personally i would prefer instead of predefined classes to have a character that can be customized into specific directions...
for instance on ground you unlock a set of abilitys via your skilltree. the more you invest into armed combat the more supportive abilitys you unlock. Or you go the patch of a klingon hand to hand combat...
Or a Doctor combined with explosives expert or drone support.
Kits would not give active abilitys, but instead would buff the abilitys you unlocked.
For spacecombat something similar, but with current gamebalance and the focus on tactical abilitys anybody that would not invest heavily into tactical would be a fool...so that would need a closer look at current class balance issues since tactical seem mandatory nowadays.
See, something occurred to me late last night and I wonder what people would think of the following...
Beam arrays are seen as underpowered by many, and want a DHC (Dual Heavy Cannon) nerf/beam upgrade. Perhaps a way of achieving this AND introducing a new class (in this case, my own favourite, Intelligence Officer) would be to introduce skills which boost those beams on the IntOfficer.
Aceton pulse: an engineer based skill spin-off which adds an aceton component to the next beam attack. Combine this with BFAW (Beam Fire at Will) and you have a tonne of enemies getting an aceton tag. Combine it with BO (Beam Overload) and you have one enemy wondering what happened to his hull. Aceton tag can be cleared with Hazard Emitters.
Match Shield Harmonics: Your beams will penetrate the shields on a single opponent for 5 seconds. Can be nullified with RSF (Rotate Shield Frequency).
I also thought about another skill, unrelated to beams - Stolen Cloak. Once activated, cloaks any ship not already equipped with a cloaking device. Due to the incompatibility of the cloak, and the fact it was not designed for the ship it is being used on, the cloak is not perfect and can be pierced with a strong enough Sensor Scan skill.
On an unrelated note...
In my opinion, Tactical Team has a component it should not have - the ability to redirect shield strength to the facing taking damage. It should have all the other components - clearing boarding parties, increasing damage, buffing weapons power, etc., but I cannot see the sense in a tactical skill doing an engineering skill job. Remove that component and the escorts in game lose some of their "tankiness" and ability to withstand beams. No nerf to cannons needed, no buff to beams needed just a genuine chance for beam users to take out an escort once in a while. In PvE this wouldn't really harm escorts as they would still devastate NPCs with no brains. In PvP this might add a real sense of balance between the ship classes.
Anyway, apart from the TT nerf, what do you guys think of the IntOfficer suggestions?
"...we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than the things that divide us.”
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
In my opinion, Tactical Team has a component it should not have - the ability to redirect shield strength to the facing taking damage. It should have all the other components - clearing boarding parties, increasing damage, buffing weapons power, etc., but I cannot see the sense in a tactical skill doing an engineering skill job.
What gives you that idea?
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
Tactical Team got the Cryptic treatment a while back.
It was useless and no body used it. Then they added the Shield Distribution effect and suddenly it became the most important BO skill in the game.
Buffing something bad to new heights or nerfing something good to new lows is the Cryptic way.
It was amazing to see at the time. Overnight escorts survivability nearly quadrupled. Now instead of burning through once facing you effectively had to burn through all 4 regardless of positioning. Effectively quadrupling a ships shield capacity.
It was the single most damaging change to the game I can think of, breaking pvp and rendering all ships other than escorts completely obsolete overnight.
Maybe I'm wrong but I see the tactical guys as the ones who do the killing and the engineers as the ones who do the repairs. Shifting shield facings, or transferring power to a shield at all, seems like a job for an engineer/operations guy. I see Tactical Team, as it is now, as one of the most powerful, and low level, skills anyone can have... if you're not running at least one copy, you're mad.
Why?
Because it boost tactical abilities AND shifts your shields to where they are needed. A tactical AND engineering style bonus in one.
If a new eng lvl 1 skill was introduced which did the shield facing job of tact team (call it, say, Redirect Shield Power), I could see this being logical (and a needed boost to the small number of useful lvl 1 eng skills).
I don't see a sci skill doing a tac job, or an eng skill doing a sci job nearly as well as we have a tac skill doing an eng job in Tactical Team.
We have people wanting a nerf to DHCs because they see escorts as OP, people want a boost to beams (especially on cruisers) as they cannot often get through the shields of escorts because they have such good healing skills. I don't see the need for either, IF an alternative were proposed which both sides agreed could be a good compromise.
Of course, all of this really belongs in a different thread, but I threw it out there because we were talking about a possible new class and the skills we would see it having and the thought occurred to me about TT.
"...we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than the things that divide us.”
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
while i dont know how you would do the space aspect of it.. ive always wanted to see medical and science devided.. (they were not apart of the same group in the show, other than wearing the same uniform).. but honestly, bones wasnt usually helping spock figure out solar radiation or anything..
ive also kind of felt that this cheapens the science officers gaming experience.. (cause the kits are so different and most of the time they get stuck healing)..
though i think the command class is cool too. (i would think it would be more about buffing attack patterns and other team tactical buffs.. (as a tactical officer usually just targets and fires on what the commander says to..).
Anyhow, the only class I'd like to see added is Ambassador.
But then the exploration missions would have to be greatly expanded. And there'd have to be a mechanic for talking your way out of a problem added to all of the missions. And let's face it, those Borg aren't the negotiation types.
Ambassador would be the ticket. But this whole thread seems fed centric to me what would the klinks get?
A TIME TO SEARCH: ENTER MY FOUNDRY MISSION at the RISA SYSTEM Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
Ambassador would be the ticket. But this whole thread seems fed centric to me what would the klinks get?
Fed-centric? Brother, you dishonour me! :mad:
My own idea for intelligence officer even stated the KDF unique mission Alpha, and it's unique stealth armour reward. I gave an example of a KDF intel mission, and my original thread which touched on the idea gave the KDF a unique Cardassian weapon as a reward.
In my idea, intelligence officer gives something unique and cool to both sides. :cool:
"...we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than the things that divide us.”
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
I think most of these would be better supported with themed kits rather than classes.
With new classes, they'd need to do new kits anyway... So they'd be better off just doing the kits and letting the current classes use them, sometimes across class.
Yes, but we're going to have to figure out how we want kits to work in the first place. :P
Yes, but we're going to have to figure out how we want kits to work in the first place. :P
I agree... I thought kits should act more like BOFFS (and have a random selection of skills) or like a loot drop in Diablo II. You get an engineer kit, which can be used by any class and gives 2-3 skills for that kit type (Force Field Dome III, Medical Generator III, for example) BUT the last skill is career specific and boosts a career skill e.g. Force Field Dome. A sci captain could wear it and get eng skills they would never normally get, but no innate boost to their own abilities. An eng captain puts it on and gets a boost to Force Field Dome. Quality of kit increase number of skills available, and the strength they are - white has 2 lvl 1 skills and a random career skill boost, green has 2 lvl 2 ones and a random career skill boost, blue has 2 lvl 3 ones, a lvl 2 one and the career and purple has 3 lvl 3, etc. Fleet options could offer unique kit skills not seen before, or add a 4th skill, or a bigger career boost.
Like in Diablo II... anyone could use a sceptre... but the paladins are the ones who get potential skill boosts from them. A barbarian can whack things with a staff, only the sorceress gets a frost nova boost.
Make kits universal to wear, but with career path specific options and ground play suddenly gets blown open. A doctor with turrets? A tac with a med generator? An eng with nanite health regen? Options are huge.
"...we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than the things that divide us.”
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
I've been thinking some more about an intelligence class and what abilities they would use most, or give a boost to.
Mask Energy Signature is an obvious one for the intelligence class as is Jam Sensors.
On the ground, I would imagine Placate would be a good one, as would a variation of mine laying (plant explosive and detonate from a safe distance).
Anyone else got any more?
"...we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than the things that divide us.”
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
I've been thinking some more about an intelligence class and what abilities they would use most, or give a boost to.
Mask Energy Signature is an obvious one for the intelligence class as is Jam Sensors.
On the ground, I would imagine Placate would be a good one, as would a variation of mine laying (plant explosive and detonate from a safe distance).
Anyone else got any more?
Just try to think of stuff even 007 would think is cool. :cool:
How about a kind of small drone that explodes when it gets near its target? Perhaps something that scuttles along the ground and walls instead of floating along, so as to be a little less obvious.
A holographic decoy, that is marked as the player (so that it can work in PvP), and which all aggro is transferred to in PvE. Maybe tied into a stealth mechanic for the player character. Could work as either a ground or space power (or both).
Hallucinogenic darts. Essentially a special attack that sort of acts like scramble sensors on a single ground target. Or possibly a gas grenade that does the same thing with an AOE.
Infiltrate. Using the very latest transporter gadgetry, the player can beam a strike team directly through the enemy's shields. Acts like boarding party, but without the shuttle component.
Holographic decoy sounds cool, sci captains can summon holographic ships, so a holo ground minion sounds cool.
Love infiltrate, by the way, sort of like how the Dominion ships could beam through fed (and DS9, so is that cardassian or fed design there?) shields. I'd make it so you could only do it to a ship once, maybe twice, before they are immune to it. Like how you can take down a subsystem but they develop immunity to you doing it again for a while.
"...we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than the things that divide us.”
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
I'd put in a vote for an intel officer class, and it would fit in right well with a Rom faction if we ever get one. So there, there's even some justification for developing it.
Intel officers should get kits that allow them to masquerade as other factions (like holodisguises), stealth, pacify and confuse abilities, bombs, etc.
I like the idea of a disguise ability. Say it made you appear to be a generic security NPC appropriate the the opposing team/faction (then it would still kinda work in PvP, you just have to try and act like one of the pet NPCs).
To stop people just strolling through levels, it would need a fairly short duration; but sufficient to, for example, walk right into a group of enemies and drop mines at their feet.
They should probably also have some scan debuffs (scanning is gathering intelligence after all).
I'd like sci and eng variants of tacs, which you can only access if you're a level 50 sci or eng, which gives them some crit/damage boosting abilties similar to APA, so they can keep up with pure tacs somewhat, but still keep the flavour of sci. Combat Engineer or Saboteur kind of thing.
I'd rather they just remove classes from the game and have all ship abilities available for training and for ground w/e kit you equip what abilities you will have for doing ground missions. I'm surprised they haven't thought about that.
Comments
for instance on ground you unlock a set of abilitys via your skilltree. the more you invest into armed combat the more supportive abilitys you unlock. Or you go the patch of a klingon hand to hand combat...
Or a Doctor combined with explosives expert or drone support.
Kits would not give active abilitys, but instead would buff the abilitys you unlocked.
For spacecombat something similar, but with current gamebalance and the focus on tactical abilitys anybody that would not invest heavily into tactical would be a fool...so that would need a closer look at current class balance issues since tactical seem mandatory nowadays.
Beam arrays are seen as underpowered by many, and want a DHC (Dual Heavy Cannon) nerf/beam upgrade. Perhaps a way of achieving this AND introducing a new class (in this case, my own favourite, Intelligence Officer) would be to introduce skills which boost those beams on the IntOfficer.
Aceton pulse: an engineer based skill spin-off which adds an aceton component to the next beam attack. Combine this with BFAW (Beam Fire at Will) and you have a tonne of enemies getting an aceton tag. Combine it with BO (Beam Overload) and you have one enemy wondering what happened to his hull. Aceton tag can be cleared with Hazard Emitters.
Match Shield Harmonics: Your beams will penetrate the shields on a single opponent for 5 seconds. Can be nullified with RSF (Rotate Shield Frequency).
I also thought about another skill, unrelated to beams - Stolen Cloak. Once activated, cloaks any ship not already equipped with a cloaking device. Due to the incompatibility of the cloak, and the fact it was not designed for the ship it is being used on, the cloak is not perfect and can be pierced with a strong enough Sensor Scan skill.
On an unrelated note...
In my opinion, Tactical Team has a component it should not have - the ability to redirect shield strength to the facing taking damage. It should have all the other components - clearing boarding parties, increasing damage, buffing weapons power, etc., but I cannot see the sense in a tactical skill doing an engineering skill job. Remove that component and the escorts in game lose some of their "tankiness" and ability to withstand beams. No nerf to cannons needed, no buff to beams needed just a genuine chance for beam users to take out an escort once in a while. In PvE this wouldn't really harm escorts as they would still devastate NPCs with no brains. In PvP this might add a real sense of balance between the ship classes.
Anyway, apart from the TT nerf, what do you guys think of the IntOfficer suggestions?
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
It was useless and no body used it. Then they added the Shield Distribution effect and suddenly it became the most important BO skill in the game.
Buffing something bad to new heights or nerfing something good to new lows is the Cryptic way.
It was amazing to see at the time. Overnight escorts survivability nearly quadrupled. Now instead of burning through once facing you effectively had to burn through all 4 regardless of positioning. Effectively quadrupling a ships shield capacity.
It was the single most damaging change to the game I can think of, breaking pvp and rendering all ships other than escorts completely obsolete overnight.
Maybe I'm wrong but I see the tactical guys as the ones who do the killing and the engineers as the ones who do the repairs. Shifting shield facings, or transferring power to a shield at all, seems like a job for an engineer/operations guy. I see Tactical Team, as it is now, as one of the most powerful, and low level, skills anyone can have... if you're not running at least one copy, you're mad.
Why?
Because it boost tactical abilities AND shifts your shields to where they are needed. A tactical AND engineering style bonus in one.
If a new eng lvl 1 skill was introduced which did the shield facing job of tact team (call it, say, Redirect Shield Power), I could see this being logical (and a needed boost to the small number of useful lvl 1 eng skills).
I don't see a sci skill doing a tac job, or an eng skill doing a sci job nearly as well as we have a tac skill doing an eng job in Tactical Team.
We have people wanting a nerf to DHCs because they see escorts as OP, people want a boost to beams (especially on cruisers) as they cannot often get through the shields of escorts because they have such good healing skills. I don't see the need for either, IF an alternative were proposed which both sides agreed could be a good compromise.
Of course, all of this really belongs in a different thread, but I threw it out there because we were talking about a possible new class and the skills we would see it having and the thought occurred to me about TT.
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
ive also kind of felt that this cheapens the science officers gaming experience.. (cause the kits are so different and most of the time they get stuck healing)..
though i think the command class is cool too. (i would think it would be more about buffing attack patterns and other team tactical buffs.. (as a tactical officer usually just targets and fires on what the commander says to..).
Ambassador would be the ticket. But this whole thread seems fed centric to me what would the klinks get?
Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
Fed-centric? Brother, you dishonour me! :mad:
My own idea for intelligence officer even stated the KDF unique mission Alpha, and it's unique stealth armour reward. I gave an example of a KDF intel mission, and my original thread which touched on the idea gave the KDF a unique Cardassian weapon as a reward.
In my idea, intelligence officer gives something unique and cool to both sides. :cool:
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
Yes, but we're going to have to figure out how we want kits to work in the first place. :P
I agree... I thought kits should act more like BOFFS (and have a random selection of skills) or like a loot drop in Diablo II. You get an engineer kit, which can be used by any class and gives 2-3 skills for that kit type (Force Field Dome III, Medical Generator III, for example) BUT the last skill is career specific and boosts a career skill e.g. Force Field Dome. A sci captain could wear it and get eng skills they would never normally get, but no innate boost to their own abilities. An eng captain puts it on and gets a boost to Force Field Dome. Quality of kit increase number of skills available, and the strength they are - white has 2 lvl 1 skills and a random career skill boost, green has 2 lvl 2 ones and a random career skill boost, blue has 2 lvl 3 ones, a lvl 2 one and the career and purple has 3 lvl 3, etc. Fleet options could offer unique kit skills not seen before, or add a 4th skill, or a bigger career boost.
Like in Diablo II... anyone could use a sceptre... but the paladins are the ones who get potential skill boosts from them. A barbarian can whack things with a staff, only the sorceress gets a frost nova boost.
Make kits universal to wear, but with career path specific options and ground play suddenly gets blown open. A doctor with turrets? A tac with a med generator? An eng with nanite health regen? Options are huge.
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
Mask Energy Signature is an obvious one for the intelligence class as is Jam Sensors.
On the ground, I would imagine Placate would be a good one, as would a variation of mine laying (plant explosive and detonate from a safe distance).
Anyone else got any more?
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
Just try to think of stuff even 007 would think is cool. :cool:
How about a kind of small drone that explodes when it gets near its target? Perhaps something that scuttles along the ground and walls instead of floating along, so as to be a little less obvious.
A holographic decoy, that is marked as the player (so that it can work in PvP), and which all aggro is transferred to in PvE. Maybe tied into a stealth mechanic for the player character. Could work as either a ground or space power (or both).
Hallucinogenic darts. Essentially a special attack that sort of acts like scramble sensors on a single ground target. Or possibly a gas grenade that does the same thing with an AOE.
Infiltrate. Using the very latest transporter gadgetry, the player can beam a strike team directly through the enemy's shields. Acts like boarding party, but without the shuttle component.
Love infiltrate, by the way, sort of like how the Dominion ships could beam through fed (and DS9, so is that cardassian or fed design there?) shields. I'd make it so you could only do it to a ship once, maybe twice, before they are immune to it. Like how you can take down a subsystem but they develop immunity to you doing it again for a while.
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
I like the idea of a disguise ability. Say it made you appear to be a generic security NPC appropriate the the opposing team/faction (then it would still kinda work in PvP, you just have to try and act like one of the pet NPCs).
To stop people just strolling through levels, it would need a fairly short duration; but sufficient to, for example, walk right into a group of enemies and drop mines at their feet.
They should probably also have some scan debuffs (scanning is gathering intelligence after all).
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]