I just played around with the latest changes on Tribble. Two questions:
1. As part of my testing to see how Drain Infection works with Destabilizing Resonance Beam (DRB II), I noticed that it only activates if all 10 stacks of DRB are built up. If I turn out of the arc or otherwise cancel the skill before then, Drain Infection does not activate. Is this intended? I think this would be more useful if Drain Infection started upon activation, but maybe there is something under the hood with the DRB preventing this? In contrast, Drain Infection activates immediately when Charged Particle Burst is activated.
2. The Gravimetric Rifts spawned by the Gravimetric Photon Torpedo do not trigger Control Amplification. Is this intended?
I just played around with the latest changes on Tribble. Two questions:
1. As part of my testing to see how Drain Infection works with Destabilizing Resonance Beam (DRB II), I noticed that it only activates if all 10 stacks of DRB are built up. If I turn out of the arc or otherwise cancel the skill before then, Drain Infection does not activate. Is this intended? I think this would be more useful if Drain Infection started upon activation, but maybe there is something under the hood with the DRB preventing this? In contrast, Drain Infection activates immediately when Charged Particle Burst is activated.
I think that might be because the effect that makes Destabilizing Resonance Beam a "Drain Infection" skill in the first place is that it disables weapons on targets that were affected by all 10 ticks. I don't know if that is just a reason for a design decision or also a cause for the way Drain Infection is implemented.
3. The Gravimetric Rifts spawned by the Gravimetric Photon Torpedo do not trigger Control Amplification. Is this intended?
Pretty much anything that is not an activated ability should not benefit from Drain Infection or Control Amplification.
I am unclear right now if that means Beam Target Subsystems will benefit from Drain Infection or not. It triggers a drain on hitting a target with a weapon, and has a proc...
BTS could use some help...
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I'd like to suggest some edits to the tool tip text for the new Shield Weakening skill:
This skill increases the amount of weapon damage that impactsyou deal to your enemies' shields.
Reason: "impact" implies hitting or not hitting/accuracy. Coupled with the wording in second paragraph ("from hitting the hull"), this could feed a belief that the 10% bleedthrough is reduced and redirected to shields, which I believe is not the case.
The second part is trickier:
By default, most enemy starship shields will prevent 90% of the energy damage dealt by your weapons from hittingreaching the hull, and apply this damage instead to their shields. For each point of Shield Weakening skill, the resulting damage applied to shields will be increased by an additional 0.1%.
Note that damage applied to shields from most mines and torpedoes will then be reduced by 75%, due to innate shield resistance to kinetic damage.
As currently phrased, by mentioning only energy weapons this seems to imply that this skill has no impact on kinetic weapons. Also, it could be interpreted that Shield Weakening is adding to the 90% damage, so that at +100 skill you are dealing 100% of energy weapon damage to shields. I do not believe that is what is meant. The rephrasing intends to clarify that kinetic damage is also affected by this skill, and that there is a sequence of multiplicative effects, and what happens to kinetic damage hitting shields.
So, the final wording I'd suggest would be:
This skill increases the amount of weapon damage you deal to your enemies' shields.
By default, most enemy starship shields will prevent 90% of the damage dealt by your weapons from reaching the hull, and apply this damage instead to their shields. For each point of Shield Weakening skill, the resulting damage applied to shields will be increased by 0.1%.
Note that damage applied to shields from most mines and torpedoes will then be reduced by 75%, due to innate shield resistance to kinetic damage.
I think that might be because the effect that makes Destabilizing Resonance Beam a "Drain Infection" skill in the first place is that it disables weapons on targets that were affected by all 10 ticks. I don't know if that is just a reason for a design decision or also a cause for the way Drain Infection is implemented.
That makes sense and I agree probably explains the way I observed the mechanic in action.
I am unclear right now if that means Beam Target Subsystems will benefit from Drain Infection or not. It triggers a drain on hitting a target with a weapon, and has a proc...
BTS could use some help...
I just tested this now in Tribble. It appears that both the BOFF BTS abilities and the ones native to Science ships (at least in my T5-U Nova) do not trigger Drain Infection. I would love to hear from Bort or another Dev if this is intended or if we are mis-understanding this mechanic.
Stole a quick test of DRB3 @ 362 PrtG (363 EPG) and 130 Aux tested against the first Galor in the Alhena System Mission (Deuterium Surplus).
Holodeck: Avg Dmg/Hit - 9039.79 Max Crit Hit - 12697
Min Crit Hit - 7667.93
Max Non-Crit - 6263
Min Non-Crit - 4040.3
Tribble: Avg Dmg/Hit - 6,564.02 Max Crit Hit - 10180
Min Crit Hit - 6132.6
Max Non-Crit - 5116
Min Non-Crit - 3260.95
Disclaimer: On Holodeck I apparently had Combat Performance Boost for this test. I didn't get a chance to test again without the boost on (I have to talk to a fleet officer before I leave the fleet to retain my rank, etc. and didn't have time to do so). I hope the data still holds though (you can just subtract the damage boost I guess).
Regarding the perceived drops in damage on Tyken's Rift and DRB... I have a few questions...
- Are you checking these on characters that have respecced after the most recent Tribble Patch?
- Were these discrepancies present prior to the most recent Tribble Patch?
- Is the actual performance of the powers diminished, or is this just a Tooltip issue?
- Only installed Tribble yesterday, copied and respecced then
- Can't say, see above
- Actual performance is different.
I tested vs. Starbase 234, identical builds. I unslotted my Conservation of Energy and Positive Feedback Loop traits to reduce random procs. Aux power at 125, I used nothing on the Starbase except Tyken's Rift III.
Holodeck:
1223 tooltip damage
172,937 base damage
85 attacks
2035 base damage/tick
Average non-crit hit: 634
Average crit hit: 1341
Crit rate: 60%
Character sheet crit chance: 17% + 50% (Particle Manipulator)
Character sheet crit severity: 88% + 30% (Particle Manipulator)
Tribble:
761 tooltip damage
123,092 base damage
77 attacks
1599 base damage/tick
Average crit hit: 831
Crit rate: 100%
Character sheet crit chance: 17% + 50% (Particle Manipulator)
Character sheet crit severity: 88% + 30% (Particle Manipulator)
The 100% crit rate on Tribble is unexpected and I don't understand it. My other attacks/abilities seem to crit at a normal rate.
The ratio of the average crit hit on Holodeck to Tribble is 1.6, which is also the ratio of the tooltip damage.
@borticuscryptic any chance to have this looked at before the patch goes live please? Thanks!
I don't understand the change from shield pen to shield weakening, not saying its a bad change, just that I don't fully understand how it works now. So shield weakening now increases damage to shields, meaning it reduces bleedthrough against your target? So its, the complete opposite of what shield pen did? I don't fully understand how this is useful, at all, and seems like it just became a very low value skill.
I think that might be because the effect that makes Destabilizing Resonance Beam a "Drain Infection" skill in the first place is that it disables weapons on targets that were affected by all 10 ticks. I don't know if that is just a reason for a design decision or also a cause for the way Drain Infection is implemented.
That makes sense and I agree probably explains the way I observed the mechanic in action.
I am unclear right now if that means Beam Target Subsystems will benefit from Drain Infection or not. It triggers a drain on hitting a target with a weapon, and has a proc...
BTS could use some help...
I just tested this now in Tribble. It appears that both the BOFF BTS abilities and the ones native to Science ships (at least in my T5-U Nova) do not trigger Drain Infection. I would love to hear from Bort or another Dev if this is intended or if we are mis-understanding this mechanic.
Borticus has made a significant number of comments in this thread that may be useful to anyone who wishes to read about why certain abilities are and are not affected by Control Amplification and Drain Infection.
I don't understand the change from shield pen to shield weakening, not saying its a bad change, just that I don't fully understand how it works now. So shield weakening now increases damage to shields, meaning it reduces bleedthrough against your target? So its, the complete opposite of what shield pen did? I don't fully understand how this is useful, at all, and seems like it just became a very low value skill.
Putting points in the shield weakness skill cannot decrease the damage you do to your opponent's hull. It does not change the bleedthrough percentage. What it does is take the damage that you are already going to deal to your opponent's shields and act as if their resistance to that damage is lower. If a weapon would have dealt 90 damage to shields and 10 damage to hull previously, they would take 99 damage to shields and 10 damage to hull if you had 100 skill in Starship Shield Weakness.
It works the same way armor penetration does by ignored part of their shield resistances.... hopefully most/all shield penetration sources will be changed to this in the near future.
I don't understand the change from shield pen to shield weakening, not saying its a bad change, just that I don't fully understand how it works now. So shield weakening now increases damage to shields, meaning it reduces bleedthrough against your target? So its, the complete opposite of what shield pen did? I don't fully understand how this is useful, at all, and seems like it just became a very low value skill.
Putting points in the shield weakness skill cannot decrease the damage you do to your opponent's hull. It does not change the bleedthrough percentage. What it does is take the damage that you are already going to deal to your opponent's shields and act as if their resistance to that damage is lower. If a weapon would have dealt 90 damage to shields and 10 damage to hull previously, they would take 99 damage to shields and 10 damage to hull if you had 100 skill in Starship Shield Weakness.
Borticus has made a significant number of comments in this thread that may be useful to anyone who wishes to read about why certain abilities are and are not affected by Control Amplification and Drain Infection.
Oh wow thanks for sharing that - sorry I missed it earlier. That definitely clears things up!
The Shield Weakness skill seems to now be more of a skill interesting for energy weapons than for torpedo users, since torpedo users generally lose already so much damage against shields due to the innate kinetic. I am not sure that's ideal. Could the skill perhaps do a double duty and also lower the kinetic resist in some way?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
The Shield Weakness skill seems to now be more of a skill interesting for energy weapons than for torpedo users, since torpedo users generally lose already so much damage against shields due to the innate kinetic. I am not sure that's ideal. Could the skill perhaps do a double duty and also lower the kinetic resist in some way?
From my observation it does help for torpedo, its just not as apparent as with energy weapons.
Jamal : Tactical space specialist. USS Bug Warrior and many others
E'Mc2 : Science Reman torp T'Varo, deadly annoyance :P
Kunmal: Tactical fed Klingon, ground specialist, USS Kanewaga
Ka -tet Tier 5 fleet fully completed Starbase and fleet property
I don't know if this has been talked about earlier but I have a comment. Could it be possible to make it so when you, for exemple, respec that you enter all your skill point without having to purchase every point you enter. That way it would be possible to enter your skill points until they are all expended than decide to commit when you are satisfied with what you selected. As it it now, you misclick and purchase you are f..ked, you need a new retrain token to undo your mistake.
I am asking this because, from my experience in IT support, that will happen a lot, ppl have a tendency to click without thinking or reading clearly what they are clicking for. This will surely alleviate a lot of support call and rage in the forum from user miscliking. I can understand for this been the norm for a newly created character but on a respec it will cause problems. It should be easy to implement a mechanic where you cancel all changes if someone close the user interface without purchasing the skills clicked on.
Jamal : Tactical space specialist. USS Bug Warrior and many others
E'Mc2 : Science Reman torp T'Varo, deadly annoyance :P
Kunmal: Tactical fed Klingon, ground specialist, USS Kanewaga
Ka -tet Tier 5 fleet fully completed Starbase and fleet property
Yes, they answered it...somewhere in one of the threads. Something about not being able to get the "power cart" option completed by the deadline. Search "power cart" and "Borticus"....it should pop up.
And I think they have got to the point where they don't want to talk about it any more.
"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
Yes, they answered it...somewhere in one of the threads. Something about not being able to get the "power cart" option completed by the deadline. Search "power cart" and "Borticus"....it should pop up.
And I think they have got to the point where they don't want to talk about it any more.
Ok thank you, I didn't read the whole 11 page thread before posting my question but I just hope they change that eventually.
Jamal : Tactical space specialist. USS Bug Warrior and many others
E'Mc2 : Science Reman torp T'Varo, deadly annoyance :P
Kunmal: Tactical fed Klingon, ground specialist, USS Kanewaga
Ka -tet Tier 5 fleet fully completed Starbase and fleet property
Yes, they answered it...somewhere in one of the threads. Something about not being able to get the "power cart" option completed by the deadline. Search "power cart" and "Borticus"....it should pop up.
And I think they have got to the point where they don't want to talk about it any more.
Ok thank you, I didn't read the whole 11 page thread before posting my question but I just hope they change that eventually.
Piece of advice when searching topics the devs have created themselves, and its several pages long, scroll through each page, and look for the "yellow" text next to forumers names. These are devs which respond to questions and make statements. This can help you cut through the hyperbole of alot of forumers who like to try and start rage threads and get the direct answer from the devs who create the game.
Not saying every forumer tries to start rage threads or derail, but it helps you get the correct information.
Also means a 300 reply thread, you might only read 20 of those replys
When points are put into Weapon Amplification/Specialisation or Energy Critical Chance/Severity, why is this not reflected in the ship stats under 'Attack'? Is this a bug?
I may have missed this, but have Skill boosts from critting the personal Doff missions been considered translated? I just did a few and the mission text doesn't seem to reflect the new skill tree, and possibly not the resulting boost as well (just got a "+25 Starship Shield Emitters" from "Refrequence Shield Emitters" that should be named "Shield Restoration" now). A few more are running but they take time and chance to crit to verify.
Borticus said they've been translated during the livestream.
Also, I realize this feedback is entirely too late, but I feel like Specialization abilities are being left out. The space Readiness CDR skills only reduce the career abilities, and Kit Performance is affecting very few Specialist modules. We don't have any doffs that affect these abilities, either, so the only way of reducing them are a handful of ship-specific set bonuses.
You've created some very fun abilities, but those abilities have to compete with the existing proven options, and you're nudging the Eng/Sci/Tac abilities even farther ahead of them. While I don't think the ground modules really need to be improved by Kit Performance (they're pretty potent as-is), that they're not seems like an oversight. For space, maybe the Eng/Sci/Tac Readiness skills could also provide a smaller CDR for all Specialist abilities? Like 1/3 as effective as the main career CDR? That would be forward thinking, so that any future Specializations given abilities could benefit.
Borticus said they've been translated during the livestream.
Also, I realize this feedback is entirely too late, but I feel like Specialization abilities are being left out. The space Readiness CDR skills only reduce the career abilities, and Kit Performance is affecting very few Specialist modules. We don't have any doffs that affect these abilities, either, so the only way of reducing them are a handful of ship-specific set bonuses.
You've created some very fun abilities, but those abilities have to compete with the existing proven options, and you're nudging the Eng/Sci/Tac abilities even farther ahead of them. While I don't think the ground modules really need to be improved by Kit Performance (they're pretty potent as-is), that they're not seems like an oversight. For space, maybe the Eng/Sci/Tac Readiness skills could also provide a smaller CDR for all Specialist abilities? Like 1/3 as effective as the main career CDR? That would be forward thinking, so that any future Specializations given abilities could benefit.
Specs were designed from the start to not be reliant on Skills in order to perform well. Adding Skill-based scaling to them now is likely to imbalance things in their favor, as well as leading to scenarios where one Skill build is more effective with a certain Spec, than another player's build is. We didn't want this to be a deciding factor for Specializations.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
The skill has now a description that the effects are disabled in combat. Which defeats the usefulness of the entire skill and I am almost positive nobody will find the skill useful/appealing the way it's currently setup.
It is nice to have a way to increase the passive regeneration; we did not have this possibility with former skill-tree – BUT, if this is not applied like, 25 – 30% bonus in Combat and 50% bonus applying only out of Combat, there’s not much use for this skill. Zero-passive regeneration bonus in combat from this skill serves little purpose.
To explain: The entire point of higher passive HP regeneration on Ground is to be able to raise survivability and offset the incoming damage, while you fight the enemies. There is practically no rush out of combat and there are more efficient ways of regaining health out of combat anyways. Simply speaking – You do not need higher passive regeneration when you just stand around and are out of danger. The way this skill is set, it gives little to no advantage to anyone – but, to tanks it potentially could serve well, if this skill grants the bonuses In Combat as well.
Suggestion: Apply the bonuses of this skill in Combat on Ground as well. Make the final number 25 – 30% in Combat, while retain the 50% bonus Out of Combat.
Offensive Mastery
I believe that offensive Mastery should encompas melee as well. By melee in this instance, I mean things like Bite, Lunge, Pounce, or Sweeping Strikes – Not just weapons, as it presently is. There aren't enough abilities to grant boosts to those since 'Combat Specialist' is now an 'Innate' ability. My old kit-frame used to boost it, and now it's boosting weapon criticals I don't even use; so in the end, the efficiency of this skill has diminished.
There aren’t enough bonuses for melee (unarmed & Kit powers) in the special-skills. That, and we’ve essentially lost damage-potential by Combat Specialist no longer boosting critical hits. This change I believe would offset that, at least a bit and would be also more feasible to implement, given that everyone on the Ground has the same skills/trees, regardless of the career.
Because even with existing possibility to boost stuff like Lunge & Sweeping Strikes, through the skill of "Kit Performance", the values of the damage output are largely diminished. We need ability to boost Combat Specialist through the bonuses again. Things may seem fine on the larger scale, but they are not.
For comparison.
Holodeck: Sweeping Strikes: 397, with 'Combat Specialist' at 128ish. Tribble: Sweeping Strikes: 339, with 'Innate' Combat Specialist' at 100 & 'Kit Performance' at 128ish.
Same Personal & reputation setup in both cases.
The conclusion is, that the way KPerf is setup does not give anywhere near to old value of Combat Specialist of the equal skill number, benefiting these two Kit modules.
Way to fix it?
Re-add item modifiers of Combat Specialist. As even the KPerf of equal numeric-value/skill doesn't address the damage drop significantly in these two.
(As a personal note, I really don't appreciate my original "Combat Specialist" kit-frame bonus, benefitting these two kit-modules being converted to Weapon Dmg/Crits in the revamp. It does nothing to these two kit-modules in particular and thus, no reason to keep the kit-frame once the revamp goes live.)
Additionally: Currently, kit-frames/items adding bonuses to Weapon damage & Crits are marked as [Melee]. That is misleading at its' best, as it does not encompass ALL meelee abilities. Needs other marker, like [WeaponDmg].
It'll be the first time several of my 60th level characters have ever had all their skill points spent. I pretty much gave up on filling out the 45 boxes of rainbows a while ago. And I'm very much looking forward to spinning up my Narcine with all the new Carrier options. Get them, my Mobulai hordes!
I'm also looking forward to watching the Exchange twitch as these changes begin to shift the meta. Just having cannons and beams on the same damage drop-off curve is gonna be a whole new world.
You think soon we will have threads about:
"When will the CSV reign end?"
"Escorts Online!"
"Why no Cannons on the Intrepid?"
"Buff Beams"
"Nerf Science"
"Science Online"*
I have my doubts, but I'll certainly be in there if it happens.
*) Wouldn't that make the game go full circle? Science used to be OP in PvP until either Season 1.2. or Season 2... I don't remember when snix took a look at Viral Matrix and Subnucleonic Beam...
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Oh, I believe the boot to neck is coming for beams/BFAW because its just flat out embarrassing for the game to have such an overwhelmingly go-to mechanic. There's gentle nudges and abrupt neck snapping. Tomorrow is a gentle nudge day.
Tomorrow is also the day heads explode as people rush towards the ultimates and realize only hours/days later that the new shiny comes at a tangible cost. But probability manipulation just might be good enough to give us a little taste of Science Online. A little taste is a good thing.
I don't think that the engineering one is enough to make people return to playing tanks in a game that pretty much spits on tanking, but the other two will be worth pursuing as minor modifications to existing power-builds. You only need one player to pay the piper for Frenzy to turn the whole squad into a pack of boss-skeletonizing piranhas.
Comments
I just played around with the latest changes on Tribble. Two questions:
1. As part of my testing to see how Drain Infection works with Destabilizing Resonance Beam (DRB II), I noticed that it only activates if all 10 stacks of DRB are built up. If I turn out of the arc or otherwise cancel the skill before then, Drain Infection does not activate. Is this intended? I think this would be more useful if Drain Infection started upon activation, but maybe there is something under the hood with the DRB preventing this? In contrast, Drain Infection activates immediately when Charged Particle Burst is activated.
2. The Gravimetric Rifts spawned by the Gravimetric Photon Torpedo do not trigger Control Amplification. Is this intended?
Thanks a lot!
Pretty much anything that is not an activated ability should not benefit from Drain Infection or Control Amplification.
I am unclear right now if that means Beam Target Subsystems will benefit from Drain Infection or not. It triggers a drain on hitting a target with a weapon, and has a proc...
BTS could use some help...
The second part is trickier:
As currently phrased, by mentioning only energy weapons this seems to imply that this skill has no impact on kinetic weapons. Also, it could be interpreted that Shield Weakening is adding to the 90% damage, so that at +100 skill you are dealing 100% of energy weapon damage to shields. I do not believe that is what is meant. The rephrasing intends to clarify that kinetic damage is also affected by this skill, and that there is a sequence of multiplicative effects, and what happens to kinetic damage hitting shields.
So, the final wording I'd suggest would be:
That makes sense and I agree probably explains the way I observed the mechanic in action.
I just tested this now in Tribble. It appears that both the BOFF BTS abilities and the ones native to Science ships (at least in my T5-U Nova) do not trigger Drain Infection. I would love to hear from Bort or another Dev if this is intended or if we are mis-understanding this mechanic.
@borticuscryptic any chance to have this looked at before the patch goes live please? Thanks!
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Borticus has made a significant number of comments in this thread that may be useful to anyone who wishes to read about why certain abilities are and are not affected by Control Amplification and Drain Infection.
Putting points in the shield weakness skill cannot decrease the damage you do to your opponent's hull. It does not change the bleedthrough percentage. What it does is take the damage that you are already going to deal to your opponent's shields and act as if their resistance to that damage is lower. If a weapon would have dealt 90 damage to shields and 10 damage to hull previously, they would take 99 damage to shields and 10 damage to hull if you had 100 skill in Starship Shield Weakness.
ahhhh. TY, that explained it very well.
Oh wow thanks for sharing that - sorry I missed it earlier. That definitely clears things up!
From my observation it does help for torpedo, its just not as apparent as with energy weapons.
E'Mc2 : Science Reman torp T'Varo, deadly annoyance :P
Kunmal: Tactical fed Klingon, ground specialist, USS Kanewaga
Ka -tet Tier 5 fleet fully completed Starbase and fleet property
I am asking this because, from my experience in IT support, that will happen a lot, ppl have a tendency to click without thinking or reading clearly what they are clicking for. This will surely alleviate a lot of support call and rage in the forum from user miscliking. I can understand for this been the norm for a newly created character but on a respec it will cause problems. It should be easy to implement a mechanic where you cancel all changes if someone close the user interface without purchasing the skills clicked on.
E'Mc2 : Science Reman torp T'Varo, deadly annoyance :P
Kunmal: Tactical fed Klingon, ground specialist, USS Kanewaga
Ka -tet Tier 5 fleet fully completed Starbase and fleet property
And anyone from dev team answered?
E'Mc2 : Science Reman torp T'Varo, deadly annoyance :P
Kunmal: Tactical fed Klingon, ground specialist, USS Kanewaga
Ka -tet Tier 5 fleet fully completed Starbase and fleet property
Yes, they answered it...somewhere in one of the threads. Something about not being able to get the "power cart" option completed by the deadline. Search "power cart" and "Borticus"....it should pop up.
And I think they have got to the point where they don't want to talk about it any more.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Ok thank you, I didn't read the whole 11 page thread before posting my question but I just hope they change that eventually.
E'Mc2 : Science Reman torp T'Varo, deadly annoyance :P
Kunmal: Tactical fed Klingon, ground specialist, USS Kanewaga
Ka -tet Tier 5 fleet fully completed Starbase and fleet property
Piece of advice
Not saying every forumer tries to start rage threads or derail, but it helps you get the correct information.
Also means a 300 reply thread, you might only read 20 of those replys
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Also, I realize this feedback is entirely too late, but I feel like Specialization abilities are being left out. The space Readiness CDR skills only reduce the career abilities, and Kit Performance is affecting very few Specialist modules. We don't have any doffs that affect these abilities, either, so the only way of reducing them are a handful of ship-specific set bonuses.
You've created some very fun abilities, but those abilities have to compete with the existing proven options, and you're nudging the Eng/Sci/Tac abilities even farther ahead of them. While I don't think the ground modules really need to be improved by Kit Performance (they're pretty potent as-is), that they're not seems like an oversight. For space, maybe the Eng/Sci/Tac Readiness skills could also provide a smaller CDR for all Specialist abilities? Like 1/3 as effective as the main career CDR? That would be forward thinking, so that any future Specializations given abilities could benefit.
Specs were designed from the start to not be reliant on Skills in order to perform well. Adding Skill-based scaling to them now is likely to imbalance things in their favor, as well as leading to scenarios where one Skill build is more effective with a certain Spec, than another player's build is. We didn't want this to be a deciding factor for Specializations.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
@crypticrock @borticuscryptic
Please can this be looked into again.... Please!
Quite.
It'll be the first time several of my 60th level characters have ever had all their skill points spent. I pretty much gave up on filling out the 45 boxes of rainbows a while ago. And I'm very much looking forward to spinning up my Narcine with all the new Carrier options. Get them, my Mobulai hordes!
I'm also looking forward to watching the Exchange twitch as these changes begin to shift the meta. Just having cannons and beams on the same damage drop-off curve is gonna be a whole new world.
"When will the CSV reign end?"
"Escorts Online!"
"Why no Cannons on the Intrepid?"
"Buff Beams"
"Nerf Science"
"Science Online"*
I have my doubts, but I'll certainly be in there if it happens.
*) Wouldn't that make the game go full circle? Science used to be OP in PvP until either Season 1.2. or Season 2... I don't remember when snix took a look at Viral Matrix and Subnucleonic Beam...
Tomorrow is also the day heads explode as people rush towards the ultimates and realize only hours/days later that the new shiny comes at a tangible cost. But probability manipulation just might be good enough to give us a little taste of Science Online. A little taste is a good thing.
I don't think that the engineering one is enough to make people return to playing tanks in a game that pretty much spits on tanking, but the other two will be worth pursuing as minor modifications to existing power-builds. You only need one player to pay the piper for Frenzy to turn the whole squad into a pack of boss-skeletonizing piranhas.