Obviously this would be something to look at in depth, over time, so I'm not suggesting anything immediate. We do however have new powers lately. When I joined the game shortly after F2P went live, it was (and still is) Tactical, Engineering or Science as a character career choice path. Then, more recently, we've been introduced to Inteligence, Command and Pilot; why not enable these abilities as new character career options? Breath some fresh air into the leveling process?
If not that, then how about integrating the new abilities into the old? I know we have access to Intelligence, Command and Pilot skills already (via specializations) but THE GRIND!!! Throw some Pilot abilities into Tactical careers, through Command into Engineer careers, and Intelligence into Science careers (who knows, this might even boost interest in Science players - cause they certainly lack as it stands).
Perfect opportunity to;
#1) Breath new life into the leveling process
#2) Rework the powers (both career powers, and specialization powers - less grind, more reward)
#3) Inclusion of more species options (Cardassian, Suliban, Krenim)
That be all.
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I would however, like to see the Class as it stands just go and made more into its own specialization tree!
If you pick a primary Career when you pick a character that you level up as you reach specific rank markers.
Level 50 (not 60) you top out and get a token to change career paths and you repeat!
When you half way through one of these career specializations you get a special passive trait that helps in that career and then when you max out on one you get an active trait.
Your active career gives you all the passives associated with that career.
Completing a career specialization gives you a token to switch.
Tokens can be added to the C-Store too for say 350-550 Zen.
LTS/1000 Vets could get a free token.
This gives characters more replayability too for missions that have different tasks for different classes.
In most games this would not work as your Class (or career in the case of STO) limits so much within the game, but I think that this could work, albeit, still a lot of coding!
End-game wise it would allow long time players who have maxed out their "training" in all three classes to switch between them to allow slightly different game play whilst they grind for Fleet Holding/Reputations etc.
Well, that's my idea!!
It would also be good if some new very large 'battlezone' type area was introduced that would not be 100% focused on war or what simply turns into mini-game grinds, but on meeting certain shared objectives, say, spending time in a certain area for that faction that contains amenities (exchange, bank, mail, shipyard, medical bay, tailor) which increases a very slow map-wide progress bar for that zone if certain occasional mini-missions show up and are successfully resolved, each benefiting from a certain species' abilities as well as career types of that species and faction.
Just some ideas.
Boldly defying metrics by having a kdf aligned reman sci.
Well...more like they need to balance the game so it isn't focused on damage more than anything else...they should either focus on the trinity or eliminate it all together imo.
Yes, my first char was also a tac-captain, without knowing the mechanics and such. Why? Because only tactical Captains can actualy command a ship in canon. I guess thats the motivation why many new players choose tac first.
Seasoned players however have different reasons, but those are not the reasons for all players
Don't forget that in an alternate timeline in a Voyager episode, Geordi La Forge was captain of a starship himself, believe it was a Galaxy class ship even. Scotty became a captain too as seen in the episode where he's saved from the Jenolan Dyson Sphere, it isn't clear he ever captained a ship but he's got the rank for it.
Also, Beverly Crusher was captain of a medical ship the U.S.S. Pasteur in the alternate timeline in the TNG episode "All Good Things...". Also, Janeway was considered to be a Science officer when she took command of Voyager since that was her previous posting.
Well Scotty was a Captain even before that...he had a very rarely used position as Captain of Engineering
http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Montgomery_Scott
http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Captain_of_engineering
Gordi changed departments for it: http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/f/fe/Geordi_La_Forge,_Timeless.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121110072654&path-prefix=en as it was explicitly stated in TNG (maybe Voy) one has to change to command (red) to get a ship (tactical and security are yellow in the series, see Worf and Tuvok).
The Pasteur might be a special case, as it was a hospital ship.
That being said, the fact that 50%+ of players are tac in STO is hardly surprising. Burst damage classes are always in those ranges *in every MMO out there*. Seriously ... go ahead and play WoW or any other MMO and you'll notice rogues and attack mages top every other class in game by a huge margin.
But in this game, every career has potential for big damage ... it just has a steeper learning curve. Tacs in here have an I Win button called Attack Pattern Alpha that massively boosts their damage for 30 seconds at a time. But an engi in a beam boat can spit out some fantastic sustained damage due to his energy topping abilities. He just can't burst. Science captains can dish out some impressive exotic damage, not to mention photonic fleet. But the latter two careers take practice and skill. Tac just requires comboing APA with their cooldown tac weapon abilities and most things just die. Click on four or five buttons in a row and hit spacebar.
I'm not saying that people are wrong in that DPS is the name of the game in STO. But the reason for that is that there are no penalties for dying in this game. If your ship blows up in an STF, you just quickly respawn a 10 second dash away. There's no such thing as a party wipe in here. So they set timers instead. That being said, mind you, you will notice that engis in cruisers still do 'tank' most of the time by charging in first and drawing fire before the fragile little escorts start cannon strafing. And science ships do occasionally do crowd control (it's rare to see them heal other players, but that's because every player has access to healing abilities themselves and it's crazy difficult to keep track of others' health in the middle of a space furball).
Has some merit, but I think a little far fetched, and way too late as Salazarraze has mentioned.
But PLEASE, no messing with the skill tree.
Specialisation 20: Iconian specialisation, spent 30 points to turn you captain into an Iconian.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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I really want LTS to be getting one Free Token per month per account on top of the 500 Stipend.
Except Rogues or Mages aren't exactly the top of the DPS charts...in a game where DPS is everything it's no surprise most people pick the class that has abilities that actually add a lot to DPS.
Plus I wouldn't call Mage burst unless things have changed...I'd say closer to random burst...a lot of their damage was based on procs or crits depending on spec.
Well... it may have been a medical ship, but Captain Beverly Picard still wore command red. However I think she was still considered medical. After all, in TNG all the way through to Nemesis I believe she held the rank of Commander.
Anti-Time universe
Rank clearly shown on TNG uniform
Also... even though she was science/medical division, chain of command does give her the ability to take over command of a starship if those above her are unavailable.
Crusher in command of Enterprise
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
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My first toon was sci , in the beginning it was so much fun you could really be the difference on whether a queue/Raid Failed or not , a good sci could turn the tide and assist in either delaying or holding targets for the tacts to alpha strike. because of that i have a sci for each faction now .
oddly... she actually aged better than this irl