Every company does money grabs...it's called business. Coca-Cola doesn't put out Coke for the love of humanity. They do it for your money. At christmas time they put out Santa Coke cans and then they put out Vanilla Coke or Cherry Coke...and for a limited time Strawberry Cheesecake Coke.
Here's the thing. I would pay 2000 zen to upgrade the ship I want to fly but not 2000 zen to buy a completely new ship every other week. It's not the money as much as what I'm allowed to buy and the value I put on that purchase.
They're pretty much telling us what kinds of ships we can expect to see with this Spec.
No Pilot cruisers. No Pilot battlecruisers. Probably all ships with a heavy tactical emphasis, although the "light starship" designation would seem to open it up to ships that aren't considered escorts or raiders. Or maybe they just mean light warbirds so our Romulan friends aren't excluded.
I counter with "Even the largest modern Cruiser or Dreadnought can be made to dance through the stars when its pilot truly knows the ship and her capabilities."
Here's the thing. I would pay 2000 zen to upgrade the ship I want to fly but not 2000 zen to buy a completely new ship every other week. It's not the money as much as what I'm allowed to buy and the value I put on that purchase.
Then don't buy it. Only go after ships you want. There's no need to buy them all.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Even the largest modern Cruiser or Dreadnought can be made to dance through the stars when you have the right pilot who truly knows the ship and her capabilities!
More ships more skills more rep to pay to do or grind more , more fleet tier 6 to grind, more separate specializations yet again gee , when does the stuff stop next lockbox all tier6 to buy more , wheres better game content ? wheres 3 separate factions were still still running 2 factions starfleet and klingon romans are both they are not separate faction at all they make game balance of factions 80% star fleet 20% klingon faction or less hey lets make more skills not fix hardly nothing and add more broken skills to the list thats not being fixed ... hey what about pvp ? fix that no money in it i see ... how about fixing rep system there are almost 0 rewards now for finishing tier 5 reps like you used to give 50k dilithium on completion , yeah we need more skills reps and ships wow ?? each patch you add more content it is getting ridiculous these days , drops bone up and hardly drop compared to all rest of games history in the past ? the opponents on most borg queues are dead the opponents have insane amours of hit points and the reward s don't justify the time playing them just look at the queues and see..truth hurts most everyone isn't doing queues most run around look at cool game content of missions and assignments thats all .
Come on guys we should have had all tier 4 pilot and specializations when you started adding all the rest , this is just a fill in of the pilot skill , wow now I can pay more dilithium to do all the rest of new content now oh my so so sad that your needing this new ship junk in game instead of the asking game players what we want and what needs fixing in game poll you all setup how about fix or do that instead of adding more and more glossy pretty new junk / fix game oh we can't we need to be forced to fly old ships BUY new ships to get ship traits , guess that was only reason you did this this way to not kill all of the old ships so there is a lame purpose in them still ... guess start flying old crappy ships for 1or2 traits haha you guys are funny good luck with all this shiny new junk and adding more before fix , most ships are just skins not fancy bridge office stations that makes them goof its that you guys are making stuff up for ships that dont exist in star trek and your fantasies are mucking up the content for all of the future of star trek by adding so much content from in the future, you will run out of time in the future content and then what will we have a lie of amazing glorious junk that more and likely will be removed in the future for better smaller faster more efficient less mucky looking as bad as your new bridge officer trays they are ugly you think future technology get bigger more sloppy more ugly more complicated todo or craft the future is about refinement not mucking game up with glorified colors and icons that make no sense at all , wonder how many people listened to that still complain about junk in game every day i play , go in game read what players are writing don't keep adding more glorious colorful useless junk anymore please take time to refine game not add futuristic TRIBBLE it has to stop , we don ned a new designed qonos or klingon academy we would all rather you fix all the broken junk that has went undone or fixed for like massively last 3 years building up more into a mountain ,i have still 4 klingon outfits of 6 i can't use i can't see my score in combat log in pvp still ,my abilities all flash in combat still ? Surgical stokes hits for if using broke stuff hits for 7 to 12 hits at 15k to 30 k inarow thats as intended its the worst broken skill in game still ?? or how about my Boffs disappearing of my ship every time i warp to battle wee thats fun !! or how about on and on and on .... good luck after you have 300 ships and 7 rep grinds and tier7 starbases and more crafting that isn't doing much and still 8k dilithium a day haha + 500 at fleet mine wow thats helps a lot means more people will waste more time playing than get stuff or rewards than actually finish or complete stuff in this game until they quit from boredom of everything aspect of earning currency in a future that really doesn't use it on Earth or Starfleet's Future haha but looks and the shiny stuff alone hahaha iIhad my fikll of adding more lame content I'm done good luck to the rest of you that will take 3 years just to level up in a game to have it all removed for different stuff added by removing they old and buying stuff alone for no future purpose but buy the shiny hahaha
i'm still kind of annoyed that Sulu wasn't mentioned in the blog as a great pilot. T6 sovereign would be great, but a t6 defiant would be amazing with some of these abilities.
I counter with "Even the largest modern Cruiser or Dreadnought can be made to dance through the stars when its pilot truly knows the ship and her capabilities."
I'm going to put a bit more weight on what the Systems Dev has to say about it, but you could be right.
We can't rule out any possibilities and implications are always subject to facts. We'll know for sure when the facts are in.
I will say I bet they're all Tac-heavy ships. I'd also expect that the hybrid seats will either be Tac/Pilot or Eng/Pilot. The only science officer I ever saw at the helm was Deanna Troi... and we all know how that went.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
why dont do a "specialized boff seat" instead of doing 9 new ship for a new specialization, i dont mind new ships, but this is exacly the type of rushing money grabbing i warned sometime ago and sadly i notice that cryptic is choosing this road making tons of ships just to monetize.... wheres the jupiter class we ask so much on the forum? wheres the typhoon class we ask REALLY SO MUCH in the forum???
making 9 new ships per specialization its just getting really annoying... monetize smarter not harder and faster cryptic (and PWE) :( once i was happy to say that STO is not a pay to win mmo... im starting to rethink this statement (and is really frustating):(:(
Attack Pattern: Lambda
Increase your Accuracy while reducing the Subsystem Power cost of your Weapons
Any foe damaged by your weapons while this is active will suffer an Accuracy and Perception debuff and has a chance of being Confused.
** This ability shares a cooldown category with other Attack Patterns, but also benefits from any ability that improves existing Attack Patterns, including the Pilot Spec ability “Attack Pattern Expertise.”
EDIT: I misread it. I don't like the extremely too convenient synergy this power has with BFAW.
Deploy Countermeasures
Destroys all Mines and Targetable Torpedoes within a short radius, and grants you a short duration immunity to Kinetic Damage from all sources.
Enemy starships nearby have a chance to be Confused if they are caught in the spread.
A non-doff version of Ramming Speed immunity. Already dislike it.
Any kind of total immunity is bad design.
Hold Together
For several seconds, restore your hull over time. The effectiveness of this restoration is increased based on your current Throttle %.
If above a certain Throttle threshold, this ability will also remove Hazard debuffs periodically.
This description alone makes the skill sound better than anything from the Command Spec. I thought Command was a defensive tree, while Pilot was more about maneuverability.
On top of healing, it cleanses debuffs. It's one of those atrocities that does a little too many good things at once.
Reroute Reserves to Weapons
While active, weapon activation will not drain power from your Weapons Subsystem. Instead, every shot will drain a small amount of power from your Engines Subsystem.
In addition to this, the firing cycles of your weapons will be sped up, cycling faster and recharging faster between shots.
** This ability shares a cooldown category with weapon enhancements like Beam Fire At Will, Cannon Rapid Fire and Surgical Strikes
This does sound somewhat better than Surgical Strikes with the faster recharge/cycling. It will probably benefit the casual (or non-crit-oriented) player more than SS would.
But all i'm going to say is that calling them Universal Boff seats is something of fallacy these days.
Seriously, I mean im sure most of us saw this coming with the pilot specialization change, but gosh darn't Cryptic, ENOUGH ALREADY!
UNIVERSAL seating is anything BUT these days, let me guess, were not getting just 1 ship but a another 3 ship set, while I wont lie by saying if its done the same way as the command ships where we can mix and match to our hearts content, this needs to stop.
Is it so hard to change the code on universal seats to become hybrid seats and allow hybrid ie pilot, intel, command, use said seating?
I said it from the very start, ships should be fully modular on how we fill it with crew, now I fully understand why it wasn't designed that way.
This is no longer year of the goat, its year of the wallet.
They look like fun skills, but I'm not buying a new ship just to use them. Sorry not sorry.
Depends really heavily on the ship.
If they do release a T6 Defiant or BoP with Tac/Cmdr Pilot seats, I'm going to be sorely tempted.
Makes me wonder if I should really focus on Tac officers for Delta Recruitment.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
BFAW isn't an Attack Pattern. The text doesn't specifically rule out BFAW, CRF, or any other weapon enhancement power.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I feel bad for all the people who worked on this, really, it is so much potential here but...
Q: What ships/seats allow the use of Pilot Officer Abilities in Space?
A: In order to utilize the Pilot Officer space abilities, you must be flying a starship that has a Hybrid Pilot Officer Bridge Officer seat. They are not usable in Universal Profession seats, or existing Intelligence Specialist or Command Specialist Bridge Officer seats. The line-up of starships that will have hybrid Pilot Officer seats has not yet been announced, but keep your eyes on our website for those announcements!
I think that this new specialization shows promise. The whole idea of specializing an officer has appeal, in that every person on a star ship has some form of hobby or highly developed talent. I look forward to seeing new specializations in the future.
However, with that anticipation comes some trepidation. The current implementation of Boff specializations will soon be insufficient to accommodate all the new space abilities of the various specialization trees.
Currently, in order to use a specialized space ability, you need to have a T6 ship equipped with the appropriately specialized Boff seat. This setup has worked up until now, but with the addition of new specializations, the system will soon become messy. T5-U ships will become more and more obsolete and more and more ships will need to be introduced in order make use of these new abilities. Not everyone will be able to afford these new ships and it will eventually come to the point where a character's ship roster will be hopelessly cluttered with many different high-maintenance ships.
To me, the solution seams simple: A specialization upgrade, similar to the T5-U upgrade. The main idea would be to allow older ships to have one of their Boff seats upgraded to accommodate a specialization of the player's choice. T5-U ships would be given better footing and allow the old players to continue to use their favorite ships. This would also allow for greater customization, in that the player could choose which seat to specialize and thereby make their ship that much more unique. And if ships could use multiple specialization upgrades, the possibilities become that much more interesting. Existing T6 ships could gain that much more potential.
Those are my thought, but I would like to know what you guys think.
i dnt know why we cant have the abilty to choose what abilities our boffs have on any ship, whether it be pilot, command or intel. why cant we have that?
Okay I like that cryptic is adding new elements to the game. New styles of play that just add on to the older ones for the most part.
What I am really really not liking is that these new officers are only showing up on new ships. Yeah I get they need to roll out new content, sale new content and keep trying to get new players into the game.
I have been playing the game long enough now that I have a rather large fleet of surplus ships that really are pretty much useless. I will keep flying them of course because I like them.
I do wish that Cryptic would start adding some of these new officer seats to older ships though. Not all the seats to every ship. Brake it up among them, just enough to be useful fully again and give a good taste of these new skills. Doesn't have to be Commander level, it would be nice. But at least Lt. or Ensign levels.
It would go a long way to getting players more interested in these skills I think. Having them at lower levels would it feels like make it worth getting a ship later that could better utilize them if you want to continue with that style.
As for me, I wont be affording them anytime soon so it appears i will be keeping with my old trusted ships that regardless of whats new and shinny I will keep flying.
Space is vast, it's wonderful and maddening. Yet in that madness is some of the greatest beauty I have ever seen.
Then don't buy it. Only go after ships you want. There's no need to buy them all.
That's the point though isn't it? How much more money would Cryptic get from a player who wouldn't normally spend money if they had the choice to upgrade the ships they want to fly? Heck, even make ship upgrade cost MORE than buying a new ship, i would still go for that.
It all evens out. If I like flying a Constitution class and have the option to upgrade to use all of the new specializations (3 now at say 2000 zen each upgrade) I would get what I want but still be underpowered from the lack of weapon slots, boff seating and gear slots. So I would have to take a hard look at upgrading the kind of ship I fly for certain content. They still get their money, catering to the players that want to have every new ship that comes out (they would still have their unique consoles and so forth) and those that want to fly a single ship and maximize it's potential.
I like the looks of the Pilot abilities. Sadly I doubt I'll ever use them since the ships I like to fly don't have Pilot seats designated.
I *could* buy one of the new ships that's (likely) coming out around the time the abilities will be live, but I like flying the ships I already have. I'm not dropping my favorite ships so I can have the new shiny abilities. Not happening.
Which is pretty much what happened with Command and those Command ships. I liked the looks of the Command ships (at least the Fed/Rom ones), but again, I like the ships I already have.
Add in how long it takes to get Spec points (yeah yeah, argument is that way-->) and I don't see myself ever using the current spec trees as it is. And you want to add more.
That's cool.
It's obvious that *I* and others like me are not your target audience anymore. And that's cool, too.
I'm still enjoying parts of the game and will continue to play those parts. Once they get old, I guess instead of "upping my game" and trying out the new content, I'll just move on to another game.
And I only say that because by the time I'd get around to "upping my game", I'll be so far behind the 'average' player that it'd take months to catch up, if I ever would be able to. Considering you simply keep releasing more and more power and more and more pseudo-levels that unless you're going at it full bore from day one, you're already behind...
Wasn't the Reputaion system changed to keep vet players and the 'newb' player closer in power so that the newer player wouldn't see the gap as being so HUGE and seem so insurmountable? I suppose that the Spec tree grind has replaced that now. Considering my character that's furthest along in the Spec point system now has 14 Spec points, I'm already falling way behind. Oh well.
I do see the Spec point system as a good thing though, don't misunderstand me. It's just that I'd like to actually make progress in one of the trees before the next one is released. Got Intel with 5 or 6 points spent then Command comes out. Don't even have any points in Command yet, due to wanting other Intel abilities first, and now here comes Pilot.
Anyway, I'm starting to drift away from the main point of this.
tl;dr
Yay Pilot primary Spec.
Boo that Pilot seats are (likely) only going to be on new Soon to be released Zen ships. Though I won't be shocked to see the Risian event ship come with a Pilot seat.
Boo to "having" to buy (or maybe grind, which isn't quite as bad) new ships to use new Spec abilities instead of being able to continue flying the ships we already have and enjoy.
2-1 on the negative side, but I'm feeling generous since this *is* still a work in progress. With that said, I'll give it a solid "Meh".
Hello. My name is iamynaught and I am an altaholic.
And in 2 months, be ready for new ships with Commando hybrid seating! And after the Jem'Hadar Interceptor Ship with Pilot, Command and Intel seats, get ready for the Jem'Hadar Interdictor Ship with Pilot, Command, Commando and Intel seats.
Pilot Team
Increase the Accuracy and Defense of yourself or a targeted ally, while also granting temporary immunity to movement-impairing effects.
**This ability shares a cooldown category with other Team type abilities, but also benefits from effects that enhance existing Team abilities.
Are we going back to ET/ST/TT/IT/PT sharing a cooldown?
Why does Command not have a Team power?
And why are there boffs that grant a buff and cooldown reductions to ET, TT, and ST, but none for IT?
Any insight or clarification on this subject would be great.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
I'm concerned that we seem to be leaving the realm of star ships that are big, bulky, often have crews that range from 50 to 3600, and ignore the realities of both space and science.
This is Star Trek, not Star Wars. The ships and their crews are not single seat fighters and fighter pilots. Having these Tac, Sci, or Eng, based large interstellar roving cities suddenly become single seat fighter craft is not realistic nor logical.
2-1 on the negative side, but I'm feeling generous since this *is* still a work in progress. With that said, I'll give it a solid "Meh".
This. But what kills it for me is why, oh why Cryptic do you have to tie everything to the R&D system. You know, not all of us got suckered into using that expensive, convoluted abortion that you turned it into. It would be nice if some thing were available through other means. What's going to be next, having to craft log-in tokens to log into the game? Or having to craft blog tokens to read the dev blogs maybe?
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".
A successful Boarding Party now allows temporary use of the enemy ship as a combat Ally, until its either destroyed or you warp out of the map/zone.
At Commando T2, you gain EC for each ship captured, rewarded upon zone/map change (as if you ordered the captured ship to warp to a starbase for study, R&D, or decomissoning).
At T3, you can launch two Boarding Parties (each separately Doff'd) before CD triggers.
At T4, you can now claim a weapon or equipment from that captured ship if you don't want to keep it as an ally, as stealing the weapon or equipment requires self-destructing/disassembling the ship. It will bring up a reward menu with a randomized list of possible equips on that ship.
What is unique to this is that it allows for possible capturing of otherwise impossible-to-obtain or difficult-to-obtain weapons. Such as a captured Jem'Hadar ship guaranteeing a choice of any Dominion Polaron weapons, with random rarity and mods, or a captured Tholian ship guaranteeing Refracting Tetryons with random mods and rarity.
To prevent "abuse", captured weapons are not tradeable on the Exchange, but are account bound. Additionally, weapon Mark depends on the enemy's level, with Mk XII being the highest, and Ultra-Rare being the highest possible rarity.
All Commando ships are Carriers, Cruisers, or Destroyers, with boosted chances of capturing an enemy ship, and abilities that improve Boarding Party or weaken enemy ships to make Boarding Party or its Commando variant more successful.
This makes my peepee go DA-DOING-DOING-DOING...err, uh, I mean I whole-heartediy agree.
Comments
Here's the thing. I would pay 2000 zen to upgrade the ship I want to fly but not 2000 zen to buy a completely new ship every other week. It's not the money as much as what I'm allowed to buy and the value I put on that purchase.
I counter with "Even the largest modern Cruiser or Dreadnought can be made to dance through the stars when its pilot truly knows the ship and her capabilities."
Then don't buy it. Only go after ships you want. There's no need to buy them all.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
More ships more skills more rep to pay to do or grind more , more fleet tier 6 to grind, more separate specializations yet again gee , when does the stuff stop next lockbox all tier6 to buy more , wheres better game content ? wheres 3 separate factions were still still running 2 factions starfleet and klingon romans are both they are not separate faction at all they make game balance of factions 80% star fleet 20% klingon faction or less hey lets make more skills not fix hardly nothing and add more broken skills to the list thats not being fixed ... hey what about pvp ? fix that no money in it i see ... how about fixing rep system there are almost 0 rewards now for finishing tier 5 reps like you used to give 50k dilithium on completion , yeah we need more skills reps and ships wow ?? each patch you add more content it is getting ridiculous these days , drops bone up and hardly drop compared to all rest of games history in the past ? the opponents on most borg queues are dead the opponents have insane amours of hit points and the reward s don't justify the time playing them just look at the queues and see..truth hurts most everyone isn't doing queues most run around look at cool game content of missions and assignments thats all .
Come on guys we should have had all tier 4 pilot and specializations when you started adding all the rest , this is just a fill in of the pilot skill , wow now I can pay more dilithium to do all the rest of new content now oh my so so sad that your needing this new ship junk in game instead of the asking game players what we want and what needs fixing in game poll you all setup how about fix or do that instead of adding more and more glossy pretty new junk / fix game oh we can't we need to be forced to fly old ships BUY new ships to get ship traits , guess that was only reason you did this this way to not kill all of the old ships so there is a lame purpose in them still ... guess start flying old crappy ships for 1or2 traits haha you guys are funny good luck with all this shiny new junk and adding more before fix , most ships are just skins not fancy bridge office stations that makes them goof its that you guys are making stuff up for ships that dont exist in star trek and your fantasies are mucking up the content for all of the future of star trek by adding so much content from in the future, you will run out of time in the future content and then what will we have a lie of amazing glorious junk that more and likely will be removed in the future for better smaller faster more efficient less mucky looking as bad as your new bridge officer trays they are ugly you think future technology get bigger more sloppy more ugly more complicated todo or craft the future is about refinement not mucking game up with glorified colors and icons that make no sense at all , wonder how many people listened to that still complain about junk in game every day i play , go in game read what players are writing don't keep adding more glorious colorful useless junk anymore please take time to refine game not add futuristic TRIBBLE it has to stop , we don ned a new designed qonos or klingon academy we would all rather you fix all the broken junk that has went undone or fixed for like massively last 3 years building up more into a mountain ,i have still 4 klingon outfits of 6 i can't use i can't see my score in combat log in pvp still ,my abilities all flash in combat still ? Surgical stokes hits for if using broke stuff hits for 7 to 12 hits at 15k to 30 k inarow thats as intended its the worst broken skill in game still ?? or how about my Boffs disappearing of my ship every time i warp to battle wee thats fun !! or how about on and on and on .... good luck after you have 300 ships and 7 rep grinds and tier7 starbases and more crafting that isn't doing much and still 8k dilithium a day haha + 500 at fleet mine wow thats helps a lot means more people will waste more time playing than get stuff or rewards than actually finish or complete stuff in this game until they quit from boredom of everything aspect of earning currency in a future that really doesn't use it on Earth or Starfleet's Future haha but looks and the shiny stuff alone hahaha iIhad my fikll of adding more lame content I'm done good luck to the rest of you that will take 3 years just to level up in a game to have it all removed for different stuff added by removing they old and buying stuff alone for no future purpose but buy the shiny hahaha
AWESOME!
But how do we move all our other starships without them?
I wish I didn't need a special ship for every new release.
I'm going to put a bit more weight on what the Systems Dev has to say about it, but you could be right.
We can't rule out any possibilities and implications are always subject to facts. We'll know for sure when the facts are in.
I will say I bet they're all Tac-heavy ships. I'd also expect that the hybrid seats will either be Tac/Pilot or Eng/Pilot. The only science officer I ever saw at the helm was Deanna Troi... and we all know how that went.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
making 9 new ships per specialization its just getting really annoying... monetize smarter not harder and faster cryptic (and PWE)
spocked thumb face...
EDIT: I misread it. I don't like the extremely too convenient synergy this power has with BFAW.
A non-doff version of Ramming Speed immunity. Already dislike it.
Any kind of total immunity is bad design.
This description alone makes the skill sound better than anything from the Command Spec. I thought Command was a defensive tree, while Pilot was more about maneuverability.
On top of healing, it cleanses debuffs. It's one of those atrocities that does a little too many good things at once.
This does sound somewhat better than Surgical Strikes with the faster recharge/cycling. It will probably benefit the casual (or non-crit-oriented) player more than SS would.
STO Screenshot Archive
Seriously, I mean im sure most of us saw this coming with the pilot specialization change, but gosh darn't Cryptic, ENOUGH ALREADY!
UNIVERSAL seating is anything BUT these days, let me guess, were not getting just 1 ship but a another 3 ship set, while I wont lie by saying if its done the same way as the command ships where we can mix and match to our hearts content, this needs to stop.
Is it so hard to change the code on universal seats to become hybrid seats and allow hybrid ie pilot, intel, command, use said seating?
I said it from the very start, ships should be fully modular on how we fill it with crew, now I fully understand why it wasn't designed that way.
This is no longer year of the goat, its year of the wallet.
Depends really heavily on the ship.
If they do release a T6 Defiant or BoP with Tac/Cmdr Pilot seats, I'm going to be sorely tempted.
Makes me wonder if I should really focus on Tac officers for Delta Recruitment.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
BFAW isn't an Attack Pattern. The text doesn't specifically rule out BFAW, CRF, or any other weapon enhancement power.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
... IMHO this is a major design flaw. MAJOR!
[megatron] YES!![/megatron] Seriously, this is the first new Boff type that I'm actually looking forward to.
However, with that anticipation comes some trepidation. The current implementation of Boff specializations will soon be insufficient to accommodate all the new space abilities of the various specialization trees.
Currently, in order to use a specialized space ability, you need to have a T6 ship equipped with the appropriately specialized Boff seat. This setup has worked up until now, but with the addition of new specializations, the system will soon become messy. T5-U ships will become more and more obsolete and more and more ships will need to be introduced in order make use of these new abilities. Not everyone will be able to afford these new ships and it will eventually come to the point where a character's ship roster will be hopelessly cluttered with many different high-maintenance ships.
To me, the solution seams simple: A specialization upgrade, similar to the T5-U upgrade. The main idea would be to allow older ships to have one of their Boff seats upgraded to accommodate a specialization of the player's choice. T5-U ships would be given better footing and allow the old players to continue to use their favorite ships. This would also allow for greater customization, in that the player could choose which seat to specialize and thereby make their ship that much more unique. And if ships could use multiple specialization upgrades, the possibilities become that much more interesting. Existing T6 ships could gain that much more potential.
Those are my thought, but I would like to know what you guys think.
What I am really really not liking is that these new officers are only showing up on new ships. Yeah I get they need to roll out new content, sale new content and keep trying to get new players into the game.
I have been playing the game long enough now that I have a rather large fleet of surplus ships that really are pretty much useless. I will keep flying them of course because I like them.
I do wish that Cryptic would start adding some of these new officer seats to older ships though. Not all the seats to every ship. Brake it up among them, just enough to be useful fully again and give a good taste of these new skills. Doesn't have to be Commander level, it would be nice. But at least Lt. or Ensign levels.
It would go a long way to getting players more interested in these skills I think. Having them at lower levels would it feels like make it worth getting a ship later that could better utilize them if you want to continue with that style.
As for me, I wont be affording them anytime soon so it appears i will be keeping with my old trusted ships that regardless of whats new and shinny I will keep flying.
That's the point though isn't it? How much more money would Cryptic get from a player who wouldn't normally spend money if they had the choice to upgrade the ships they want to fly? Heck, even make ship upgrade cost MORE than buying a new ship, i would still go for that.
It all evens out. If I like flying a Constitution class and have the option to upgrade to use all of the new specializations (3 now at say 2000 zen each upgrade) I would get what I want but still be underpowered from the lack of weapon slots, boff seating and gear slots. So I would have to take a hard look at upgrading the kind of ship I fly for certain content. They still get their money, catering to the players that want to have every new ship that comes out (they would still have their unique consoles and so forth) and those that want to fly a single ship and maximize it's potential.
It's a win win.
I *could* buy one of the new ships that's (likely) coming out around the time the abilities will be live, but I like flying the ships I already have. I'm not dropping my favorite ships so I can have the new shiny abilities. Not happening.
Which is pretty much what happened with Command and those Command ships. I liked the looks of the Command ships (at least the Fed/Rom ones), but again, I like the ships I already have.
Add in how long it takes to get Spec points (yeah yeah, argument is that way-->) and I don't see myself ever using the current spec trees as it is. And you want to add more.
That's cool.
It's obvious that *I* and others like me are not your target audience anymore. And that's cool, too.
I'm still enjoying parts of the game and will continue to play those parts. Once they get old, I guess instead of "upping my game" and trying out the new content, I'll just move on to another game.
And I only say that because by the time I'd get around to "upping my game", I'll be so far behind the 'average' player that it'd take months to catch up, if I ever would be able to. Considering you simply keep releasing more and more power and more and more pseudo-levels that unless you're going at it full bore from day one, you're already behind...
Wasn't the Reputaion system changed to keep vet players and the 'newb' player closer in power so that the newer player wouldn't see the gap as being so HUGE and seem so insurmountable? I suppose that the Spec tree grind has replaced that now. Considering my character that's furthest along in the Spec point system now has 14 Spec points, I'm already falling way behind. Oh well.
I do see the Spec point system as a good thing though, don't misunderstand me. It's just that I'd like to actually make progress in one of the trees before the next one is released. Got Intel with 5 or 6 points spent then Command comes out. Don't even have any points in Command yet, due to wanting other Intel abilities first, and now here comes Pilot.
Anyway, I'm starting to drift away from the main point of this.
tl;dr
Yay Pilot primary Spec.
Boo that Pilot seats are (likely) only going to be on new Soon to be released Zen ships. Though I won't be shocked to see the Risian event ship come with a Pilot seat.
Boo to "having" to buy (or maybe grind, which isn't quite as bad) new ships to use new Spec abilities instead of being able to continue flying the ships we already have and enjoy.
2-1 on the negative side, but I'm feeling generous since this *is* still a work in progress. With that said, I'll give it a solid "Meh".
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
However if the zen store ships end up being crusiers like in those screenshots then im not going to be happy!
Give us 'pilot' bop and fed raider...please...raider is the only class without a t6 ship and suit the pilot class much better than giant spoons!
...on another note..love the fact the attack pattern is an ensign ability..this adds so much to an often redudant slot...good stuff.
Are we going back to ET/ST/TT/IT/PT sharing a cooldown?
Why does Command not have a Team power?
And why are there boffs that grant a buff and cooldown reductions to ET, TT, and ST, but none for IT?
Any insight or clarification on this subject would be great.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
This is Star Trek, not Star Wars. The ships and their crews are not single seat fighters and fighter pilots. Having these Tac, Sci, or Eng, based large interstellar roving cities suddenly become single seat fighter craft is not realistic nor logical.
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This. But what kills it for me is why, oh why Cryptic do you have to tie everything to the R&D system. You know, not all of us got suckered into using that expensive, convoluted abortion that you turned it into. It would be nice if some thing were available through other means. What's going to be next, having to craft log-in tokens to log into the game? Or having to craft blog tokens to read the dev blogs maybe?
This makes my peepee go DA-DOING-DOING-DOING...err, uh, I mean I whole-heartediy agree.