consequence. I'd be fine if a single morph respec cost 1k or smth - that's 10 times the price of one skillpoint now, people wouldn't be able to respec much with it but just correct this one mistake/try that one other morph.

GrimlockSaves wrote: »

Agreed with the op. There are simple fundamental baselines at this point that ring true no matter the game. When a precedent of excellence is set by other games, you follow the precedent and build on it.

I would argue that all ZOS game designers have never actually played a game... not an MMO, not a previous Elder Scrolls. It is as if they sat in a room with some gamers and other designers and "listened" really hard, but didn't take notes, then botched this together and missed some simple lessons-already-learned by other games.

Did they want to make this unique? Sure... but you still don't ignore best practice unless you want to screw up. My suggestion to ZOS: Just like every other successful business in the world, compare your product to the others out there and at least MEET the baseline designs and gameplay concepts.

This is how I feel about every other MMO. The "precedent of excellence" for an RPG is the story, atmosphere, character progression and creativity. Other MMO's have non of the above.

I would argue that the designers of other mmo's sat in a room and thought up the most efficient and easiest way to keep people filling their pockets, by getting them to play *** content and "cul the herd" of boars, emus, wolves, goblins and other *** uninspired enemys on an endless loop.

My suggestion to you is just like every other free thinking individual in the world, compare this game to the other games you could be playing and at least PLAY THE ONE YOU ENJOY. You are not "bind on pickup", you can leave at any time.

I spend some time thinking about my spec, especially morphs which are designed (I think brilliantly) to be tough choices. I often google my morph choices or ask in the forums. This is called strategy.

There should be some benefit for playing this game strategically, and while I'd like to take back a couple of morphs, I'm willing to live with my decisions. The penalty for making bad decisions, not thinking strategically, should not be nerfed.

Half cost to reset morphs?

Nukeyak wrote: »

I spend some time thinking about my spec, especially morphs which are designed (I think brilliantly) to be tough choices. I often google my morph choices or ask in the forums. This is called strategy.

There should be some benefit for playing this game strategically, and while I'd like to take back a couple of morphs, I'm willing to live with my decisions. The penalty for making bad decisions, not thinking strategically, should not be nerfed.

I did research my decision, because i was worried I would have to do exactly what I ended up doing: respecing and paying out the @$$ to change a single morph.

The skill in question was the morph on hidden blade in the DW skill line. The attack is kind of central to my build, and I wasn't sure which direction I wanted to go. Flying blade gave me more range, allowing for easier stealth attacks, and kept the attack's damage high, whereas shrouded daggers made the ability into an aoe attack with a snare.

Shrouded daggers, according to the tool-tip, had more damage than whirling blades, and didn't sacrifice any of the skill's already existing range. I took to the internet to help guild my decision. I searched these forums, Tamriel foundry's forums, google, none of them had much to say beyond the obvious "it's all up to how you want to play." So I chose shrouded daggers, more aoe damage would help in dungeon's and soloing right?

Well, I found out that the tooltip doesn't reflect the actual range of the ability, it's not 10 meters like it says, but more around 5. On top of that, it appears that it's not guaranteed to actually hit a target, and it doesn't do as much damage as the tooltip says. none of this was ever indicated by any of my internet research before choosing the morph.

Needless to say, I had to change the morph just to keep my build viable.

SilverWF wrote: »

Gern_Verkheart wrote: »

I should be able to at least just pay to reset a single skill tree, instead of every single skill point all at once.

Yeah, it would be great. But for 200g per point (now it's 100g)

I would be O.K. with this.

However, I still think that respecing should be free. There is plenty of precedence for it, plenty of games have done it and their economies are doing fine. There are still a lot of gold sinks in this game, namely: repair costs. That is the biggest gold sink (as it should be), not respecing. I don't understand why so many people want to keep the cost of respecing so high? Respecing effects no one but the individual player who is doing the respecing.

Dayv wrote: »

The respec system was not so much badly designed as barely designed. 100g per skill point is clearly a figure they just plucked out of thin air.

This is usually the case with all decisions in games. It must be 10 ,100,1000 ...gp. If it's a nerf it's 25%,50%,75%,100%. If it's a buff to some boss is usually double it. You never see some incremental/experimental nerf or buff of 5/10%.

bothnutz wrote: »

GrimlockSaves wrote: »

Agreed with the op. There are simple fundamental baselines at this point that ring true no matter the game. When a precedent of excellence is set by other games, you follow the precedent and build on it.

I would argue that all ZOS game designers have never actually played a game... not an MMO, not a previous Elder Scrolls. It is as if they sat in a room with some gamers and other designers and "listened" really hard, but didn't take notes, then botched this together and missed some simple lessons-already-learned by other games.

Did they want to make this unique? Sure... but you still don't ignore best practice unless you want to screw up. My suggestion to ZOS: Just like every other successful business in the world, compare your product to the others out there and at least MEET the baseline designs and gameplay concepts.

This is how I feel about every other MMO. The "precedent of excellence" for an RPG is the story, atmosphere, character progression and creativity. Other MMO's have non of the above.

I would argue that the designers of other mmo's sat in a room and thought up the most efficient and easiest way to keep people filling their pockets, by getting them to play *** content and "cul the herd" of boars, emus, wolves, goblins and other *** uninspired enemys on an endless loop.

My suggestion to you is just like every other free thinking individual in the world, compare this game to the other games you could be playing and at least PLAY THE ONE YOU ENJOY. You are not "bind on pickup", you can leave at any time.

Let's be serious. Even though ESO at launch is a better game in many ways(PVP,actual game stability and mechanics) SWTOR's ''story, atmosphere, character progression and creativity" were way better. We actually had to explore for our main quests not be sent to the main quest hub of blindman portal summoning (creativity lol). Also ZOS not trying to emulate and improve upon for example SWTOR group for questing mechanics was one of it's biggest mistakes. How the hell did they not think a similar system would be appreciated?

They had a good idea with guild store but they messed it up completely by making the store interface unusable. Finally if they were actually creative they would have realized that gold based economies are domed to fail and try to create something new that could have failed in a very unpredictable way. What they did was go for certain but very predictable failure and created a game where what we do is gather gold to feed gameplay hindering gold sinks.

Mablung wrote: »

Gern_Verkheart wrote: »

ZOS, why is this still a thing, why is this not being addressed? Why did you ever think this was a good idea to begin with?

I should be able to at least just pay to reset a single skill tree, instead of every single skill point all at once.

The answer is simple. The game was poorly designed.

What do you expect from a company, who has never before made an MMORPG and released it after less then 2 years of development. It's a miracle that the NPCs (mostly) walk upright ...

I dont even mind that it's a goldsink so much.
What I do mind is that I have to unlearn all my skills in order to switch a couple of points. It's just poor functionality.

Want to try another morph? Unlearn everything!
Tired of your werewolfy-ness and want to put the points in something useful? Unlearn everything!
Switch weapon trees? Unlearn everything!

I just cant imagine now with the game live for a bit, where they sit down and go like "Yup, we really did a good job on that one. No clue what they're on about"

It's so un-ESO.

Kulrig wrote: »

Sandmanninja wrote: »

WoW doesn't let you reset a single talent.

Vanishing Powder, Dust of Disappearance, and Tome of the Clear Mind say "Hi". They're also used in swapping out individual glyphs. The only restrictions are that they eat up an inventory spot, and can't be used in combat.

They changed it in MoP.

He probably hasnt played since BC.

Mounts and upgrading them, bank slots, bag slots, and especially armor repairs.

All these things are the major gold sinks in this game, as they should be. There is no need for respecing to cost as much as it does, because all the things stated above are more than enough to provide this game with the gold sinks it needs. If this game only had those as gold sinks, it would still have far more gold sinks than almost any other MMO; most MMO's only have mount costs, armor repairs, and fast travel costs as their gold sinks, and they do just fine.

The current cost and huge inconvenience of of the respecing system is extremely detrimental to the very core aspect that makes this game so unique: class customization.This game is all about "playing the way you want," which for many involves trying out a lot of different builds to find the way they like to play, which requires them to try a lot of different morphs and combinations. It's extremely hard to do that right now as a high level veteran character, unless you play this game as a full time job.

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

bothnutz wrote: »

I could not respec anything in oblivion, or skyrim. Be happy you even get to respec.

^ This. ^

bothnutz wrote: »

I keep telling people that want to play "swtor ez respec free lootzgrab 20 ability slots and purple items wiht 100k stats for every1'z" Go play that, if you want to play that!

^ This. ^

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

Your choices have consequences. Oh no!

^ And finally, This. ^

I disagree. The "consequences" for wanting to try out a new build are beyond reasonable.

On my DK I have to shell out at least 20k to change a morph. Some of these morphs are pretty role defining. If I don't pay the money I will never be able to change that single morph JUST to see how it stacks up with a new build. We are being punished if we want to test things out.

ZOS should not be punishing players who want to try new things or new roles. It's extremely frustrating having to pay so much to change a morph and I can't understand why anyone thinks it's reasonable the way it is.