So remember all those threads and posts about how horrible the skill cap is/was?
Yeah, I do too.
I just hit Vice Admiral on Tribble. Level 51. You have 72,700 skill points at that level.
And I ran out of meaningful things to purchase at about level 48.5
Now my build is spread out on purpose. And I don't heavily invest in T5 skills. But even I got 25 skill ups at that tier in my VA build. 3 engi skills set to 7, and one captain piloting skill set to 4.
That's still subject to tweaking, as I might go 9 in weapons performance, or switch some things lower down around to go 5 in my piloting skill.
But wait ... there's more ...
THIS THREAD by GM_Destra outlines the company's plans for further level advancement. Allllll the way up to level 61+.
Now I'm sure they plan to make a few more skills here and there. BUT ... the thing to take away from Destra's posts is ... by the time you reach that actual "end-game" ... you should have enough skill points to have exhausted your Narrow Focused build and then exhausted filling in the blanks for stuff you want or hybridized build ideas.
You may not be able to spend points for every skill in the game, but by the time you're level 61, you should have enough points to cover the ability to pilot multiple ships and/or use multiple weapon types effectively.
The skill cap is going from a "hard" cap ... to a much softer cap ... if Destra's plan is stuck to.
Comments
Are you honestly trying to talk sense into people on this forum? Why?
You and everyone else knew that they were going to raise the level cap, and with it the skill cap. This didn't stop them from still screaming like crazy about the horrible skill cap.
Talking sense into the posters on the STO forums. Well, it's your time to waste...
Establishing an on the record post for later when the argument starts anew. Thus I have something to link to.
This is more for my own peace of mind than anything else. Heh. I don't start that many threads. Out of habit mostly.
Do not want continually moving level cap. :mad:
On record!
Heh. Eventually they run out of admiral ranks and pips. So you know, there is that at least.
What I clamor for is a dang skill tree that actually makes sense, because the one we have might be the worst one I have seen in a MMO. its that bad.
Well, probably what will happen then is, our characters will evolve into higher life forms and the level advancement will just keep going and going...
I'm a level 25 member of the Q Continuum!
Please don't nerf my alter reality ability, or faster than thought travel!
It was claimed that there would be none at launch...that we would be able to spend points beyond what our rank would logically dictate.
They changed their minds and decided to put in a cap. People rebelled.
The skill tree was designed with no skill cap in mind. So, it doesn't work very well with the cap.
It's doable, but you still lose out on something. I think they should either rework the skill trees or drop the skill cap altogether. Either way, a major overhaul needs to be done.
I do too. But they're not going to add a lot of new skills. So the way this all works out, it expands to the point where it gives you a lot of breathing room. And let's you add a lot more "versatility" to your build. It's like I say ... a soft-cap moreso than a hard cap.
The skill cap won't be as limiting.
...not very far into the Beta they realized what every MMO player and developer in the world already knew: You cannot produce content faster than players can chew through it.
So the only answer was a skill cap. Without one, you have one less way to make your character unique and define it. In regard to skills, all of a sudden, all members of the three classes become identical. This means, among other things, fewer people rolling alts...which means more players growing bored and leaving. This means less connection with a character due to less investment in its creation, which means overall less loyalty to the MMO.
For a billion reasons, the skill cap makes eminent sense, and Cryptic would be stupid, from a business standpoint, to get rid of it, at any level. Just like they would be stupid to ever stop raising the level cap and tell players, "Yup, you've gone as far as you can in this game, you have all the best gear..." Why would anyone continue playing at that point?
This. I'd also like to see the skills in the correct place. Why are Science ship skills following Tactical ship skills?
Oh, and where are they going to go after the Admiral ranks are used up? The current Admiral ranks should be Commodore ranks, and then Admiral ranks after that.
I was able to put the rest in the places I needed for my build with my escort. I was competitive with with my escort in PVP ground spec'ed with all ground traits.
I couldn't see why so many people were going nuts over the skill points.
i've also seen one of dstahls posts where he's said mk xi gear would drop from lvl 47 mobs and mk xii gear from level 53 mobs. where's the projected / planned use for such gear? seems to be hinting that it'll have to be lvl61, and then we'll have the problem all over again of 5 ranks for mk 12 gear where now its mk 10 gear with this problem......
- Its currently hinted at in one of the episodes on Tribble so new area = new enemies
Of course, the Gamma Quadrant is just begging to be opened up for a whole new area of expansion but thats likely to come in season 6 / 7 with a Dominion Faction possibly.
Finally, we have the Delta Quadrant to open up, throw in a selection of all the minor races from Voyager and you have more than enough expansion room for higher ranks.
As for skillpoints,
I would prefer to see more skills that further enhance specialisation I.E Cannons Advanced / Phaser Specialisation.
Oooooooh. :cool:
Poss-i-bili-ties....
If there were no skill cap at this point....
Would a Tactical Officer have access to Sensor Scan, Subnucleonic Beam, Dampening Field, Photonic Fleet, Rotate Shield Frequency, EPS Power Transfer, and Miracle Worker?
Would a Tactical Officer be able to use an Engineering Kit or a Science Kit?
Would a Vulcan have the same traits as an Andorian or a Klingon or a Benzite or an Orion?
You really think that if a single engineering character could have all available skills maxed out to 9, he would ever roll another Engineer just to have one of a different race? Really?
You really think for one second that if every toon had all weapon skills maxed, someone wouldn't do the parses, figure out what the 'best' weapon is, and everyone would then be using the exact same weapons? And then Cryptic wouldn't come in to try to 're-balance' the weapons and end up in and endless cycle of buffs and nerfs to different weapon types?
You really think that having one less thing that separates your character from other characters of the same class (i.e. your build) would give people a stronger feeling of connection to their character, rather than a weaker one?
You really think that having one less thing to theorycraft and adjust and play with (builds) would cause people to play this game longer, rather than less?
Because if you do think any of those things, my followup question is going to be how you can possibly logically justify them.
Yes, really. Furthermore, I think this hypothetical person might even go so far as to PAY EXTRA for a favorite race to play as another Engineer should it become available in the c-store.
You really think this isn't happening even with the skill cap?
I don't think that people who feel 'connected' to their characters are the same people who min/max to eke out every tiny little advantage, although there are probably exceptions.
I'm beginning to think that you think the min/max folks are the only people who play the game that matter.
I think, really, that you didn't answer my previous questions because in doing so you would by force of circumstance have invalidated your 'all characters would be identical' argument.
I never made that argument. I said 'all characters within a class' would be identical. Which none of your arguments went to, except perhaps the race argument. And again, as I pointed out, right now, my Engineer can be different from your engineer by being a different race, having a different set of skill specializations, having a different crew, and flying a different ship. They're adding slots to let me get as many ships and crew as I want. You want to take away the skill specializations. How does 'less customization' improve the game for anyone? There would be a handful of people who would make a second whatever for another race, just like there are a handful of people in other games who make multiple characters of the same class...but not many. One of the things counterbalancing the limited (3) number of classes in this game is the fact that I can make, for example, two science officers and make one of them 'Science' based and one of them a Doctor, and have them be completely different and completely different playstyles. No skill cap means I have one Sci with two kits. That means fewer alts. That means people not playing the game for as much time.
I'm not talking about 'min/maxing'. I'm talking about customization. I'm talking about making your character your own, and different from everyone else's. This is one of the big draws of MMO's, being able to develop a unique character, and putting a lot of time and effort into making a character your own is one of the biggest things in encouraging loyalty, and keeping people playing a game. Why do you think MMO's don't delete peoples' characters, no matter how long they unsubscribe? Because they know being able to come back to their characters will be one of the biggest draws if they ever do come back.
Customization and options are good. Making choices is good. I don't know of a single game where you don't 'spec' your character somehow...mostly for the reasons I've indicated in this and my previous posts. I'm amazed that there are people arguing that they want fewer options.
That's just it. Tier 6 is not listed in Destra's post. And the Ask Cryptic thing about T6 ships indicated they are still in the very basic "what do we do with a tier 6?" stage of planning.
Even if T6 is level 61 ... by the time you get TO 61 ... you'll have had so much extra points to spend on Tiers 1 through 5, that the skill cap stops preventing you from spreading out into ... multiple ships ... multiple weapon types ... multiple beam types.
It's still an obstacle. You can't max out every skill. But it's so much softer.
They've added in 3 new skills to the skill tree so far. They'll add more. But they won't be adding dozens of more, due to game balance issues.
It's going to be very interesting in the 51 to 60 level range as people will have the freedom to fill out their builds.
IF they keep to Destra's plan. Which is a big if.
Agreed. We are already at the point of diminishing returns. Enough already!
The skill modifier you can achieve is also not subject to any diminishing return.s Which means if they would remove the max skill values, you could raise your skills ridicilously high and basically deal 10 Million damage with your Mark X Phasers or whatever. This would create ridicilous differences between players with the same skill points. Not even just in the long run, starting at your first levels it would go out of hand.
Maybe they once had a plan to go without a skill cap, but they certainly implemented nothing in a way that it could actually work in a balanced, stable way.
Cryptic announced a while back during closed beta (or before, I can't really remember) that there was going to be no skill cap and that you would be able to just keep spending SP to improve your skills. They changed their minds just before the game went live and said that there is now a skill cap in place. There was a huge outrage from the player base when this happened. So, yeah. They created the skill tree without a cap in mind. That's why I say that there needs to be some serious revamp in the system, especially with the weapon types.
And I'm running what I call a "skittle boat", a star cruiser packed with turrets of every weapon type. So I ended up gimping myself in dps because the points were prohibitively expensive. That might change when I hit VA1, but probably not with the point cost skewed like it is.
"Do not want a cap at all"
Was the point these people were trying to make. A point you have either chosen to ignore or have missed
Well, gosh. Ain't that a kick in the butt.