What's next..."Coming in Season 9 - Season of the Nerf Dev blog 6...We keep swinging the nerf bat and now all ship weapon, console and boff slots have been halved! It is a good thing for the players! It will help the new players! And, as a reward for the players who have done the grind all this time we will also give you half of all dil/ec/rep mark rewards you grind for and cutting your current stock of dil/ec/rep marks in half! Because it's not fair that someone who has been grinding for a couple of years has more than a new player! Enjoy all the great improvements!"
yes, because its totally not fair that some lifeless peasants who grinded for years and kept us in the biz should have an advantage over our dear 2-week old noobs which we hold in such a high esteem
MMO history is rife with examples of no matter what you do to change the mechanics to suit it, people who don't PvP don't PvP, and nothing is going to change that.
So catering the game to the minority of players who PvP by nerfing PvE just drives people away, not makes them suddenly go "hey now I wanna PvP!"
Actually that's not completely true, I use to pve only player. Now i enjoy MMO pvp, I gues i've just changed as I aged as a MMO player.
But honestly without this it would have killed all challenge in pve. ENdlessly grinding same extremely easy pve events isn't going to help the game. I'm sorry, its just not a feasible practice. Especially over the long term. AA in everquest actually eventually killed the growth of that game, as people who were more casual or were new saw that they simply could not compete with the growing powercreep of vets.
MMO history is rife with examples of no matter what you do to change the mechanics to suit it, people who don't PvP don't PvP, and nothing is going to change that.
So catering the game to the minority of players who PvP by nerfing PvE just drives people away, not makes them suddenly go "hey now I wanna PvP!"
I don't PVP because I find no benefit to it. For this game I've heard about making a lot of dilithium from PVP, but it doesn't help me get through my reputations. Why bother when I can get dil in much easier (and often times funner) ways?
Same reason why I don't do foundry content: doesn't help with my reps and I can get dil other ways. (I skipped the bonus foundry weekend completely; partially because I forgot about it, but mainly because taking several toons through the Mirror universe event takes up my time)
Cryptic has said long ago that it's possible they will add a PVP reputation to the game. If they did that I would have a reason to PVP.
Dev blog says we will be able to respec our reputation traits free of charge any time we want as long as we're not in combat. I don't think they will charge for it later unless they had a really really good reason for it due to a major change in how things work.
I guess I took that the wrong way. as in we get to respec for free when it goes live.
so then my next question would be. what will become of those respecs people have bought? will unused rep respecs become a waste of zen? or dilithium?
I'm sorry if maybe the playerbase hasn't been very clear. We want CONTENT.
STUFF
TO
DO.
All these guys working away on this update? You should reassign them to making some STUFF TO DO, instead of nerfing things that don't really need nerfing. The passives were not even remotely good anyway, at least not for the time and effort it takes to acquire them all.
PS: Thanks for Mirror Invasion, it's really great and you guys deserve a big round of applause for it. Please stop releasing "good updates" that give content and following them with "bad updates" that nerf or change stuff that didn't need it. That's my feedback.
Sardak (Science Officer): Captain of a 23k DPS R'Mor Temporal Science Vessel, R.R.W. Vathos Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
Hey, its EC anyway ... at least we can sell the TRIBBLE.
It does get annoying getting something one of your characters can use but "BoP" that means its just for Bartender use.
I would hope the old Mk X and Mk XI sets were added to the Borg and Undine front missions but thats too much to hope and on light of this ... a insane dream.
Yeah being that I took 23 characters and got max tier in every rep it seems like doing any more reps will be futile. Looks like all I will be doing is doffing dilithium and just have a big huge supply of it for the day when they do something I will want something they have to offer. So pretty much I'll play new missions a few times and then wait till the next season pops up. I think all those ppl who quit after season 7 pretty much saw this coming and bailed earlier kudos to them lol.
Reading over the changes to the passives, they're all pretty dramatic. And all better than what's currently there. This could be fascinating in determining how I spec out my different characters.
People aren't OWED an advantage. If they have spent their time, sponsorships or not, grinding through the reputation system, then they have EARNED it.
Your examples are poor mate, as you seem to be arguing the wrong point. Nobody was asking for a different rule set. Taking away anyone's ability to use skills they have spent time EARNING (key word there) to level the playing field for new players, is the absolute wrong way to go about solving the problem.
If you were to consider each Tier of a rep a level, then right now a max level character would be level 70. If a newer player has now just reached 50, why is it fair, or rather, how is it solving a problem if you take the level 70 character, down to 54, to make it fair for the new guy?
If he wants to have all those rep powers and be able to compete with the max rep people, well, he can go out an earn it like the rest of us have.
A new player coming into the fold and expecting to compete against a guy who is max level, max rep, and has top end gear, then the new player is the one who is acting entitled.
Leveling the playing field was one thing the dev said.
The truth is this is about more then just that. It is also about the future of the game.
They can't let rep creep continue with out making the current content harder.... Raising a level cap would only solve the issue for a short time frame.
Lets assume the new rep comes out and they make the content hard enough that you find it interesting with your 5 completed reps... that same content is now that much harder for the new guy with no rep.
There system is elegant and the same system used by games like LORO. Where you can unlock tons of cool passives... but you are limited to X number.
The only real argument on this change as I see it is...
Is the rep system right now FINE ... in which case a limit of 8 would allow for the status que with the new 5th and following reps being the optional reps for Vets... and one of the options for new players.
Or Is the number of current passives part of the problem... in which case it is in need of a reduction.
Now I am obviously in the camp that feels the game has to much right now... and a reduction to 4 active is a good step.
Either way it needs to have a limit... the number of reps is only going to grow... and the balancing of new content is going to get harder and harder for Cryptic.
I guess I took that the wrong way. as in we get to respec for free when it goes live.
so then my next question would be. what will become of those respecs people have bought? will unused rep respecs become a waste of zen? or dilithium?
Good question. You mean "What about reputation respecs players have purchased and haven't used before season 9 launches?"
Will they get some sort of refund? Thankfully I don't have any reputation repspec tokens. But thanks to this blog, I won't be getting any now. I was planning to repsec my rep powers on some toons but the new system means I can save my dil*.
*I preferred to get rep and species trait repsec tokens from the dil store (Special Items and Boxes>Services) since they are a flat 20k dil each compared to trading over 30k dil to get enough zen for 1. And unless they change the species trait system I will continue to get species traits repsec tokens from the dil store.
I'm sorry if maybe the playerbase hasn't been very clear. We want CONTENT.
STUFF
TO
DO.
Season 9 has new stuff to do. New missions and the like. All based on the Undine. They're also working on a bigger expansion that will have more content too.
To note, this is dev blog 5 in the season 9 dev blogs. So like this is just one of the things changing in season 9. The big thing about season 9 is the new undine content. Especially for folks who want more content.
If the whole point of this "revamp" is to make things more competitive for new level 50 captains compared to those of us who've been playing since beta, should you not also nerf all the fleet ships, fleet holding consoles, weapons, and misc gear to also fight the power creep? How about we also get rid of all the pay to win consoles from the c-store ships while we are at it, and maybe even get rid of all ships with 5 forward weapons and 5 tac consoles too? Not to mention various lock box related OP items like some of the special traits that can only be accessed that way.
Seriously, if this is to fight "power creep" there are a lot of other issues that should be addressed first. Like how about giving the kdf a BOP or Raptor with 5 forward weapons and 5 tac consoles? Or maybe even address the many long standing bugs that discourage people from playing the kdf because half of the early missions are bugged. Or the supposedly fixed with the march 6th patch issue of uniform slots that are still bugged?
If you really want to make things "fair" for new players (let's face it, you can make lvl 50 in less than a week of a couple hours per day) why not try fixing pvp and give it more options?
I'm 100% against this. Why is this even being done in the game, when they have just had repeated server issues and bugs still continue for the KDF side? I'm so confused here...
Because ... the people who handle server hardware and networking aren't the same people who design in-game systems or verify bugs? I thought something like that was fairly obvious.
And yeah, I haven't slogged through all 50+ pages of what I'm sure is blind rage, but I'm cautiously optimistic. More than once, I've had to think long and hard about which Rep power at a given tier I'd be locking myself into. Now, I can adjust my rep powers as necessary for the task at hand. Plus, a lot of them became much more potent. IMO, that's a fair trade-off.
Good question. You mean "What about reputation respecs players have purchased and haven't used before season 9 launches?"
Will they get some sort of refund? Thankfully I don't have any reputation repspec tokens. But thanks to this blog, I won't be getting any now. I was planning to repsec my rep powers on some toons but the new system means I can save my dil*.
*I preferred to get rep and species trait repsec tokens from the dil store (Special Items and Boxes>Services) since they are a flat 20k dil each compared to trading over 30k dil to get enough zen for 1. And unless they change the species trait system I will continue to get species traits repsec tokens from the dil store.
This is by far the worst thing I have ever seen happen to STO. Period. This is flat-out punishment of veteran players who invest time and resources into a game. This punishes loyalty, patience, investment of time, and work.
Veterans are being punished because they have either been playing longer or playing every facet of the game to the fullest extent possible. I am VERY dissatisfied with this news, and I must say for the first time, I have given pause to my continued support of this game.
As a player with 11 toons, with all my reps maxed, I feel that I have been given the biggest F-YOU in the history of my gaming career.
The devs are punishing Veterans (the people who have stuck by them for years) in favor of new players who, more or less, will play the game to level 50 then stop playing.
If you are going to punish veterans by negating all of their hard work in the rep system, you might as well start punishing veterans fleets too. Why stop at Repuations? Let's nerf the fleet system shall we? Let's reduce the cost, time, and amount of XP needed to advance in the fleet system. Far be it from the veterans who have sunken millions upon millions of dil into their fleet to earen what they have built, while people who are new have to WORK a fraction as hard to get what we have in a fraction of the amount of time. You are establishing a precedent of punishing hard work and dedication to a game, in favor of reducing the advantages of playing longer and with more dedication.
If new players WANT to be as strong as max rep players...then the NEW PEOPLE can puit in the same amount of work we did, not less.
This change is BULL****!
Punishing your veterans is the WORST idea. Whoever came up with the idea to nerf the rep system should be categorically dismissed from their job with no severance pay. I would not feel sorry for them.
This idea better die on the tribble server, and NEVER surface again. The fact that people are not outraged across the board by this blatant punishment of veteran players...it boggles the mind.
---
Now, I won't rage without giving possible alternatives.
If you insist on going down this road, change the 4 passive ground and 4 passive space to 8 passive of whatever you want. I prefer to focus on Space gameplay over ground gameplay, so I should be able to put all my passives into space. I know there are some players out there who only play ground, so let them have 8 ground and they can ignore space. If people want more space than ground, give them the option to go 6 space, 2 ground.
Or...here is another alternative:
Leave the current reps alone, and go ahead and make new reputations use this new system.
Whatever you do...DO NOT NEGATE OUR HARD WORK! DO NOT PUNISH YOUR VETERANS!
Embrace the hard work of your beterans. Reward it. It will pay off. Don't punish us!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If you oppose the Reputation nerf, feel free to use my signature
Takes one of the edges off power creep
Creates greater on the fly customisability, fits well with the new build system if it can be incorporated
Creates less of a gap for newer players who haven't been able to sink as much into the rep system
Reduces the lockoutiness of the rep system.
Encourages more careful decisions
Allows for infinite scaleability
If the whole point of this "revamp" is to make things more competitive for new level 50 captains compared to those of us who've been playing since beta, should you not also nerf all the fleet ships, fleet holding consoles, weapons, and misc gear to also fight the power creep? How about we also get rid of all the pay to win consoles from the c-store ships while we are at it, and maybe even get rid of all ships with 5 forward weapons and 5 tac consoles too? Not to mention various lock box related OP items like some of the special traits that can only be accessed that way.
Seriously, if this is to fight "power creep" there are a lot of other issues that should be addressed first. Like how about giving the kdf a BOP or Raptor with 5 forward weapons and 5 tac consoles? Or maybe even address the many long standing bugs that discourage people from playing the kdf because half of the early missions are bugged. Or the supposedly fixed with the march 6th patch issue of uniform slots that are still bugged?
If you really want to make things "fair" for new players (let's face it, you can make lvl 50 in less than a week of a couple hours per day) why not try fixing pvp and give it more options?
Why fix the problems when you can take away something ppl spent hours upon hours on. Then later on go and sell them more slots to buy back what they already had. For them easier money than fixing bugs or balancing the power creep with ships of equal stature
Takes a lot to drive me back to ncsoft but I think they accomplished that lol.
Long time players that feel they are owed an advantage over new players.
There is a difference between feeling owed and earning something.
Regardless, that's not my real problem here. My real problem is that I don't want to spend more time micromanaging to take advantage of what I have earned playing the game.
They can start handing out Tier 4 rep in every rep to new players to get them to want to play - I couldn't care less.
But managing this game is already so complex, that making it more complex just to appease folks who are bored, or who are new to the game and expect it all handed to them, is the issue.
If you think this game is too easy, play without armor. Use inferior weapons. Give yourself a challenge. And there always will be two-week old players who cry about other people being more powerful/earning more than them. That's an MMO.
It's the middle of the road folks who foot the bill around here, and this change is just going to discourage folks from bothering with more than a few trees of rep - which means less playing, less spending, etc.
But stay smug, "friend" - and watch it all happen, just like every other MMO that has ever tried to cater to the bored and the newbies, as the middle-of-the-road folks loose interest. On the plus side for you, the servers will likely end up more stable as two or three folks on a map isn't going to crash it out.
Reading over the changes to the passives, they're all pretty dramatic. And all better than what's currently there. This could be fascinating in determining how I spec out my different characters.
When you think about it should be fun with alts as well.
If you roled a new sci perhaps you skip Romulan rep completely... but Go hard in Nukura for the tier 4 aux reps with a combo of dyson... anything you do after that is for fun and to be a completionist. On an engi toon perhaps you choose a couple other reps to focus on.
In 6 months from now when we have 6 or 7 rep systems... it could be real interesting.
At least new players that decide to role 2-3 toons... can have fun doing completely different grinds on those toons to start with. When they get there main 4 passives for each toon they could swap tokens around and do the opposite grinds after. Bottom line they could play longer on more toons DIFFERENT content. (instead of doing the same boring rep missions 3 or 4 times for each alt)
This is by far the worst thing I have ever seen happen to STO. Period.
Nah, this doesn't even crack top 10. The absolute worst change they made? Was making a skill point cap on the skills system. Back in beta. The rage over that? Hooo boy.
When you think about it should be fun with alts as well.
If you roled a new sci perhaps you skip Romulan rep completely... but Go hard in Nukura for the tier 4 aux reps with a combo of dyson... anything you do after that is for fun and to be a completionist. On an engi toon perhaps you choose a couple other reps to focus on.
In 6 months from now when we have 6 or 7 rep systems... it could be real interesting.
At least new players that decide to role 2-3 toons... can have fun doing completely different grinds on those toons to start with. When they get there main 4 passives for each toon they could swap tokens around and do the opposite grinds after. Bottom line they could play longer on more toons DIFFERENT content. (instead of doing the same boring rep missions 3 or 4 times for each alt)
That's also what I was thinking. I have my two charcters that are still way far ahead of my other alts on rep grinds. And now I'm looking at this, and will look at Undine, and for once it could be a somewhat different path for different characters.
Takes one of the edges off power creep
Creates greater on the fly customisability, fits well with the new build system if it can be incorporated
Creates less of a gap for newer players who haven't been able to sink as much into the rep system
Reduces the lockoutiness of the rep system.
Encourages more careful decisions
Allows for infinite scaleability
AdjudicatorHawk, I have only one question (and problem) with this being done.
Why not 8 powers?
8 powers would let anyone who already likes their build to keep it. It'd also provide some more flexibility. Additionally, it would provide a definite hedge against the power creep that you seem to be trying to address.
I would prefer to have less grind and more people to play with than to be a part of an elitist club where everyone not in this club (95-99% of the player base) is merely cannon fodder to my glory and might.
Seriously, how many times have you complained about randoms in queues lately? How many more do you think you will you have to complain about if power creep constantly raises the bar? And when you notice there aren't very many noobish players around anymore, how many months or weeks do you expect to go by before Cryptic announces a turn off date?
Let me tell you all this, because I have seen it before. I have been exactly where all of us have dreamed on a little NWN server that still runs today, because after nine years of tweaking and playing the same damn character and power creep and players and characters coming and going I achieved that which I had in my naivete sought: I acquired the most powerful character on the server, unmatched in PVP or PVE, and this all kept going because it was an RP server, so for most this wasn't even the actual goal. But I did it, unquestionably, and maybe for a brief time it was fun to be that guy, but that quickly faded as each thing I participated in started going about the same ways. Every PVP event was a curb stomp due to sheer power from longevity of play, rather than any measure of skill. Every PVE event got the same commentary from DMs: Either they balanced to challenge the average party member which resulted in me stomping the entire thing flat, or they balanced to challenge my character which resulted in most of the rest of the party being dead by round two, and this just wasn't fun for anyone. I once stood out in the open just to passively tank a group of a half-dozen archers that were up a cliff while the rest of the party healed, and did so with no issue. ONE of these archers switched targets to an average member of the party who got a little too close. After a round of combat he had been chunked to near death and he was spamming healing kits. I could only watch while his healing was completely out-DPSed and within 3 rounds or so he was dead.
There was just no middle ground for this. How can you balance this when one character can wreck a 4-5 of a thing that most of the rest could barely deal with one on one? This is what happens in that model, and it's no fun for anyone involved, not for those who are eternally beneath the elite, and not even for those at the top. Because at the top you will find, one day, that you have no one to play with.
tl;dr: Power creep is bad. New players being able to get on our level in a more reasonable time frame means more people to play with and have fun.
So when are lockbox ships and items going to be nerfed?
I'd like to know this as well. Maybe I'd pvp more if it happened.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
so why grind the new rep systems at all if they don't have a specific piece of equipment or passive that you want? With the current system you still get benefit from the time...in the new system you will get a bunch of passives in a pool that you will never use.
That said, the new rep systems will have to be better than the current ones to get people to put in the time and EC to complete them which mean new players will still skip the current ones to get the new better passives.
Also I love how they use the phrase "if we had 200" and "if we had 100". At the rate of 2 new reps a year (assuming we get two new seasons or expansions each year) we will hit that level of reps in only 48 years. Yeah the doom associated with 100+ reps systems and their associated passives are impending. Pro Marketing tip to the blog writer....if you are trying to persuade people that something is needed use a plausible argument.
I've seen this assertion made repeatedly, and I want to clarify - I'm not saying a new 50 should be equal to a veteran 50, nor will they be under this new system. I am saying that combat math where a fresh 50 deals 500 DPS but a veteran 50 deals 40,000 DPS is too wide a performance delta to sustain gameplay between those two actors.
Then what is the point of working to get the best out of a ship. If someone does not know how to use their ship. They should work to make their ship better like we did. I use to do low dps but I put TIME and MONEY into making my ship better. I like some of the revamp but your taking to much away at same time. This would be considered fraud in the real world. To take something away that someone spent a lot of effort in getting.
Comments
yes, because its totally not fair that some lifeless peasants who grinded for years and kept us in the biz should have an advantage over our dear 2-week old noobs which we hold in such a high esteem
But honestly without this it would have killed all challenge in pve. ENdlessly grinding same extremely easy pve events isn't going to help the game. I'm sorry, its just not a feasible practice. Especially over the long term. AA in everquest actually eventually killed the growth of that game, as people who were more casual or were new saw that they simply could not compete with the growing powercreep of vets.
I don't PVP because I find no benefit to it. For this game I've heard about making a lot of dilithium from PVP, but it doesn't help me get through my reputations. Why bother when I can get dil in much easier (and often times funner) ways?
Same reason why I don't do foundry content: doesn't help with my reps and I can get dil other ways. (I skipped the bonus foundry weekend completely; partially because I forgot about it, but mainly because taking several toons through the Mirror universe event takes up my time)
Cryptic has said long ago that it's possible they will add a PVP reputation to the game. If they did that I would have a reason to PVP.
(I love the reputation system and always have
I guess I took that the wrong way. as in we get to respec for free when it goes live.
so then my next question would be. what will become of those respecs people have bought? will unused rep respecs become a waste of zen? or dilithium?
STUFF
TO
DO.
All these guys working away on this update? You should reassign them to making some STUFF TO DO, instead of nerfing things that don't really need nerfing. The passives were not even remotely good anyway, at least not for the time and effort it takes to acquire them all.
PS: Thanks for Mirror Invasion, it's really great and you guys deserve a big round of applause for it. Please stop releasing "good updates" that give content and following them with "bad updates" that nerf or change stuff that didn't need it. That's my feedback.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
Yeah being that I took 23 characters and got max tier in every rep it seems like doing any more reps will be futile. Looks like all I will be doing is doffing dilithium and just have a big huge supply of it for the day when they do something I will want something they have to offer. So pretty much I'll play new missions a few times and then wait till the next season pops up. I think all those ppl who quit after season 7 pretty much saw this coming and bailed earlier kudos to them lol.
Leveling the playing field was one thing the dev said.
The truth is this is about more then just that. It is also about the future of the game.
They can't let rep creep continue with out making the current content harder.... Raising a level cap would only solve the issue for a short time frame.
Lets assume the new rep comes out and they make the content hard enough that you find it interesting with your 5 completed reps... that same content is now that much harder for the new guy with no rep.
There system is elegant and the same system used by games like LORO. Where you can unlock tons of cool passives... but you are limited to X number.
The only real argument on this change as I see it is...
Is the rep system right now FINE ... in which case a limit of 8 would allow for the status que with the new 5th and following reps being the optional reps for Vets... and one of the options for new players.
Or Is the number of current passives part of the problem... in which case it is in need of a reduction.
Now I am obviously in the camp that feels the game has to much right now... and a reduction to 4 active is a good step.
Either way it needs to have a limit... the number of reps is only going to grow... and the balancing of new content is going to get harder and harder for Cryptic.
Good question. You mean "What about reputation respecs players have purchased and haven't used before season 9 launches?"
Will they get some sort of refund? Thankfully I don't have any reputation repspec tokens. But thanks to this blog, I won't be getting any now. I was planning to repsec my rep powers on some toons but the new system means I can save my dil*.
*I preferred to get rep and species trait repsec tokens from the dil store (Special Items and Boxes>Services) since they are a flat 20k dil each compared to trading over 30k dil to get enough zen for 1. And unless they change the species trait system I will continue to get species traits repsec tokens from the dil store.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=15925801&postcount=187
Season 9 has new stuff to do. New missions and the like. All based on the Undine. They're also working on a bigger expansion that will have more content too.
To note, this is dev blog 5 in the season 9 dev blogs. So like this is just one of the things changing in season 9. The big thing about season 9 is the new undine content. Especially for folks who want more content.
Seriously, if this is to fight "power creep" there are a lot of other issues that should be addressed first. Like how about giving the kdf a BOP or Raptor with 5 forward weapons and 5 tac consoles? Or maybe even address the many long standing bugs that discourage people from playing the kdf because half of the early missions are bugged. Or the supposedly fixed with the march 6th patch issue of uniform slots that are still bugged?
If you really want to make things "fair" for new players (let's face it, you can make lvl 50 in less than a week of a couple hours per day) why not try fixing pvp and give it more options?
Because ... the people who handle server hardware and networking aren't the same people who design in-game systems or verify bugs? I thought something like that was fairly obvious.
And yeah, I haven't slogged through all 50+ pages of what I'm sure is blind rage, but I'm cautiously optimistic. More than once, I've had to think long and hard about which Rep power at a given tier I'd be locking myself into. Now, I can adjust my rep powers as necessary for the task at hand. Plus, a lot of them became much more potent. IMO, that's a fair trade-off.
Yep you got exactly what meant :-)
Veterans are being punished because they have either been playing longer or playing every facet of the game to the fullest extent possible. I am VERY dissatisfied with this news, and I must say for the first time, I have given pause to my continued support of this game.
As a player with 11 toons, with all my reps maxed, I feel that I have been given the biggest F-YOU in the history of my gaming career.
The devs are punishing Veterans (the people who have stuck by them for years) in favor of new players who, more or less, will play the game to level 50 then stop playing.
If you are going to punish veterans by negating all of their hard work in the rep system, you might as well start punishing veterans fleets too. Why stop at Repuations? Let's nerf the fleet system shall we? Let's reduce the cost, time, and amount of XP needed to advance in the fleet system. Far be it from the veterans who have sunken millions upon millions of dil into their fleet to earen what they have built, while people who are new have to WORK a fraction as hard to get what we have in a fraction of the amount of time. You are establishing a precedent of punishing hard work and dedication to a game, in favor of reducing the advantages of playing longer and with more dedication.
If new players WANT to be as strong as max rep players...then the NEW PEOPLE can puit in the same amount of work we did, not less.
This change is BULL****!
Punishing your veterans is the WORST idea. Whoever came up with the idea to nerf the rep system should be categorically dismissed from their job with no severance pay. I would not feel sorry for them.
This idea better die on the tribble server, and NEVER surface again. The fact that people are not outraged across the board by this blatant punishment of veteran players...it boggles the mind.
---
Now, I won't rage without giving possible alternatives.
If you insist on going down this road, change the 4 passive ground and 4 passive space to 8 passive of whatever you want. I prefer to focus on Space gameplay over ground gameplay, so I should be able to put all my passives into space. I know there are some players out there who only play ground, so let them have 8 ground and they can ignore space. If people want more space than ground, give them the option to go 6 space, 2 ground.
Or...here is another alternative:
Leave the current reps alone, and go ahead and make new reputations use this new system.
Whatever you do...DO NOT NEGATE OUR HARD WORK! DO NOT PUNISH YOUR VETERANS!
Embrace the hard work of your beterans. Reward it. It will pay off. Don't punish us!
Creates greater on the fly customisability, fits well with the new build system if it can be incorporated
Creates less of a gap for newer players who haven't been able to sink as much into the rep system
Reduces the lockoutiness of the rep system.
Encourages more careful decisions
Allows for infinite scaleability
This is a really good, solid decision.
Why fix the problems when you can take away something ppl spent hours upon hours on. Then later on go and sell them more slots to buy back what they already had. For them easier money than fixing bugs or balancing the power creep with ships of equal stature
Takes a lot to drive me back to ncsoft but I think they accomplished that lol.
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There is a difference between feeling owed and earning something.
Regardless, that's not my real problem here. My real problem is that I don't want to spend more time micromanaging to take advantage of what I have earned playing the game.
They can start handing out Tier 4 rep in every rep to new players to get them to want to play - I couldn't care less.
But managing this game is already so complex, that making it more complex just to appease folks who are bored, or who are new to the game and expect it all handed to them, is the issue.
If you think this game is too easy, play without armor. Use inferior weapons. Give yourself a challenge. And there always will be two-week old players who cry about other people being more powerful/earning more than them. That's an MMO.
It's the middle of the road folks who foot the bill around here, and this change is just going to discourage folks from bothering with more than a few trees of rep - which means less playing, less spending, etc.
But stay smug, "friend" - and watch it all happen, just like every other MMO that has ever tried to cater to the bored and the newbies, as the middle-of-the-road folks loose interest. On the plus side for you, the servers will likely end up more stable as two or three folks on a map isn't going to crash it out.
When you think about it should be fun with alts as well.
If you roled a new sci perhaps you skip Romulan rep completely... but Go hard in Nukura for the tier 4 aux reps with a combo of dyson... anything you do after that is for fun and to be a completionist. On an engi toon perhaps you choose a couple other reps to focus on.
In 6 months from now when we have 6 or 7 rep systems... it could be real interesting.
At least new players that decide to role 2-3 toons... can have fun doing completely different grinds on those toons to start with. When they get there main 4 passives for each toon they could swap tokens around and do the opposite grinds after. Bottom line they could play longer on more toons DIFFERENT content. (instead of doing the same boring rep missions 3 or 4 times for each alt)
Nah, this doesn't even crack top 10. The absolute worst change they made? Was making a skill point cap on the skills system. Back in beta. The rage over that? Hooo boy.
That's also what I was thinking. I have my two charcters that are still way far ahead of my other alts on rep grinds. And now I'm looking at this, and will look at Undine, and for once it could be a somewhat different path for different characters.
I'm intrigued by this long term.
Well put.
I would like the post if the forums allowed.
Why not 8 powers?
8 powers would let anyone who already likes their build to keep it. It'd also provide some more flexibility. Additionally, it would provide a definite hedge against the power creep that you seem to be trying to address.
Seriously, how many times have you complained about randoms in queues lately? How many more do you think you will you have to complain about if power creep constantly raises the bar? And when you notice there aren't very many noobish players around anymore, how many months or weeks do you expect to go by before Cryptic announces a turn off date?
Let me tell you all this, because I have seen it before. I have been exactly where all of us have dreamed on a little NWN server that still runs today, because after nine years of tweaking and playing the same damn character and power creep and players and characters coming and going I achieved that which I had in my naivete sought: I acquired the most powerful character on the server, unmatched in PVP or PVE, and this all kept going because it was an RP server, so for most this wasn't even the actual goal. But I did it, unquestionably, and maybe for a brief time it was fun to be that guy, but that quickly faded as each thing I participated in started going about the same ways. Every PVP event was a curb stomp due to sheer power from longevity of play, rather than any measure of skill. Every PVE event got the same commentary from DMs: Either they balanced to challenge the average party member which resulted in me stomping the entire thing flat, or they balanced to challenge my character which resulted in most of the rest of the party being dead by round two, and this just wasn't fun for anyone. I once stood out in the open just to passively tank a group of a half-dozen archers that were up a cliff while the rest of the party healed, and did so with no issue. ONE of these archers switched targets to an average member of the party who got a little too close. After a round of combat he had been chunked to near death and he was spamming healing kits. I could only watch while his healing was completely out-DPSed and within 3 rounds or so he was dead.
There was just no middle ground for this. How can you balance this when one character can wreck a 4-5 of a thing that most of the rest could barely deal with one on one? This is what happens in that model, and it's no fun for anyone involved, not for those who are eternally beneath the elite, and not even for those at the top. Because at the top you will find, one day, that you have no one to play with.
tl;dr: Power creep is bad. New players being able to get on our level in a more reasonable time frame means more people to play with and have fun.
Different topic for a later dev blog. Give em time.
I'd like to know this as well. Maybe I'd pvp more if it happened.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
That said, the new rep systems will have to be better than the current ones to get people to put in the time and EC to complete them which mean new players will still skip the current ones to get the new better passives.
Also I love how they use the phrase "if we had 200" and "if we had 100". At the rate of 2 new reps a year (assuming we get two new seasons or expansions each year) we will hit that level of reps in only 48 years. Yeah the doom associated with 100+ reps systems and their associated passives are impending. Pro Marketing tip to the blog writer....if you are trying to persuade people that something is needed use a plausible argument.
Then what is the point of working to get the best out of a ship. If someone does not know how to use their ship. They should work to make their ship better like we did. I use to do low dps but I put TIME and MONEY into making my ship better. I like some of the revamp but your taking to much away at same time. This would be considered fraud in the real world. To take something away that someone spent a lot of effort in getting.