Pilot Respec

[SinclairCo]

Add a pilot respec, it's needed badly. I accidently made my main character level pilot instead of gut cus I wasn't paying attention and thought he was my flanker...

This basically broke the build of my main character. There needs to be a pilot respec, especially considering that i'm 17 hours in and I can't find a way to edit the save files.

I'd atleast suggest making it difficult, or expensive, to respec people but cmon. This is stupid, and has borderline ruined my campaign. I don't want to restart (losing 17 hours) but at the same time my main character is now useless.

 

[Fiona Marshe]

Your PC is not useless; just needs to learn a new play style. Unless it was adding one of the abilities (Level 5 or Level 8), it only set you back a few missions.

 

[SinclairCo]

Your PC is not useless; just needs to learn a new play style. Unless it was adding one of the abilities (Level 5 or Level 8), it only set you back a few missions.

It was adding one of the abilities, hence why I said the build is ruined. Can't continue down the actual build I want now, it's extremely angering. I didn't even realize I did it until today, and I did it last night when I was extremely tired. Can't load a save back far enough without easily losing 3 - 4 hours of progress.

At the very least they should let me reset my PC, I don't care about other units. I could easily sack them and buy new ones, but the fact that my main character isn't able to perform the role I planned for him just upsets me. Really ruins a narrative feel if I can't even have a decent PC

 

[valhain]

It was adding one of the abilities, hence why I said the build is ruined. Can't continue down the actual build I want now, it's extremely angering. I didn't even realize I did it until today, and I did it last night when I was extremely tired. Can't load a save back far enough without easily losing 3 - 4 hours of progress.

At the very least they should let me reset my PC, I don't care about other units. I could easily sack them and buy new ones, but the fact that my main character isn't able to perform the role I planned for him just upsets me. Really ruins a narrative feel if I can't even have a decent PC

Narrative? Your PC made a poor choice way back when he was tired and now he has to deal with a prospective career that doesn't exactly look like what he always wanted to be.

Just like you.

 

[Mosey]

I agree that your main character should be able to reset skills somehow, but no to all other pilots.

I can fire other pilots (or get them killed), no big deal, but we are literally stuck with our commander forever, so it's a different story. They're even immortal, so I can't get them killed off.

That said, it should not be easy or fast at all. We should be punished somehow for it, perhaps a minimum 30 day timer to reset, or some XP loss, so people don't just respec into whatever they need right now.

That, or let us fire our commander and reroll while keeping everything else but that breaks the story so...

The only reason I'm in favor of this is because the game is infinitely replayable, so restarting the campaign isn't attractive at all but neither is an accidentally ruined commander skillset.

And yes, you don't need to ever play your commander but...it feels bad man.

Also, last point, if skills are ever tweaked down the line (and I suspect this will happen since some skills are underperforming by a lot, looking at you Juggernaut) it will be frustrating to still be locked into skills that aren't the same skills that they were. It's not an issue yet, but it could be.

 

[SinclairCo]

I agree that your main character should be able to reset skills somehow, but no to all other pilots.

I can fire other pilots (or get them killed), no big deal, but we are literally stuck with our commander forever, so it's a different story. They're even immortal, so I can't get them killed off.

That seems fair. I'd be fine if the PC lost a level or two and was out for 30~ days upon respec, would be reasonable.

 

[Donvale]

What if the respec was only for the actual abilities, you can't change the ranks you have put into the various skills, but you can disable the abilities and learn a different set.

Or maybe because your a legendary commander and your a genuine A grade badass you should just be allowed to learn all the abilities and just "enable" 3 per mission.

 

[JesterHell]

I'd prefer no respec-ing, it is an arcadey mechanic.

 

[Don't Panic]

There was another respec thread that was more about respec'ing all characters. This one I like -- just ME. I cannot fire me and hire someone else to shape just right.

 

[Donvale]

There was another respec thread that was more about respec'ing all characters. This one I like -- just ME. I cannot fire me and hire someone else to shape just right.

Yeah I don't think respeccing other pilots is neccessary at all, they die pretty frequently anyway and there is an endless supply of meat for the grinder! Your main character however is seemingly immortal (although mine is currently in hospital for 94 days or something...) so the early choices you made before you had any idea what anything really did, well you stuck with those! Presonally I would favour just having more flexibility with the main character compared to other pilots over respeccing, just because the general concept of a respec is so hard to make fit into the story in any meaningful way.

 

[Leraje_]

I would settle if the game allowed me to buy additional skills at the exorbitant XP cost and then chose which ones I want to be "active" - as it stands right now, all of my pilots are sitting on hundreds of thousands of XP that can't be used for anything and I have to suffer Darius whining after every mission.

This way it would actually give all that XP some use - let's say 100k per additional skill would be just fine.

 

[SinclairCo]

Yeah I don't think respeccing other pilots is neccessary at all, they die pretty frequently anyway and there is an endless supply of meat for the grinder! Your main character however is seemingly immortal (although mine is currently in hospital for 94 days or something...) so the early choices you made before you had any idea what anything really did, well you stuck with those! Presonally I would favour just having more flexibility with the main character compared to other pilots over respeccing, just because the general concept of a respec is so hard to make fit into the story in any meaningful way.

A general idea I enjoyed was the concept of being able to send your PC to a friendly world to be "trained" by them. I'm not that much of a battletech lore person, so I don't know how the different factions and clans differ in terms of combat, but becoming friendly to one and being able to send your PC to be retrained in something they specialize in could be interesting.

 

[Aardcore]

I'm not totally against the idea of re-specing pilots. It's like we have these simulation pods to shape the pilots the way we want to a certain degree and exp point, depending on if you get the max module upgrades, but they can't learn anything new from them? This honestly looks like an opportunity for the Argos to have another Training Module upgrade, something like a War Academy, where you can assign a certain amount of pilots (probably 4, a full lance) to basically reeducate themselves into whatever respec you want. They'd be out of commission for a while as they're trained on "resetting" their skills and then upon the set days of completion they're back in action.

 

[Lawler]

Or just let the PC learn all the skills but the rest of the peons just get the normal 3. Marmaduke or whatever his name was at the start of the game had all skills and he was your mentor. Why not have the option to live up to your hero?

I mean, he’s dead and all, but nobody lives forever, right?

Too soon?

 

[Kurnn]

Add a pilot respec, it's needed badly. I accidently made my main character level pilot instead of gut cus I wasn't paying attention and thought he was my flanker...

This basically broke the build of my main character. There needs to be a pilot respec, especially considering that i'm 17 hours in and I can't find a way to edit the save files.

I'd atleast suggest making it difficult, or expensive, to respec people but cmon. This is stupid, and has borderline ruined my campaign. I don't want to restart (losing 17 hours) but at the same time my main character is now useless.

No no, no and no! Some choices needs to be what you do and learn to live with. Its not like you cant hire another pilot which in time will get high experience.

I like suggestions, but this is a pointless one.

 

[MagnusEffect]

I agree that your main character should be able to reset skills somehow, but no to all other pilots.

I will do you one better. How about it costs the same amount of XP to go DOWN a skill point as it does to go up it? If your last skill cost you 1200 XP and you realize after the fact you didn't want it, you just need to earn 1200 more XP to remove it. That way you can still respec if you screwed up your build, but the deeper you go into the skills, the more costly it is to take them back. This would also give some minor benefit to "banking" XP after you've maxed out your skills.

I think this is a far less "gimmicky" way of allowing respecs that also helps simulate the passage of time it would take to relearn a skill. It is certainly a more "reasonable" solution than permanently locking the player character's skills in place.

 

[Queen Tekla]

I will do you one better. How about it costs the same amount of XP to go DOWN a skill point as it does to go up it? If your last skill cost you 1200 XP and you realize after the fact you didn't want it, you just need to earn 1200 more XP to remove it. That way you can still respec if you screwed up your build, but the deeper you go into the skills, the more costly it is to take them back. This would also give some minor benefit to "banking" XP after you've maxed out your skills.

I think this is a far less "gimmicky" way of allowing respecs that also helps simulate the passage of time it would take to relearn a skill. It is certainly a more "reasonable" solution than permanently locking the player character's skills in place.

Make it x5 the exp cost and you got a deal.

 

[MagnusEffect]

Make it x5 the exp cost and you got a deal.

5x the effort to retrain? I thought you were concerned about realism.

I seriously fail to understand the logic behind this concept somehow ruining your experience.

Not to measure e-peens here, but I'm also a hardcore Battletech fan of 20+ years, so the whole "super casuals" argument doesn't hold much water. I think for most of us, respec-ing is less about making the game easier and more about allowing us to evolve our strategies over time. I don't think anyone is asking for a hand-out. People would just like a more reasonable option besides loading an old save file (for me, I would have to go back 30+ hours to undo my skills).

For example, I did Piloting x2, Tactics x1 for my main character... which allowed me to be very aggressive in faster mediums in the early part of the game. But now that I own assault mechs, I'm seeing that my evasion skills are not really that helpful (would rather have Bulwark than Sensor Lock). Sure I could just not use my main character anymore when I run Assaults, but where is the fun in that?

 

[BellaStrega]

A respec option would be great.

Also cool would be an option in the game options menu to activate or deactive the respec option so people can play without it and without the temptation to use it if they don't want to.

More options are generally better than fewer options.

 

[Havamal]

Greetings Mechwarriors,

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