While I respect Mr. Rivera's opinion on the kit overhaul, I must disagree with the fundamentals of his ideas.
The problem with customizing your kits is not every power is created equally. If given the choice between Fuse Armor and an Energy Turret, most engineers are going to straight up go with the Energy Turret.
Mr. Rivera, you've been with this game for 4 years. You have not yet learned your lesson that when you have a game that panders to the lowest common denominator, damage and the efficiency at which enemies are killed will reign supreme.
I would be 100% on board with your ideas if other kit powers somehow contributed to missions more, or if healing/support actually gave someone a cookie or was (gasp!) somehow necessary to complete missions.
As it stands, because of Cryptic's reluctance to make support/healing on par with killing enemies efficiently, your kit overhaul will inevitably cause a loss of customization as people will simply pick the most overpowered abilities and slap them on their kit and call it a day.
Then you have the problem of having kit abilities that are seldomly used.
Then you'll end up digging your hole deeper by revamping those abilities to be on par or altering them to the point they'll be as desirable as the abilities that help with raw damage.
I've predicted the future of game design before, and I've been correct. I'm predicting it again. If you don't alter the fundamentals of gameplay where support/healing is viable and desirable, then you are once again faced with power stagnation as only the most overpowered abilities for ground kits will be used by the majority.
In the same way you are somehow 'shocked' that few people used mines when compared to torpedos, or that you are somehow 'shocked' that few used torpedos or mines because raw energy damage brings home the bacon, I have no doubt you will also be 'shocked' when you implement your ideas for kits and find out people only use an extremely limited number of available kit powers, typically those that facilitates the destruction of enemies in an expedious fashion.
Because when you don't reward any other type of gameplay, that's what you will get.
However, on that note, I also have no doubt that you will ignore this advice I heed just as you've ignored my advice before and the advice of many other players who have predicted the same blunders you inevitably create.
So I look forward to seeing this kit revamp and then the subsequent nerfing/buffing in the coming months because 'somehow' players tend to gravitate towards the same overpowered/overused abilities instead of concentrating on the root of the problem.
Which is of course, make support/healing viable or even necessary to play the game.
All you've accomplished here is highlighting how poorly designed many kit powers are. Players should not be punished because the devs failed to properly design kit powers.
The new Priority One Podcast with CaptainGeko revealed that Season 9 will feature a new kit revamp. (Listen to Interview, jump to 25:10 for Kit Revamp)
Apparently, all kits will be broken up into individual abilities. It will then be possible to slot five kit abilities into the kit slot at level 50. However, they also plan to convert non-consumable devices, such as the Shard of Possibilities, Ophidian Cane, and the Frosted Boots into Universal kit powers. As a result, players would be forced to decide between existing class kit abilities and non-consumable devices. Geko did ask for feedback, thus I decided to start a thread on the subject.
For me personally, I'd prefer that all items currently classified as devices to remain as such. The kit revamp itself will be great, players will be able to choose between their various kit abilities. However, I think devices should remain in their current state, it adds an additional level of customization to characters. If they were converted to universal kit abilities, we would lose a level of customization and we'd be further limited on the number of usable non-consumable abilities.
I agree that they should leave existing devices as is. Several people have said that if this goes through, they don't plan on ever unslotting the Ophidian Cane and Shard of Possibilities on their old characters. I currently carry the Ophidian Cane, Shard of Possibilities, frosted boots, and a stack of hypos. Power cells and shield charges have their uses, but I rarely need them.
You know what would come next, universal lockbox kit abilities with superior stats to existing kit abilities. I personally don't want to see that kind of thing added to the game.
I think this is probably coming anyway. Also, with the skill revamp he talks about, we are probably going see lockbox captain and bridge officer abilities.
I think this is probably coming anyway. Also, with the skill revamp he talks about, we are probably going see lockbox captain and bridge officer abilities.
I'd rather have lockbox devices rather than lockbox kit abilities if it comes to it. The skill revamp I'm strongly against. It would effectively lock us into a set of abilities and dumb down the game.
Yes.. , Let's make ground combat more " fun" , then it already is ,by removing more powers from your tray. Now you have 4 to 5 kit powers plus 4 device powers. We will end up with 5slots ... Only? Shard , boots, cane, gambling device, pets all getting slotted in to the kit. And to get this devices "un-slotted " you will need ....... Let me guess ....... Z-store un-slott token???
This has been a topic with Geko forever but, basically, he wants people using consumable items and doesn't want there to be any non-consumable devices.
What is his reasoning? Is it a personal preference only?
I think this all speaks more to a need to revamp consumables though. I don't think we can stomp our feet and demand changes halt if part of the change is uncomfortable or if it's a multi-step process.
I think you'd have an easier time arguing for six kit slots than you'd have arguing for non-consumable devices not to be changed into kit powers.
If you don't like consumables (and I don't either), I think the solution is that how consumables work needs to change, not that consumable slots should be filled with non-consumable items.
We need to be arguing for more changes, not things staying as they are.
I don't understand your argument. If they made consumables competitive with non-consumables, then people would slot some. Turning all device slots into consumables-only is unnecessary. Similarly, a kit revamp is not dependent on devices. You're making it sound as if we're obstructing progress by objecting to turning non-consumable devices into kit powers. But it's possible to have both a kit revamp and a consumables revamp without changing non-consumable devices at all. So it's perfectly reasonable to object to that change and not the others.
Well I don't like the cane or shard to be removed from the device category.... but at least the shard is a pretty powerful thing. It kind of makes sense...
However.... I hope we'll get some more new ground abilities in general with that...
Well I don't like the cane or shard to be removed from the device category.... but at least the shard is a pretty powerful thing. It kind of makes sense...
However.... I hope we'll get some more new ground abilities in general with that...
The thing is, we can already slot the shard, the cane, and other devices in addition to our five kit abilities. No matter how you look at this; it's a nerf to customization.
My question is how will these abilities be acquired? What happens to those who spent the Fleet Marks and dilithium buying MK XII kits? will they have to rebuy a MKXII purple Kit with empty slots?
I like that we're finally going to be able to customize our kits, but i don't like how Cryptic does business, so i'm worried as to how they're going to be handling this transition.
I've already weighed in that i don't like them trying to put devices in kit slots though, because that's just taking away even more from the players.
My question is how will these abilities be acquired? What happens to those who spent the Fleet Marks and dilithium buying MK XII kits? will they have to rebuy a MKXII purple Kit with empty slots?
Best guess: extant kits will be converted to several objects that each do one of the functions of the kit you have now. For example: a mk X Grenade satchel kit will get converted into 4 grenade modules.
What is his reasoning? Is it a personal preference only? What is the purpose of this goal?
They have a lobi store full of insanely expensive consumables. He wants you throwing all your money away by using only those so that you have to give them more and more for less and less. :rolleyes:
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
The best way to get people to do something is to incentivize people to do so. For example, the cane and shard could be slotted in either a device slot or a kit; when they're in a device slot they act exactly the same way they do now, however if they're put into a kit slot they get a reduced cooldown so they can be used more regularly, and their effects have an extra profession (Tac/Sci/Eni) based buff added to them.
They have a lobi store full of insanely expensive consumables. He wants you throwing all your money away by using only those so that you have to give them more and more for less and less. :rolleyes:
Those lobi consumables aren't even worth the lobi needed to obtain them. I'm of the opinion that all consumables should be free to obtain. Adding such items to something like the lobi store might as well be adding them to the C-store. It's pay to win no matter how you look at the issue. I'd much rather have cosmetic items, special bridge officers, and vanity items in the lobi store rather than things with vital gameplay functionality.
Admittedly I have not read all pages of this thread so forgive me if this has been brought up already. At what point is there going to be an update to the quality and variety of grounds missions, such that an update to kit powers is even necessary?
It's great to make an update to the kits but without an update to the actual content I don't see the point. To me ground combat is far more limited, than space, just in terms of the variety of the missions and means to achieve the objectives, although both need an overhaul at end game.
It's great to make an update to the kits but without an update to the actual content I don't see the point. To me ground combat is far more limited, than space, just in terms of the variety of the missions and means to achieve the objectives, although both need an overhaul at end game.
This has been something people have been asking for since beta. There are a lot of powers that we just don't use often, as well as this allows us to have all top tier powers rather than two IV, two III and a II. In terms of Ground combat though, this is a much more viable update rather than redoing ground combat again, since it didn't really change much the last time they did it. In fact, i'm pretty sure they can't really do much at all with it, given that it's based on the same system Champions Online uses. Even Neverwinter is clearly a tab to target game using the exact same engine, locked into the shooter mode we hardly use.
I even pointed that out on the NW forums, and it was quickly closed because too many people started flaming it due to "me not knowing how the system works". The moderator even told me that what i had said was inappropriate, even though that's how the system works.
There really isn't much they can do with the ground combat without a major overhaul of the engine itself, so i'm sure it's better to just make small additions here and there rather than redo the whole thing.
opening all powers to the slots creates interesting options say, Rally cry and the security escort, quantum mortar and orbital strike, and exothermic induction field all in one kit?
This has been something people have been asking for since beta. There are a lot of powers that we just don't use often, as well as this allows us to have all top tier powers rather than two IV, two III and a II. In terms of Ground combat though, this is a much more viable update rather than redoing ground combat again, since it didn't really change much the last time they did it. In fact, i'm pretty sure they can't really do much at all with it, given that it's based on the same system Champions Online uses. Even Neverwinter is clearly a tab to target game using the exact same engine, locked into the shooter mode we hardly use.
I even pointed that out on the NW forums, and it was quickly closed because too many people started flaming it due to "me not knowing how the system works". The moderator even told me that what i had said was inappropriate, even though that's how the system works.
There really isn't much they can do with the ground combat without a major overhaul of the engine itself, so i'm sure it's better to just make small additions here and there rather than redo the whole thing.
Redoing the engine is not somehow easier. When developers cited engine limitations, what they meant (and later elaborated on) was that they don't have the resources to do something. Not with this engine. And not with a new engine, for the most part unless that new engine has those features baked in, in which case the new engine is going to cost an amount that reflects the work of those features.
That said, especially with a game that's live, it's going to be incremental. And even if Cryptic got a license to another game that could have those new features developed, porting it would be incremental. For example, Neverwinter's Foundry. The last word is that it's too incompatible to be backported and that they'll have to slowly look at feature by feature adjustments.
Not changing obviously isn't an option. MMO development is a lot of buying the cat to get the house, buying the dog to get rid of the cat, et cetera and so on. Good development is not the absence of fixing things that aren't broken. It's looking five or six steps ahead.
Kits are suboptimal and people aren't using consambles. The game design is broken if consumables aren't being used.
Step one is kits. Step two is consumables. Step three is food and crafting and fabrication kit powers. And so on. This thing now gets changed based around that thing five steps later.
I'm convinced that if we see an exploration revamp, it will be something that required tech developed for fleet starbases and reputation systems first. It isn't always "doing X instead of Y." It's often "doing X so that Y can build on X."
It was just a year ago that they built the tech to have NPCs who use our bridge officers' looks and names and partial re-costuming of characters. Someday, when we finally get to face down our mirror counterpart, it will be because of that tech. Could not have happened before that tech. It will probably also build on the same tech as the one that allows Galaxy saucers to use anti-matter spread because that tech determines pet powers based on player inventory, which is useful for having an enemy whose weapons match yours.
I really think the stronger feedback I see here is that consumables suck and freeing up spots for them won't make us use them more... and that for what we're losing, six kit slots is a fairer deal than five unless there's some other new feature like fairly common kit item set bonuses that include items like the Shard and the Hortas in sets and/or rethink special item cooldowns
That's all fair. But by the time we hear of a revamp of this magnitude, the train is going too fast to hit the brakes..
opening all powers to the slots creates interesting options say, Rally cry and the security escort, quantum mortar and orbital strike, and exothermic induction field all in one kit?
Well, the kit abilities will still be restricted by class. At least at the launch of this with Season 9; we won't be able to mix and match cross class abilities. Captain abilities such as Orbital Strike will also be unaffected.
One thing I'd like to see in a kit revamp is to uh
Get rid of kits. Get rid of them as an item. A kit to me is basically the combination of all your ground items. So MACO kit would be the Maco ground set, essentially. All the abilities associated with kits should be modified in accordance with this idea. So for example if you want grenade abilities then wear the Omega armour, which looks like it has grenades. As opposed to the Maco armour that doesn't have grenades. It looks like it has shield and tanking down pat, so you'd have abilities associate with that. KHG looks like it's made for melee, etc.
Another thing I'd like to see itemised instead is tricorders. It strikes me as weird that in a ST-themed game tricorders have never been itemised. But they're always there in the canon. Landing parties and away teams have them all the time, sometimes they have tricorders more times than they have phasers. Granted, communicators and commbadges aren't really itemised either but they are at least a costume option. Many of the abilities in the game use tricorders in some fashion - medical tricorder is literally an ability, other abilities use tricorders to repair items, or recharge your shields, or call down orbital strikes or positioning coordinates for beaming down turrets and deployable hardware. Why don't we just make it an official piece of gear that you can equip? You can have various different kinds of tricorders and it would be supported by the canon as well.
I'm not thrilled with the idea of customizing kits.
While many might cheer about having more choice, it will backfire.
Devices need to stay as separate tools from kits. Same with the effects generated by consumables. That's points one and two.
Point three is that people will only slot the more useful and powerful abilities, rather than learning to work with various powers of a given kit (as they currently stand). The end result of that will be the devs nerfing the more useful kit abilities all in the interest of "game balance".
Then the big supporters of the customized kit idea will come onto the forums and b***h about said nerf(s).
The best thing the devs can do is NOT "fix" what isn't broken or outdated. The current fixed kits work just fine.
Not changing obviously isn't an option. MMO development is a lot of buying the cat to get the house, buying the dog to get rid of the cat, et cetera and so on. Good development is not the absence of fixing things that aren't broken. It's looking five or six steps ahead.
Kits are suboptimal and people aren't using consambles. The game design is broken if consumables aren't being used.
Step one is kits. Step two is consumables. Step three is food and crafting and fabrication kit powers. And so on. This thing now gets changed based around that thing five steps later.
I disagree with your "multi-step" argument. Customizable kits can be added to the game without touching devices at all. In fact, it is less work to leave devices as is. Consumable devices can be improved without changing non-consumable devices. So how is changing non-consumable devices a necessary step?
The only argument I can come up with for making non-consumable devices into kit powers is the following:
1. Players aren't using consumables as much as Cryptic would like, and they see this as problem.
2. They don't think they can improve consumables enough to make them competitive with existing non-consumable devices.
3. Therefore, in order to force players to use consumables more, they are making non-consumable devices into kit powers.
I think many players are going to disagree with the initial assumption of the above argument---that the current level of consumable use is a problem that needs to be fixed. Most players carry hypos. Power cells and shield charges have situational uses. Food is a novelty item. I think most players are fine with the current state of affairs. So what if power cells and shield charges aren't nearly as important as hypos? It is OK for some items to be basic necessities that everyone carries and other items to be things that only some people carry because of their build or personal preferences. It is also OK to have novelty items or items that are cosmetic only, such as non-combat pets and costumes.
When geko is in charge of it then he's just looking for a way to monetise the system as much a possible. The positive to it is that they might bother to give ground combat a proper update this time.
5 kit powers sound fine, turning specialty devices that have limited and somewhat weak powers with long recharges into a kit power is a bad idea, they'll kill them off completely.
Hypos being the only thing slotted on the ground is a symptom of stupid linked timers with devices combined with pretty ineffective shield coverage. Nobody in their right mind would recharge a 1-2 hit shield boost and through a hypo into cool down which takes far greater hits. Unlink the CDs of devices and they'll be used.
Onboard with "build your own kit out of existing kit powers", with some kind of limits that make it impossible to create uber-kits (1x IV, 3x III, 1x II slots, and certain powers blocked from interacting with each other).
However, I'm not a fan of integrating devices into kits. For the record, how would the Romulan Rebreathers integrate into this? (Give up a kit slot for the duration of that mission?) And how would this integrate with BOffs?
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Yes to kit customization.
No to turning non-consumable devices into kit powers.
Indifferent to monetization provided things are kept within reasonable balance, or restricted to Quality of Life/convenience, or vanity. I wouldn't like to see kit visuals go away with this.
Hypos being the only thing slotted on the ground is a symptom of stupid linked timers with devices combined with pretty ineffective shield coverage. Nobody in their right mind would recharge a 1-2 hit shield boost and through a hypo into cool down which takes far greater hits. Unlink the CDs of devices and they'll be used.
Slot a Biochemist duty officer to lower your hypo/shield charge/power cell cooldown. Shield tanking is much more powerful than you'd might think. Engineers do it very well; especially with the MACO two piece with the Dyson Shield, defensive reputation passives, and an Equipment Technician kit.
General Discussion may be the wrong place for this thread Major. It isn't your fault, but many players avoid ground and so never learn enough about it to make educated comments on kit powers and consumables.
I have been waiting for custom kits since they were mentioned years ago. I do not want items added as kit powers though. I also understand that new powers will be added through lockboxes the way traits are now, the best ones being hoarded and marked up to crazy prices. I do not like that thought at all. (for example: helmsman trait)
General Discussion may be the wrong place for this thread Major. It isn't your fault, but many players avoid ground and so never learn enough about it to make educated comments on kit powers and consumables.
I think you are right. In retrospect, "Builds, Powers, and Game Mechanics" may have been a better venue for this thread. I'm send a private message to a moderator asking for the move.
Slot a Biochemist duty officer to lower your hypo/shield charge/power cell cooldown. Shield tanking is much more powerful than you'd might think. Engineers do it very well; especially with the MACO two piece with the Dyson Shield, defensive reputation passives, and an Equipment Technician kit.
I agree that engineers do shield tanking well, but they have less need of shield charges than the other classes because of their shield tanking abilities.
In any case, I think Cryptic is taking the wrong approach with devices. If they want to make consumables more attractive, they should just improve consumables, not remove non-consumables from device slots in order to force players to carry consumables.
Comments
I agree that they should leave existing devices as is. Several people have said that if this goes through, they don't plan on ever unslotting the Ophidian Cane and Shard of Possibilities on their old characters. I currently carry the Ophidian Cane, Shard of Possibilities, frosted boots, and a stack of hypos. Power cells and shield charges have their uses, but I rarely need them.
I think this is probably coming anyway. Also, with the skill revamp he talks about, we are probably going see lockbox captain and bridge officer abilities.
I'd rather have lockbox devices rather than lockbox kit abilities if it comes to it. The skill revamp I'm strongly against. It would effectively lock us into a set of abilities and dumb down the game.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
What is his reasoning? Is it a personal preference only?
I don't understand your argument. If they made consumables competitive with non-consumables, then people would slot some. Turning all device slots into consumables-only is unnecessary. Similarly, a kit revamp is not dependent on devices. You're making it sound as if we're obstructing progress by objecting to turning non-consumable devices into kit powers. But it's possible to have both a kit revamp and a consumables revamp without changing non-consumable devices at all. So it's perfectly reasonable to object to that change and not the others.
However.... I hope we'll get some more new ground abilities in general with that...
The thing is, we can already slot the shard, the cane, and other devices in addition to our five kit abilities. No matter how you look at this; it's a nerf to customization.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
I like that we're finally going to be able to customize our kits, but i don't like how Cryptic does business, so i'm worried as to how they're going to be handling this transition.
I've already weighed in that i don't like them trying to put devices in kit slots though, because that's just taking away even more from the players.
My character Tsin'xing
Joined January 2009
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
Those lobi consumables aren't even worth the lobi needed to obtain them. I'm of the opinion that all consumables should be free to obtain. Adding such items to something like the lobi store might as well be adding them to the C-store. It's pay to win no matter how you look at the issue. I'd much rather have cosmetic items, special bridge officers, and vanity items in the lobi store rather than things with vital gameplay functionality.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
It's great to make an update to the kits but without an update to the actual content I don't see the point. To me ground combat is far more limited, than space, just in terms of the variety of the missions and means to achieve the objectives, although both need an overhaul at end game.
This has been something people have been asking for since beta. There are a lot of powers that we just don't use often, as well as this allows us to have all top tier powers rather than two IV, two III and a II. In terms of Ground combat though, this is a much more viable update rather than redoing ground combat again, since it didn't really change much the last time they did it. In fact, i'm pretty sure they can't really do much at all with it, given that it's based on the same system Champions Online uses. Even Neverwinter is clearly a tab to target game using the exact same engine, locked into the shooter mode we hardly use.
I even pointed that out on the NW forums, and it was quickly closed because too many people started flaming it due to "me not knowing how the system works". The moderator even told me that what i had said was inappropriate, even though that's how the system works.
There really isn't much they can do with the ground combat without a major overhaul of the engine itself, so i'm sure it's better to just make small additions here and there rather than redo the whole thing.
Redoing the engine is not somehow easier. When developers cited engine limitations, what they meant (and later elaborated on) was that they don't have the resources to do something. Not with this engine. And not with a new engine, for the most part unless that new engine has those features baked in, in which case the new engine is going to cost an amount that reflects the work of those features.
That said, especially with a game that's live, it's going to be incremental. And even if Cryptic got a license to another game that could have those new features developed, porting it would be incremental. For example, Neverwinter's Foundry. The last word is that it's too incompatible to be backported and that they'll have to slowly look at feature by feature adjustments.
Not changing obviously isn't an option. MMO development is a lot of buying the cat to get the house, buying the dog to get rid of the cat, et cetera and so on. Good development is not the absence of fixing things that aren't broken. It's looking five or six steps ahead.
Kits are suboptimal and people aren't using consambles. The game design is broken if consumables aren't being used.
Step one is kits. Step two is consumables. Step three is food and crafting and fabrication kit powers. And so on. This thing now gets changed based around that thing five steps later.
I'm convinced that if we see an exploration revamp, it will be something that required tech developed for fleet starbases and reputation systems first. It isn't always "doing X instead of Y." It's often "doing X so that Y can build on X."
It was just a year ago that they built the tech to have NPCs who use our bridge officers' looks and names and partial re-costuming of characters. Someday, when we finally get to face down our mirror counterpart, it will be because of that tech. Could not have happened before that tech. It will probably also build on the same tech as the one that allows Galaxy saucers to use anti-matter spread because that tech determines pet powers based on player inventory, which is useful for having an enemy whose weapons match yours.
I really think the stronger feedback I see here is that consumables suck and freeing up spots for them won't make us use them more... and that for what we're losing, six kit slots is a fairer deal than five unless there's some other new feature like fairly common kit item set bonuses that include items like the Shard and the Hortas in sets and/or rethink special item cooldowns
That's all fair. But by the time we hear of a revamp of this magnitude, the train is going too fast to hit the brakes..
Well, the kit abilities will still be restricted by class. At least at the launch of this with Season 9; we won't be able to mix and match cross class abilities. Captain abilities such as Orbital Strike will also be unaffected.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Get rid of kits. Get rid of them as an item. A kit to me is basically the combination of all your ground items. So MACO kit would be the Maco ground set, essentially. All the abilities associated with kits should be modified in accordance with this idea. So for example if you want grenade abilities then wear the Omega armour, which looks like it has grenades. As opposed to the Maco armour that doesn't have grenades. It looks like it has shield and tanking down pat, so you'd have abilities associate with that. KHG looks like it's made for melee, etc.
Another thing I'd like to see itemised instead is tricorders. It strikes me as weird that in a ST-themed game tricorders have never been itemised. But they're always there in the canon. Landing parties and away teams have them all the time, sometimes they have tricorders more times than they have phasers. Granted, communicators and commbadges aren't really itemised either but they are at least a costume option. Many of the abilities in the game use tricorders in some fashion - medical tricorder is literally an ability, other abilities use tricorders to repair items, or recharge your shields, or call down orbital strikes or positioning coordinates for beaming down turrets and deployable hardware. Why don't we just make it an official piece of gear that you can equip? You can have various different kinds of tricorders and it would be supported by the canon as well.
While many might cheer about having more choice, it will backfire.
Devices need to stay as separate tools from kits. Same with the effects generated by consumables. That's points one and two.
Point three is that people will only slot the more useful and powerful abilities, rather than learning to work with various powers of a given kit (as they currently stand). The end result of that will be the devs nerfing the more useful kit abilities all in the interest of "game balance".
Then the big supporters of the customized kit idea will come onto the forums and b***h about said nerf(s).
The best thing the devs can do is NOT "fix" what isn't broken or outdated. The current fixed kits work just fine.
I disagree with your "multi-step" argument. Customizable kits can be added to the game without touching devices at all. In fact, it is less work to leave devices as is. Consumable devices can be improved without changing non-consumable devices. So how is changing non-consumable devices a necessary step?
The only argument I can come up with for making non-consumable devices into kit powers is the following:
1. Players aren't using consumables as much as Cryptic would like, and they see this as problem.
2. They don't think they can improve consumables enough to make them competitive with existing non-consumable devices.
3. Therefore, in order to force players to use consumables more, they are making non-consumable devices into kit powers.
I think many players are going to disagree with the initial assumption of the above argument---that the current level of consumable use is a problem that needs to be fixed. Most players carry hypos. Power cells and shield charges have situational uses. Food is a novelty item. I think most players are fine with the current state of affairs. So what if power cells and shield charges aren't nearly as important as hypos? It is OK for some items to be basic necessities that everyone carries and other items to be things that only some people carry because of their build or personal preferences. It is also OK to have novelty items or items that are cosmetic only, such as non-combat pets and costumes.
Hypos being the only thing slotted on the ground is a symptom of stupid linked timers with devices combined with pretty ineffective shield coverage. Nobody in their right mind would recharge a 1-2 hit shield boost and through a hypo into cool down which takes far greater hits. Unlink the CDs of devices and they'll be used.
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However, I'm not a fan of integrating devices into kits. For the record, how would the Romulan Rebreathers integrate into this? (Give up a kit slot for the duration of that mission?) And how would this integrate with BOffs?
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No to turning non-consumable devices into kit powers.
Indifferent to monetization provided things are kept within reasonable balance, or restricted to Quality of Life/convenience, or vanity. I wouldn't like to see kit visuals go away with this.
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Slot a Biochemist duty officer to lower your hypo/shield charge/power cell cooldown. Shield tanking is much more powerful than you'd might think. Engineers do it very well; especially with the MACO two piece with the Dyson Shield, defensive reputation passives, and an Equipment Technician kit.
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I have been waiting for custom kits since they were mentioned years ago. I do not want items added as kit powers though. I also understand that new powers will be added through lockboxes the way traits are now, the best ones being hoarded and marked up to crazy prices. I do not like that thought at all. (for example: helmsman trait)
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I agree that engineers do shield tanking well, but they have less need of shield charges than the other classes because of their shield tanking abilities.
In any case, I think Cryptic is taking the wrong approach with devices. If they want to make consumables more attractive, they should just improve consumables, not remove non-consumables from device slots in order to force players to carry consumables.