Short version:
1. Remove the skill cap. Max every skill, get every ship, get a set of every damage type weapon.
1.5: Have players level up by SP earned AFTER the cap is raised, not SP earned at cap.
2. Within a couple months, add a second spec system (Cryptic still gets to sell respecs). This focus players on specific areas, a specialty.
3. Figure out a long-term system that will absorb effort for slight bonuses, yet deplete over time or on death. Like, say, a 5% DPS bonus for 1500 skill points, lasting an hour, "holodeck training" or something.
Long Version:
Cons, and debunking thereof- Maxed skills are overpowered?
Really? If a character has disruptors, phasers, plasma, tetryon, polaron, and antiproton maxed, what is the exact advantage? Realistically, you will only use one damage type at once, with tactical consoles for that weapon type. If you have 3 different types of, say, cannons, you would have to use cannon-boosting consoles, for maximum boost, which is less points per console than damage-type boosters. Or one console per beam, which again, is less.
Edit> Oh lookie, now they absorb even MORE energy with different "types". (Whatever the tooltip means, it's kind of vague.)
Are we meant to have ground skills or space skills? Why do they pull from the same pool, if one can reach maximum level without doing even a SINGLE ground mission?
New players are at a disadvantage?
Last I checked, a player had to gain and spend skill points to advance, and is matched against like-level players in PVP. By the time a player reaches maximum level, they will have enough skill points to do one ship class, weapons for it, and a few extra skills at max or near-max. And if there is no cap, they can just earn more points and finish it off!
If you want to balance max-level PVP, match up players by "total skillpoints earned" rankings as well. New Admirals mostly against others, and maxed players against maxed players. It hardly matters anyway, a player with 5 fully equipped ships back at their dock can only fly one at a time. And escort/science skills don't have much, if ANY effect on a cruiser, for example.
Maxing skills will destroy diversity?
I'm calling outright bullpoop on this one. If every player was going to fly the same ship and weapon type, it would have already happened. A player with every ship still has to choose one. All it allows is choices, one day a Science ship, another day, an Escort. If they end up in a group with 5 escorts, 2 of the players might switch to a Cruiser and Science ship to balance out support a bit.
Also, there are 6 max-level ship, bridge officers with multiple skill options, console options, and 6 energy weapon options, plus projectile options. A player with more skills maxed will use MORE DIVERSE gear, not less!
A respec system won't prevent FOTM (flavor of the month/moment, idk) builds. It just makes pulling it off slightly harder.
Bonuses:
And what do you GET for removing the skills? Well, Cryptic gets breathing room. It would take MONTHS for (most) players to earn enough skill points to max everything. And they will also have to earn money/badges to buy enough gear to equip 5 new ships! In that time, Cryptic will have enough time to figure out new stuff. I'd hope, anyway.
Players get forward motion. Yesterday I logged on. Decided that heading to B'Tran was too much work. Decided that an Infected run would most likely be a waste of time too. Logged out.
In contrast, with no cap, one could waste TONS of time, head out to deep space battles, do a bunch of repeatables, and get a SENSE of forward motion, when that effort translates into another few points to put into skills. Then you get a new ship, new weapons to stick on it, etc. Or hey, not have to choose between ground skills or space skills.
Amen. This is what we need. Just add in the last five levels too and people will spend ALOT and ALOT of time working up all those skills, then start to grind gear for ships that they want to try out and perhaps get to try out new bridge officers left and right.
It would allow players to do SOMETHING while waiting for new content.
so what you gonna complain about when everybody is maxed out and everybody has exactly the same skills and has nothing left to do?
there is no individuality if everybody has the exact same skills in the end.
there is no need to team up
there is no need to THINK about where you spend your skillpoints.
if there was no skillcap they could scrap the complete skilltree alltogether and just make it a default advancement on level up.
*meh*
Individuality by choice. You may want to cookie cutter everybody, but some people are gonna break out and try new combos. Not everybody is gonna fly a standard sovereign with all antiprotons, anitproton consoles, and the same purple mk x gear. Some are gonna go with regenerative shields, covariant, etc. Removing the skillcap gives us options. Nothing says you would have to use the same stuff as everybody else to be competitive. You could do your own thing, find what works for you.
so what you gonna complain about when everybody is maxed out and everybody has exactly the same skills and has nothing left to do?
Well, by the time everyone is maxed out, Cryptic will ahve time to implement a real skill choice/specialization system. (So they can still sell precious respecs!)
there is no individuality if everybody has the exact same skills in the end.
Really, so you've figured out a way to use every ship and weapon at once? Do tell how this is possible, I'm all ears.
there is no need to team up
...This is different from the current system how exactly? Oh wait, you mean that a player will take out a science ship, use viral matrix and target subsystems, then fly back to base, dock, and get an escort to go use cannons? I don't see that working very well either.
there is no need to THINK about where you spend your skillpoints.
Well, I would hope that you spend them wisely while leveling up. Distributing points randomly won't help a whole lot, either.
if there was no skillcap they could scrap the complete skilltree alltogether and just make it a default advancement on level up.
Ok. That's actually not a terrible idea, though I thought you WANTED individuality?
*meh*
Yes, an accurate, yet succinct summation of your arguments in a single word, kudos to you.
Please stop crowding the forums with posts like these. Ier heard all the arguments for why the skill cap should be removed and for why its a good thing. I think the game is enjoyable the way it is. Im a Trekkie so by the time I would actually get bored with whats here now, there will be new stuff for me to do. They say their gonna raise the cap, and I for one believe them. I absulotely love the game they have created, and wish I would have bought the special edition with lifetime. It would have been worth the money, but I digress.
No the system now is not perfect, but if they changed it to non capped then the people who want it capped would complain just as much. They will never be able to make everyone happy, but I think for the game to be just a couple months old, they are doing a very fine job.
If a Dev reads this, good job guys cant wait to see what else is coming.
no thx, i stated my opinion, if you chose to ignore, flame away.
(ok the "no need to team up" statement from me was stupid, but the rest still stands)
i like the idea to do mutiple builds over time to get a sense of what i could do better next time, keeps me playing & entertained.
Also you get free Respecs every Rank Up, so you can TRIBBLE arround on the lower levels to try diffrent stuff.
You can copy over your RA5 to Tribble and respec there pretty much for free once you got enough Merits on Holodeck, try a new build there, delete the char and copy again if you like to try again, until you found out with what you want to do with your Holodeck Char.
can you imagine Diablo 2 without Skilltree? that game would have died years ago.
the search for the perfect build is what drives poeple on to do it better, diffrent try something else.
the only thing this would change is that you could use every kind of weapon together and ships would fire rainbows all over you.
i just tried EVE, they have a completely diffrent approach on Skills and leveling...
you have a 24hour queue where you can place skill you want to train and those take time, the skills are open end, meaning that people can skill over years.... one skill takes days after a while
the skills keep training whily you are offline.
I think this would be cool... open end... no end at all... if people come close to maxing out the Dev's just throw in the next few levels that take months to train.
Not going to happen here but i like the concept.
Bad thing is that one who just started playing will NEVER catch up to the guys that are there from day one.
In STO you can catch up fast and play where the fun is (...supposed to be).
...damn now i made wall of text :rolleyes:
...so many typos... need sleep
Please stop crowding the forums with posts like these. Ier heard all the arguments for why the skill cap should be removed and for why its a good thing. I think the game is enjoyable the way it is. Im a Trekkie so by the time I would actually get bored with whats here now, there will be new stuff for me to do. They say their gonna raise the cap, and I for one believe them. I absulotely love the game they have created, and wish I would have bought the special edition with lifetime. It would have been worth the money, but I digress.
No the system now is not perfect, but if they changed it to non capped then the people who want it capped would complain just as much. They will never be able to make everyone happy, but I think for the game to be just a couple months old, they are doing a very fine job.
If a Dev reads this, good job guys cant wait to see what else is coming.
Is your sig rank current?
Because yes, up to Captain, the game is adequate. There is (just) enough content to level without having to hit up more than a few exploration/deep space combat runs.
The problem is when you hit max level. There are exactly two things to do: Exploration, or Infected.
(Tomorrow, we get a couple new things to do, yay.)
I have over 1000 exploration badges, I think. Infected is 1-2 hours, IF you finish, for a 1 in 5 shot at a random purple weapon that is only SLIGHTLY better than exploration gear.
And they aren't adding content for you, and they haven't been training you for it. These 5-man instances force players to learn skills that you have not run into in levels 1 thru 44. You can not complete them by charging in and shooting random targets.
And after your 10,000th kill, you may begin to wish for a little variety, no? The ability to shelve your venerable <your ship type here> and get a new <other ship type here>, fit it with weapons in a new color, and try some new tactics.
And I suppose you can, if you don't care about being able to fly it well, turn well, have optimal hull hitpoints, and doing optimal DPS with a new color weapon. (I'm not convinced that they proc often enough for the special effects to matter.)
And FYI, back in http://www.startrekonline.com/node/397 they made it clear that the system was designed to be uncapped. I never claimed that uncapping would make everyone happy, I claimed that it would provide people with a new progress bar at max level.
no thx, i stated my opinion, if you chose to ignore, flame away.
(ok the "no need to team up" statement from me was stupid, but the rest still stands)
i like the idea to do mutiple builds over time to get a sense of what i could do better next time, keeps me playing & entertained.
Also you get free Respecs every Rank Up, so you can TRIBBLE arround on the lower levels to try diffrent stuff.
I like the idea that with one main, I wouldn't have to log out to use a different build or respec and have a ship that suddenly loses effectiveness.
You can copy over your RA5 to Tribble and respec there pretty much for free once you got enough Merits on Holodeck, try a new build there, delete the char and copy again if you like to try again, until you found out with what you want to do with your Holodeck Char.
can you imagine Diablo 2 without Skilltree? that game would have died years ago.
the search for the perfect build is what drives poeple on to do it better, diffrent try something else.
Diablo was DESIGNED AROUND the skill tree. STO was DESIGNED around capless.
the only thing this would change is that you could use every kind of weapon together and ships would fire rainbows all over you.
We can do this now. We do not. Why? because using "all cannons" tactical consoles is less DPS than stacking bonus for one specific damage type. This would not change, one of each weapon will be less DPS with this system, WITH OR WITHOUT a cap, so this argument is invalid.
i just tried EVE, they have a completely diffrent approach on Skills and leveling...
you have a 24hour queue where you can place skill you want to train and those take time, the skills are open end, meaning that people can skill over years.... one skill takes days after a while
the skills keep training whily you are offline.
I think this would be cool... open end... no end at all... if people come close to maxing out the Dev's just throw in the next few levels that take months to train.
Not going to happen here but i like the concept.
Bad thing is that one who just started playing will NEVER catch up to the guys that are there from day one.
In STO you can catch up fast and play where the fun is (...supposed to be).
...damn now i made wall of text :rolleyes:
And in EVE, if your ship explodes, it is GONE. I know, I've lost a few, and could resub into.. i dunno, 20m SP? I've misplaced more in random loot than a new player will acquire in their entire trial time. (This is normal.)
Besides, the STO devs already promised new skills, but instead slapped a cap on.
And yes, the ability to catch up is far more fair, and fun. I never said anything against that. A player could max, one ship class, one weapon class, one projectile class, and their chosen science skills FAR faster than they could max ALL ship, weapon, science, ground skills. And be on the same footing as a max-level player quite quickly, just with a smaller choice of toys to use, until THEY pay their SP-earning dues too.
Short version:
Remove the skill cap. Max every skill, get every ship, get a set of every damage type weapon. Add a second spec system if Cryptic really needs to sell respecs.
Long Version:
Cons, and debunking thereof- Maxed skills are overpowered?
Really? If a character has disruptors, phasers, plasma, tetryon, polaron, and antiproton maxed, what is the exact advantage? Realistically, you will only use one damage type at once, with tactical consoles for that weapon type. If you have 3 different types of, say, cannons, you would have to use cannon-boosting consoles, for maximum boost, which is less points per console than damage-type boosters. Or one console per beam, which again, is less.
Are we meant to have ground skills or space skills? Why do they pull from the same pool, if one can reach maximum level without doing even a SINGLE ground mission?
New players are at a disadvantage?
Last I checked, a player had to gain and spend skill points to advance, and is matched against like-level players in PVP. By the time a player reaches maximum level, they will have enough skill points to do one ship class, weapons for it, and a few extra skills at max or near-max. And if there is no cap, they can just earn more points and finish it off!
If you want to balance max-level PVP, match up players by "total skillpoints earned" rankings as well. New Admirals mostly against others, and maxed players against maxed players. It hardly matters anyway, a player with 5 fully equipped ships back at their dock can only fly one at a time. And escort/science skills don't have much, if ANY effect on a cruiser, for example.
Maxing skills will destroy diversity?
I'm calling outright bullpoop on this one. If every player was going to fly the same ship and weapon type, it would have already happened. A player with every ship still has to choose one. All it allows is choices, one day a Science ship, another day, an Escort. If they end up in a group with 5 escorts, 2 of the players might switch to a Cruiser and Science ship to balance out support a bit.
Also, there are 6 max-level ship, bridge officers with multiple skill options, console options, and 6 energy weapon options, plus projectile options. A player with more skills maxed will use MORE DIVERSE gear, not less!
A respec system won't prevent FOTM (flavor of the month/moment, idk) builds. It just makes pulling it off slightly harder.
Bonuses:
And what do you GET for removing the skills? Well, Cryptic gets breathing room. It would take MONTHS for (most) players to earn enough skill points to max everything. And they will also have to earn money/badges to buy enough gear to equip 5 new ships! In that time, Cryptic will have enough time to figure out new stuff. I'd hope, anyway.
Players get forward motion. Yesterday I logged on. Decided that heading to B'Tran was too much work. Decided that an Infected run would most likely be a waste of time too. Logged out.
In contrast, with no cap, one could waste TONS of time, head out to deep space battles, do a bunch of repeatables, and get a SENSE of forward motion, when that effort translates into another few points to put into skills. Then you get a new ship, new weapons to stick on it, etc. Or hey, not have to choose between ground skills or space skills.
it's interesting how you are blaming your reason for not buying a ship on "i don't have skills to fly it"
the skills buff for flying said ship type aren't that much...... honestly... you won't notice much of a difference between flying a science ship with make science rank and flying an escort without max skill >_>
and true all your arguements are "you can only have 1 of this or 1 of this at a time" yes, but if everybody had 10 skills, and everybody had all 10 skills maxed, the one can safely assume everybody is also going to have the same weapons and gear that give the best, armor, damage, and skill buffs for those 10 skills... so you really get 10 clones...
now lets say you have 10 skills but can only take 5 of those skills, how many people are going to have the exact same 5 skills and the exact same weapons and items
Ah, the broken record who doesn't understand that fun is not the same thing as ultimate power....
skill cap exists for balance and for player customization/uniqueness purposes (afterall - how do you feel custom if everyone has your build and all the same skills - meaning everyone will fight over the exact same gear.
Skill caps or level caps exist in VIRTUALLY EVERY GAME FOR GOOD REASON.
So, your real argument is that you want more content?
Fine, everyone, including the devs, gets that.
More content doesn't mean you have to break the content and skills trees there already.
We'll get a raise in the cap when there is meaningful content at those levels.
Removing the cap without having new content developed is like the classic WoW episode of South Park:
We'll be grinidng level 45 pigs until we reach level 90000. At that point, we "start" playing the new level 46-50 content when we're already way beyond that.
Skill caps force you to make a decision and compromise; oftimes you will roll an alt to try things some other captain/ship/skill combination. Rerolls keep the game alive more than 100,000 RA5 players grinding skillups.
Skill caps mean there are no longer roles beyond what BOFFS/SHIPS bring to the game.
It truly becomes an arcade game at that point.
Actually, no cap does that. A cap is what puts you into a role by default, as you're required to think about what you want to do with your character, and choose skills based on that role.
Skill caps force you to make a decision and compromise; oftimes you will roll an alt to try things some other captain/ship/skill combination. Rerolls keep the game alive more than 100,000 RA5 players grinding skillups.
Maybe so, but once the average player has hit 45 and re-rolled and levelled that to 45 that's when most will quit the game because simply it doesn't really matter from what angle you play, the game is still pretty much identical. Hardly anyone is doing STF's because on how laughably bad they are.
Time is the enemy for STo survival, Removing the skillcap now is perhaps the best route to go at least that way they could give themselves a few extra months of sub paying customers and more importantly time to work on the game instead of cramming in anything to keep players interested and ultimately losing more players due to how atrociously untested the new content is.
Maybe so, but once the average player has hit 45 and re-rolled and levelled that to 45 that's when most will quit the game because simply it doesn't really matter from what angle you play, the game is still pretty much identical. Hardly anyone is doing STF's because on how laughably bad they are.
Time is the enemy for STo survival, Removing the skillcap now is perhaps the best route to go at least that way they could give themselves a few extra months of sub paying customers and more importantly time to work on the game instead of cramming in anything to keep players interested and ultimately losing more players due to how atrociously untested the new content is.
But, since removing the skill cap will break all upcoming content when they raise the level cap, wouldn't that cause far more people to leave?
Actually, no cap does that. A cap is what puts you into a role by default, as you're required to think about what you want to do with your character, and choose skills based on that role.
I meant removing skil caps - we actually agree. I modified my post to show this, since I stated something similar about the necessity of skill caps just three-four posts above yours.
I meant removing skil caps - we actually agree. I modified my post to show this, since I stated something similar about the necessity of skill caps just three-four posts above yours.
K cool then. I don't really pay too much attention to these types of threads, because they're all based on the flawed opinion that the skill cap is only in place to sell respecs in the C-store, and they never address the actual reason of the cap, i.e. that you'd level to the new cap when they raise it.
K cool then. I don't really pay too much attention to these types of threads, because they're all based on the flawed opinion that the skill cap is only in place to sell respecs in the C-store, and they never address the actual reason of the cap, i.e. that you'd level to the new cap when they raise it.
I totally agree that gameplay balance and unique classes adds to the "fun" component.
Too many people assume fun means power.
If the Bible teaches us anything, omnipotence makes you a very bored and fickle person.
We could frame the argument like this:
Would you rather have linear gameplay or non-linear?
Virtually everyone would love non-linear options.
By definition, you have to make some options mutually exclusive to have non-linear skills or gameplay or uniqueness.
Short version:
Remove the skill cap. Max every skill, get every ship, get a set of every damage type weapon. Add a second spec system if Cryptic really needs to sell respecs.
Short answer....NO......Devs have answered this many, many, many times.....NO....Not ever!!! This thread should not only be closed, it should be deleated from all sight.....This issue has been settled!
Wait, are people trying to argue that we want a skill cap because without it players would be cookie cutters? ROLF, and u don't think that is exactly what they are now? Admittedly I've seen a few players that don't seem to understand what to do and then there is everyone else.
There are very small true differences in the different ways to boost shields or repair hull. Weapon procs of 2.5% make selection irrelavent and when space weapons actually work correctly if u choose ones with less then the 3 procs on Anti Proton that's ur bad not mine.
Personally, I think respecs will solve the problem, but... JESUS CHRIST, do they have to be so expensive? :mad: And no, I'm not talking about the cstore option for respecs.
Wait, are people trying to argue that we want a skill cap because without it players would be cookie cutters? ROLF, and u don't think that is exactly what they are now? Admittedly I've seen a few players that don't seem to understand what to do and then there is everyone else.
There are very small true differences in the different ways to boost shields or repair hull. Weapon procs of 2.5% make selection irrelavent and when space weapons actually work correctly if u choose ones with less then the 3 procs on Anti Proton that's ur bad not mine.
So, you argue that we should remove cookie cutter builds by only having one cookie cutter?
But, since removing the skill cap will break all upcoming content when they raise the level cap, wouldn't that cause far more people to leave?
And how will it break content exactly? I never got a specific answer. Just a vague "trust us, we're devs" kind of thinking. And heck, it seems to work on half the forum population.
My tetryon cannons and quantum torpedos on my escort are maxed. Would maxing polaron cannons and photon torpedos somehow double the damage my tetryon and quantums do? (Hint: no.)
Actually, if they raise the level cap, and the new max level weapons are XII instead of X, that means that all the maxed players still have a lot of replacing to do. If only they could do something, I dunno, maybe like..
Waiiiit... if they add a sideways system that specializes further, that would allow respecs, this magical "customization" that apparently only comes from trapping yourself in a permanent pigeonhole... Wouldn't this kind of thing make most people mostly happy?
Oh, I get it, that's too simple, we should just cap the system that was designed for the exact opposite, that's a great idea. Because... uhh.... "they" said it was a great idea, along with PVP only Klingons, super-limited space autofire, and BO pathing that is... let's jsut say "less than perfect."
A dev made it explicitly clear in the last few days, the skill cap will not be removed. It's not even up for discussion, so why keep trying to bring it up. We've had countless threads on this, it's time to face the fact, you are not geting the cap removed.
Ya know debating the removal of the skill cap is libel to get us all an infraction.
Fact: The skill cap isn't going away. They are hoping to raise the levels up in Season Two. They have stated on more than one occasion that the cap is staying.
As for the rest of it. Most of the anti cap crowd arguments have been either debunked or dismissed as misunderstand of how cap and capless systems work. This is the proverbial dead horse
Besides, wouldn't it be more fun to use three character slots on one romulan, one klingon, and one federation?
Rather than rerolling and relogging every time you want to switch ships?
First off, I'm pretty sure that when they add new factions, we'll get a new slot, since our third slot is for a Klingon in the first place.
Secondly, Stormshade told us how the content will be broken very succinctly way back when the announcement was made, and I'll say it yet again - when we start filling out new skills, we'll have collected and invested the SP necessary to level up. When they raise the level cap, we'll be at or close to the new cap, making whatever content they make between the old cap and the new one pointless, because we'll be above it. If pointless content isn't broken content, what is?
Comments
It would allow players to do SOMETHING while waiting for new content.
there is no individuality if everybody has the exact same skills in the end.
there is no need to team up
there is no need to THINK about where you spend your skillpoints.
if there was no skillcap they could scrap the complete skilltree alltogether and just make it a default advancement on level up.
*meh*
Individuality by choice. You may want to cookie cutter everybody, but some people are gonna break out and try new combos. Not everybody is gonna fly a standard sovereign with all antiprotons, anitproton consoles, and the same purple mk x gear. Some are gonna go with regenerative shields, covariant, etc. Removing the skillcap gives us options. Nothing says you would have to use the same stuff as everybody else to be competitive. You could do your own thing, find what works for you.
Really, so you've figured out a way to use every ship and weapon at once? Do tell how this is possible, I'm all ears.
...This is different from the current system how exactly? Oh wait, you mean that a player will take out a science ship, use viral matrix and target subsystems, then fly back to base, dock, and get an escort to go use cannons? I don't see that working very well either.
Well, I would hope that you spend them wisely while leveling up. Distributing points randomly won't help a whole lot, either.
Ok. That's actually not a terrible idea, though I thought you WANTED individuality?
Yes, an accurate, yet succinct summation of your arguments in a single word, kudos to you.
No the system now is not perfect, but if they changed it to non capped then the people who want it capped would complain just as much. They will never be able to make everyone happy, but I think for the game to be just a couple months old, they are doing a very fine job.
If a Dev reads this, good job guys
no thx, i stated my opinion, if you chose to ignore, flame away.
(ok the "no need to team up" statement from me was stupid, but the rest still stands)
i like the idea to do mutiple builds over time to get a sense of what i could do better next time, keeps me playing & entertained.
Also you get free Respecs every Rank Up, so you can TRIBBLE arround on the lower levels to try diffrent stuff.
You can copy over your RA5 to Tribble and respec there pretty much for free once you got enough Merits on Holodeck, try a new build there, delete the char and copy again if you like to try again, until you found out with what you want to do with your Holodeck Char.
can you imagine Diablo 2 without Skilltree? that game would have died years ago.
the search for the perfect build is what drives poeple on to do it better, diffrent try something else.
the only thing this would change is that you could use every kind of weapon together and ships would fire rainbows all over you.
i just tried EVE, they have a completely diffrent approach on Skills and leveling...
you have a 24hour queue where you can place skill you want to train and those take time, the skills are open end, meaning that people can skill over years.... one skill takes days after a while
the skills keep training whily you are offline.
I think this would be cool... open end... no end at all... if people come close to maxing out the Dev's just throw in the next few levels that take months to train.
Not going to happen here but i like the concept.
Bad thing is that one who just started playing will NEVER catch up to the guys that are there from day one.
In STO you can catch up fast and play where the fun is (...supposed to be).
...damn now i made wall of text :rolleyes:
...so many typos... need sleep
Is your sig rank current?
Because yes, up to Captain, the game is adequate. There is (just) enough content to level without having to hit up more than a few exploration/deep space combat runs.
The problem is when you hit max level. There are exactly two things to do: Exploration, or Infected.
(Tomorrow, we get a couple new things to do, yay.)
I have over 1000 exploration badges, I think. Infected is 1-2 hours, IF you finish, for a 1 in 5 shot at a random purple weapon that is only SLIGHTLY better than exploration gear.
And they aren't adding content for you, and they haven't been training you for it. These 5-man instances force players to learn skills that you have not run into in levels 1 thru 44. You can not complete them by charging in and shooting random targets.
And after your 10,000th kill, you may begin to wish for a little variety, no? The ability to shelve your venerable <your ship type here> and get a new <other ship type here>, fit it with weapons in a new color, and try some new tactics.
And I suppose you can, if you don't care about being able to fly it well, turn well, have optimal hull hitpoints, and doing optimal DPS with a new color weapon. (I'm not convinced that they proc often enough for the special effects to matter.)
And FYI, back in http://www.startrekonline.com/node/397 they made it clear that the system was designed to be uncapped. I never claimed that uncapping would make everyone happy, I claimed that it would provide people with a new progress bar at max level.
I like the idea that with one main, I wouldn't have to log out to use a different build or respec and have a ship that suddenly loses effectiveness.
Diablo was DESIGNED AROUND the skill tree. STO was DESIGNED around capless.
We can do this now. We do not. Why? because using "all cannons" tactical consoles is less DPS than stacking bonus for one specific damage type. This would not change, one of each weapon will be less DPS with this system, WITH OR WITHOUT a cap, so this argument is invalid.
And in EVE, if your ship explodes, it is GONE. I know, I've lost a few, and could resub into.. i dunno, 20m SP? I've misplaced more in random loot than a new player will acquire in their entire trial time. (This is normal.)
Besides, the STO devs already promised new skills, but instead slapped a cap on.
And yes, the ability to catch up is far more fair, and fun. I never said anything against that. A player could max, one ship class, one weapon class, one projectile class, and their chosen science skills FAR faster than they could max ALL ship, weapon, science, ground skills. And be on the same footing as a max-level player quite quickly, just with a smaller choice of toys to use, until THEY pay their SP-earning dues too.
You guys never cease to amaze.
Also, individuality by gear is not individuality.
it's interesting how you are blaming your reason for not buying a ship on "i don't have skills to fly it"
the skills buff for flying said ship type aren't that much...... honestly... you won't notice much of a difference between flying a science ship with make science rank and flying an escort without max skill >_>
and true all your arguements are "you can only have 1 of this or 1 of this at a time" yes, but if everybody had 10 skills, and everybody had all 10 skills maxed, the one can safely assume everybody is also going to have the same weapons and gear that give the best, armor, damage, and skill buffs for those 10 skills... so you really get 10 clones...
now lets say you have 10 skills but can only take 5 of those skills, how many people are going to have the exact same 5 skills and the exact same weapons and items
Simple: Add new, highly specialized skills beyond RA5, but skillcap THOSE.
skill cap exists for balance and for player customization/uniqueness purposes (afterall - how do you feel custom if everyone has your build and all the same skills - meaning everyone will fight over the exact same gear.
Skill caps or level caps exist in VIRTUALLY EVERY GAME FOR GOOD REASON.
So, your real argument is that you want more content?
Fine, everyone, including the devs, gets that.
More content doesn't mean you have to break the content and skills trees there already.
We'll get a raise in the cap when there is meaningful content at those levels.
Removing the cap without having new content developed is like the classic WoW episode of South Park:
We'll be grinidng level 45 pigs until we reach level 90000. At that point, we "start" playing the new level 46-50 content when we're already way beyond that.
It truly becomes an arcade game at that point.
Actually, no cap does that. A cap is what puts you into a role by default, as you're required to think about what you want to do with your character, and choose skills based on that role.
Maybe so, but once the average player has hit 45 and re-rolled and levelled that to 45 that's when most will quit the game because simply it doesn't really matter from what angle you play, the game is still pretty much identical. Hardly anyone is doing STF's because on how laughably bad they are.
Time is the enemy for STo survival, Removing the skillcap now is perhaps the best route to go at least that way they could give themselves a few extra months of sub paying customers and more importantly time to work on the game instead of cramming in anything to keep players interested and ultimately losing more players due to how atrociously untested the new content is.
But, since removing the skill cap will break all upcoming content when they raise the level cap, wouldn't that cause far more people to leave?
I meant removing skil caps - we actually agree. I modified my post to show this, since I stated something similar about the necessity of skill caps just three-four posts above yours.
K cool then. I don't really pay too much attention to these types of threads, because they're all based on the flawed opinion that the skill cap is only in place to sell respecs in the C-store, and they never address the actual reason of the cap, i.e. that you'd level to the new cap when they raise it.
I totally agree that gameplay balance and unique classes adds to the "fun" component.
Too many people assume fun means power.
If the Bible teaches us anything, omnipotence makes you a very bored and fickle person.
We could frame the argument like this:
Short answer....NO......Devs have answered this many, many, many times.....NO....Not ever!!! This thread should not only be closed, it should be deleated from all sight.....This issue has been settled!
There are very small true differences in the different ways to boost shields or repair hull. Weapon procs of 2.5% make selection irrelavent and when space weapons actually work correctly if u choose ones with less then the 3 procs on Anti Proton that's ur bad not mine.
So, you argue that we should remove cookie cutter builds by only having one cookie cutter?
And how will it break content exactly? I never got a specific answer. Just a vague "trust us, we're devs" kind of thinking. And heck, it seems to work on half the forum population.
My tetryon cannons and quantum torpedos on my escort are maxed. Would maxing polaron cannons and photon torpedos somehow double the damage my tetryon and quantums do? (Hint: no.)
Actually, if they raise the level cap, and the new max level weapons are XII instead of X, that means that all the maxed players still have a lot of replacing to do. If only they could do something, I dunno, maybe like..
Waiiiit... if they add a sideways system that specializes further, that would allow respecs, this magical "customization" that apparently only comes from trapping yourself in a permanent pigeonhole... Wouldn't this kind of thing make most people mostly happy?
Oh, I get it, that's too simple, we should just cap the system that was designed for the exact opposite, that's a great idea. Because... uhh.... "they" said it was a great idea, along with PVP only Klingons, super-limited space autofire, and BO pathing that is... let's jsut say "less than perfect."
Rather than rerolling and relogging every time you want to switch ships?
A dev made it explicitly clear in the last few days, the skill cap will not be removed. It's not even up for discussion, so why keep trying to bring it up. We've had countless threads on this, it's time to face the fact, you are not geting the cap removed.
Fact: The skill cap isn't going away. They are hoping to raise the levels up in Season Two. They have stated on more than one occasion that the cap is staying.
As for the rest of it. Most of the anti cap crowd arguments have been either debunked or dismissed as misunderstand of how cap and capless systems work. This is the proverbial dead horse
First off, I'm pretty sure that when they add new factions, we'll get a new slot, since our third slot is for a Klingon in the first place.
Secondly, Stormshade told us how the content will be broken very succinctly way back when the announcement was made, and I'll say it yet again - when we start filling out new skills, we'll have collected and invested the SP necessary to level up. When they raise the level cap, we'll be at or close to the new cap, making whatever content they make between the old cap and the new one pointless, because we'll be above it. If pointless content isn't broken content, what is?