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Neo

Respeccing

7 posts in this topic

Why is Respeccing ELs so expensive? 25,000 isn't that unreasonable, as that can be easily gotten, but 100,000 is a lot to spend. I'd rather not have to grind for 100,000 just so I can respec 4 more characters. There is a lot of "you can't screw up" with the builds, but I wish I could respec easier and explore what I like to play with. I wish I didn't have to care about where I allocated my ELs in the WoB, so then I could change my build when I hit WoR, or when I get the Endgame espers. For the WoB, I didn't put any EL's into Gau (sidenote: I love how he plays now, thank you for the rage/leap changes) because I wanted to put them into +speed later on and I didn't want to waste the money.

Edit: I also loved reading the unlockme, because the inner workings interest me, and wouldn't it save space on the ROM to not have that second interaction and only have the repeatable 25,000?

Edited by Neo
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It was a deliberate decision to prevent being able to change builds at will. I personally dislike even having the option at all since I come from an older era of games where the decisions you made stuck with you and the paths not taken meant replay value, but not everyone is going to play through BNW dozens of times and, as you pointed out, people are inevitably going to feel like they "fucked up" a build on a character (even though we go out of our way to tell players that it's pretty much impossible to do that).

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I pushed for respecs in the first place because there are quite a few builds that don't start to unfold until you get access to WoR espers. I wanted a way to keep those characters useful in the WoB with available espers, then allow the player to change the build they may have actually wanted once they got the requisite WoR esper. The increased price after the first respec was to discourage players from swapping esper builds like they might change their underwear. It's not really in the spirit of the system to continually change builds to conform to the next dungeon.

10 hours ago, Neo said:

Edit: I also loved reading the unlockme, because the inner workings interest me, and wouldn't it save space on the ROM to not have that second interaction and only have the repeatable 25,000?

It would, but not enough to really matter.

Edited by Synchysi

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It's an awkward mechanic because A) Almost every characters has a build that's better in the WoB and a build that's better in the WoR, so you're essentially forced into switching builds or ignoring entire characters (if you even can), and B) The 100,000 gp pricetag doesn't prevent the player from swapping builds, it just adds an annoying grinding requirement.

Older games did stuff like this, sure, but most of the examples I can think of are pretty much recognized as bad mechanics that more modern games try to avoid. In fact this mod even goes out of its way to remove this type of stuff, ie. the 256 battle requirement to uncurse the Paladin Shield, having to skip chests to get better treasure later on, etc. Attaching a huge grind to spec swapping feels really inconsistent to me.

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It really depends on your playstyle.  A 100 000 GP pricetag won't discourage everybody from respeccing often, but it would discourage many, including me.  And I don't think that anybody will grind 400 000 GP before every dungeon to respec for that dungeon/boss, which is the main issue that this system is trying to eliminate.

I don't think you are pigeonholed into choosing between repeccing/ignoring characters either; a character with no Esper levels whatsoever is perfectly viable in BNW, and a poorly built character for a particular part of the game is more viable than that.  It's not like older games like Dragon Warrior where the only options are grind or fail.

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That too, aside from Cyan & and maybe Locke & Gau, most characters' good builds are good throughout the game. vig Terra, HP/MP Terra, Kirin Locke, any Edgar, vig Sabin, mag Celes, (possibly vig Celes, pretty soon), Shadow doesn't care, Bank Setzer, mag Strago, mag/spd Relm; all are good in WoB and WoR. With a few of the builds I haven't mentioned being bad builds for the WoB and WoR.

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tbh, I think everyone should avoid any kind of "meta-game" and just do whatever the hell they want since in the end the experience each player have wildly differs from another one (foe example, I found out that hybrid Sabin is a helluva fun despite BTB's dislike for hybrid builds, so there's that)

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