Very bad move...WOW removed the talents and created a lol "traits" per 15 levlels...now Cryptic why would u follow their example?
Sadly I think the answer is that reputation doesn't earn the company $$$. Selling magic console and special ship does. Now one can have the I win ship on their new toon in 3 days.
Most games are following this model. Lotro followed the traits per level model this past thanksgiving.
The worst example was battlestar galactica. There, the I win large ship was near $1000. The I win fighter was maybe $400. Plus maybe 10$ an hour to operate with endless magic heals and bullets. Here at least we have more choices of what to fly and it's a lot cheaper. But it seems a similar path.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I think the big thing we need to do is, instead of sitting here screaming to the heavens, is to go on to TRIBBLE and test it on Thursday.
Of course, it's probably fair to assume many won't do that because, that way, you can continue sitting there complaining instead of getting a head start on finding out what you can or cannot do. Maybe it's NOT such a bad thing after all.
I already know what to do. Slot all the T2 passive space damage boosts, and sure I'll loose some durability, but my dps increase will compensate for it.
What testing is needed? Its clear as day to see what to do. No need to tribble it.
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
I will be also deactivating half of my rep passives on 16 toons... no different for me.
However I guess your right. Cause I enjoy playing MMOs because I enjoy playing with other people. At the rate creep has been happening in STO... it won't be long before there is no one left to play with.
Yes I admit it in my case most of friends over the last 4 years have left STO... so to keep playing I have to make new friends all the time. Which I don't mind doing its cool I have met plenty of cool people the last 4 years .... however with out some major changes that is going to end.
So yes I am very self serving. I want a health game that attracts new players... and gives my old friends reasons to pop back in and enjoy the game even if it is even only for a few weeks at a time here and there.
Throughout the entire thread ive seen complaints and Ive seen suggestions which all were better than Cryptics solution.
Sure there are a bunch of players that like this change... that are mostly people which have just started playing and have not done the rep system on x chars. Such players easily can say "yes, im for this change" because a player who does not have something can not lose something.
The players which have played for years meanwhile and spent so much time working on the reputatin system in order to get the passives that they want are getting pretty much robbed now.
The developers say "we take away 50% of the abilities but make the remaining ones twice as strong so in the end you lose nothing".
Sounds good... IF it were true.
Reality looks different.
Great skills were replaces with other skills.
Next to that does that in no way include any skills that would have been introduced with the new rep system (undine).
Its been said that from the 16 skills ... 8 (traits) can be used then... but with the introduction of a new rep system there actually would not be 16 skills to choose from.... there would be 20.
Conclusion is that the devs are taking much more away then just 50% of the passives.
And with every new rep system they introduce this gap would be wider.
But ok.
The main question here is: "whats wrong with long term players being more powerful than newly started players?".
The simple answer: NOTHING!!!
Thats what these kinds of games are about... thats the principle behind every MMO -> char progression and development.
How comes that Cryptic suddenly claims that this is not ok while supporting exactly this key element of the game the entire time?
EVERY other MMO is based on these principles for ages and the developers knew what to do in order to balance everything -> introducing new interesting high lvl content.
HERE Cryptic clearly slept and the long term players which invested so much time and resources are now being punished for having played the game.
Cryptics strategy in the past was to throw more and more powerful ships on the market and now they are complaining why some people are too powerful? Oh cmon!
The only explanation we get on this topic is a weird comparison between a 500DPS player and a 40.000 DPS player and the try to tell us that the repution system is causing this?!?!?
WTF?!?!?!
Please, can any of the cryptic devs show us the math behind such a miracle?
Show us how 5% bonus on a reputation system turn 500 DPS into 40.000 DPS!
Cmon, we are waiting to see a mathematical wonder.
If you really do your calculations this way nobody here needs to be surprised by the fact that you meanwhile ruin this game.
Instead of releasing content thats worth to be played the only thing you managed to release with every season was the next best ship on the c-store that is even more powerful than all others before... more grinding stuff and less interesting content.
Lets face it... for such a big game with so many star systems and sectors there is barely anything to do other than playing the reputation system.
After all these years you have still not understood what the players really want... exploring interesting worlds... interesting game content... something worth being played and discovered.
May i ask what places like DS9, Vulcan, Andoria, Bajor, Risa... are for?... I mean other than finding a mail console, a bank or an exchange there.
The entire STO world is huge... and it is full of useless dead places.
The game is a mostly lifeless uninteresting world... and you (the devs) are concerned about the reputation system?
Fine do your change to the rep system if you want... you will see that many old STO players (players which are paying for the game) lose interest in playing when you take away their chance to make improvements to their chars and ships.
You also will notice that less people will see the need to do the reputation system ... or at least they wont play all of the reputation system... no matter how much new stuff you will introduce. It just would not make sense playing through 8 different rep systems to unlock everything if the benefits stop getting higher then unlocking the first 4 rep systems.
And when people stop playing the rep system whats left for them to play?
Story missions? PVP?
Well the game does not offer much more for long term players... sorry but thats a fact.
Cryptic failed to introduce alternatives... like a gameworld thats worth to be explored.... places that are worth to be re-visited over and over again because they are fun.
No, that does not exist in this game.
Cryptic better should start thinking about if such idiotic changes like the limitation of reputation system lead to a better game OR if this just something that 0 effect other than making long term players angry (because this is really the case).
Long term players being dramatically more powerful than new players isn't a problem... when you have and can supply content that keeps those out-and-ahead players segregated completely from lower level players.
Level 50 comes on fast in STO, and y'know what? If they kept up their current expansion of power creep via rep passives, you'd probably have a ship that, on passives alone, was literally twice as powerful as newly minted level 50 ship... running the same damned content as the newly minted level 50.
This is a huge problem when it comes to content development, as the median, that is the balance point where a level 50 newbie and lvl 50 god moder can both play the same content is, essentially, non-existant. The newbies would, mostly, be unable to complete content. Those with hyper optimized builds and excellent team work would be able to get there eventually, maybe, the rest would probably flip Cryptic the bird and wander off to something more enticing. At the other end of the spectrum, the repped up, super-powered players would occaisionally have to roll their head around and maybe change the direction of their drool channel when destroying everything in their path with no risk of failure.
Such a design creates a paradigm that will, eventually, become unenjoyable, unappealing, and untenable to all parties. These changes to the way powers work opens wide the doors for Cryptic to continue adding new gear and reputation to allow more mixing and matching while putting in place fairly solid guidelines and limits for how powerful a player can be at any given time which allows them to design content that can actually challenge repped up players while still being, albeit with some difficulty, within the reach of players who are not repped up. It also has the wondrous side effect of meaning hitting tier two in all rep systems giving you 8 traits to mix and match each for space and ground, putting new players much closer to veteran players, mechanically speaking, in a much shorter amount of time.
If you feel Keel'el's effect is well designed, please, for your own safety, be very careful around shallow pools of water.
Hope that they will make reputation account wide unlock so that old players dont hawe to waste time for all of thos reputation for our alts. Boost from main is nice but with many characters and too many reputation is still quite anoing to grind reputation for alts...
I already know what to do. Slot all the T2 passive space damage boosts, and sure I'll loose some durability, but my dps increase will compensate for it.
What testing is needed? Its clear as day to see what to do. No need to tribble it.
Will it ... well I guess you will find out how much those rep defensive passives where really helping you out I guess.
Seriously in PvE you are correct many people will go with the offense passives... and all this change will do will stop future Rep creep which is fine really.
In PvP though ya you are going to miss those defensive passives 100%... and if you take the defensive passives you will miss the extra dmg... either option is usable... and perhaps Hybrid 2 defense 2 offense will be a good way to go in PvP as well....
Respecs are free and on the fly... and I only see this opening more real choices in builds.
For PvP all offense will NOT always be the best option.
For PvE as it stands ya your likely right... because PvE is just a silly DPS race.
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.
and the Bridge officers, the captain traits and the captain skills...
I am going to dispute the fact that reputation powers are negligeable.
I tailored my characters reputation carefully to take care of weakness I figured out and certain of these powers gave me a significant boost to my ship/captain capabilities like Active Hull Hardening.
Now, if it ends up as a limited slots system like Captain traits, Space/Ground Duty Officers, it is going to be easy: the most useful reputation traits in certain reputations will be taken and the rest will be completely ignored for 99% of the players.
You have 4 slots to choose of 16 abilities: that is a no brainer for me.
After, for new players, I am sorry but it is not because you have reached Level 50 that your progress is finished and that you should be at the same level as veteran players who spent weeks to get to the higher end.
If Cryptic wants to uplift new players, ok but not at the expense of veterans.
I will be also deactivating half of my rep passives on 16 toons... no different for me.
However I guess your right. Cause I enjoy playing MMOs because I enjoy playing with other people. At the rate creep has been happening in STO... it won't be long before there is no one left to play with.
Yes I admit it in my case most of friends over the last 4 years have left STO... so to keep playing I have to make new friends all the time. Which I don't mind doing its cool I have met plenty of cool people the last 4 years .... however with out some major changes that is going to end.
So yes I am very self serving. I want a health game that attracts new players... and gives my old friends reasons to pop back in and enjoy the game even if it is even only for a few weeks at a time here and there.
The problem is, this wont matter to new players. New players wont care that their ship is not good enough yet in elite stfs.
If this was a pvp only game, it would matter. But it is not. Its a mostly PVE game.
All this does is alienate a bunch of old players. New players wont care, unless they check the forums of the game first and see "Lol lot of rage here, People are upset with this company. Guess I should go play TOR" or something like that.
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
Will it ... well I guess you will find out how much those rep defensive passives where really helping you out I guess.
Seriously in PvE you are correct many people will go with the offense passives... and all this change will do will stop future Rep creep which is fine really.
In PvP though ya you are going to miss those defensive passives 100%... and if you take the defensive passives you will miss the extra dmg... either option is usable... and perhaps Hybrid 2 defense 2 offense will be a good way to go in PvP as well....
Respecs are free and on the fly... and I only see this opening more real choices in builds.
For PvP all offense will NOT always be the best option.
For PvE as it stands ya your likely right... because PvE is just a silly DPS race.
So I will be destroyed in less than 1 second now????
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Well cryptic this is it! In four years you manged to build things up in the right direction again and tear it down! you always get us use to something then change to so that we have to learn it all over again. Or change the monetary system to lower the amount of currencies only to end up with more than you set out to delete. Or reset the skill tree to make things easier only to use the same excuse to do it again. Its like you find it easier to do that instead of adjust the game to the rep that YOU had us grind for then take it away! That in itself is a rip off! How dare you think that it would be ok to let us grind our tails off so you can take it away! You claim its so that a New VA can compete with an experienced one which is a lie! What you are really saying is that you want a new player in the game to be as equal as the ones that have been here since this MMO began! How can you do all of this to the folks that have been loyal customers and that have put up with all of this because of their love for star trek? In my opinion this is the last straw and I will be contacting CBS to let them know that your incompetence is running this game into the direction that star wars went, RIGHT DOWN THE DRAIN! If this goes live I know that myself and several other players I have talked to will be calling it quits in STO. SHAME ON YOU!!!! :mad:
END THE WELFARE PROGRAM CRYPTIC OR MAYBE WE NEED TO END YOURS!!!
Well, I can see the reasoning behind it. We couldn't carry on indefinitely adding reputation trees and additional rep powers, I understand that.
However... this means my existing maxed-rep toons, that I worked bloomin' hard for, are getting nerfed. Even if the individual powers are being increased in effectiveness (and nothing in the blog suggests that they're all being doubled in effectiveness, though the number of slots is getting halved), I'm still losing the synergies that I get between the existing power sets. That makes a surprising amount of difference.
On a specific note, losing Rotating Weapons Frequency is a real kick in the teeth to anyone who's grinding up Omega rep... slowing Borg adaptation is a big deal in ground combat, and nothing about the proposed replacement suggests it will be anything like as useful in that situation.
And, of course, it means more choice... and more faffing around and fiddling. If I wanted to spend half an hour choosing which power to go with which outfit for which occasion, I'd go be a Barbie doll. (Same with these wretched "loadouts", which I personally don't want to bother with, except that it might be the only way to get the game to remember which boffs I've got slotted when I change ships.)
On balance, then - so far, I'm not impressed. Yes, I can see that we need some different approach to the end-game content... I am not anywhere near convinced that this is the right one.
Well, if anything, I will start producing more fleet marks. For me, going after the other reputations are now pointless.
Agreed there. Unless they'll make a new "Lockbox reputation". it will be unlocked by Lobi Crystals, not marks.
I can see the powers....
Lockbox tier 1: 50% damage or defense boost on ground.
Lockbox tier 2: 50% damage or defense boost in space.
Lockbox tier 3: 50% chance to kill enemy on hit, or ignore an incoming hit on ground (bad news T-rexes) .
Lockbox tier 4: 50% chance to kill enemy on hit, or ignore an incoming hit in spesssh.
Lockbox tier 5: I win button, kills all enemies on the map. Uses 200 zen per charge.
It will come out with the Borg Lockbox, which will have the Borg Cube ship.
Universal Commander and 3 Lt com universal Bridge officers, 4-4 weapon slots, 4 eng, 1 sci, 5 tac console slots, 1.5 shield modifier, cruiser commands, sensor analysis, and a 0.0000000000000000001% chance to drop per lockbox.
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
If you had 8 nickels before, and now you have 4 dimes, is that a nerf because you have half as many coins?
It is a nerf becasue with 8 nickles i have 8 abilities now the plan is to have only 4. You cant use this 8 nickles equals 4 dimes arguement. 8 reduced to 4 is a nerf and a complete lvl 50 player should be better than a fresh lvl 50 player. Why do you have to make everyone the same. Part of doing the rep grinds is to get extra abilities. At some point yes there should be a limit. How about this, leave it at the current level, 8 abilities and make them swapable. I am very disappointed that all the hard work and time I have spent getting my characters through the rep systems is about to be invalidated! If you need to change something dont make it worse.
So I will be destroyed in less than 1 second now????
Not if you build right. PvP honestly is still very possible with out a ton of rep. Yes this change should make PvP more accessable for most people honestly. Yes I can tool around in one of my tacs and pop people stupid fast... but right now I can do that while retaining basicly 2 free Armor units... + double shield regen... and annoyinng things like On Crit hit shield regeneration.
So right now if you are built right and survive my attack... you still have little chance to be honest because I can tank you as well.
This change will mean if I want to maintain that extra bonus on the offense side... I have to drop ALL my defensive rep perks... which are pretty hefty really.
I don't see this being a major change in PvP in general... if we are comparing 2 teams that both had full reps... this will however make a huge difference for new players who only had a few rep tiers. (enough to activate 4 tier 2s for example). So yes it will be more about skill.
If you are serious about doing more in PvP though msg me if you would like some build help... or stop by the PvP seciton on the forum... lots of great info there and honestly 99% of the people that post there regular like are all very nice and helpful. We enjoy helping new players (sorry new to PvP or those not super in love with it you know what I mean) learn a little more and improve. Having more good players to shot at and be shot by is VERY good. Yes it is one reason why you will so likely more PvP players liking this change then PvE players... still maintain its better for both game modes... but ya anyway... hit us up if you are interested.
1: Rotating Weapon Frequency: This is a terrible idea. First of all there isn't a module to get that isn't consumable that resets our frequency immediately even at max Omega rep. You have to go down there, kill borg, get their parts, put it together and make consumeable ones and that's IF you have a separate unnecessary system of crafting tiers unrelated to the crafting levels we already deal with. This needs serious work if it's to be handled properly to give those of us who actually put the time in for both crafting and for reputation to reach max to benefit from both.
2: Romulan Sensor Assault Placate: Once again science builds get nerfed. Seriously? Was this necessary? It rarely did it even with cannons but it was just enough for those of us who enjoy PVE on a science to have made an actual placate build.
Here's how you do it. Sensors/Countermeasure Systems maxed , Genetic Resequencer: Intimidating Strikes, Research Lab Scientist (Placate with Charged Particle Burst), Typical sensor skills (jam/confuse).
You've successfully broken this build with this change to the game because now science builds can't rely on abilities like FAW without becoming targets of everyone but still maintaining a level of defense because the enemies would sometimes stop targeting us.
Romulan -th modules actually don't do their job when using FAW either, because their -th reduction is tiny and doesn't force the enemies to start attacking other targets like Sensor Assault did. There's also no Doff that reduces the cooldown of sensor skills specifically to allow for faster deployment of placate powers (included in this doff should be things like Jam Sensors, Charged Particle Burst, Scramble Sensors) if we had one it would make all the difference.
This is a terrible idea doing this to an already weakened class who's only options before the intimidate/sensor assault was to have all anomolies all the time!
There will be no respec tokens for traits. You will be FREE to change them when ever you like out of combat for FREE.
Great, after I just recently spent 300 zen to respec.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I also like it how the devs, and those who like this change, both totally ignore my idea of making rep gear cheaper and rep progress easier and faster to help new players.
Wonder why..... lol :rolleyes:
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
Well cryptic this is it! In four years you manged to build things up in the right direction again and tear it down! you always get us use to something then change to so that we have to learn it all over again. Or change the monetary system to lower the amount of currencies only to end up with more than you set out to delete. Or reset the skill tree to make things easier only to use the same excuse to do it again. Its like you find it easier to do that instead of adjust the game to the rep that YOU had us grind for then take it away! That in itself is a rip off! How dare you think that it would be ok to let us grind our tails off so you can take it away! You claim its so that a New VA can compete with an experienced one which is a lie! What you are really saying is that you want a new player in the game to be as equal as the ones that have been here since this MMO began! How can you do all of this to the folks that have been loyal customers and that have put up with all of this because of their love for star trek? In my opinion this is the last straw and I will be contacting CBS to let them know that your incompetence is running this game into the direction that star wars went, RIGHT DOWN THE DRAIN! If this goes live I know that myself and several other players I have talked to will be calling it quits in STO. SHAME ON YOU!!!! :mad:
Not if you build right. PvP honestly is still very possible with out a ton of rep. Yes this change should make PvP more accessable for most people honestly. Yes I can tool around in one of my tacs and pop people stupid fast... but right now I can do that while retaining basicly 2 free Armor units... + double shield regen... and annoyinng things like On Crit hit shield regeneration.
So right now if you are built right and survive my attack... you still have little chance to be honest because I can tank you as well.
This change will mean if I want to maintain that extra bonus on the offense side... I have to drop ALL my defensive rep perks... which are pretty hefty really.
I don't see this being a major change in PvP in general... if we are comparing 2 teams that both had full reps... this will however make a huge difference for new players who only had a few rep tiers. (enough to activate 4 tier 2s for example). So yes it will be more about skill.
If you are serious about doing more in PvP though msg me if you would like some build help... or stop by the PvP seciton on the forum... lots of great info there and honestly 99% of the people that post there regular like are all very nice and helpful. We enjoy helping new players (sorry new to PvP or those not super in love with it you know what I mean) learn a little more and improve. Having more good players to shot at and be shot by is VERY good. Yes it is one reason why you will so likely more PvP players liking this change then PvE players... still maintain its better for both game modes... but ya anyway... hit us up if you are interested.
My kdf can hang in pvp. She's not the best but usually in the middle of a group of 10. Why? I bought the dyson ship. The special console can actually hurt (but not kill) the superships. The special shield allows 20 seconds of survival.
My fed does not have a special ship. Maybe if they implement the no teams arena I will buy one. As it is the perspective of rep making a difference is amongst a team that all has special ship clicky console and super boffs all with the same annoying build. Sure, it makes a difference there on a level field. But if you're flying around in a free ship - NO - it makes no difference at all. I can hit for 30000 and maybe bring someone to 99%. Whoopie.
This will only make balance in pvp worse. No teams, and or ranking is the only thing that will help.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
These changes are interesting but the limitation of only 4 space traits is really low. Many of us are using mixed builds. Now things are going to be quite simple - engineers will take all defense traits, tactical all OP 5% crit 20% severity and stuff like that, science will have to think how to balance the things.
Respecs are free out of combat. So any character can switch their choices on the fly, meaning an engineer can go all defense for one fleet action and then swap into something entirely different 20 minutes later for some other mission.
I also like it how the devs, and those who like this change, both totally ignore my idea of making rep gear cheaper and rep progress easier and faster to help new players.
Wonder why..... lol :rolleyes:
Most likely because it was covered in a previous dev blog that they ARE making rep gear cheaper and rep progress easier and faster to get through. Like two blogs ago.
I also like it how the devs, and those who like this change, both totally ignore my idea of making rep gear cheaper and rep progress easier and faster to help new players.
Wonder why..... lol :rolleyes:
Make this change, and make gear easier to acquire and repping up go faster.
Just doing the latter is a waste of time when taking the long view for the game. If you stop to think about it, the rapid roll out and tinkering with of the rep systems since their inception was virtually aimed at getting enough of them up and running, and by extension enough players repped up and experienced with them, to allow them to make this change. They have hard, on-Holodeck metrics to work with RE: the impact of rep passives and are, probably, right at the limit of the point where they can design content that both newly minted lvl 50 players and maxed out lvl 50 players can both play where it's still theoretically possible that the latter might die while the former can still last long enough to constantly explode when compared to the average skill levels of their playerbase... of which you, yes you, and me, and you will only ever see a small fraction of.
If you feel Keel'el's effect is well designed, please, for your own safety, be very careful around shallow pools of water.
Comments
Sadly I think the answer is that reputation doesn't earn the company $$$. Selling magic console and special ship does. Now one can have the I win ship on their new toon in 3 days.
Most games are following this model. Lotro followed the traits per level model this past thanksgiving.
The worst example was battlestar galactica. There, the I win large ship was near $1000. The I win fighter was maybe $400. Plus maybe 10$ an hour to operate with endless magic heals and bullets. Here at least we have more choices of what to fly and it's a lot cheaper. But it seems a similar path.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I already know what to do. Slot all the T2 passive space damage boosts, and sure I'll loose some durability, but my dps increase will compensate for it.
What testing is needed? Its clear as day to see what to do. No need to tribble it.
I will be also deactivating half of my rep passives on 16 toons... no different for me.
However I guess your right. Cause I enjoy playing MMOs because I enjoy playing with other people. At the rate creep has been happening in STO... it won't be long before there is no one left to play with.
Yes I admit it in my case most of friends over the last 4 years have left STO... so to keep playing I have to make new friends all the time. Which I don't mind doing its cool I have met plenty of cool people the last 4 years .... however with out some major changes that is going to end.
So yes I am very self serving. I want a health game that attracts new players... and gives my old friends reasons to pop back in and enjoy the game even if it is even only for a few weeks at a time here and there.
Long term players being dramatically more powerful than new players isn't a problem... when you have and can supply content that keeps those out-and-ahead players segregated completely from lower level players.
Level 50 comes on fast in STO, and y'know what? If they kept up their current expansion of power creep via rep passives, you'd probably have a ship that, on passives alone, was literally twice as powerful as newly minted level 50 ship... running the same damned content as the newly minted level 50.
This is a huge problem when it comes to content development, as the median, that is the balance point where a level 50 newbie and lvl 50 god moder can both play the same content is, essentially, non-existant. The newbies would, mostly, be unable to complete content. Those with hyper optimized builds and excellent team work would be able to get there eventually, maybe, the rest would probably flip Cryptic the bird and wander off to something more enticing. At the other end of the spectrum, the repped up, super-powered players would occaisionally have to roll their head around and maybe change the direction of their drool channel when destroying everything in their path with no risk of failure.
Such a design creates a paradigm that will, eventually, become unenjoyable, unappealing, and untenable to all parties. These changes to the way powers work opens wide the doors for Cryptic to continue adding new gear and reputation to allow more mixing and matching while putting in place fairly solid guidelines and limits for how powerful a player can be at any given time which allows them to design content that can actually challenge repped up players while still being, albeit with some difficulty, within the reach of players who are not repped up. It also has the wondrous side effect of meaning hitting tier two in all rep systems giving you 8 traits to mix and match each for space and ground, putting new players much closer to veteran players, mechanically speaking, in a much shorter amount of time.
Will it ... well I guess you will find out how much those rep defensive passives where really helping you out I guess.
Seriously in PvE you are correct many people will go with the offense passives... and all this change will do will stop future Rep creep which is fine really.
In PvP though ya you are going to miss those defensive passives 100%... and if you take the defensive passives you will miss the extra dmg... either option is usable... and perhaps Hybrid 2 defense 2 offense will be a good way to go in PvP as well....
Respecs are free and on the fly... and I only see this opening more real choices in builds.
For PvP all offense will NOT always be the best option.
For PvE as it stands ya your likely right... because PvE is just a silly DPS race.
and the Bridge officers, the captain traits and the captain skills...
I am going to dispute the fact that reputation powers are negligeable.
I tailored my characters reputation carefully to take care of weakness I figured out and certain of these powers gave me a significant boost to my ship/captain capabilities like Active Hull Hardening.
Now, if it ends up as a limited slots system like Captain traits, Space/Ground Duty Officers, it is going to be easy: the most useful reputation traits in certain reputations will be taken and the rest will be completely ignored for 99% of the players.
You have 4 slots to choose of 16 abilities: that is a no brainer for me.
After, for new players, I am sorry but it is not because you have reached Level 50 that your progress is finished and that you should be at the same level as veteran players who spent weeks to get to the higher end.
If Cryptic wants to uplift new players, ok but not at the expense of veterans.
The problem is, this wont matter to new players. New players wont care that their ship is not good enough yet in elite stfs.
If this was a pvp only game, it would matter. But it is not. Its a mostly PVE game.
All this does is alienate a bunch of old players. New players wont care, unless they check the forums of the game first and see "Lol lot of rage here, People are upset with this company. Guess I should go play TOR" or something like that.
So I will be destroyed in less than 1 second now????
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Well they may in fact read the TOR forums as well... in which case its a toss up. lol
However... this means my existing maxed-rep toons, that I worked bloomin' hard for, are getting nerfed. Even if the individual powers are being increased in effectiveness (and nothing in the blog suggests that they're all being doubled in effectiveness, though the number of slots is getting halved), I'm still losing the synergies that I get between the existing power sets. That makes a surprising amount of difference.
On a specific note, losing Rotating Weapons Frequency is a real kick in the teeth to anyone who's grinding up Omega rep... slowing Borg adaptation is a big deal in ground combat, and nothing about the proposed replacement suggests it will be anything like as useful in that situation.
And, of course, it means more choice... and more faffing around and fiddling. If I wanted to spend half an hour choosing which power to go with which outfit for which occasion, I'd go be a Barbie doll. (Same with these wretched "loadouts", which I personally don't want to bother with, except that it might be the only way to get the game to remember which boffs I've got slotted when I change ships.)
On balance, then - so far, I'm not impressed. Yes, I can see that we need some different approach to the end-game content... I am not anywhere near convinced that this is the right one.
Agreed there. Unless they'll make a new "Lockbox reputation". it will be unlocked by Lobi Crystals, not marks.
I can see the powers....
Lockbox tier 1: 50% damage or defense boost on ground.
Lockbox tier 2: 50% damage or defense boost in space.
Lockbox tier 3: 50% chance to kill enemy on hit, or ignore an incoming hit on ground (bad news T-rexes) .
Lockbox tier 4: 50% chance to kill enemy on hit, or ignore an incoming hit in spesssh.
Lockbox tier 5: I win button, kills all enemies on the map. Uses 200 zen per charge.
It will come out with the Borg Lockbox, which will have the Borg Cube ship.
Universal Commander and 3 Lt com universal Bridge officers, 4-4 weapon slots, 4 eng, 1 sci, 5 tac console slots, 1.5 shield modifier, cruiser commands, sensor analysis, and a 0.0000000000000000001% chance to drop per lockbox.
It is a nerf becasue with 8 nickles i have 8 abilities now the plan is to have only 4. You cant use this 8 nickles equals 4 dimes arguement. 8 reduced to 4 is a nerf and a complete lvl 50 player should be better than a fresh lvl 50 player. Why do you have to make everyone the same. Part of doing the rep grinds is to get extra abilities. At some point yes there should be a limit. How about this, leave it at the current level, 8 abilities and make them swapable. I am very disappointed that all the hard work and time I have spent getting my characters through the rep systems is about to be invalidated! If you need to change something dont make it worse.
Good idea, but I bet Cryptic would be too lazy to do it. Or it could be tied to DPS counter.
Not if you build right.
So right now if you are built right and survive my attack... you still have little chance to be honest because I can tank you as well.
This change will mean if I want to maintain that extra bonus on the offense side... I have to drop ALL my defensive rep perks... which are pretty hefty really.
I don't see this being a major change in PvP in general... if we are comparing 2 teams that both had full reps... this will however make a huge difference for new players who only had a few rep tiers. (enough to activate 4 tier 2s for example). So yes it will be more about skill.
If you are serious about doing more in PvP though msg me if you would like some build help... or stop by the PvP seciton on the forum... lots of great info there and honestly 99% of the people that post there regular like are all very nice and helpful. We enjoy helping new players (sorry new to PvP or those not super in love with it you know what I mean) learn a little more and improve. Having more good players to shot at and be shot by is VERY good. Yes it is one reason why you will so likely more PvP players liking this change then PvE players... still maintain its better for both game modes... but ya anyway... hit us up if you are interested.
1: Rotating Weapon Frequency: This is a terrible idea. First of all there isn't a module to get that isn't consumable that resets our frequency immediately even at max Omega rep. You have to go down there, kill borg, get their parts, put it together and make consumeable ones and that's IF you have a separate unnecessary system of crafting tiers unrelated to the crafting levels we already deal with. This needs serious work if it's to be handled properly to give those of us who actually put the time in for both crafting and for reputation to reach max to benefit from both.
2: Romulan Sensor Assault Placate: Once again science builds get nerfed. Seriously? Was this necessary? It rarely did it even with cannons but it was just enough for those of us who enjoy PVE on a science to have made an actual placate build.
Here's how you do it. Sensors/Countermeasure Systems maxed , Genetic Resequencer: Intimidating Strikes, Research Lab Scientist (Placate with Charged Particle Burst), Typical sensor skills (jam/confuse).
You've successfully broken this build with this change to the game because now science builds can't rely on abilities like FAW without becoming targets of everyone but still maintaining a level of defense because the enemies would sometimes stop targeting us.
Romulan -th modules actually don't do their job when using FAW either, because their -th reduction is tiny and doesn't force the enemies to start attacking other targets like Sensor Assault did. There's also no Doff that reduces the cooldown of sensor skills specifically to allow for faster deployment of placate powers (included in this doff should be things like Jam Sensors, Charged Particle Burst, Scramble Sensors) if we had one it would make all the difference.
This is a terrible idea doing this to an already weakened class who's only options before the intimidate/sensor assault was to have all anomolies all the time!
Tie it to DPS counter... yes lets make it impossible for people to do STFs as engi or sci unless they run full escort mode.
There will be no respec tokens for traits. You will be FREE to change them when ever you like out of combat for FREE.
I can make a science ship with a science officer or a cruiser with an engineer that can do decent damage.
The devil is in the details. You assume the DPS counter would be 30k dps. Honestly, putting it at 3-4k dps for elites would be totally doable.
Basically, that's a team with a good chance for the optional as long as they use team chat.
Lets make game more complicated, lets make even hardcore players go away!
Good work Cryptic, way to go.
Great, after I just recently spent 300 zen to respec.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Wonder why..... lol :rolleyes:
Can I haz ur stuff?
My kdf can hang in pvp. She's not the best but usually in the middle of a group of 10. Why? I bought the dyson ship. The special console can actually hurt (but not kill) the superships. The special shield allows 20 seconds of survival.
My fed does not have a special ship. Maybe if they implement the no teams arena I will buy one. As it is the perspective of rep making a difference is amongst a team that all has special ship clicky console and super boffs all with the same annoying build. Sure, it makes a difference there on a level field. But if you're flying around in a free ship - NO - it makes no difference at all. I can hit for 30000 and maybe bring someone to 99%. Whoopie.
This will only make balance in pvp worse. No teams, and or ranking is the only thing that will help.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Respecs are free out of combat. So any character can switch their choices on the fly, meaning an engineer can go all defense for one fleet action and then swap into something entirely different 20 minutes later for some other mission.
Most likely because it was covered in a previous dev blog that they ARE making rep gear cheaper and rep progress easier and faster to get through. Like two blogs ago.
Make this change, and make gear easier to acquire and repping up go faster.
Just doing the latter is a waste of time when taking the long view for the game. If you stop to think about it, the rapid roll out and tinkering with of the rep systems since their inception was virtually aimed at getting enough of them up and running, and by extension enough players repped up and experienced with them, to allow them to make this change. They have hard, on-Holodeck metrics to work with RE: the impact of rep passives and are, probably, right at the limit of the point where they can design content that both newly minted lvl 50 players and maxed out lvl 50 players can both play where it's still theoretically possible that the latter might die while the former can still last long enough to constantly explode when compared to the average skill levels of their playerbase... of which you, yes you, and me, and you will only ever see a small fraction of.