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Specialization Reputation: A Modest Proposal
phantrosity
Member Posts: 239 Arc User
There's only one current problem with specialization points.
You get them automatically, after level 50, whenever your XP bar fills up.
Now, bear with me on this. The reason that so many changes have been made to XP rewards is that players were finding ways of getting specialization points faster than the devs wanted them to. In order to ensure the rate of SP gain was as expected, they had to fiddle with how much experience was globally awarded.
That obviously has side effects, especially for people trying to level a new character. A thriving game is one with a constant stream of fresh blood, so we want to make it as easy as possible to get from 1 to 60.
So how do we decouple specialization points from normal level progression? In other words, how do we ensure players are limited to earning specialization points at the proper rate, while leaving experience point awards high?
It turns out this is a problem that's already been solved! We have a working example in the game already. The reputation system.
Reputation projects can already take expertise as an input. All that needs to be done is set up a 'specialization' reputation. Maybe call it 'Starfleet Academy' or something like that - the name doesn't matter.
Every day, you can run a 20 hour project, which demands a big pile of expertise. The moment it's filled up, you get a specialization point (just like the little boxes of dil gear you get out of the current reps). At the end of the 20 hours, you get a little token bonus (maybe 240 dil and a random boff manual).
That limits players to getting a maximum of one spec point a day, even if they stay up all night and drink fifty red bulls.
Now that the rate of XP gain is no longer directly coupled to spec point acquisition, XP rewards can be bumped back up to what they previously were. That means it's easy for new players to get to 60, and gives the devteam the ability to do more fine-tuning of the specialization system. It also keeps people logging back in over a long time, and makes the game a little more alt-friendly (later on, some equivalent of the sponsorship tokens could be developed for alts).
Obviously the exact numbers can be fiddled around with to make sure that they match what the devs have in mind, but I think the playerbase would find the change pretty agreeable.
Geko has already made a lot of refinements to the rep system, and the recent improvements were all welcome. I think it's currently one of the best-designed MMO progression mechanics around. Folding specialization into it really makes sense.
You get them automatically, after level 50, whenever your XP bar fills up.
Now, bear with me on this. The reason that so many changes have been made to XP rewards is that players were finding ways of getting specialization points faster than the devs wanted them to. In order to ensure the rate of SP gain was as expected, they had to fiddle with how much experience was globally awarded.
That obviously has side effects, especially for people trying to level a new character. A thriving game is one with a constant stream of fresh blood, so we want to make it as easy as possible to get from 1 to 60.
So how do we decouple specialization points from normal level progression? In other words, how do we ensure players are limited to earning specialization points at the proper rate, while leaving experience point awards high?
It turns out this is a problem that's already been solved! We have a working example in the game already. The reputation system.
Reputation projects can already take expertise as an input. All that needs to be done is set up a 'specialization' reputation. Maybe call it 'Starfleet Academy' or something like that - the name doesn't matter.
Every day, you can run a 20 hour project, which demands a big pile of expertise. The moment it's filled up, you get a specialization point (just like the little boxes of dil gear you get out of the current reps). At the end of the 20 hours, you get a little token bonus (maybe 240 dil and a random boff manual).
That limits players to getting a maximum of one spec point a day, even if they stay up all night and drink fifty red bulls.
Now that the rate of XP gain is no longer directly coupled to spec point acquisition, XP rewards can be bumped back up to what they previously were. That means it's easy for new players to get to 60, and gives the devteam the ability to do more fine-tuning of the specialization system. It also keeps people logging back in over a long time, and makes the game a little more alt-friendly (later on, some equivalent of the sponsorship tokens could be developed for alts).
Obviously the exact numbers can be fiddled around with to make sure that they match what the devs have in mind, but I think the playerbase would find the change pretty agreeable.
Geko has already made a lot of refinements to the rep system, and the recent improvements were all welcome. I think it's currently one of the best-designed MMO progression mechanics around. Folding specialization into it really makes sense.
Post edited by phantrosity on
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It means new players earn enough to stay interested (because realizing to get to Lvl. 60 will take months is pretty demoralizing) but the older veteran players are limited to earning spec points over a minimum period of time so are kept playing longer.
You've got like 90 odd spec points to aquire so that is 3 months of dailies to get all of them. I don't think that is too short a period of time, especially if to remember you have to actually grind out the XP to use on such a daily project in the first place.
Sorry, couldn't help myself, Geko ridicule aside I like the idea however that returns us to where we were pre-DR where we get endless supplies of exp that vanishes into the void.
Perhaps a hybrid system... Where you fill the 'rep' project with expertise and when it completes it gives you back one level worth of spec points, meanwhile you continue to gain spec points from doing content. At the same time, to fix levelling, reduce the exp needed per level by 66.6r% (to the level it was before they first 'fixed' level gain) that with the current rate of exp gain should make levelling fluent again as lvls 55 - 60 would only need 50k-ish to get, which considering lvls up to 50 is much more reasonable.
But, its not true. This is an RPG and leveling up is probably the single most defining feature of the genre. If you don't like it, you're playing not just the wrong game, but entirely the wrong genre.
People have complained of too fast leveling for years, and for levels 1-50, they still do.
Now, if you made the Project take 7 days to finish unless you speed it up with Dilithium.. then you might get their attention.
Seriously though, it's a pretty solid idea. Sucks that it won't ever even be considered.
Mine Trap Supporter
The stated intent of the specialisation system was laid out at the start:
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/7007273
"We hope that this newfound sense of endless progression can simultaneously grant each player the opportunity to explore different choices as they continue to earn progress"
Players are not *meant* to max out their trees:
"If an extremely dedicated Captain ever reaches the point where they would earn another Specialization Point, but have already purchased every Specialization Ability available to them, these surplus points will be automatically converted into Dilithium Ore."
Look at that wording; "if... ever" ; "endless progression". My emphasis, but I take that as a statement of intent. You are not *meant* to max out all of your specialisations because this is a wierd halfway house towards STO having unlimited progression.
That's why Cryptic reacted so badly when the Japori "bug" came to light, because it took their stated intent and trashed it.
This would be fine if you dodn't have to be "an extremely dedicated" player to make any progress at all...
I'll pass on this, thanks.
If you're not getting a spec point a day, my proposed specialization reputation would end up speeding things up a bit, since the devs could be freer with xp drops. Freer xp drops makes the game more attractive to new players (and alts). More players and more characters per player means more money for cryptic, and that means more of these great episodes
And for anyone gaining less than a point a day, even in the worst case making it into a reputation isn't going to hurt your progression any.
Let's say at the beginning of DR a hardcore player could get seven points in a day, and a casual player could maybe get one point every three days.
In order to prevent a hardcore player from getting too many spec points, under the current system the devs had to dramatically lower the experience awards for everyone.
So the casual player now gets one point every three weeks, and the hardcore player gets one point every day. That really sucks for the casual player - he's going to have to wait over a year just to finish one specialization.
If they instead changed things to a reputation system, the casual player would still get the same rate - one point every three days, from playing whatever he normally does. The hardcore player would get one point a day, no matter what type of content he decides to grind.
Configuring things as a reputation system narrows the gap between casual and hardcore players, in other words.
Oh, players are supposed to be able to complete individual specializations. That's why you get traits for capping them out. Running out of trees to work on is, I agree, against the spirit of it. But I think even with one point a day playing, the vast majority of players still wouldn't end up maxing out their specializations. A lot of people only play on weekends, for one thing.
It's been 141 days since DR launched. If you're limited to a maximum of one point a day, getting 90 points requires some pretty dedicated play. Combine that with staggered releases of specialization trees, and things look even better - even the most hardcore players would have barely completed the Command tree last Friday.
Exactly! We want casual players to be able to get a sense of progression, rather than feeling frustrated.
Must not be true anymore because they removed the Dilithium fairly early on.
If Dilithium meant they aren't supposed to be able to do it then what does no Dilithium mean?
I think that was more a stopgap than anything else.
/Johnathan Swift has a sad
It should be as interesting/engaging as possible; not as easy as possible, except where difficulty gets in the way of interest/engagement.
Rushing players through the leveling process, only to turn around and say the game has so much content available during the leveling process, is counter-productive.