In addition to the changes to skill respec’ing coming in .7.10
(described in this post Refining Skill Respecs in Patch 0.7.10 )
it might be an interesting mechanic if LE were to introduce Skill Plaques / Cards (whatever you want to name them), similar to POE skill gem system.
How they would work:
There would be a generic item called a ‘Skill Plaque - (Blank)’ that you’d have to purchase from a specific vendor (assuming the respec vendor) for some amt of gold (assume 5K for this example).
If you have a blank Skill Plaque in your inventory or stash, when you choose to completely remove a skill, you get the option of ‘Imprinting’ the current skill and level of the one you are trying to remove onto a plaque at some scaling gold cost rate (say 2K / skill level). It is then stored as a “Skill Plaque - Skill name (level) [Lvl req]”. (lvl req would be the minimum level you could achieve that skill level via XP.
The Skill Plaque item is then transferable between your characters / able to be sold on the Bazaar
When a player goes to add in a skill to your character skill sheet, you can expend the Skill Plaque to add the skill at that level, with the allotted unassigned points. In order to apply that skill card to your character, you’d again need some amt of currency / skill lvl (say 1K / skill lvl).
This covers several very important points in LE:
Helping repair the Skill respec System w/o a large player time investment / possible bricking of your character.
Allowing you to construct alt builds more easily (either on that toon, or other toons).
Creating a means for trading skills throughout the multiplayer system.
Gold Sink (if more are needed to balance GPH generation).
Also seems HIGHLY abusable by real money scammers once Trade is put in.
I think the respec system should be steep. There just needs to be a “training zone” or “character planner” so that people can try things out before actually assigning the points.
I’m not sure it would be any more abusable than any other tradable item, it would depend on how they implement trade. But it would likely be a much more desirable thing to try and RMT.
While I kinda like the idea, it would make skills hot swapable for bosses, which the devs wouldn’t want. Though you could say limit it to only working in town.
There’s nothing you can do about RMT. If ppl are dead set on trying to RMT via 3rd party means, it’s gonna happen, regardless of what systems you have in place in-game.
Mind as well make a better game with stop-gaps in place to limit it / make it more difficult, like making all trades to other players go through the Bazaar. Having a game where you can’t dump stuff directly to other players seems fine.
Honestly, I don’t even see 3rd party RMT as being the biggest TOS/EULA issue. I’m assuming botting will be a greater threat, especially w/ the current currency system.
I think you and Thefrobel are missing the biggest problem with RMT. The scamming of accounts that comes with it. These people selling things for real money don’t sit there 24/7 and grind out these things to sell. They steal peoples accounts, sell off all the stuff from the account, then use it to spam advertising luring in more people to scam.
Anything desirable and easy to acquire through stealing accounts should be avoided if possible.
If ppl can steal accounts then everything is moot, because anything you obtain for free has > 0$ value. Not sure why these items would differ from any other items in the game under the same premise…
Also, if currency is a closed system, meaning that you can’t trade gold to other people and all items have to be traded to others through the Bazaar, how would you profit from that?
It happened in Diablo, and WoW, and many many other games. Having them go through the Bazaar just adds another step. All they have to do to get all the gold from someones account that they stole is to then list a crap low tier white item for exactly the amount of gold the account has. Then log onto the stolen account and buy that item.
Most people don’t break ToS. Most people don’t want to cheat and steal. There are those that will do it if they see a real life profit. So they will steal peoples accounts. Take all their gold, and if your “plaque” system is there, then take all their leveled skills to sell for real money to people that don’t want to grind.
If there is an insanely popular and very hard to get unique item, you can bet those would be stolen too. Accounts don’t usually get targeted for items that may or may not exist on the account though. If leveled skills could be sold though, that would be easy and everyone would have it to steal.
Or just make skills level separately instead of requiring re-levelling and remove the cost for re-specialising entirely.
The only argument against this is to prevent hotswapping before a boss, but the thing is that not only would hotswapping require some time in the menu, not only would the only people using it in this particular way be people who are at the very top end of play(thus regular players may not hotswap), but even more importantly, most builds would not even benefit from swapping a skill out anyways.
This “opportunity cost” only harms people who want to experiment and helps no-one.
Why we have to relevel when respecing skills I do not know.
Even in Diablo 3 you can’t respec during boss fights (as long as your current rift is active), it does not change fact, that respec system is still cheap as hell.
It’s not similar to PoE skill system for sole reason that level requirements for leveled up gem are really steep and leveling one skill takes tons of time. In LE this would lead just to glorified free respec system. So if something like this would exists, I would rather see them drop whole skill system and just allows us to respec anytime in anyway we want.
But I am against free respec, so for me this is big no no.
We already had this debate here on this forum, but long story short, this is not true. For many making skill respec inconvenient is making the game much more fun.
In the end, they can’t make everyone happy, they should not try it.
All they have to do to get all the gold from someones account that they stole is to then list a crap low tier white item for exactly the amount of gold the account has. Then log onto the stolen account and buy that item.
Then if they can do that with ANY item, what does this have to do w/ the skill plaque system I’m describing?
I’m sure the devs will do everything in their power to maintain account security, but your point, in reference to my post, is irrelevant.
How would you considered it “FREE” having to pay 5K for a blank plaque, then 40K to imprint the lvl 20 skill (which would give it a minimum of I’d assuming character lvl 60-70 requirement), and then it would cost another 20K (all prices are just examples) to put a different lvl 20 skill?
I think 65K (or w/e it is) to swap from one level 20 skill to another would be the opposite of free, and not done nilly-willy (after adjusting costs for end-game GPH averages) …
Making the opportunity cost in gold instead of time seems much more conducive to the structure of the game. One of the biggest points of utilizing this system would be because it is a gold-sink. If you make it so that ppl have to play the game (effectively making MORE gold and not having to spend any), that creates the opposite of the desired effect.
Because I have yet to see one game, where gold is not irrelevant. By nature, how these games works, it not possible to have meaningful gold sink. Maybe it would be “hard to obtain” for like a month but in a year? Everyone and their mother could instantly buy all of these plaque.
If these plaque would exists in the game, I would make them drop, not be buyable by gold. It’s easier to control. Make them super rare and you could have interesting system…
Why are you avoiding elephant in the room? It’s possible to have all skills leveled up and ready on your plaque - you just can hot swap them, when you need (outside of boss fight according original idea). That’s what people like me doesn’t like. Gold sink is fine but as I said, I have yet to see one ARPG, where gold is not irrelevant.
It isn’t irrelevant. The plaque idea gives innate monetary value to every account. People used to level characters to max in wow and sell those accounts for lots of money. People buy the time investment. People will steal accounts to skip the time investment themselves and sell other peoples invested time.
I am sure items would be taken too, but there is risk involved in that that is different. A person can steal 10 accounts and not get any items worth anything. That is exposure with no payoff. Skill plaques completely negate that added risk. People only really steal accounts if there is a payoff. You are suggesting a system that gives every account a payoff.
If an entity is trying to steal accounts, they steal any and every account they can, regardless of what is on them. They do this because ANY items you pay 0 for and then can sell for in-game gold / real $ irl is ‘profitable’…
No one goes “Oh this account might have X on it, I’m going to devise a plan to somehow steal the credentials…” If they can, the devs have a bigger problem than what in-game items exist.
Specific items on an account doesn’t change whether or not someone is trying to steal an account…
As long as ppl know how to not get their account stolen, again, your point is moot.
This is the last entry regarding ‘account theft’ I’m going to reply to, because it is a non sequitur that has no bearing on game mechanics or items.
Okay, I read your idea and while it’s interesting, it’s too complex for average Joe to grasp - especially if he just want play some ARPG. I don’t see something like this happening anytime soon.
Don’t get me wrong, would be interesting to see that in the game, but chance of that is pretty much zero.
Considering most people know how to use skill gems in POE after a 5 minute explanation / reading a new player guide, I think they’d be able to pick it up here as well… especially if you take POE linking and supports into account. This is a much more simple system, and entirely supplemental (you don’t even need to use it) to the current system.
Correct me if I am wrong, but what you are proposing is have to limited amount of gold in economy. Which is based on number of players/characters. While it may be edge case scenario, it also means that at some point, some people may hoard money from economy and don’t return it back, right?
So what exactly will happen with new player when gold is not generated in any way? Can be just locked out from obtaining gold if there is none of very limited amount of gold in economy?
