There has to be a better way to show us what nodes we lost points in when taking off a piece of gear with +X to a skill than a dim red circle that flashes for 1 second. Removing and reapplying a piece of gear with +4 to any skill is pretty difficult to keep track of the nodes (considering they appear to be random, and also because the red circle just doesn't last long enough).
External link →you'd think they would use the first-in-first-out method. but it's f**king random. and it's different every f**king time.
It's not random, it's not different every time. It is deterministic. Test it by taking a screenshot of your tree, take the +skill item off and put it back on. Re-allocate the points and do the off/on again. You'll have the same missing points.
First-in-first-out sets up some very frustrating gameplay patterns of reallocating points pre and post boss fights.
I do agree that it should be much more clear as to where the points were removed from.
First-in-first-out sets up some very frustrating gameplay patterns of reallocating points pre and post boss fights.
Y'all should put this in a loading screen tip. Make it only show up if you've played X hours if need be.
I'm usually pretty good at guessing why things are like that, but this one went completely over my head.
I would also like to put it in the game guide too.
I'm pretty sure a dev once explained the logic behind how the game chooses then node as it's not random.
I think it's the node that's closest to the center where you can remove a point without breaking any related point thresholds.
Very close, it starts by disqualifying all nodes which removing a point would cause the tree to be illegal due to point requirements for nodes selected behind. Then it looks at the nodes with the most points allocated. Then it breaks the tie by looking at the order that the nodes sit in the hierarchy in the editor window. There is no way to know what this order is without looking at it in the editor so the tie break is arbitrary but consistent.
Or, and just hear me out, make the red circle permanent until the points are reallocated.
My favourite answer that I've seen is to output to the chat window so you can reference which nodes if you close and open the panel.
A better solution in my opinion would be to have a setting where the player can select a specific node in each skill tree that will allow us to specify which points get respec’d first. Essentially that would allow us to select the exact skill points we want to have removed when changing gear. All points closest to the node specified by the player could be the highest priority to remove when reducing the player’s allocated skill points. This allows the player to determine the outcome and should simply be a matter of giving the player a drop down menu selection in each skill tree with all the node names as available options. It could just be labeled: “skills to respec first:” or something like that.
That's the same problem as with first-in-first-out just more convenient and with a side of scope creep.
“Just more convenient” <— that’s what I would call better. Players would no longer be confused and threads like these would not exist. I don’t see the concern with “scope creep”, you just give the player the ability to control this skill point logic…. How is that a bad thing?
Because it creates a secret layer of complexity in making a build. Now you make micro adjustments before entering any activity. As the number of activities increases (which it is about to), this burden of optional play becomes a tedious part of the process. Build guides also suffer from the added complexity of the node recommendations for each of those activities.
There are things to consider that might not be obvious. This requires us to save new information in a new format. Now the saving and loading process has to be adjusted. It makes adjustments to that more complex in the future too. The UI needs to be created for it, that UI needs localization done for it. The game guide needs updating to explain it.
Each department that touches the system has all of their other projects affected for time too. I know it seems like a super easy, obvious win but a lot goes into things like this that are very hidden. We have to weigh the value of it against all those dev hours.
I'm not saying that it's all bad, it does good stuff too, it's just not so cut and dry.
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