There hasnt been a single valid argument in this entire forum for why job resets are good. All im asking is for a good reason, why cant you give it to me?
As a game designer, you create a game design whereupon you intend perfect balance. That does not happen. Inevitable, players will find something you overlooked, or will develop patterns of behavior which you had not planned. These necessitate balance and even design changes as time goes on. As a developer, you should not (and will not) sacrifice balance for the many so that one player can keep his preferred playstyle. This may include changes to equipment requirements, changes to movement, or changes to other prerequisites (such as requiring a player to unmount before using an ability).
Not only that, but you generally cannot balance effectively as a designer if people cannot adapt their builds. Consider this example: There will always be some abilities which outclass others at the same role. There may be two such abilities available to a player with his given class selection. Which of the two abilities the player selects is almost universally merely a question of power. Now letâs say that the one not selected was terribly underpowered, and the one selected was terribly overpowered. If that power curve is reversed, then you as a designer have two poor options: the first is to leave the balance issue in, and the second is to hamstring the player who came along too early and selected the wrong ability which was the correct selection at the time but which cannot be changed.
There are a few ways around this, but they are mostly fall into three categories. The first option is skill resets, which most successful MMOs utilize. Blade and Soul, the most popular competitive MMO worldwide, allows unrestricted skill changes any time you are not in combat, and that decision is central to its 1v1-focused balance. The second is an class-inclusive leveling system, whereupon you can continue to level the older skills again to compensate. One example there is ArcheAge, where you can level all 10 skillsets to 55 and then select whichever 3 suit you at a given time. Again, PvP-focused game. The third option is essentially to prevent nontrivial build differences from arising at all by limiting choice. This is more typically seen in PvE-focused games, like Final Fantasy XIVâs approach.
Insofar as a gameâs design can be wrong â that is, punishing for little or no benefit â preventing resets in Tree of Savior is essentially wrong. When there are no resets in a complex build system, players are required to research the effectiveness of their preferred builds beforehand, and gamble on the likelihood of changes later which would affect the usefulness of their builds. Remember that as a social game, selecting a weaker build affects not only the playerâs experience against opponents but also the experience of players around him (who would rather not play hardmode) and the ostracizing impact of later balance changes. If I want to play a spear-and-pistol Corsair, only to have my abilities restricted in the interest of balance, what might have been a curious but passable build could leave me unable to actually enjoy the game. Remember: not all possible builds are necessarily viable at any given time (wtb: two-handed peco knight).
Furthermore, because effective builds are often less fun to level and require intense time investment, players become far more willing to use illicit means to compensate. Grind-heavy games have always been bot-heavy games. I have used this example before, but there were quite few people who actually played Lineage II despite that it boasted more than 500k subscriptions. Most players used bots. There was a similar problem with Silkroad Online. RO was notoriously botted. These are just a few of the examples, but itâs generally pretty predictable: if you ask a player to grind 400 hours a month to keep up with the latest competitive builds, heâs usually either going to cheat or quit.
Thereâs just so much wrong with the no-reset approach from a game design standpoint that itâs not even worth considering for most games. Rerolls are inevitable, and they are more likely to result in attrition when the transition is unpleasant. It is in the best interest of game balance, ongoing design, and sustainability that the present system be rethought.
