the rep revamp makes doing the rep much quicker not sure what there is to hate except maybe the whole trait part, that I think needs a little rethinking out like letting us have a few more traits to have instead of just four may 6-8 even if I have to purchase them from the c-store I would be happier.
because most of us wasted a lot TIME and dilithium
After looking at it.................................
This will hurt the game overall
new players will see all of the new rep systems and feel defeted when they see how far behind they are and simply quit
Adding more and more rep systems will be defeating in the long run to aquiring new players that will stick with the game
cryptic needs to rethink this.............more reps are not needed
end game content is what is needed
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
that's the general consensus from everyone I have spoken to in game... we are just going pick the 4 best traits and then forget about them..
the devs seem to think this game is more in depth than it actually is. Like we are going to load into Fleet Alert and be like ohhh its Tholians this time let me tweak everything for a mild bonus I'll just have to re tweak in 10 minutes when I re run another mission for the umpteenth time.
Except that it will be limited to switching traits in ground social maps like ESD or DS9 and sector space only. We won't be able to switch species/rep traits in the middle of a system map or ground area where combat takes place. So if you get stuck with Tholains in fleet alert, you have to make do with the traits you chose because the only other option will be to abandon the team to rechoose your traits but then when you get in again you might be going against the borg or klingons or even romulans.
To be honest I don't like the idea of trying to make reputation traits "situational" as in being better suited for certain content. It just flat out won't work.
How much ground content will there be for going agianst the undine? I can think of a few episodes and that's pretty much it. So why bother taking ground traits better suited for fighting the undine when most players don't want to spend their time replaying a few episodes over and over?
There isn't enough content with specific enemy types that most players will want to do over and over for the traits to be the most effective. How many players actually hang out at Nukara Prime all day long? Probably not very many compared to the overall population of the game. How much other ground content is there with tholians? Not much. A couple instances on new romulus unlocked from gaining tier 3 and 4 of the romulan rep. How much space content is there for fighting tholians? Again, not much. You have the Tau Dewa sector daily which is pointless to do more than once a day. You have Azure Nebula Rescue and The Vault: Ensnared in the PVE queues and that's about it. I don't recall fighting tholians in any episodes.
And why are there EV suits in the nukara reputation store? It's better to go with 1 of the 3 EV suit ground sets and there isn't enough ground content you can take your boffs in that require an EV suit to fight tholians, just the 2 instance dailies on new romulus that you can only do once a day. So what's the point?
Bottom line is that if you want to make the reputation traits better suited for specific type of content, there has to be enough content to make it worth using.
that's the general consensus from everyone I have spoken to in game... we are just going pick the 4 best traits and then forget about them..
the devs seem to think this game is more in depth than it actually is. Like we are going to load into Fleet Alert and be like ohhh its Tholians this time let me tweak everything for a mild bonus I'll just have to re tweak in 10 minutes when I re run another mission for the umpteenth time.
I agree. Even if we had a traits loadout save/load feature (they'll probably add one in the future), I'm not sure I used it.
I forget all the time to swap back and all that, so I usually stick with what I have.
As for situational traits I don't like it. You no longer work on a loadout you like, you just put every traits with "undine" in the description when fighting Undine. It's easy, cheap, and a waste of time (could be automatic).
because most of us wasted a lot TIME and dilithium
you don't spend Dilithium on the projects themselves only the store stuff and armo and space sets, and if it was a waste of time for you why are you here, I myself enjoy the Rep I have 28 characters so I must like doing it or I wouldn't be here.
And yes I do rep on all 28.
After looking at it.................................
This will hurt the game overall
new players will see all of the new rep systems and feel defeted when they see how far behind they are and simply quit
Adding more and more rep systems will be defeating in the long run to aquiring new players that will stick with the game
cryptic needs to rethink this.............more reps are not needed
end game content is what is needed
the rep system is optional you don't really need it at end game, it is just a bonus in passives and a few powers but you can do end game fine with out.
the rep system is optional you don't really need it at end game, it is just a bonus in passives and a few powers but you can do end game fine with out.
The rep system is the endgame. Unless you count PvP or Blackhole Starbase building. Removing any part of the desire to participate in the endgame is a bad idea in my honest opinion.
Sure their are still reasons to do the reputations, but not as much of a reason. And the character progression, AKA power creep, is one of the major motivators for many.
The rep system is the endgame. Unless you count PvP or Blackhole Starbase building.
That's just it though. A lot of people DO count those other things. It's kind of weird to say that rep is the end game, and so is all this other stuff, and then try to discount all that other stuff.
Reputation is part of the end-game. For sure. Along with other things.
What did you waste Dilithium on? In terms of reputation?
That's just it though. A lot of people DO count those other things. It's kind of weird to say that rep is the end game, and so is all this other stuff, and then try to discount all that other stuff.
Reputation is part of the end-game. For sure. Along with other things.
I agree with Snoggymack here; there are multiple end game areas. Reputation is one of them but there are many others.
Honesty; Cryptic doing this now is a good thing; because it was starting to get to the point where we were getting too many passives and I was wondering how many we would get; it may have been nice for them to have done this earlier; but I am sure this decision to do what they have done took many meetings and hours of discussion. I honesty seem to think of the reputation system as BOFF abilities.
You have lots of abilities; but only so many slots depending on your ship you choose; so you have to choose what you believe would work best for your build; be it offensive; defensive or debuff/control.
This new system is just a extension of it; you choose what you believe will be best for your build; offensive' defensive; and it is situational based on what you are going to do; if you are about to PvP you change your BOFF abilities and your Reputation passives to change what you think is your better PvP build.
Go into PvE and you might changed your build to be more PvE friendly; same with your reputation passives.
I myself have already been on tribble since these first came out months ago running tests on my main toon. I have enjoyed testing; crunching the numbers and deciding what i thought was best. (I went 2 defensive; 2 offensive for my ship; as long as there are any other changes i think I may have chosen the four will start season 9 with).
I can understand peoples frustrations with this change; however i personally don't believe they have "removed" anything. The options are still there; you just need to decide which 4 to use in combat; all the passives you have worked for are just sitting there; waiting to be used when you call or want them.
It is the removal of character progression that bothers me. All the equipment in the reputation system are merely side upgrades, they are not distinctly better than the gear from the fleet system or existing reputation gear. Now they are doing the same with the traits which used to fill the role of progression for many players.
Imagine if the next fleet holding released did not have a single piece of truly superior to existing gear. Would fleets bother with it? What was the main draw of constructing the spire, the tactical consoles that were flat out better than any existing. That is progression. Honestly the fleet gear is much more important for performance than rep traits ever were.
I'll still do the reps, because I enjoy playing the game and it is something to do. But if they do not put something into the game for character progression it will hurt the appeal of the game. Progression is an intrinsic part of RPGs, especially MMOs. When some players complain about 'nothing to do' in such games many times it is because of that lack of character progression options that the complaint is made. If mission quantity was the problem the foundry alone would have solved that issue ages ago. But no, the reputation system, fleet system, and Doff system are what made STO the success it currently is. The other things helped no doubt, but without the ability to progress, to directly improve your character not just increase options, it looses something important.
TLDR: Power Creep = Character Progression = Required Element of Successful MMO
My main sci will have different passives to my tac and again to my ROM. I will now build an eng which I was reluctant to do but now will because I can just get to tier 2 in a couple of reps and be as strong as my other ALTs...thank goodness for this!
Also looking forward to actually using ground traits as I have never done so before.
Another thing, I can buy lock box traits and actually use them without worrying about borking my guys.
I feel like I am being jerked around now especially when I planned on unlocking the Romulan Plasma Arrays, now I'll have to rely on random drops which seems to be more of a time waster.
"I will make the Orion Syndicate face the light of justice or burn them with it." - Captainl Kyle Nathaniel Locke, U.S.S. Excalibur NCC-98105-C
I feel like I am being jerked around now especially when I planned on unlocking the Romulan Plasma Arrays, now I'll have to rely on random drops which seems to be more of a time waste than being a goal or an improvement.
Reputation store items will be unlocked automatically from now on, but there won't be any Mk XI equipment anymore. It will all be Mk XII. I'm wondering if the Mk XI items in the rep stores I have done projects to unlock already on Holedoeck for some characters will be removed from the store or remain available but can't get on other characters who don't already have the projects slotted when season 9 launches. I hope so. I did the projects just out of boredom but I never had any intention of buying Mk XI rep store items, so it wouldn't bother me if they were removed.
It has also been said in a dev blog that prices in the reputation stores will remain unchanged. Nukara and Dyson reputation store ship weapons cost the same price but romulna plasma ship weapons in the rep store cost about 5k more. With a full fleet dilithium mine and all dilithium store discounts, romulan plasma ship weapons cost about 24k dil each while nukara and dyson cost about 19k each. It would be nice if romulan plasma ship weapons cost the same as refracting tetryon and protonic polaron ship weapons.
And the thing is, I've seen a lot of complaints since the rep system was added to the game with season 7 that plasma weapons suck, especially in pvp because players usually have a resistance to them. So why do romulan plasma ship weapons cost more than other rep store ship weapons? *sigh* Personally I love romulan plasma. Got a fleet defiant decked out with rom plasma 2 dual heavy cannons, a dual beam bank (for beam overload 1 in the ensign tac station), and 2 turrets. It's awesome.
So whether you do a project to unlock the beam arrays, or they unlock automatically, they will still have to be purchased from the rep store.
Reputation store items will be unlocked automatically from now on, but there won't be any Mk XI equipment anymore. It will all be Mk XII. I'm wondering if the Mk XI items in the rep stores I have done projects to unlock already on Holedoeck for some characters will be removed from the store or remain available but can't get on other characters who don't already have the projects slotted when season 9 launches. I hope so. I did the projects just out of boredom but I never had any intention of buying Mk XI rep store items, so it wouldn't bother me if they were removed.
It has also been said in a dev blog that prices in the reputation stores will remain unchanged. Nukara and Dyson reputation store ship weapons cost the same price but romulna plasma ship weapons in the rep store cost about 5k more. With a full fleet dilithium mine and all dilithium store discounts, romulan plasma ship weapons cost about 24k dil each while nukara and dyson cost about 19k each. It would be nice if romulan plasma ship weapons cost the same as refracting tetryon and protonic polaron ship weapons.
And the thing is, I've seen a lot of complaints since the rep system was added to the game with season 7 that plasma weapons suck, especially in pvp because players usually have a resistance to them. So why do romulan plasma ship weapons cost more than other rep store ship weapons? *sigh* Personally I love romulan plasma. Got a fleet defiant decked out with rom plasma 2 dual heavy cannons, a dual beam bank (for beam overload 1 in the ensign tac station), and 2 turrets. It's awesome.
So whether you do a project to unlock the beam arrays, or they unlock automatically, they will still have to be purchased from the rep store.
Romulan Beam Arrays drop from the crates you get doing a reputation project as well which detracts away from the point of even doing these projects where you can get anything from Mk XI to XII by the time you finish you could have all that you want. The projects are still there and you can complete them if you want but what is the point now?
"I will make the Orion Syndicate face the light of justice or burn them with it." - Captainl Kyle Nathaniel Locke, U.S.S. Excalibur NCC-98105-C
I was under the impression that Omega equipment inputs would be reduced to 3 NP instead of 5, to coincide with the Dyson rep and also the nerf to STF rewards, but they are still the same on tribble.
I was under the impression that Omega equipment inputs would be reduced to 3 NP instead of 5.
Are these being changed?
Only the Assimilated Set has been decreased to 3 per piece. The other set pieces require 5 each. This is still a decrease from the 10 they used to cost.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Only the Assimilated Set has been decreased to 3 per piece. The other set pieces require 5 each. This is still a decrease from the 10 they used to cost.
Only the Assimilated Set has been decreased to 3 per piece. The other set pieces require 5 each. This is still a decrease from the 10 they used to cost.
I wasn't quite clear on the cost in marks. Like the Dyson set space pieces are 750 marks. Will the Assimilated set go down in mark cost for Mk XII? And the Maco and Omega and Honor Guard and the Adapted cross faction variants?
Also, this is another thing I was confused by in another thread. One poster was suggesting that my current Mk X Set will get turned into a Mk XII set. But I didn't read the blog post that way to indicate that type of change would happen. I read it as the Mk XII stuff that is getting tweaked, will be tweaked. But any old MK X and Mk XI sets already acquired would stay as they are.
Is my reading of the blog post more accurate?
A lot of these changes seem pretty easy to make sense of in terms of the Nukara and Romulan Reps, it's the Borg rep where everything gets murky and confusing.
Only the Assimilated Set has been decreased to 3 per piece. The other set pieces require 5 each. This is still a decrease from the 10 they used to cost.
Ahhh, okay cool. Just shows how long its been since I bought anything from the Omega Rep, I thought they had always been 5 lol.
It is the removal of character progression that bothers me. All the equipment in the reputation system are merely side upgrades, they are not distinctly better than the gear from the fleet system or existing reputation gear. Now they are doing the same with the traits which used to fill the role of progression for many players.
Imagine if the next fleet holding released did not have a single piece of truly superior to existing gear. Would fleets bother with it? What was the main draw of constructing the spire, the tactical consoles that were flat out better than any existing. That is progression. Honestly the fleet gear is much more important for performance than rep traits ever were.
I'll still do the reps, because I enjoy playing the game and it is something to do. But if they do not put something into the game for character progression it will hurt the appeal of the game. Progression is an intrinsic part of RPGs, especially MMOs. When some players complain about 'nothing to do' in such games many times it is because of that lack of character progression options that the complaint is made. If mission quantity was the problem the foundry alone would have solved that issue ages ago. But no, the reputation system, fleet system, and Doff system are what made STO the success it currently is. The other things helped no doubt, but without the ability to progress, to directly improve your character not just increase options, it looses something important.
TLDR: Power Creep = Character Progression = Required Element of Successful MMO
You're right about the need for character progression, but character progression REQUIRES content progression to work. Leveling up is character progression; as you level up you get better (more powers, improved powers, better ships, etc.). But with this progression comes access to new content which less advanced characters do not have access to. The problem with any MMO is that eventually you hit the level cap and "finish" all of the content. Power creep isn't the solution to this problem, it is just a band-aid that is used to hold people over until new content can be released. You're supposed to spend your time trying to perfect your build by getting gear and in STO's case Rep bonuses that make you slightly better. In most MMOs this eventually leads to a level cap increase and new content that only players at the old cap can play. So those people that spent all that time getting the "best" gear now have an advantage that makes playing the new higher level content easier/faster.
The problem with Power Creep in STO is that the content isn't progressing even if the players are. It isn't about being "fair" to newly minted VA toons in the sense that we don't want them to cry because you're max rep'ed character vapes them in one shot. It is about being able to add content that is challenging enough for the top tier/completely decked out/completely rep maxed players without leaving recently capped characters completely unable to do it.
If Cryptic doesn't want to raise the level cap (understandable given it is problematic story-wise and would require them to add skills and up Mk levels on equipment and add even more powerful ships, etc) then they need to make the Rep system progressive. They need to make it so the current reps unlock at lvl 50, but you have to get maybe 2 or 3 of them to Tier 5 before the next rep or set of reps would become available. Keep the current system of limiting the number of Rep powers you can use at once, but make it so that unlocking a new tier of Rep traits also ups the number you can have slotted at once. This way whatever Rep they add in Season 10 (fingers crossed for Tribble Rep!!) can have events/BZs that are harder than the current ones so you'd need to have gotten stuff from the old Reps (or good fleet gear, etc.) to run them on elite.
(however, even my idea still completely destroys PvP and makes it only viable for people that have grinded their way through every Rep)
After looking at it.................................
This will hurt the game overall
...
cryptic needs to rethink this.............more reps are not needed
end game content is what is needed
end game content.. we've got more than enough various queues. on the KDF side (even on FED side) some of them are empty 100% of the time.
so WHAT KIND of end game content do you mean?
in most games i've played the PVP has been the end game content.
in STO after hitting max lvl, you have:
- rep grind (which is a long way considering the cost if the equipment)
- accolades to gain
- fleet, its holdings, equipment etc
- new ships
- a couple of dailies
- queues
- battlezones (a great example was the Tholian ground, and the Voth BZ)
- FOUNDRY
- PVP (ground dead)
What i am missing is CRAFTING, PVP revamp, and GROUND revamp.
Plus some kind of mass PVP, as battlezone, but plus PVP, mass scale, having impact on the game (like adding +.5% to Ctrh for the whole winning faction and Dill rewards)
Then, EXPLORATION!
IF there is to be a lvl increase, do it, but do it wisely - no higher tier ships, weapons or stuff.
Let us CRAFT for upgrades on our existing ships and stuff. Unlockable by lvl.
The way the rep system is being reset, it seems like everything has a counter. Enhanced shield penetration, for instance, will have its effect reduced by things like fortified hull and other defensive powers. Basically, what this system does is make players choose if they want more damage or more resistance. Essentially, a tac with all offensive rep powers can be countered by an eng with all defensive powers. And an eng that is already a good tank can choose to increase damage output a bit by selecting offensive powers, and vice versa with a tac. I think it will work well, at least in theory.
So far I have conciously decided not to bother buying any store unlocks, so this doesn't affect me,b ut people that did so in the past seem now to have wasted a lot of resources: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=16316431
I don't expect you'll give them those resources back, but maybe it would be neat to give a small token of compensation for those that mastered the old reputations and store unlocks?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Very few, but than again catering to vocal minorities is a sadly a very hip thing to do nowdays.
Power Creep = Character Progression = Required Element of Successful MMO
And Cryptic still doesnt want to make harder content, that's the problem with that formula.
IT works perfectly...as long as the MMO gets newer, harder +1 bosses.
It could even go the diablo 3 ROS route where you could do elite + which doesn't grant any superior rewards directly persay, but drastically increases the drop rate of blue / purple gear. Just like the current difficulty option for missions currently works.
Granted for that to work they would need to add desirable loot that does drop. Like say ultra rare weapons with 4 random mods. Odds to get a good one would be low (higher in elite +) but man would some of them be amazing.
Could even then add a few new ultra rare consoles as well. Say Tactical Consoles that granted +32% specific energy damage type and + 18% torpedo.
Would really go along way to restoring the 'random loot drop/reward' STO used to have before all the fleet holding gear power creep.
I really do wonder how many players that used to really enjoy going after say the purple Mk XII tactical consoles have been impacted now that literally no loot in STO has any real value beyond fleet/lockbox/rep gear.
Very few, but than again catering to vocal minorities is a sadly a very hip thing to do nowdays.
Power Creep = Character Progression = Required Element of Successful MMO
And Cryptic still doesnt want to make harder content, that's the problem with that formula.
IT works perfectly...as long as the MMO gets newer, harder +1 bosses.
This is a F2P model game and so their focus on a cycle of new players, versus retaining old veteran players probably fits their metrics much better in terms of profit. They're not designing this game to be tiered progression. They never were.
IF there is to be a lvl increase, do it, but do it wisely - no higher tier ships, weapons or stuff. Let us CRAFT for upgrades on our existing ships and stuff. Unlockable by lvl.
This would actually be cool.
Higher ranks could probably unlock one or two universal BOFF slots for their existing ships and the possibility to get one BOFF @ Captain rank...
Also, they could unlock one or two universal console slots...
Just thinking.
----
Exploration is something I still miss in this game... Nothing against the nebula-missions, but they could use lome tender loving care - direly.
On the other hand, my science officers are burning to explore new worlds, map new areas of space...
It would be cool having space areas without visible map you'd have to discover by yourself - the places where you've been would stay visible on the map. I think this could be for level 20+...
But I'm drifting off the actual topic of this thread...
"I came from a time long gone, saw many other times...
But I'm still a mere human."
Vice Admiral Chris Curtiss, Temporal Ambassador
This is a F2P model game and so their focus on a cycle of new players, versus retaining old veteran players probably fits their metrics much better in terms of profit. They're not designing this game to be tiered progression. They never were.
This is false. Otherwise, why would Starbases exist?
Comments
because most of us wasted a lot TIME and dilithium
This will hurt the game overall
new players will see all of the new rep systems and feel defeted when they see how far behind they are and simply quit
Adding more and more rep systems will be defeating in the long run to aquiring new players that will stick with the game
cryptic needs to rethink this.............more reps are not needed
end game content is what is needed
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Except that it will be limited to switching traits in ground social maps like ESD or DS9 and sector space only. We won't be able to switch species/rep traits in the middle of a system map or ground area where combat takes place. So if you get stuck with Tholains in fleet alert, you have to make do with the traits you chose because the only other option will be to abandon the team to rechoose your traits but then when you get in again you might be going against the borg or klingons or even romulans.
How much ground content will there be for going agianst the undine? I can think of a few episodes and that's pretty much it. So why bother taking ground traits better suited for fighting the undine when most players don't want to spend their time replaying a few episodes over and over?
There isn't enough content with specific enemy types that most players will want to do over and over for the traits to be the most effective. How many players actually hang out at Nukara Prime all day long? Probably not very many compared to the overall population of the game. How much other ground content is there with tholians? Not much. A couple instances on new romulus unlocked from gaining tier 3 and 4 of the romulan rep. How much space content is there for fighting tholians? Again, not much. You have the Tau Dewa sector daily which is pointless to do more than once a day. You have Azure Nebula Rescue and The Vault: Ensnared in the PVE queues and that's about it. I don't recall fighting tholians in any episodes.
And why are there EV suits in the nukara reputation store? It's better to go with 1 of the 3 EV suit ground sets and there isn't enough ground content you can take your boffs in that require an EV suit to fight tholians, just the 2 instance dailies on new romulus that you can only do once a day. So what's the point?
Bottom line is that if you want to make the reputation traits better suited for specific type of content, there has to be enough content to make it worth using.
I forget all the time to swap back and all that, so I usually stick with what I have.
As for situational traits I don't like it. You no longer work on a loadout you like, you just put every traits with "undine" in the description when fighting Undine. It's easy, cheap, and a waste of time (could be automatic).
you don't spend Dilithium on the projects themselves only the store stuff and armo and space sets, and if it was a waste of time for you why are you here, I myself enjoy the Rep I have 28 characters so I must like doing it or I wouldn't be here.
And yes I do rep on all 28.
the rep system is optional you don't really need it at end game, it is just a bonus in passives and a few powers but you can do end game fine with out.
The rep system is the endgame. Unless you count PvP or Blackhole Starbase building. Removing any part of the desire to participate in the endgame is a bad idea in my honest opinion.
Sure their are still reasons to do the reputations, but not as much of a reason. And the character progression, AKA power creep, is one of the major motivators for many.
What did you waste Dilithium on? In terms of reputation?
That's just it though. A lot of people DO count those other things. It's kind of weird to say that rep is the end game, and so is all this other stuff, and then try to discount all that other stuff.
Reputation is part of the end-game. For sure. Along with other things.
I agree with Snoggymack here; there are multiple end game areas. Reputation is one of them but there are many others.
Honesty; Cryptic doing this now is a good thing; because it was starting to get to the point where we were getting too many passives and I was wondering how many we would get; it may have been nice for them to have done this earlier; but I am sure this decision to do what they have done took many meetings and hours of discussion. I honesty seem to think of the reputation system as BOFF abilities.
You have lots of abilities; but only so many slots depending on your ship you choose; so you have to choose what you believe would work best for your build; be it offensive; defensive or debuff/control.
This new system is just a extension of it; you choose what you believe will be best for your build; offensive' defensive; and it is situational based on what you are going to do; if you are about to PvP you change your BOFF abilities and your Reputation passives to change what you think is your better PvP build.
Go into PvE and you might changed your build to be more PvE friendly; same with your reputation passives.
I myself have already been on tribble since these first came out months ago running tests on my main toon. I have enjoyed testing; crunching the numbers and deciding what i thought was best. (I went 2 defensive; 2 offensive for my ship; as long as there are any other changes i think I may have chosen the four will start season 9 with).
I can understand peoples frustrations with this change; however i personally don't believe they have "removed" anything. The options are still there; you just need to decide which 4 to use in combat; all the passives you have worked for are just sitting there; waiting to be used when you call or want them.
My opinion of course.
Imagine if the next fleet holding released did not have a single piece of truly superior to existing gear. Would fleets bother with it? What was the main draw of constructing the spire, the tactical consoles that were flat out better than any existing. That is progression. Honestly the fleet gear is much more important for performance than rep traits ever were.
I'll still do the reps, because I enjoy playing the game and it is something to do. But if they do not put something into the game for character progression it will hurt the appeal of the game. Progression is an intrinsic part of RPGs, especially MMOs. When some players complain about 'nothing to do' in such games many times it is because of that lack of character progression options that the complaint is made. If mission quantity was the problem the foundry alone would have solved that issue ages ago. But no, the reputation system, fleet system, and Doff system are what made STO the success it currently is. The other things helped no doubt, but without the ability to progress, to directly improve your character not just increase options, it looses something important.
TLDR: Power Creep = Character Progression = Required Element of Successful MMO
Also looking forward to actually using ground traits as I have never done so before.
Another thing, I can buy lock box traits and actually use them without worrying about borking my guys.
Just hoping its all on loadouts before s9.
Reputation store items will be unlocked automatically from now on, but there won't be any Mk XI equipment anymore. It will all be Mk XII. I'm wondering if the Mk XI items in the rep stores I have done projects to unlock already on Holedoeck for some characters will be removed from the store or remain available but can't get on other characters who don't already have the projects slotted when season 9 launches. I hope so. I did the projects just out of boredom but I never had any intention of buying Mk XI rep store items, so it wouldn't bother me if they were removed.
It has also been said in a dev blog that prices in the reputation stores will remain unchanged. Nukara and Dyson reputation store ship weapons cost the same price but romulna plasma ship weapons in the rep store cost about 5k more. With a full fleet dilithium mine and all dilithium store discounts, romulan plasma ship weapons cost about 24k dil each while nukara and dyson cost about 19k each. It would be nice if romulan plasma ship weapons cost the same as refracting tetryon and protonic polaron ship weapons.
And the thing is, I've seen a lot of complaints since the rep system was added to the game with season 7 that plasma weapons suck, especially in pvp because players usually have a resistance to them. So why do romulan plasma ship weapons cost more than other rep store ship weapons? *sigh* Personally I love romulan plasma. Got a fleet defiant decked out with rom plasma 2 dual heavy cannons, a dual beam bank (for beam overload 1 in the ensign tac station), and 2 turrets. It's awesome.
So whether you do a project to unlock the beam arrays, or they unlock automatically, they will still have to be purchased from the rep store.
Romulan Beam Arrays drop from the crates you get doing a reputation project as well which detracts away from the point of even doing these projects where you can get anything from Mk XI to XII by the time you finish you could have all that you want. The projects are still there and you can complete them if you want but what is the point now?
Are these being changed?
Only the Assimilated Set has been decreased to 3 per piece. The other set pieces require 5 each. This is still a decrease from the 10 they used to cost.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Interesting. I should have waited.
I wasn't quite clear on the cost in marks. Like the Dyson set space pieces are 750 marks. Will the Assimilated set go down in mark cost for Mk XII? And the Maco and Omega and Honor Guard and the Adapted cross faction variants?
Also, this is another thing I was confused by in another thread. One poster was suggesting that my current Mk X Set will get turned into a Mk XII set. But I didn't read the blog post that way to indicate that type of change would happen. I read it as the Mk XII stuff that is getting tweaked, will be tweaked. But any old MK X and Mk XI sets already acquired would stay as they are.
Is my reading of the blog post more accurate?
A lot of these changes seem pretty easy to make sense of in terms of the Nukara and Romulan Reps, it's the Borg rep where everything gets murky and confusing.
Ahhh, okay cool. Just shows how long its been since I bought anything from the Omega Rep, I thought they had always been 5 lol.
Thanks for the clarification JMan.
You're right about the need for character progression, but character progression REQUIRES content progression to work. Leveling up is character progression; as you level up you get better (more powers, improved powers, better ships, etc.). But with this progression comes access to new content which less advanced characters do not have access to. The problem with any MMO is that eventually you hit the level cap and "finish" all of the content. Power creep isn't the solution to this problem, it is just a band-aid that is used to hold people over until new content can be released. You're supposed to spend your time trying to perfect your build by getting gear and in STO's case Rep bonuses that make you slightly better. In most MMOs this eventually leads to a level cap increase and new content that only players at the old cap can play. So those people that spent all that time getting the "best" gear now have an advantage that makes playing the new higher level content easier/faster.
The problem with Power Creep in STO is that the content isn't progressing even if the players are. It isn't about being "fair" to newly minted VA toons in the sense that we don't want them to cry because you're max rep'ed character vapes them in one shot. It is about being able to add content that is challenging enough for the top tier/completely decked out/completely rep maxed players without leaving recently capped characters completely unable to do it.
If Cryptic doesn't want to raise the level cap (understandable given it is problematic story-wise and would require them to add skills and up Mk levels on equipment and add even more powerful ships, etc) then they need to make the Rep system progressive. They need to make it so the current reps unlock at lvl 50, but you have to get maybe 2 or 3 of them to Tier 5 before the next rep or set of reps would become available. Keep the current system of limiting the number of Rep powers you can use at once, but make it so that unlocking a new tier of Rep traits also ups the number you can have slotted at once. This way whatever Rep they add in Season 10 (fingers crossed for Tribble Rep!!) can have events/BZs that are harder than the current ones so you'd need to have gotten stuff from the old Reps (or good fleet gear, etc.) to run them on elite.
(however, even my idea still completely destroys PvP and makes it only viable for people that have grinded their way through every Rep)
To me, it always feels like they are some minority that has a bigger influence than all the other players.
But I'm still a mere human."
Vice Admiral Chris Curtiss, Temporal Ambassador
end game content.. we've got more than enough various queues. on the KDF side (even on FED side) some of them are empty 100% of the time.
so WHAT KIND of end game content do you mean?
in most games i've played the PVP has been the end game content.
in STO after hitting max lvl, you have:
- rep grind (which is a long way considering the cost if the equipment)
- accolades to gain
- fleet, its holdings, equipment etc
- new ships
- a couple of dailies
- queues
- battlezones (a great example was the Tholian ground, and the Voth BZ)
- FOUNDRY
- PVP (ground dead)
What i am missing is CRAFTING, PVP revamp, and GROUND revamp.
Plus some kind of mass PVP, as battlezone, but plus PVP, mass scale, having impact on the game (like adding +.5% to Ctrh for the whole winning faction and Dill rewards)
Then, EXPLORATION!
IF there is to be a lvl increase, do it, but do it wisely - no higher tier ships, weapons or stuff.
Let us CRAFT for upgrades on our existing ships and stuff. Unlockable by lvl.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=16316431
I don't expect you'll give them those resources back, but maybe it would be neat to give a small token of compensation for those that mastered the old reputations and store unlocks?
Very few, but than again catering to vocal minorities is a sadly a very hip thing to do nowdays.
Power Creep = Character Progression = Required Element of Successful MMO
And Cryptic still doesnt want to make harder content, that's the problem with that formula.
IT works perfectly...as long as the MMO gets newer, harder +1 bosses.
It could even go the diablo 3 ROS route where you could do elite + which doesn't grant any superior rewards directly persay, but drastically increases the drop rate of blue / purple gear. Just like the current difficulty option for missions currently works.
Granted for that to work they would need to add desirable loot that does drop. Like say ultra rare weapons with 4 random mods. Odds to get a good one would be low (higher in elite +) but man would some of them be amazing.
Could even then add a few new ultra rare consoles as well. Say Tactical Consoles that granted +32% specific energy damage type and + 18% torpedo.
Would really go along way to restoring the 'random loot drop/reward' STO used to have before all the fleet holding gear power creep.
I really do wonder how many players that used to really enjoy going after say the purple Mk XII tactical consoles have been impacted now that literally no loot in STO has any real value beyond fleet/lockbox/rep gear.
This is a F2P model game and so their focus on a cycle of new players, versus retaining old veteran players probably fits their metrics much better in terms of profit. They're not designing this game to be tiered progression. They never were.
Higher ranks could probably unlock one or two universal BOFF slots for their existing ships and the possibility to get one BOFF @ Captain rank...
Also, they could unlock one or two universal console slots...
Just thinking.
----
Exploration is something I still miss in this game... Nothing against the nebula-missions, but they could use lome tender loving care - direly.
On the other hand, my science officers are burning to explore new worlds, map new areas of space...
It would be cool having space areas without visible map you'd have to discover by yourself - the places where you've been would stay visible on the map. I think this could be for level 20+...
But I'm drifting off the actual topic of this thread...
But I'm still a mere human."
Vice Admiral Chris Curtiss, Temporal Ambassador
This is false. Otherwise, why would Starbases exist?