from a development point of view (no more nerfing, buffing, breaking other things while doing it... all the friggen time, a lot less numbers to care about, more time for other things)
from a player perspective the Skilltree is just there to restrict things,
a good Skilltree makes you feel like you earned something that makes you more Powerful
(because you actually unlock new abilities that way and can make them stronger).... in STO i only feel that there is some obscure background math going on that affects little yellow numbers above the enemy Ship (which i don't even look at),
it does not give me new abilities, it does not make the effects look cooler... my Phasers do not fizzle out when energy is low, my Phasers do not get brighter if energy is high etc.
certain things are must haves for everyone, others are must haves for certain builds, but nothing is actually *special* about it. it's all just... numbers... math... boring.
it's all really just background noise
i do not need a Skilltree,
i don't play this game to put little numbers into little boxes that affect other little numbers...
why is there a need for a skilltree to begin with?
because every MMO has one?
really? is that the reason?
Why not think outside the Box for once and come up with something new and unique, instead of just shuffling around numbers again?
only because some people are unable to think of alternatives i will now list 2!
those are just ideas, i do not even want you to use them, it's just an example how it COULD be done different and still in a cool way.
1: EVE
i hate everything about that game, but the AFK skilling is a damn cool and unique idea i had not seen before. If EVE can do something new, why not STO?
(i don't care if it's a stolen concept from somewhere else, if other guys came up with it, it won't change the argument, just the game i pointed out)
2: learning by doing!
the very basic concept of a Skilltree is that you first do stuff *earn XP* and by doing this you get better at it *put points into XYZ*
Now why not go the direct route?
Think how the Accolades work, you shoot X bazillion Phaser damage you get a 2% buff.
Why not do this for EVERY ability in the game and with the whole Skilltree?
You use it a lot -> you get better at it. Simple as that.
You switch to another ability, you never used it, so you are at tier 1 of it, but you do not need to respec or anything, just keep using it, you will get better at it over time.
And on top of that you can use items to buff certain things, and the DOff system to give you temporary buffs.
********
i repeat those 2 are JUST ideas... no need to talk about those, it's just intended as proof for unimaginary people that it can be done different and still be in an interesting way.
If you change the whole System on us, instead of just collapsing a few skills together like we asked for, than give us something that is NEW and don't just shuffle around some numbers.
I really like your idea of learning by doing. At its most basic it's a simple idea, but one that has the potential to reward players for the more time and effort they put in.
From a logic standpoint, it makes sense that if my Captain has been commanding a Sovereign for the past 2 years, they would be more experienced with the ship and its systems then someone who only took command yesterday.
Likewise with something like Phaser Turret fabrication, if a person has fabricated 1000+ turrets, I'm sure they would've learned how to make them more powerful, or how to tweak them for added benefits.
You could even add classes at the Academies that helped boost a Captain's skills, either permanently or temporarily.
It would take a bold move (and no doubt a lot of hard work) on Cryptic's part to implement something like this. Something I'm sure they would never do, which is a shame, because it would be better then the current mishmash of a skill tree we seem to have now.
Skill trees can be and are frequently very useful. It helps with "buffs" (for lack of a better term) .. It helps with the personalized development of a toon (more on that later) .. AND it allows for "hybrid" toon development as well ( a more rounded toon IF a player so desires).
To further develope the personalized toon idea:
1. Charactoristics a PvP toon. IF the skill tree is done CORRECTLY it would enhance certain traits that would be more affective for PvP.
2. Charactoristics for other specfic areas. Quite frankly I'm sure that most everyone here knows this as well or better than I do the proper use of the skill tree. IMHO the real problem is that the old tree and the current one simply do not properly employ the balance of ALL the areas needed since the BO skills and applications are intermixed in with those of the main charactor itself.
IMHO one of two possibilitiers:
1. A more expanded version of the original (with more logical paths to follow for the charactor and seperate one for BO skills) OR
2. Two seperate skill trees: one for the toon ... the other for BO .
The old system seems to be a bit clouded (confusing actually) in areas that deal with shields, power useage and similar related skills, BO's and consold buffs.
I would not go thermal with the person who has at least tried to merge or simplify the old system. IMHO at least they tried. However, that said, the skill tree simply needs to be easier to follow .. Not "easier" or overly simplified.
First you don't want a skill tree then you want it to be like EVE which has a HUGE skill tree.... HUGE!!!!:eek::eek::eek:
Then you want them to do something different because they have a skill tree because every game has one...Learn by doing isn't new and at one time most game all worked that way, UO, EQ and so on.
Every game with abilities that get better is all about putting numbers in a box, and they all show you the box in one way or another.
the way the game works dose sort of make the skill tree pointless, just like level scaling enemys makes gaining levels pointless. the game would also be so much easier to balance too, there would be a clear baseline to start from
as i said those are just examples, (and no i did not say that i WANT it like EVE... you know what EXAMPLE means right?... learn to read!)
i'd like to hear other versions if you know any cool ones...
anyway my point was that Cryptic is changing the Skilltree for the sake of changing it, and they tend to go over the top with these things.
We asked for a collapse of 3 cruiser skills into one and for a revamp of energy and torpedo skills so higher tier weapons aren't as expensive...
instead the whole Skilltree is changed up so hard that it isn't even the same thing anymore... besides the green boxes in the boring UI and so on...
OK we also asked for separate space / ground trees, but that does not mean that i want the ground tree to be redone from scratch! It's fine as it is, i just want a line that says ground and a certain amount of points that are for ground only.
And yes the SCI skills seem a bit overly complex, but only because the names are strange and it is badly documented what they actually do... and even if, you first need to know the names of the abilities anyway... and those are no less strange... and hard to remember.
Same goes for the Attack Patterns, it took me a while until i understood what Attack Pattern Omega does... i'm still not sure about Beta and Delta ;P
overall to me this feels like one step forward, two steps back.
We still have to reverse engineer the whole damn thing... what abilities exactly are affected by what skill and how much it actually brings. because of lack of documentation, which really was the initial problem of how the tree is setup anyway.
So either remove the whole damn thing, and just save us all the headache... (and yes i would love that, but i know that this will never happen ;P )
..OR make something that is cool, new. unique to STO and exiting instead of a reshuffling of the old System, just for the sake of change.
Maybe i'm just failing to see the *improvement* in all of this?
#2 seems like what Everquest did back in the day, where if you had to use skills to train up on it. But it would be like the DOFF system that eventually all skills would be trained.
To me, Cryptic should've gone more of the route of Starfleet Command 3, where we had greater customization of our systems. So no two ships really were the same outside of just looks.
1) New Ship Options:
Instead of skilling for power systems, why not have Cryptic add in Warp Cores and have players decide the type of system they want.
Warp Cores
A Balanced Core
A Core that Yield Greater Warp Speeds
A Core that has Greater Weapon Outpot
A Core that has Greater Shield Output
A Core that has Greater Power to Auxillary Systems (Deflectors and Sensors)
Sensor Arrays
RCS Thruster Packages (not just RCS Consoles)
Armor Slots (EX: Best Armor = Heavy and slows turning rate).
Right there would releave some of the nonsense with the Skill Tree.
2) BOs have more importance.
With the new Department Head System coming online, why not have our BOFFS determine our performance as well.
Tactical Officer determines our weapon types and performance
Chief Engineer determines the functionality of Engineering Systems like the Warp Core, Shields, Impulse Engines, etc. Is he Efficient? Is he a tinkerer and improving certain performance?
These two alone, would really take some of the slack out of the Skill Tree and make your choices more relevant. And adds greater customization to builds.
When I brought my VA fed over, he needed 50 points to be able to respec. So I ran Traelus Repair with no skills at all. Although I did less damage, the enemies were still trivially easy to defeat and still did essentially no damage to me.
from a development point of view (no more nerfing, buffing, breaking other things while doing it... all the friggen time, a lot less numbers to care about, more time for other things)
from a player perspective the Skilltree is just there to restrict things,
a good Skilltree makes you feel like you earned something that makes you more Powerful
(because you actually unlock new abilities that way and can make them stronger).... in STO i only feel that there is some obscure background math going on that affects little yellow numbers above the enemy Ship (which i don't even look at),
it does not give me new abilities, it does not make the effects look cooler... my Phasers do not fizzle out when energy is low, my Phasers do not get brighter if energy is high etc.
certain things are must haves for everyone, others are must haves for certain builds, but nothing is actually *special* about it. it's all just... numbers... math... boring.
it's all really just background noise
i do not need a Skilltree,
i don't play this game to put little numbers into little boxes that affect other little numbers...
why is there a need for a skilltree to begin with?
because every MMO has one?
really? is that the reason?
Why not think outside the Box for once and come up with something new and unique, instead of just shuffling around numbers again?
only because some people are unable to think of alternatives i will now list 2!
those are just ideas, i do not even want you to use them, it's just an example how it COULD be done different and still in a cool way.
1: EVE
i hate everything about that game, but the AFK skilling is a damn cool and unique idea i had not seen before. If EVE can do something new, why not STO?
(i don't care if it's a stolen concept from somewhere else, if other guys came up with it, it won't change the argument, just the game i pointed out)
2: learning by doing!
the very basic concept of a Skilltree is that you first do stuff *earn XP* and by doing this you get better at it *put points into XYZ*
Now why not go the direct route?
Think how the Accolades work, you shoot X bazillion Phaser damage you get a 2% buff.
Why not do this for EVERY ability in the game and with the whole Skilltree?
You use it a lot -> you get better at it. Simple as that.
You switch to another ability, you never used it, so you are at tier 1 of it, but you do not need to respec or anything, just keep using it, you will get better at it over time.
And on top of that you can use items to buff certain things, and the DOff system to give you temporary buffs.
********
i repeat those 2 are JUST ideas... no need to talk about those, it's just intended as proof for unimaginary people that it can be done different and still be in an interesting way.
If you change the whole System on us, instead of just collapsing a few skills together like we asked for, than give us something that is NEW and don't just shuffle around some numbers.
Your ideas do have potential (they could definitely work), but Cryptic clearly won't do this before F2P launch (they have an launch by date x deadline from comments they have made).
I can partly see what you are talking about; if a player wants to build up in science skills then he goes out to do exploration missions that will offer science appropriate missions (i.e., scanning for anomolies and missions that require science buff/debuff skills). The goal would be to make the skill development more automatic based on the type of missions the player pursues. Also, if the player picks up a certain type of weapon, console, or support gear to use on mission then the more time the player uses the gear, the better he becomes with it (i.e. a tac player that usese cannons alot will build up on e-weapons, accuracy, and crit sikill points). I have seen this in EQ2, before they also added a player controlled skill tree. The auto skill development would be the build for the general skills for the player, and any player controlled tree would be for specialized skills (probably starting at CAPT) that will be useful for more elite or STF level play when you reach Admiral ranks.
This would reduce the burden of respec at the lower ranks, in that the player controlled tree would only affect play in specific areas and at the higher ranks. The player can still see what his strength are by looking at a career profile and do certain missions that fulfill the areas needing inprovement (i.e., an Eng needing to improve support skills coudl do missions that have him supporting a task force attack).
Of course, the skills needed for each specific areas of foucs (Tac, Eng, Sci) would have to be automatically available to the player. The skill are all at Novice-level and by doing the missions that added skill points to the skills will increase the player to higher levels of proficiency and improve success with the skill.
This change would be a major reworking of everything STO is currently built on (which is why it seems unlikely), but it would make character development more a natural growth of a character , as opposed to, a long and pooring accounting chore that we are currently doing.. and respecing as situations require.
Instead of skilling for power systems, why not have Cryptic add in Warp Cores and have players decide the type of system they want.
Warp Cores
A Balanced Core
A Core that Yield Greater Warp Speeds
A Core that has Greater Weapon Outpot
A Core that has Greater Shield Output
A Core that has Greater Power to Auxillary Systems (Deflectors and Sensors)
Sensor Arrays
RCS Thruster Packages (not just RCS Consoles)
Armor Slots (EX: Best Armor = Heavy and slows turning rate).
while that all looks good, i'm afraid the Warp Core as an item is a no-go at present. I asked much the same question in an Ask Cryptic. The answer was they weren't considering it, and didn't add 'could change our opinion later' or anything like that... or at least, that's how i remember it
AFKing skilling is a system put into place to force people to continue subscribing rather than play at your own pace. Prevents hard core players from grinding to the max in a month and never have to play again and forces everyone to continue subscribing for months and years to get into what they want. You're pretty delusional if you think there's anything cool about that.
As for removing the skills tree, why not just remove equipment while you're at it. In fact, all you should ever need to do is create a character, guns and armour will automatically be provided and scale with you, and buy a ship with all the equipement already locked inside. What a great game that'd make! There's a reason why ever mmo game has skills and stats, it allows people to customize and fit to their liking, not only does it provide a more personal attachment to your characters, you'll be kicking as while doing it. Forcing everything into cookie cutter notions results in a game where no one would really want to play, cause why bother if you're just gonna end up the exact same way as the other million people out there?
Well I'd actually prefer havinG NO SKILL TREE AT ALL over the new one... may be even over the old one.
I remember when I played LOTRO we had just a small number of classes and no skill tree... for me THAT worked too.
I know many people want to personalize their ships and build... but thing of it....
In STO even WITHOUT a skill tree we are MUCH MUCH more individual.
We have:
1: A lot of diffrent ships
2: Each of them can be combinied with the 3 classes
3: Each can be eqipied with an entirely idividual build of BO skills
4: Each of them with individual weapons, from cannons to beams to torpedos with diffrent topredo and and enegry weapon types.
Thats A LOT OF individualisation already, more then in many games without skill tree.
Only thing that I would really miss is the ability to concentrate on buffing certain energy levels (Eng/Aux ect)
But that isnt really possible with the new tree either.
But anyway... that FOR SURE will not happen.... 780 CP for a respec... do you really believe Perfect world will give up that?
This game will never be close to EVE Online for the simple fact CCP are far more competent than Cryptic ever will be.
CCP have spines to tell their playerbase to HTFU while ALSO being good enough to provide a stable enough game that will keep folks busy for years.
"Waaaah waaaaah, EVE Online is like a job waaaaaaah"
Far too often I see this stupid mentality when the simple fact is EVE Online is meant to be complex. Thats where the goddamn variety and sandbox nature comes from.
EVE Online encourages massive amounts of cooperation between players with fleets up to 250+ being fielded with numerous roles from Electronic Warfare, DPS, Healing, Support, Logistics, Interdictors blah blah blah. STO encourages the repeated mashing of the spacebar with little need for support, strategy or common sense.
EVE Online is not for stupid people and it's system is designed to weed those people out with brutal efficiency. STO is on the complete other end of the spectrum designed to be played by the lowest denominator. Sadly that denominator is folks that think new uniforms is AWESOME content and focus more on colour of pixels rather than what you actually do with them. Go figure why Cryptic are shoddy on releasing actual gameplay stuff rather than cosmetic C-store garbage.
When STO allows fleets to build their own stations, open PVP, hundreds of sector blocks and ships are way more versatile than a tier system then I would believe it can handle EVE's complex skill system.
As it is, Cryptic cant even get the tooltips on the skills they have NOW to actually display the stat info like they should.
Going through EVE Online where skills dont tell you what they do and you only find out until you buy the ships / equipment would be horrific. Please dont encourage Cryptic to run when they cant even crawl yet, its only gonna end in disaster.
I like the idea of removing the skill try entirely. Just bake in their benefits to captain rank and the three different ranks we already have for all our officer powers.
Voila, simple. All problems solved. Now people are distinguished by their captain career, type of ship they choose, what powers their officers have, and what equipment they've installed. Y'know, exactly like it already is.
The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.
Then again, Cryptic will lose their respec token sales. We can't have that, now can we?
nothing wrong with a skill tree... Just needs to be more logical, easier to follow ... NOT overly simplyfied there by nullifying most existing equimpent etc...
It can be done. No need to throw the baby out with the bath water ... (yet)
If you want to simplify the skill tree and make it far more versatile:
Make them go to 5 instead of 9 - EVE Online skills only go to 5 but as you go up they INCREASE in cost.
Getting level 1 would take 1 hour
Getting level 2 would take 2 hours
Getting level 3 would take 4 hours
Getting level 4 would take 8 hours
Getting Level 5 would take 16 hours
EVE Online skill cost is measured in time but STO measures it in Skillpoints
Thus:
Level 1 costs as much as a tier 1 skill
Level 2 costs as much as a tier 2 skill
Level 3 costs as much as a tier 3 skill
Level 4 costs as much as a tier 4 skill
Level 5 costs as much as a tier 5 skill
As for the skill bonus - Make them percentage based like EVE Online
Tier 1 Gives a 5% boost to Energy Weapons
Tier 2 Gives a 5% boost to Energy Weapons
Tier 3 Gives a 5% Boost to Energy Weapons
Tier 4 Gives a 5% Boost to Energy Weapons
Tier 5 Gives a 5% Boost to Energy Weapons
End result: Maxing out a skill yields a 25% boost + The ability to train the MKIII Skill where appropriate
Alternatively, the higher the tier the HIGHER the bonus it gives so it rewards folks for investing more skillpoints in that skill at a proportional scale
Remove the mandate to spend skill points at a certain tier since all skills will effectively become the same tier. Its only as they advance they become 'Higher'
Going with the above stats.
To max out Energy weapons would cost you:
Level 1 - 100 Points
Level 2 - 200 Points
Level 3 - 300 Points
Level 4 - 400 Points
Level 5 - 500 Points
Total Invested: 1500 Points to max a skill
Return: Energy Weapons enhanced by 25% to DPS + Ability to train Fire At Will III, Beam Overload III w/e
EVE Online adopts prequisite skills like a proper tree: You can only train X if you have trained Y.
Energy Weapons > Energy Weapons Specialisation
Projectile Weapons > Projectile Weapons Specialisation
Warp Core Performance > Warp Core Efficiency > System Performance Skills
Overall: When you start the game you will see a skillchart that has EVERY SKILL OPEN TO YOU and trainable except the ones that branch off into specialisation trees.
If someone wants to train Cloak at ensign - Why the hell not ?
If someone wants to train the advanced Science Skills - Why the hell not ?
the new skill tree is a no go in my book it is to simple i want more player skill involved. If you sit there and figure out how to make the skills you use better then you should be good. use skill based is a good idea other than either you script afk or you sit there doing something over and over yawn,,, I just feel they are trying to simplify the game to much. as it is my escort can so a good amount of burst damage cause i specked it that way and used weps and skills on my bo's to help with that good pvpers wont die to it but people that don't take the time to read and speck right do die and fast my cruiser heck of a hard ship to kill cause i specked it to heal and i took the time to do it i get called a hacker saying i have 2 shields when all they got to do is look at the skill i use on my bar and bam they will know what i am doing to live that long lol sci same thing anoying ship to have after you no i dont spam scrambles like some noobs out there but it is still very effective. now any noob that just puts points in what he wants will be good.In pve right now i insta kill a borg cube so yea make pve space harder lol. pvp is going to be cruiser vs cruiser and some sci in there cause tacs are way nerfed and worthless So i say make it harder to speck skills smart people live dumb ones well sorry you die or ask for help from a smart one!
1: EVE
i hate everything about that game, but the AFK skilling is a damn cool and unique idea i had not seen before. If EVE can do something new, why not STO?
(i don't care if it's a stolen concept from somewhere else, if other guys came up with it, it won't change the argument, just the game i pointed out)
2: learning by doing!
the very basic concept of a Skilltree is that you first do stuff *earn XP* and by doing this you get better at it *put points into XYZ*
Now why not go the direct route?
Think how the Accolades work, you shoot X bazillion Phaser damage you get a 2% buff.
Why not do this for EVERY ability in the game and with the whole Skilltree?
You use it a lot -> you get better at it. Simple as that.
You switch to another ability, you never used it, so you are at tier 1 of it, but you do not need to respec or anything, just keep using it, you will get better at it over time.
And on top of that you can use items to buff certain things, and the DOff system to give you temporary buffs.
I think both of those could work in STO. The second option, as Azurian already mentioned, was done in EQII and made a lot of sense. You want to get good at something? Go do it. That would be far more intuitive than the current skills setup we have now.
So based on Z3R0's idea here's what I'm thinking:
Skills are learn-by-doing. Ship skills, weapon skills, shield skills, the works. Pace the learning (at least initially) to match Lt.-level skill purchases now, and slow it down as players level up.
BOff skills would play a role in this as they're basically extensions of our Captains. So using Torp Spread will increase the rate you skill up in Torpedoes. Using FAW increases Beam skill-ups.
Some skills can only be initially learned by training, but afterward are learn-by-doing. These skills can come from other players (on tradable/sellable PADDs) or special trainer DOffs. The goal would be to have each career be able to offer PADDs for multiple useful skills that other careers would need. This could be a useful EC sink.
The PADDs would function as DOff assignments. They would take time and require investment based on what skill was being trained (a DOff trainer and time being the most common components). Using a PADD to learn skills would never have a chance of failure.
In order to get Cryptic's attention this needs to be monetized. Players can buy C-$tore "seminars" for their Captains in certain skills to give them a noticeable and helpful boost in that skill. There could be multiple varieties of these seminars (one skill only [good bonus], group of related skills [moderate bonus], theory and practice (entire class of skills) [low bonus]). They would function as PADDs otherwise.
A time-gate based skill system is the worst idea ever.. theres not even a point in playing eve except to login and choose what to learn next and logging off again for months, not really my idea of a game i want to play.
Copying from other games is a bad idea, theres a reason why people play STO and not EVE.. if STO would be like EVE i wouldnt want to play it anymore. If i'd want eve.. i'd play eve instead.
First, they aren't changing the skill system for the 'sake of doing so". There are legitimate reasons to change it. Weapon type costs, ship types costs are only a couple. This doesn't mean the new skill system is perfect or even right, but they aren't changing it just to do so.
EVE's system is a bad idea here. First, there aren't enough skill to learn to warrant a system like EVE has. EVE is deep and complex, there is a reason why they have that system.
The "learn as you go" system is a nice idea, but I dislike it for STO. There isn't enough depth here already, and with such a system eventually everyone would be the same. Everyone would be maxed out in all skills and there would be nothing to set us apart from each other than ship loadouts.
I like being able to make my character different than others, even if it isn't the best build for DPS or the best SCI build. It's the best build for what I like to do, and it makes me unique in a galaxy filled with others who have access to the same things I do.
I also don't like having no skill tree at all. If you take away the skill tree, take the levels with it.
If you want a truly different idea for our skill system, here is one I came up with. I haven't posted it here before or mentioned it because it is something I just thought about once and then laughed. But you want something different than what we have, this might be it.
Reverse the roll of BOff and Captains.
Instead of having BOff's give us our abilities, we get them from the skill tree.
Ship stations simply determine what skills we can use on a ship, the number of and rank of those skills.
The skill tree gets changed so that you have Captain Skills, Ship Stats and Ground Skills.
The three trees have a seperate set of points.
The Ship stats tree:
Shields (increase regen and capacity)
Hull (increase repair and capacity)
Power (increase power levels globally)
Energy Weapons (increase chance to proc and dmg by a %)
Projectiles (increase chance to proc and dmg by a %)
Movement (increase turn rate and move speed)
Combat (increase accuracy and defense)
Crew (increase crew regen rate and decreses chance of injured crew)
Each of these skills has 5 ranks, each cost one point to increase. You get these points every few levels, by the time you reach VA (51) you'd have 25 points. The idea is to make up for what your ship lacks somewhat. At max rank, 5, you would get 25% bonus. I see a 5% increase per rank. Maybe give an additonal 5% bonus if you max the skill out for a total of 30%.
The Captain Skills are just a list of the current skills available from BOff's.
Instead of doing an entire list here, just know that each skill you can use in game from a BOff is listed under this tree. It's divided into categories for which skill type it falls under (Science, Engineer or Tactical).
Each Skill has 3 ranks, each costs 1 point to increase. Each increase grants that rank of the power for you to use. You get one Captain and one Ground Skill point each level. By the maximum, 51, you will have 51 points to spend.
It would be possible to gate some skills, but since ships would restrict what power you can use, there would be no need IMO.
Let's see an example of what one skill would look like.
High Yield Torpedo - Tactical Tree.
One point gives the HYT skill at rank 1. Two points you get the HYT Rank 2, and 3 points gives you HYT 3.
Each new rank does what it does now from a BOff.
Now, let's assume you put 3 points into this skill and you are LT 5. Your starting ship won't let you use HYT 2 or 3, so you are automatically dropped to HYT 1 on that ship. Instead of the increased rank, you get some passive bonus for your extra spent skillpoints. It could be a a % bonus to the skill or a reduction to it's cooldown.
Let's assume it's a cooldown reduction. Since you have rank 3 HYT but can't use higher than Rank 1, you get a 10 second reduction to cooldown for the HYT 1 skill. Each skill can have it's own bonus for extra ranks that you can't use on that ship.
Now, let's assume you spend your next 3 points on Beam Fire at Will. Your ship only allows you to have 1 tactical Skill, rank 1. So even though you have BFaW and HYT, you can only equip one of them.
This is basically the same thing we have now, except it's dependent on BOff's to have those skills.
Each captain still gets their class specific skills, they increase in effectiveness as you level up. And some BO's can buff them.
So, what would we use BOff's for? Buffs to our skills. Each ship has a certain number of stations, which determines what skills we can use. It also determines what BOff's we can use.
Each station allows you to have 1 BO of that type on the bridge.
The BO's buff your skills, depending on the one you choose to have on the bridge.
Let's say you have an Escort. Your Escort has 2 Tac Stations, 1 Eng station and 1 Sci station.
You can use 2 Tactical BO's, 1 Engineer BO and 1 Science BO on your bridge.
Let's say you have Science Team as your Science Skill, and it's rank 2.
Your Science BO offers buffs for Science skills, this one happens to be great for Science Team.
When this BO is on your bridge, you get 4 buffs.
10% increase to the effectiveness of Science Team
5 Second Reduction to Photonic Shockwave Cooldown
10% Energy Resistance Buff for 30 seconds when using Science team
25% reduction to duration of Subnucleonic Beam
Add in a rule, you can't swap skills or BO's during combat.
These Ground Skills would work the same way, with BO's adding buffs to those as well.
Wouldn't work, as is, but it's a decent start. Back in beta, this is how I imagined the skill system would work...but when I got into beta, it wasn't that way.
I'd prefer if they just gave each class their own UNIQUE skill tree. Its so simple its brilliant. Then we can truely have unique builds and diverse captains.
At least then also no class will be worthless since their skill trees will be balanced around them.
I'd prefer if they just gave each class their own UNIQUE skill tree. Its so simple its brilliant. Then we can truely have unique builds and diverse captains.
At least then also no class will be worthless since their skill trees will be balanced around them.
ya know ... that's not a half bad idea... When the player selects the class the right skill tree comes available. From there customize as needed (for both ground and space).
What would be a home run would be the ability to change the class (one token per player for "X" number of months) ..
A Tac Captain can use Photonic Shockwave, and a Sci Captain can use Alpha Pattern.
So, how would giving each class their own skill tree work? You'd have to restrict what skills each class could use, and then you are really shutting down what you can do in the game.
A Tac Captain can use Photonic Shockwave, and a Sci Captain can use Alpha Pattern.
So, how would giving each class their own skill tree work? You'd have to restrict what skills each class could use, and then you are really shutting down what you can do in the game.
Thats the point, Science Officers should be the ones who can use abilities like Photonic Shockwave better, while a Tac Captain would have something more appropriate to their class boosted. Considering its a boff skill, it'd still be there for use just a Science officer would know better how to use it then a Tac Captain who might have something more better like a Photonic Shockwave Torpedo on their skill tree.
Comments
I really like your idea of learning by doing. At its most basic it's a simple idea, but one that has the potential to reward players for the more time and effort they put in.
From a logic standpoint, it makes sense that if my Captain has been commanding a Sovereign for the past 2 years, they would be more experienced with the ship and its systems then someone who only took command yesterday.
Likewise with something like Phaser Turret fabrication, if a person has fabricated 1000+ turrets, I'm sure they would've learned how to make them more powerful, or how to tweak them for added benefits.
You could even add classes at the Academies that helped boost a Captain's skills, either permanently or temporarily.
It would take a bold move (and no doubt a lot of hard work) on Cryptic's part to implement something like this. Something I'm sure they would never do, which is a shame, because it would be better then the current mishmash of a skill tree we seem to have now.
Skill trees can be and are frequently very useful. It helps with "buffs" (for lack of a better term) .. It helps with the personalized development of a toon (more on that later) .. AND it allows for "hybrid" toon development as well ( a more rounded toon IF a player so desires).
To further develope the personalized toon idea:
1. Charactoristics a PvP toon. IF the skill tree is done CORRECTLY it would enhance certain traits that would be more affective for PvP.
2. Charactoristics for other specfic areas. Quite frankly I'm sure that most everyone here knows this as well or better than I do the proper use of the skill tree. IMHO the real problem is that the old tree and the current one simply do not properly employ the balance of ALL the areas needed since the BO skills and applications are intermixed in with those of the main charactor itself.
IMHO one of two possibilitiers:
1. A more expanded version of the original (with more logical paths to follow for the charactor and seperate one for BO skills) OR
2. Two seperate skill trees: one for the toon ... the other for BO .
The old system seems to be a bit clouded (confusing actually) in areas that deal with shields, power useage and similar related skills, BO's and consold buffs.
I would not go thermal with the person who has at least tried to merge or simplify the old system. IMHO at least they tried. However, that said, the skill tree simply needs to be easier to follow .. Not "easier" or overly simplified.
(I hope that makes sense)
Then you want them to do something different because they have a skill tree because every game has one...Learn by doing isn't new and at one time most game all worked that way, UO, EQ and so on.
Every game with abilities that get better is all about putting numbers in a box, and they all show you the box in one way or another.
The approach of EVE Online is on the other hand one of the best existing ones in my opinion, but it has its own drawbacks as well.
i'd like to hear other versions if you know any cool ones...
anyway my point was that Cryptic is changing the Skilltree for the sake of changing it, and they tend to go over the top with these things.
We asked for a collapse of 3 cruiser skills into one and for a revamp of energy and torpedo skills so higher tier weapons aren't as expensive...
instead the whole Skilltree is changed up so hard that it isn't even the same thing anymore... besides the green boxes in the boring UI and so on...
OK we also asked for separate space / ground trees, but that does not mean that i want the ground tree to be redone from scratch! It's fine as it is, i just want a line that says ground and a certain amount of points that are for ground only.
And yes the SCI skills seem a bit overly complex, but only because the names are strange and it is badly documented what they actually do... and even if, you first need to know the names of the abilities anyway... and those are no less strange... and hard to remember.
Same goes for the Attack Patterns, it took me a while until i understood what Attack Pattern Omega does... i'm still not sure about Beta and Delta ;P
overall to me this feels like one step forward, two steps back.
We still have to reverse engineer the whole damn thing... what abilities exactly are affected by what skill and how much it actually brings. because of lack of documentation, which really was the initial problem of how the tree is setup anyway.
So either remove the whole damn thing, and just save us all the headache... (and yes i would love that, but i know that this will never happen ;P )
..OR make something that is cool, new. unique to STO and exiting instead of a reshuffling of the old System, just for the sake of change.
Maybe i'm just failing to see the *improvement* in all of this?
To me, Cryptic should've gone more of the route of Starfleet Command 3, where we had greater customization of our systems. So no two ships really were the same outside of just looks.
1) New Ship Options:
Instead of skilling for power systems, why not have Cryptic add in Warp Cores and have players decide the type of system they want.
Right there would releave some of the nonsense with the Skill Tree.
2) BOs have more importance.
With the new Department Head System coming online, why not have our BOFFS determine our performance as well.
Tactical Officer determines our weapon types and performance
Chief Engineer determines the functionality of Engineering Systems like the Warp Core, Shields, Impulse Engines, etc. Is he Efficient? Is he a tinkerer and improving certain performance?
Chief Science Officer improves Sensor Capabilities
Etc.
These two alone, would really take some of the slack out of the Skill Tree and make your choices more relevant. And adds greater customization to builds.
Just saying...
Your ideas do have potential (they could definitely work), but Cryptic clearly won't do this before F2P launch (they have an launch by date x deadline from comments they have made).
This would reduce the burden of respec at the lower ranks, in that the player controlled tree would only affect play in specific areas and at the higher ranks. The player can still see what his strength are by looking at a career profile and do certain missions that fulfill the areas needing inprovement (i.e., an Eng needing to improve support skills coudl do missions that have him supporting a task force attack).
Of course, the skills needed for each specific areas of foucs (Tac, Eng, Sci) would have to be automatically available to the player. The skill are all at Novice-level and by doing the missions that added skill points to the skills will increase the player to higher levels of proficiency and improve success with the skill.
This change would be a major reworking of everything STO is currently built on (which is why it seems unlikely), but it would make character development more a natural growth of a character , as opposed to, a long and pooring accounting chore that we are currently doing.. and respecing as situations require.
As for removing the skills tree, why not just remove equipment while you're at it. In fact, all you should ever need to do is create a character, guns and armour will automatically be provided and scale with you, and buy a ship with all the equipement already locked inside. What a great game that'd make! There's a reason why ever mmo game has skills and stats, it allows people to customize and fit to their liking, not only does it provide a more personal attachment to your characters, you'll be kicking as while doing it. Forcing everything into cookie cutter notions results in a game where no one would really want to play, cause why bother if you're just gonna end up the exact same way as the other million people out there?
I remember when I played LOTRO we had just a small number of classes and no skill tree... for me THAT worked too.
I know many people want to personalize their ships and build... but thing of it....
In STO even WITHOUT a skill tree we are MUCH MUCH more individual.
We have:
1: A lot of diffrent ships
2: Each of them can be combinied with the 3 classes
3: Each can be eqipied with an entirely idividual build of BO skills
4: Each of them with individual weapons, from cannons to beams to torpedos with diffrent topredo and and enegry weapon types.
Thats A LOT OF individualisation already, more then in many games without skill tree.
Only thing that I would really miss is the ability to concentrate on buffing certain energy levels (Eng/Aux ect)
But that isnt really possible with the new tree either.
But anyway... that FOR SURE will not happen.... 780 CP for a respec... do you really believe Perfect world will give up that?
CCP have spines to tell their playerbase to HTFU while ALSO being good enough to provide a stable enough game that will keep folks busy for years.
"Waaaah waaaaah, EVE Online is like a job waaaaaaah"
Far too often I see this stupid mentality when the simple fact is EVE Online is meant to be complex. Thats where the goddamn variety and sandbox nature comes from.
EVE Online encourages massive amounts of cooperation between players with fleets up to 250+ being fielded with numerous roles from Electronic Warfare, DPS, Healing, Support, Logistics, Interdictors blah blah blah. STO encourages the repeated mashing of the spacebar with little need for support, strategy or common sense.
EVE Online is not for stupid people and it's system is designed to weed those people out with brutal efficiency. STO is on the complete other end of the spectrum designed to be played by the lowest denominator. Sadly that denominator is folks that think new uniforms is AWESOME content and focus more on colour of pixels rather than what you actually do with them. Go figure why Cryptic are shoddy on releasing actual gameplay stuff rather than cosmetic C-store garbage.
When STO allows fleets to build their own stations, open PVP, hundreds of sector blocks and ships are way more versatile than a tier system then I would believe it can handle EVE's complex skill system.
As it is, Cryptic cant even get the tooltips on the skills they have NOW to actually display the stat info like they should.
Going through EVE Online where skills dont tell you what they do and you only find out until you buy the ships / equipment would be horrific. Please dont encourage Cryptic to run when they cant even crawl yet, its only gonna end in disaster.
Voila, simple. All problems solved. Now people are distinguished by their captain career, type of ship they choose, what powers their officers have, and what equipment they've installed. Y'know, exactly like it already is.
The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.
Then again, Cryptic will lose their respec token sales. We can't have that, now can we?
It can be done. No need to throw the baby out with the bath water ... (yet)
Make them go to 5 instead of 9 - EVE Online skills only go to 5 but as you go up they INCREASE in cost.
Getting level 1 would take 1 hour
Getting level 2 would take 2 hours
Getting level 3 would take 4 hours
Getting level 4 would take 8 hours
Getting Level 5 would take 16 hours
EVE Online skill cost is measured in time but STO measures it in Skillpoints
Thus:
Level 1 costs as much as a tier 1 skill
Level 2 costs as much as a tier 2 skill
Level 3 costs as much as a tier 3 skill
Level 4 costs as much as a tier 4 skill
Level 5 costs as much as a tier 5 skill
Thus:
Tier 1 skill costs 100 points
Tier 2 skill costs 200 Points
Tier 3 skill costs 300 points
Tier 4 skill costs 400 points
Tier 5 skill costs 500 points
As for the skill bonus - Make them percentage based like EVE Online
Tier 1 Gives a 5% boost to Energy Weapons
Tier 2 Gives a 5% boost to Energy Weapons
Tier 3 Gives a 5% Boost to Energy Weapons
Tier 4 Gives a 5% Boost to Energy Weapons
Tier 5 Gives a 5% Boost to Energy Weapons
End result: Maxing out a skill yields a 25% boost + The ability to train the MKIII Skill where appropriate
Alternatively, the higher the tier the HIGHER the bonus it gives so it rewards folks for investing more skillpoints in that skill at a proportional scale
Remove the mandate to spend skill points at a certain tier since all skills will effectively become the same tier. Its only as they advance they become 'Higher'
Going with the above stats.
To max out Energy weapons would cost you:
Level 1 - 100 Points
Level 2 - 200 Points
Level 3 - 300 Points
Level 4 - 400 Points
Level 5 - 500 Points
Total Invested: 1500 Points to max a skill
Return: Energy Weapons enhanced by 25% to DPS + Ability to train Fire At Will III, Beam Overload III w/e
EVE Online adopts prequisite skills like a proper tree: You can only train X if you have trained Y.
Energy Weapons > Energy Weapons Specialisation
Projectile Weapons > Projectile Weapons Specialisation
Warp Core Performance > Warp Core Efficiency > System Performance Skills
Overall: When you start the game you will see a skillchart that has EVERY SKILL OPEN TO YOU and trainable except the ones that branch off into specialisation trees.
If someone wants to train Cloak at ensign - Why the hell not ?
If someone wants to train the advanced Science Skills - Why the hell not ?
I think both of those could work in STO. The second option, as Azurian already mentioned, was done in EQII and made a lot of sense. You want to get good at something? Go do it. That would be far more intuitive than the current skills setup we have now.
So based on Z3R0's idea here's what I'm thinking:
Z
Copying from other games is a bad idea, theres a reason why people play STO and not EVE.. if STO would be like EVE i wouldnt want to play it anymore. If i'd want eve.. i'd play eve instead.
Dear gods man, paragraphs are your friends!
EVE's system is a bad idea here. First, there aren't enough skill to learn to warrant a system like EVE has. EVE is deep and complex, there is a reason why they have that system.
The "learn as you go" system is a nice idea, but I dislike it for STO. There isn't enough depth here already, and with such a system eventually everyone would be the same. Everyone would be maxed out in all skills and there would be nothing to set us apart from each other than ship loadouts.
I like being able to make my character different than others, even if it isn't the best build for DPS or the best SCI build. It's the best build for what I like to do, and it makes me unique in a galaxy filled with others who have access to the same things I do.
I also don't like having no skill tree at all. If you take away the skill tree, take the levels with it.
If you want a truly different idea for our skill system, here is one I came up with. I haven't posted it here before or mentioned it because it is something I just thought about once and then laughed. But you want something different than what we have, this might be it.
Reverse the roll of BOff and Captains.
Instead of having BOff's give us our abilities, we get them from the skill tree.
Ship stations simply determine what skills we can use on a ship, the number of and rank of those skills.
The skill tree gets changed so that you have Captain Skills, Ship Stats and Ground Skills.
The three trees have a seperate set of points.
The Ship stats tree:
Shields (increase regen and capacity)
Hull (increase repair and capacity)
Power (increase power levels globally)
Energy Weapons (increase chance to proc and dmg by a %)
Projectiles (increase chance to proc and dmg by a %)
Movement (increase turn rate and move speed)
Combat (increase accuracy and defense)
Crew (increase crew regen rate and decreses chance of injured crew)
Each of these skills has 5 ranks, each cost one point to increase. You get these points every few levels, by the time you reach VA (51) you'd have 25 points. The idea is to make up for what your ship lacks somewhat. At max rank, 5, you would get 25% bonus. I see a 5% increase per rank. Maybe give an additonal 5% bonus if you max the skill out for a total of 30%.
The Captain Skills are just a list of the current skills available from BOff's.
Instead of doing an entire list here, just know that each skill you can use in game from a BOff is listed under this tree. It's divided into categories for which skill type it falls under (Science, Engineer or Tactical).
Each Skill has 3 ranks, each costs 1 point to increase. Each increase grants that rank of the power for you to use. You get one Captain and one Ground Skill point each level. By the maximum, 51, you will have 51 points to spend.
It would be possible to gate some skills, but since ships would restrict what power you can use, there would be no need IMO.
Let's see an example of what one skill would look like.
High Yield Torpedo - Tactical Tree.
One point gives the HYT skill at rank 1. Two points you get the HYT Rank 2, and 3 points gives you HYT 3.
Each new rank does what it does now from a BOff.
Now, let's assume you put 3 points into this skill and you are LT 5. Your starting ship won't let you use HYT 2 or 3, so you are automatically dropped to HYT 1 on that ship. Instead of the increased rank, you get some passive bonus for your extra spent skillpoints. It could be a a % bonus to the skill or a reduction to it's cooldown.
Let's assume it's a cooldown reduction. Since you have rank 3 HYT but can't use higher than Rank 1, you get a 10 second reduction to cooldown for the HYT 1 skill. Each skill can have it's own bonus for extra ranks that you can't use on that ship.
Now, let's assume you spend your next 3 points on Beam Fire at Will. Your ship only allows you to have 1 tactical Skill, rank 1. So even though you have BFaW and HYT, you can only equip one of them.
This is basically the same thing we have now, except it's dependent on BOff's to have those skills.
Each captain still gets their class specific skills, they increase in effectiveness as you level up. And some BO's can buff them.
So, what would we use BOff's for? Buffs to our skills. Each ship has a certain number of stations, which determines what skills we can use. It also determines what BOff's we can use.
Each station allows you to have 1 BO of that type on the bridge.
The BO's buff your skills, depending on the one you choose to have on the bridge.
Let's say you have an Escort. Your Escort has 2 Tac Stations, 1 Eng station and 1 Sci station.
You can use 2 Tactical BO's, 1 Engineer BO and 1 Science BO on your bridge.
Let's say you have Science Team as your Science Skill, and it's rank 2.
Your Science BO offers buffs for Science skills, this one happens to be great for Science Team.
When this BO is on your bridge, you get 4 buffs.
10% increase to the effectiveness of Science Team
5 Second Reduction to Photonic Shockwave Cooldown
10% Energy Resistance Buff for 30 seconds when using Science team
25% reduction to duration of Subnucleonic Beam
Add in a rule, you can't swap skills or BO's during combat.
These Ground Skills would work the same way, with BO's adding buffs to those as well.
Wouldn't work, as is, but it's a decent start. Back in beta, this is how I imagined the skill system would work...but when I got into beta, it wasn't that way.
Cheers.
At least then also no class will be worthless since their skill trees will be balanced around them.
ya know ... that's not a half bad idea... When the player selects the class the right skill tree comes available. From there customize as needed (for both ground and space).
What would be a home run would be the ability to change the class (one token per player for "X" number of months) ..
WOW .. that was a really GREAT idea bud !
A Tac Captain can use Photonic Shockwave, and a Sci Captain can use Alpha Pattern.
So, how would giving each class their own skill tree work? You'd have to restrict what skills each class could use, and then you are really shutting down what you can do in the game.
Thats the point, Science Officers should be the ones who can use abilities like Photonic Shockwave better, while a Tac Captain would have something more appropriate to their class boosted. Considering its a boff skill, it'd still be there for use just a Science officer would know better how to use it then a Tac Captain who might have something more better like a Photonic Shockwave Torpedo on their skill tree.
lol I know so is punctuation but eff it game form ill kill the English language!