Once you have better gear and can run tougher content, its pretty easy to grind out other abilities in the wheel. You can also gain ap/sp in pvp. And faction bonuses from pvp make it faster so get out there and support your side!

Originally posted by Derpybird

Originally posted by Asuran24

Originally posted by Beyorn

So in a sense we still have levels ;P?

Only in that it is a measure of aqquiring powers, and progression, but not in gauging how powerful you are compared to other creatures, and so to determine if you can fight "that mob or this mob" kind of mentality of leveling. Most leveling is more of a stat progresion leveling such as getting high strength or hp, while in tsw leveling is more ability/power aquiring to gain utlilties to do well in many areas of the game when called on. In the tradional sense of levels tsw has absolutely no levels as how much exp you have gained does not make you vastly stronger than another layer just by the merrit of having gained those exp points, but that you have a better supply of abilities to create a better build that is stronger than a player which gained less exp than you, but it is all in how you spend your points not in merely gaining exp points or leveling that makes you stronger alone.

Mobs do have a relative strength indicator compared to your toon.

Conning Symbol Colors: range in a spectrum from green > blue > white > yellow > orange > red. White means "roughly same strength as you are". Green and blue are weaker than you are, and yellow > orange > red are stronger than you are. If you pay attention while you progress in Kingsmouth, you'll notice that a lot of mobs that were formerly orange turn yellow eventually as you start equipping more QL1 and QL2 gear items, and certainly you'll see differences by the time you are wearing mostly QL3 gear. 

So the game must have some internal system for measuring your "level" vs mob levels.

No that is a stat comparing system as your stats from gear and such go up by aqquiring gear, you can fight stronger mobs that were harder for you to fight before (never yet found a mob that i could not kill regardless of my progression.). In systems like wow it is your level that determines your experince gained from mobs not your gear you have, as such a twink character gains as much as a undergearedd character of the same level, but in tsw a undergeared character gains more compared to one with better gear. Level systems like wow and a stat/gear disparity systems like in tsw are not the same as i pointed out they determine how hard somethiing is by different things.

Originally posted by Asuran24

Originally posted by Derpybird

Originally posted by Asuran24

Originally posted by Beyorn

So in a sense we still have levels ;P?

Only in that it is a measure of aqquiring powers, and progression, but not in gauging how powerful you are compared to other creatures, and so to determine if you can fight "that mob or this mob" kind of mentality of leveling. Most leveling is more of a stat progresion leveling such as getting high strength or hp, while in tsw leveling is more ability/power aquiring to gain utlilties to do well in many areas of the game when called on. In the tradional sense of levels tsw has absolutely no levels as how much exp you have gained does not make you vastly stronger than another layer just by the merrit of having gained those exp points, but that you have a better supply of abilities to create a better build that is stronger than a player which gained less exp than you, but it is all in how you spend your points not in merely gaining exp points or leveling that makes you stronger alone.

Mobs do have a relative strength indicator compared to your toon.

Conning Symbol Colors: range in a spectrum from green > blue > white > yellow > orange > red. White means "roughly same strength as you are". Green and blue are weaker than you are, and yellow > orange > red are stronger than you are. If you pay attention while you progress in Kingsmouth, you'll notice that a lot of mobs that were formerly orange turn yellow eventually as you start equipping more QL1 and QL2 gear items, and certainly you'll see differences by the time you are wearing mostly QL3 gear. 

So the game must have some internal system for measuring your "level" vs mob levels.

No that is a stat comparing system as your stats from gear and such go up by aqquiring gear, you can fight stronger mobs that were harder for you to fight before (never yet found a mob that i could not kill regardless of my progression.). In systems like wow it is your level that determines your experince gained from mobs not your gear you have, as such a twink character gains as much as a undergearedd character of the same level, but in tsw a undergeared character gains more compared to one with better gear. Level systems like wow and a stat/gear disparity systems like in tsw are not the same as i pointed out they determine how hard somethiing is by different things.

Would you agree whether or not the stats are assigned to your toon as in a classic level system, or assigned to the tier quality of the gear that you can equip as in TSW, that they function in much the same way? And it is through this stat comparison that mob difficulty is determined by the game. Of course, you can kill "higher level" mobs through good selection of talents etc.

Originally posted by Derpybird

Originally posted by Asuran24

Originally posted by Derpybird

Originally posted by Asuran24

Originally posted by Beyorn

So in a sense we still have levels ;P?

Only in that it is a measure of aqquiring powers, and progression, but not in gauging how powerful you are compared to other creatures, and so to determine if you can fight "that mob or this mob" kind of mentality of leveling. Most leveling is more of a stat progresion leveling such as getting high strength or hp, while in tsw leveling is more ability/power aquiring to gain utlilties to do well in many areas of the game when called on. In the tradional sense of levels tsw has absolutely no levels as how much exp you have gained does not make you vastly stronger than another layer just by the merrit of having gained those exp points, but that you have a better supply of abilities to create a better build that is stronger than a player which gained less exp than you, but it is all in how you spend your points not in merely gaining exp points or leveling that makes you stronger alone.

Mobs do have a relative strength indicator compared to your toon.

Conning Symbol Colors: range in a spectrum from green > blue > white > yellow > orange > red. White means "roughly same strength as you are". Green and blue are weaker than you are, and yellow > orange > red are stronger than you are. If you pay attention while you progress in Kingsmouth, you'll notice that a lot of mobs that were formerly orange turn yellow eventually as you start equipping more QL1 and QL2 gear items, and certainly you'll see differences by the time you are wearing mostly QL3 gear. 

So the game must have some internal system for measuring your "level" vs mob levels.

No that is a stat comparing system as your stats from gear and such go up by aqquiring gear, you can fight stronger mobs that were harder for you to fight before (never yet found a mob that i could not kill regardless of my progression.). In systems like wow it is your level that determines your experince gained from mobs not your gear you have, as such a twink character gains as much as a undergearedd character of the same level, but in tsw a undergeared character gains more compared to one with better gear. Level systems like wow and a stat/gear disparity systems like in tsw are not the same as i pointed out they determine how hard somethiing is by different things.

Would you agree whether or not the stats are assigned to your toon as in a classic level system, or assigned to the tier quality of the gear that you can equip as in TSW, that they function in much the same way? I think that is more my point.

 Yeah i would agree they both have a difficulty comparing system in place, with one being bsed on a static determine progression of power thru your level as in wow, and a more variable progresion f power thru choices you make in aquiring your power. All games will have a diffulty rating system that allows players to know how hard, as well as what kind of reward they will gain from fighting a mob, unless the game compeltely masked the difficulty of the mob till you fight it. The two system work towards the same aim, but take vary different paths to get there.

Im not sure why people even suggest that players will be grinding repeatable quests to fill out their skills....

Theres dungeons and pvp that will do that. Your going to be "grinding" one or both of those options anyway...since they are fun.

I see repeatable quests as reward for helping friends.  You can help out a new player and get a reward as a vet.  That or im sure people will repeate a quest over and over if they want more than one of the offerd rewards...i know i did that in the first beta but i was locked into one area so im sure i wouldnt have if i had the ability to move on.

And yes you are locked into the skill you choose...no resets...which is why all the basic skills are similair and viable...you wont be gimped early on, and by the time you have the option to "gimp" youll know what your doing.

I see the only way to "gimp" is to try to methodically get every skill in every wheel, as well as spreading out SP rather than sticking with what your using..you wont really be gimping but you wont be able to progress through content as quickly as someone who choses to follow two weapons to the end then fill in accordingly.

I do get a feeling it will be limiting or at least feel limiting early on in the game in this respect...however once your able to do more content/dungeons/pvp you should have enough spare AP/SP to possibly explore other routes.

Filling in the skill wheel and theorycrafting builds is something i look forward to, its going to be my reason for endgame dungeons and pvp, i look foward to a versatile deck selection later on.  Its going to be like having 5 max level characters rolled into one when im done with it.

Originally posted by Derpybird

Originally posted by Beyorn

If this has been asked before I apologies:

 

Since there is no respect in the game (which I can tell anyway), when you spend your points they are    forever locked in. So my question is:

 

Let’s say I change my mind and I don’t like a spec I have.  Doesn’t that mean I will then need to grind out more points to spend on the new skills also meaning that I will get these new skill points more slowly (since I already have some)?  I guess I mean is it going to be like the AA points in EQ2?  Once you get past a certain number of points it will get slower and slower to get the points.

 

I hope all that made sense.

There is no ability to respec at present.

Developers have stated that in order to unlock the full talent wheel that players will need to grind, either repeatable quests or dungeons, given that there are 8 zones with around 15-20 hours of content per zone (that is an estimate, and I believe that they have been holding back some content for release). I'm honestly not sure if PvP awards SP & AP though I assume it must.

Experience given from missions scales with the area, so even though tier 3 talents cost significantly more points than tier 1, you acquire them much more quickly by questing in Egypt onward.

IMO of course.

It was stated that there was 150 hours of  "the story" There is much much more with the other quest types added in.

And yeah if you are "grinding for points" your kinda doing it wrong. Do what you do and the points will come quicker and quicker. 

Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by Derpybird

Originally posted by Beyorn

If this has been asked before I apologies:

 

Since there is no respect in the game (which I can tell anyway), when you spend your points they are    forever locked in. So my question is:

 

Let’s say I change my mind and I don’t like a spec I have.  Doesn’t that mean I will then need to grind out more points to spend on the new skills also meaning that I will get these new skill points more slowly (since I already have some)?  I guess I mean is it going to be like the AA points in EQ2?  Once you get past a certain number of points it will get slower and slower to get the points.

 

I hope all that made sense.

There is no ability to respec at present.

Developers have stated that in order to unlock the full talent wheel that players will need to grind, either repeatable quests or dungeons, given that there are 8 zones with around 15-20 hours of content per zone (that is an estimate, and I believe that they have been holding back some content for release). I'm honestly not sure if PvP awards SP & AP though I assume it must.

Experience given from missions scales with the area, so even though tier 3 talents cost significantly more points than tier 1, you acquire them much more quickly by questing in Egypt onward.

IMO of course.

It was stated that there was 150 hours of  "the story" There is much much more with the other quest types added in.

 

And yeah if you are "grinding for points" your kinda doing it wrong. Do what you do and the points will come quicker and quicker. 

WHAT??? open beta 3, there was about an 20 minutes of story in the starting area and an hour of story in the first zone and maybe an hour and a half of story in the second zone.  There are 6 other zones so 15 hours would seem closer to reality for the main story, a typo?  It took about 10 hours to finish the vast majority of the quest, so I would use my head and project the game taking 80 hours +/- 10 hours to finish all the questsm after that you are grinding something to progress. I always pay attention to the main story in games and was suprised that SWTOR and Tera seemed to have more main story in the first 20 hours.

OP: it is different and the same. I played eq2 and grinded quests to level and the higher the quest the more AA. That part is the same,  the second zone gave more xp/sp than the first.  When the game goes live I see no reason to grind the SP/AP anywhere but in the highest two zones.

In EQ 1 the AAs required more points per level in eq1 they are based from a level 70 toon, which skews my first point but AAs require more XP after a certain point.  The XP/SP per point in this seems linear but I didn't check and couldn't make out the XP/SP bar.  In EQ the were AA sweet spots but I think in both games it is much better to get to the highest xp zone and grind there because those mobs and quests give so much XP/kill.  EQ called it mud flation where Mobs get way more HPs, this game had that in the second zone but because SP/XP was comming so much faster in the second zone it can be ignored.

Originally posted by tares

Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by Derpybird

Originally posted by Beyorn

If this has been asked before I apologies:

 

Since there is no respect in the game (which I can tell anyway), when you spend your points they are    forever locked in. So my question is:

 

Let’s say I change my mind and I don’t like a spec I have.  Doesn’t that mean I will then need to grind out more points to spend on the new skills also meaning that I will get these new skill points more slowly (since I already have some)?  I guess I mean is it going to be like the AA points in EQ2?  Once you get past a certain number of points it will get slower and slower to get the points.

 

I hope all that made sense.

There is no ability to respec at present.

Developers have stated that in order to unlock the full talent wheel that players will need to grind, either repeatable quests or dungeons, given that there are 8 zones with around 15-20 hours of content per zone (that is an estimate, and I believe that they have been holding back some content for release). I'm honestly not sure if PvP awards SP & AP though I assume it must.

Experience given from missions scales with the area, so even though tier 3 talents cost significantly more points than tier 1, you acquire them much more quickly by questing in Egypt onward.

IMO of course.

It was stated that there was 150 hours of  "the story" There is much much more with the other quest types added in.

 

And yeah if you are "grinding for points" your kinda doing it wrong. Do what you do and the points will come quicker and quicker. 

WHAT??? open beta 3, there was about an 20 minutes of story in the starting area and an hour of story in the first zone and maybe an hour and a half of story in the second zone.  There are 6 other zones so 15 hours would seem closer to reality for the main story, a typo?  It took about 10 hours to finish the vast majority of the quest, so I would use my head and project the game taking 80 hours +/- 10 hours to finish all the questsm after that you are grinding something to progress. I always pay attention to the main story in games and was suprised that SWTOR and Tera seemed to have more main story in the first 20 hours.

 

I think your missing something ;) 

nevermind

Originally posted by Beyorn

What Im really worried about is that I'm going to play a melee dps with my group this time (I have never done this before, Im usually the healer).  Once I have spend maybe 15 -18 points in clas and chaos magic and decide I dont like it after all those points are wasted (the way I understand anyway).  So I will need to use the points I have in a spec I dont like to get more points to spend on skills in another build i want to try (say bloodmagic).  It will take me longer to get those 15 -18 points again if I understand right (since I already have all those points tied up in claw and choas magic.  Is that right?  I wish the points you have spend were not locked in, what if you make a horrible trainwreck of a build.  It would make more sense to me just to start all over and get the points fast and build your deck up that way?  Am I totally wrong on this?

Yes youre totaly wrong on this. It wont take you longer to get the next 15-18 points. It will go at the same phase, or even faster if you get further in the game.

I fully understand the way the system is designed, but i do think that given the openness of the system, they'll need to add in some kind of limited respec.  And by limited, I mean something that is real-time based - like "Reset X amount of APs per month" or "get 1 skill refunded per week".  

They game certainly does NOT lend itself to the sort of "reset as much as you want" system that other recent games have, as that would pretty much make horizontal progression irrelevant.  But I do think that early on,  enough people will screw up their builds or just want to make adjustments to their builds without having to grind out an extra 300-500 points.

For those that are really paranoid about screwing up their build, I recommend aiming for one of the pre-built decks first.  Multiple reasons for that:

1.  You DEFINITELY get at least one deck that works.

2.  You get a bonus set of (unique?) gear.

3.  Even if you're working toward a set deck, you'll still need to pick up A TON of other (prerequisite) abilities along the way, so it's not like you'll be totally locked into the abilities of that deck.

4.  Theorycrafting is awesome, but fact is that until you play a game for a bit, you don't know how some of the abilities combos work out in practice.  A combo could sound really powerful on paper, but majority of monsters might be resistant to it or something like that.  

I consider myself to be pretty good at theorycrafting, but when it comes to TSW, i'll pick a deck that has the two weapons I like and work towards that while testing out my own theories along the way.

You don't so much get a respec as you do get multispec slots for your builds. The difference is that as you spend more and more AP you get access to more and more "trees" from which you can draw your various abilities to build new and interesting specs. If you spend points and then change your mind you may have wasted a bit of time but no worse than having rolled a class in another game that you decide you don't really like after 20 levels. In those games you have to roll an new character and your time on the old character was completely wasted but for now having perhaps a bank mule. In TSW, that wasted time leaves you with some skills that you might never use but that is about it. The amount of exp needed to "level" or to more AP and SP is completely static. So if you waste 5 hours on chaos magic and then switch to something else. you can simply spend another 5 hours the next day running the same quests to catch up in your new choosen weapon. Or spend 5 hours  doing different but similarly difficult quests. the choice is yours.

And you never know, those points you wasted in chaos magic could come in handy some day. you may choose to revisit that set of skills and build it out later and use them in a different build that you hadn't thought of yet.

Skill points on the other hand are more akin to levels since they determine what quality level of gear you can use. But in this sense it is much more like having multiple characters in one or rather having multiple classes in one. That is. you may be tier 3 in pistols but only tier 2 in hammers. Again, eventually you can be Tier 10 in everything so it doesn't really matter if you put points into one thing and then change your mind later. Your different weapons don't really represent different skill trees as much as they represent different classes. It would again be like spending 15 levels on a warrior and then creating an alt and spending 20 levels on priest, except you do it withing one character.

The only real reason I can see to have alts in this game would be if you want to explore the story of the other factions. As far as character progression, there doesn't seem to be any advantage to starting a new character.

The idea of a respec is another bad habit ingrained into you from previous games.

Since the XP needed for 1 AP stays the same the entire game you get TONS of AP very quickly.  Even if you make a few bad choices it's easy to get AP for something else.  By time you're in Egypt you'll be getting 10 AP or more for some quests.  It's even more in Transylvania when those quests give 15-20x as much XP as Kingsmouth quests did.

The single build mentality is yet another area players need to re-think.  You shouldn't be thinking of tank, healer DPS as your end-game build.  You should be considering multiple builds or slight tweaks to a build and work towards diversity and use your Gear Management slots to switch between builds as needed.

Just because you're Blade/Blood (for example) doesn't mean you won't want a Passive ability from Assault Rifles for your build.  You would need to go down the AR tree to get that passive.

Heck I have an AR/Shotgun build that uses the Donor passive from deep into the Blood Magic tree but I'm not planning on healing anytime soon with Blood Magic.  It doesn't matter.. your character gets better through diversity and ability to adapt to situations as needed.

Later in the game you're going to want some way to remove debufs from yourself so that means either going deep into a Misc tree (for a long cooldown active ability) or into a tree that may not be a "main" tree for you for a passive to remove it.

NOTHING is wasted.

Originally posted by Dredde

Originally posted by Beyorn

What Im really worried about is that I'm going to play a melee dps with my group this time (I have never done this before, Im usually the healer).  Once I have spend maybe 15 -18 points in clas and chaos magic and decide I dont like it after all those points are wasted (the way I understand anyway).  So I will need to use the points I have in a spec I dont like to get more points to spend on skills in another build i want to try (say bloodmagic).  It will take me longer to get those 15 -18 points again if I understand right (since I already have all those points tied up in claw and choas magic.  Is that right?  I wish the points you have spend were not locked in, what if you make a horrible trainwreck of a build.  It would make more sense to me just to start all over and get the points fast and build your deck up that way?  Am I totally wrong on this?

Yes youre totaly wrong on this. It wont take you longer to get the next 15-18 points. It will go at the same phase, or even faster if you get further in the game.

you get ap faster as you progress. xp needed per ap/sp is constabt but harder quests and mobs yeild more xp. Downside is the higher level skills requier a lot more ap.

I must have put close to 50 AP into elementalist at the start before switching to shotgun, didt slow or stop my progress (was rough using shotgun untill i fleshed out the wheel and sp a bit more, but i was only aiming for some spammy range aoe).  Now im rocking shotbung for the high damage single target hits and the cone effect slow..

Originally posted by Painlezz

no RESPEC (you said respect), yes you have to grind out new points if you want a new build or playstyle.  Or make a new guy...

Since you gain ALOT more points in the areas that you will be in  when you come that far in your current specs, its about same speed to just dump your next 20 AP into a spec you want to build up and stay in that area and to the many quests you have around there. I found it to be absolutely same speed. if i bash zombies in KM or vendigos in SC or mummies in COG , its about the same effort /ap gained. Actualy i dont feel like leveling but once i got used to the 'pace of game' that you have with the story quests, the need to aquire all 525 skills diminishes.

For me, coming to TSW was like hoping from a highspeed train that races throu the sightseeing to a tram that slowly moves forward while you pick flowers in between. Wierd. Actualy nice.