This entire thing sounds DREADFUL. Can we AT LEAST not have to spend (WASTE) skill points on ground skills??
ROFL you gain points for space every level, starting at 5, and ending at 50. Every 5 levels (also starting at 5, ending at 50) you also gain a ground point in addition to a space point. You're not "wasting" any points in ground because the two are completely separate.
Edit: God I hate how this forum "remembers" something you had in the reply box...
1. Star Trek Online is a better game than it ever was before.
2. Star Trek Online has more players than it ever has before.
3. Star Trek Online is making more money than it ever has before (it will stay running longer than other MMOs.
4. RIFT sucks. I have seen people mentioning its skill respec system a few times since STO announced. And guess what? RIFT is going to die sooner than STO and is JAWOWC (just another world of warcraft clone). Guess what again? WoW sucks too (big surprise there with its outdated graphics and bad updates, not to mention the $15 a month that I would rather die than pay for such a boring, repetitive game).
5. People will always complain. Here's some advice: find something to complement (you will be happier in life).
6. Cryptic wants to spend a bunch of time on the skill system. Guess what? THEY CAN AND SHOULD. You play a game that THEY BUILD AND RUN. Hence, you have NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN. Spending money on STO keeps the game running and gives you a right to REQUEST features and updates, but DOESN'T give you the right to get EVERYTHING YOU WANT.
7. Thanks for the hard work Cryptic. You spend long hours doing a job that is inherently difficult. I wouldn't dream of doing such a job, but I hope you ignore the cruel and rude people on the forums and in-game and like your jobs.
8. If I want one thing in the game, it's to ban the bot-sellers in chat. I know it's difficult, and to do it well would require people constantly monitoring chat, but having a few moderators in social zones would improve the game for me. forum
9. You forum-going ingrates (you know who you are) should learn to complement the dev-team. Do you honestly think that insulting peoples' work will make them want to do MORE work?!?!?! The best way to encourage developers is to be honest, nice, and generally a respectful human being (were you raised to be forum trolls? If you were, I feel very bad for you).
1. Debatable, partly because it's highly subjective.
2. Only the devs can confirm this without speculation. They choose not to, so I'll refrain from speculating.
3. Probably making more money. Won't comment on its lifetime, though, because I don't have much of a baseline to go on (that being said, the three other MMOs whose lifetimes I know are either younger or have/had a longer lifetime than STO so far).
4. Can't comment on Rift sucking or not sucking because I haven't played the game, but farranor's response (and my response to his response) pretty much show how you've shot your argument in the foot.
5. People will always complain, yes. I'm known for complaining about my fellow modders' inactivity and a lack of multiplayer activity over at the SR2 forums, but I think we're being reasonable here. (See farranor's post.)
6. They can and arguably should spend a bunch of time on the skill system. They shouldn't, however, expect a self-contradicting approach like 'we want people to experiment, but we're going to lock that experimentation behind a 5$ paywall' (I know it's no longer going to be 5$, but the point remains) to work.
7. Thick skins are unfortunately a requirement for any public activity nowadays, whether you're a politician, a news reporter, or a game developer. Sad, but unavoidable - hopefully they at least enjoy the non-flak stages.
8. Interestingly, I haven't seen a lot of those lately. Hmm.
9. One has to remember not only that the devs are human beings, but that the players are as well. It goes both ways, and while most if not all of the individual developers themselves are more than deserving of respect (Taco, Zero and TTC are some that immediately spring to mind, and my younger brother seems to think Trendy's a dev ), the policies Cryptic (or should I say Perfect World?) implements are not always as good.
7. RIFT sucks. I have seen people mentioning its skill respec system a few times since STO announced. And guess what? RIFT is going to die sooner than STO and is JAWOWC (just another world of warcraft clone). Guess what again? WoW sucks too (big surprise there with its outdated graphics and bad updates, not to mention the $15 a month that I would rather die than pay for such a boring, repetitive game).
That's kind of my point. Even Rift, which has massive problems in its F2P model (not as bad as SWToR's, but that's not saying much), allows respecs that cost a tiny amount of in-game currency. There will be no experimentation with specs in STO as long as the respecs are locked behind a paywall.
As far as I remember, even TOR doesn't force you to pay more than a small amount of in-game currency (if even that, I don't remember what the system's like post-Shadow of Revan)!
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
The best way to do handle the respect token issue would be to put respec tokens on the Dilithium store AND on the C-store. AND make them tradable on the EC exchange like keys. This way they can be earned through gameplay. AND those who need a respec token NOW can simply buy it off the C-store. That to me would be a good compromise, and would feed into the existing zen-dilithium market and make it function better as it is intended.
While I cannot necessarily speak to the business end of it, this does sound from a player perspective to be a good idea if the system is intended to encourage experimentation. I hate to say it, but I'm also one of those people who probably won't be taking any big risks translating my old builds over to the new system because of the real-world-money cost of messing it up.
Which, honestly, is a real pity. I would love to noodle around with this skill system a bit-- especially with my KDF Sci. (She's really hard to buy ships for.)
Unfortunately, the cost of $5.00 every time I mess up a build feels a bit, well, dis-incentivizing.
Making repsec tokens available for dilithium would probably be a good way to get risk-adverse people like me to use the system for the kind of playful experimentation it looks like you were looking to encourage. And by making sure it is not cheap to buy one of these tokens for a high-level character, that might place incentives for players to spend Zen on repec. tokens instead on occasion.
On the business side, I will readily admit that, if respecialization tokens were available for non-Zen purchase, fewer repec. tokens will be sold for Zen. That will make less money in that way.
On the other hand, making repec. tokens available at a cost of in-game currency-- even a high one-- might encourage players to buy starships they might not have otherwise.
For example, if my KDF Sci devotes a good chunk of skill points to carrier-skills, I would almost certainly never consider buying anything without hangers for her (like a BoP, a tuned-up Varanus, or what have you).
Alternatively-- and this actually happened-- because my Starfleet Tac was geared up for escort-based gunplay, I turned down buying two different science vessels because my character lacked the skill investments to make them even remotely effective. In that case, the cost of trying to sell me a $5.00 repec. token lost you the sale of a $20.00/$25.00 starship.
I don't know how well that trade-off scales when looking at the wider player-base, but it might be worth examining, if you haven't already.
True success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
-- Winston Churchill
I asked this question to Borticus on Tribble. I, and everyone else was told that 1 point node in the new skill tree is equal to 9 or more points in the current holodeck skill tree depending on the skill you are picking. Example would be weapon amplification. 1 point in that would equal 9 points in space weapon specialization on the current tree.
can you provide a link. that mean they have substantially increased skill effectiveness.
while i certainly believe there are issues which need serious attention before these changes go live I must point out there is no reason experimentation still can be achieved...
whether now or in the future the new skill system is on Tribble. Just copy your character over, respec to your hearts content, test, document then replicate that build on holodeck. Sure there's an extra step of loggin into tribble and copying your character but its a better option that spending money.
Well.... did a couple of missions with my level 60 Rom on Tribble....and I must say: I am pleasantly surprised. My character on Tribble IS improved, quite a bit. I WAS kinda freaked out about everyone saying there was a huge "nerf".
BUT I find this is not necessarily so. At least, not for me.
Now, I am not one trying to shoehorn my "build" over into the DPS Killer-dom or going for Uber Science mode...you know, something that is more narrow in focus. And I am not one of the people who chart all the numbers and look for the slightest deviation. Shoot, I am not even sure where to look.
I am casual and playing to have my own fun. I am happy playing on "Normal" and "Solo". I am not intent on going through all the content in 5 seconds flat as if it were a race. I just want to feel like I have enough weapon power to make somewhat of an impact on NPCs and not die too quickly...have enough healing to keep my shields and hull going...etc.
I filled the skill tree on Tribble as I thought I wanted it, not trying to copy anything on Holodeck.
I noticed, I was flying faster in sector...that made DOFFing interesting. Not sure it was easier, though...you know having to stop at the borders and all that. My ship was quicker turning and speedy in battles...to the point I had to turn down engine power and turn down my flight speed or I was passing everything. LOL! And it was nice...but killing off the NPCs way too fast was boring. Plasmonic Leech...was still working, I don't care how it works...I just want to see the green in the power bars.
I doubt I needed to max all the points in Weapons Training in this new tree (energy or projectile sides). And, I, obviously, got a little "happy" with the number of points I stuck in engine speed buffs in the Engineering part of the tree.
So, I do have a bit of wiggle room to respec into something new, after all!!!! Imagine that.
IT is not the same game with that new Skill Tree active. It will take a bit of trial and error to see how it goes.
I encourage you to take a character over to Tribble and try it for yourself. And see what you see.
BTW....during this testing: Respecs are free.
NOTE: things are subject to change, since the program on Tribble is still in Testing.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Who the hell even uses Boarding Party?
LMAOROFL!!!
Someone who thinks the game is too easy And about new skill tree, it looks worse than any mobil phone game and every try costs 5€ ? *derp*
I hope i'll can to replicate my current setup on the first try.
Well.... did a couple of missions with my level 60 Rom on Tribble....and I must say: I am pleasantly surprised. My character on Tribble IS improved, quite a bit. I WAS kinda freaked out about everyone saying there was a huge "nerf".
BUT I find this is not necessarily so. At least, not for me.
Now, I am not one trying to shoehorn my "build" over into the DPS Killer-dom or going for Uber Science mode...you know, something that is more narrow in focus. And I am not one of the people who chart all the numbers and look for the slightest deviation. Shoot, I am not even sure where to look.
I am casual and playing to have my own fun. I am happy playing on "Normal" and "Solo". I am not intent on going through all the content in 5 seconds flat as if it were a race. I just want to feel like I have enough weapon power to make somewhat of an impact on NPCs and not die too quickly...have enough healing to keep my shields and hull going...etc.
I filled the skill tree on Tribble as I thought I wanted it, not trying to copy anything on Holodeck.
I noticed, I was flying faster in sector...that made DOFFing interesting. Not sure it was easier, though...you know having to stop at the borders and all that. My ship was quicker turning and speedy in battles...to the point I had to turn down engine power and turn down my flight speed or I was passing everything. LOL! And it was nice...but killing off the NPCs way too fast was boring. Plasmonic Leech...was still working, I don't care how it works...I just want to see the green in the power bars.
I doubt I needed to max all the points in Weapons Training in this new tree (energy or projectile sides). And, I, obviously, got a little "happy" with the number of points I stuck in engine speed buffs in the Engineering part of the tree.
So, I do have a bit of wiggle room to respec into something new, after all!!!! Imagine that.
IT is not the same game with that new Skill Tree active. It will take a bit of trial and error to see how it goes.
I encourage you to take a character over to Tribble and try it for yourself. And see what you see.
BTW....during this testing: Respecs are free.
NOTE: things are subject to change, since the program on Tribble is still in Testing.
If you don't know and don't care, why are you even posting? It's good that you're enjoying the new system, but I get the impression that it could've been pretty much anything and your reaction would still have been "I dunno, seems fine, whatever." It looks like your feedback is technically worthless.
I mean seriously guys, have you not been reading these post as I just did? Or are you just bent on destroying your reputation, company, and this game? Your revamping a system that really is not hard to understand if you are actually taking the time to read that little popup that appears whenever you hover your mouse of the skill. Instead you are deciding on catering to a very select few that are not even or have not even spent money on this game in the first place. I mean come on really... I could teach a monkey how to not only play this game but also pull at least a minimum of 20k DPS. Which is all you need to pull your own weight.
HAHA when you think about it, you are actually counteracting your comments you made about 2 years ago when you "revamped" the first skill tree. Oh now this one is too hard to understand... What next? Are you going to lower the minimum age requirement to 2 years old to? If your getting complaints about this skill tree being too hard to understand, your replies need to be, "go buy and etch sketch". Better yet "go buy hooked on phonics". People who are not reading the skills before they are clicking need to learn their lesson the hard way by buying respec tokens.
HAHA when you think about it, you are actually counteracting your comments you made about 2 years ago when you "revamped" the first skill tree. Oh now this one is too hard to understand... What next? Are you going to lower the minimum age requirement to 2 years old to? If your getting complaints about this skill tree being too hard to understand, your replies need to be, "go buy and etch sketch". Better yet "go buy hooked on phonics". People who are not reading the skills before they are clicking need to learn their lesson the hard way by buying respec tokens.
What part, exactly, of the current (live) skill descriptions is someone supposed to read in order to make an informed decision on whether a skill is worth taking? As pretty much everyone else is explaining, the only thing the current skill descriptions reveal is that more points in a skill makes it more effective. The actual value of each point, however, is never mentioned.
HAHA when you think about it, you are actually counteracting your comments you made about 2 years ago when you "revamped" the first skill tree. Oh now this one is too hard to understand... What next? Are you going to lower the minimum age requirement to 2 years old to? If your getting complaints about this skill tree being too hard to understand, your replies need to be, "go buy and etch sketch". Better yet "go buy hooked on phonics". People who are not reading the skills before they are clicking need to learn their lesson the hard way by buying respec tokens.
What part, exactly, of the current (live) skill descriptions is someone supposed to read in order to make an informed decision on whether a skill is worth taking? As pretty much everyone else is explaining, the only thing the current skill descriptions reveal is that more points in a skill makes it more effective. The actual value of each point, however, is never mentioned.
Well, to be fair, they do reveal what a certain skill improves. They just don't say how much of an improvement it is.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
With the pick from any tree, I feel like running alts is once again being destroyed by this game. Why game devs hate alts is beyond me when that generates them money such as character slots first and foremost.
With the pick from any tree, I feel like running alts is once again being destroyed by this game. Why game devs hate alts is beyond me when that generates them money such as character slots first and foremost.
You can pick skills from any of the 3 groups (eng,sci,tac) on holodeck right now that has not changed so this will not effect alts or diminish them in anyway this revamp does not effect Careers and captain abilities which are exclusive to the career of the character.
With the pick from any tree, I feel like running alts is once again being destroyed by this game. Why game devs hate alts is beyond me when that generates them money such as character slots first and foremost.
You can pick skills from any of the 3 groups (eng,sci,tac) on holodeck right now that has not changed so this will not effect alts or diminish them in anyway this revamp does not effect Careers and captain abilities which are exclusive to the career of the character.
After posting I did finish patching Tribble and noticed that. I was thinking it was changing to be similar to Freeform in Champions. But mostly it's the manuals one can make plus some bonus are career specific. I read an early post where someone (not Cryptic) said that he made an engineer and now can change it to a tac without rerolling and that made me think it was alts being killed off.
I haven't tried running missions yet but was coming back to change my post. However, since you replied, I just decided to post a reply as well.
But moving though sector space is slower according to mouseover the speed than before even with points put in for sector space boost in the skill pick with the first choice for science points. I took the increase 25% and it's tooltip says I was going slower than on Holodeck.
Honestly, I think that Cryptic needs to take WoW's approach to respeccing and give it a base EC or dilithium cost, and each time you respec, the cost increases by a set amount, eventually cap at a set amount that is high enough to make you want to hold off on doing it again, and then it will stay at that amount for a period of time, and gradually decrease the longer you go without respeccing.
As an on-off again gold subscriber since day 1, I think that the EC Cap and respec tokens being Zen only is ridiculous. I think that the EC cap should be removed permenantly once you have gold membership for a period of time(like 6 months or so), and that being able to respec your character should cost EC or Dil(at the most). To have to pay any amount of real money just to respec your character is just wrong, especially if you just spent $30+ on a new ship or bundle. I've spent at least $2k or more on this game on ships, keys, etc. so i'm not opposed to having to spend money on the cool things in the game or whatnot, but i refuse to spend money on functionality that should be available to everyone at all times.
Respecs should cost EC or Dill. Champions Online, a much neglected game in comparison, still has a better respec system than STO, and CO's respec system is STILL awful.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Honestly, I think that Cryptic needs to take WoW's approach to respeccing and give it a base EC or dilithium cost,
WoW is a Pay to play game no Pay to Play game would charge for respec's and it makes no business sense to scrap something that brings them in money regardless of how little.
That being said I do think that respecs should be free for subscribers to STO! that is something every other F2P game does for their subscribers!
Also they need to introduce a new system to reduce the blow that is 500 zen per respec! I still think the best option for them to keep the system as close to what it is now and still make money from it would be to introduce multiple build slots that you can toggle between and charge zen for those slots and still change zen to respec each build.
This will make people happy alot more happy about the whole zen to respec option and bring in another service they can sell.
Honestly, I think that Cryptic needs to take WoW's approach to respeccing and give it a base EC or dilithium cost,
WoW is a Pay to play game no Pay to Play game would charge for respec's and it makes no business sense to scrap something that brings them in money regardless of how little.
Okay then, replace 'WoW' with 'SWTOR'. That one had (or possibly still has) the exact same system for quite a while after going F2P.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Everyone's rant on Cryptic making respecs free is really starting to get annoying. They run the game and they are going to do what they want. I'm a Lifer, and I don't really care for paying $5 for every respec either.
My suggestion to Cryptic (in an attempt to squash this uprising) is to have a Re-training Event:
1) The first release weekend of 11.5 (usual update morning through Monday morning) will have all respecs FREE (no tokens required). This will give people time to test out all sorts of different combinations for their character(s). It should also promote a good server stress test for Cryptic as well.
2) Finish out the week (Monday morning thru the next update) with 50% off on respecs (back to issuing tokens) for those that still need to fine-tune their builds.
3) Then raise the respec tokens back to full price (since that seems what they intend on doing anyways).
4) If we are going to have to retrain our bridge officers as well, I would hope they adopt a similar discount on that as well.
Since announcing the Skill System Revamp last week, we've received tons of questions from the community. Jeremy Randall, Skill System Revamp's designer, took some time to address some of the most frequently asked questions.
My opinion is that this whole new set up is going to change the game in very bad ways. My build is defense based and i relied on the ability to pick and choose what I wanted favoring space... I can only guess that as this new system is implemented that there will be a large loss of my ability to survive. Damage I can't see changing too much with the new system so most accept this new system but I don't. Mainly the unlocking path is the major issue, With the old system If I needed Starship warp core potential in engineering I did not need to waste skill points in a useless passive down that line with that alone I see this update will be flawed. Please think this over.
This comment is for the developers only Trolls keep your comments to yourself I will not argue this matter.
Everyone's rant on Cryptic making respecs free is really starting to get annoying. They run the game and they are going to do what they want. I'm a Lifer, and I don't really care for paying $5 for every respec either.
My suggestion to Cryptic (in an attempt to squash this uprising) is to have a Re-training Event:
1) The first release weekend of 11.5 (usual update morning through Monday morning) will have all respecs FREE (no tokens required). This will give people time to test out all sorts of different combinations for their character(s). It should also promote a good server stress test for Cryptic as well.
2) Finish out the week (Monday morning thru the next update) with 50% off on respecs (back to issuing tokens) for those that still need to fine-tune their builds.
3) Then raise the respec tokens back to full price (since that seems what they intend on doing anyways).
4) If we are going to have to retrain our bridge officers as well, I would hope they adopt a similar discount on that as well.
A week would be too short. A month or a quarter would be better.
If I bother playing while builds are still being sorted out I likely won't allocate any skills. $5 a pop to experiment is way too much, and having to go through the hassle of using a separate test server is a non-starter.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Comments
Go to http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/drafts to see your saved drafts, and then hover over a draft to reveal an "x" in the upper-right corner of that draft. Click the "x" to delete the draft.
1. Debatable, partly because it's highly subjective.
2. Only the devs can confirm this without speculation. They choose not to, so I'll refrain from speculating.
3. Probably making more money. Won't comment on its lifetime, though, because I don't have much of a baseline to go on (that being said, the three other MMOs whose lifetimes I know are either younger or have/had a longer lifetime than STO so far).
4. Can't comment on Rift sucking or not sucking because I haven't played the game, but farranor's response (and my response to his response) pretty much show how you've shot your argument in the foot.
5. People will always complain, yes. I'm known for complaining about my fellow modders' inactivity and a lack of multiplayer activity over at the SR2 forums, but I think we're being reasonable here. (See farranor's post.)
6. They can and arguably should spend a bunch of time on the skill system. They shouldn't, however, expect a self-contradicting approach like 'we want people to experiment, but we're going to lock that experimentation behind a 5$ paywall' (I know it's no longer going to be 5$, but the point remains) to work.
7. Thick skins are unfortunately a requirement for any public activity nowadays, whether you're a politician, a news reporter, or a game developer. Sad, but unavoidable - hopefully they at least enjoy the non-flak stages.
8. Interestingly, I haven't seen a lot of those lately. Hmm.
9. One has to remember not only that the devs are human beings, but that the players are as well. It goes both ways, and while most if not all of the individual developers themselves are more than deserving of respect (Taco, Zero and TTC are some that immediately spring to mind, and my younger brother seems to think Trendy's a dev
As far as I remember, even TOR doesn't force you to pay more than a small amount of in-game currency (if even that, I don't remember what the system's like post-Shadow of Revan)!
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
While I cannot necessarily speak to the business end of it, this does sound from a player perspective to be a good idea if the system is intended to encourage experimentation. I hate to say it, but I'm also one of those people who probably won't be taking any big risks translating my old builds over to the new system because of the real-world-money cost of messing it up.
Which, honestly, is a real pity. I would love to noodle around with this skill system a bit-- especially with my KDF Sci. (She's really hard to buy ships for.)
Unfortunately, the cost of $5.00 every time I mess up a build feels a bit, well, dis-incentivizing.
Making repsec tokens available for dilithium would probably be a good way to get risk-adverse people like me to use the system for the kind of playful experimentation it looks like you were looking to encourage. And by making sure it is not cheap to buy one of these tokens for a high-level character, that might place incentives for players to spend Zen on repec. tokens instead on occasion.
On the business side, I will readily admit that, if respecialization tokens were available for non-Zen purchase, fewer repec. tokens will be sold for Zen. That will make less money in that way.
On the other hand, making repec. tokens available at a cost of in-game currency-- even a high one-- might encourage players to buy starships they might not have otherwise.
For example, if my KDF Sci devotes a good chunk of skill points to carrier-skills, I would almost certainly never consider buying anything without hangers for her (like a BoP, a tuned-up Varanus, or what have you).
Alternatively-- and this actually happened-- because my Starfleet Tac was geared up for escort-based gunplay, I turned down buying two different science vessels because my character lacked the skill investments to make them even remotely effective. In that case, the cost of trying to sell me a $5.00 repec. token lost you the sale of a $20.00/$25.00 starship.
I don't know how well that trade-off scales when looking at the wider player-base, but it might be worth examining, if you haven't already.
-- Winston Churchill
can you provide a link. that mean they have substantially increased skill effectiveness.
whether now or in the future the new skill system is on Tribble. Just copy your character over, respec to your hearts content, test, document then replicate that build on holodeck. Sure there's an extra step of loggin into tribble and copying your character but its a better option that spending money.
BUT I find this is not necessarily so. At least, not for me.
Now, I am not one trying to shoehorn my "build" over into the DPS Killer-dom or going for Uber Science mode...you know, something that is more narrow in focus. And I am not one of the people who chart all the numbers and look for the slightest deviation. Shoot, I am not even sure where to look.
I am casual and playing to have my own fun. I am happy playing on "Normal" and "Solo". I am not intent on going through all the content in 5 seconds flat as if it were a race. I just want to feel like I have enough weapon power to make somewhat of an impact on NPCs and not die too quickly...have enough healing to keep my shields and hull going...etc.
I filled the skill tree on Tribble as I thought I wanted it, not trying to copy anything on Holodeck.
I noticed, I was flying faster in sector...that made DOFFing interesting. Not sure it was easier, though...you know having to stop at the borders and all that. My ship was quicker turning and speedy in battles...to the point I had to turn down engine power and turn down my flight speed or I was passing everything. LOL! And it was nice...but killing off the NPCs way too fast was boring. Plasmonic Leech...was still working, I don't care how it works...I just want to see the green in the power bars.
I doubt I needed to max all the points in Weapons Training in this new tree (energy or projectile sides). And, I, obviously, got a little "happy" with the number of points I stuck in engine speed buffs in the Engineering part of the tree.
So, I do have a bit of wiggle room to respec into something new, after all!!!! Imagine that.
IT is not the same game with that new Skill Tree active. It will take a bit of trial and error to see how it goes.
I encourage you to take a character over to Tribble and try it for yourself. And see what you see.
BTW....during this testing: Respecs are free.
NOTE: things are subject to change, since the program on Tribble is still in Testing.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Someone who thinks the game is too easy
I hope i'll can to replicate my current setup on the first try.
If you don't know and don't care, why are you even posting? It's good that you're enjoying the new system, but I get the impression that it could've been pretty much anything and your reaction would still have been "I dunno, seems fine, whatever." It looks like your feedback is technically worthless.
What part, exactly, of the current (live) skill descriptions is someone supposed to read in order to make an informed decision on whether a skill is worth taking? As pretty much everyone else is explaining, the only thing the current skill descriptions reveal is that more points in a skill makes it more effective. The actual value of each point, however, is never mentioned.
Well, to be fair, they do reveal what a certain skill improves. They just don't say how much of an improvement it is.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
You can pick skills from any of the 3 groups (eng,sci,tac) on holodeck right now that has not changed so this will not effect alts or diminish them in anyway this revamp does not effect Careers and captain abilities which are exclusive to the career of the character.
After posting I did finish patching Tribble and noticed that. I was thinking it was changing to be similar to Freeform in Champions. But mostly it's the manuals one can make plus some bonus are career specific. I read an early post where someone (not Cryptic) said that he made an engineer and now can change it to a tac without rerolling and that made me think it was alts being killed off.
I haven't tried running missions yet but was coming back to change my post. However, since you replied, I just decided to post a reply as well.
But moving though sector space is slower according to mouseover the speed than before even with points put in for sector space boost in the skill pick with the first choice for science points. I took the increase 25% and it's tooltip says I was going slower than on Holodeck.
Seems pretty strait forward on what it does: "Each point in Hull Capacity is .3%" which it goes on to show that +50 ='s +15% to your Hull capacity.
Common be honest, did you even really look at the new description or just glance at it?
Honestly, I think that Cryptic needs to take WoW's approach to respeccing and give it a base EC or dilithium cost, and each time you respec, the cost increases by a set amount, eventually cap at a set amount that is high enough to make you want to hold off on doing it again, and then it will stay at that amount for a period of time, and gradually decrease the longer you go without respeccing.
As an on-off again gold subscriber since day 1, I think that the EC Cap and respec tokens being Zen only is ridiculous. I think that the EC cap should be removed permenantly once you have gold membership for a period of time(like 6 months or so), and that being able to respec your character should cost EC or Dil(at the most). To have to pay any amount of real money just to respec your character is just wrong, especially if you just spent $30+ on a new ship or bundle. I've spent at least $2k or more on this game on ships, keys, etc. so i'm not opposed to having to spend money on the cool things in the game or whatnot, but i refuse to spend money on functionality that should be available to everyone at all times.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
WoW is a Pay to play game no Pay to Play game would charge for respec's and it makes no business sense to scrap something that brings them in money regardless of how little.
That being said I do think that respecs should be free for subscribers to STO! that is something every other F2P game does for their subscribers!
Also they need to introduce a new system to reduce the blow that is 500 zen per respec! I still think the best option for them to keep the system as close to what it is now and still make money from it would be to introduce multiple build slots that you can toggle between and charge zen for those slots and still change zen to respec each build.
This will make people happy alot more happy about the whole zen to respec option and bring in another service they can sell.
Okay then, replace 'WoW' with 'SWTOR'. That one had (or possibly still has) the exact same system for quite a while after going F2P.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
My suggestion to Cryptic (in an attempt to squash this uprising) is to have a Re-training Event:
1) The first release weekend of 11.5 (usual update morning through Monday morning) will have all respecs FREE (no tokens required). This will give people time to test out all sorts of different combinations for their character(s). It should also promote a good server stress test for Cryptic as well.
2) Finish out the week (Monday morning thru the next update) with 50% off on respecs (back to issuing tokens) for those that still need to fine-tune their builds.
3) Then raise the respec tokens back to full price (since that seems what they intend on doing anyways).
4) If we are going to have to retrain our bridge officers as well, I would hope they adopt a similar discount on that as well.
My opinion is that this whole new set up is going to change the game in very bad ways. My build is defense based and i relied on the ability to pick and choose what I wanted favoring space... I can only guess that as this new system is implemented that there will be a large loss of my ability to survive. Damage I can't see changing too much with the new system so most accept this new system but I don't. Mainly the unlocking path is the major issue, With the old system If I needed Starship warp core potential in engineering I did not need to waste skill points in a useless passive down that line with that alone I see this update will be flawed. Please think this over.
This comment is for the developers only Trolls keep your comments to yourself I will not argue this matter.
A week would be too short. A month or a quarter would be better.
If I bother playing while builds are still being sorted out I likely won't allocate any skills. $5 a pop to experiment is way too much, and having to go through the hassle of using a separate test server is a non-starter.