Spec Trees, R&D

tarrynrex

A lot, I mean, LOTs of people I speak to are not so happy about recieving the spec points because they already have full spec trees. I had 3 toons at full level 50 before they increased to 60 and gave us the spec trees. I play a regular, at least, 4 hours a day. I don't get how all these guys can have levelled all their spec trees full? Across all 3 of those toons mentioned before I have completed only 1 and 3/4 of the spec trees and there are Intel, Command, Pilot and Commando (3 and 1/2).

Similarly, the R&D system is something that I do every day. I level the R&D schools with the max option at the bottom of the list. I've done this every day since the start of the system and I'm only at level 17 in all schools.

Are people just lying?

noroblad

R&D ... some people made tons and tons of vendor trash items to level up faster so they could sell omni-beams etc early on. Remember when only 5 people could make omni beams and they wanted a lolz 50 million a pop for them? They even invested dil speedups to level it faster to be able to do these things, some few players did.

Spec points-- remember the first iteration where you could do the same patrol 100000000000000000000000000000 times per day? Some people did that too. The patrol had level 50 enemy and level 70+ xp reward until cryptic fixed it... So a LOT of players had maxed out spec trees really quickly and since then have managed to have a leg up, staying ahead of the game. Its not possible to do these things anymore, most of the fast spec point farms have been balanced out of the game.

Im with you, I have only rank 15 in my crafting and maybe 15 spec points. So what... I can do anything in the game with this.

forthegamer

For the spec points, they aren't lying. They just maximized how to achieve their spec points to make the most of it. Now, I don't know anyone personally who has maxed it out, but there certainly are people who have. On one character. Multiple is very doubtful.

And congrats on being above level 15 in R&D. Level 15 allows you to craft the special items and get the traits, so really, anything after that is just to improve your rarity chances.

Personally speaking, once you hit level 50 you can really do more or less anything. After that, is just whip cream on the sundae. Max everything is the cherry.

sqwished

forthegamer wrote: »

For the spec points, they aren't lying. They just maximized how to achieve their spec points to make the most of it. Now, I don't know anyone personally who has maxed it out, but there certainly are people who have. On one character. Multiple is very doubtful.

And congrats on being above level 15 in R&D. Level 15 allows you to craft the special items and get the traits, so really, anything after that is just to improve your rarity chances.

Personally speaking, once you hit level 50 you can really do more or less anything. After that, is just whip cream on the sundae. Max everything is the cherry.

From my perspective, I'm about 12 or 13 points away from filling the last of current spec trees on my main. And that's through power grinding. As for my alts they'll slowly progress, hopefully cryptic will introduce something similar to what Trion have in rift, to allow alts to progress at a similar pace to mains.

darkjeff

I don't think I play anywhere close to 4 hours a day. It's more like a max of 2 hour a day, only longer if there's new content - for example, taking extra time to do the latest FE.

My Fed is at 30 Intel, 15 Pilot, 8 Commando (2 FE rewards, and I think 6 from Pearls). Minimum of 15 in R&D, one school at 20, one at 19, one at 17, a handful at 16.
My Rom is at 30 Intel, 15 Pilot. All R&D at 15.

I don't grind, because I don't find it fun to constantly repeat content. I only even do FEs 1/week - my Fed did the FE because he's retired from Space so he can use the Ground trait, then this week my Rom did it for the Space trait.

Maybe OP's not DOffing as much as I am?

foxrockssocks

Personally, I'm no where close to completing any spec tree (even the one character specced only in commando!) But I have very low tolerance for the time wasting grind that spec points are and not enough time to bother anyway. I get them as I get them which is maybe once a month on my more active characters.

Part of the problem is that I prefer to spend what little time I have doing STFs which offer utterly lousy skill point rewards. Most of my spec points come from doffing. And lets be clear, no you don't need them, but they do offer some very significant advantages, especially given the NPC inflation issues.


For RnD though, I had a 2 month late start due to PWE nonsense I won't go into, but between 2 crafters, I have 4/7 schools sitting at level 20. The remaining schools are 18 or 19. You might have missed the change in a patch several months ago that lets you slot 3 of the same research project for a school.

thatcursedwolf

foxrockssocks wrote: »

Part of the problem is that I prefer to spend what little time I have doing STFs which offer utterly lousy skill point rewards. Most of my spec points come from doffing. And lets be clear, no you don't need them, but they do offer some very significant advantages, especially given the NPC inflation issues.

For some reason Cryptic thinks that the choice of either advancing in the rep system (exclusive) or advancing in the spec system is a fun choice.

Grinding is grinding but grinding battlezones is a little more dynamic than Argala Argala Argala...

foxrockssocks

thatcursedwolf wrote: »

For some reason Cryptic thinks that the choice of either advancing in the rep system (exclusive) or advancing in the spec system is a fun choice.

Grinding is grinding but grinding battlezones is a little more dynamic than Argala Argala Argala...

Well there is hope. I mean it only took them ~3 years to finally put dilithium rewards in missions (something I repeatedly called for when the F2P conversion happened), that time based currency that was completely left out of the time you spend grinding through missions as you level and end up at 50 with next to no dilithium at all. Maybe in another three years they will make it so that everything at end game rewards an appropriate amount of skill/spec points for the time spent doing it.