The High Cost of Respeccing, The Low Cost of Meaning

Posted by Stropp on November 1, 2006

On my look through the forums today I came across a post from a player complaining about the high cost of respeccing talents. This player felt that players were being punished for wanting to try out different specs. Tseric responded with:

The basic idea is about consequence through cost. Decisions carry weight because of costs or consequence behind them. In trying to estimate these costs beforehand and make a decision, this idea makes something carry more weight and be more meaningful for players.It’s sort of like why the only real way to play poker is with real money. Sure, you could use chips with no value attached, but the betting is less meaningful. People will bet differently with real money because there is more consequence to it and more repercussions from the action. This is what gives the game of poker its real value. The exchange between players and the betting becomes the real game, rather than simply having three-of-a-kind or fulfilling some basic game requirement.

When there are too many reset buttons and decisions can be easily overturned, boredom shortly follows because things then have no meaning.

Having players get upset or emotional about respec’cing costs only speaks to its function and the fact that it does what it does well. If nobody cared, it wouldn’t be a big deal and we might even change it. However, it was designed to make choices significant and that is demonstrated by how players react and behave in relation to it.

Simply put, Tseric is saying that actions that cost a lot are more meaningful, and that if those actions were cheap, they would quickly become boring. Hmmmm. I don’t really agree with that. After all, aren’t some of the most meaningful moments in life free? Moments with family, friends, walking along a beach with a loved one? Playing with your children?

Even in the game, the meaning comes not from how I change my talents to make my character more uber for a particular situation. It comes from the moments I share with friends. From watching an AFK player break formation and run towards a pack of Core Hounds. From being silly with fellow guildies. From just helping someone complete a quest.

I can see where Blizz are coming from, but frankly, if you are relying on making the cost of change prohibitive to players to make your gameplay interesting, you are doing something wrong. It’s certainly not what’s keeping me in the game.

I believe the primary reason for these sort of costs is to provide a money sink in the game. In a later post in the thread Tseric makes a statement that if it were a money sink, that would be Blizzard being malicious, perhaps to keep players grinding gold. Well no, a money sink in a game like World of Warcraft is a necessary thing. In fact WoW needs a lot of money sinks.

The reason is inflation. As with any real world economy, the government can’t print more money whenever it needs it. Cash is just a symbol, a representation of how wealthy a nation is. If you print more, the less it is worth. However, this is exactly what WoW does. It prints gold every time a quest reward is given out, every time a character sells a gray item to a vendor.

If there was no outlet for that constant inflow of gold, the world economies would inflate, gold would be worth less and less. A single stack of medium leather would sell for 2000 gold. Eventually a single piece of medium leather would sell for 2000 gold.

This is why talents cost so much to respec. It’s why an epic mount costs a small fortune, and a bag slot in the bank costs 100 gold. It’s why every MMORPG made so far has a money sink**.

So Blizzard aren’t being malicious for making the cost of talent respeccing high. If anything they should add more money sinks and reduce the costs of existing ones.

However Tserics last statement is what I find a bit odd. If players are upset about something, it’s working as intended. If players aren’t reacting about something, then they might consider changing it. Does this mean that if the majority of the playerbase enjoys a particular feature, Blizzard would change it so more players would not like it?

That seems counter-productive to me.

I would think that if players hate something about a game, perhaps the incessant grinding for rep, I hate Furbolgs and never want to see another one and I’m only at friendly, then that’s okay. Leave it as it is, don’t fix it because it is broken. Is this the correct attitude for a game developer? Should’t the primary motivation for a game developer be that his game is fun to play?

If something is not enjoyable, the players will find a way around it. Grinding for cash is not enjoyable to a lot of players, so they buy gold. By making talent changes expensive, the majority of players don’t bother respeccing, but some will spend dollars for gold and respec anyway. In a lot of ways this makes talent respeccing even more meaningless than if it were cheap.

Okay, so not every player is going to like everything about the game. I’m not suggesting for a minute that Blizzard should cater to the whims of every discontented player. What I am suggesting is that they take a good hard look at the features that the majority of players don’t enjoy, and make them enjoyable. If players feel the need to buy gold to do something in the game, then something is wrong with the game, not the players.

**Except, as far as I know, A Tale in the Desert. In that game there is no money, only resources. Players however are able to create their own banknotes based on the ingame barter economy.

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