Disclaimer:
I am in no way arguing for or against the skill cap or respecs. I am merely proposing a mechanic that I feel should be added to the skill cap, to ensure it achieves its intention (i.e., encourage diversity and reduce same-spec builds).
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Introduction:
The skill cap is intended to keep players from becoming the same. Whether or not this already happens is beside the point, as that can be 'fixed' by adding more career-specific abilities and buffs to career-specific skill trees.
The bigger problem is that the skill cap is combined with leveling constraints: you -must- spend skill points before being allowed to progress to the next rank (and tier of skills). This necessarily prevents you from spending many points in the higher tier skills, regardless of respecs.
If the skill 'trees' were true hierarchical trees that required investment in parent nodes, this would be a reasonable constraint. But there is no constraint on investment in skills beyond the quantity needed to progress. In other words, you do not need to invest initially in Starship Emitters, for example, in order to invest in Photonic Theory later on.
So the only constraint on the otherwise currently free-form skill system is skill points.
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The Problem:
If there is to be a max number of skill points, why restrict a certain number per tier? Why not allow players to hoard skill points (up to the max number allowed by the cap) and spend them wherever in the 'tree' they wish?
One reason against free spending is balance in terms of learning Rank III abilities to train.
So there needs to be a way to allow players to save points for later, while still being constrained to some tree.
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Solution:- Remove the need to -spend- skill points to progress. (Remove rank-specific caps, but keep the total cap.) Make progression solely dependent upon the -gain- of skill points.
- Add simple tree dependencies between higher tier skills and a single (Tier 1) predecessor. In other words, a player must train in Starship Emitters, for example, before being allowed to train in Photonic Theory.
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Summary:
By separating skill point expenditure from progression, and incorporating basic skill tree dependency, players will have more freedom of choice when it comes to investment in skills. The skill cap would then not seem as heavy a burden, and we would see more diversity in skill point expenditure.
Feedback appreciated.
Comments
Sorry but I'm happy with the way things are.
No skill cap at all, on the other hand, still looks better.
No thanks I,d rather make my one choices right or wrong. and the only way to do that is with a skill cap.
Thats why I don't want respecs either.
Its the only worthwhile thing to do in the game...
Boldly going where no man has gone before is accomplished by having knowledge that no man has had before..:eek:
All the min-maxers would simply spend few (or no) points at all in the lower game or against marginal skills and save them all up for the end game skills, weapons types and ships.
This would leave casual players and non-power-gamers spending points in goodfaith as they go along (believing they somehow need to do this in order to survive or progress) ending up underpowered as Admirals.
The problem really is that leveling in STO would easily be doable spending hardly any points in the lower levels. The game for the most part just isn't challenging enough to prevent people doing this in a system you describe. Many of the skills we currently are forced to invest in at the lower levels have marginal paybacks and in many cases do not stack or have any effect at all in the later game. Now, irrespective of whether you think thats good or bad - at least we are all on the same playing field as we level through the curve and the ability for people to min-max themselves is somewhat limited (we are all forced to effectively throw away some skill points into skills we will not have for long or that have only minor payback)
In my opinion, with a skill-cap in place it is more important than ever to ensure there are controls in place to prevent a proportion of the population avoiding having to progress their characters skills at all in the lower levels, to the point where they could hoard all their points up for final skills, ships and weapons types.
The reality is, this would simply create 75% min-maxed, cookie-cutter end-game builds and 25% gimped-because-I-thought-it-was-OK-to-spend-skills-on-my-light-cruiser players (ok, I realise those %s are pulled out of my TRIBBLE)
Don't get me wrong, I realise the current skills system needs to be looked at (seriously) - but making the system supremely abusable for min-maxers is not what is needed here. I realise min-maxing exists anyway (and always exists in any progression-based game) however this suggestion opens up the ability for someone to be many times more powerful than another player at the same level.
It is intended that we be effectively forced to progress characters in the low levels to prevent this from happening. And so it should be....
Apologies in advance if I have somehow mis-understood your suggestion, however...
I currently max out nearly all my engisn level skills, and the others have atleast two points in them. Ship captain skills I only put two points in since it feels like a waste to put 9 in each.
If they did put in dependancy I think they should reduce the point caps in previous skills. So for instance, Tact. Team Leader would have 2/2, and then Escort Captain would have 4/4... admiral captain skill would have 9/9 available for slotting.