First of let me say, many of the improvements in STO for Season 9 are awesome. Upgrading of ESD, the improved graphics (though still buggy) will iron out to give game awesomeness, in time. I have been with STO since the opening of the website, 1 yr. before the game release. If you doubt this, you can confirm this account is 1 of 5 lifetime subscriptions that won in the first contest STO ever had with the launch of the original STO website. With the launch of STO, I began to reform my original fleet of 10 yrs. from SFC:EAW (Knights Of The Federation) in STO. We have grown into a medium size fleet, mostly quiet to the good & bad choices Cryptic has made over the past 4 yrs., giving the Devs a lot of our patience to allow them to shine w/o our suggestions or complaints involved. Your Devs have been great in being creative and improving STO with leaps & bounds. With all that said, I have to break my silence and discuss with you some issues you've created with the Season 9 Rep Nerf.
I have done some reading regarding the changes to Rep system and why they are being done. From my research, the thought on the Rep Nerf was to balance PvP between new players & Vet players. I can somewhat understand why this is attempted, though I feel it is not completely fair to the Vet players, though I have seen where experienced, Vet players have use the rep traits to overpower themselves in PvE, so I can imagine exactly how they would do this to power creep in PvP. The Problem this Nerf has presented is that PvE players, including even the most experienced PvE players have suffered from this as well. The Rep system prior to Season 9 did allow the flexibility for players of FINALLY being able to build any captain, in any ship, with any skill tree build, to achieve the players desire effects in their build. However, the more advancing of the AI mobs in the game, along with this nerf, is now making limiting players back to the original building of Science captains in Science ships, Eng Captains in cruisers, etc. This also allows even the most experience players to suffer repeatedly dying in the newer PvE missions. This makes these missions even harder when you are PUG-ing these missions with inexperience players, or players that actually are trying to sabotage these missions. After just a few hrs. of play of the new Undine PvE STF missions And the Rep Nerf, I had many members of my fleet frustrated and infuriated beyond believe to the point, of either not playing those missions again w/o a fleet team, or straight out leaving the game they love, been playing for several yrs., and spending mass real money for ships and other C-store items. This is to include me. My only course of action w/o leaving the game I have committed 5 yrs. to & have been planning to play w/o competition from other MMOs, is to address you all via forums. There are also many other issues that the dedicated players need to address, & I am completely willing to discuss in a more private & direct communication, with suggestions that should be best for the game on a player basis, not a personal basis.
My recommendation of change to the current Rep system that I believe would best meet your goals for PvP, stop power creeping in the game, and still allow PvE not to over suffer from the nerfing is this:
For Space and Ground combat, there are 16 Rep Traits each, 8 offensive & 8 defensive. Prior to yesterday Season 9 launch, you were allowing us to choose ANY combination of these, where players trying to tank could be UberT-ankers, or players wanting Max DPS could be Super DPS-ers. Limiting players to 4 of the Rep skills for each type of combat, first is straight out over nerfing, and is also unfair to players who have worked hard to grind & committed huge amounts of resources for these skills, and working them in our character builds (to include Respecs, some I know I myself have spent Zen to acquired).
Return the Rep Trait System back to 16 available Rep Traits per type of combat, however, limiting each type to 8 available offensive where the player can only choose 4 offensive to use at any 1 time, & 8 available defensive that the player can only use 4 defensive at any 1 time. This gives players 4 defensive & 4 offensive Rep Traits per type of combat, balancing PvE power creep and allowing players to be to defend themselves comparatively to the strength of AI mobs. This will also somewhat achieve your goal of balancing PvP w/o experienced players that put the effort to building their toons and doing Rep System & Fleet Project leveling, wasting their time against players coming to the game, being lazy and not wanting to level Rep System & Fleet, but expect to be able to compete with the Vet player that has earn the competitive edge.
Again there are other things that players have severe complaints about that haven't been address, that need to be, and this isn't the thread for those, that dedicated players would like see address, and I'm not just referring to input I have received for my fleet members, but chats w/ players outside my fleet.
So perhaps you are not trolling and it is a case you simply do not understand the simplicity of what was being said...cause I mean, you just went through all of that - which is a combination of what I said and stuff nobody said.
If the system had continued the way it had...
Omega 2 Space (1x T2/T4)
New Rom 2 Space (1x T2/T4) 4 Space
Nukara 2 Space (1x T2/T4) 6 Space
Dyson 2 Space (1x T2/T4) 8 Space
Counter-Command 2 Space (1x T2/T4) 10 Space
Expansion 2/S10/S11/etc/etc/etc for 5 more years, adding 4 Space (1x T2/T4 for each of the two likely Reps per year)...
...we'd be looking at 30 Space Passives. Not 30 Space Passive choices...30 Space Passives actually in play.
If the system had not changed, currently there would be 10...is there would be 10 in play. Not that there would be 10 choices.
The change was made to prevent there being 30 Space Passives in play 5 years down the road. There will only be 4. 10 years, it won't be 50 Space Passives. It will be 4.
You'll have 100 Space Passives to choose from, but only be able to slot 4. Heh, seems kind of silly doesn't it? But so would having 50 Space Passives...the whole thing is an unnecessary mess.
I'm not sure why you're discussing things as if there was a change in available choices when the change was to slotting...and what that change would prevent. 16 choices 2 days ago...16 choices yesterday. That didn't change. What changed was there will not be 10 Space Passives...there will not be 12, not 14, not 50. That's why the change was implemented...
AMEM brother I feel you and the trolls are paid well.
or maybe they could play the game and earn traits like everyone else? you know...working hard to be good at things.
Or maybe just stop playing, because to experience new content, you apparently have to do the same content hundreds of times, and if you just wanted Startrek Reruns, TOS and TNG have already been digitally remastered...
How many Veterans do you think are their compared to the "young" Level 50 player? Do you think it's worth it for Cryptic to even generate content for Veterans? What if they decide to never create that super-uber-nightmare mode on Reputation 20, because only 10 % of players ever grinded that far?
The real hope I have - once they seriously start rethinking the whole power creep thing that has plagued the game, they will start looking more into support different roles and different forms of gameplays, so that the Veterans actually get the ability to experiment with meaningful different play styles. Maybe the Mirror Event will pave the way for more content suited to give different play styles options, and it will be reeinforced by more abilities also being designed into such directions.
Maybe that won't happen.
But I just can't get excited by some abritrary numbers getting bigger. My primary motivation for maxing out reputations is to get a new active power choice, and to get new gear with interesting features different from others. Secondary may be stuff like new costume options for character and ship.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
or maybe they could play the game and earn traits like everyone else? you know...working hard to be good at things.
How is it working hard, though? I mean, in all seriousness - how is it working hard to be good at things?
Do you mean by replaying things so you got better at them? The time spent playing the game - figuring out some tricks, learning about the mechanics, improving your build? None of that was lost.
But that's not what you're talking about...you're talking about losing some willy nilly Passives that never really added that much. They were little sprinkles added in.
If you were actually working hard to be good at things...that came about from actually playing. If it were a case that you just grinded along to get the Passives to take care of things, well - you were working hard to be bad at things.
But heck, let me look at one of my guys to see what the changes actually meant, eh?
Pre-S9
Precision: +3% CrtH
Sensor Targeting Assault: 20% chance on Crit to Placate for 2s
Quantum Singularity Manipulation: +100 Science Skills for 8s & 5s Cloak
Omega Weapon Training: +30 Starship Weapon Training (+15% base damage)
Omega Graviton Amplifier: 5% chance (projectile guy) for 751.4 kinetic damage (ignores shields)
Fortified Hull: +5% base Hull (1485 hull)
Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense: @125 Aux, +25 Starship Weapon Training/Starship Energy Weapons/Starship Projectile Weapons (providing +25% base damage)
Refracting Tetryon Cascade: Tet Damage chain
Advanced Targeting Systems: +10% CrtD
Tactical Advantage: Scaling damage resistance debuff
With-S9
Precision: +4% CtrH
Advanced Targeting Systems: +16% CrtD
Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense: +6.2% All Damage (non-base) & +6.2% Accuracy
Auxiliary Power Configuration - Defense: +25 Kinetic Damage Resistance Rating, +25 Energy Damage Resistance Rating, +6.2% base Hull, +6.2% base Shield Cap
Quantum Singularity Manipulation: +100 Science Skills for 8s & 5s Cloak
Refracting Tetryon Cascade: Tet Damage chain
What did I lose?
20% chance on Crit 2s Placate
+40% base projectile damage
5% chance to do 751.4 kinetic damage that ignores shields
What did I gain?
+1% CrtH
+6% CrtD
+6.2% All Damage (non-base, affecting damage from non-weapon abilities as well)
+6.2% Accuracy
+25 Kinetic DRR
+25 Energy DRR
+1.2% base Hull
+6.2% base Shield Cap
What am I looking at then?
The combination of additional CrtH, CrtD, Accuracy, and the +6.2% bonus Damage are going to increase my damage more than the +40% base would have.
The additional damage resistance rating, hull, and shield cap added more survivability to the build.
The loss of the Sensor Targeting Assault which had a 2s placate with a 20% chance on Crit which was meaningless if the target was already plac immune from being placated by somebody else...hrmmm...yeah.
Did all of my guys come out ahead? Nope, they didn't. But none of them feel worthless because of the changes.
At the end of last year I deleted 8 toons to reroll 7 of them for 2014. There were guys T5 in all four reps and guys T2-T5 in the various reps. I didn't feel that I threw away any hard work...I'd played them, along the way I picked up stuff for them...from playing them, I got better. It was the same thing when I deleted my guys for S7 the year before. It was the same thing when I deleted guys every 2-3 weeks before S7.
I suck with DHCs. I mean...I really suck with a 45 arc. I'm a torp/beam guy - I can fly a 90 arc. 45? I'm just not that good of a pilot to do that. So what did I do for my 2014 rerolls? I included guys that will be flying a 45 arc. So is it going to be a case that I get better with the 45 arc from throwing gear at it? No...I'll get better with it from playing it. With experience, I'll get better at it...gear or not.
It's not about fixing anything imho, really. It's about preventing it from getting worse down the road.
Whether it's the older missions where they're over in a blink of an eye or the newer missions with all the speedbumps where we're trying to keep our eyes open...
...it's just a case of trying to prevent that from getting worse with Passives/Traits. It's not a case of trying to prevent that from getting worse with anything else, cause there's still oodles and oodles of power creep out there that's going on without any content progression.
Cryptic's kind of looking ahead instead of barely looking past their nose.
Their were other, better, solutions to the problem then removing any progression from the reputation system.
Reducing the time to complete reputations as more were added would cut down the length of the grind to close the gap, perhaps even via introducing the system at much earlier levels with rep up rewards when ranking up.
As for content difficulty, once again the rep passives as so weak it doesn't really matter until you get into silly numbers of them. Additionally some of the passives could have been made ultra specific to only work against specific enemies or on specific builds kind of like many already do.
They took the easy way out and have created much anger among some players. I still think this change is going to bite them hard later on. If it wasn't for the ability to gain the bonus mark box in about 2 minutes playtime I probably wouldn't really even be bothering with the new rep.
So for those of you that just want to disagree with what many of us are saying about being slapped down, robbed of our hard work, to attain reputation skills, that complement $$ equipment choices......all in the name of making things fair for new players, well I'm a new player! And, I have no problem with having to work hard to get to a level that a Veteran player has obtained so that by putting that effort in, I will have more of a chance of being a real threat in both PVE and PVP situations. This "the grind" is what I and so many other players like to do, grind out gear, for those that don't well now they give you tier XII purple weapons and stuff with every new rep box you get for starting a mission.
Now, lets get down to brass tax. Prior to the rep nerf bomb, I was for the most part able to join a Dyson match and finnish within 15 minutes. Change instances and rince and repeat. I could join prety much any of the elite space missions and get a launching window and join a battle in under a minute.
Not anymore, I sat around Dyson for hours last night, I changed instances several times, not a single completion. I tried getting into crystaline elite, and several others, no luck their eiher. Maybe everyone is playing the new content for S9 but I doubt it, because those looked relatively empty as well. What's the point, I can only pick 4 space skills and 4 ground skills now!!!!!!!
Their is no more point to playing content!!!!! That is why this game will die.....no players logging into play content, team based missions, = playing against npc's on your own, = not that much fun.....And, the one crystaline mission that I finally did get into an hour later, it took a 1/2 hour to complete.........1/2 hour for 65 fleet marks.............ok not.....an hour to get into a match......ok not......several hours to try and complete a dyson run...........ok not.....
Welcome to the new STO...........what a total joke, what a total slap in the face, and I see no apologies being made for the huge disservice that has been done to the people that really keep this game going...............the ones that spend $$ on it......like me, not the new players they are trying to please that are here for a short while and then gone......well, we will all be gone if they don't revert back to the old way, because nobody likes to play by themselves, especially in team based content....
Correlation is not causation...now collective correlation as a whole could potentially create the causation you're looking for...
Take a look at Today's Post - go through a few pages. See all the issues folks are having? Add that into the new stuff folks might be doing (running 8 toons through the new FE 4 times...2x Traits, Kit, and Tac Console...is what I've been doing since S9 dropped...and it's tedious as Hell at this point...meh)...etc, etc, etc - add it all up and...yep, the collective might be the cause. Pointing to an individual element as the cause though?
Correlation is not causation...now collective correlation as a whole could potentially create the causation you're looking for...
Take a look at Today's Post - go through a few pages. See all the issues folks are having? Add that into the new stuff folks might be doing (running 8 toons through the new FE 4 times...2x Traits, Kit, and Tac Console...is what I've been doing since S9 dropped...and it's tedious as Hell at this point...meh)...etc, etc, etc - add it all up and...yep, the collective might be the cause. Pointing to an individual element as the cause though?
Also, the Undine Battlezones seem to be packed with people. So the people that were originally doing the Crystalline Entity and Dyson Queues because they had nothing else to do are now doing Undine content because it it the new shiny in Star Trek.
So for those of you that just want to disagree with what many of us are saying about being slapped down, robbed of our hard work, to attain reputation skills, that complement $$ equipment choices......all in the name of making things fair for new players, well I'm a new player! And, I have no problem with having to work hard to get to a level that a Veteran player has obtained so that by putting that effort in, I will have more of a chance of being a real threat in both PVE and PVP situations.
As one of the new players Cryptic is purportedly trying to help with this, I agree entirely. The prospect of nerfs like this one is far more worrying to me as a new player than getting crushed in PvP.
As one of the new players Cryptic is purportedly trying to help with this, I agree entirely. The prospect of nerfs like this one is far more worrying to me as a new player than getting crushed in PvP.
It's not about helping new players. It's about having a baseline that can be used to balance content but still allow for variety. All reps can be run concurrently and it takes 20 days to get all passives. That is not a big deal. The problem is designing pve content that is well tuned. You cannot do that with 48 possible passives, growing by 8 with every rep added. Think about that. Even if the content right now is designed for 8+8 traits, 2-3 reps later all of that content is now a pushover with 14+14 trait players. A well thought out encounter designed to challenge the player to their limits is now a no challenge children's game.
It's not about helping new players. It's about having a baseline that can be used to balance content but still allow for variety. All reps can be run concurrently and it takes 20 days to get all passives. That is not a big deal. The problem is designing pve content that is well tuned. You cannot do that with 48 possible passives, growing by 8 with every rep added. Think about that. Even if the content right now is designed for 8+8 traits, 2-3 reps later all of that content is now a pushover with 14+14 trait players. A well thought out encounter designed to challenge the player to their limits is now a no challenge children's game.
And that's the big problem here. A few of the players here, and boy they've been vocal about it since the revelation, want the 14+14 and the 20+20 and all of that. They feel that they're at their best when they can pulverize a PVE map in 2 minutes flat and post it on YouTube for the world to see. They want to be Q-like.
This is easily the start, but the screaming is going to get louder. Why? Because something else will be hit next and it's going to be something precious. DOFFs, maybe? BOFFs? We've already had a preview when TRIBBLE accidentally bugged out and caused the Romulan Embassy BOFFs to not stack their powers. People got livid, especially the same people who were raging about the Traits.
And that's the big problem here. A few of the players here, and boy they've been vocal about it since the revelation, want the 14+14 and the 20+20 and all of that. They feel that they're at their best when they can pulverize a PVE map in 2 minutes flat and post it on YouTube for the world to see. They want to be Q-like.
This is easily the start, but the screaming is going to get louder. Why? Because something else will be hit next and it's going to be something precious. DOFFs, maybe? BOFFs? We've already had a preview when TRIBBLE accidentally bugged out and caused the Romulan Embassy BOFFs to not stack their powers. People got livid, especially the same people who were raging about the Traits.
Thing is, Cryptic's spent the past couple of years lowering the bar for the game. That they ignored what entailed at their endgame and what it would lead to...well, they had to have seen it coming. Yet, by all appearances they didn't...or...as they mentioned with regard to wishing they'd done this one back before Nukara - there just wasn't time, something came up, got bumped from the board...and now they're going to have to deal with all the repercussions of what they've done.
Heck, figured the next drop would be with the next skill revamp with Expansion 2...but that's been pushed back to S10 or later. Like the Rep thing for Nukara...pushed back? How many other things are there out there that they'd wished they could have done sooner that are going to come around sooner or later and flood the forums, eh?
And that's the big problem here. A few of the players here, and boy they've been vocal about it since the revelation, want the 14+14 and the 20+20 and all of that. They feel that they're at their best when they can pulverize a PVE map in 2 minutes flat and post it on YouTube for the world to see. They want to be Q-like.
And they still are.
All the reputation passives combined still do not approach the power increase of a simple leech console. That is what 'I' find so irritating about this change. Those who could smash PvE encounters quickly still are. Single players are still outperforming 4 average players combined.
The only thing this trait revamp has succeeded in doing is to once again drive home the utter lack of any progression outside of a lockbox shiny. That and eliminating (some) player's trust in Cryptic.
By next season we will know the effect. By then they will have had time to look over their metrics and will either continue on with future system revamps in the same style or change course.
Does having character progression be a part of the endgame make more, or less money? Time will tell.
VirusDancer touched upon something interesting in a previous post: The loss of +40% projectile weapon damage. I checked just a moment ago to see how much this affected my transphasic torp build, and sure enough, I've lost approximately 700 points of damage on each of my rapid reload transphasics.
I pointed out my disappointment in the trait changes in a different thread. Now I'm more disappointed because of the amount of time and money I spent to create a viable torp boat build. I knew it would never be a great PVP setup, but for PVE it was pretty good. I'm starting to think that it's less of a power creep issue and more of a "buy the latest shiny we've provided" scam via nerfing.
I took some time yesterday to run normal and elite Undine STFs using this new trait system, and whether I chose offensive or defensive traits, I was still nowhere near where I used to be in damage output or defensive rating. I blew through more repair provisions than I ever have before, and the mission runs took forever to complete. This might be why none of the new missions have completion timers on them (one appears to have a timer for a bonus, but it is pure frosting).
Yeah. This rep/trait change seems to be a great way to encourage people to blow Zen on respec tokens so that they can create viable builds using the new season's toys. I feel defeated and cheated - a build I was happy with has been turned into a mediocrity, and a lot of effort has evaporated because of a change in a system that rewarded hard work with a decent set of powers for those willing to obtain Tier 4 or 5 in a reputation.
Here's the interesting part of this debacle: I now contribute less dilithium and fewer marks to fleet projects because I can't/won't spend my time in STFs that take 30 minutes to complete and reward less because of these changes in S9. I have a feeling that many more players are going to do the same thing over time, and I don't see them simply using a credit card to buy Zen and converting it to dilithium to move these projects along. There has to be a balance between earning decent rewards and spending money in an online game, and I'm of the opinion that the scale has swung way too far in one direction. It's not DOOM. It's a prediction based on individual projection and interpolation.
This happens in cycles. You can bet that yet another big change will be introduced under the guise of reigning in "power creep" in the not so distant future. Again, a lot of players will be out of luck after spending time and money on the game, and all that will be provided is silence from those responsible for the changes and a charge on your credit card bill made out to Perfect World, not to mention another lock box with an ice cube's chance in hell that you'll win the grand prize.
The trait/reputation changes were a mistake. My opinion.
Well I started this on the concept it was about balancing PvP. That was my error... my apologies. Now that out of the way, Let me say this... I DON'T WANT ANOTHER REP GRIND! I FEEL WE DON'T NEED ANYMORE REP GRINDS! I rather have 8 mild passive Reps traits to use at once with variety, than 4 normal ones that limit my toon building capabilities. Unless you have a fleet of 50 actual active players, spending twice the amount of time in-game than they do sleeping, And let's not forget, though I'm a "at-home" father & virtual schooling parent, there IS a decent percentage of working people trying to play this game as well, that want to get these grinds done as well in order to better their toons. I feel we have enough grinds between the fleet projects and the current Rep system. Yes, I know there are large fleets that have completed their fleet projects and most, if not, all their toons have maxed Reps. To them, I say' "There's a real world outside your front door, GO OUTSIDE AND ENJOY IT! Why the hell do we need anymore Rep grinding if all we going to get is more choices as a reward, but still be limited to use ONLY 4 at a time pert combat type? I was happy with the opportunity of using only 8 per combat type.
And this goes back to my original suggestion for a new re-vamp... balance the old system out by limiting the Passive Rep skills/traits by saying to the players instead of having any combo of 8 passives, change it to allowing players to only choose 4 offensive & 4 defensive PASSIVE skills/traits per combat type (AND still have the chance to change them out of combat). This also allows players to grind more Reps if they want for different situations. As I stated before, I am a dedicate tanker, its my toon, my personality in life, and the only way I play the game. I have spent 4 yrs., COUNT THEM!, developing the best damn tanks I can build first defensively, then searching for ways to make them have more than a standard offensive. This is what makes the game so great to me. As the game develops, I come up with new ways to develop these things in my toon. However, this Rep Nerf has not knocked out my teeth for biting, its strip me naked in the Elite runs as well. If this is for the player that just broke level 50, let him run the normal versions until he either comes up strategies, Rep Traits and/or gear for elite runs. We have WAY TOO MANY PUGS coming into the Elite missions w/ "Rainbow Beams" or "Skittles" builds, or don't have a clue what to do in the mission that only adds to "Vet" players frustration. When you try to educate them, they only start mouthing off at you or any other rude, disrespectful ideas they can come up with. Then Cryptic makes a major change like this? I can barely survive a group of 5 spheres & the gateway in Infected due to DPS-greedy hanging me "out to dry" while I'm trying to by them time because they could pop Gens together. At least with my suggestion, players who were willing to grind for these skills, perfect their builds for teamplay, don't feel they are doing this for nothing & don't feel they have been:
"Slapped in the face"
"Betrayed by a company and game their REAL DOLLARS is supporting"
or in my case, feel I just got stab in the back by a company that I have repeatedly defended to other STO players as being the best company developing a game I have seen because I felt they were trying to listen to the player base.
BTW, this isn't to start a debate with one or more players or forum trollers.
THIS IS TO SPEAK TO CRYPTIC ABOUT SOMETHING I ALREADY SEE HAPPENING IN 2 DAYS! I"M SEEING LESS PEOPLE LOGGING IN FROM MY FRIENDS LIST AND MY OWN FLEET MEMBERS HAVE CUT THEIR PLAY TIME IN 1/2 (INCLUDING ME, BECAUSE I"M HERE TO POINT THIS OUT INSTEAD OF BEING GRINDING!)! THIS MEANS IF WE AREN"T PLAYING, WE AIN'T EVEN CONSIDERING WHAT WE GOING TO GET FOR OUR TOONS WITH OUR NEXTPAYCHECKS! Food for thought!
VirusDancer touched upon something interesting in a previous post: The loss of +40% projectile weapon damage. I checked just a moment ago to see how much this affected my transphasic torp build, and sure enough, I've lost approximately 700 points of damage on each of my rapid reload transphasics.
For one of the placeholder torps I have in place waiting on some BioPhotons...
If we were to stop here, it would only tell part of the story...eh? Well, cause right now we're looking at damage dropping from 9999.1 to 9579.2 which is a loss of 419.9 damage or so. I say or so, because there's some rounding - there's also going to be the range...and we haven't dropped the torp out against a target.
But let's take a look at the change in Accuracy there, hrmmm? Other than that Acc, there's going to be the +10% from Accurate and the +15% from Starship Targeting Systems.
Before S9: +45% Bonus Accuracy
After S9: +51.2% Bonus Accuracy
Against a target moving at 24+ Impulse, with no other Bonus Defense...
Before S9: 100% to-hit
After S9: 105.8% to-hit, Acc Overflow providing +0.72% CrtH and +2.9% CrtD
So with this target, our modified values for Crit are...
Before S9: +5% CrtH & +10% CrtD
After S9: +6.72% CrtH & +18.9% CrtD
Say both shots result in a Crit, what's the damage we're looking at from the CrtD here alone?
Before S9: 9999.1 * 1.1 = 10999.01
After S9: 9579.2 * 1.189 = 11389.6688
So yep, there's the more damage. Not only that, but it's also sporting that 1.72% better chance to do more damage.
What if the target was sporting say 80% Bonus Defense instead?
Before S9: 74.1% to-hit
After S9: 77.6% to-hit
3.5% better chance to hit...
If those Photon Consoles were upgraded, it would favor S9 more (the loss gap would be smaller and the Crit gain would be larger).
It's just one example of one toon. It's not suggesting that everybody and everything got boosted by S9. By no means is that the case - there are folks that will eat a loss. Course, with this guy - there was also the defensive gains posted earlier in the thread.
It's basically a case of folks needing to take a look at their actual numbers to see where they fall...not just going off of somebody saying they got nerfed or buffed - will be a case by case situation.
Also, the Undine Battlezones seem to be packed with people. So the people that were originally doing the Crystalline Entity and Dyson Queues because they had nothing else to do are now doing Undine content because it it the new shiny in Star Trek.
Yup. All the Undine Rep stuff is new, and people do that now, instead of repeating the stuff they already knew.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
@Virusdancer just out of curiosity... where precisely are you pulling these numbers from?? I would just like to do my own research and see if my numbers match your own... your post seems rather extensive and well I would like to double check your figures...
For one of the placeholder torps I have in place waiting on some BioPhotons...
(SNIP)
It's basically a case of folks needing to take a look at their actual numbers to see where they fall...not just going off of somebody saying they got nerfed or buffed - will be a case by case situation.
Virusdancer, thank you for providing the number crunch. It seems to me that my premise is still correct. Regardless of the small increase in CritH, I'm still doing less damage with non-critical hits.
The best way for me to verify this was to run STFs, which I did, and I saw the decrease in performance.
I think that the reputation system was a beyond Vice admiral levelling system.
It is similar to the levelling from level 1 to level 50: you work on your characters, invest time translated as Xp and you get reward with a new level.
For the reputation system, your work is marks and resources obtained and instead of skill points or access to new gear, you get the passive or power.
It is more difficult to gain these reputation level and it is normal: the higher the level, the more work is needed to reach the next one.
Of course, the first reputations were difficult and tedious and that did not scale very well with the number of reputation, especially for new players or new characters who had 4 reputations tracks to do in S8.5.
That's why I feel that the Dyson reputation changes had a good balance: not too difficult for new players or characters but challenging enough to be fulfilling.
In the end, for me, a vice-admiral with the S8 four reputation tracks was not level 50 but level 70 since he had 20 extra levels coming for reputation
As far as the so-called 'power creep', for me, this is a simple level difference : a fresh level 50 vice-admiral is inferior to a level 70 reputed admiral.
For me, it is the same thing as the difference between a level 30 captain and a level 50 admiral.
So, I take the S9 reputation nerf as a demotion from level 70 to level 62 since I lost 8 reputation passives.
The 'you can respect all you want' capability is not really interesting to me: I am not really fond of micromanaging my characters, of going to the traits window and resetting things every five minutes according to the mission.
I do not do that with my ships, why should I do it for my characters?
The worst part of it is that I concur with the problem of some missions that are too easy: that a STF should be more challenging and should never be completed in 4 minutes.
I concur too with the problem of fresh players facing veterans or being overwhelmed by the reputations huge investments.
But nerfing the reputation system was really not the proper way to do it and fresh players should have to do some efforts to get to the level of the alpha players.
Lowering the bar for them is not a solution, matching the Nukara/Omega/Romulan to the Dyson pattern might have been sufficient.
I do not know if the reputation system changes will cause the doom of STO but it made quit the game.
It is not as much as the loss of DPS but the loss of resilience that pissed me off. I ran a few ISE and I was surprised that I was fragged several times, even after tinkering with the passives.
Of course, some will say: good riddance, do not let the door hit you on the way out, ten more people are going to take your place.
The thing is, veterans like me have a tendency to spend RL money on that game. I am going to doubt that the players these reputation system changes are supposed to appeal to have enough will to put some blood, tears and money in the game.
Virusdancer, thank you for providing the number crunch. It seems to me that my premise is still correct. Regardless of the small increase in CritH, I'm still doing less damage with non-critical hits.
The best way for me to verify this was to run STFs, which I did, and I saw the decrease in performance.
A nerf by another other name...
Part of it is probably also coming from the +6.2% bonus All Damage which didn't exist before - where OWT/APC-Off were boosting my projectiles, they weren't boosting my Grav Wells, Grav Rifts, etc. When I upgrade the Photons to Bio-Photons with the Rad damage...
...and part of it with the Crits, well that's going to come down to the Crit chance which the guy I looked at is sporting for the torp I listed:
...and I've been thinking about mounting the Experimental Proton Weapon aft for the +10% CrtH for Photons which would take it to 34.26%. Then a case of looking at upgrading the VR Mk XI Tac Consoles to ATVx's...undecided on the Locator/Exploiter angle at this point. It's a wee world of difference compared to what I'd have on my B'rel instead.
@Virusdancer just out of curiosity... where precisely are you pulling these numbers from?? I would just like to do my own research and see if my numbers match your own... your post seems rather extensive and well I would like to double check your figures...
KNF Raptorzs
Hrmm, that's going to require a bit of piecemeal explanation. The original explanation of the formula that I run with was from bareel.
There have been several discussions since that point, refining it with others (all folks far smarter than me) and taking into account different changes that took place since then. I also found a spreadsheet that I downloaded (that I haven't been able to find since, meh) that had much of it there preloaded with lookup tables. So you could just click on the dropdowns and were good to go. Course, I ended up overwriting some of the formulas with some manual entries and stupidly saved it. It's only from having worked with them so much on the forums that I can drop the numbers in to the spreadsheet and still use it from time to time.
For the base damage numbers, some can be found on STOwiki. They're basically the Mk 0/Standard version of the weapon. For others, knowing how much damage is added by a strength boost - as long as there are no bonus boosts - you can work it backward to get the number.
Say we didn't know it was 1352 for Photon Torps, but we added a +30% Tac Console that added 405.6 damage. We can divide that 405.6 by 0.3 to get the 1352.
So well, basically bareel got me started on a long road of a bunch of manual calculations - not really into DPS parsing...mainly do it for checking if something is working the way it should (as we know it).
@ Virusdancer Thank you for your information. I for whatever reason (self inflicted damage perhaps) enjoy complex math problems. I would like to crunch my own numbers just to see if my gut feeling matches the facts of numbers. Unfortunately for me my gut feeling is that my starships are not as durable nor as vicious as they were prior to season 9. Lord knows I played enough of those borg stfs to know when something is off in my builds. Thank you all the same for your information
I love how every time a group of people don't get to be the Devs' center of attention in their updates to an mmo, and suddenly............ "The end is nigh!" as the doomsayers would say. I doubt the issue will end the game. It'll just balance out things a bit for players who can't play an obsessive amount to get t5 in every rep, and make PVE a tad more difficult. You're not loosing any traits, afaik, just the ability to spam them all at once! Now you get the challenge of choosing the right one for each situation! I like that idea! It makes you think!
I love how every time a group of people don't get to be the Devs' center of attention in their updates to an mmo, and suddenly............ "The end is nigh!" as the doomsayers would say. I doubt the issue will end the game.
Not sure who you are referring to here squackie, but you know what, if you think this isn't going to hurt the game, then go back to the repution System link of this forum and count & read the number of experienced player that are "up in arms" to this change. The experienced, dedicated players are the ones that money is supporting this game and its devs' wallets, it sure isn't the freebie "fly by night", play the game to endgame, then start crying the game is too unbalance between experienced players & new lvl 50 players. Like I stated in an earlier post, I've noticed attendeance online is down, as well as a couple other posts stating it. I even have had a couple fleet members bringing it this into conversations on voice chat in the last 48 hrs. The game might not die due to the fact its free-to-play, but believe me, Crpytic's wallets are going to be hurting when experienced players slow down or stop playing, start playing another MMO & spending money in it to have entertaining toons in that game.
It'll just balance out things a bit for players who can't play an obsessive amount to get t5 in every rep, and make PVE a tad more difficult. You're not loosing any traits, afaik, just the ability to spam them all at once! Now you get the challenge of choosing the right one for each situation! I like that idea! It makes you think!
I have tested this out with this new system, and yes it is very nice the additions to EXCEPT the limit of only 4 passive skills compared to the 8 we grinded so hard to earned in order to use. The bottom line on this change is that however way you look at it, our toons are 50% less what they were before S9 release, either offensively or defensively, or the combo of both. You can adjust/upgrade (1% to 5% change isn't much of an upgrade BTW) and/or fix the Rep Passives traits to what they were suppose to be in the beginning, that doesn't make up for a 50% NERF of characters' abilities, not to mention the betrayal you just preformed to your player-fan base. Do you actually believe players are not going to remember this next time they want to make a change or add another grind option to the game, IF they are even here?
This still allows for too many rep traits to be used. Having 4 offensive and 4 defensive traits would still allow for too much extra power in both. The system is actually in a good spot right now, forcing players to either go half and half on their build, or all out in 1 area. You all want a better PvP system, and more team work? Then this is how it starts. By forcing a choice between tank or dps. Look, I'm gonna sound Lome an TRIBBLE for this, but if the players are crying about dying too fast or being underpowered, then its probably having the exact effect cryptic was aiming for. The only thing I might have changed would be make it 5 instead of 4, but even that may have been taken advantage of.
In the end, for me, a vice-admiral with the S8 four reputation tracks was not level 50 but level 70 since he had 20 extra levels coming for reputation
As far as the so-called 'power creep', for me, this is a simple level difference : a fresh level 50 vice-admiral is inferior to a level 70 reputed admiral.
For me, it is the same thing as the difference between a level 30 captain and a level 50 admiral.
So, I take the S9 reputation nerf as a demotion from level 70 to level 62 since I lost 8 reputation passives.
The problem is that you might have been "level 70", but the npcs are still level 50. Eventually veterans would have been "level 100", but the npcs would still be level 50. This results in boring content. So Cryptic either had to gate content so new level 50s couldn't do the Season 9 content or the Reputation Trait Revamp.
The problem is that you might have been "level 70", but the npcs are still level 50. Eventually veterans would have been "level 100", but the npcs would still be level 50. This results in boring content. So Cryptic either had to gate content so new level 50s couldn't do the Season 9 content or the Reputation Trait Revamp.
You could have quoted my post with an extra part just one paragraph below.
The worst part of it is that I concur with the problem of some missions that are too easy: that a STF should be more challenging and should never be completed in 4 minutes.
It is true: no challenge makes the game boring but Cryptic tried to add more difficulty with the Hive, Crystal Entity or the No-Win Scenario, to make the difficulty follow the player progression.
It is difficult to strike the balance of difficulty: not too high so that it is not frustrating, not too low so that it is not useless: remember the Elachi space invasion alert?
My personal opinion would have been to continue in that way: let's say a Cure Space Elite with 5 space docks instead of 3 with the same time limit, put Borg command ships instead of tactical cube.
May be, add some randomness for optional objectives.
Makes bigger dragons to slay
In any case, time will tell. Cryptic has the database of players and their spending records. They monitor the player base. If they see a drop in revenues correlated with less veteran players logging in, they will have to figure something out.
This still allows for too many rep traits to be used. Having 4 offensive and 4 defensive traits would still allow for too much extra power in both. The system is actually in a good spot right now, forcing players to either go half and half on their build, or all out in 1 area.
I have to fully disagree with you here, ghydut. We are currently @ 1 week since the launch of S9 and if anyone one person that has been observing, the New Undine space missions are too difficult for anyone to want to play. If anyone is grinding the Undine Rep, I've been told by my fleet members, they are doing so in the battlezone. I cannot confirm this myself since I'm not much of a ground player. The Breech queue also has been silent since S9 launch, and I have also been inform by many players that the Anti-proton turrets have become one-shot critical hits, of course depending on your build type.
Prior to S9, and knowing I'm one of the finest tanks in the game, when I was left alone going down the middle of the Breech Elite, if no one was taking care of the turrets, I could still barely (if at all) survive the turrets & the battleship on me at the same time. At that time I was using 2 Offensive & 6 Defensive Passive Traits. If I was to have to balanced out to 4 & 4, you can clearly see that I would lose defensive, therefore would NEED to have Pugs clear turrets off me BEFORE engaging the Battleship (which I can tank) And do a little more damage to while the Pugs are handling turrets, and I WOULD not have to completely rely on waiting for the Pugs in order for us to take the battleship down. In this case, and it would also filter into many other teamplay missions, my suggestion would require more teamplay for the PvE queues, the DPSers could not just go into these missions and blow right though the missions.
Another problem this would aid in resolving is fresh lvl50 players coming into Elite PvE missions PRIOR to running Normals to learn the mission, acquiring gear needed for Elite running, because if they do, they will repeatly die, especially IF they refused to listen to experienced players(which happens quite often). I have macros for giving instructions on how to run the Borg STFs that I set off as soon a I get into a STF, and repeatedly have gotten Smart- _ _ _ remarks from inexperience PUGS that don't want to learn, but have the experienced players do the work for them w/o carrying their load, thus the experiences players have to compensate for their behavior with new tactics & remaining flexible to the situation.
You all want a better PvP system, and more team work?
We have resolved the understanding that this was for PvP... it was NOT!
By forcing a choice between tank or dps.
I truly believe this wasn't the goal of Cryptic to force players to have to choose their character build to being strictly dedicated tank, dps, or mob control/healer. Most growing MMO games attempt to offer variety in character building.
Look, I'm gonna sound Lome an TRIBBLE for this, but if the players are crying about dying too fast or being underpowered, then its probably having the exact effect cryptic was aiming for. The only thing I might have changed would be make it 5 instead of 4, but even that may have been taken advantage of.
I agree that yes Cryptic did want to toughen the missions up without increasing th AI (Mobs) all the time, which I believe they have overdone; this due to observing their behavior in all the PvE missions being ran by me repetitively ever since Reputations have been introduced. As to your last suggestion of 5 instead of 4, the whole point of my suggestion is to balance defense & offensive here so players aren't deliberately overpowering themselves as a Ubertanker or Escorts that have massive DPS mobs can't defend.
In order to have a balance, first you have to establish the choice in offensive & defensive.
Secondly, there has to be an even choice between the 2: whether its 4, 6 , or 8 slotted at once, half going to offensive & half to defensive.
Thirdly, you have to observe if players (experienced or not) are running the PvE missions. If they aren't, then something IS MOST DEFINATELY WRONG! In our current case, we were Nerfed too much & AI/New content is too difficult, even for the experience player. Experienced players are totally upset regarding this Nerf, and disputing this isn't my goal here. Want to dispute this, I say as I did earlier, look at the complaints in this Reputation System forum.
Cryptic went to 2 extremes at once , thus causing the current problem players are complaining about in current Reputation System. You want to fix the power creep, your fixes have to be subtle AND not be in the manner of upsetting players that have grinded for rewards, then completely limit the use of those earned rewards.
Comments
AMEM brother I feel you and the trolls are paid well.
How many Veterans do you think are their compared to the "young" Level 50 player? Do you think it's worth it for Cryptic to even generate content for Veterans? What if they decide to never create that super-uber-nightmare mode on Reputation 20, because only 10 % of players ever grinded that far?
The real hope I have - once they seriously start rethinking the whole power creep thing that has plagued the game, they will start looking more into support different roles and different forms of gameplays, so that the Veterans actually get the ability to experiment with meaningful different play styles. Maybe the Mirror Event will pave the way for more content suited to give different play styles options, and it will be reeinforced by more abilities also being designed into such directions.
Maybe that won't happen.
But I just can't get excited by some abritrary numbers getting bigger. My primary motivation for maxing out reputations is to get a new active power choice, and to get new gear with interesting features different from others. Secondary may be stuff like new costume options for character and ship.
How is it working hard, though? I mean, in all seriousness - how is it working hard to be good at things?
Do you mean by replaying things so you got better at them? The time spent playing the game - figuring out some tricks, learning about the mechanics, improving your build? None of that was lost.
But that's not what you're talking about...you're talking about losing some willy nilly Passives that never really added that much. They were little sprinkles added in.
If you were actually working hard to be good at things...that came about from actually playing. If it were a case that you just grinded along to get the Passives to take care of things, well - you were working hard to be bad at things.
But heck, let me look at one of my guys to see what the changes actually meant, eh?
Pre-S9
Precision: +3% CrtH
Sensor Targeting Assault: 20% chance on Crit to Placate for 2s
Quantum Singularity Manipulation: +100 Science Skills for 8s & 5s Cloak
Omega Weapon Training: +30 Starship Weapon Training (+15% base damage)
Omega Graviton Amplifier: 5% chance (projectile guy) for 751.4 kinetic damage (ignores shields)
Fortified Hull: +5% base Hull (1485 hull)
Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense: @125 Aux, +25 Starship Weapon Training/Starship Energy Weapons/Starship Projectile Weapons (providing +25% base damage)
Refracting Tetryon Cascade: Tet Damage chain
Advanced Targeting Systems: +10% CrtD
Tactical Advantage: Scaling damage resistance debuff
With-S9
Precision: +4% CtrH
Advanced Targeting Systems: +16% CrtD
Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense: +6.2% All Damage (non-base) & +6.2% Accuracy
Auxiliary Power Configuration - Defense: +25 Kinetic Damage Resistance Rating, +25 Energy Damage Resistance Rating, +6.2% base Hull, +6.2% base Shield Cap
Quantum Singularity Manipulation: +100 Science Skills for 8s & 5s Cloak
Refracting Tetryon Cascade: Tet Damage chain
What did I lose?
20% chance on Crit 2s Placate
+40% base projectile damage
5% chance to do 751.4 kinetic damage that ignores shields
What did I gain?
+1% CrtH
+6% CrtD
+6.2% All Damage (non-base, affecting damage from non-weapon abilities as well)
+6.2% Accuracy
+25 Kinetic DRR
+25 Energy DRR
+1.2% base Hull
+6.2% base Shield Cap
What am I looking at then?
The combination of additional CrtH, CrtD, Accuracy, and the +6.2% bonus Damage are going to increase my damage more than the +40% base would have.
The additional damage resistance rating, hull, and shield cap added more survivability to the build.
The loss of the Sensor Targeting Assault which had a 2s placate with a 20% chance on Crit which was meaningless if the target was already plac immune from being placated by somebody else...hrmmm...yeah.
Did all of my guys come out ahead? Nope, they didn't. But none of them feel worthless because of the changes.
At the end of last year I deleted 8 toons to reroll 7 of them for 2014. There were guys T5 in all four reps and guys T2-T5 in the various reps. I didn't feel that I threw away any hard work...I'd played them, along the way I picked up stuff for them...from playing them, I got better. It was the same thing when I deleted my guys for S7 the year before. It was the same thing when I deleted guys every 2-3 weeks before S7.
I suck with DHCs. I mean...I really suck with a 45 arc. I'm a torp/beam guy - I can fly a 90 arc. 45? I'm just not that good of a pilot to do that. So what did I do for my 2014 rerolls? I included guys that will be flying a 45 arc. So is it going to be a case that I get better with the 45 arc from throwing gear at it? No...I'll get better with it from playing it. With experience, I'll get better at it...gear or not.
Their were other, better, solutions to the problem then removing any progression from the reputation system.
Reducing the time to complete reputations as more were added would cut down the length of the grind to close the gap, perhaps even via introducing the system at much earlier levels with rep up rewards when ranking up.
As for content difficulty, once again the rep passives as so weak it doesn't really matter until you get into silly numbers of them. Additionally some of the passives could have been made ultra specific to only work against specific enemies or on specific builds kind of like many already do.
They took the easy way out and have created much anger among some players. I still think this change is going to bite them hard later on. If it wasn't for the ability to gain the bonus mark box in about 2 minutes playtime I probably wouldn't really even be bothering with the new rep.
Now, lets get down to brass tax. Prior to the rep nerf bomb, I was for the most part able to join a Dyson match and finnish within 15 minutes. Change instances and rince and repeat. I could join prety much any of the elite space missions and get a launching window and join a battle in under a minute.
Not anymore, I sat around Dyson for hours last night, I changed instances several times, not a single completion. I tried getting into crystaline elite, and several others, no luck their eiher. Maybe everyone is playing the new content for S9 but I doubt it, because those looked relatively empty as well. What's the point, I can only pick 4 space skills and 4 ground skills now!!!!!!!
Their is no more point to playing content!!!!! That is why this game will die.....no players logging into play content, team based missions, = playing against npc's on your own, = not that much fun.....And, the one crystaline mission that I finally did get into an hour later, it took a 1/2 hour to complete.........1/2 hour for 65 fleet marks.............ok not.....an hour to get into a match......ok not......several hours to try and complete a dyson run...........ok not.....
Welcome to the new STO...........what a total joke, what a total slap in the face, and I see no apologies being made for the huge disservice that has been done to the people that really keep this game going...............the ones that spend $$ on it......like me, not the new players they are trying to please that are here for a short while and then gone......well, we will all be gone if they don't revert back to the old way, because nobody likes to play by themselves, especially in team based content....
Correlation is not causation...now collective correlation as a whole could potentially create the causation you're looking for...
Take a look at Today's Post - go through a few pages. See all the issues folks are having? Add that into the new stuff folks might be doing (running 8 toons through the new FE 4 times...2x Traits, Kit, and Tac Console...is what I've been doing since S9 dropped...and it's tedious as Hell at this point...meh)...etc, etc, etc - add it all up and...yep, the collective might be the cause. Pointing to an individual element as the cause though?
Also, the Undine Battlezones seem to be packed with people. So the people that were originally doing the Crystalline Entity and Dyson Queues because they had nothing else to do are now doing Undine content because it it the new shiny in Star Trek.
As one of the new players Cryptic is purportedly trying to help with this, I agree entirely. The prospect of nerfs like this one is far more worrying to me as a new player than getting crushed in PvP.
It's not about helping new players. It's about having a baseline that can be used to balance content but still allow for variety. All reps can be run concurrently and it takes 20 days to get all passives. That is not a big deal. The problem is designing pve content that is well tuned. You cannot do that with 48 possible passives, growing by 8 with every rep added. Think about that. Even if the content right now is designed for 8+8 traits, 2-3 reps later all of that content is now a pushover with 14+14 trait players. A well thought out encounter designed to challenge the player to their limits is now a no challenge children's game.
And that's the big problem here. A few of the players here, and boy they've been vocal about it since the revelation, want the 14+14 and the 20+20 and all of that. They feel that they're at their best when they can pulverize a PVE map in 2 minutes flat and post it on YouTube for the world to see. They want to be Q-like.
This is easily the start, but the screaming is going to get louder. Why? Because something else will be hit next and it's going to be something precious. DOFFs, maybe? BOFFs? We've already had a preview when TRIBBLE accidentally bugged out and caused the Romulan Embassy BOFFs to not stack their powers. People got livid, especially the same people who were raging about the Traits.
Thing is, Cryptic's spent the past couple of years lowering the bar for the game. That they ignored what entailed at their endgame and what it would lead to...well, they had to have seen it coming. Yet, by all appearances they didn't...or...as they mentioned with regard to wishing they'd done this one back before Nukara - there just wasn't time, something came up, got bumped from the board...and now they're going to have to deal with all the repercussions of what they've done.
Heck, figured the next drop would be with the next skill revamp with Expansion 2...but that's been pushed back to S10 or later. Like the Rep thing for Nukara...pushed back? How many other things are there out there that they'd wished they could have done sooner that are going to come around sooner or later and flood the forums, eh?
And they still are.
All the reputation passives combined still do not approach the power increase of a simple leech console. That is what 'I' find so irritating about this change. Those who could smash PvE encounters quickly still are. Single players are still outperforming 4 average players combined.
The only thing this trait revamp has succeeded in doing is to once again drive home the utter lack of any progression outside of a lockbox shiny. That and eliminating (some) player's trust in Cryptic.
By next season we will know the effect. By then they will have had time to look over their metrics and will either continue on with future system revamps in the same style or change course.
Does having character progression be a part of the endgame make more, or less money? Time will tell.
I pointed out my disappointment in the trait changes in a different thread. Now I'm more disappointed because of the amount of time and money I spent to create a viable torp boat build. I knew it would never be a great PVP setup, but for PVE it was pretty good. I'm starting to think that it's less of a power creep issue and more of a "buy the latest shiny we've provided" scam via nerfing.
I took some time yesterday to run normal and elite Undine STFs using this new trait system, and whether I chose offensive or defensive traits, I was still nowhere near where I used to be in damage output or defensive rating. I blew through more repair provisions than I ever have before, and the mission runs took forever to complete. This might be why none of the new missions have completion timers on them (one appears to have a timer for a bonus, but it is pure frosting).
Yeah. This rep/trait change seems to be a great way to encourage people to blow Zen on respec tokens so that they can create viable builds using the new season's toys. I feel defeated and cheated - a build I was happy with has been turned into a mediocrity, and a lot of effort has evaporated because of a change in a system that rewarded hard work with a decent set of powers for those willing to obtain Tier 4 or 5 in a reputation.
Here's the interesting part of this debacle: I now contribute less dilithium and fewer marks to fleet projects because I can't/won't spend my time in STFs that take 30 minutes to complete and reward less because of these changes in S9. I have a feeling that many more players are going to do the same thing over time, and I don't see them simply using a credit card to buy Zen and converting it to dilithium to move these projects along. There has to be a balance between earning decent rewards and spending money in an online game, and I'm of the opinion that the scale has swung way too far in one direction. It's not DOOM. It's a prediction based on individual projection and interpolation.
This happens in cycles. You can bet that yet another big change will be introduced under the guise of reigning in "power creep" in the not so distant future. Again, a lot of players will be out of luck after spending time and money on the game, and all that will be provided is silence from those responsible for the changes and a charge on your credit card bill made out to Perfect World, not to mention another lock box with an ice cube's chance in hell that you'll win the grand prize.
The trait/reputation changes were a mistake. My opinion.
And this goes back to my original suggestion for a new re-vamp... balance the old system out by limiting the Passive Rep skills/traits by saying to the players instead of having any combo of 8 passives, change it to allowing players to only choose 4 offensive & 4 defensive PASSIVE skills/traits per combat type (AND still have the chance to change them out of combat). This also allows players to grind more Reps if they want for different situations. As I stated before, I am a dedicate tanker, its my toon, my personality in life, and the only way I play the game. I have spent 4 yrs., COUNT THEM!, developing the best damn tanks I can build first defensively, then searching for ways to make them have more than a standard offensive. This is what makes the game so great to me. As the game develops, I come up with new ways to develop these things in my toon. However, this Rep Nerf has not knocked out my teeth for biting, its strip me naked in the Elite runs as well. If this is for the player that just broke level 50, let him run the normal versions until he either comes up strategies, Rep Traits and/or gear for elite runs. We have WAY TOO MANY PUGS coming into the Elite missions w/ "Rainbow Beams" or "Skittles" builds, or don't have a clue what to do in the mission that only adds to "Vet" players frustration. When you try to educate them, they only start mouthing off at you or any other rude, disrespectful ideas they can come up with. Then Cryptic makes a major change like this? I can barely survive a group of 5 spheres & the gateway in Infected due to DPS-greedy hanging me "out to dry" while I'm trying to by them time because they could pop Gens together. At least with my suggestion, players who were willing to grind for these skills, perfect their builds for teamplay, don't feel they are doing this for nothing & don't feel they have been:
"Slapped in the face"
"Betrayed by a company and game their REAL DOLLARS is supporting"
or in my case, feel I just got stab in the back by a company that I have repeatedly defended to other STO players as being the best company developing a game I have seen because I felt they were trying to listen to the player base.
BTW, this isn't to start a debate with one or more players or forum trollers.
THIS IS TO SPEAK TO CRYPTIC ABOUT SOMETHING I ALREADY SEE HAPPENING IN 2 DAYS! I"M SEEING LESS PEOPLE LOGGING IN FROM MY FRIENDS LIST AND MY OWN FLEET MEMBERS HAVE CUT THEIR PLAY TIME IN 1/2 (INCLUDING ME, BECAUSE I"M HERE TO POINT THIS OUT INSTEAD OF BEING GRINDING!)! THIS MEANS IF WE AREN"T PLAYING, WE AIN'T EVEN CONSIDERING WHAT WE GOING TO GET FOR OUR TOONS WITH OUR NEXTPAYCHECKS! Food for thought!
Knights Of The Federation
For one of the placeholder torps I have in place waiting on some BioPhotons...
Photon Torpedo Launcher Mk XI [Acc]x2[CtrH]
Before S9 Launch
Base Photon Torp Damage: 1352
+Very Rare: +(1352 * 0.075) = +101.4 = 1453.4
+Mk XI: +(1352 * 1.1) = +1487.2 = 2940.6
+9 Starship Weapon Training: +(1352 * 0.495) = +669.24 = 3609.84
+9 Starship Projectile Weapons: +(1352 * 0.495) = +669.24 = 4279.08
+3x VR Mk XI Photon: +(1352 * 0.281 * 3) = +1139.736 = 5418.816
+Tactical Team 1: +(1352 * 0.09) = +121.68 = 5540.496
+2pc Klingon Honor Guard: +(1352 * 0.25) = +338 = 5878.496
+2pc Protonic Arsenal: +(1352 * 0.229) = +309.608 = 6188.104
+Omega Weapon Training: +(1352 * 0.15) = +202.8 = 6390.904
+Auxiliary Power Configuration Offense (@125 Aux): +(1352 * 0.25) = +338 = 6728.904
+2pc T'varo: +(6728.904 * 0.1) = +672.8904 = 7401.7944
+Enhanced Battle Cloak: +(6728.904 * 0.15) = +1009.3356 = 8411.13
+Attack Pattern Omega III: +(6728.904 * 0.236) = +1588.021344 = 9999.151344
Damage: ~9999.1
Accuracy: +20%
CrtH: +5%
CrtD: +10%
After S9 Launch
Base Photon Torp Damage: 1352
+Very Rare: +(1352 * 0.075) = +101.4 = 1453.4
+Mk XI: +(1352 * 1.1) = +1487.2 = 2940.6
+9 Starship Weapon Training: +(1352 * 0.495) = +669.24 = 3609.84
+9 Starship Projectile Weapons: +(1352 * 0.495) = +669.24 = 4279.08
+3x VR Mk XI Photon: +(1352 * 0.281 * 3) = +1139.736 = 5418.816
+Tactical Team 1: +(1352 * 0.09) = +121.68 = 5540.496
+2pc Klingon Honor Guard: +(1352 * 0.25) = +338 = 5878.496
+2pc Protonic Arsenal: +(1352 * 0.229) = +309.608 = 6188.104
+2pc T'varo: +(6188.104 * 0.1) = +618.8104 = 6806.9144
+Enhanced Battle Cloak: +(6188.104 * 0.15) = +928.2156 = 7735.13
+Attack Pattern Omega III: +(6188.104 * 0.236) = +1460.392544 = 9195.522544
+Auxiliary Power Configuration Offense (@125 Aux): +(6188.104 * 0.062) = +383.662448 = 9579.184992
Damage: ~9579.2
Accuracy: +26.2%
CrtH: +6%
CrtD: +16%
If we were to stop here, it would only tell part of the story...eh? Well, cause right now we're looking at damage dropping from 9999.1 to 9579.2 which is a loss of 419.9 damage or so. I say or so, because there's some rounding - there's also going to be the range...and we haven't dropped the torp out against a target.
But let's take a look at the change in Accuracy there, hrmmm? Other than that Acc, there's going to be the +10% from Accurate and the +15% from Starship Targeting Systems.
Before S9: +45% Bonus Accuracy
After S9: +51.2% Bonus Accuracy
Against a target moving at 24+ Impulse, with no other Bonus Defense...
Before S9: 100% to-hit
After S9: 105.8% to-hit, Acc Overflow providing +0.72% CrtH and +2.9% CrtD
So with this target, our modified values for Crit are...
Before S9: +5% CrtH & +10% CrtD
After S9: +6.72% CrtH & +18.9% CrtD
Say both shots result in a Crit, what's the damage we're looking at from the CrtD here alone?
Before S9: 9999.1 * 1.1 = 10999.01
After S9: 9579.2 * 1.189 = 11389.6688
So yep, there's the more damage. Not only that, but it's also sporting that 1.72% better chance to do more damage.
What if the target was sporting say 80% Bonus Defense instead?
Before S9: 74.1% to-hit
After S9: 77.6% to-hit
3.5% better chance to hit...
If those Photon Consoles were upgraded, it would favor S9 more (the loss gap would be smaller and the Crit gain would be larger).
It's just one example of one toon. It's not suggesting that everybody and everything got boosted by S9. By no means is that the case - there are folks that will eat a loss. Course, with this guy - there was also the defensive gains posted earlier in the thread.
It's basically a case of folks needing to take a look at their actual numbers to see where they fall...not just going off of somebody saying they got nerfed or buffed - will be a case by case situation.
Yup. All the Undine Rep stuff is new, and people do that now, instead of repeating the stuff they already knew.
KNF Raptorzs
Virusdancer, thank you for providing the number crunch. It seems to me that my premise is still correct. Regardless of the small increase in CritH, I'm still doing less damage with non-critical hits.
The best way for me to verify this was to run STFs, which I did, and I saw the decrease in performance.
A nerf by another other name...
It is similar to the levelling from level 1 to level 50: you work on your characters, invest time translated as Xp and you get reward with a new level.
For the reputation system, your work is marks and resources obtained and instead of skill points or access to new gear, you get the passive or power.
It is more difficult to gain these reputation level and it is normal: the higher the level, the more work is needed to reach the next one.
Of course, the first reputations were difficult and tedious and that did not scale very well with the number of reputation, especially for new players or new characters who had 4 reputations tracks to do in S8.5.
That's why I feel that the Dyson reputation changes had a good balance: not too difficult for new players or characters but challenging enough to be fulfilling.
In the end, for me, a vice-admiral with the S8 four reputation tracks was not level 50 but level 70 since he had 20 extra levels coming for reputation
As far as the so-called 'power creep', for me, this is a simple level difference : a fresh level 50 vice-admiral is inferior to a level 70 reputed admiral.
For me, it is the same thing as the difference between a level 30 captain and a level 50 admiral.
So, I take the S9 reputation nerf as a demotion from level 70 to level 62 since I lost 8 reputation passives.
The 'you can respect all you want' capability is not really interesting to me: I am not really fond of micromanaging my characters, of going to the traits window and resetting things every five minutes according to the mission.
I do not do that with my ships, why should I do it for my characters?
The worst part of it is that I concur with the problem of some missions that are too easy: that a STF should be more challenging and should never be completed in 4 minutes.
I concur too with the problem of fresh players facing veterans or being overwhelmed by the reputations huge investments.
But nerfing the reputation system was really not the proper way to do it and fresh players should have to do some efforts to get to the level of the alpha players.
Lowering the bar for them is not a solution, matching the Nukara/Omega/Romulan to the Dyson pattern might have been sufficient.
I do not know if the reputation system changes will cause the doom of STO but it made quit the game.
It is not as much as the loss of DPS but the loss of resilience that pissed me off. I ran a few ISE and I was surprised that I was fragged several times, even after tinkering with the passives.
Of course, some will say: good riddance, do not let the door hit you on the way out, ten more people are going to take your place.
The thing is, veterans like me have a tendency to spend RL money on that game. I am going to doubt that the players these reputation system changes are supposed to appeal to have enough will to put some blood, tears and money in the game.
Part of it is probably also coming from the +6.2% bonus All Damage which didn't exist before - where OWT/APC-Off were boosting my projectiles, they weren't boosting my Grav Wells, Grav Rifts, etc. When I upgrade the Photons to Bio-Photons with the Rad damage...
...and part of it with the Crits, well that's going to come down to the Crit chance which the guy I looked at is sporting for the torp I listed:
Base: 2.5%
5x SRO: +10% = 12.5%
Precision: +4% = 16.5%
2pc Protonic: +3% = 19.5%
Tachyo: +0.76% = 20.26%
9 Starship Projectile Weapon Specialization: +2% = 22.26%
[CrtH]: +2% = 24.26%
...and I've been thinking about mounting the Experimental Proton Weapon aft for the +10% CrtH for Photons which would take it to 34.26%. Then a case of looking at upgrading the VR Mk XI Tac Consoles to ATVx's...undecided on the Locator/Exploiter angle at this point. It's a wee world of difference compared to what I'd have on my B'rel instead.
Hrmm, that's going to require a bit of piecemeal explanation. The original explanation of the formula that I run with was from bareel.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=8519821&postcount=170
There have been several discussions since that point, refining it with others (all folks far smarter than me) and taking into account different changes that took place since then. I also found a spreadsheet that I downloaded (that I haven't been able to find since, meh) that had much of it there preloaded with lookup tables. So you could just click on the dropdowns and were good to go. Course, I ended up overwriting some of the formulas with some manual entries and stupidly saved it. It's only from having worked with them so much on the forums that I can drop the numbers in to the spreadsheet and still use it from time to time.
For the Accuracy Overflow numbers, initially it was a case of using the spreadsheet from http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/6611/meet-al-rivera-stoked-76/ which BRJ explained in the following thread http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=218273 - but after Black Wyvern did this page ( http://blackwyvernarts.com/blog/?p=58 ) based on that spreadsheet, heh - I just use that handy online calculator instead.
For the base damage numbers, some can be found on STOwiki. They're basically the Mk 0/Standard version of the weapon. For others, knowing how much damage is added by a strength boost - as long as there are no bonus boosts - you can work it backward to get the number.
Say we didn't know it was 1352 for Photon Torps, but we added a +30% Tac Console that added 405.6 damage. We can divide that 405.6 by 0.3 to get the 1352.
So well, basically bareel got me started on a long road of a bunch of manual calculations - not really into DPS parsing...mainly do it for checking if something is working the way it should (as we know it).
KNF Raptorzs
Not sure who you are referring to here squackie, but you know what, if you think this isn't going to hurt the game, then go back to the repution System link of this forum and count & read the number of experienced player that are "up in arms" to this change. The experienced, dedicated players are the ones that money is supporting this game and its devs' wallets, it sure isn't the freebie "fly by night", play the game to endgame, then start crying the game is too unbalance between experienced players & new lvl 50 players. Like I stated in an earlier post, I've noticed attendeance online is down, as well as a couple other posts stating it. I even have had a couple fleet members bringing it this into conversations on voice chat in the last 48 hrs. The game might not die due to the fact its free-to-play, but believe me, Crpytic's wallets are going to be hurting when experienced players slow down or stop playing, start playing another MMO & spending money in it to have entertaining toons in that game.
I have tested this out with this new system, and yes it is very nice the additions to EXCEPT the limit of only 4 passive skills compared to the 8 we grinded so hard to earned in order to use. The bottom line on this change is that however way you look at it, our toons are 50% less what they were before S9 release, either offensively or defensively, or the combo of both. You can adjust/upgrade (1% to 5% change isn't much of an upgrade BTW) and/or fix the Rep Passives traits to what they were suppose to be in the beginning, that doesn't make up for a 50% NERF of characters' abilities, not to mention the betrayal you just preformed to your player-fan base. Do you actually believe players are not going to remember this next time they want to make a change or add another grind option to the game, IF they are even here?
Again, Food for thought!
Knights Of The Federation
The problem is that you might have been "level 70", but the npcs are still level 50. Eventually veterans would have been "level 100", but the npcs would still be level 50. This results in boring content. So Cryptic either had to gate content so new level 50s couldn't do the Season 9 content or the Reputation Trait Revamp.
You could have quoted my post with an extra part just one paragraph below.
It is true: no challenge makes the game boring but Cryptic tried to add more difficulty with the Hive, Crystal Entity or the No-Win Scenario, to make the difficulty follow the player progression.
It is difficult to strike the balance of difficulty: not too high so that it is not frustrating, not too low so that it is not useless: remember the Elachi space invasion alert?
My personal opinion would have been to continue in that way: let's say a Cure Space Elite with 5 space docks instead of 3 with the same time limit, put Borg command ships instead of tactical cube.
May be, add some randomness for optional objectives.
Makes bigger dragons to slay
In any case, time will tell. Cryptic has the database of players and their spending records. They monitor the player base. If they see a drop in revenues correlated with less veteran players logging in, they will have to figure something out.
I have to fully disagree with you here, ghydut. We are currently @ 1 week since the launch of S9 and if anyone one person that has been observing, the New Undine space missions are too difficult for anyone to want to play. If anyone is grinding the Undine Rep, I've been told by my fleet members, they are doing so in the battlezone. I cannot confirm this myself since I'm not much of a ground player. The Breech queue also has been silent since S9 launch, and I have also been inform by many players that the Anti-proton turrets have become one-shot critical hits, of course depending on your build type.
Prior to S9, and knowing I'm one of the finest tanks in the game, when I was left alone going down the middle of the Breech Elite, if no one was taking care of the turrets, I could still barely (if at all) survive the turrets & the battleship on me at the same time. At that time I was using 2 Offensive & 6 Defensive Passive Traits. If I was to have to balanced out to 4 & 4, you can clearly see that I would lose defensive, therefore would NEED to have Pugs clear turrets off me BEFORE engaging the Battleship (which I can tank) And do a little more damage to while the Pugs are handling turrets, and I WOULD not have to completely rely on waiting for the Pugs in order for us to take the battleship down. In this case, and it would also filter into many other teamplay missions, my suggestion would require more teamplay for the PvE queues, the DPSers could not just go into these missions and blow right though the missions.
Another problem this would aid in resolving is fresh lvl50 players coming into Elite PvE missions PRIOR to running Normals to learn the mission, acquiring gear needed for Elite running, because if they do, they will repeatly die, especially IF they refused to listen to experienced players(which happens quite often). I have macros for giving instructions on how to run the Borg STFs that I set off as soon a I get into a STF, and repeatedly have gotten Smart- _ _ _ remarks from inexperience PUGS that don't want to learn, but have the experienced players do the work for them w/o carrying their load, thus the experiences players have to compensate for their behavior with new tactics & remaining flexible to the situation.
We have resolved the understanding that this was for PvP... it was NOT!
I truly believe this wasn't the goal of Cryptic to force players to have to choose their character build to being strictly dedicated tank, dps, or mob control/healer. Most growing MMO games attempt to offer variety in character building.
I agree that yes Cryptic did want to toughen the missions up without increasing th AI (Mobs) all the time, which I believe they have overdone; this due to observing their behavior in all the PvE missions being ran by me repetitively ever since Reputations have been introduced. As to your last suggestion of 5 instead of 4, the whole point of my suggestion is to balance defense & offensive here so players aren't deliberately overpowering themselves as a Ubertanker or Escorts that have massive DPS mobs can't defend.
In order to have a balance, first you have to establish the choice in offensive & defensive.
Secondly, there has to be an even choice between the 2: whether its 4, 6 , or 8 slotted at once, half going to offensive & half to defensive.
Thirdly, you have to observe if players (experienced or not) are running the PvE missions. If they aren't, then something IS MOST DEFINATELY WRONG! In our current case, we were Nerfed too much & AI/New content is too difficult, even for the experience player. Experienced players are totally upset regarding this Nerf, and disputing this isn't my goal here. Want to dispute this, I say as I did earlier, look at the complaints in this Reputation System forum.
Cryptic went to 2 extremes at once , thus causing the current problem players are complaining about in current Reputation System. You want to fix the power creep, your fixes have to be subtle AND not be in the manner of upsetting players that have grinded for rewards, then completely limit the use of those earned rewards.
Knights Of The Federation
PVE is so hard without the traiats that its impossible to finish it without it eh?
EL O EL