Please add character restart option

[DragonStar.1074]

Please add the ability to restart game progress on a character as an alternative to deleting and recreating the character, through which the choices that were made for that character on character creation would be kept along with the creation date and time (as the character would be restarted rather than recreated), but the character's game progress would be reset to where it would be right after character creation.

Situations in which implementing this capability would be useful to have would include:

1) For people who want to keep the character choices the same as when they created the character (and also not lose birthday progress, which for a lot of people would also or in particular be an important and valuable point in having this capability), but want a fresh start or to re-experience the story on that character. In regards to the latter, since unfortunately that presumably still cannot be reset independently of other progress without causing serious bugs, it seems that resetting progress in general on the character back to the beginning would be the only reliable way for that to work while still essentially keeping the character.
2) For people doing their weekly key farm as it would make the grind for it faster by being able to restart a character rather than having to delete and recreate one. I would also hope that with the ability to do this, there would be much less data pollution for potentially keeping a backup of recently deleted characters, making restoring the availability of the restore deleted character service more of a possibility in the future.
3) For testing purposes where the ability to restart one or more characters rather than deleting and recreating them would be helpful.

There should also be a safety measure either in general or at least for non-testing characters in order to avoid accidentally doing this, such as one or two confirmation prompts or entering the character name in a form field as with deleting the character.

[Danikat.8537]

I think it's very unlikely Anet would make key farming easier than it already is. They know it happens of course but they've never officially supported it (because they want players to buy keys) and any changes previously have been to restrict it, like limiting it to 1 key per week.

For the rest it would probably be more logical to make the personal story repeatable like all the rest of them are. That would bring it in line with how the majority of the story works, and allow you to replay it on the same character without risking someone messing up a character by resetting all their progress.

[Zebulous.2934]

you could use the makeover npc to see where you set your sliders on the character creation menu.  Then logout and make a clone of your character.  If you really like the name then re-name the first character and give the original name to the clone.  That way you keep getting birthday gifts from your new storage mule and you can play the latest incarnation of your favorite appearance.

The request is very niche so the solution isn't going to be straightforward and simple.  

[Randulf.7614]

The devs have commented on similar things in the past. Resetting progress, changing story choices - the code can’t handle it and it would lead to permanently broken characters

[voltaicbore.8012]

4 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

The devs have commented on similar things in the past. Resetting progress, changing story choices - the code can’t handle it and it would lead to permanently broken characters

Which isn't to say someone at Anet couldn't find a way around the issue, but it would likely require a lot more effort than it's worth. I, too, would like to replay personal story (perhaps even redo some choices) on some of my characters, but I accept that may never happen due to the coding issues.

[Randulf.7614]

3 minutes ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

Which isn't to say someone at Anet couldn't find a way around the issue, but it would likely require a lot more effort than it's worth. I, too, would like to replay personal story (perhaps even redo some choices) on some of my characters, but I accept that may never happen due to the coding issues.

Indeed and I suspect the issue is less the implementation, but the continuous bug fixes that would ensue. So much interlinked I doubt they could foresee all the chaos. They’d spend too much time on the after effects and it would affect resources. For no gain.

[Kiki.9450]

I doubt they'd ever implement it, but I'd love to replay my personal story with my choices hard-locked, like (PoF story spoiler):

Spoiler

after helping Amnoon decide to either remain independent, seek aid from Joko's goons, or team up with the Sunspears.

That part is replayable but subsequent playthroughs don't let you change who you sided with.

I imagine it's a hard thing to implement though. They don't like touching Core content too much.

[Vavume.8065]

Just make a new character.

[WRay.2391]

7 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I think it's very unlikely Anet would make key farming easier than it already is. They know it happens of course but they've never officially supported it (because they want players to buy keys) and any changes previously have been to restrict it, like limiting it to 1 key per week.

For the rest it would probably be more logical to make the personal story repeatable like all the rest of them are. That would bring it in line with how the majority of the story works, and allow you to replay it on the same character without risking someone messing up a character by resetting all their progress.

One of the issue of key farming is getting new character to lvl 10. You burn tomes of knowledge or time for it. Re-setting story will make key farm easier as you already lvl 80 and will fly through story without any resource spending. I don't think Anet will do it even if it's possible.

Edited February 17 by WRay.2391
Typo

[Kiki.9450]

6 minutes ago, WRay.2391 said:

One of the issue of key farming is getting new character to lvl 10. You burn tomes of knowledge or time for it. Re-setting story will make key farm easier as you already lvl 80 and will fly through story without any resource spending. I don't think Anet will do it even if it's possible.

I think if they really wanted to, they could simply not reward keys on those subsequent playthroughs too. Want to keep key farming? Make a new character, level to 10, do story. But taking your main through the story again wouldn't get you any keys. That's an option they could consider.

[Lucy.3728]

I would prefer it if you could re-select the creation options.

If you want to play through all the story options, you have to start with 30 characters, including good logistics of exactly who gets what, to play all the story parts.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personal_story (scroll down to notes)

A project I've shied away from so far.

If I could reset a character without losing the birthday, that's something I would do.

[DragonStar.1074]

I brought up the key farming mainly because a lot of people would use it for that, and because I think at least part of why they got rid of restoring deleted characters was because of all the deleted key farm characters polluting the database. It would shave some seconds off without having to rush through character creation but wouldn't make it much faster, and would need spending time or items for levelling because resetting all game progress for the character would mean starting back at level 1 in the tutorial instance. It really wouldn't make much of a difference since key farming is already time-gated to 1 a week.

The main practical point for improving game experience for having the restart option would be a way to start over with your character while keeping choices made on character creation as is, without having to delete and recreate the existing character and lose birthday progress or create a new one and keep the other one that you would rather just be able to restart, and in either case having to go through character creation again and either try to remember what you picked or refer to screenshots. It should also make redoing the story with an existing character possible since there shouldn't be conflicts between story progress and other character data if all of it would be reset to the point right after character creation.

The ability to reset the character completely without losing birthday progress and also potentially pick a new race and class and so on would be even better. And I also think that redoing the story could be possible without losing game progress on the character to do so if it would be implemented as an unlockable second version of it after completing the existing one. Aside from that it still seems like resetting the character's game progress to the point right after creation would be the only way that keeping the character but redoing the story can work.

[kiroho.4738]

24 minutes ago, DragonStar.1074 said:

The main practical point for improving game experience for having the restart option would be a way to start over with your character while keeping choices made on character creation as is, without having to delete and recreate the existing character and lose birthday progress or create a new one and keep the other one that you would rather just be able to restart, and in either case having to go through character creation again and either try to remember what you picked or refer to screenshots.

Doesn't all this sums up to "I want to make a new char, but I don't want to pay for a char slot"?

 

[Teknomancer.4895]

I think @Zebulous.2934 has hit upon the only workable solution here.

Resetting a character also means messing with the Personal Story.

They tried that once, and it went Very Badly.

They are unlikely to ever repeat that experience.

[DeWolfe.2174]

They should just add race and profession swap options to the makeover kits. After a decade, I couldn't care less about the personal story, key farming, or anything related to it.

[evilcat.6817]

Key farming - isnt the most tasty way to have a spare slot, and use cooking to level 10?

Replaying personal story is very tempting, as i am a bit curious about other orders mission or getting all minor races, but maybe just make spreadsheet to track it and use alts.

I also see the space for keep everything story, and look, but allow class swap at level. Maybe just swap class is better option. The story is generally class independend.

 

Edited February 18 by evilcat.6817

[kharmin.7683]

58 minutes ago, DeWolfe.2174 said:

They should just add race and profession swap options to the makeover kits. After a decade, I couldn't care less about the personal story, key farming, or anything related to it.

Plenty of threads exist as to why they can't do this. 

[Labjax.2465]

23 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

The devs have commented on similar things in the past. Resetting progress, changing story choices - the code can’t handle it and it would lead to permanently broken characters

To be clear, it's wise to take statements like that with a grain of salt. Though it might be legitimate in the sense that it is a difficult problem and not worth the development resources for payoff, it's also the case that excuses are sometimes made just because like, it's basically annoying to deal with and they don't want to do it. I recall a story about that kind of thing, might have been shared on this forum, I don't remember, about such a thing. Was about a different product, not this game, but it went something like: the developers didn't want to bother with a certain issue, so said it was too hard to fix before shipping the product and then accidentally CC'd a higher up in a discussion that revealed it was an excuse being made cause they didn't want to deal with it - and unsurprisingly got told to fix it after that by the higher up.

We would like to believe professionals act "professionally" and take these things seriously to whatever degree of seriousness we associate with professionalism, but sometimes they're just human and don't want to be bothered with certain problems. Which can extend beyond business, too. Sometimes people come up with motivations for things that are supposed to sound rational cause others want a rational justification from them when the reality was that they "felt like it" or "didn't feel like it."

[nobleboivin.4102]

11 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

I think @Zebulous.2934 has hit upon the only workable solution here.

Resetting a character also means messing with the Personal Story.

They tried that once, and it went Very Badly.

They are unlikely to ever repeat that experience.

what did they do that went badly?

[Luthan.5236]

I think it is best to stay with the old char. Instead of "restarting" ... using just another free slot where you make a char to play through other story options. Most permanent stuff with exclusive choices is tied to the core personal story. You can just deleted and play again on another char on a new slot - to experience everything. While keeping the old main. Even if you made choices you did not like that much ... on the main ... it should barely (or not at all) affect the later content.

For stuff like the back item skins (HoT, PoF) you need to play it with 3 chars (making the 3 different choices) but once the skin is unlocked it can be used on any char. So there as well: No problem.

It could be convenient to save certain stuff for char creation if you want to delete and re-create often. But then again: Not worth the effort to allocate time of the developers here. Just a few clicks and the new char is made. Would not make that much difference. (If you make it to delete you do not need to bother with must things. Just clicking through the process of char creation quickly.)

[Bladestrom.6425]

1 hour ago, nobleboivin.4102 said:

what did they do that went badly?

Other MMORPG have tried the same and have had the same issues.  The problem is that the game would need to cope with character state, while avoiding wrecking account level state.  Now imagine the test cost in guaranteeing the is implemented properly, and the complaints and triage cost to deal with live issues if errors occur.  Imagine a player with 10 years worth of recorded progress and you can see the issue.

Edited February 18 by Bladestrom.6425

[Randulf.7614]

2 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

To be clear, it's wise to take statements like that with a grain of salt. Though it might be legitimate in the sense that it is a difficult problem and not worth the development resources for payoff, it's also the case that excuses are sometimes made just because like, it's basically annoying to deal with and they don't want to do it. I recall a story about that kind of thing, might have been shared on this forum, I don't remember, about such a thing. Was about a different product, not this game, but it went something like: the developers didn't want to bother with a certain issue, so said it was too hard to fix before shipping the product and then accidentally CC'd a higher up in a discussion that revealed it was an excuse being made cause they didn't want to deal with it - and unsurprisingly got told to fix it after that by the higher up.

We would like to believe professionals act "professionally" and take these things seriously to whatever degree of seriousness we associate with professionalism, but sometimes they're just human and don't want to be bothered with certain problems. Which can extend beyond business, too. Sometimes people come up with motivations for things that are supposed to sound rational cause others want a rational justification from them when the reality was that they "felt like it" or "didn't feel like it."

I disagree. If they say something can't be done, I'll believe them over anyone else 100% of the time. Most GW2 players think changes are easy and things aren't changed because the team can't be bothered, but if Anet say it'll lead to broken characters, then it'll will lead to broken characters. Does it mean it can't be implemented? No, it means it is too hard, that the follow up fixes are not worth it and thats fully legitimate on a zero return feature

The GW2 code is notoriously spahghetti. I don't blame them for not wanting to do something because its too difficult or can cause too many issues. Theyve been honest about that eg they tried it with resetting game account names and some character accounts I believe never fully recovered from being broken

[Teknomancer.4895]

2 hours ago, nobleboivin.4102 said:

what did they do that went badly?

It happened prior to the current version of the forums, so the only reference still available online is an EU archive:

Quote

Q: Can I reset my character’s Personal Story progress, or revert my story progress to an earlier state?
A: No. You cannot reset your character’s story progress, either partially or fully.

Q: Why can’t I reset my character’s Personal Story progress?
A: The Personal Story was not designed to be replayable. Attempting to adjust a character’s story progress introduces a wide variety of bugs across various content and game systems. We investigated different solutions for partial and full story resets. In all cases, the changes led to unpredictable results in many different content types, including permanent blocking of story progress.

Q: If I can’t reset my character’s Personal Story progress, does that mean I can’t play certain parts of the restored Personal Story?
A: That depends on what Personal Story state your character is in when the Personal Story restoration goes live. Consult the scenarios above for more details. Also, all newly created characters will be eligible to play the restored Personal Story in its entirety.

When I returned from the game after a years-long break, I had a cryptic message in my game mail about it. I found that story progression had been rolled back to an earlier state for several characters, and there were other strange things that were unexplained before I finally found out what that game mail message was actually about.

Edited February 18 by Teknomancer.4895
clarification

[DragonStar.1074]

In regards to my character restart idea and the story, the question is that if a newly created character can do the story from start to finish without problems, shouldn't an existing one be able to restart it if only the character creation choices and creation date and time would be kept, and all of the other character data would be erased with the character then in the state right after character creation (cutscene based on character creation choices, then tutorial instance at level 1 and so on)? That should remove all of the potential story and other character data conflicts so I don't see why that shouldn't be able to work as a safe way to keep the character and start over as an alternative to deleting and recreating the character or starting a new one.

[Omega.6801]

Even if it would be possible to keep let's say character creation date and creation data (i.e. the cosmetic choices and the the choices during creation) so that the process of key farming can be sped up while still getting the progress on birthday presents. What would be the incentive for ANet to do so? They technically lose money on the key farm and on the birthday presents while spending resources on rewriting decade old spaghetti code. Whereas the status quo cost them nothing and is only a minor inconvenience for key farmers.