Torchlight II

[Aeronaut]

Kinda bummed to hear about their adherence to the "limited respec" school of thought. The freedom to experiment with my Diablo 3 character's skillset to my heart's content without locking myself into something was my favorite improvement on the formula.

Hopefully someone mods that option in pretty quick for me.

You can apparently fully respec your character by using console commands, though it will flag that character as a "cheater" in online play.

[BardicKnowledge]

You can apparently fully respec your character by using console commands, though it will flag that character as a "cheater" in online play.

You can safely get around that flag by spawning respec potions on a throwaway character, and then putting said potions into the shared stash to be consumed by characters that need it later.

Just don't access the console while a char you don't want flagged is loaded. Flags happen on a per-character basis, not a per-account basis.

[ZealPath]

Kinda bummed to hear about their adherence to the "limited respec" school of thought. The freedom to experiment with my Diablo 3 character's skillset to my heart's content without locking myself into something was my favorite improvement on the formula.

Hopefully someone mods that option in pretty quick for me.

Same, as much as I am absolutely enjoying playing this game, the lack of freedom (and resulting feeling of needing to weigh your skill point decisions carefully combined with maybe even looking up what other players have said worked well for them) is my least favorite part of the game. I'd love to just experiment with everything then stick to what I end up liking best.

[Rockos]

I do find the way the respec goes pretty cool. I'm an oldschool gamer. I remeber I had like 50 char in d2 cause I loved to try many build. So by my side I find that all game now ask for respec and this is too much for every game. Some game need to be without respec. I find them more enjoyable.

Edit: And you can still try a skill and if you don't want it go respec. Just don't put over 3 points skill and it's okay. So you can try every skill of the game without spending any points.

[zircon]

Well it's not really a matter of trying a skill and not liking it, IMO. For example many skills are tied to specific types of weapons. It forces you to only play with that kind of weapon. Isn't that kind of boring? Like if I'm a dual wielding Outlander, and I want to try a melee or shotgun build, about half my skills don't work. That's lame.

[Tensei]

Yeah that's something that bothers me. I went through the game with a cannon engineer and I only used a handful of boring active skills: a piercing longranged shot, an AoE stun/damage and an attack/movement speed buff. The rest of the skills either didn't apply to my weapon or were must-have passives.

[The Coop]

I've read a few of the comments in here, and I have to say... full respec on demand? Really?

Have gamers these days gotten so spoiled and pissy, that they can't stick with their choices and beat the game with the skills they decided to go with? Half the fun is exploring the choices, and knowing you can't go back; that what you decide to power up, is what you'll be using for the rest of the game. It forces you to make the best of the skill tree path you chose, and want to play again to see what else there is; what other combinations you can come up with. Eliminating that aspect kills half the replayability of the game, and completely ditches the concept of being punished/rewarded for your choices... and where's the fun in that?

[Tensei]

Nah, it's pretty awful design when I invest ~8 skill points into Fusillade in the assumption that it gets better with the tier 1 bonus, but then it stays shit and is inferior to Autoattacks+ Blast Cannon.

I guess that great replay value will come from rerolling the exact same character with the exact same skill build aside from that one fuck-up then.

[zircon]

Yeah, that isn't actual replay value. There is a ton of replay in simply farming, advancing to higher difficulties, NG+, and trying different classes. Plenty of people (myself and Tensei included) invested hundreds of hours into D3 which essentially has instant respec anytime. It really hasn't hurt the game. In fact, most people praise the way they implemented skills with the Nephalem Valor system.

It's not like Torchlight II needs free respec anytime. Maybe allow people to do it once every 10 levels. Or charge gold for it. Or give bonuses to people that DON'T respec, like permanent stat/skill points every X levels/kills that you don't respec. There are creative solutions for it.

But really, it's the weapon-based skills that make it frustrating. In Diablo II for example, sure, you couldn't respec. But with the synergy system they implemented, at least early skills would power up later skills, so no point was really wasted. Furthermore, you could use whatever gear you wanted and not have to worry that half your skills won't work. In Torchlight II, your spec heavily limits your equipment choices. In a game ENTIRELY BASED AROUND LOOT, that's bad.

I still like T2 though.

[The Coop]

I don't say this in a snarky manner, but I don't know what else to tell you except to simply deal with it and press on, quit playing, or use this mini mod (supposedly, it doesn't affect Steam achievements or flag you as a cheater).

I guess I'm just old school, in that trial and error isn't off putting to me. That some things will work well with how you want to play the game (character choice, weapon choice, spell choice, etc,), and others won't, adds a nice bit of of risk to game. Having all that risk removed kills some of the fun to me, as you can just respec everything instead of doing your best with the choices you made.

[Otakatt]

Yup, glad I can use mods and not be forced to gimp my fun because others think I should play the way THEY want to play.

[ZealPath]

I think if they just removed the last 3 skillpoints spent limitation and kept charging you gold per point returned, that would be perfectly fine. Most games where you can fully respec your trees charge you per reset (rift, swtor come to mind) and I think the system they have in place would be totally fine, barring the "last 3 points only" limitation.

[zircon]

Yeah, that's the thing. There are plenty of clever ways to allow respec while still penalizing players for doing so (or rewarding them for NOT doing so). I can't think of any game that allowed you to change your skills, where I thought "Man, this would be a better game if they DIDN'T allow you to do that."

[Tensei]

I think limited respec is fine if you actually have such an extensive skill tree that different builds on the same character completely change its playstyle, so as to feel like a different class entirely. That way when you level up the same class with a different build, it won't be as samey, and the replay value argument will actually hold water. In my case I just want to respec so I can get rid of the points I dumped into what turned out to be an awful skill.

That aside, in most games nowadays, if you respec into a completely different build, it means that you'll have to change most of your equipment to suit that, which in itself works as a fine limitation.

[BardicKnowledge]

Thankfully, spawning respec potions in the console is ridiculously simple. I've got a big stash of them in case anyone wants one -- just hit me up on Steam sometime.

[The Coop]

Thankfully, spawning respec potions in the console is ridiculously simple. I've got a big stash of them in case anyone wants one -- just hit me up on Steam sometime.

Do you play multiplayer games with TL2? If so, doing that via console marks whatever character you used it with as a cheater/suspicious player in multiplayer. If not, then never mind.

[DaMonz]

This game rocks hard!

My username is DaMonz. Feel free to add me, I'd love to play OCR games once in a while

[prophetik music]

Do you play multiplayer games with TL2? If so, doing that via console marks whatever character you used it with as a cheater/suspicious player in multiplayer. If not, then never mind.

he uses crap low-level characters to do it. no loss.

[Rockos]

When torched2 will go out, I'm sure plenty of people will investigate and find a solution to make some skills more enjoyable and not weapon tied. I am one too that love the game but hate some part of it. Like the fact that the summons all have a duration. Or shotgonne have no skill at all unless a passive. Or even the fact that you can't health stole ability from your weapon with any skill. So mods will be our solution.

And for the part of the respec, I'm more of a oldschool gamer. So yeah I feel like no respec. But it's a choice.

This is a great game anyway. One of my fav this year!

[BardicKnowledge]

Do you play multiplayer games with TL2? If so, doing that via console marks whatever character you used it with as a cheater/suspicious player in multiplayer. If not, then never mind.

he uses crap low-level characters to do it. no loss.

Yep -- you can have console-spawned items, so long as the char you don't want flagged doesn't access the console. Just make a level 1 throwaway character and have at it!

[Kenogu Labz]

They could solve this issue easily by adding a 'cheater' tag to items themselves. Wouldn't be surprised if this happens pretty soon.

[Aeronaut]

They could solve this issue easily by adding a 'cheater' tag to items themselves. Wouldn't be surprised if this happens pretty soon.

My understanding is that this is what they're going to add in the next major patch.

If you equip a console-created item, you will be flagged. If you un-equip it, you will be unflagged.

Of course, nothing's stopping people from just editing out the flag altogether since files are stored locally...

[Kenogu Labz]

Hash codes. When the program saves the file, it adds a little 'salt' of its own and generates a value based on the file's contents. This way, changing the file's contents will result in a change to that value that the program can recognize. Plus, if the files are encrypted in any way, that's another big barrier for the player to cross.

When it comes to flagging based on equipped items: where do you draw the line? What if you used that equipment to get nice loot from bosses you were having a hard time beating? You're still a cheater, whether you're still wearing that equipment or not. And where do you draw the line? Consumables? Respec potions? Would using a consumable permanently mark you as a cheater, or only for the next five minutes?

[Argle]

I'm really digging Torchlight 2. It's done a marvelous job at not feeling repetitive, the major stumbling block of hack n slash games.

[Aeronaut]

Hash codes. When the program saves the file, it adds a little 'salt' of its own and generates a value based on the file's contents. This way, changing the file's contents will result in a change to that value that the program can recognize. Plus, if the files are encrypted in any way, that's another big barrier for the player to cross.

When it comes to flagging based on equipped items: where do you draw the line? What if you used that equipment to get nice loot from bosses you were having a hard time beating? You're still a cheater, whether you're still wearing that equipment or not. And where do you draw the line? Consumables? Respec potions? Would using a consumable permanently mark you as a cheater, or only for the next five minutes?

I draw the line at using the cheated items in public online games with a host that would rather not have them used. I don't know about other consumables, but I would hardly hold it against someone for having used a respec potion or a console-generated Giant Fish of some kind online. Neither accomplishes anything that would not have already been possible with patience or foresight. If you equip cheated gear and go to town on enemies and bosses that way, though, you've got a direct (probably substantial) and unfair advantage that the host may not appreciate.