No, you cannot 'Respec'.
Spent points stay spent. However, this matters less than your equipped abilities, which (once learned), can be changed at any time.
New Skills and Abilities are Cheap.
Getting to a basic level of proficiency at which you can comfortably adventure with a new weapon takes a fairly minimal investment. You don't need to max things out to be able to comfortably use that shiny new Blade you just decided to switch to, and you can always go back and repeat some easier quests (All quests can be repeated periodically) if you need some easy and quick XP. Which brings me to...
Skill and Ability points are plentiful.
Seriously, you will be swimming in points early on. More than enough to get a feel for everything that's going on, and easily enough to 'fix' any early bad decisions you might make. And besides, by the end of the game...
Yes, you can get enough skill points to max out everything.
Character growth in The Secret World has been pitched as 'Horizontal, not Vertical'. Which is to say that, if you focus on only two weapons, you can max yourself out rather quickly, yes, but there are enough skill points in the game to eventually max out every Skill and every Ability. After a point, character growth stops being about becoming more powerful, and instead becomes about having more choices. And the best part is that that point is wherever you want it to be. If you're not having fun with a given weapon anymore, you can change it. Anytime you want. You might need to duck back to some easier content for a little while, but that isn't a big deal anyway.
There is a very good FAQ about The Secret World that has a nice section about combat mechanics. I think the part that would be of interest to you is this section from the 'Hit roll order' part of it all (And is where the link above will take you directly to).
There are five rolls in the following order for every hit. Even for each individual "tick" of a multi-hit attack (Burst, Frenzy, Focus, and Chain)
- Evaded? (If yes, stop here)
- Glancing? (If yes, skip the Crit roll)
- Critical?
- Blocked? (If yes, skip the Penetration roll)
- Penetrated?
This will give you all of the possible effects that can be combined and hold up to the combinations you mention in your post. The article goes on a bit explaining the information above but then also gives a nice break down of how these combinations can scale the damage as follows:
- Critical (positive-scaled damage) AND Penetrated (reduced by negative-scaled Protection)
- roughly equal damage:
- Critical (positive-scaled damage and reduced by non-scaled Protection)
- Penetrated (non-scaled damage and reduced by negative-scaled Protection)
- Critical (positive-scaled damage) AND Blocked (reduced by positive-scaled Protection)
- Normal (non-scaled damage and reduced by non-scaled Protection)
- Blocked (non-scaled damage and reduced by positive-scaled Protection)
- Glancing (negative-scaled damage) AND Penetrated (reduced by negative-scaled > - Protection)
- Glancing (negative-scaled damage and reduced by non-scaled Protection)
- Glancing (negative-scaled damage) AND Blocked (reduced by positive-scaled Protection)
- Evaded (0 damage)
Now the article does go on to say that this is not the predominant conversation in this area on the forums and such but in my own playing this information has appeared to be fairly accurate to me. I will admit I am unaware of the information on the forums and such.
Best Answer
The main story line assuming that you complete the main story quests and enough side quests to be sufficiently levelled to complete the main story quests will take about 40 hours of continual play approximately. Every quest in the main story line can be completed solo, although like all MMORPGs there is a benefit to playing in a party.
PvP is very much influenced by character progression, as having greater progression in the game will result in having more abilities available, thus doing more damage or healing. PvP is possible at low levels but having more ability points and better gear will yield better results in the battlegrounds.
There are "dungeons"/instances in game throughout the story which require group play and there is a random dungeon finder available in game to find groups:
Again, these instances are not required for the main story, although they are all tied into the main story.
In contrast, there are also instances in the game throughout the story which are enforced single player as well, in which you enter alone to complete a task. Again these instances are not required for the main story.
There is not much of a requirement to ever join a guild, with the content currently available in game. Obviously being an MMORPG the game is improved by playing with friends but even for the solo play the quest progression and story line are definitely a lot of fun.