A clearer streamlined skill tree is well overdue, but what I don't like is they are using this opportunity to buff certain areas while nerfing others in a clandestine way, which is not why they said they were changing the system. Also the new skill tree looks like it has been set up to create less diverse builds which no doubt is deliberate so that people respec more often (i.e. buy zen).
It's set up very similar theres just much better options eliminating the useless ones so you have to actually choose between good options. This isn't a bad thing.
Yes of course certain builds will make better use of certain abilities etc. But in general none of the choices are significantly worse than any other. Which is an improvement.
I can't be the only one thinking 'perhaps it would've been better if they actually just sorted the mechanics behind those skills and updated the documentation to actually be useful', can I?
Let's take drain for the moment. I have a few builds which have a heavy flow-related component, more so than I've ever seen anywhere at end game largely because even the best drain ships barely touch half of the DPS some of those monsters out there can achieve and partly because the leech which is favoured so heavily doesn't need huge flow caps to give a reasonable power boost overall.
The way in which drain works is to apply the power drain to your opponent which is then resisted by their power insulators. At the same time, without any resist applied at all, you gain the complete benefit of the initial drain to your power systems, as if you're just making all new energy on the spot.
So, you're using leech, and someone has double your flow in power insulators. You get the power boost as normal while your target is relatively unaffected. This is broken
If someone were to apply even a small amount of sense, a drain should only be able to take the power the insulators can't stop.
Under the new skill system that's basically how it builds up toons who buy the flow/control points which will likely either become mandatory or utterly pointless, and basically everyone's going to grab the 2x skill points for the resist alone. With that in mind, in order to be even remotely useful with a given skill in either of those fields, you'd have to spec into it to the Nth degree which will leave you largely useless in practically every other regard, be it DPS or resist.
Continuing the drain theme, it would appear that there's also a massive nerf coming to drains, certainly to energy siphon. The draw that flow caps provides to the skill has been halved, as has the duration as powered by your Aux power level.
Ultimately, all this new system seeks to do is reduce the space game to an arcade-styled space shooter with little to no real depth, where all that really matters is DPS and damage resists.
For all those who're arguing about whether or not they've seen people asking for a skill overhaul; it's been requested for years, but in every circumstance where I've seen those requests it was for the mechanics to make sense and be transparent, not this weakass inflexible system.
What everyone buying Zen are really saying while all these bugs are still floating freely:
Stop new content until quality returns
This looks like (at least an attempt at) a balancing pass, which was sorely needed. Too many eggs in the "Tactical Captain using BFAW" basket.
This skill revamp is not going to change that, in fact, it might make it worse. There is nothing there that discourages the use of FAW, further, if FAW is what you do and all you do then you are going to get a buff, because with this new revamp it makes it easier to be a FAW boat and adds a slight amount of damage, not a huge buff, but a buff nonetheless.
Yes, people have wanted this for years and a handful of forum complaints will not and should not change their minds.
[Unnecessary comment modded]
We wanted A skill revamp for years, we did not want THIS skill system revamp. I strongly believe that the WAY they did this revamp is solid step backwards for this game.
So yeah, I wanted a skill system revamp, but this, this is garbage.
We wanted A skill revamp for years, we did not want THIS skill system revamp. I strongly believe that the WAY they did this revamp is solid step backwards for this game.
^^ 100% Agreed!
The new skill tree view is significantly less lucid than the 'one-glance-sees-all' old screen. Furthermore, several of the new skills, like Shield Hardness/Regen will only add to the confusion, as these are apparently working in conjunction with the current mechanism in place for those (being shield power). But the default shield hardness/regen, based on shield power, has been nerfed, so it's now entirely unclear how many skillpoints you will need to sink into those new skills, to compensate for said nerf (please, don't say they need to be all filled up). That's only making things harder, in my book.
It doesn't matter what I want, they're doing it. And it has massive repercussions throughout the whole game because of the way it affects items that modify skills.
I'm not quite prepared to say it's a bad thing and even now I can see some potential. But there's a whole lot of stuff on the back end of this thing -- let's call it spaghetti-data -- that could go horribly wrong. I'm just hoping they get it right. And that they come up with a better idea for skill tweaking besides "go buy a respec token".
It doesn't matter what I want, they're doing it. And it has massive repercussions throughout the whole game because of the way it affects items that modify skills.".
Indeed!
The boff revamp, for example, was a total triumph; but only so because it was much easier. After all, only the way the boffs were trained changed, and not the underlying skills/abilities they controlled.
This skill revamp, however, will effect every Console skill-boost, Trait skill-boost, Space Set skill boosts, and all derivatives thereof, in every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in the area. :P
Unless, of course, those things internally just boost the exact same skills (even on the Stats screens and all) as before, in which case they shouldn't have bothered to muck around with a perfectly fine skill system to begin with.
It doesn't matter what I want, they're doing it. And it has massive repercussions throughout the whole game because of the way it affects items that modify skills.".
Indeed!
The boff revamp, for example, was a total triumph; but only so because it was much easier. After all, only the way the boffs were trained changed, and not the underlying skills/abilities they controlled.
This skill revamp, however, will effect every Console skill-boost, Trait skill-boost, Space Set skill boosts, and all derivatives thereof, in every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in the area. :P
Unless, of course, those things internally just boost the exact same skills (even on the Stats screens and all) as before, in which case they shouldn't have bothered to muck around with a perfectly fine skill system to begin with.
Just the little bit I've played on Tribble, the gameplay feels different. I can't quite quantify it in a way that would make sense to a developer. It may be because of other non-related changes in the build. It might be that I'm playing a bit differently than I normally would. It might even be the fact that I got bored out of my mind leveling through the tutorial and skipped ahead to level 11 before I did any other missions.
But my shields held up better than I'm used to (incoming nerf, if I understand correctly) and my T. Beam melted shields better than I'm used to without being too overpowered. My torps felt like they had a bit more boom than usual. Ground felt a little different too, even before I skipped levels.
All of that matters not. I have a bunch of characters over level 50 and five at level 60. I've got lots and lots of C-Store gear that I can't test because it's all turned off. What matters is how my game experience changes with THOSE characters and right now I can't tell. I'm tempted to chuck the whole thing until they re-enable character transfers, because I don't want to deal with all those early missions all over again right now.
Don't forget to throw in that there's not only a skill revamp but also a(n obvious) sci nerf at the same time, so we can't even legitimately get an 'apples to apples' comparison as to whether or not the new skills system is better or worse than the old one much less why.
The cynical out there may even go so far as to say 'that's the entire point' so Cryptic can appease whichever demographic at the cost of the others and push through a system that probably doesn't even help anyone overall...
What everyone buying Zen are really saying while all these bugs are still floating freely:
Stop new content until quality returns
Just the little bit I've played on Tribble, the gameplay feels different. I can't quite quantify it in a way that would make sense to a developer. It may be because of other non-related changes in the build. It might be that I'm playing a bit differently than I normally would. It might even be the fact that I got bored out of my mind leveling through the tutorial and skipped ahead to level 11 before I did any other missions.
well, at least it will add some freshness back if that is the case.
still need to wait and see how they fix broken stacking multipliers that have created 100k+dps derp faw
If you call killing off one of your characters because the skill tree screwed them over bringing freshness, then I would rather the old smelly gym shorts of the current skill tree than this new one. At least with the current system, I actually felt like I was leveling up my character and I could always remake the skills until I was fully satisfied until I hit the Commit button. Now, that won't even be an option. Just hope you pick a skill that you want for the long haul cause you'll have to pay for a respec if you eff up and didn't know it.
It helps to not have high expectations and occasionally being pleasantly surprised when the low expectations are exceeded.
My expectation is that this will launch a hot mess, as many of Cryptic's game mechanics changes do, and that it will be better when they finish fixing what they broke. It seems to me that there are always thing with abilities that have strange interdependencies that they manage to miss in development.
However, they did surprisingly well with the game wide item changes connected to the upgrade system and there's hope for this one. I expected that go south too but for me, at least, it didn't.
seems like a step backwards, making everyone generic. far less customization. sure they group skill together to allow more versatility but end game in elite or even adv stfs nobody will use (or rather should not be using) most of them but will be forced to have them due to the grouping.. why didn't they just add a more detailed tutorial when starting a toon to explain everything better instead of reworking the system. i'm sure it might be ok when it is released but right now it feels like they want to take away oil painting and give us crayons, so to speak.
also a little unsettled due to the number of toons i have made specifically for certain builds, which now thanks to grouping, will becomes useless as there will only be certain builds that will be viable for end game dps results which i'm sure will make many average game players happy but not the dedicated hardcore players of which i'm sure most the the money cryptic makes comes from, but that's just speculation as i don't have any numbers to go on. anyways, this is just a rant at something new or at least i hope it is... i do not fear change i just don't want junk wrapped in a box and the salesman trying to tell me "it's better" lol
but until the final release i remain optimistic. happy trekking.
And that they come up with a better idea for skill tweaking besides "go buy a respec token".
Really wish they would allow characters to run multiple specs. I was hoping if they ever revamped the skill system they would allow us to change skills at will so that we could try different builds.
...the majority of options in the current system are dump-stats at best, and most people dont realise that.
stealth, threat and countermeasure systems along with power insulators and decompiler are utter garbage if you want a useful build.
Since when was power insulators a dump stat? Stealth and Countermeasure systems I get, they're kinda niche but can be worked well into an enhanced cloak build (pretty much the only one I can think of) mostly for the 'I need to get out of here' moments. PIns though, pretty sure that's near mandatory vs pretty much any Borg, The Voth, anyone using Tetryon (so Hirogen and Tholians mostly) or Polaron which is all through Delta... I mean, they could do us the favour of incorporating weapon drain resist to pull from Pins and up base weapon drain numbers, y'know, for lulz :P
Ignoring the skill system overhaul for just a moment though, I think there's something to be said for some 'free' respec tokens, not unlike what Lifetime/Gold accounts get. Instead of a respec at every rank increase, how about just at lvl 50/55/60? By that point most people have had time to get a feel for what they've created, they're passed most of the missions which you can basically walk through on Easy difficulty and can streamline or adjust based on what they've seen and spoken to others about.
I'm still waiting on the 'New Skill System is excellent and the players love it!' coming, but since the joke that is DR is still intact, I'm not going to be holding my breath...
What everyone buying Zen are really saying while all these bugs are still floating freely:
Stop new content until quality returns
Ignoring the skill system overhaul for just a moment though, I think there's something to be said for some 'free' respec tokens, not unlike what Lifetime/Gold accounts get. Instead of a respec at every rank increase, how about just at lvl 50/55/60? By that point most people have had time to get a feel for what they've created, they're passed most of the missions which you can basically walk through on Easy difficulty and can streamline or adjust based on what they've seen and spoken to others about.
I think that giving all characters a free respec at level 50 is a marvelous idea. More than that is probably pushing it.
It's set up very similar theres just much better options eliminating the useless ones so you have to actually choose between good options. This isn't a bad thing.
Any choice that gives 15 points in a skill is a bad choice, and those are still in.
We wanted A skill revamp for years, we did not want THIS skill system revamp. I strongly believe that the WAY they did this revamp is solid step backwards for this game.
^^ 100% Agreed!
The new skill tree view is significantly less lucid than the 'one-glance-sees-all' old screen. Furthermore, several of the new skills, like Shield Hardness/Regen will only add to the confusion, as these are apparently working in conjunction with the current mechanism in place for those (being shield power). But the default shield hardness/regen, based on shield power, has been nerfed, so it's now entirely unclear how many skillpoints you will need to sink into those new skills, to compensate for said nerf (please, don't say they need to be all filled up). That's only making things harder, in my book.
I 100% agree with you, especially since there's no "Shield Hardness" UI element the way there is for Hull Damage Resistance and the Shield Regeneration UI element doesn't change at all when you change your Shield Power. So there's really no way to know if you've gained or lost anything from the old skill tree.
since when was the tetryon proc something to worry about? subsystem offline immunities/restarts where what the tholians required.
borg shied neutraliser killed ones shield even with full insulators, hence hazard emitters being the go to heal for so long.
and tachon beam? hardly anything used it. and when they did, it either ignored insulators or did nothing.
trying to think back, im fairly curtain most shield drain abilities simply where not influenced by insulators anyway.
Which brings us nicely back to, 'it's the documentation and mechanics that are broken, not the skill system'.
Sidenote, subsystem offline's a joke anyway, you throw some points into subsystem repair and you're golden. So much for phasers...
What everyone buying Zen are really saying while all these bugs are still floating freely:
Stop new content until quality returns
We wanted A skill revamp for years, we did not want THIS skill system revamp. I strongly believe that the WAY they did this revamp is solid step backwards for this game.
^^ 100% Agreed!
The new skill tree view is significantly less lucid than the 'one-glance-sees-all' old screen. Furthermore, several of the new skills, like Shield Hardness/Regen will only add to the confusion, as these are apparently working in conjunction with the current mechanism in place for those (being shield power). But the default shield hardness/regen, based on shield power, has been nerfed, so it's now entirely unclear how many skillpoints you will need to sink into those new skills, to compensate for said nerf (please, don't say they need to be all filled up). That's only making things harder, in my book.
I 100% agree with you, especially since there's no "Shield Hardness" UI element the way there is for Hull Damage Resistance and the Shield Regeneration UI element doesn't change at all when you change your Shield Power. So there's really no way to know if you've gained or lost anything from the old skill tree.
If the UI doesn't show an increase in shield regen at all, based off shield power (also not when hovering over your shield in space?), then we're either looking at a huge bug, or they killed off that mechanism altogether.
Thing is, I first thought maybe it could work all out, after all; but if I again need to allocate 6-9 experience points (or whatever they call em now) on those 'new' skills, there's we're looking major nerf again.
According to the systems designers if you invest in the shield hardness skill it will boost it well above what was previously possible under the old systems.
Comments
Let's take drain for the moment. I have a few builds which have a heavy flow-related component, more so than I've ever seen anywhere at end game largely because even the best drain ships barely touch half of the DPS some of those monsters out there can achieve and partly because the leech which is favoured so heavily doesn't need huge flow caps to give a reasonable power boost overall.
The way in which drain works is to apply the power drain to your opponent which is then resisted by their power insulators. At the same time, without any resist applied at all, you gain the complete benefit of the initial drain to your power systems, as if you're just making all new energy on the spot.
So, you're using leech, and someone has double your flow in power insulators. You get the power boost as normal while your target is relatively unaffected.
This is broken
If someone were to apply even a small amount of sense, a drain should only be able to take the power the insulators can't stop.
Under the new skill system that's basically how it builds up toons who buy the flow/control points which will likely either become mandatory or utterly pointless, and basically everyone's going to grab the 2x skill points for the resist alone. With that in mind, in order to be even remotely useful with a given skill in either of those fields, you'd have to spec into it to the Nth degree which will leave you largely useless in practically every other regard, be it DPS or resist.
Continuing the drain theme, it would appear that there's also a massive nerf coming to drains, certainly to energy siphon. The draw that flow caps provides to the skill has been halved, as has the duration as powered by your Aux power level.
Ultimately, all this new system seeks to do is reduce the space game to an arcade-styled space shooter with little to no real depth, where all that really matters is DPS and damage resists.
For all those who're arguing about whether or not they've seen people asking for a skill overhaul; it's been requested for years, but in every circumstance where I've seen those requests it was for the mechanics to make sense and be transparent, not this weakass inflexible system.
Stop new content until quality returns
This skill revamp is not going to change that, in fact, it might make it worse. There is nothing there that discourages the use of FAW, further, if FAW is what you do and all you do then you are going to get a buff, because with this new revamp it makes it easier to be a FAW boat and adds a slight amount of damage, not a huge buff, but a buff nonetheless.
We wanted A skill revamp for years, we did not want THIS skill system revamp. I strongly believe that the WAY they did this revamp is solid step backwards for this game.
So yeah, I wanted a skill system revamp, but this, this is garbage.
^^ 100% Agreed!
The new skill tree view is significantly less lucid than the 'one-glance-sees-all' old screen. Furthermore, several of the new skills, like Shield Hardness/Regen will only add to the confusion, as these are apparently working in conjunction with the current mechanism in place for those (being shield power). But the default shield hardness/regen, based on shield power, has been nerfed, so it's now entirely unclear how many skillpoints you will need to sink into those new skills, to compensate for said nerf (please, don't say they need to be all filled up). That's only making things harder, in my book.
I'm not quite prepared to say it's a bad thing and even now I can see some potential. But there's a whole lot of stuff on the back end of this thing -- let's call it spaghetti-data -- that could go horribly wrong. I'm just hoping they get it right. And that they come up with a better idea for skill tweaking besides "go buy a respec token".
Indeed!
The boff revamp, for example, was a total triumph; but only so because it was much easier. After all, only the way the boffs were trained changed, and not the underlying skills/abilities they controlled.
This skill revamp, however, will effect every Console skill-boost, Trait skill-boost, Space Set skill boosts, and all derivatives thereof, in every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in the area. :P
Unless, of course, those things internally just boost the exact same skills (even on the Stats screens and all) as before, in which case they shouldn't have bothered to muck around with a perfectly fine skill system to begin with.
Just the little bit I've played on Tribble, the gameplay feels different. I can't quite quantify it in a way that would make sense to a developer. It may be because of other non-related changes in the build. It might be that I'm playing a bit differently than I normally would. It might even be the fact that I got bored out of my mind leveling through the tutorial and skipped ahead to level 11 before I did any other missions.
But my shields held up better than I'm used to (incoming nerf, if I understand correctly) and my T. Beam melted shields better than I'm used to without being too overpowered. My torps felt like they had a bit more boom than usual. Ground felt a little different too, even before I skipped levels.
All of that matters not. I have a bunch of characters over level 50 and five at level 60. I've got lots and lots of C-Store gear that I can't test because it's all turned off. What matters is how my game experience changes with THOSE characters and right now I can't tell. I'm tempted to chuck the whole thing until they re-enable character transfers, because I don't want to deal with all those early missions all over again right now.
The cynical out there may even go so far as to say 'that's the entire point' so Cryptic can appease whichever demographic at the cost of the others and push through a system that probably doesn't even help anyone overall...
Stop new content until quality returns
My character Tsin'xing
If you call killing off one of your characters because the skill tree screwed them over bringing freshness, then I would rather the old smelly gym shorts of the current skill tree than this new one. At least with the current system, I actually felt like I was leveling up my character and I could always remake the skills until I was fully satisfied until I hit the Commit button. Now, that won't even be an option. Just hope you pick a skill that you want for the long haul cause you'll have to pay for a respec if you eff up and didn't know it.
My expectation is that this will launch a hot mess, as many of Cryptic's game mechanics changes do, and that it will be better when they finish fixing what they broke. It seems to me that there are always thing with abilities that have strange interdependencies that they manage to miss in development.
However, they did surprisingly well with the game wide item changes connected to the upgrade system and there's hope for this one. I expected that go south too but for me, at least, it didn't.
also a little unsettled due to the number of toons i have made specifically for certain builds, which now thanks to grouping, will becomes useless as there will only be certain builds that will be viable for end game dps results which i'm sure will make many average game players happy but not the dedicated hardcore players of which i'm sure most the the money cryptic makes comes from, but that's just speculation as i don't have any numbers to go on. anyways, this is just a rant at something new or at least i hope it is... i do not fear change i just don't want junk wrapped in a box and the salesman trying to tell me "it's better" lol
but until the final release i remain optimistic. happy trekking.
Really wish they would allow characters to run multiple specs. I was hoping if they ever revamped the skill system they would allow us to change skills at will so that we could try different builds.
Since when was power insulators a dump stat? Stealth and Countermeasure systems I get, they're kinda niche but can be worked well into an enhanced cloak build (pretty much the only one I can think of) mostly for the 'I need to get out of here' moments. PIns though, pretty sure that's near mandatory vs pretty much any Borg, The Voth, anyone using Tetryon (so Hirogen and Tholians mostly) or Polaron which is all through Delta... I mean, they could do us the favour of incorporating weapon drain resist to pull from Pins and up base weapon drain numbers, y'know, for lulz :P
Ignoring the skill system overhaul for just a moment though, I think there's something to be said for some 'free' respec tokens, not unlike what Lifetime/Gold accounts get. Instead of a respec at every rank increase, how about just at lvl 50/55/60? By that point most people have had time to get a feel for what they've created, they're passed most of the missions which you can basically walk through on Easy difficulty and can streamline or adjust based on what they've seen and spoken to others about.
I'm still waiting on the 'New Skill System is excellent and the players love it!' coming, but since the joke that is DR is still intact, I'm not going to be holding my breath...
Stop new content until quality returns
I think that giving all characters a free respec at level 50 is a marvelous idea. More than that is probably pushing it.
Any choice that gives 15 points in a skill is a bad choice, and those are still in.
I 100% agree with you, especially since there's no "Shield Hardness" UI element the way there is for Hull Damage Resistance and the Shield Regeneration UI element doesn't change at all when you change your Shield Power. So there's really no way to know if you've gained or lost anything from the old skill tree.
Which brings us nicely back to, 'it's the documentation and mechanics that are broken, not the skill system'.
Sidenote, subsystem offline's a joke anyway, you throw some points into subsystem repair and you're golden. So much for phasers...
Stop new content until quality returns
All your subsystems automatically repair themselves.
If the UI doesn't show an increase in shield regen at all, based off shield power (also not when hovering over your shield in space?), then we're either looking at a huge bug, or they killed off that mechanism altogether.
Thing is, I first thought maybe it could work all out, after all; but if I again need to allocate 6-9 experience points (or whatever they call em now) on those 'new' skills, there's we're looking major nerf again.