A lot of people can tell you that I am for the skill cap, for the most part based on keeping diversity among players.
However after reading
this post, my view has taken a 180.
The CAP must die.
After being mathed, I now understand that having no cap actually gives MORE diversity among players.
With the CAP in place, everyone will use Phasers/Disruptors or Photons/Quantums. No sane person will use anything else in terms of weaponry. People will max out Cruiser/Escort/Science ship skills, but wont touch the ones in between even after the patch is released (That gives a bonus 25% from the skill which isn't enough). They MAY max out the final ship skill they intend on using, though I haven't done the math on those skills to see if they are even worth it(Anyone want to check?).
Point is, with no CAP, it could take a long time to completely max out your skills. Not to mention it was the plan to begin with to have no CAP. They said that they would be "Adding more skills to keep up with players progression". Well, I think the reason they put in a CAP is to dodge that responsibility, to be LAZY.
Thats all I wanted to say, just voice my opinion on the subject and give my reasoning.
If anyone wants to come in and derail thats fine.
At least have the common courtesy of providing a valid argument in response.
Comments
all the weapon skills need to be the same point cost
that will help some most skills need work thou
Or just remove it, and fix all problems today.
Even then there's no reason to go polaron over phasers or even tetryon because you get the same damage boost for more points so you're just gimping yourself.
Another one recognizes the game is broken. And it just gets worse with every new skill added as skill points get diluted. And don't forget, originally with no CAP although you could max out skills the intention was to regularly add new skills so being maxed out was only temporary.
It is difficult to get to this truth with so many naysayers obfuscating the issue with misinformation.
Exactly
This is why I am now against the CAP.
Unless they make Plasma/Tetryon/Anti-Proton/Polaron weaponry BETTER, they will never be used with a skill cap in place.
Never Never Never Ever Ever Ever
Only by people who like them for visual style will use them, and thats not enough.
Give plasmas a bonuses to hull damage, like 20% perm increase to hull damage, but they get a -10% to shield damage. Give Tetryon a +20% to shield and a -10% to hull. Make Anti-proton have a 10% hance to completely and totally bypass shields. I think Anti Proton was the one that did shield damage. Make Polaron have a 10% chance to shut down a subsystem, this could be basically an upgraded form of Phasers.
These bonuses for these wepons would be added on TOP of the bonuses they allready have. IMO that would make them worth using.
Or....You could just remove the CAP.
I know starting over requires effort. But in a way we are loosing out on the experience of of doing those other classes from scratch. It does not take that much time to level to max. So the effort is minimal and you will get more out of the game. I know this point of view is hard for some to understand. But I was exactly the same way in my other MMO. I did not want to try other classes and level characters to the max. I got over it. And when I did I really enjoyed the experience. I am tired of the other game. STO should last me longer because I am going to try every class to max level. even the Klingon side. I may have to Delete characters etc. But its all to exp. the most I can get out of the game.
It would be more productive if we focused on changes we'd like to see to the skills tree now, rather than go on and on about the Cap itself.
Does the skill tree need work? Yes - especially in the area of weapons. I agree they need to look at changes there. But these things could be fixed whilst still keeping the cap in place.
I believe that weapons and their DPS/bonuses should be tweaked in order to incentivise players to look more seriously at more end-game weapon types. Right now the advice everwhere you look is "phaser/disruptors only as these are the cheapest to rank up and do the same DPS" which is an issue the devs surely are not comfortable with.
They could introduce Uber rares in the game. Something to hunt for. I already have two tactical Polaron boosters at +22. You can do three on a Escort. They could come up with +50 or even +100 boosters. That would be something worth hunting for!
Or they could leave the cap and modify the skills tree or the Weapons bonuses as you have suggested.
I'd personally like to see ALL weapons types rankable at the same level - Captain.
For Ltn, Ltn Cmmdr and Commander ranks you would be given the opportunity to improve things like "Beam Weapons" or "Cannons" or "Mines" or "Projectiles" but you don't get to specialise in any particular energy weapon type until Captain. At Captain you can specialise in ANY of the weapon types currently available based on your preference of bonus and aesthetics/theme and leave it at that.
When they raise the cap for additional grades/ranks then they still have the ability to add new High End weapons if they want as long as the DPS levels and bonuses are balanced enough that people will seriously consider them vs. for the Skill Points costs to rank them.
Here's a free hint: It's not integral if you glue it onto the side of something you already made!
I swear I want whatever the people at Cryptic are snorting.
Happy to attempt to oblige.
What you say about the problems with weapon specs is true. I have been trying to get people to talk about lowering the skill point cost of the more exotic weapons to the same as phasers and disruptor costs, but very few who responded wanted to push for it. I do not think the caps should be lifted completely, and I do not think Cryptic will ever lift it completely. So I feel the better battle is to lower skill point costs of certain skills that do nothing but strangle variety, specifically, costly weapon preferences.
The fact is, It was added in testing. Before the game launched. There are MMOs out there that have made changes that have been just as "integral" (some even more fundamental) to their games post-launch.
And however "last minute" the changes appeared to us to be - you have no idea how long in advance of this they had actually been planning to add the cap.
I agree that I don't believe they took the time they should have to adjust the skills tree to adapt better to having a cap, but in my opinion - they were snorting something to consider a capless system in the first place.
weapons are just the main flaw that a ground combat skills
changeing it just so all weapons cost the same is a quick fix
I have not hit Captain yet on either my Engineer nor my Science characters, so my mileage is limited.
HOWEVER, after running the Character Planner several times I see absolutely no way I will ever train anything except Phasers and Photons... simply because the skill cap is so insanely low that only a Tactical Officer could ever justify it (and even with a Tactical Officer it is a gamble).
...And I am not even past LTC and I can see this as necessary skill training strategy ingame at this time.
In my honest opinion, as a Player that is preparing for what skills my 2 characters will eventually have... both the Skill Cap and the Skills themselves need fixing.
I say Raise the Skill Cap at least 10,000 without adding new Rank/Grades, and add new bonuses to specialized Weapon Damage types. Without these changes I will always go with Phaser and Protons... even when I create my Tactical Officer. A comprehensive base of skills is simply too important to a character as I see it. I refuse to drop all Ground Combat skills or employ any other non-StarTrek like strategy just to fit the limitations of this game. This MMO should attempt to conform to Star Trek, not the other way around. Star Fleet Officers would have broadbased skill training even when you take into account their own Branches specialized Training... Otherwise a Science Officer or an Engineer would never be given Command in the first place.
I wonder how many other Players like myself... who haven't reached RA or even Captain... are planning their character's skill training in a similar way because they too have used the Character Planner and see they have no real choice because of the skill cap?
If Cryptic has confirmed that the Skill Cap will Not be raised, then imho there is no reason to even have the specialized Weapons ingame due to how the Tier one and two skill bonuses work as according to their descriptions and according to the Player Fan Website Data about how Weapons work in STO.
The problem here is, they were considering a capless system, and designed it around being capless.
Then they went "oops, that's no good" and slapped on an arbitrary cap without thinking of the effects.
If they had redesigned the system before live with a cap in mind, fair enough. But they obviously didn't. That's not "integral", that's a sloppy addition.
Cry a river why dont you.. geez
ignorant much ? i take it you want a skill cap ? think about it as more skills are added then the skill point pool becomes more and more diluted. The cap or number of available skill points needs to be increased.
But thats what I am saying. For weapons, the cap itself isn't actually the problem.
The problem is the way weapons are postioned in the tree.
I would prefer that up until Commander or Captain all you were able to rank up were more broad skills and categories like "Beams" "Cannons" "Mines" "Projectiles" as you currently do. Then only at Commander or Captain do you get the chance to specialise in a specific weapons type. All the current weapons are listed and upgradeable at Capt grade and you can simply choose your preference of aesthetics and bonuses rather than your choice of weapon type being a min/max decision as it currently is - with everyone taking Phaser/Disruptor because of the lower cost for the same damage.
People refer to tetryon, and polaron and plamsa etc as "exotic" however from a game perspective they really aren't that exotic at all. The are the same DPS and their bonuses are basically at parity with the all the others (including Disruptor and Phaser). What actually is the point of having them spread over different ranks? Even in a capless system there was no point. They are all basically the same as one another. Just different flavours of appearace and bonus effect. There is nothing to incent someone to specialise in the other weapons right now.
All the weapons types should be upgradeable at the same player Rank making them all the same cost to specialise in. All weapons would then be equally viable and the same cost to branch into based on a simple preference by the player.
I'd like cryptic to then add other weapon types at Admiral which may not be possible to cap out but have excellent bonuses that make taking them viable even if you can't cap them out.
Either that - or improve the bonuses given to late-game weapons to make them more attractive despite being harder to cap them out.....
From what I hear, some people hit RA5 in only about three days of playing. It will not take more then a month, I'd think, for the majority of players who are currently capped, to max out every skill.
But as mentioned before, the cap won't go away. Without the cap, balancing new content becomes much more difficult as there are alot of unknown variables. The devs will just work on fixing the existing skills to make the more expensive ones, justified in their cost.
Yes, the game was made without a cap at first. Through testing, they discovered this was not only a bad idea, but it also made new content very hard to make as some players would, in theory, have so many skill points that they will just steamroll all the content in the game.
Agreed.
But my point remains. The skills tree can still be modified to work better, without simply removing the cap.
All evidence suggests that complaining about the cap or campaigning for its removal is not productive at this point. Its here to stay.
So how about we move onto practical and productive discussion on changes we'd like to see to the skills tree to make it better?
Skills that cost more should do more.
i think some of the skill tree might be better at this than the weapon part, but there are a few ragged areas.
So, let's just all tell Cryptic in a loud voice that principle above:
Skills that cost more should do more.
Make that happen, Crpytic, and we'll all be happy. (As much as "all" of any gaming community can be.)
Also, using skill points to level and to purchase skills means you have to have the balance right, or thinks suck doubly. Clearly the balance is not right. It's too easy to level. It's impossible to spec out even a reasonably maxed character who has all the skills they need for a certain role. Even just maxing out something as specific as a "cannon-firing advanced escort driver who uses a rifle and grenades, but doesn't use assault weapons or stealth" is very very impossible.
At some point, here's what I'd like to see (all at once):
* Raise the number of skill points required for each grade and rank by 20%.
* Lower the cost of skills by 20% across the board (which just stacks with above).
* Make higher ranks harder to achieve than lower ones. I.e., it should be twice take twice as long to make Captain as it does to make Commander, and twice again as long to make Admiral, etc. If twice doesn't work, substitute some significant percentage here.
* Higher-cost/level skills reworked to provide proportionally MORE for the points.
* Give us a free respec at intro of above to take full advantage of the new costs.
Now, you can't go back and tell an Admiral that they're suddenly a Captain because they don't have enough skill points, so you'd have to retroactively give existing characters a 20% bump up in skill points earned off the bat.
What does this allow?
* Diversity in characters. People can now purchase all the skills they need to specialize in what they want, but not enough to be good at everything
* A longer leveling experience, instead of a one- to two-week grind for experienced and motivated (coughOBSESSEDcough) players to get to RA5. I think even the 20% I propose above will make a difference here.
* There will be more Commanders than Captains, and more Captains than Admirals, etc. The prestige and respect of being a high rank will be recaptured, since it will be that much harder to get there. Right now, an RA2 mission may give more skill points than a LtC2 mission, but in terms of how much of the way you make it to RA3, there's not a whole lot of difference. If you have do a boatload more work to make Admiral than you do to make Commander, it makes getting to Admiral all that much sweeter.
* Tetryon and Polaron and Antiproton would actually have a place, and a prestige (oooo! I wanna make RA so I can use that!) instead of being mostly cosmetic.
Please. Heed this and roll it into your next decent-sized patch. It's a big change, but far smaller than the one you won't make (and, this long after launch, probably shouldn't make), and would probably do a whole lot of good, both in terms of the overall experience, and in terms of attracting back those players that didn't subscribe after the trial period.
I love this game. I want it to be harder, so it lasts longer and I can savor the experience. And I also want it to be more flexible in terms of what I can learn and do.
And I'm sorry to pigeonhole, but most of the ones who don't want it to be harder and take longer to get to the max will probably be gone in 6 months anyway, tempted by the next shiny game to come along. I'll still be here next year and the year after that, and I think you'll find that sentiment common among those who agree and want it to be harder.
And for God's sake, de-uglify the Fleet Escorts! ^_^
-Adwynyth
Ok then, I understand your point of view now.
Yes, I agree with you argument. If they changed the skill trees for Weapons as you suggest then I see it viable to train in the specialized weapons types. I will say right now that they should all be put into Tier 3 skill level imho. Start with the Weapons Tree for now and fix that.
That still does not however change my opinion on how a Star Fleet Officer would be trained, and that the current Skill Cap is too low. I do not believe it should be completely lifted away (I see a reason to keep "A" skill cap, just not the present number of points), but it needs to be raised without adding ranks or grades. The decision to impose a skill cap was a change added to the game by Cryptic, so they can now just say "after careful review and game testing we believe the original skill cap was too low". Changes such as this are normal for MMOs so I do not feel that raising the skill cap is out of the question no matter what Cryptic has said on the issue up to this point. If they made this change I would not complain, rather I would be grateful that Cryptic is adjusting and tweaking the game as needed to keep it healthy. This is what I would expect them to do and hope for them to do.
I want to thank everyone who has posted in this thread so far for remaining civil.
As for letting the cap issue die, thats not going to happen. A lot of us want it changed. Telling us to drop the issue is not how things work. We have every right to talk about it, debate it and outright argue over it.
I respect your view on the subject Oberon, however silencing the mob doesn't work, nor has it ever worked.
Regardless on whether or not they ahve stated "It's not going away" will not change our views.
If they want to keep the CAP, thats fine, but please make high end skills WORTH the skill points, as it stands they are no where close to being worth it.
Polaron weapon skill should provide twice the amount of bonuses that say Phasers do, because (If I'm not mistaken) it costs twice as much.
They need to fix them, and now. Why wait untill season 2 to to implement these kind of changes(If they even plan to). I do not like their "Release content only during big updates, every other updates are just minor bug fixes" route. I do not like it in the least, they need to be constantly releasing changes, or else the bad things we are stuck with now will become habit.