Stat reallocation

[fingolfin]

I know this idea has come up before and im wondering what the official jouser/dlorak take is on it. How about paying for stat readjustment? I know there are a lot of people who started a character and wasted a lot of points before they realized what they were doing. I was thinking somewhere along the lines of 1-10 mil per stat point, whatever the math type people out there feel would be right. This would also help to alleviate some of the issues with other changes, i.e, "i had all that def for a berzerkers cloth/archmagis robe, now i can slowly transfer that to other areas." I'm not sure how hard it would be to implement but I think its a feature that would be widely used and help to get a lot of gold out of the game.

[Jouser]

My immediate thoughts:
   
This seems like a “quick fix” to a larger problem.  I believe if new players spent time reading the manual this could be alleviated.  Jon_Deciple mentioned that new players don’t understand the different player stats.  This could be addressed by adding a description of player stats and what they do in the level up window.

[Sora]

That is true Jouser, but there is also another smaller side of the coin.  Supers once you obtain supers (particularly Po?'s) you are pretty much forced to restart a character.   Another thing to consider with this is that players could freely change there build to try out new ones without having to start a new character or restarting there current one.  I personally am in favor of this to reduce the amount of ghost accounts that come into game.  Accounts that are made lvled to 50 then never touched again by the person who made it.

[fingolfin]

I dont see it as a quick fix really, while its true wasted stats are usually the result of a new player not knowing how to invest their stats for the first so many lvls, like sora mentioned it would also be useful for people changing their builds or compensating for acquiring new items. As far as gold sinks go i think this idea would be widely used, doesnt really hurt any players(new or old) and offers players a chance to fix a char without having to reset it.

[BillyBoy]

* MageBill claps.

I approve!

Jous:
I don't see it as a quick fix, I see it as a good idea for a new feature. Many games offer similar features (IE Bloodscape). And even if newbs understood the stats, they might not know the intricacies and good builds right off, and this would cause wasted stats. As easy as things like '(Level)*.72=Dex for 1st Hit' and 'Total Def=Armor+(Def/3)' and 'Total Def maxes at 95' is for some people to understand, we have people of all ages and all levels of intelligence playing this game.

Just we need to make sure there isn't a way to reallocate stats above Level*3. =P Though I wouldn't mind having 500 INT as a Lv100.

[Jamo]

Maybe you can work this into leveling.  Since we already have the - buttons there, you can actually use those to take away stats and move them... Then the cap can stay at 3 for any stat, and it would take longer to move everything you want around.  More incentive to level to correct your mistakes.

[Jon_Deciple]

Even if you do read the FAQ's and find out what the stats do, different weapons or situations cause some stats to be useless. Like finding a Po* or getting a better weapon, adding int instead of dex or somthing like that.

It would be something to think about.

Only thing i can think of as a problem is what to price the stats at? maybe 1 mill and add 500k every additional stats?

[fingolfin]

I was thinking 1-2 mil per stat point you wish to move. This is cheap enough to allow most players to use it while still expensive enough to discourage someone from changing their build every day on a whim.

[Jon_Deciple]

heh at that rate somone like amar could change his whole build like every week...

Personally i think it should increase in cost every point, the same way as extra bank slots do, so it doesnt get abused. PLus those with higher numbers of stats are usually a higher level, and as such have more gold

[fingolfin]

lol, even at 2 mil amar could not change his build every week. 2 mil per stat, say someone lvl 1000 has allocated 5000 stat points. To move those 5000 stat points would be 10 bil, not even amar has that. I know its not that simple, as in he could leave his str and shift everything to dex or some other category, but it would be very very expensive and not something though could be done often. Shifting 1k stats would be 2 billion, sure the richest person in the game could do that 4 times, but how long would it take to earn that back just from leveling, quite a long time. But regardless, as long as this idea is considered im happy no matter what the price is set at because i believe people will use it. Some of the other sink ideas i cant imagine anyone really using at all, *cough* warp *cough* as long as they are insanely over priced.

[Jon_Deciple]

i can make about 8 mills an hour at lvl 700
Granted i couldnt totally remake my build, but i could swap, say, all my HP to STR.. that would take... what, 600 pts... 1200 mills... thats 120 hours... To totally change my build would be reduced to 120 hours of lvling. Ok so not one week, two weeks...

If we started with a low value, 500k, or even 200k, and had it add that value every point, everyone could afford a few slip-ups in stat allocation here and there... But those looking to change over a mass load of points, they will need to pay a mass amount of gold.

Now if it cost 200k to start, and increased 200k per point, it would cost 36,059,800,000
100k: 1,829,900,000
The beauty is that starting at 100k, anyone can afford it.
14 pts would cost 10 mills
20 pts would be 20 mills
45 pts would be about 100 mills
63 would be 200 mills
100 pts would be about 500 mills

[fingolfin]

No complaints here, any chance an idea like this would ever be implemented?

[Dlorak]

its a late economy change. We're in a late economy. Its a good idea, at a good time.

I'll try to code it at the witch, be sure to bring plenty of gold and turn decline on. be prepared to do it one point at a time.

[Dlorak]

Its 150k per stat point, increasing by 150k per point.
150
300
450
600

[Amaruak]

woot, I can remove this int.

[Jon_Deciple]

YAY!

Depending how the def thing goes, perhaps this could be free for some of us with larger levels and lower gold... Especially if / when archi robes and zerker clothes get nurfed...

[Tina]

free kinda defeats the purpose, in my opinion

[fingolfin]

I agree, i like the price where it is, finally i can say adios to my 27 int....

[Markus]

Since it's no big surprise I play it, I'm gonna use GW as an example here to support my position on stat reallocation prices in quest.

GW is a game where you *must* adapt your character's build to suit whatever situation you will be in, else you fail. And you fail HARD. Unless of course your team covers for you but in that case, your still useless and then your just being carried.

So in GW stat/attribute point reallocation is CRUCIAL. Therefor it's free.

Now in Quest, the need to adapt is... well, not so much. Nor is Quest a "team" based game. It's your standard "I"m gonna grind to level 5 trillion and pwn those n00bz" kind of game. So it's a simple game that relies heavily on players grinding to achieve a goal, be it a high level, more PKs, etc. Either way most of those goals end up meaning you need a higher level anyway.

Now if you were to take away the restriction/price on stat reallocation...

IMO this would utterly DESTROY Quest's staying power. Frankly there aren't enough different builds to keep people interested if they could try them out all at once.

Course I could just be jaded I guess...

[Jon_Deciple]

im not saying make it permenant... But for a short while allow players to move stats to def so they have decent defence... Not all players can afford to move stats to get def to protect their chars...