I’d worry that would lead to a death spiral: Where a player dies, and then their penalty makes them more vulnerable to death, so they keep dying and the penalty stacks up. Combined with the time to kill being so low, and you’d have a game where you couldn’t find your feet. Hell, I’m pretty sure one of my characters would be in negative skill points by now. Not, because I was suiciding to create rivals, but because I started out on them, was learning the ropes, and was getting murdered in very short order by enemies I wasn’t prepared for.
I’m okay with death penalties to some extent, but with the current state of GenZero, it would be hard to come up with one that wasn’t punitive for newer players.
I don’t know - my last four skill points have made very little difference. After 300 hours I’ve only just reached 31 points, and haven’t even bothered to place my last one. If I think about the really critical ones, there are only about five or six. Maybe ten?
Gas makes no difference, but you need it for lockpicking - there’s two. I’ve got two or three on hip fire, which were a complete waste of time - I never hit anything from the hip to this day. Stamina one, speed one, reload speed, and finally lack of aim movement. Everything else I can do without. So no spirals…!
You need 4 to get from 24->40 inventory slots, 2 for lockpicking.
I’m not worried about a player who can get to 31, I’m worried about a player around level 5, where their skill points keep getting eaten by deaths to enemies they still don’t understand.
Well, that’s why I suggested five deaths to a loss at first level. Perhaps that continues to level 10 at which point the ante ups. Lots of ways of doing it - but concentrates the mind and shifts the balance. And eventually you get better strategies, the more you think about it. I’m still developing better strategies.
still wouldn’t actually help too much though. one of the reasons for wanting a respec option vs just starting a new character and leveling them up is that it’s too tedious without missions to level up with. we could die a few times to get rid of the skill points we spent but then we have to grind machines to get them back
Even then, without a persistent source of skill points, it would just get tedious. It wouldn’t, really, add to the experience.
Now, I could see a 30m timer disabling certain skills on death. Like, “oh, you died, we’re turning off your signature skill for 30m.” But, even then, I think an overhaul of the skill system should come first, followed by a death penalty based around those new systems.
Yeah, it’s not an easy problem to solve. The big problem is, any death penalty needs to be built around the idea that it will affect newbies drastically more than it affects veterans. I mean, you could set up something like, “below level 31, there’s no penalty whatsoever,” but that just encourages not playing to level cap.
How about just being able to respec every couple thousand XP. And put a limit on how many times it can be done per character or increase the amount of XP between each time you respec. Not a big fan of penalties.
The only problem with this is if your character is capped at max level, you are not gaining xp anymore. Any system that has a finite “end”, be it xp, a limited number of respecs, etc, means that if your character reaches that end and (as an example) the developers change a gameplay element or skill itself, it can lead to a situation where your character efficiency “breaks” through no fault of your own.
It also dissuades experimentation in builds because you know you’ve “used up” a limited number of respecs, which then leads to cookie cutter builds.
I’m sure the devs can fig sumtn out. Some of us would like to try new things w/o starting a whole new character. But it’s not an absolute must have. Would just be neat if a respec option could be implemented.
I’m in agreement with you. Just that the solution requires respecs to be something that isn’t finite. It can be based on requiring a rare drop or cooldowns or being in specific locations, but there can’t be a hard cap on the number of times you do it or it becomes useless once you hit that cap and something in the game changes (or new tactics are developed).
Well, yes, that’s what he said, but actually, did he? Apart from a few whispers here and there (Use the Force, Luke) seems to me he was pretty much done. I mean, he didn’t swat any AT-ATs afterwards, did he?
IMO, skill respec should be unlocked AFTER you’ve reached max level and then, you can respec your skills only ONCE. Mess up in there and you’re out of luck. No more 3rd, 4th, 5th etc chances for you. If you want more chances, delete your max lvl char and start anew.
This gives balance and something to work towards if you did happen to pick the wrong skill along the way. That also assures you not messing up 2nd time around (during skill respec). If you do, shame on you.
