Suggestion: Cert Respec

I love this game. I spend more time playing it than any other game on my computer as of late. Yet, there is only one thing I think the developers should add to complete the package and make it the game that I'll still be addicted to five years down the line.

The ability to respec certifications.

If you're like me, you've spent cert points all over the place since the release of Planetside 2, trying to figure out what class and niche you fit into and what you excel at. Wouldn't it be nice if you could spend a modest fee to unspend all your points and specialize, now that you actually know what works and what doesn't?

I do realize, and even promote the idea of a respec being restricted. Perhaps only make it available every 24 hours, or every week, to stop people from hitting that button to respecialize to fight whatever their current objective is.

Heck, even if it was only class certifications and weapon certifications went untouched, I would still buy it.

So please, Dev team, consider putting in some method to allow us to respec and optimize our certification expenditures.

No.

Play more and get more certs, you never stop earning them.

While I do agree to this, I expect it to be added to the SC store as a new income stream.

I just hope it has considerably stricter limitations than the ones in the OP, I'm thinking more 1 respec per 6 - 12 months (to stop people respecing after each patch to chase the new FotM OP spec).

1 respec every 6 to 12 months is far too extreme. There really aren't any FoTM specs past rocket pods and zephyrs. And most people bought those with SC, so they wouldn't be refunded. I'm talking about a certification only respec. There's lots of stuff that you have to spend points to test, and it'd be nice to save up a bunch, test out everything, and take what you enjoy.

The entire point of the game is to enjoy yourself, so why on earth would you restrict people's ability to play around?

Or one respec cert that is unlockable at a cost of X amount of certs and/or SC, and that's all you get.

I very much doubt they will ever allow this. It drastically shortens the lifespan of the game.

This is not WoW or other MMO's where you have a cap on how many talent points you get, thus there is no reason to ever Respec, because you can always just get more "talent points". Eventually you can learn everything in the game. If this was not the case I could see an argument, but as-is, they would be very very foolish to ever allow respecs.

No way.

I don't enjoy myself when people are respecing to whatever replaces rocket pods / zephyrs as the FotM OP setup and then farming anyone who didn't do the same.

But I realize the latest generation of gamers are unhappy taking any responsibility for their actions or decisions, they expect everything to have no consequences and be completely reversible. So I'm sure a respec will be offered, even though you can get an infinite amount of cert points just by playing the game (hell, just by logging in often enough to reset the passive cert gain).

I just hope it isn't added at the expense of others...


Testing is a whole other issue. PS1 had a brilliant VR area where you could test, I wish they would add in something similar to let you test guns & mods.

I'm happy we don't have a re-spec option. Especially if you had to pay to do it. You know what happens in most games when you get near the level cap? Things become too easy and the game is no longer a challenge. Also, yes, the OP-vehicle-weapon-of-the-month would be all anyone used, because they could. The player base already seems to be more concerned about cert gains than having fun.

None of the reasoning any of you have provided seem to be legit. If you don't want to respec, you don't have to, but you seem to be just wanting restrictions for the sake of restrictions.

Heck, Jestunhi seems to even be getting self-righteous over the imaginary war simulator. Back in mah day...

A respec is a reasonable thing to add, it just makes sense, and it will make them more money. More money means more content, more content means older players stick around, and everyone wins.

In fact, they're more likely to lose money when people spend a huge amount of certs on a weapon or ability, realize that they don't like it, and realize those certs are gone forever. That's a huge turn off. Yes, there is a weapon trial, but it only lasts 30 minutes. You are also using a completely unenhanced weapon, unless you're willing to spend 230 certs just to see how it handles with say...a compensator, forward grip, and reflex sight.

You can earn more isn't a reasonable excuse. Let me use it in a real world example: "Hey, spend all your money. Don't ever get a refund. You'll just earn more." I have a job, bills to pay, and a life outside of Planetside 2. You might be able to play this game all day, every day, but I don't.

At the moment the game has a large percentage of the player base who does not actively fight the enemy factions. Instead, these large, often platoon sized groups of people will find out where the enemy is not, usually on another continent, and just start to cap as many points as they can. Elsewhere, two factions are literally just farming one another for certifications.

The game shouldn't be about getting as many certs as you can. It should be about the actual gameplay. Instead, you get people spamming zephyrs and rocket pods everywhere because its the quickest way to get certs.

And the only reason you are putting forward is the lack of a way to test things beforehand (other than the awful weapon trial system).

That's the problem, that's what needs to be fixed.

And the way to fix that is not by making everyone suffer FotM hoppers who just move from one OP spec to another. It's to provide an area to test weapons & mods so people can make informed decisions.

The only difference this will make with "FotM hoppers" is that they'll spend SC points on a respec instead of spending SC points on a weapon. Your fear is unnecessary. It's not going to really change things for the worse, so please stop working against the majority of players who this would be advantageous for (you know, working folk who aren't living with their parents) because you're scared.

This isn't World of Warcraft. It's not going to result in rogues turning into warriors and then warlocks as one class gets nerfed and another class gets buffed.

A game designed around fear of exploitation just becomes crap. Look at what happened to Diablo 3.

They tried to avoid the exploits that happened in the previous game, only to find out that silly optimized builds were what kept people playing for ten years after its release. So they stopped working against that, and now the game is fun.

By putting a cooldown on the respec purchase, they would deter any of the actual problems that might arise.

While I sorta agree with you, I also see where the OP is coming from and I agree the grind is just as bad as League of Legends. Yeah, most F2P have been abusing the grind to unlock content it really doesn't make battles very dynamic as you do very much have a buy power option on the table. Respecs could be done at the cost of certs or even station cash and it wouldn't be too hard for SOE to divide what items have been bought with station cash and certs.

I've been playing MMOs since Meridian 59 and almost every one which offered respecs with little-to-no limitations it's exactly what happened.

The fact that we had pilots defending the previous AA vs. Air balance shows us all that this playerbase is not the magical exception where no one wants to be OP and get loads of easy kills...

Why not? Do you really think that everyone plays their favorite class regardless of the xp per hour? Plenty of people play a specific class and/or vehicle because it is OP. And if it changes so that something else was OP instead, you think they would not be willing to change class?

That game was just bad, "fear of exploitation" is the least of its problems.

Remind me, do they offer unlimited points to spend? No? Well then I can see how a respec would allow you to keep it fresh. That is not an issue here.

I note how you have yet to give a single reason why a better trial system (e.g. a VR shooting range) would not solve the issue you presented. You also have yet to say why the respec is the only option you are willing to consider.

All you do is tell people who disagree that they are wrong.

I still think there should be just one respec per character in a "lifetime."

Think about it, all them wasted certs because you didn't know what you where doing at newb stage, You get only one chance to rectify that.

bad idea, would be exploited for FOTM, I already have enough certs to buy anything I want if i could get a reset. Stop thinking you should get your stuff back just because you did not trial something.

A better trial system wouldn't solve the issue, because the issue isn't just weapons. In fact, weapons are the smallest issue when it comes to certification expenditure.

The issue is things like Nanoweave vs Flak Armor, C-4, Anti-Vehicle grenades, healing grenades vs revive grenades, adrenaline shield vs nanoweave mesh vs resist shield, and Jump Jets vs Hover Jets. Unless you spend points heavily into these things, you have no way to know how well they work and how well you work with them in an actual combat situation past the offhand comments of people around you, which half the time results in one person contradicting another. To top it off, many of these cost hundreds if not thousands of certs for you to witness their potential in contrast to one another.

Those of us with full time jobs sometimes only have two to three hours a day to ourselves, and even then we don't want to dedicate all of that time to just one thing. Especially if that one thing is simply farming certs and not actually doing anything entertaining.

Please allow a one time use recert. I know if you keep getting them, the game will be full of people trying the FotM.

People didn't know how broke the weapons were that they bought.

We didn't get the try weapon thingy till later. I know i would never cert into a broken weapon.

Somebody, (or somebodies) needs to stay up on current plans.

Cert Respec is in their plans for addition to the SC store (as is character xfer, rename, and other services).

I think it might be cool if, say, at BR20 you earned one "free" respec.

If they are planning on offering it as SC in the future, I surely really hope it's only a one time deal. Please don't sell them like candy.