But there aren't really passives for facing particular people, we give it a month after its out and then there will be the "best" spec for a given ship type/build and no one will care to get anything else bar what they need.
You can now combine different passives so you can defeat a given enemy easily now that you have access to all of them and you can slot them in and out as you please.
Well technically it is a nerf, we currently have 4 reps at 4 passives each thats 16 passives. After this we get 8 passives, so its a 50 percent nerf. as of now any way.
Cool news thanks Hawk!
Actually, right now you have (well I have anyway) 16 out of 32 possible passives. 16 of them have been locked away from me for good because of my past choices.
Now I appear to only get 4 ground and 4 space, but I get to pick them out of the ENTIRE 32 any time I want.
So it's a bonus from my perspective. In the past I've had to pick based on what I think would be the best 51% of the time, now I can pick the best for a specific situation.
Put another way, I've been running with my gret chell as my primary since last years winter event. I've made tweaks and upgraded weapons as I got them through the rep (like upgrading my Roxy-era borg XI set to XII - the XI went on my shuttle; adapted omega and rom singularity harness).
I'd built it to handle the widest range of enemies I could. But it meant that something like Crystaline Entity it was at a disadvantage, because it was set using phased poleron's. To set up for just that would take a while and be a pain.
Now my shuttle can use the borg XII and my good consoles, and yesterday I tried out some new builds in my dyson destroyer that I just couldn't easily do without the loadout.
This is just like loadout for passives. It's actually opened up play a bit more for me, and made it a bit more RPG-like.
Of course, it's still far too much MMO3PS than MMORPG, there does need to be some work on non-combat activites, and in a way that's just like the DOFF system. Right now there's chances to crit, succeed, fail or disaster, but not for actions your player does. Like Cutting the cord, why doesn't our Demo skill affect the ability to plant spacial charges? A crit means it got 'secondaries', a success is as normal, a failure means it's a dud (and you'd have to go back to the start to pick up more) and a disaster blows you up (injuries maybe, like doff's going to sickbay?), and alerts guards, bringing more of them or at least buffing them.
That's where I'm hoping things like this are going at least. So STO becomes less 'Star Trek Counterstrike' on ground. We're finally seeing some ship-class difference in the Mirror event, so it's time to expand it more.
If you had 8 nickels before, and now you have 4 dimes, is that a nerf because you have half as many coins?
Sure, because those 8 nickels were all in different currencies with differing values compared with each other. Now we only have 4 dimes that aren't worth as much compared to some of the old nickels put together.
Can you please leave Rotating Weapons Frequency power. It gives you more options in choosing ground setup, when fighting Borg. You do not need to have Borg gear for instant re-modulator. Also 4 passives is very small number. I think you should increase this number by one with each introduction of new reputation. This way we all will have same umber of slots, but people with completed reps will get more choices.
Can we have some clarity on "active"? ie
1 - "Active" trait = the trait that is slotted
2 - "Active" trait = a clicky that requires pressing to be actived
I'm assuming that you're using definition 1.
Is the trait system going to distinguish between teirs of the passives? ie can I use all teir 4 unlocks for my passive traits? or will I have to pick one T1 passive from my available list. 1 T2 passive from my available list. etc etc?
I think I like what I read. Could do with some basic mock-ups of the UI to illustrate it even if they're "very very subject to change placeholders".
Is there going to be an option to save a trait layout? For example people who want to use the shield bleed trait in PVP but not in PVE.
Honestly I think this should be done but in a way that respects what current players have achieved.
I think the number of rep power/trait slots should be significantly upped so that existing players can more or less keep their current setups that they have worked hard for and earned.
And then fix it there and require swapping out old traits for new ones in future reputation systems.
This would allow you to put a cap on the power creep at this point, while not devaluing the hard work existing players have already put in.
Essantially the biggest problem with this is that Cryptic is going to LOSE MONEY and players in future reps because many veteran players just won't bother with them.
What's the point of going to T5 on undine unless you want one of the items? you can't even use any of the powers unless you get rid of one, and unless one of those powers is really really good, it won't be worth the amount of time and in-game money we have to put into it.
Sure this helps the PVP people complaining about power creep and new players, but vets who are happy with what they have now have no reason to do a single rep again.
I can say right now looking at the Undine rep, i won't even bother with it unless i just enjoy playing the missions but since i can't use the abilities without losing ones i like and i don't care for any of the items, i have no reason to do this rep and any of it's content.
Can you please leave Rotating Weapons Frequency power. It gives you more options in choosing ground setup, when fighting Borg. You do not need instant re-modulator.
I've seen a number of people call this change out specifically, we'll take another look at it or at the base adapt mechanic.
Jeff "Adjudicator Hawk" Hamilton
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
You can now combine different passives so you can defeat a given enemy easily now that you have access to all of them and you can slot them in and out as you please.
but considering that none are SPECIFIC to the enemy its more based on how your own fighting style works anyway.
Honestly I think this should be done but in a way that respects what current players have achieved.
I think the number of rep power/trait slots should be significantly upped so that existing players can more or less keep their current setups that they have worked hard for and earned.
And then fix it there and require swapping out old traits for new ones in future reputation systems.
This would allow you to put a cap on the power creep at this point, while not devaluing the hard work existing players have already put in.
I think this would shut everyone tfu. It allows us to stay as we are currently but moving forward we will be obliged to make choices..
This is how it works. Sorry if that wasn't clear in the blog. If you've unlocked all rep tiers in New Romulus, Nukara, Omega, and Dyson reputations, you'll be able to choose any of the powers in those reps to slot into your power slots.
So Reputation Respec tokens are now obsolete? If we have any lying around, what will happen to them?
So, as things stand now, on my maxed toon, he has four active powers and 16 passive bonuses.
I will be losing 12 of those passives, 75% of them, in return for an approximate doubling of the remaining passives power.
To clarify, you get 4 ground passives and 4 space passives, out of the 16 you currently have (8 of each). If the power level of the passives is being effectively doubled (arguable either way) you end up breaking even even in power level, though concentrated in a smaller number of bonuses.
Wasn't that the original point of the Rep system? You know, to give players a way to advance without raising the level cap? Now we cannot advance, we can only swap traits out.
I was typing this exact response with maybe only a one or two word difference; needless to say, I agree with this sooo much.
While I'm not necessarily opposed to this change, it just leaves me asking: where is the progression now?
Would it be possible for the t2 Nukara Strikeforce Enhanced Shield Penetration: Increased shield penetration from 2.5% to 5%, to affect torpedoes as well?
Game is so heavily energy based...it's more popular to just use all energy weapons which just doesn't feel very Trek at all.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
Right now I am working on to get all reputations to t5 on all of my chars, after this I will have no motivation to do them all, I will do just those I really want and I will skip the rest.
I feel kind of the same (though with the sponsor tokens and the change to not require commodities coming in S9, it's not like repping alts is the burden it once was). But why is this a bad thing to be able to, say, skip Nukara without feeling like you were neglecting useful abilities?
There is nothing wrong with this new system and in fact it allows for more player choice in what they want. You can now equip yourself easily for combat situations easily but equipping the passives you want. It's not all bad.
Sure there is. New players will invest less time, money and resources than I have to gain the same in-game advantages, and as this system expands further the time, money and resources I have invested will become useless/worthless. Once again the middle finger is being given to long term and veteran players. There will always be power creep because people want something new and useful. However this system will eventually make all the work I have done on previous reputation systems meaningless and a waste of my time, money, and resources. I'm not saying it will be like that at the launch of season 9, but eventually it will be true because the only direction to go in a game is up.
I've wanted this so badly for so long. I want it to show effective shield hitpoints over a 10 second period or something, too, so that Regen shields' effectiveness can actually be shown. I'm not sure if it'll ever happen - shields are really arcane - but we'll keep pushing for it if at all possible.
Thanks for the reply, Hawk.
I do have a potential concern with the overall changes, in a sense along the lines of how they will work out as far as being balanced. It's hard not to look at some of it and see it being treated as Weapon Mods...and then thinking about Weapon Mods themselves.
Cause, well - we've got the +CrtD, +CrtH, +Dmg, and we didn't see it but the +Acc. And there are other Rep Traits just like there are proc mods and the like for weapons (albeit without the proc aspect for the Rep Traits).
But if you look at those common weapon mods [Acc], [CrtH], [CrtD], and [Dmg] - [Dmg] is kind of the laughingstock of the group. 5% base compared to 10% accuracy, 20% severity, or 2% crit chance...then get into how the various ratios vary when looking at things, eh? With the Advanced Tactical Consoles, 1.6% CrtH = 8% CrtD instead of the 2% and 20%. It's gone from a 1:10 ratio to a 1:5 ratio. We had a +3% CrtH Rep Passive and +10% CrtD Rep Passive with an entirely different ratio of 1:3.33. It's going to a 1:4 ratio with the 5% CrtH and 20% CrtD. Shouldn't those ratios of value be standardized?
And then with them being standardized, we'd be in a place to discuss the relative worth of each of them for balancing?
Cause in only being able to slot 4 passive Rep Traits, if they're not balanced in a manner where the opportunity cost of the selection comes into play for what you're doing...
ie
X when doing A would be better
Y when doing B would be better
Z when doing C would be better
...we could end up in the situation where it's just a case of X is better when doing ABorC?
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of limiting them in a sense - cause of how huge that gap could end up being between the fresh 50 and the guy that's been playing STO since Pepertual was doodling ideas for the game...heh.
It's just if they don't actually present balanced choices, well - then they're not going to present any choice...all they might do is present traps for players that may not understand some of the mechanics.
Personally I am good with the change.
When the test server started to award species 8472 marks I did begin to think that there was going to be some bloat with too many rep passives.
We hope this will make the selection of your powers a set of interesting choices, and not just a single best spec that people copy from a guide.
Yea, I already see that this isn't going to be true (under the current dev blog).
Romulan 5% crit and Dyson 20% severity will be an absolute must have to anyone whose primary goal is DPS. The other two might be Omega Weapons training and auxiliary power configuration offense. I can see the Dyson tactical advantage replacing auxiliary power configuration for those who have low auxiliary power (aux to bat builds and such).
Skills like Advanced Hull Reinforcement goes from 5 to 10 resist all. Absolutely does not compete, lol.
Can we have some clarity on "active"? ie
1 - "Active" trait = the trait that is slotted
2 - "Active" trait = a clicky that requires pressing to be actived
I'm assuming that you're using definition 1.
Is the trait system going to distinguish between teirs of the passives? ie can I use all teir 4 unlocks for my passive traits? or will I have to pick one T1 passive from my available list. 1 T2 passive from my available list. etc etc?
I think I like what I read. Could do with some basic mock-ups of the UI to illustrate it even if they're "very very subject to change placeholders".
Is there going to be an option to save a trait layout? For example people who want to use the shield bleed trait in PVP but not in PVE.
No definition 2
currently there are 32 passive traits and 4 active, of which we get all 4 active and choose 16 passive, we will be limited to 8 passive traits at a time (4 ground 4 space) and still keeping the 4 active.
Only thing I don't like is changing the Tier 3 Task Force Omega power "Rotating Weapon Frequency" to "Omega Graviton Pulse Module". I liked the Rotating Weapon Frequency, it allowed me to go without getting a single piece of Task Force Omega ground gear.
This is one change I am totally against. If you are changing it, then all Omega and MACO gear should have the rotating frequency by default in addition to this new ability. Lots of members have put tons of time to get the Omega Rep done before and after the rep was implemented. This is one ability that NEEDS to be honored!
I've seen a number of people call this change out specifically, we'll take another look at it or at the base adapt mechanic.
I avoid fighting gainst the Borg on the ground like the plague. I hate the whole remodulation mechanic, it annoys me. I don't like things that get in the way of righteously slaughtering the enemies of the Federation*. So here is a vote against keeping the original power.
Btw I'm fine with these changes, shouldn't be too crippling.
* Which according to Starfleet 2409 is "everyone who might have valuable loot".
You have got to be kidding me, this is just a dumb and unfair change. I like the way my rep powers work now and I do not care if having less means that each is better. It is not right to take away access to powers, passive or active that we have grinded for a ton. So, if you do this don't expect people to be happy about it or I quote say "We recognize that this system revamp will cause some players to lose simultaneous access to powers theyve earned, and its important to us that the powers you choose to slot feel impactful and worthy on their own, now that you can only use 4 passives at once in any given region." that and expect that makes up for what your doing.
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!"
I don't care what the header says, I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be, an "ARC user".
Comments
So, each rep opens up a number of traits now, that can be selected at will and placed in a relatively smaller number of slots.
Four passive slots and four active ones?
Tier V traits being the active ones?
Thus, each rep tree has the possibility of giving four passives and one actives.
So, as things stand now, on my maxed toon, he has four active powers and 16 passive bonuses.
I will be losing 12 of those passives, 75% of them, in return for an approximate doubling of the remaining passives power.
New reps will award the same as old ones, four passives and one active, but there's no way to increase the number of slots.
Thus, if my maxed toon runs a new rep, i'll have 20 passive traits, 5 active ones. Thus having to lose 80% of my passives and 20% of my actives.
I think i see where the 'nerf' accusation is coming from.
I get that the current system is not infiinitely scalable.
Thing is, how scalable does it have to be?
Just how many rep tracks are we thinking about here?
Actually, right now you have (well I have anyway) 16 out of 32 possible passives. 16 of them have been locked away from me for good because of my past choices.
Now I appear to only get 4 ground and 4 space, but I get to pick them out of the ENTIRE 32 any time I want.
So it's a bonus from my perspective. In the past I've had to pick based on what I think would be the best 51% of the time, now I can pick the best for a specific situation.
Put another way, I've been running with my gret chell as my primary since last years winter event. I've made tweaks and upgraded weapons as I got them through the rep (like upgrading my Roxy-era borg XI set to XII - the XI went on my shuttle; adapted omega and rom singularity harness).
I'd built it to handle the widest range of enemies I could. But it meant that something like Crystaline Entity it was at a disadvantage, because it was set using phased poleron's. To set up for just that would take a while and be a pain.
Now my shuttle can use the borg XII and my good consoles, and yesterday I tried out some new builds in my dyson destroyer that I just couldn't easily do without the loadout.
This is just like loadout for passives. It's actually opened up play a bit more for me, and made it a bit more RPG-like.
Of course, it's still far too much MMO3PS than MMORPG, there does need to be some work on non-combat activites, and in a way that's just like the DOFF system. Right now there's chances to crit, succeed, fail or disaster, but not for actions your player does. Like Cutting the cord, why doesn't our Demo skill affect the ability to plant spacial charges? A crit means it got 'secondaries', a success is as normal, a failure means it's a dud (and you'd have to go back to the start to pick up more) and a disaster blows you up (injuries maybe, like doff's going to sickbay?), and alerts guards, bringing more of them or at least buffing them.
That's where I'm hoping things like this are going at least. So STO becomes less 'Star Trek Counterstrike' on ground. We're finally seeing some ship-class difference in the Mirror event, so it's time to expand it more.
Sure, because those 8 nickels were all in different currencies with differing values compared with each other. Now we only have 4 dimes that aren't worth as much compared to some of the old nickels put together.
In short, expect the repo slots to be monetized somehow.
1 - "Active" trait = the trait that is slotted
2 - "Active" trait = a clicky that requires pressing to be actived
I'm assuming that you're using definition 1.
Is the trait system going to distinguish between teirs of the passives? ie can I use all teir 4 unlocks for my passive traits? or will I have to pick one T1 passive from my available list. 1 T2 passive from my available list. etc etc?
I think I like what I read. Could do with some basic mock-ups of the UI to illustrate it even if they're "very very subject to change placeholders".
Is there going to be an option to save a trait layout? For example people who want to use the shield bleed trait in PVP but not in PVE.
I think the number of rep power/trait slots should be significantly upped so that existing players can more or less keep their current setups that they have worked hard for and earned.
And then fix it there and require swapping out old traits for new ones in future reputation systems.
This would allow you to put a cap on the power creep at this point, while not devaluing the hard work existing players have already put in.
No, we get four passive ground slots, 4 passive space slots, 4 active slots
so as we stand you take 8 traits total from the 32 available (going up to 40 with the next rep) and all 4 active abiilities.
we technically lose only 50% of what we have as we dont have a 5th rep yet.
What's the point of going to T5 on undine unless you want one of the items? you can't even use any of the powers unless you get rid of one, and unless one of those powers is really really good, it won't be worth the amount of time and in-game money we have to put into it.
Sure this helps the PVP people complaining about power creep and new players, but vets who are happy with what they have now have no reason to do a single rep again.
I can say right now looking at the Undine rep, i won't even bother with it unless i just enjoy playing the missions but since i can't use the abilities without losing ones i like and i don't care for any of the items, i have no reason to do this rep and any of it's content.
I've seen a number of people call this change out specifically, we'll take another look at it or at the base adapt mechanic.
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
but considering that none are SPECIFIC to the enemy its more based on how your own fighting style works anyway.
I think this would shut everyone tfu. It allows us to stay as we are currently but moving forward we will be obliged to make choices..
So Reputation Respec tokens are now obsolete? If we have any lying around, what will happen to them?
To clarify, you get 4 ground passives and 4 space passives, out of the 16 you currently have (8 of each). If the power level of the passives is being effectively doubled (arguable either way) you end up breaking even even in power level, though concentrated in a smaller number of bonuses.
I was typing this exact response with maybe only a one or two word difference; needless to say, I agree with this sooo much.
While I'm not necessarily opposed to this change, it just leaves me asking: where is the progression now?
Game is so heavily energy based...it's more popular to just use all energy weapons which just doesn't feel very Trek at all.
I feel kind of the same (though with the sponsor tokens and the change to not require commodities coming in S9, it's not like repping alts is the burden it once was). But why is this a bad thing to be able to, say, skip Nukara without feeling like you were neglecting useful abilities?
Sure there is. New players will invest less time, money and resources than I have to gain the same in-game advantages, and as this system expands further the time, money and resources I have invested will become useless/worthless. Once again the middle finger is being given to long term and veteran players. There will always be power creep because people want something new and useful. However this system will eventually make all the work I have done on previous reputation systems meaningless and a waste of my time, money, and resources. I'm not saying it will be like that at the launch of season 9, but eventually it will be true because the only direction to go in a game is up.
Thanks for the reply, Hawk.
I do have a potential concern with the overall changes, in a sense along the lines of how they will work out as far as being balanced. It's hard not to look at some of it and see it being treated as Weapon Mods...and then thinking about Weapon Mods themselves.
Cause, well - we've got the +CrtD, +CrtH, +Dmg, and we didn't see it but the +Acc. And there are other Rep Traits just like there are proc mods and the like for weapons (albeit without the proc aspect for the Rep Traits).
But if you look at those common weapon mods [Acc], [CrtH], [CrtD], and [Dmg] - [Dmg] is kind of the laughingstock of the group. 5% base compared to 10% accuracy, 20% severity, or 2% crit chance...then get into how the various ratios vary when looking at things, eh? With the Advanced Tactical Consoles, 1.6% CrtH = 8% CrtD instead of the 2% and 20%. It's gone from a 1:10 ratio to a 1:5 ratio. We had a +3% CrtH Rep Passive and +10% CrtD Rep Passive with an entirely different ratio of 1:3.33. It's going to a 1:4 ratio with the 5% CrtH and 20% CrtD. Shouldn't those ratios of value be standardized?
And then with them being standardized, we'd be in a place to discuss the relative worth of each of them for balancing?
Cause in only being able to slot 4 passive Rep Traits, if they're not balanced in a manner where the opportunity cost of the selection comes into play for what you're doing...
ie
X when doing A would be better
Y when doing B would be better
Z when doing C would be better
...we could end up in the situation where it's just a case of X is better when doing ABorC?
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of limiting them in a sense - cause of how huge that gap could end up being between the fresh 50 and the guy that's been playing STO since Pepertual was doodling ideas for the game...heh.
It's just if they don't actually present balanced choices, well - then they're not going to present any choice...all they might do is present traps for players that may not understand some of the mechanics.
I will now worship you as an enlightened being
At least I can quit doing the reps on my other alts now, seriously....I have no words....
Ah, i see.
So three trait slot buckets.
Space passive, ground passive and general active.
Hmmm, devil will be in the details.
I do wonder though, how long it'll be before the A2B equivilant is worked out and the min/maxed 'best' build will be ubiquitous.
I am a little concerned though, this appears to be a change solely to create growing room for more reputation tracks.
And given Hawk uses the example of 100 reps, just how many of these things are on the drawing board?
When the test server started to award species 8472 marks I did begin to think that there was going to be some bloat with too many rep passives.
Yea, I already see that this isn't going to be true (under the current dev blog).
Romulan 5% crit and Dyson 20% severity will be an absolute must have to anyone whose primary goal is DPS. The other two might be Omega Weapons training and auxiliary power configuration offense. I can see the Dyson tactical advantage replacing auxiliary power configuration for those who have low auxiliary power (aux to bat builds and such).
Skills like Advanced Hull Reinforcement goes from 5 to 10 resist all. Absolutely does not compete, lol.
No definition 2
currently there are 32 passive traits and 4 active, of which we get all 4 active and choose 16 passive, we will be limited to 8 passive traits at a time (4 ground 4 space) and still keeping the 4 active.
No, you can use those for your Skill Trainers
This is one change I am totally against. If you are changing it, then all Omega and MACO gear should have the rotating frequency by default in addition to this new ability. Lots of members have put tons of time to get the Omega Rep done before and after the rep was implemented. This is one ability that NEEDS to be honored!
I avoid fighting gainst the Borg on the ground like the plague. I hate the whole remodulation mechanic, it annoys me. I don't like things that get in the way of righteously slaughtering the enemies of the Federation*. So here is a vote against keeping the original power.
Btw I'm fine with these changes, shouldn't be too crippling.
* Which according to Starfleet 2409 is "everyone who might have valuable loot".