Racial Paragon Specialization

rosetyler51

The idea is simple. A secondary specialization that is themed around your race. The biggest fight I see it in it besides creating and balancing a spec for all normal races would be what do aliens get...and I just thought about what do you for Romulans. If paragon specs are about boosting what your race does good than giving Romulans even more crit chance would be awful, maybe some kind of on crit effects.

What do you think and what would you like to see as your favorite race's specialization?

thekodanarmada

Sure let everyone spend 15 spec points in Being Sad You're Not Gorn.

rosetyler51

thekodanarmada#7342 wrote: »

Sure let everyone spend 15 spec points in Being Sad You're Not Gorn.

I have a few ideas for things to put into a gorn spec. I'm thinking an upgraded bite attack and throw rocks so far.

thekodanarmada

Honestly think there should be two mutually exclusive trees per playable race. So you can have Human and Augment secondary trees, but only spend points in one. Or Gorn Hegemon and Separatist.

nightken

sadly I doubt we could get this even in a limited sense. though faction exclus... ok a fed only tree may be a possiblity.

wraithshadow13

It would be nice if they did more for the species in this game. I use a lot of Borg captains, and they can't even get a full body skin.... I would love it if they added additional species traits as well as more reasons to pick your species. I play my main as an Augment, so it would be nice to get some things in there that would allow this to be more official.

bossheisenberg

I would be content if they would just give us a full ground spec. We've now got four for space - the least they can do is finish commando.

ltminns

What would they hawk in the C-Store for a full Ground Spec?

I just went on in another Thread about the change on Tribble to Tarsi.

'Tarsi has lost Leadership and Teamwork, and now has Fury and Acute Senses.'

Making everyone from a Race the same, no member ever excels in something that others don't normally have.

gradii

I say NO to this. Race should be largely Pick your flavor. No one should be penalized or rewarded in any significant way for picking a particular race.

nightken

ltminns wrote: »

What would they hawk in the C-Store for a full Ground Spec?

I just went on in another Thread about the change on Tribble to Tarsi.

'Tarsi has lost Leadership and Teamwork, and now has Fury and Acute Senses.'

Making everyone from a Race the same, no member ever excels in something that others don't normally have.

commando spec uniform, special boffs, new gear. lobi/lockbox skills. alot can be done.

thekodanarmada

gradii wrote: »

I say NO to this. Race should be largely Pick your flavor. No one should be penalized or rewarded in any significant way for picking a particular race.

We already have this with racial traits. The idea is to add more variation within.

gradii

thekodanarmada#7342 wrote: »

gradii wrote: »

I say NO to this. Race should be largely Pick your flavor. No one should be penalized or rewarded in any significant way for picking a particular race.

We already have this with racial traits. The idea is to add more variation within.

Yeah but they should be very minor bonuses. Having a full spec tree for each race would seriously overpower racial bonuses.

breadandcircuses

gradii wrote: »

thekodanarmada#7342 wrote: »

gradii wrote: »

I say NO to this. Race should be largely Pick your flavor. No one should be penalized or rewarded in any significant way for picking a particular race.

We already have this with racial traits. The idea is to add more variation within.

Yeah but they should be very minor bonuses. Having a full spec tree for each race would seriously overpower racial bonuses.

That would be in place of say the Command or Strategist Spec Trees, though... assuming they managed to balance them against those Secondary Specs and each other, which would likely be the greater challence.

thekodanarmada

breadandcircuses wrote: »

gradii wrote: »

thekodanarmada#7342 wrote: »

gradii wrote: »

I say NO to this. Race should be largely Pick your flavor. No one should be penalized or rewarded in any significant way for picking a particular race.

We already have this with racial traits. The idea is to add more variation within.

Yeah but they should be very minor bonuses. Having a full spec tree for each race would seriously overpower racial bonuses.

That would be in place of say the Command or Strategist Spec Trees, though... assuming they managed to balance them against those Secondary Specs and each other, which would likely be the greater challence.

Embrace diversity. Because it's not like factional balance exists in a Fed-world.

I mean, right now the topic right below this one is yet another call for a Fed advantage taken from other factions.

rosetyler51

gradii wrote: »

I say NO to this. Race should be largely Pick your flavor. No one should be penalized or rewarded in any significant way for picking a particular race.

Right now ferengi and romulans are about the two "best" races. Ferengis are a must have if you're in a small fleet, the discount on commodities being a godsend when you get into large scale buying and Romulans have their crits and things.

Racial paragon specs could be used as a way to bring balance to races because right now I think the "meta" is to create an alien and use lockbox traits. Not saying they should not but if aliens was not given a paragon spec than could be a major boost to make some lesser known races more playable.

If we wanted to get "crazy" there could even be NPC races specs. So that people could get more of a Jem'Hadar, Carddie, Vorta, etc feel out of alien races but I don't think that would be a good idea.

gradii

rosetyler51 wrote: »

gradii wrote: »

I say NO to this. Race should be largely Pick your flavor. No one should be penalized or rewarded in any significant way for picking a particular race.

Right now ferengi and romulans are about the two "best" races. Ferengis are a must have if you're in a small fleet, the discount on commodities being a godsend when you get into large scale buying and Romulans have their crits and things.

Racial paragon specs could be used as a way to bring balance to races because right now I think the "meta" is to create an alien and use lockbox traits. Not saying they should not but if aliens was not given a paragon spec than could be a major boost to make some lesser known races more playable.

If we wanted to get "crazy" there could even be NPC races specs. So that people could get more of a Jem'Hadar, Carddie, Vorta, etc feel out of alien races but I don't think that would be a good idea.

Aliens get ONE extra trait slot at the cost of NO innate traits. that's not very much advantage at all. Ferengi and Romulans still have relatively small advantages to what you're proposing.

rosetyler51

gradii wrote: »

rosetyler51 wrote: »

gradii wrote: »

I say NO to this. Race should be largely Pick your flavor. No one should be penalized or rewarded in any significant way for picking a particular race.

Right now ferengi and romulans are about the two "best" races. Ferengis are a must have if you're in a small fleet, the discount on commodities being a godsend when you get into large scale buying and Romulans have their crits and things.

Racial paragon specs could be used as a way to bring balance to races because right now I think the "meta" is to create an alien and use lockbox traits. Not saying they should not but if aliens was not given a paragon spec than could be a major boost to make some lesser known races more playable.

If we wanted to get "crazy" there could even be NPC races specs. So that people could get more of a Jem'Hadar, Carddie, Vorta, etc feel out of alien races but I don't think that would be a good idea.

Aliens get ONE extra trait slot at the cost of NO innate traits. that's not very much advantage at all. Ferengi and Romulans still have relatively small advantages to what you're proposing.

Alien gets two traits. A ground and space trait while innate traits are sometimes ground or space only, with how powerful lockbox, mission rewards, crafting, and other sources of traits are compared to innate traits that is a pretty big boost.

Romulans get 1.5% Critical Chance, 3.8% Critical Severity, 10% Power Recharge Speed for Cloaking, and the Singularity Specialist trait (which allows them to generate more power for their subsystems quicker). That is not even without stacking boffs. I can't think of any other race that gets that much in space combat.

Ferengis gain a 20% discount in all store prices for items sold for energy credits or gold-pressed latinum, with the grind that is dabo it is hard to gain gpl in order to buy the club outfit and emote in the gpl store and like I said earlier. A ferengi captain in a freighter is a godsend to smaller fleets, that is almost 50% off the price of commodities. 300 Entertainment Provisions for an Embassy project, that's 360,000 ec if you just buy them from your replicator, if you can get almost half of your ec back you would not?

A lot of people have pushed for an idea I like to call the "Death of the Captain" (maybe it's a bit too much), this idea gets rid of race in every form I have seen it, PCs pretty much the Founders, taking on any form they want with traits to match. You might as well play Second Life if you want to get that wild. Sorry getting a bit off topic, the racial paragon spec is a push in the other way, making each race feel more unique to each other.

gradii

I promise you that as soon as races get their own unique race specific spec trees the DPS jockeys will figure out which race has optimal dps and playing any other race will be considered "stupid"

I do -NOT- want to feel restricted as to what race I pick for certain jobs. Currently I do not in the least. Any race can dps pretty much equally, even the Romulan Crit chance isn't much of an advantage unless you stack SRO teams in space.

I'm sorry but your idea is just terrible, you're not thinking of the consequences. Race differences are ok as they are, they don't need to get any larger.

bengahl

I'm sure vulcan players would love having 15 points of extra stick up butt.

gradii

In the end what race you play should be dictated by player preference,
not by "oh no if i pick a human science officer I'm going to be crippled becuase I didn't choose Vulcan"

ltminns

But no ships. That is their real money-maker in the C-Store. The Commando Spec provides a Space Trait at the end. Does anyone use it?

What would also be needed is an expansion and revamp of the Boarding Party subsystem.

I would like to see ground fleshed out, but we probably will never get Commando made a full-fledged Primary because of the above.

Actually what I would like to see is the ability to Select a Primary and Secondary for Space and separately the same for Ground. Also, while not directly related, for them to do the same thing for Active Traits like they did with the Personal ones - Separate lines for Space and Ground.

rosetyler51

gradii wrote: »

I promise you that as soon as races get their own unique race specific spec trees the DPS jockeys will figure out which race has optimal dps and playing any other race will be considered "stupid"

I do -NOT- want to feel restricted as to what race I pick for certain jobs. Currently I do not in the least. Any race can dps pretty much equally, even the Romulan Crit chance isn't much of an advantage unless you stack SRO teams in space.

I'm sorry but your idea is just terrible, you're not thinking of the consequences. Race differences are ok as they are, they don't need to get any larger.

That's already the case. I'm pretty sure there is no one on the DPS charts that is an Andorian, Ferengi, Pakled, Vulcan, or Klingon. There is already a clear cut winner when it comes to space DPS but here is the amazing thing, STO is not that hard of a game, there is almost no reason to minmax as hard as some people do.

A paragon spec would have to go against the 6 other specializations, four of which are tied to powerful ships.

And if fear of giving people more tools to crank out DPS is so scary then they could not put simple damage boosts in the specs.

Also people from way back have been calling for boffs to gain space/ground traits because races are thought of as "worthless" in one or the other. Do you think that is not the same for captains?

xyquarze

rosetyler51 wrote: »

gradii wrote: »

I promise you that as soon as races get their own unique race specific spec trees the DPS jockeys will figure out which race has optimal dps and playing any other race will be considered "stupid"

That's already the case. I'm pretty sure there is no one on the DPS charts that is an Andorian, Ferengi, Pakled, Vulcan, or Klingon. There is already a clear cut winner when it comes to space DPS but here is the amazing thing, STO is not that hard of a game, there is almost no reason to minmax as hard as some people do.

No it isn't, and most people probably wouldn't care that much if the system was to be in place from the start. But introducing it now would certainly cause some kind of major storm of processed food. Because, and I am with gradii there, they won't be balanced despite the best efforts of those making them, and then people will find out that Pakled rules supreme. So everybody who doesn't have a Pakled but wants to play with the big guys (not too many people but still) would have to roll a new toon, get it through missions for gear, reputations, ship masteries, ... until they're on top, when finally the OP Pakled will be fixed and everybody needs Lethean now. I am quite afraid that this might cause a major dissatisfaction within the player base.

Also I don't think the idea is viable. We need 15 abilities/traits. Okay, maybe 5 with three levels each. Per race. And they have to be distinct from each other and the existing specializations and they have to be interesting and not just stat boosts but at least one new mechanic per tree. That is already a whole lot of work coming up with, and then the balancing-as-far-as-possible needs to begin. And a huge part of that work will be more or less wasted, if a not-too-popular-to-begin-with race draws a shorter straw in the spec tree lottery, all the work on that will probably be more or less lost.

I do like the idea, I just don't think it will work here

rosetyler51

xyquarze wrote: »

rosetyler51 wrote: »

gradii wrote: »

I promise you that as soon as races get their own unique race specific spec trees the DPS jockeys will figure out which race has optimal dps and playing any other race will be considered "stupid"

That's already the case. I'm pretty sure there is no one on the DPS charts that is an Andorian, Ferengi, Pakled, Vulcan, or Klingon. There is already a clear cut winner when it comes to space DPS but here is the amazing thing, STO is not that hard of a game, there is almost no reason to minmax as hard as some people do.

No it isn't, and most people probably wouldn't care that much if the system was to be in place from the start. But introducing it now would certainly cause some kind of major storm of processed food. Because, and I am with gradii there, they won't be balanced despite the best efforts of those making them, and then people will find out that Pakled rules supreme. So everybody who doesn't have a Pakled but wants to play with the big guys (not too many people but still) would have to roll a new toon, get it through missions for gear, reputations, ship masteries, ... until they're on top, when finally the OP Pakled will be fixed and everybody needs Lethean now. I am quite afraid that this might cause a major dissatisfaction within the player base.

Also I don't think the idea is viable. We need 15 abilities/traits. Okay, maybe 5 with three levels each. Per race. And they have to be distinct from each other and the existing specializations and they have to be interesting and not just stat boosts but at least one new mechanic per tree. That is already a whole lot of work coming up with, and then the balancing-as-far-as-possible needs to begin. And a huge part of that work will be more or less wasted, if a not-too-popular-to-begin-with race draws a shorter straw in the spec tree lottery, all the work on that will probably be more or less lost.

I do like the idea, I just don't think it will work here

See, you have stated why it is a bad idea in a far better way than gradii and I think your points are right. The amount of work needed for it would be insane, I can see that.

Biggest reason behind the idea is a lot of races on the player and boff level need help and this seem like a decent of way of doing it without changing their traits which some people may like.

gradii

xyquarze wrote: »

rosetyler51 wrote: »

gradii wrote: »

I promise you that as soon as races get their own unique race specific spec trees the DPS jockeys will figure out which race has optimal dps and playing any other race will be considered "stupid"

That's already the case. I'm pretty sure there is no one on the DPS charts that is an Andorian, Ferengi, Pakled, Vulcan, or Klingon. There is already a clear cut winner when it comes to space DPS but here is the amazing thing, STO is not that hard of a game, there is almost no reason to minmax as hard as some people do.

No it isn't, and most people probably wouldn't care that much if the system was to be in place from the start. But introducing it now would certainly cause some kind of major storm of processed food. Because, and I am with gradii there, they won't be balanced despite the best efforts of those making them, and then people will find out that Pakled rules supreme. So everybody who doesn't have a Pakled but wants to play with the big guys (not too many people but still) would have to roll a new toon, get it through missions for gear, reputations, ship masteries, ... until they're on top, when finally the OP Pakled will be fixed and everybody needs Lethean now. I am quite afraid that this might cause a major dissatisfaction within the player base.

Also I don't think the idea is viable. We need 15 abilities/traits. Okay, maybe 5 with three levels each. Per race. And they have to be distinct from each other and the existing specializations and they have to be interesting and not just stat boosts but at least one new mechanic per tree. That is already a whole lot of work coming up with, and then the balancing-as-far-as-possible needs to begin. And a huge part of that work will be more or less wasted, if a not-too-popular-to-begin-with race draws a shorter straw in the spec tree lottery, all the work on that will probably be more or less lost.

I do like the idea, I just don't think it will work here

This is exactly what I meant to say.