Ah, but that's the thing, isn't it: If you can just revamp your setup, and then you haven't really made a choice, and so we're back to a set of powers you got somewhere, and then you choose some of them to equip. Is that really character development?
This, of course, implies that you CAN go on to a different build without any significant cost, that your character build choices are essentially impermanent and therefore you haven't really made any choices. Otherwise, your character build is rendered worthless along with all the work you've put into your character.
I disagree. If all the character choices end up the same because either you have chosen poorly and your character is worthless, or you have chosen correctly, but then they nerf it and so your character is worthless, the end result is the same and your choices amount to nothing. Since only the end result matters, if two courses of action lead to the same result, the only winning move is not to play.
No, I'm pretty sure this is very much a recent experience. This was, what, like a month ago?
Funny, that "temporaryness" is precisely why I decided not to play. Because I simply don't LIKE temporary things. Why bother liking them, when I can just ignore them until they go away for far less effort?
This is the same thing. You choose poorly, you turn into a skeleton and crumble into dust. Everyone knows that.
We have equations for that, too.
There also equations and solutions for that as well.
Well, that's precisely what happens in a single-role game in which there there are no consequences, yes. Obviously this is not what would happen even in non-RPGs.
Well, the thing is, the RPG-style is not well served by the MMO aspect, where RPG character building is about impactful choices and MMOs are about constant invalidation of those choices. The two are fundamentally at odds with each other. At one point, something has to give: Either the choices cease to be impactful, or there cease to be choices.
The issue with the secret world is there are no builds. Everyone has access to everything, just like most skill systems. The only choice is what function to pick at the moment. I don't see how this is different than ryzom or runescape.
Of course there are builds. Combining skills from different trees you can make a huge amount of perfectly viable and powerful builds. Its a great tool to mix and match skills and weapons to make either a specialized character or one that can be used for many purposes.
You picked 2 classes and could use the skills from each class and combine them. the skills came in the form of cards you could unlock by stealing them from different monsters or buying them etc. there were hundreds of them,
Yeah, I have to agree with Roqua on this. What you're describing isn't a "build", at least until the cost of equipment starts to lock you in. This is a loadout. You're like some kind of Generic Military Fighting Vehicle that can be fitted with wings, wheels, treads, armor, engines, guns, cannons, missiles, bombs, etc., and whether you're a tank, a helicopter, a fighter jet, or a jeep all depends on what you happened to pick as a loadout. This isn't really a build, although in many ways it's functionally similar to one. But you didn't have to really build it, and as a significant benefit, your entire character isn't trashed if you're loaded out as a tank and they nerf tanks. But merely being a loadout rather than a build makes your choices lack the same level of impact, for better or worse. I argue that in the constantly-being-nerfed environment of an MMO, this works out better for the player, but it's not exactly character building anymore.
Because you are as retarded as he is. A build does not need to be permanent to be a build.
Yes, you did.
Of course there is, you can spend years maxing out your skill trees.
If it lacks any permanence, it isn't really a build, now is it? It sort of crosses the line into being a "loadout" if there is no permanence to it. When I slot autocannons onto my plane to convert it for hunting bombers, I'm not running a "new plane build", it's just a loadout. I didn't have to build a new plane.
Well, that's not entirely true either. Just because you can be anything, it does not mean that you can be EVERYTHING. Take something like JA2. It's entirely possible to max every skill on every merc. Even if you do this out of boredom, you're not really going to actually use this capability. Just because you can do everything, it does not mean that you can do everything. Your mercs may be capable of functioning as a trainer, a doctor, a mechanic, and a combatant with maximal effectiveness. You can do anything. But you can't do everything, because that would require the ability to work all of these jobs at once. There's an opportunity cost: Every skill you can't directly employ and the cost of acquiring it is wasted. Odds are some lesser-qualified merc only capable of doing one job, perhaps not even at 100 effectiveness, is going to wind up handling tasks like hauling, fixing, and doctoring, while your super-mercs are working front line combat.
For the reasons I mentioned above, "max everything" isn't necessarily WRONG. It isn't even necessarily unrealistic. Real people don't just run out of skillpoints and become forevermore unable to improve at anything, after all.
It has the permanence the player gives it. Like any of the hundreds of rpgs with a respec function or cheats. You spergs are thinking about this way too much.
No, its like saying that a square soap and a round soap are the same. mechanically they mean the same thing. Everything else does not matter.
Which is reasonable enough, except that in the MMO environment where all your choices are locked in as such, there's basically no useful way to make a decision that isn't guaranteed to be wrong, because even if you're right, the developers will see to it that it becomes wrong, just because you were right.
