System Designer Jeff "AdjudicatorHawk" Hamilton shares some of the new changes to Reputation Powers in this entry of the Season 9 News Dev Blog series.
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.
Wait, I'm confused, is this your response to "the reputation powers are the only thing the system has going for it" is to gut its only selling feature based on an absurd "what if" scenario (200 reputation powers = decades, plural, of development) which is used to derive an even more absurd conclusion (that such a massive roster would influence anything but PVP) OR a response to people not buying respec tokens for 300 zen OR a response to people not using the vast majority of powers because, frankly, they're terrible OR some collection of all of those?
Either way you'd be better off making reputation's account wide so that players only have to do each one once and if you're really worried about PVP (ha ha, ha ha) just flag the skills so they do not work there (in fact you could arguably flag all of the passive buffs from accolades as well) as that people would appreciate.
But that whole account-wide reputation powers thing may be too much for some people to understand the user-value of. *shrug*
"We hope this will make the selection of your powers a set of interesting choices, and not just a single best spec that people copy from a guide."
With only 4 slots NOBODY want to waste a slot and so the next guide will come in use.
"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."
Make the powers weaker not stronger. And you are NEVER be able to make ALL Powers equal, with only 4 slots there will be Reputations that nobody want because another is better. And old Powers will be discarded because they are no longer "best in slot".
By now, many Items from the Reputationstore are useless because something else from another Reputation are better and only the powers providing a little bit help, with your changes in the future whole Reputations will become useless and all the time building the Reputation up will be wastet, again.
"We hope this will make the selection of your powers a set of interesting choices, and not just a single best spec that people copy from a guide."
With only 4 slots NOBODY want to waste a slot and so the next guide will come in use.
"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."
Make the powers weaker not stronger. And you are NEVER be able to make ALL Powers equal, with only 4 slots there will be Reputations that nobody want because another is better. And old Powers will be discarded because they are no longer "best in slot".
By now, many Items from the Reputationstore are useless because something else from another Reputation are better and only the powers providing a little bit help, with your changes in the future whole Reputations will become useless and all the time building the Reputation up will be wastet, again.
Wow ... that's a pretty big nerf for every player who has maxed out all reputation trees. However, let me guess, there will be fleet holdings in the near future in which you will sell us additional reputation trait slots for a hefty fee and an abysmal grind?
And then the "upgrade" won't work like the additional DOFF assignment slots too. After all the grinding, it will be broken and not reward the fleet members.
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Lifetime no longer gives a forum title. That should be updated on the Lifetime page that mentions what you get. PMing the CSR doesn't work neither.
I'm not opposed to change, but saying a 'fresh' lvl 50 should be the same as a veteran lvl 50 is crazy. There should be a difference and it should be earned and something to strive for. Rep is one of the things you can't buy your way through, it has to be earned.
And that's why they are doing it because of your last line. I bet they try to sell it in the C-Store additional slots thus another Pay To Win scheme.
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Lifetime no longer gives a forum title. That should be updated on the Lifetime page that mentions what you get. PMing the CSR doesn't work neither.
The other issue is some players just don't play ground or vice verse prefer ground so instead of making 4 ground and 4 space slots, how about 6 universal and you can mix and match
Ya thats true... I'm sure anything they did they would do with a eye on how people could exploit it.
A fleet gear token ya why not... hocks the 2 systems together only slightly. Encourages players doing one to contribute to the other.
Ya stuff like that the pushes there other systems on people I thnk would be doable.
They could even add a new "Reputation Gift" box. Perhaps every time you complete a Major project you could earn one. (the way Dyson gives you the gear box)... that Gift box could have anything in it from store gear... to lockbox keys... doff packs.... heck they could even make that part of a Weekend Bonus. Have "reputation weekend" where Rep marks are doubled. As well as Reputation reward boxes being gold all weekend... and having a higher drop rate of nice stuff... or even a chance to pull Lockbox ships or what ever. When completing a full tier it could reward Extra boxes.
So tier 1 completion could give 5 extra boxes... 2 could reward 10 ect.
Make that retroactive... and all the people that have full rep tiers now... could get a nice pile of boxes to open when things change.
I think that'd be pretty sane as it manages to: one, give a nice brownie to capped players; 2, leaves a nice carrot for new players to chase; and three, has a draw for weekends that fits with Cryptic's skinner box design principles.
If you feel Keel'el's effect is well designed, please, for your own safety, be very careful around shallow pools of water.
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).
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.
The worst scenario is the level of comparison between new and old players. Speaking about myself, I lost a lot of hours to up my reps (like 90% of the ppl in the server), and I did this primary because of the space traits and very little because of the items. Now if I have to lose half this - it will be a serious nerf and fun removal.
A fresh lv 50 should feel like the "world is in front of him" - a lot of things to do NOT to take Omega/Romulan and up it to 4 fast to get its traits cuz "others sux" or something like that...
Very bad move...WOW removed the talents and created a lol "traits" per 15 levlels...now Cryptic why would u follow their example?
PS: Dont forget that a lot of ppl dont care for ground stuff or simply dont bother so much like other people...why would they care for 4 ground traits which they will never use comparing to 8 space traits they use every day???
when this goes live i see no need to do more reps. means much less grind, mission (re)plays and also time spend in the game.
powercreep may be a problem. but why should a 500 dps newb be able to team up with a 40k dps player? First balance teams, then balance content and scale the difficulty (and reward) to team performance. Then we would have some kind of progression and maybe filled queues again.
I know: But the engine ... . So better just continue to copy-paste bugged code and do just another fleet-holding, rep, one or two missions that are boring and frustrating when teamed up with lesser skilled players who are unable to contribute to mission success (and we will be very gratefully for it and play it 40 times per toon for grinding), put some more bugs in it and call it a new season (with amazing new content).
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.
That's a pretty big assumption. I have seen the list of people that have supported this change... and I know a good number of them and they are long time players that have well completed reps and see why this change is good for the game.
I have 16 toons and the are all pretty much done or as done as I am worried about. I admit I have a few toons that I am fine with tier 4 on.
The other issue is some players just don't play ground or vice verse prefer ground so instead of making 4 ground and 4 space slots, how about 6 universal and you can mix and match
thats totally true actually
today you can decide to put all your skills on space because you dont want to play ground... after this change you are forced to waste skill options for something that you actually dont want to play
That's a pretty big assumption. I have seen the list of people that have supported this change... and I know a good number of them and they are long time players that have well completed reps and see why this change is good for the game.
I have 16 toons and the are all pretty much done or as done as I am worried about. I admit I have a few toons that I am fine with tier 4 on.
and I have seen an even higher amount of long term players which are totally against it
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.
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.
Comments
Wait, I'm confused, is this your response to "the reputation powers are the only thing the system has going for it" is to gut its only selling feature based on an absurd "what if" scenario (200 reputation powers = decades, plural, of development) which is used to derive an even more absurd conclusion (that such a massive roster would influence anything but PVP) OR a response to people not buying respec tokens for 300 zen OR a response to people not using the vast majority of powers because, frankly, they're terrible OR some collection of all of those?
Either way you'd be better off making reputation's account wide so that players only have to do each one once and if you're really worried about PVP (ha ha, ha ha) just flag the skills so they do not work there (in fact you could arguably flag all of the passive buffs from accolades as well) as that people would appreciate.
But that whole account-wide reputation powers thing may be too much for some people to understand the user-value of. *shrug*
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
With only 4 slots NOBODY want to waste a slot and so the next guide will come in use.
"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."
Make the powers weaker not stronger. And you are NEVER be able to make ALL Powers equal, with only 4 slots there will be Reputations that nobody want because another is better. And old Powers will be discarded because they are no longer "best in slot".
By now, many Items from the Reputationstore are useless because something else from another Reputation are better and only the powers providing a little bit help, with your changes in the future whole Reputations will become useless and all the time building the Reputation up will be wastet, again.
You hit that nail on the hand pal.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
And then the "upgrade" won't work like the additional DOFF assignment slots too. After all the grinding, it will be broken and not reward the fleet members.
Lifetime no longer gives a forum title. That should be updated on the Lifetime page that mentions what you get. PMing the CSR doesn't work neither.
And that's why they are doing it because of your last line. I bet they try to sell it in the C-Store additional slots thus another Pay To Win scheme.
Lifetime no longer gives a forum title. That should be updated on the Lifetime page that mentions what you get. PMing the CSR doesn't work neither.
I think that'd be pretty sane as it manages to: one, give a nice brownie to capped players; 2, leaves a nice carrot for new players to chase; and three, has a draw for weekends that fits with Cryptic's skinner box design principles.
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).
Sadly that is probably all to true.
The worst scenario is the level of comparison between new and old players. Speaking about myself, I lost a lot of hours to up my reps (like 90% of the ppl in the server), and I did this primary because of the space traits and very little because of the items. Now if I have to lose half this - it will be a serious nerf and fun removal.
A fresh lv 50 should feel like the "world is in front of him" - a lot of things to do NOT to take Omega/Romulan and up it to 4 fast to get its traits cuz "others sux" or something like that...
Very bad move...WOW removed the talents and created a lol "traits" per 15 levlels...now Cryptic why would u follow their example?
PS: Dont forget that a lot of ppl dont care for ground stuff or simply dont bother so much like other people...why would they care for 4 ground traits which they will never use comparing to 8 space traits they use every day???
when this goes live i see no need to do more reps. means much less grind, mission (re)plays and also time spend in the game.
powercreep may be a problem. but why should a 500 dps newb be able to team up with a 40k dps player? First balance teams, then balance content and scale the difficulty (and reward) to team performance. Then we would have some kind of progression and maybe filled queues again.
I know: But the engine ... . So better just continue to copy-paste bugged code and do just another fleet-holding, rep, one or two missions that are boring and frustrating when teamed up with lesser skilled players who are unable to contribute to mission success (and we will be very gratefully for it and play it 40 times per toon for grinding), put some more bugs in it and call it a new season (with amazing new content).
That's a pretty big assumption. I have seen the list of people that have supported this change... and I know a good number of them and they are long time players that have well completed reps and see why this change is good for the game.
I have 16 toons and the are all pretty much done or as done as I am worried about. I admit I have a few toons that I am fine with tier 4 on.
thats totally true actually
today you can decide to put all your skills on space because you dont want to play ground... after this change you are forced to waste skill options for something that you actually dont want to play
and I have seen an even higher amount of long term players which are totally against it
People are self serving in general yes its true.
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.
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.