But that is the wrong thing to change as well.
FaW isnt the issue, it is the aux2battery with the techs.
Faw for who uses a cruiser without aux2batt and techs is the only competitive bof ability for run a cruiser.
Exept if the change to FaW is that aux2bat with techs wont affect it cool down ofcourse
Sorry we disagree... Faw is a terrible mechanic.
Think of every other game you have ever played... and find one skill that works the same way FAW does in STO.
I KNOW devs from other companies find the very idea of a skill that works like FAW laughable. I know because I have literly listened to them laugh. lol
The skill itself allows for 100% skill usage... by that I mean every wepaon will be firing on a target for 100% of the skill up time. There are not gaps as there are no arc restrictions. It is a true 360 skill. The nature of that means power creep effects faw disproportionately. If an item or rep item for instance gives your weapons a +10% dmg boost... FAW spends its entire cycle time firing... so you gain a full boost. If you where using something like say CSV you Will not have a perfect 100% uptime on the skill on target. (at least not every activation anyway). This means you will NOT be getting the same magnitude of boost.
This is why yes A2B + Marion + any other Creep you want to list... + faw = Ra*e face time. Where as the exact same load out with cannons and scatter does not.
FAW as a mechanic is BAD Design... its one of the few true jokes of gaming.
Think of every other game you have ever played... and find one skill that works the same way FAW does in STO.
I KNOW devs from other companies find the very idea of a skill that works like FAW laughable. I know because I have literly listened to them laugh. lol
The skill itself allows for 100% skill usage... by that I mean every wepaon will be firing on a target for 100% of the skill up time. There are not gaps as there are no arc restrictions. It is a true 360 skill. The nature of that means power creep effects faw disproportionately. If an item or rep item for instance gives your weapons a +10% dmg boost... FAW spends its entire cycle time firing... so you gain a full boost. If you where using something like say CSV you Will not have a perfect 100% uptime on the skill on target. (at least not every activation anyway). This means you will NOT be getting the same magnitude of boost.
This is why yes A2B + Marion + any other Creep you want to list... + faw = Ra*e face time. Where as the exact same load out with cannons and scatter does not.
FAW as a mechanic is BAD Design... its one of the few true jokes of gaming.
But have all beams fiering at once cause a big power drain, where who doesent use aux2bat need to lose in many areas to keep the power up... or deal with the lower power.
Not to mention beams still dont do dps as dhc and turrets, that also is fire all weapons at once dhc+turrets.
And there is the cooldown, only faw3 work good realy, so if dont use the purple faw dofs or aux2bat the cooldown make it not that deadly.
And most important.. if they tune it down...they will either have to tune up the other beam abilities...or see many people leave.
But have all beams fiering at once cause a big power drain, where who doesent use aux2bat need to lose in many areas to keep the power up... or deal with the lower power.
Not to mention beams still dont do dps as dhc and turrets, that also is fire all weapons at once dhc+turrets.
And there is the cooldown, only faw3 work good realy, so if dont use the purple faw dofs or aux2bat the cooldown make it not that deadly.
And most important.. if they tune it down...they will either have to tune up the other beam abilities...or see many people leave.
I have pulled 40k+ DPS with out aux to bat with faw... so I don't think that is 100% true.
Sure People have pushed 60k+ with the right amount of debuffs with aux to bat I won't deny... its one more creep item.
Frankly what is needed is a FAW to be deleted ... because it is a laughable mechanic.
Cannon Scatter Volley. Needs to be reworked so that it works with beams or cannons... and it Can be renamed Fire at Will.
Problem solved on the mechanic issue.
As for Tech boffs... Cryptic simply needs to reverse one mistake they made previously.
Tech doffs where balanced when Aux to bat was on the same global as Emeregency power skills. At that point you could run One EPTx and One copy of Aux to bat and have no issues... and benifit from the tech doffs.... NOW you can run 2 EPTX 2 AUX to Bat with Zero down side.... which is why the numbers on tech doffs are now out to lunch.
I have pulled 40k+ DPS with out aux to bat with faw... so I don't think that is 100% true.
Sure People have pushed 60k+ with the right amount of debuffs with aux to bat I won't deny... its one more creep item.
Frankly what is needed is a FAW to be deleted ... because it is a laughable mechanic.
Cannon Scatter Volley. Needs to be reworked so that it works with beams or cannons... and it Can be renamed Fire at Will.
Problem solved on the mechanic issue.
As for Tech boffs... Cryptic simply needs to reverse one mistake they made previously.
Tech doffs where balanced when Aux to bat was on the same global as Emeregency power skills. At that point you could run One EPTx and One copy of Aux to bat and have no issues... and benifit from the tech doffs.... NOW you can run 2 EPTX 2 AUX to Bat with Zero down side.... which is why the numbers on tech doffs are now out to lunch.
There fine if they undo that one little change.
Ok so they dell Faw..
Now what to who dont use escorts or DHC. That is the thing, there is no alternative.
Also i like to make builds as the enterprise so i use 2 torpedos tube on foward and 1 aft. The best result with FaW3 and EptW3 i get is 13.5k DPS.
It is ridiculos to what most do.
So the issue isnt FaW, its the combo of everything aparently.
But we went off topic...its about the rep :P
As Hawk said PvP and PvE mechanics are identical. If its bad in one place its bad in the other. Only difference is PvP makes it easier to detect.
Right ... , the cool aid .
I'll pull two examples , and tell me how they have completely ruined PVE :
- The 5 sec pause between kirk-kick and kitty-claw-swipe that has been introduced to the Caitians-Ferasans because it was OP in PVP .
- The nerfing of the Rommy shield console ... (as we already have plenty of indestructible builds in PVE , both as hull and/or as shield tanks) .
Two nerfs out many .
I have claimed both here and on the PVP forums that the pVP crowd serve as the only serious QA that this game gets , and I stand by my word .
It's that sometimes , that can be a bad thing , as ppl buy stuff and get it nerfed later (or much much later , see the Caitians-Ferasans) -- at what players see as "at the behest" of the PVP crowd .
And just like the Foundry crowd (who championed the removal of the clicky missions , and now the nerfing of the loot missions) , ppl see the PVP crowd as sometimes working against the PVE crowd .... -- even if they are doing so only with good intentions (to themselves ... ) .
Right now yes new players do suffer when teamed with older players...
I'm sorry , but I just don't see it that way and I will never see it that way .
Tell me when was the last time you pugged a PvE mission ? (ok its gotten better lately I will admit not that many new players at the moment I think is part of it).
I consider myself an "old school" STO STF-er .
That (to me) means that I love to PUG (preferably through some specific channels like Public and Elite STF) -- but I have also refused invites to the XXXX K DPS channels because I see them as elitists who will not Pug with "the common ppl" , and as ppl who are responsible for the segregation of the STF community .
And those are the ppl I don't want to play with .
I have many times seen People QQing in zone about X or Y player... Silly noobs why are you in X or Y ship why are you not Doing this or that. Vets can get nasty when they have to put up with some new players.
Bad attitudes do shine through more in the queues , but less so in organised channels .
Truth is PvE is NOT in a good place.. Sure many of you are not complaining because you enjoy being able to get your missions done super fast.
Actually , no , that is not one of my motivations ... , but it is for those who post their combat logs in the chat after a match ends . And that's kind of sad .
But I agree with you that PVE is not in a good place , as there is no New Level progression in PVE .
You keep getting powers , but you keep NOT getting newer and harder enemies to fight .
STO's development mentality is broke ... and this is just one more band aid to hide how bad things are .
With each 2-3 Reps we should get a 10 Level progression as well , with harder enemies to fight .
But we don't .
Instead Cryptic keeps mucking about with the back end numbers and churn out very little (but very pretty) content .
In short , the 2409 calendar date is not the only thing that is not move forward in STO .
Ok so they dell Faw..
Now what to who dont use escorts or DHC. That is the thing, there is no alternative.
Also i like to make builds as the enterprise so i use 2 torpedos tube on foward and 1 aft. The best result with FaW3 and EptW3 i get is 13.5k DPS.
It is ridiculos to what most do.
So the issue isnt FaW, its the combo of everything aparently.
But we went off topic...its about the rep :P
No doubt don't mean to go way off on another tangent. I do agree its the stacking of lots of stuff you are right there.
To be clear though I wouldn't want no beam skills.... I would be in favor of FAW working like scatter volley does now... in fact I would change ALL the energy wepaons skills if it was up to me.
What I would do is;
Allow Scatter (rename it faw to keep people happy) to work with any energy weapon.
Allow Rapid fire to work with any energy weapon
Allow Overload to work with any energy weapon
Allow target sub to work with any wepon as well.
Unchain the skills from either or... and you open up a lot more interesting combos and builds... you really don't loose anything... and you can afford to take a skill like faw and remove it.
Funny, whenever there is a change in the game mechanic, suddenly people I haven't sen. in a long time appear on the forum and complain.
Is this something everyone complains about at first and then says It is not soooo bad anyway?
I have no earthly idea what this thread is all about anymore, I never done a Reputation, and so I will not support and play this game anymore and I will also tell every friend I have to stop playing this game.
Worffan, stop playing this game.
And I will also tell everyone in my Fleet to stop playing and tell my doctor that I have been touched by a Dev.
And I don't want an Undine Lockbox because.. well.. because... Ok I will come up later with something.
I think you really have to look at the negative influence of longterm power creep. Not just where it is now but where it will be when there are 20 reps. I think some variation of this is a necessary call if new players and veteran players are going to be playing the same content.
To Cryptic:
The big flaw I see with this change is that it makes some powers objectively better than others which makes some irrelevant since they have no use. If gameplay were diverse enough that swapping out traits on the fly mattered (and by this, I mean very diverse gameplay) then I could see your solution holding more weight.
As is, while the new system gives us a toolbox approach to powers, we don't actually need the variety of tools being supplied. It's like a toolbox full of universal socket wrenches.
I think a change of this magnitude requires further iteration and further tweaking.
My first reaction would be to consider the idea of having rep traits be slotted onto bridge officers and nerfing the rep space passives rather than having only 4 active at a time and buffing the rep traits. So the traits you aren't using can be active on BOffs.
Second reaction would be to look at something like having a resource pool for rep powers. Rather than slotting 4 passives, have all passives remain active but tie the effectiveness of them to something approximating ship power levels, with consumables that boost the "rep subsystems" that fueld the passives. So instead of slotting 4 out of 16, have it be that you could have 4 at 100% effectiveness, 8 at 50% effectiveness, or 16 active at 25% effectiveness. I realize this could be a nightmare to balance perfectly but "easy to balance" is invariably pretty constricting on player choice.
These are just a couple of ideas. I think one of the key issues across the board in the game is that player rewards and effort don't have a sense of meaning. Tasks have weak intrinsic motivation. This fuels complaints about grind. It fuels concerns over this change because it challenges the meaning attached to doing four reps as opposed to one or two. This is the kind of thing I wish I had an afternoon with you guys, a whiteboard, and some coffee and donuts on hand to discuss this with you guys. Not to lecture you because I have the answers (I know I don't) but because I do think I see a lot of the behavioral economics and narrative issues associated with the game's design and think jamming ideas with five guys in a room would be more productive than posting on page 105 of a bazillion page thread.
I think from a design POV, the focus is often on the extrinsic rewards (ie. the powers themselves) but becoming more powerful in exchange for effort is a separate issue from having more powers and is an intrinsic motivation issue.
Similar to this, a million dollars isn't a one dollar times one million. It is quantitatively but in terms of human behavior, a million dollars all together at one place and time conveys status and with that status comes a sense of narrative purpose. You wouldn't ask a million people where the $1 bill in their wallet came from but you would ask one person the story of where the $1,000,000 in their bank account came from.
Quantatatively and in terms of extrinsics, power creep is an issue.
Behaviorally and in terms of intrinsic motivators, power or status acquisition in exchange for effort is an issue.
These interests need to be better weighed. This is part of what I mean when I talk about narratives being key to game design but also where I separate story from narrative.
In the new system, doing the RIGHT 1-2 reps is the same as doing 20. This is GOOD from the perspective of capping extrinsic reward of veteran status and power creep. But is BAD from the perspective of providing intrinsic sense of satisfaction from gameplay, the feeling that effort = progress., the part of acquisition that is about the gaining and not the having, the shopping/purchasing rather than the owning/storing.
If I sound like I'm speaking Greek, I think Heinig could translate what I'm saying fairly well.
I am fine with this but think it brings the whole STO endgame into even more of a terrible state.
Right now the reps are the end game, they are it. There's nothing really past them. Other mmos you do reps to get things to help you beat harder content. STO you do the content to get the items for the rep and the rep unlocks to beat....? That would be the first issue I see with this.
The second issue I see is the question of if you only can use four then a lot of reps are now pointless. Why bother doing a rep if it offers powers that are useless? This also leads me to wonder if you end up with power creep in the form of each rep having to have better and better passives or people will just not do it.
Power creep is a problem because the content doesn't get harder. It stays the same while the players gain and gain more power. The game needs more content and it needs a progression path that leads to harder and harder content.
LoR is feeling a lot like Cata for me from WoW. Too much focus on new players, not enough on longer term players and keeping people. It's important of course to get new players but I would think it's important to keep longer term players as well and turn new players into long term ones as well.
Here is your ticket to the USS Stupidity, Third class, four tacks on the chair, rules state you MUST sit on the chair, no standing, or hovering above the tacks, thank you have a nice day
I had to quote this, it literally made me spit my tea out all over my keyboard!
Ps. you owe me a new keyboard :P
On a brighter note, with being artificially limited in how many passives I can use, I now no longer need to bother with the Undine rep, as nothing in it is of value to me when you cannot use it...
I am fine with this but think it brings the whole STO endgame into even more of a terrible state.
Right now the reps are the end game, they are it. There's nothing really past them. Other mmos you do reps to get things to help you beat harder content. STO you do the content to get the items for the rep and the rep unlocks to beat....? That would be the first issue I see with this.
The second issue I see is the question of if you only can use four then a lot of reps are now pointless. Why bother doing a rep if it offers powers that are useless? This also leads me to wonder if you end up with power creep in the form of each rep having to have better and better passives or people will just not do it.
Power creep is a problem because the content doesn't get harder. It stays the same while the players gain and gain more power. The game needs more content and it needs a progression path that leads to harder and harder content.
LoR is feeling a lot like Cata for me from WoW. Too much focus on new players, not enough on longer term players and keeping people. It's important of course to get new players but I would think it's important to keep longer term players as well and turn new players into long term ones as well.
Nicely put. I guess what I'm saying is related in that the HAVING of power (and power creep) are a problem but reps also need some sense of the gaining of status or a person might as well just do one rep and be done, which means there is no progression path.
I could see one possibility with the announced changes being if, for example, reps were also reworked so that each reputation awarded 40 Lobi per tier and had one or more Lobi store items that was only purchasable by someone maxed in that rep. This would emphasize that progress yields status without necessarily forcing power creep since progression could be lateral and cosmetic based on the thematic flavor of reputations.
A Lobi ship is not necessarily more powerful than many other ships but it would at least provide a more concrete feeling that the direction of my character had changed if completing four reps got me into the cockpit of another Temporal Destroyer.
Because it's redundant.
With Omega gear it's not needed. Plus it only works against Borg. So you have just slotted a power that only works against one single enemy type.
I would hardly call Rotating Weapon Frequency redundant.
This lets you shoot longer before the Borg adapt, wich is very handy for certain weapons, like the Omega auto carbine, and a few others, including the Dyson proton rifle.
It also means that you do not need to use Omega, MACO or KDF Honour Guard sets if you do not want to.
I have this power, and I like it a lot, since it gives me more time on targets before I need to remodulate.
I really hope this power stays as is now, instead of the new power...
Well, not everything about this change is bad: An Aux2Bat-Cruiser won't have to worry about T4 Nukara-Reputation Passives/Traits anymore, those Setups can simply pick another selection of Reputation Passives/Traits.
The problem I see in this revamp is that you are creating super-buffed traits on the one hand (+20% CrtD or +5% CrtH, seriously?) and others are giving you just a good feeling.
Some people complained about Rotating Weapon Frequencies getting replaced by Omega Graviton Module, is there really a need for another ground weapon proc besides Cryo Imobilizer Module?
For both Auxilary-Power Configurations people will soon begin to calculate a break-even-point, where you can compare the effects of those traits to the effect of others.
The way I'm seeing this at the moment is that people complain that you are taking away too much from them, while you try to fix this with buffing the current passives/traits. The result is that we will get more Setups that are super-buffed in only one discipline: Damage.
Resulting_Damage = Base_Damage * Damage_Modifiers * 1 + (CrtH * CrtD)
So, you promised buffs to Omega Weapon Training (=Damage_Modifier), Precision (=CrtH) and Advanced Targetting Systems (=CrtD)... So you are trying to stop power-creep with giving us (power-creep)^3, nice joke - just looking at the critical-modifiers you can see that the new traits would give you 3.33 times their current bonusses.
Now, what would you think about the following suggestion: Mix 2 current Reputation Passives into one, for example Precision + Advanced Targetting System = Critical Weapons Modifications (= +3% CrtH, +10% CrtD), Omega Weapon Training + Omega Graviton Amplifier = Omega Weapon Modification, Auxilary Power Configuration Offense + Auxilaray Power Configuration Defense = Auxilary Systems Modification.
This way people would see that they are not loosing so much, while the power-creep from the changes to Reputation Passives/Traits is eliminated. And in the case of those two Auxilary-Configurations, I'd expect that somebody takes both or none, so mixing them up isn't that bad.
Ultimately, its been clear that the system as it exists on live is not infinitely scalable if we had 200 Reputation powers, the difference between a fresh max-level character and one whod spent hundreds of hours at endgame would just be too large for them to play together.
That part is so wrong: I've started a fresh character (Reman SCI) during the Bonus Expertise Weekend, that character was able to do 10k DPS with white Mk X Beams, while other (tactical) characters with all Reputation Passives and ultra rare Mk XII gear aren't able to do half that DPS.
Still, the highest entry on the DPS-League-Table is about 83k DPS, so the solution to your design-problems is easy: Ban people that can't do 5k DPS from the Elite-Content, don't restrict access to Elite-STFs to Level 50, restrict it to 5k DPS and most of your problems are solved.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
So you will be REQUIRED to do less grind to play that toon the way you would like. How is that bad?
From my point of view, not bad at all. I feel I play repetitive content too much in STO and would be happy to be given reasons to play less.
But from Cryptic's point of view, it's pretty bad, since their business model requires players to be online for prolonged periods as often as possible.
I was just making the point that this change works against that, not for it.
So, in Season 9, there will be 5 reputation tracks so 20 space and 20 ground powers and we have to select 8 of them.
At least, make that 10 powers, two powers (one space and one ground ) per reputation tracks
In any case, some reputations will be completely ignored for new characters and whatever marks is gained from them will be transformed into dili for the other tracks/rewards.
So much for the investiments I have made in my characters. I built my characters over months, it does make sense to me that I should have an advantages over 'fresh from the oven' toons.
I am fine with this but think it brings the whole STO endgame into even more of a terrible state.
Right now the reps are the end game, they are it. There's nothing really past them. Other mmos you do reps to get things to help you beat harder content. STO you do the content to get the items for the rep and the rep unlocks to beat....? That would be the first issue I see with this.
The second issue I see is the question of if you only can use four then a lot of reps are now pointless. Why bother doing a rep if it offers powers that are useless? This also leads me to wonder if you end up with power creep in the form of each rep having to have better and better passives or people will just not do it.
Power creep is a problem because the content doesn't get harder. It stays the same while the players gain and gain more power. The game needs more content and it needs a progression path that leads to harder and harder content.
LoR is feeling a lot like Cata for me from WoW. Too much focus on new players, not enough on longer term players and keeping people. It's important of course to get new players but I would think it's important to keep longer term players as well and turn new players into long term ones as well.
you make very good points. the highlighted is an issue I raised a long time ago when they 1st talked about revamping the fed tutorial. which in my opinion was a waste of time/resources. it may be nicer than before but it wasn't desperately needed in the game. the devs response was along the lines of new players new players new players they don't understand the game and quit. I personally wanted them resources making new content at end game. pwe/cryptic place such high importance on new players that they want to make it so simple for them to progress. because all new players must be dumb and lazy.
why no full romulan faction?? general dev response was.. we can't ask players to grind up a new fleet base. in other words they think we are lazy. there is actually no real reason for the fRaction other than laziness from both player and dev.
it's all about new players in this game, you realise the importance of long term players when you look at the state of vet rewards and the lack of importance placed on end game content including pvp. the games story is far better early on than it is towards end game as well.
if this was about power creep then why double the powers? surely that just means your shifting the creep ???
So, in Season 9, there will be 5 reputation tracks so 20 space and 20 ground powers and we have to select 8 of them.
At least, make that 10 powers, two powers (one space and one ground ) per reputation tracks
In any case, some reputations will be completely ignored for new characters and whatever marks is gained from them will be transformed into dili for the other tracks/rewards.
So much for the investiments I have made in my characters. I built my characters over months, it does make sense to me that I should have an advantages over 'fresh from the oven' toons.
Most of that advantage is a good build, doffs, a better ship and better gear in that order. Rep systems are the least of the power creep.
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
From my point of view, not bad at all. I feel I play repetitive content too much in STO and would be happy to be given reasons to play less.
But from Cryptic's point of view, it's pretty bad, since their business model requires players to be online for prolonged periods as often as possible.
I was just making the point that this change works against that, not for it.
No.
This spec is what I will use for all my characters, since I prioritize survivability above all else.
Well I think Cryptic knows most people have multiple toons and mulitple classes and ship types. People will find reasons to do all the content across more toons... which sells them more ships and lockboxes and lobi conosles ect.
I don't see this costing them money... and for some people they may find they end up playing more as they can spread multiple rep tracks across there toons and find they have played longer in the end.
On your last point.... it sounds like this change won't effect you much at all then... you are going to unlock the same good defensive passives. You where worried about before. You only did the other reps cause you felt like you had to... I'm glad you won't feel that way... going forward as long as every new rep has ONE good defensive trait you would like to play around with (not counting possible gear you want) you will do that rep to. I would bet.
The problem I see here is not the concept but the implementation. You need to restrict the number of passives and actives we can have as we are going to keep getting reputations and it would eventually get out of control, fine I can accept that. The issue is dropping us from 8 passives to only being able to use 4 of them. Switching is all well and good but right now I can use all 8, so you can phrase it however you want I am still loosing the use of half my passive abilities.
If the number of passives we could use were brought up to 6 I think this would do allot to stem the rage that this change has caused, while still accomplishing the core mission of limiting power creep from future reps. Just having 4 slots is to restrictive, I can already see 4 abilities that will become mandatory and nothing else will be used. Having 6 slots gives us back some flexibility and room for additional passives from new reps, which means a reason for us to grind and play your game.
On the subject of the Rotating Weapon Frequency passive my suggestion would be to either buff the number of shots you get before having to remod or make it so that with that passive you don't have to remod at all. Either would make other sets more viable in ground borg stfs instead of basically locking us into using one of the 3 omega sets just for the instant remod. Whatever you do don't change its core function.
An alternate Pick could be: Ditch the Severity or maybe the Omega Damage boosts (depending on how much Damage bonus they give), get the Shield Regenerations from Omega.
As long as both the Offense and Defense Traits are buffed, this will fight the creep by making the current No-Brainers even more No-Brain. Kinda like trying to exorcise the Devil by invoking Beelzebub.
Hint: The 2 'Aux' Picks from Nukara are still underwhelming, unless you fly a Vesta with Vesta Cannons. It isn't as running 125 Aux plus Nukara 'Offense' Aux->Weapons pick will suddenly make up for the lack of Weapon Power.
And if someone is capable of attaining permanent 75+ in all Systems, that would be the point to work on.
OK hold up..let me get this right...ALL of my powers from the reps that I have EARNED will be taken away and I ONLY get 4 TOTAL!!!! WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS MESSED UP!!! HOW DARE YOU TAKE AWAY WHAT I HAVE EARNED!!! SO WHAT IF I AM MORE POWERFUL THEN SOMEONE WHO HASNT DONE REP....THAT IS THE REWARD FOR DOING IT!!!!!!!! ALL I CAN SAY TO THIS IS...OH WAIT I CANT SAY IT CAUSE I DONT WANT TO GET BANNED... I AM DONE WITH THIS GAME AND ALL OF PWE"S GAMES!!!! %$&*^(_*(^^&*#$%^) (@#%(^&*
Helping people is my passion in life. If I see someone without a smile I try to give them mine.
OK hold up..let me get this right...ALL of my powers from the reps that I have EARNED will be taken away and I ONLY get 4 TOTAL!!!! WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS MESSED UP!!! HOW DARE YOU TAKE AWAY WHAT I HAVE EARNED!!! SO WHAT IF I AM MORE POWERFUL THEN SOMEONE WHO HASNT DONE REP....THAT IS THE REWARD FOR DOING IT!!!!!!!! ALL I CAN SAY TO THIS IS...OH WAIT I CANT SAY IT CAUSE I DONT WANT TO GET BANNED... I AM DONE WITH THIS GAME AND ALL OF PWE"S GAMES!!!! %$&*^(_*(^^&*#$%^) (@#%(^&*
Not sure SAYING ALL IN CAPS. Really makes you sound more important.
No you are not LOOSING anything at all.
Every rep passive you have previously UNLOCKED will remain that way.
Now the Nerf part that everyone gets all UPSET about.
Yes instead of 8 active we are getting "nerfed" and only 4 will be active.
However they have decided to buff the effect of all the passives... and they have also stated they are open to suggestions on buffs for the current passives. (so speak up if you think X or Y needs a bigger or smaller boost). We are also free to choose 2 options from the same Rep tier... so yes things like both Nukura tier 4 aux reps... or the borg tier 2 +30 weapons and +30 shields... what ever you want. You are free to slot anything you UNLOCK... so in a way they are doubling the number of rep traits you can select in combination.
Is this an over all reduction of DSP or Healing.... NO IT IS NOT. What it is is a reduction in the ability to run Both at one time.
They will be adding more reps... new one is coming with the change... and they will be trying to give us one or two attractive traits for every possible build every rep.
Change is NOT DOOM and gloom my friend. So smile... and think through what is changing and why.
Comments
Sorry we disagree... Faw is a terrible mechanic.
Think of every other game you have ever played... and find one skill that works the same way FAW does in STO.
I KNOW devs from other companies find the very idea of a skill that works like FAW laughable. I know because I have literly listened to them laugh. lol
The skill itself allows for 100% skill usage... by that I mean every wepaon will be firing on a target for 100% of the skill up time. There are not gaps as there are no arc restrictions. It is a true 360 skill. The nature of that means power creep effects faw disproportionately. If an item or rep item for instance gives your weapons a +10% dmg boost... FAW spends its entire cycle time firing... so you gain a full boost. If you where using something like say CSV you Will not have a perfect 100% uptime on the skill on target. (at least not every activation anyway). This means you will NOT be getting the same magnitude of boost.
This is why yes A2B + Marion + any other Creep you want to list... + faw = Ra*e face time. Where as the exact same load out with cannons and scatter does not.
FAW as a mechanic is BAD Design... its one of the few true jokes of gaming.
Not to mention beams still dont do dps as dhc and turrets, that also is fire all weapons at once dhc+turrets.
And there is the cooldown, only faw3 work good realy, so if dont use the purple faw dofs or aux2bat the cooldown make it not that deadly.
And most important.. if they tune it down...they will either have to tune up the other beam abilities...or see many people leave.
I have pulled 40k+ DPS with out aux to bat with faw... so I don't think that is 100% true.
Sure People have pushed 60k+ with the right amount of debuffs with aux to bat I won't deny... its one more creep item.
Frankly what is needed is a FAW to be deleted ... because it is a laughable mechanic.
Cannon Scatter Volley. Needs to be reworked so that it works with beams or cannons... and it Can be renamed Fire at Will.
Problem solved on the mechanic issue.
As for Tech boffs... Cryptic simply needs to reverse one mistake they made previously.
Tech doffs where balanced when Aux to bat was on the same global as Emeregency power skills. At that point you could run One EPTx and One copy of Aux to bat and have no issues... and benifit from the tech doffs.... NOW you can run 2 EPTX 2 AUX to Bat with Zero down side.... which is why the numbers on tech doffs are now out to lunch.
There fine if they undo that one little change.
Ok so they dell Faw..
Now what to who dont use escorts or DHC. That is the thing, there is no alternative.
Also i like to make builds as the enterprise so i use 2 torpedos tube on foward and 1 aft. The best result with FaW3 and EptW3 i get is 13.5k DPS.
It is ridiculos to what most do.
So the issue isnt FaW, its the combo of everything aparently.
But we went off topic...its about the rep :P
Right ... , the cool aid .
I'll pull two examples , and tell me how they have completely ruined PVE :
- The 5 sec pause between kirk-kick and kitty-claw-swipe that has been introduced to the Caitians-Ferasans because it was OP in PVP .
- The nerfing of the Rommy shield console ... (as we already have plenty of indestructible builds in PVE , both as hull and/or as shield tanks) .
Two nerfs out many .
I have claimed both here and on the PVP forums that the pVP crowd serve as the only serious QA that this game gets , and I stand by my word .
It's that sometimes , that can be a bad thing , as ppl buy stuff and get it nerfed later (or much much later , see the Caitians-Ferasans) -- at what players see as "at the behest" of the PVP crowd .
And just like the Foundry crowd (who championed the removal of the clicky missions , and now the nerfing of the loot missions) , ppl see the PVP crowd as sometimes working against the PVE crowd .... -- even if they are doing so only with good intentions (to themselves ...
I'm sorry , but I just don't see it that way and I will never see it that way .
I consider myself an "old school" STO STF-er .
That (to me) means that I love to PUG (preferably through some specific channels like Public and Elite STF) -- but I have also refused invites to the XXXX K DPS channels because I see them as elitists who will not Pug with "the common ppl" , and as ppl who are responsible for the segregation of the STF community .
And those are the ppl I don't want to play with .
Bad attitudes do shine through more in the queues , but less so in organised channels .
Actually , no , that is not one of my motivations ... , but it is for those who post their combat logs in the chat after a match ends . And that's kind of sad .
But I agree with you that PVE is not in a good place , as there is no New Level progression in PVE .
You keep getting powers , but you keep NOT getting newer and harder enemies to fight .
STO's development mentality is broke ... and this is just one more band aid to hide how bad things are .
With each 2-3 Reps we should get a 10 Level progression as well , with harder enemies to fight .
But we don't .
Instead Cryptic keeps mucking about with the back end numbers and churn out very little (but very pretty) content .
In short , the 2409 calendar date is not the only thing that is not move forward in STO .
No doubt don't mean to go way off on another tangent.
To be clear though I wouldn't want no beam skills.... I would be in favor of FAW working like scatter volley does now... in fact I would change ALL the energy wepaons skills if it was up to me.
What I would do is;
Allow Scatter (rename it faw to keep people happy) to work with any energy weapon.
Allow Rapid fire to work with any energy weapon
Allow Overload to work with any energy weapon
Allow target sub to work with any wepon as well.
Unchain the skills from either or... and you open up a lot more interesting combos and builds... you really don't loose anything... and you can afford to take a skill like faw and remove it.
Is this something everyone complains about at first and then says It is not soooo bad anyway?
I have no earthly idea what this thread is all about anymore, I never done a Reputation, and so I will not support and play this game anymore and I will also tell every friend I have to stop playing this game.
Worffan, stop playing this game.
And I will also tell everyone in my Fleet to stop playing and tell my doctor that I have been touched by a Dev.
And I don't want an Undine Lockbox because.. well.. because... Ok I will come up later with something.
I think you really have to look at the negative influence of longterm power creep. Not just where it is now but where it will be when there are 20 reps. I think some variation of this is a necessary call if new players and veteran players are going to be playing the same content.
To Cryptic:
The big flaw I see with this change is that it makes some powers objectively better than others which makes some irrelevant since they have no use. If gameplay were diverse enough that swapping out traits on the fly mattered (and by this, I mean very diverse gameplay) then I could see your solution holding more weight.
As is, while the new system gives us a toolbox approach to powers, we don't actually need the variety of tools being supplied. It's like a toolbox full of universal socket wrenches.
I think a change of this magnitude requires further iteration and further tweaking.
My first reaction would be to consider the idea of having rep traits be slotted onto bridge officers and nerfing the rep space passives rather than having only 4 active at a time and buffing the rep traits. So the traits you aren't using can be active on BOffs.
Second reaction would be to look at something like having a resource pool for rep powers. Rather than slotting 4 passives, have all passives remain active but tie the effectiveness of them to something approximating ship power levels, with consumables that boost the "rep subsystems" that fueld the passives. So instead of slotting 4 out of 16, have it be that you could have 4 at 100% effectiveness, 8 at 50% effectiveness, or 16 active at 25% effectiveness. I realize this could be a nightmare to balance perfectly but "easy to balance" is invariably pretty constricting on player choice.
These are just a couple of ideas. I think one of the key issues across the board in the game is that player rewards and effort don't have a sense of meaning. Tasks have weak intrinsic motivation. This fuels complaints about grind. It fuels concerns over this change because it challenges the meaning attached to doing four reps as opposed to one or two. This is the kind of thing I wish I had an afternoon with you guys, a whiteboard, and some coffee and donuts on hand to discuss this with you guys. Not to lecture you because I have the answers (I know I don't) but because I do think I see a lot of the behavioral economics and narrative issues associated with the game's design and think jamming ideas with five guys in a room would be more productive than posting on page 105 of a bazillion page thread.
I think from a design POV, the focus is often on the extrinsic rewards (ie. the powers themselves) but becoming more powerful in exchange for effort is a separate issue from having more powers and is an intrinsic motivation issue.
Similar to this, a million dollars isn't a one dollar times one million. It is quantitatively but in terms of human behavior, a million dollars all together at one place and time conveys status and with that status comes a sense of narrative purpose. You wouldn't ask a million people where the $1 bill in their wallet came from but you would ask one person the story of where the $1,000,000 in their bank account came from.
Quantatatively and in terms of extrinsics, power creep is an issue.
Behaviorally and in terms of intrinsic motivators, power or status acquisition in exchange for effort is an issue.
These interests need to be better weighed. This is part of what I mean when I talk about narratives being key to game design but also where I separate story from narrative.
In the new system, doing the RIGHT 1-2 reps is the same as doing 20. This is GOOD from the perspective of capping extrinsic reward of veteran status and power creep. But is BAD from the perspective of providing intrinsic sense of satisfaction from gameplay, the feeling that effort = progress., the part of acquisition that is about the gaining and not the having, the shopping/purchasing rather than the owning/storing.
If I sound like I'm speaking Greek, I think Heinig could translate what I'm saying fairly well.
Right now the reps are the end game, they are it. There's nothing really past them. Other mmos you do reps to get things to help you beat harder content. STO you do the content to get the items for the rep and the rep unlocks to beat....? That would be the first issue I see with this.
The second issue I see is the question of if you only can use four then a lot of reps are now pointless. Why bother doing a rep if it offers powers that are useless? This also leads me to wonder if you end up with power creep in the form of each rep having to have better and better passives or people will just not do it.
Power creep is a problem because the content doesn't get harder. It stays the same while the players gain and gain more power. The game needs more content and it needs a progression path that leads to harder and harder content.
LoR is feeling a lot like Cata for me from WoW. Too much focus on new players, not enough on longer term players and keeping people. It's important of course to get new players but I would think it's important to keep longer term players as well and turn new players into long term ones as well.
I had to quote this, it literally made me spit my tea out all over my keyboard!
Ps. you owe me a new keyboard
On a brighter note, with being artificially limited in how many passives I can use, I now no longer need to bother with the Undine rep, as nothing in it is of value to me when you cannot use it...
Thanks, devs! Now I can walk away from the rep system, and commit everything to my Fleet! WOOT!
:rolleyes::rolleyes:
Bad move, Cryptic. But it's just one of several you've made leading up to Season Nine.
Nicely put. I guess what I'm saying is related in that the HAVING of power (and power creep) are a problem but reps also need some sense of the gaining of status or a person might as well just do one rep and be done, which means there is no progression path.
I could see one possibility with the announced changes being if, for example, reps were also reworked so that each reputation awarded 40 Lobi per tier and had one or more Lobi store items that was only purchasable by someone maxed in that rep. This would emphasize that progress yields status without necessarily forcing power creep since progression could be lateral and cosmetic based on the thematic flavor of reputations.
A Lobi ship is not necessarily more powerful than many other ships but it would at least provide a more concrete feeling that the direction of my character had changed if completing four reps got me into the cockpit of another Temporal Destroyer.
I would hardly call Rotating Weapon Frequency redundant.
This lets you shoot longer before the Borg adapt, wich is very handy for certain weapons, like the Omega auto carbine, and a few others, including the Dyson proton rifle.
It also means that you do not need to use Omega, MACO or KDF Honour Guard sets if you do not want to.
I have this power, and I like it a lot, since it gives me more time on targets before I need to remodulate.
I really hope this power stays as is now, instead of the new power...
The problem I see in this revamp is that you are creating super-buffed traits on the one hand (+20% CrtD or +5% CrtH, seriously?) and others are giving you just a good feeling.
Some people complained about Rotating Weapon Frequencies getting replaced by Omega Graviton Module, is there really a need for another ground weapon proc besides Cryo Imobilizer Module?
For both Auxilary-Power Configurations people will soon begin to calculate a break-even-point, where you can compare the effects of those traits to the effect of others.
The way I'm seeing this at the moment is that people complain that you are taking away too much from them, while you try to fix this with buffing the current passives/traits. The result is that we will get more Setups that are super-buffed in only one discipline: Damage.
Resulting_Damage = Base_Damage * Damage_Modifiers * 1 + (CrtH * CrtD)
So, you promised buffs to Omega Weapon Training (=Damage_Modifier), Precision (=CrtH) and Advanced Targetting Systems (=CrtD)... So you are trying to stop power-creep with giving us (power-creep)^3, nice joke - just looking at the critical-modifiers you can see that the new traits would give you 3.33 times their current bonusses.
Now, what would you think about the following suggestion: Mix 2 current Reputation Passives into one, for example Precision + Advanced Targetting System = Critical Weapons Modifications (= +3% CrtH, +10% CrtD), Omega Weapon Training + Omega Graviton Amplifier = Omega Weapon Modification, Auxilary Power Configuration Offense + Auxilaray Power Configuration Defense = Auxilary Systems Modification.
This way people would see that they are not loosing so much, while the power-creep from the changes to Reputation Passives/Traits is eliminated. And in the case of those two Auxilary-Configurations, I'd expect that somebody takes both or none, so mixing them up isn't that bad.
That part is so wrong: I've started a fresh character (Reman SCI) during the Bonus Expertise Weekend, that character was able to do 10k DPS with white Mk X Beams, while other (tactical) characters with all Reputation Passives and ultra rare Mk XII gear aren't able to do half that DPS.
Still, the highest entry on the DPS-League-Table is about 83k DPS, so the solution to your design-problems is easy: Ban people that can't do 5k DPS from the Elite-Content, don't restrict access to Elite-STFs to Level 50, restrict it to 5k DPS and most of your problems are solved.
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
From my point of view, not bad at all.
But from Cryptic's point of view, it's pretty bad, since their business model requires players to be online for prolonged periods as often as possible.
I was just making the point that this change works against that, not for it.
No.
This spec is what I will use for all my characters, since I prioritize survivability above all else.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
But they are too lazy to do it.
Basically, Cryptic is also too lazy to add harder end game content.
Elitists whine now that the game is too easy. Harder content would satisfy them with being harder, while not nerfing less good players.
Look at the pretty mushroom grow
At least, make that 10 powers, two powers (one space and one ground ) per reputation tracks
In any case, some reputations will be completely ignored for new characters and whatever marks is gained from them will be transformed into dili for the other tracks/rewards.
So much for the investiments I have made in my characters. I built my characters over months, it does make sense to me that I should have an advantages over 'fresh from the oven' toons.
you make very good points. the highlighted is an issue I raised a long time ago when they 1st talked about revamping the fed tutorial. which in my opinion was a waste of time/resources. it may be nicer than before but it wasn't desperately needed in the game. the devs response was along the lines of new players new players new players they don't understand the game and quit. I personally wanted them resources making new content at end game. pwe/cryptic place such high importance on new players that they want to make it so simple for them to progress. because all new players must be dumb and lazy.
why no full romulan faction?? general dev response was.. we can't ask players to grind up a new fleet base. in other words they think we are lazy. there is actually no real reason for the fRaction other than laziness from both player and dev.
it's all about new players in this game, you realise the importance of long term players when you look at the state of vet rewards and the lack of importance placed on end game content including pvp. the games story is far better early on than it is towards end game as well.
if this was about power creep then why double the powers? surely that just means your shifting the creep ???
Most of that advantage is a good build, doffs, a better ship and better gear in that order. Rep systems are the least of the power creep.
Well I think Cryptic knows most people have multiple toons and mulitple classes and ship types. People will find reasons to do all the content across more toons... which sells them more ships and lockboxes and lobi conosles ect.
I don't see this costing them money... and for some people they may find they end up playing more as they can spread multiple rep tracks across there toons and find they have played longer in the end.
On your last point.... it sounds like this change won't effect you much at all then... you are going to unlock the same good defensive passives. You where worried about before. You only did the other reps cause you felt like you had to... I'm glad you won't feel that way... going forward as long as every new rep has ONE good defensive trait you would like to play around with (not counting possible gear you want) you will do that rep to. I would bet.
I agree just leave these changes in PvE where they where intended to fix the current meta issues. :P
If the number of passives we could use were brought up to 6 I think this would do allot to stem the rage that this change has caused, while still accomplishing the core mission of limiting power creep from future reps. Just having 4 slots is to restrictive, I can already see 4 abilities that will become mandatory and nothing else will be used. Having 6 slots gives us back some flexibility and room for additional passives from new reps, which means a reason for us to grind and play your game.
On the subject of the Rotating Weapon Frequency passive my suggestion would be to either buff the number of shots you get before having to remod or make it so that with that passive you don't have to remod at all. Either would make other sets more viable in ground borg stfs instead of basically locking us into using one of the 3 omega sets just for the instant remod. Whatever you do don't change its core function.
I like the change. I already know what powers I am going to use, and my toons will all be stronger than they were before. >=]
You noobs know nothing.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
Omega Rep: T1/T2 Damage boosts.
NewRom Rep: T1/T2 Crit Chance boost.
Nukara Rep: T1/T2 Bleedthrough boost.
Dyson Rep: T1/T2 Crit Severity boost.
An alternate Pick could be: Ditch the Severity or maybe the Omega Damage boosts (depending on how much Damage bonus they give), get the Shield Regenerations from Omega.
As long as both the Offense and Defense Traits are buffed, this will fight the creep by making the current No-Brainers even more No-Brain. Kinda like trying to exorcise the Devil by invoking Beelzebub.
Hint: The 2 'Aux' Picks from Nukara are still underwhelming, unless you fly a Vesta with Vesta Cannons. It isn't as running 125 Aux plus Nukara 'Offense' Aux->Weapons pick will suddenly make up for the lack of Weapon Power.
And if someone is capable of attaining permanent 75+ in all Systems, that would be the point to work on.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
Not sure SAYING ALL IN CAPS. Really makes you sound more important.
No you are not LOOSING anything at all.
Every rep passive you have previously UNLOCKED will remain that way.
Now the Nerf part that everyone gets all UPSET about.
Yes instead of 8 active we are getting "nerfed" and only 4 will be active.
However they have decided to buff the effect of all the passives... and they have also stated they are open to suggestions on buffs for the current passives. (so speak up if you think X or Y needs a bigger or smaller boost). We are also free to choose 2 options from the same Rep tier... so yes things like both Nukura tier 4 aux reps... or the borg tier 2 +30 weapons and +30 shields... what ever you want. You are free to slot anything you UNLOCK... so in a way they are doubling the number of rep traits you can select in combination.
Is this an over all reduction of DSP or Healing.... NO IT IS NOT. What it is is a reduction in the ability to run Both at one time.
They will be adding more reps... new one is coming with the change... and they will be trying to give us one or two attractive traits for every possible build every rep.
Change is NOT DOOM and gloom my friend. So smile... and think through what is changing and why.