I'm not certain that we're committing to a figure just yet. The plan is to make your time spent earning XP at level 60 feel rewarding, even if you're "done" with the Specialization System.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
There are very few clickie abilities in these Specializations. In fact, I can only think of 3 off the top of my head. The rest are all Passives, Enhancements, Triggers - that sort of thing.
My already full skillbar thanks you for that.
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
Yeah something does change smart guy. We can now go back to level 60 like we could when the game started.
That means we move up by ten levels. Just making this simple for ya, k?
So now during those ten levels, the text is implying that we can't add to our skills as we move PAST lvl 50 up to lvl 60.
Correct. Instead of adding to the Skill trees, the skill points fill a bar. Once bar is full you get a spec point which you can use to open a slot in the Spec Tree. This filling of the bar will continue even after you get to level 60. Once you have all spots on all of the trees selected, then you get Dil for filling the bar.
ah, if all you do is pve, i can see why you would think that i did.
#pvelogic
you asking for them to make them more useful over and over again IS the problem. became wile NPCs are the way they are, sci CANT be more useful, unless they are just dealing more damage. and that plays havok with pvp balance, so please stop.
Stop what?
I've specifically stated the idea of increasing Sci "usefulness" by just increasing sci DPS is not what I want.
if you want your sci ship to be more useful in pve, you need to join me in harping on the devs to DRAMATICALLY increase the complexity of npcs, wile reducing how many get thrown at you at once, so sci debuffs striping power and disabling them actually greatly impacts their base line performance. so a sci dealing less damage, but dealing harsh debuffs, can defeat enemies as fast as pure DPS can.
sci ships, sci captains, and sci debuff and control skills, with the exception of GW, are basically single target, yet npcs are thrown at you by the 10s. there's a good reason AOE skills, not single target skills, are what you use in pve. sci debuff effectiveness relys on how much abilities and power levels buff the target. a player ship running no abilities is 1/50th as powerful as one cycling EPtX skills, tac buffs, heals, clears and resists. they are totally propped up by these skills, you pull the rug out from them if you debuff that. NPCS are nothing like that, they just have huge hitpoints, and maybe 1 skill they can use every 2 minutes, but they wont survive even 20 seconds. on elite they survive longer, but the only difernence is more of your time is wasted, without the experience improved in any way.
if your mad sci sucks in pve, its long past time you all recognized WHY. harp on the devs to make npcs more like player ships. i cant do it alone, ive been trying for years. wouldn't just make sci better, it would force the DPS players to do more then bind FAW to space bar. it would make things like spike damage, and vapeing and single target focus as important as it is in pvp. this would train players how to actually use their ships to their potential, and make them competent enough to pvp, because there would be little difference between pvp and pve gameplay at that point.
You're the one who paraded out the "well they already gave you more DPS" as a dismissive retort, now you're disparaging that very concept in a long-winded lecture to someone who has already expressed dissatisfaction to the idea of just getting more DPS.
Was hoping for more career specific specialization but it's a start, will be interesting to play around with
The start is the key. Intelligence seems to me to be the Tactical specialization, we may have a Corps of Engineers specialization later, or perhaps a true Doctor specialization for science officers.
I hope the next secondary specialization is more science specific, because those two are escort and engineer benefiting.
Science - Always the last one to get anything in this game.
Well if there's one silver lining the Commando secondary specialization seems to have even abilities for all three, with science getting
Juggernaut Shielding:
Increased Shield Hardness and Max Shield Capacity
Also, there are apparently 30 abilities for the Primary and 15 for the secondary so we're not seeing ALL of the Intel specialization abilities. Maybe there are more sci geared ones too.
I'm going through this thread to pick out a few more FAQs to clarify. Here's what I have so far:
You will be able to earn as many Specialization Points as there are Abilities to purchase. In other words, you can eventually purchase every single thing there is to offer.
There is no reason to un-spend points, when there is no cap on how many you can spend.
The Dilithium Conversion kicks in only when you've run out of Abilities to purchase (currently 60). That cap will be increased when additional Specializations are introduced.
As expected. So when you max your specializations you start earning dilithium automatically similar to how you can trade in CXP for Fleet Marks.
I'm not certain that we're committing to a figure just yet. The plan is to make your time spent earning XP at level 60 feel rewarding, even if you're "done" with the Specialization System.
Is this the working solution for the question of adding dilithium rewards for rerunning story missions? I gotta say it's rather creative. It doesn't restrict people to running story missions if they don't want to but in the long run it makes sure that every mission could give you a chance to earn. It will also pad out a nice extra reward on the missions that do reward dilithium thus giving dilithium more weight in the time based currency category.
- The cap on Specialization Points increase, allowing all players (even those that were capped) to progress in the system by earning more XP.
- If it's a new Primary Specialization, all players will now have the choice of which to have Active. Note that you can purchase Abilities from an inactive specialization. So you don't have to "give up" on your Intelligence Officer investment when we release Wafflemancers.
Even though the tree will have few clickable abilities would it be possible for the tray to remember where I left the abilities in space and on the ground when I switch specialization. QoL, because, reslotting things into the tray is a real pain sometimes, especially when you forget before a mission and you're in a rush.
Absolutely. You'll be missing out on purchasing a lot of very useful abilities from the existing Specializations, but there's nothing preventing you from making that choice.
Although, many are upgrades/additions to other Abilities, increases in Ranks, etc. It probably actually works out to less than half that many.
Example:
"Redundant Sensors I" is an Ability in the Intelligence Officer specialization which grants a 10% chance to immediately cleanse any Confuse or Placate effects you are hit by. But once you've purchased that one, you also open up the option of purchasing "Redundant Sensors II" which increases the chance to 20%.
---
I'll try to keep returning to answer more questions as they are raised here.
Looks very good, thanks. I've been looking forward to these specializations for a while.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Captains, please dial back the frustration and teeth-grinding. No need for hostility over a Dev blog, okay?
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You're the one who paraded out the "well they already gave you more DPS" as a dismissive retort, now you're disparaging that very concept in a long-winded lecture to someone who has already expressed dissatisfaction to the idea of just getting more DPS.
What an utter waste of bandwidth.
they gave you something, it has value and usefulness in the game. it should be pretty obvious that i think they are going about it all wrong. you may not like it, i may not like it, but they got a major buff, and its useful.
but go ahead, keep asking them to make them more useful, and only that. you will keep getting given more DPS. or you ask them to improve npcs, that i bothered going into the resons for in detail, and get what you actually want.
I for one feel the need to get a Sychronized fire team togther with beam boats, Galaxy X Dreadnoughts, all flying in an off angle formation to the target and rolling through a wave of enemy ships only to evasive manuevers, saucer sep, and hit the lance at the end of the manuever!
What say you, who thinks they have the piloting chops to pull this off with me! mwhahahah...
pedal to the metal, Rock and Roll!
(o god I can't stop laughing at the image in my head)
I wish you gave us more than one primary tree to chose from. What are Captains who fly a T5U ship going to chose? Most of their ships probably won't even have an intelligence boff seat. They will have to make a difficult decision. Either they spend their points on a tree whose abilities and bonuses won't benefit them or they save their points in hope for another, more useful primary tree which might not arrive for a very long time.
I wish you gave us more than one primary tree to chose from. What are Captains who fly a T5U ship going to chose? Most of their ships probably won't even have an intelligence boff seat. They will have to make a difficult decision. Either they spend their points on a tree whose abilities and bonuses won't benefit them or they save their points in hope for another, more useful primary tree which might not arrive for a very long time.
I think that you may be confused...
The only direct tie-in that the Specialization has to the Bridge Officers, is the Unlock to train Rank III abilities.
Aside from that, any ship captain can benefit from everything in the Intelligence Specialization, without needing to have an Intelligence seat on their ship of choice. The two aren't reliant upon one another in any way.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
The only direct tie-in that the Specialization has to the Bridge Officers, is the Unlock to train Rank III abilities.
Aside from that, any ship captain can benefit from everything in the Intelligence Specialization, without needing to have an Intelligence seat on their ship of choice. The two aren't reliant upon one another in any way.
You're right of course. For some reason I thought that space abilities from the primary intelligence tree would only be available to characters flying an intelligence ship. Thanks for the correction.
Bort it is so nice to see a detailed blog and then the follow-up to clear-up some questions that arise from it. I really hope others learn from this and it becomes an STO standard. A lot of confusion and rage has been snuffed out quickly and efficiently. Seven would be proud.
We are Bort. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
Bort it is so nice to see a detailed blog and then the follow-up to clear-up some questions that arise from it. I really hope others learn from this and it becomes an STO standard. A lot of confusion and rage has been snuffed out quickly and efficiently. Seven would be proud.
We are Bort. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
Misinformation is inefficient.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
So why make the choices that you did for the starship passives? Why are Excort passives identical to Raptor passives? Or Science Vessel passives identical to Support Ship passives...?
I'm stunned at the depth of this planned feature! Apart from the blatant money-grabbing involved, Delta Rising is beginning to look like a major overhaul to gameplay, with respect to player options. If only Cryptic can pull off the game mechanics without degrading other aspects of the game, I might finally be tempted to buy a lifetime subscription. :eek: As a Gold subscriber, I'm paying it over a couple of years anyway; the character development arc now laid before us will likely take that long to complete... :P
Expendables Fleet: Andrew - Bajoran Fed Engineer Ken'taura - Rom/Fed Scientist Gwyllim - Human Fed Delta Tac Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
But, it seems to me that a better route would be to have all these be "full" primary specializations, and the captain can slot them as either primary or secondary. Thus, only some of the benefits are available when it is slotted secondary (even if all possible points are spent there), but the full array is available from the tree slotted as primary.
Plus, this instantly adds three, rather than one, specialization tree to choose.
Comments
Bort answered some of the questions that had come up: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=19415721
Yeah something does change smart guy. We can now go back to level 60 like we could when the game started.
That means we move up by ten levels. Just making this simple for ya, k?
So now during those ten levels, the text is implying that we can't add to our skills as we move PAST lvl 50 up to lvl 60.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
It's not implying anything. It states that explicitly.
1-50, you spend SP on skills.
50-60, you spend SP on specialization.
You're not going to have more than 366k in skills.
My already full skillbar thanks you for that.
Correct. Instead of adding to the Skill trees, the skill points fill a bar. Once bar is full you get a spec point which you can use to open a slot in the Spec Tree. This filling of the bar will continue even after you get to level 60. Once you have all spots on all of the trees selected, then you get Dil for filling the bar.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
Stop what?
I've specifically stated the idea of increasing Sci "usefulness" by just increasing sci DPS is not what I want.
You're the one who paraded out the "well they already gave you more DPS" as a dismissive retort, now you're disparaging that very concept in a long-winded lecture to someone who has already expressed dissatisfaction to the idea of just getting more DPS.
What an utter waste of bandwidth.
The start is the key. Intelligence seems to me to be the Tactical specialization, we may have a Corps of Engineers specialization later, or perhaps a true Doctor specialization for science officers.
This could be very interesting.
Well if there's one silver lining the Commando secondary specialization seems to have even abilities for all three, with science getting
Juggernaut Shielding:- Increased Shield Hardness and Max Shield Capacity
Also, there are apparently 30 abilities for the Primary and 15 for the secondary so we're not seeing ALL of the Intel specialization abilities. Maybe there are more sci geared ones too.
As expected. So when you max your specializations you start earning dilithium automatically similar to how you can trade in CXP for Fleet Marks.
Is this the working solution for the question of adding dilithium rewards for rerunning story missions? I gotta say it's rather creative. It doesn't restrict people to running story missions if they don't want to but in the long run it makes sure that every mission could give you a chance to earn. It will also pad out a nice extra reward on the missions that do reward dilithium thus giving dilithium more weight in the time based currency category.
Even though the tree will have few clickable abilities would it be possible for the tray to remember where I left the abilities in space and on the ground when I switch specialization. QoL, because, reslotting things into the tray is a real pain sometimes, especially when you forget before a mission and you're in a rush.
Looks very good, thanks. I've been looking forward to these specializations for a while.
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stop asking simply for more usefulness, because they will just give you more DPS. is telling you twice enough times for you to comprehend that?
they gave you something, it has value and usefulness in the game. it should be pretty obvious that i think they are going about it all wrong. you may not like it, i may not like it, but they got a major buff, and its useful.
but go ahead, keep asking them to make them more useful, and only that. you will keep getting given more DPS. or you ask them to improve npcs, that i bothered going into the resons for in detail, and get what you actually want.
Using ad hominems won't get you anywhere, DDIS.
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What say you, who thinks they have the piloting chops to pull this off with me! mwhahahah...
pedal to the metal, Rock and Roll!
(o god I can't stop laughing at the image in my head)
Sorry, meant Dyson Science Destroyer.
Love the blog, and the idea behind the specializations.
I think that you may be confused...
The only direct tie-in that the Specialization has to the Bridge Officers, is the Unlock to train Rank III abilities.
Aside from that, any ship captain can benefit from everything in the Intelligence Specialization, without needing to have an Intelligence seat on their ship of choice. The two aren't reliant upon one another in any way.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Commander Science, Lieutenant Commander Engineering, Lieutenant Commander Universal, Lieutenant Tactical, Ensign Science
You're right of course. For some reason I thought that space abilities from the primary intelligence tree would only be available to characters flying an intelligence ship. Thanks for the correction.
Yeah that makes a lot more sense. :P
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We are Bort. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
Misinformation is inefficient.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
It's been gnawing at me for some time now.
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"Purchasing the Abilities available in this Specialization will the following Unlock:"
I think it's great you were able to get Yoda to be a special guest assistant writer!:D:cool:
Fixed that for you.
Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci
Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac
Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
But, it seems to me that a better route would be to have all these be "full" primary specializations, and the captain can slot them as either primary or secondary. Thus, only some of the benefits are available when it is slotted secondary (even if all possible points are spent there), but the full array is available from the tree slotted as primary.
Plus, this instantly adds three, rather than one, specialization tree to choose.