Nice! Sounds like a very, very interesting spec tree. Liking what's been teased so far.
I see a lot of comments not happy with new ships being required... We all know how this works by now. New specializations = new ships. But it's not like they're not giving out free ships for the specializations. The Breen carrier and the Kobali Samsar didn't require ZEN, and they have access to the specialized seats. I'm sure the Summer Event Risian ship will have Pilot integrated in there somewhere.
Also, not everyone needs to buy into every specialization. That's not the point - the point is giving players more choice. I don't think Cryptic expects absolutely everyone to buy a ship for every specialization, but they likely do hope that at least one specialization will spark interest for each player.
Case in point, Intel didn't really interest me so I skipped it. Command on the other hand did interest me, so I dropped all the spec points I'd saved into that tree and bought a Deihu Command Warbird - which is awesome.
If the ships are nice enough, yeah I might buy into Pilot. If not, oh well. I won't feel as if I've lost out on anything. It's my choice as a player which ships and specs I want to invest in, and I appreciate that the devs are giving us a number of options to choose from.
So if I don't end up buying into Pilot, I'll just sit back, fly the fleet I've built up already, and wait to see what comes out next.
To be fair, some aren't happy unless they are complaining about something or other. Unless it gets offered completely free of effort, time, and $s the rage will keep coming.
To be fair, some aren't happy unless they are complaining about something or other. Unless it gets offered completely free of effort, time, and $s the rage will keep coming.
That always amuses me. It's an MMO. Players need to expect to either work towards something, or pay for that something.
That said, Cryptic does shell out more than a fair amount of freebies a couple times a year. But that always gets conveniently forgotten.
Now that you have rolled out pilot and have the 3 specializations some of us were predicting, once you milk people for the pilot ships, how long is it going to take before you do the inevitable and just make universal slots instead of pigeon holed ships?
Cryptic, this is probably the last time this trick will be worth pulling, and barely at that. Either add hybrid seats (Even if they're just Ens. or Lt.) to T5-U, make the T6 hybrid seats non-spec-specific, or something... I don't see how creating full sets of new bridge officer powers just for five regular ships and two lockbox ships makes any sense. Doesn't even seem to be worth developer time making the abilities, never mind all the time it took to model all of those t5 ships you're continually outclassing. As a gimmick for the Intel ships? Sure. As a way to get people to buy a new Command Battlecruiser three-pack? Perhaps; still seems like a waste but it worked I guess.
...But now a Pilot specialization? People will get tired of buying a new 30-dollar ship (or several) every time you add a specialization. I would happily buy piles of upgrade tokens, though (if I had the money), not to mention more t5 ships (I really want the Vesta, for instance), if I could get some of these shiny new abilities along with them. Alternatively, I might convince myself to buy the Geneva class, if I could put in Pilot abilities instead of Command. And if I could get an Ens. Command slot on my D'kyr, that would be nice too. Besides, you know what they say; give someone a taste of power (Ens. or Lt. hybrid slot) and they will find themselves wanting more (T6/specialized ship with LtCmdr or Cmdr hybrid slot).
Ideally, I'd like all these T6 hybrid slots to become universal, with an effectiveness bonus for slotting the matching type of specialization. A surveillance ship might not be quite as effective as a command ship as a dedicated command battlecruiser might be, but it should still be able to function as such (use the abilities, in game terms) decently well. Likewise, flying a command battlecruiser might not exactly be a piloting expert's wet dream, but having a specialized pilot on your bridge should still allow you to take advantage of their expertise to some extent even if they might be more effective flying an interceptor or a specialized, small, maneuverable sort of ship.
Cryptic, this is probably the last time this trick will be worth pulling, and barely at that.
...
...But now a Pilot specialization? People will get tired of buying a new 30-dollar ship (or several) every time you add a specialization.
It's not a trick. They made spec-specific ships for both of the previous specializations. It shouldn't come as a shock that they're following that pattern. If you thought they'd release Pilot without new ships... then you tricked yourself, I'm afraid.
And as I said a couple pages back, I wholly doubt they expect all players to buy into all specs. So far I've only bought into Command, and unless the Pilot ships look interesting I'll be skipping that and waiting to see what spec #4 is.
Here is a monetizing idea: sell cstore tokens that add a single special boff set to any T5+ ship. Make it cost half of a ship. 15$ instead of 30$, I know I'd buy at least three, and then there are all the people that have like 20 ships... (1 that's crazy) but 2 you could make some real pocket change from that. Plus you could still make and sell the new ships... even more pocket change.
How many here would buy a special token? You could have a Fleet T5U Semetar with an Intel set.
Think about it.
I definitely would like such a feature (and buy it). I like some T5 /T5U ships for the theme anyway, and don't care much for abilities/seatings and such. If I could personalize my own ship with one or two seatings of my choice, I definitely would buy such tokens.
Is it too much to ask for a science ship with pilot seating? I mean for chrissakes Voyager was a science ship, had one of the best damn pilots in the fleet- Tom Paris, who is cited in the blog, and you're telling me that science ships are too slow to have good pilots? It's gonna be escorts and raiders all over again?
If intel can have one of each ship type on the fed, the least you can do is make multiple types of ships for the other specializations, to say nothing of allowing us to update our old ships to t6- you've already made your money, it's a joke that none of these boff powers can be used on ships that, in canon, have done those things!
You'll still make lots of money with the Z store stuff- leave the special gimmicks to the new ships, people'll still buy them.
But I've been waiting for a viable T6 science ship since the level cap has been bumped up, and the only thing that exists is the fed scryer, which doesn't even support the sort of play I want to play (which is primarily GO REALLY FAST AND DO SCIENCE).
Pilot 'ships' should be the perfect thing to cater to that playstyle... all you need to do is actually listen to us instead of thinking of all the money you'll get from releasing a pack containing the same three identical ships sold separately for each faction. You did it with command, if you do it with Pilot and they're all escorts and TRIBBLE and you ignore Canon and sci ships again... I don't even know.
To everyone complaining about "but it says Pilot, I can already fly my ship":
First, that's stupid. It's a name of a specialization. You could have said "but it says Intel, you have to be smart to be a Fleet Admiral" or "it says Command, by definition as a Fleet Admiral I have command of lots of stuff". Same idea.
Secondly, sure you can fly any ship. But not every ship is suited for crazy maneuvers. That's something that requires skill on your part/the part of your BO's (10 spec points to unlock training, bo's have to be trained), and requires a ship that can handle it (a la pilot seating).
Boom. Explanation. Done.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
Okay well I am assuming that new ships are coming along that can use this new hybrid seating. Which in one aspect and this is just speculation if they actually have been working on this or not. Per say reasoning why we may not have been given for KDF to purchase a bird of prey in such a long time maybe this is why. If the gap in DPS vs a romulan ship that can have a cloak ambush for close to a minute where a klingon bop can only get 5 seconds if this is suppossed to smooth out the gap there I would be in it for trying it out but mainly one of my reasons many years ago to play this game because of bops and the lack of KDF development/no development except ever ship weight class except for bops has happened lol.
Being that it is not finished yet one thing that should be added is a Klingon trait to disable a ship but % chance it blows up the target and if that happens your pilot is vaporized and the station becomes empty. Oh yes and maybe something where atleast one person in the empire can figure out how to fix the enhanced battle cloak from making you a paper weight in space when yer firing torpedoes from the brel and maybe to fix the fleet brel costume so the costumes work on it too.
To everyone complaining about "but it says Pilot, I can already fly my ship":
First, that's stupid. It's a name of a specialization. You could have said "but it says Intel, you have to be smart to be a Fleet Admiral" or "it says Command, by definition as a Fleet Admiral I have command of lots of stuff". Same idea.
Also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE sell us upgrade modules so we can use pilot spec on our existing ships. I would pay so much money right now to have these abilities work on my Akira.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE sell us upgrade modules so we can use pilot spec on our existing ships. I would pay so much money right now to have these abilities work on my Akira.
This has been called for a lot of times in this thread. But I wonder how much players would actually be willing to pay for a seat-upgrade token? I get the feeling that, even if the token were 500 ZEN, there'd be a chorus line ready to complain about it being A) a blatant cash-grab, forcing players to pay to upgrade ships they've already bought, or C) hiding the specializations behind a paywall.
But these are already things that are being said about the implementation as-is :P
So it's damned if they do, damned if they don't. They had to choose some way to sell it, and honestly I'd rather pay more ZEN and get a full ship, than just some token to apply to a ship that's already plenty good as it is. T6 ships are about the specializations, and that's what makes them different than T5 / T5-U. At least with the T5-U upgrade token, there were benefits for my ships such as increased hull and mastery unlocks. A seat-upgrade token would be a minimal difference, if any.
Honestly, the BOFF abilities aren't really that game-changing. In Command for example, one of the big draws is the ability to reduce Fleet Support call-in from 15min to 5min - but that's a captain trait. And there are several other notable skills from Command that are all specific to the captain, such as Achilles Heal and the XP boost.
Also, it's worth noting the other big draw of the specializations - the inherent ship abilities. In Command, one of the most notable differences is the Inspiration mechanic. But yet again, that's not a BOFF ability. You're not simply buying ships with spec BOFF seats - you're buying ships with inherent, built-in gameplay mechanics.
So I'm not sure why so many players are hung up on having spec BOFF seating restricted to specific ships. It's the captain skills / traits, and the ships themselves, that are actually the biggest game-changers.
These Bridge Officer specialities are more trouble than they're worth. Each month, the newest set of Specialisation makes all previous ships obsolete and unusable with these new Bridge Officers.
I say forget about specialist seats in the Boff layout and just let them sit in a Universal seat.
- - - - I n f e r i o r i t y - C o m p l e x - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To everyone complaining about "but it says Pilot, I can already fly my ship":
First, that's stupid. It's a name of a specialization. You could have said "but it says Intel, you have to be smart to be a Fleet Admiral" or "it says Command, by definition as a Fleet Admiral I have command of lots of stuff". Same idea.
Secondly, sure you can fly any ship. But not every ship is suited for crazy maneuvers. That's something that requires skill on your part/the part of your BO's (10 spec points to unlock training, bo's have to be trained), and requires a ship that can handle it (a la pilot seating).
Boom. Explanation. Done.
Thank you. I came back this morning and went through like 15 pages of people complaining about this. I was thinking I'd have to point this seemingly simple explanation out myself.
Also, it's worth noting the other big draw of the specializations - the inherent ship abilities. In Command, one of the most notable differences is the Inspiration mechanic. But yet again, that's not a BOFF ability. You're not simply buying ships with spec BOFF seats - you're buying ships with inherent, built-in gameplay mechanics.
That's a good point actually, I hadn't thought about that. Command ships got inspiration and it's abilities as you said, and intel ships got their expose mechanic, I wonder what special abilities 'pilot ships' will get.
I was going to buy my romulan a brand new T-6 warbird but now idk im a little taken aback by this new BOFF and its abilities.
Will all T6s get this new BOFF seat or just then new ships
What or If will be the advantages over current T6 models will the new "Pilot" ships have
Is it worth investing the money to buy a current T6 model when this new "pilot" ship looms on the horizon?
Theres plenty of questions i personally have regarding this as someone who wants to buy a new T6 but now you come out with this new BOFF and Boff seat idk whether to push on and get my T6 warbird or not.
Im a at a crossroads on what to do now that cryptic is releasing a whole new boff and abilities along with a new ship.
Are any of the lt.com. / com pilot skills better than BFAW and APO3? If yes, they'll be nerfed about 3 months after release, if no then they'll have P2W ships traits to compensate.
Possible solution:
Obviously a new ship set to make best use of these abilities is a given. But the option to make a token that would allow a low end "universal" console (say ensign/LT max) able to use a specialised power exists, and given the proliferation of special powers, should certainly be considered.
Say, one 500 zen token per specialism applied to each console?
Every ship has a helm (aka pilot seat). A specific new type of ship should NOT be required to utilize these features.
I have 5000 zen saved up for the command cruisers, not anymore. There's no point in buying a new ship for each new class of skills I want to use. I'd rather just not use them.
Ships didn't matter like this in the past. Every single ship has Tac, Sci, and Eng slots (or uni). I could use pretty much any ability I wanted to in nearly any ship. You also didn't have to BUY a new ship to use any major game features, they were just icing.
I don't want one ship for intel, one for command, one for pilot.
Why can't I mix and match the new classes like the old ones before? Other than money.
I'm sitting here applauding your post. No, really I am.
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To be fair, some aren't happy unless they are complaining about something or other. Unless it gets offered completely free of effort, time, and $s the rage will keep coming.
*Puts on flame suit and runs away*
It's only as useless as you think they are.
that info has been leaked through back channels...
and in a podcast geko suggested the ship bundles were going to be offered more often.
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That always amuses me. It's an MMO. Players need to expect to either work towards something, or pay for that something.
That said, Cryptic does shell out more than a fair amount of freebies a couple times a year. But that always gets conveniently forgotten.
Makes sense. It's a way to make the cost to the player cheaper, while getting the bonus of whatever 3-console set it.
Also, interchangeable parts. It's not Space Barbie, it's... Space Barbie's Space Volkswagen? :P
I predict by Christmas at the latest
The only reason I use the other 2 hybrid Boffs. Is cause I can still use them on ground missions. Since they have no use for my ships.
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Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
...But now a Pilot specialization? People will get tired of buying a new 30-dollar ship (or several) every time you add a specialization. I would happily buy piles of upgrade tokens, though (if I had the money), not to mention more t5 ships (I really want the Vesta, for instance), if I could get some of these shiny new abilities along with them. Alternatively, I might convince myself to buy the Geneva class, if I could put in Pilot abilities instead of Command. And if I could get an Ens. Command slot on my D'kyr, that would be nice too. Besides, you know what they say; give someone a taste of power (Ens. or Lt. hybrid slot) and they will find themselves wanting more (T6/specialized ship with LtCmdr or Cmdr hybrid slot).
Ideally, I'd like all these T6 hybrid slots to become universal, with an effectiveness bonus for slotting the matching type of specialization. A surveillance ship might not be quite as effective as a command ship as a dedicated command battlecruiser might be, but it should still be able to function as such (use the abilities, in game terms) decently well. Likewise, flying a command battlecruiser might not exactly be a piloting expert's wet dream, but having a specialized pilot on your bridge should still allow you to take advantage of their expertise to some extent even if they might be more effective flying an interceptor or a specialized, small, maneuverable sort of ship.
eh.....maybe they'll give us a tank? or an Argo. yeah, i want an Argo.
It's not a trick. They made spec-specific ships for both of the previous specializations. It shouldn't come as a shock that they're following that pattern. If you thought they'd release Pilot without new ships... then you tricked yourself, I'm afraid.
And as I said a couple pages back, I wholly doubt they expect all players to buy into all specs. So far I've only bought into Command, and unless the Pilot ships look interesting I'll be skipping that and waiting to see what spec #4 is.
I definitely would like such a feature (and buy it). I like some T5 /T5U ships for the theme anyway, and don't care much for abilities/seatings and such. If I could personalize my own ship with one or two seatings of my choice, I definitely would buy such tokens.
If intel can have one of each ship type on the fed, the least you can do is make multiple types of ships for the other specializations, to say nothing of allowing us to update our old ships to t6- you've already made your money, it's a joke that none of these boff powers can be used on ships that, in canon, have done those things!
You'll still make lots of money with the Z store stuff- leave the special gimmicks to the new ships, people'll still buy them.
But I've been waiting for a viable T6 science ship since the level cap has been bumped up, and the only thing that exists is the fed scryer, which doesn't even support the sort of play I want to play (which is primarily GO REALLY FAST AND DO SCIENCE).
Pilot 'ships' should be the perfect thing to cater to that playstyle... all you need to do is actually listen to us instead of thinking of all the money you'll get from releasing a pack containing the same three identical ships sold separately for each faction. You did it with command, if you do it with Pilot and they're all escorts and TRIBBLE and you ignore Canon and sci ships again... I don't even know.
I'm sorry to people who I, in the past, insulted, annoyed, etc.
Join Date: March 2009
Thanks Cryptic for introducing the Kelvin Timeline. It remembered why I decided to never more put any money on this game.
First, that's stupid. It's a name of a specialization. You could have said "but it says Intel, you have to be smart to be a Fleet Admiral" or "it says Command, by definition as a Fleet Admiral I have command of lots of stuff". Same idea.
Secondly, sure you can fly any ship. But not every ship is suited for crazy maneuvers. That's something that requires skill on your part/the part of your BO's (10 spec points to unlock training, bo's have to be trained), and requires a ship that can handle it (a la pilot seating).
Boom. Explanation. Done.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
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Being that it is not finished yet one thing that should be added is a Klingon trait to disable a ship but % chance it blows up the target and if that happens your pilot is vaporized and the station becomes empty. Oh yes and maybe something where atleast one person in the empire can figure out how to fix the enhanced battle cloak from making you a paper weight in space when yer firing torpedoes from the brel and maybe to fix the fleet brel costume so the costumes work on it too.
Wow, solid reasoning there. Well said!
Also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE sell us upgrade modules so we can use pilot spec on our existing ships. I would pay so much money right now to have these abilities work on my Akira.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
This has been called for a lot of times in this thread. But I wonder how much players would actually be willing to pay for a seat-upgrade token? I get the feeling that, even if the token were 500 ZEN, there'd be a chorus line ready to complain about it being A) a blatant cash-grab,
But these are already things that are being said about the implementation as-is :P
So it's damned if they do, damned if they don't. They had to choose some way to sell it, and honestly I'd rather pay more ZEN and get a full ship, than just some token to apply to a ship that's already plenty good as it is. T6 ships are about the specializations, and that's what makes them different than T5 / T5-U. At least with the T5-U upgrade token, there were benefits for my ships such as increased hull and mastery unlocks. A seat-upgrade token would be a minimal difference, if any.
Honestly, the BOFF abilities aren't really that game-changing. In Command for example, one of the big draws is the ability to reduce Fleet Support call-in from 15min to 5min - but that's a captain trait. And there are several other notable skills from Command that are all specific to the captain, such as Achilles Heal and the XP boost.
Also, it's worth noting the other big draw of the specializations - the inherent ship abilities. In Command, one of the most notable differences is the Inspiration mechanic. But yet again, that's not a BOFF ability. You're not simply buying ships with spec BOFF seats - you're buying ships with inherent, built-in gameplay mechanics.
So I'm not sure why so many players are hung up on having spec BOFF seating restricted to specific ships. It's the captain skills / traits, and the ships themselves, that are actually the biggest game-changers.
I say forget about specialist seats in the Boff layout and just let them sit in a Universal seat.
Thank you. I came back this morning and went through like 15 pages of people complaining about this. I was thinking I'd have to point this seemingly simple explanation out myself.
That's a good point actually, I hadn't thought about that. Command ships got inspiration and it's abilities as you said, and intel ships got their expose mechanic, I wonder what special abilities 'pilot ships' will get.
Will all T6s get this new BOFF seat or just then new ships
What or If will be the advantages over current T6 models will the new "Pilot" ships have
Is it worth investing the money to buy a current T6 model when this new "pilot" ship looms on the horizon?
Theres plenty of questions i personally have regarding this as someone who wants to buy a new T6 but now you come out with this new BOFF and Boff seat idk whether to push on and get my T6 warbird or not.
Im a at a crossroads on what to do now that cryptic is releasing a whole new boff and abilities along with a new ship.
Obviously a new ship set to make best use of these abilities is a given. But the option to make a token that would allow a low end "universal" console (say ensign/LT max) able to use a specialised power exists, and given the proliferation of special powers, should certainly be considered.
Say, one 500 zen token per specialism applied to each console?
I am actually a little worried, if this is the new dynamic i feel like its a move into the asian f2p model. which no one other than asia really likes.
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I'm sitting here applauding your post. No, really I am.
New powers only available on select ships ... boooo .
New powers only available on select ships once you've unlocked stuff ... WTF ???????
... this is getting old ...