It will only apply to Boffs that had hand-picked powers assigned to them.
For any Boff that was randomly generated, we don't have the ability to track down what they were originally created with, so this change cannot be applied to them.
That's what I figured, but I just wanted to double check. Thanks again.
Dilithium Cost - Just to be clear on this cost any Training Manual that you purchase from the Boff Trainer (which is the vast majority of them) do not require Dilithium. You will only need to spend Dilithium for the high end abilities that must be crafted. We are evaluating the exact amount of Dilithium required to create the PADD component though and appreciate hearing feedback from the community before making a final decision.
Thanks,
Mike "Warpdust" McTyre
Systems Designer
Star Trek Online
Considering the persistent nature of the new BOFF abilities, but also the need to train multiple BOFFs, I wouldn't have a problem with a modest amount of Dilithium per manual for the higher end abilities (Lt Commander and Commander).
Some LtC and C abilities are currently available from the Trainer. I assume these will still be offered as-is? In which case, they are EC and not Dil, correct? We could classify them as Common manuals.
Then there are the higher-tier versions of those abilities that are currently only available from a Captain skill unlock or sometimes on a Rare/VR BOFF. I would classify these as Uncommon manuals. I would think that 100-200 Dil per Uncommon manual is very reasonable.
Above that, I believe there are very rarely seen BOFF abilities, abilities normally only seen on unique BOFFs, or abilities that are difficult to unlock through the skill system because they require a lot of points dedicated to high-end skills. I would classify these as Rare manuals. I would strongly hesitate to pay more than 1K Dil to craft one. I'd be less reserved about 500 Dil per Rare manual.
Cryptic might introduce VR/Epic level BOFF abilities at some point which we might have to classify as VR or Epic manuals with a significantly higher cost rivalling what we might pay for high end Rep or Fleet gear. But I don't consider anything currently in the game to hit this mark.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Any word on the chance of currently PC-restricted ground abilities/modules like Triage, Biofilter Sweep, Rally Cry, Transphasic Bomb, etc. being added to this system?
Let's say you have the Jem'hadar Boff from the "2800" series. He comes with Torpedo Spread 3, but you could have trained him in any other Tactical Commander ability, thereby losing TS3. Example: Let's say you retrained this guy in APBeta3.
When this feature goes live, we're planning to restore rare powers like this to the Boffs that originally had them. As a result, you will log in and see that your Jem'Hadar Boff now has access to either TS3 or APBeta3. Both powers will already be Trained on him, and you'll just have to choose which to use.
That's the plan.
So basically majority of my characters will need to redo every single setup per boff across all my characters lol. Yeah good luck with that.
Considering the persistent nature of the new BOFF abilities, but also the need to train multiple BOFFs, I wouldn't have a problem with a modest amount of Dilithium per manual for the higher end abilities (Lt Commander and Commander).
Some LtC and C abilities are currently available from the Trainer. I assume these will still be offered as-is? In which case, they are EC and not Dil, correct? We could classify them as Common manuals.
Then there are the higher-tier versions of those abilities that are currently only available from a Captain skill unlock or sometimes on a Rare/VR BOFF. I would classify these as Uncommon manuals. I would think that 100-200 Dil per Uncommon manual is very reasonable.
Above that, I believe there are very rarely seen BOFF abilities, abilities normally only seen on unique BOFFs, or abilities that are difficult to unlock through the skill system because they require a lot of points dedicated to high-end skills. I would classify these as Rare manuals. I would strongly hesitate to pay more than 1K Dil to craft one. I'd be less reserved about 500 Dil per Rare manual.
Cryptic might introduce VR/Epic level BOFF abilities at some point which we might have to classify as VR or Epic manuals with a significantly higher cost rivalling what we might pay for high end Rep or Fleet gear. But I don't consider anything currently in the game to hit this mark.
Actually... the current implementation ahs it so that manuals are color coded based on ability rank, so an ensign ability is white, and a commander ability is purple.
Now that the Specialization manuals are available, I trained two of my BOFFs in the new skills.
The ground skills appeared in the menu and the specializations we active, but the skills did not work when I tested them.
Here's how it happened:
I took the two BOFFs to the Dyson sphere battlezone (a Tac speced into Intel and Sci speced into Command) and went looking for Voth. The Intel powers appeared in the Tac BOFF's bar but could not be clicked, and the Command BOFF hand no powers showing. When I got into combat, they began using the Tac and Sci powers they had previously had, but no Intel or Comm abilities.
After I left combat, I confirmed again that the spec powers were active in the character menus.
It will only apply to Boffs that had hand-picked powers assigned to them.
For any Boff that was randomly generated, we don't have the ability to track down what they were originally created with, so this change cannot be applied to them.
I'm assuming that any boffs that currently have these rare abilities will keep them.
You should really consider adding the rare abilities to the Officer Training school. Otherwise, you are putting new characters at a disadvantage, because they won't be able to obtain these abilities except on certain boffs. I never understood why BFaW3 and THY3 were captain-trainable, but not BO3 and TS3.
I noticed that when I slotted Command Ground skills on some of my officers they wouldn't "stick", meaning that they were either swapped out for nothing or reverted back to their original powers, in this case standard tactical abilities. When I tried on the mission map (Gasko Station) to re-slot the Command abilities the game crashed to desktop, with no apparent error number generated. though it did send a dump file.
Had a chance to go to the Voth battlezone to try out commander abilities today.
I like how Take Cover IV made the boffs crouch, I think more command abilities should do this, force your boffs to do something as they usually just go off uncontrolled and won't even come over to revive their captain!
The Revitalize graphic is great.
I tried Strategic Analysis, Shock and Awe, and Overwhelm Shields (all IV), but it was hard to tell how well they worked. At least they made the Voth die faster, so I guess that's the point. The "mark" on the marked foe is good too, but it's hard to tell if this will attract your boffs to focus fire on that target specifically. Again, things die too fast to really tell.
Coordonate Bombing Strike take a bit to get used to, it wasn't clear exactly where the bombs would fall, but after a couple tries it was clear that you should target an enemy directly in front with others in between. Like a ground version of the lance? not sure how often enemies will be lined up like that, or if they'll stay for 5sec or not.
I took the two BOFFs to the Dyson sphere battlezone (a Tac speced into Intel and Sci speced into Command) and went looking for Voth. The Intel powers appeared in the Tac BOFF's bar but could not be clicked, and the Command BOFF hand no powers showing. When I got into combat, they began using the Tac and Sci powers they had previously had, but no Intel or Comm abilities.
After I left combat, I confirmed again that the spec powers were active in the character menus
Same thing happened with me. Trained a boff in Command specialization, loaded her up with 6 or so abilities, and went to the sphere battlezone. None of her command abilities would show up in her bar, but when I switched back to her engineering abilities they showed up and worked fine. i.e. if she had two command and two eng then only the two eng would show up.
Either way, only a few of the abilites are things I would like boffs to have, perhaps Strategic Analysis or the ones that debuff all targets resistance, like tactial debuffs. If a boff uses Take Cover, does that mean the rest will crouch and stop moving? Anyway, will like to see later when they can use the ground abilities. Thanks for the hard work!
Let's say you have the Jem'hadar Boff from the "2800" series. He comes with Torpedo Spread 3, but you could have trained him in any other Tactical Commander ability, thereby losing TS3. Example: Let's say you retrained this guy in APBeta3.
When this feature goes live, we're planning to restore rare powers like this to the Boffs that originally had them. As a result, you will log in and see that your Jem'Hadar Boff now has access to either TS3 or APBeta3. Both powers will already be Trained on him, and you'll just have to choose which to use.
It will only apply to Boffs that had hand-picked powers assigned to them.
For any Boff that was randomly generated, we don't have the ability to track down what they were originally created with, so this change cannot be applied to them.
does this also work with the borg engineer boff as well?
after i asked that i then looked up on the wiki what it came iwth..... nothing of value is lost as there is only rank 2 space abilities and decent at best ground
i forgot what she came with as i have retrained my boffs so many times over the years
Please take into account that several fleet holdings projects currently also require bridge officers.
If the influx of bridge officers into the game is changed, these might need changes too.
Next part ... i find the cost of dilithium to actually be an issue ... because this will negativly affect the usage of training now, will make alot of boff skills very expensive and time consuming.
While i can see that a cost component in dilithium is highly desired by management, it should not be put on the PADD , but instead be put in as a cost for "using" the highest rank skills instead of at the beginning where the padds are taking very long to craft, and are expensive in components as well.
One use i can see for all the bridge officers going around the game, is to have the ability to send the uncommisioned boff into a mission, and have him create the training manual for you.
This way the whole "boff system" could stay relativly "unchanged" and instead of commison/training a boff you send him off to write the training manual in return for 1 of the skills he can make.
That way all the options currently in the game where one gets boffs can stay in the game, and the trading/training system would stay in place, with an added upgrade that you can either trade boffs or training manuals through the exchange, and can use the training manuals themselves to train your bridge officers with.
The whole creation of the special captain skills could then stay as is in the R&D system, while the rest of the system would use the vendor/boff training manuals.
Let's say you have the Jem'hadar Boff from the "2800" series. He comes with Torpedo Spread 3, but you could have trained him in any other Tactical Commander ability, thereby losing TS3. Example: Let's say you retrained this guy in APBeta3.
When this feature goes live, we're planning to restore rare powers like this to the Boffs that originally had them. As a result, you will log in and see that your Jem'Hadar Boff now has access to either TS3 or APBeta3. Both powers will already be Trained on him, and you'll just have to choose which to use.
That's the plan.
So are we still going to be able to train our other bridge officers in TS3? I would rather not have to use a bridge officer with no space traits just to use a specific skill. The same goes for Overload 3, Scatter Volley 3 and all of the other skills you can't currently craft training manuals for.
Next part ... i find the cost of dilithium to actually be an issue ... because this will negativly affect the usage of training now, will make alot of boff skills very expensive and time consuming.
Disagreed. While I'd rather see no dilithium cost, I'm already finding this system superior to what we have now and can't wait for it to go live. Making the abilities permanent is such a great change and a huge quality of life improvement. 500 dilithium for captain skills is a small price to pay for this convenience. It's even better for Romulans, where getting boffs trained can be a complete nightmare. Not to mention untradeable boffs.
All in all, a major improvement, they just need to do something about boff-only rare abilities. Preferably before this goes live...please, devs, don't release another system before all the components are in place.
All in all, a major improvement, they just need to do something about boff-only rare abilities. Preferably before this goes live...please, devs, don't release another system before all the components are in place.
I've compiled a list of abilities that will no longer be trainable if the system goes live as is. This information was taken from the STO wiki.
Weapons Malfunction III
Reroute Power to Shields III
Science Ground
Tachyon Harmonic III
Stasis Field III
Vascular Regenerator III
Tactical Ground
Battle Strategies III
Draw Fire III
Smoke Grenade III
Lunge III
Ambush II
Ambush III
Stun Grenade II
Engineering Space
Auxiliary to Structural III
Boarding Party III
Reverse Shield Polarity III
Aceton Beam III
Science Space
Mask Energy Signature III
Polarize Hull III
Tractor Beam III
Transfer Shield Strength III
Charged Particle Burst III
Energy Siphon III
Tractor Beam Repulsors III
Tyken's Rift III
Viral Matrix III
Tactical Space
Beam Array: Overload III
Torpedo: Spread III
Target Weapons Subsystems III
Target Shields Subsystems III
Target Engines Subsystems III
Target Auxiliary Subsystems III
Attack Pattern Delta III
Cannon: Scatter Volley III
Boff Training - With the release of this new system we will no longer be supporting the old functionality of consuming a Boff to train another in an ability. If you have any Boff's you were saving for this purpose you should use them now before the system goes live. We will also no longer be supporting players being able to directly train Boffs for free in an ability. Going forward all Boff training will be consistent and require the use of Training Manuals.
We need a better option than "use them now before the system goes live." I have a small legion of boxed up Boffs with soon to be non trainable abilities that will disappear when this goes live.
We need a better option than "use them now before the system goes live." I have a small legion of boxed up Boffs with soon to be non trainable abilities that will disappear when this goes live.
Definitely, especially seeing the list of now un-trainable abilities that frtoaster posted. Perhaps a DOff mission that's triggered by the now-deprecated 'Train' Button to launch a DOff mission to make a Training manual from a selected ability that consumes the BOff?
Definitely, especially seeing the list of now un-trainable abilities that frtoaster posted. Perhaps a DOff mission that's triggered by the now-deprecated 'Train' Button to launch a DOff mission to make a Training manual from a selected ability that consumes the BOff?
Yes, was thinking something along those lines, too...
After seeing that List it's clear we need some way to keep access to those skills for new players or they'd be set at a serious disadvantage!
Possible solutions I could think of:
Doff jobs that consume Boffs originally carrying that skill in exchange for a Manual in that Skill
Doff Jobs that yield a Manual in that Skill on Crit Success, like nowadays when you sometimes get those boosts to one skill or another for a time period...
Maybe make those the final, repeatable Mission of a new Doff job chain... Input an empty Padd, requires a suitable Doff ... Energy / Projectile Weapons Officer for BO3 / TS3, Assault Squad for Lunge etc... with a reasonable chance for a Crit Success... maybe 15% on a white 20% green 30% blue 40% purple
Make them available in the Officer Training R&D Section if certain requirements are met, like 6 points in Starship Projectile Weapon Specialization AND Lvl 15 in Projectile R&D -> Unlock Torp Spread 3 as trainable
going along any of those ways I'd expect prices for said Manuals to level out around maybe 300k on the Exchange... if at first they go well into the 7 digit range you still could tweak it a bit and make those manuals a random drop from Bosses in missions... but please, regular Missions, something a Lvl 30ish player has a chance to earn by himself, not STF Bosses.
Other Possibilites:
add them as Mission Rewards, Acc bind on Pickup and let ppl pick from a few of the good ones... the True Way Missions come to mind here... right now they offer some crappy ground gear and next to no XP... might keep ppl from hitting the Skip button quite so often.
A choice of Torp Spread 3 / Viral Matrix 3 / Aux2Sif 3 would make for a valid reward for the end mission of a Story Arc imo.
Random Drop of one non-Trainable Skill Manual through the R&D asstistance job at the Academy.
Random Drops from Lockboxes / R&D / Duty officer Packs (really would hate that one as it'd make them unaffordable for beginners)
Speaking of the aspiring new Captains... having to pay Dil to craft a Manual may be a bit hard for them at first, but 500 should be bearable...
Optionally you could grant them a few empty Padds with the Promotions at Lvl 30 and 40, at which point Captain-trained Skills become an issue for the first time...
In general I like that new system a lot... and it'll make life a lot easier for the new guys as the XP cost to train skills via the new system is considerably less...
I remember when I was leveling, it took me quite a bit to fully train my Boffs in their Skills.
Now if you want to change the Ens Skill on your default Tac Boff from HY1 to TT1 it looks like it'll cost you 400 xp only instead of 1000 ... few of us may still remember but it'll be a big help for the new guys.
Some Dil cost is unavoidable in this system and I guess we can be glad it's so little...
Look at it from the marketing standpoint: right now I got around 7 "Space" Boffs and at least 4 "Ground" Boffs on every Toon in order to run different Loadouts and/or different Ships... Even though I got LTS and thus extra Boff slots I think I bought 2 extra seats on just about every Toon I have... something ppl in the Future won't have to do that often... they gotta compensate for that to some extend at least.
Thinking about it... I prolly would've made due with the seats I got if I didn't make it a habit to keep one slot free on every toon at any time so I can provide Training for fleetmates/friends/strangers that ask politely.
So I wouldn't worry too much about the newbies... any Fleet that's worth it's salt will take care of their new guys, I know mine will and I won't mind passing a self-crafted training manual on to one of our noobs in need here and there.
I want to be clear I understand what you're saying.
The list below would not be available, at all, from any source, to incorporate into the BOFFs of our choosing?
I.e. there is simply no way to apply these skills to BOFFs in play unless they magically had them in the first place?
That list is, bluntly, way too long and way too extensive for that to an acceptable go forward state as it would massively undermine the utility, function and reception of what is otherwise a step in the right direction.
Similarly, there still needs to be a BOFF value for boffs we don't want in our bridge crews. They need a sink/exit utility function desperately. I've heard nothing that suggests that has been addressed yet.
Thanks for the heads up on this!
Engineering Ground
Weapons Malfunction III
Reroute Power to Shields III
Science Ground
Tachyon Harmonic III
Stasis Field III
Vascular Regenerator III
Tactical Ground
Battle Strategies III
Draw Fire III
Smoke Grenade III
Lunge III
Ambush II
Ambush III
Stun Grenade II
Engineering Space
Auxiliary to Structural III
Boarding Party III
Reverse Shield Polarity III
Aceton Beam III
Science Space
Mask Energy Signature III
Polarize Hull III
Tractor Beam III
Transfer Shield Strength III
Charged Particle Burst III
Energy Siphon III
Tractor Beam Repulsors III
Tyken's Rift III
Viral Matrix III
Tactical Space
Beam Array: Overload III
Torpedo: Spread III
Target Weapons Subsystems III
Target Shields Subsystems III
Target Engines Subsystems III
Target Auxiliary Subsystems III
Attack Pattern Delta III
Cannon: Scatter Volley III
"The only thing mankind learns from the study of history is that mankind does not learn from the study of history." ~G. Santayana
I want to be clear I understand what you're saying.
The list below would not be available, at all, from any source, to incorporate into the BOFFs of our choosing?
I.e. there is simply no way to apply these skills to BOFFs in play unless they magically had them in the first place?
That is the list of abilities that can only be obtained from uncommon, rare, or very rare bridge officers according to the STO wiki. In other words, neither boff trainers found on stations nor captains can train those abilities. If a boff did not originally come with such an ability, the only way to obtain it is to be trained by another boff.
According to this dev post, it will no longer be possible to use boffs to train other boffs. And they have not yet determined how those rare boff abilities will be incorporated into the new system.
Rare Boff Abilities - When the system is released it will retrain any Rare Boff Abilities that a Boff had to begin with (so if a player accidentally untrained a rare ability, they will get it back on that Boff). We are also planning on releasing those Rare Abilities as Training Manuals in the future but we have not determined the method on it yet.
...
Boff Training - With the release of this new system we will no longer be supporting the old functionality of consuming a Boff to train another in an ability. If you have any Boff's you were saving for this purpose you should use them now before the system goes live. We will also no longer be supporting players being able to directly train Boffs for free in an ability. Going forward all Boff training will be consistent and require the use of Training Manuals.
Boff Training - With the release of this new system we will no longer be supporting the old functionality of consuming a Boff to train another in an ability. If you have any Boff's you were saving for this purpose you should use them now before the system goes live. We will also no longer be supporting players being able to directly train Boffs for free in an ability. Going forward all Boff training will be consistent and require the use of Training Manuals.
Wow. So, considering that I've tailored every one of my toons to have level 6 in a bunch of stats specifically so I can train BOffs, you folks are going to give a free Respec token for each character, right?
That is the list of abilities that can only be obtained from uncommon, rare, or very rare bridge officers according to the STO wiki. In other words, neither boff trainers found on stations nor captains can train those abilities. If a boff did not originally come with such an ability, the only way to obtain it is to be trained by another boff.
According to this dev post, it will no longer be possible to use boffs to train other boffs. And they have not yet determined how those rare boff abilities will be incorporated into the new system.
Wow. So, considering that I've tailored every one of my toons to have level 6 in a bunch of stats specifically so I can train BOffs, you folks are going to give a free Respec token for each character, right?
Right?
Skill point distribution is still taken into account. IE you can't train EptS without points in shield power.
I was looking on tribble and noticed that you CAN make manuals for Lunge3 and Viral Matrix3 in the current build.
Skill point distribution is still taken into account. IE you can't train EptS without points in shield power.
Interesting. Do they work? I really think they should just add all rare boff abilities to the Officer Training school.
Interesting. Do they work? I really think they should just add all rare boff abilities to the Officer Training school.
Thank you for the clarification earlier and I completely concur with this.
We have rare equipment and rare officer base traits.
Honestly, if there is one place I would like to see _less_ rarity and the focus be on player construction, selection and acquisition in a structured, organized way it would be in the boff skills themselves.
I fail to see how 'skills' are rare in the context of the game nor how maintaining this model has any value going forward.
We're abandoning the rare person trains rare skill model. So let's just be done with it and standardize the way we get skills and the costs of skills across specific tiers and uses.
Makes a hell of a lot more sense to me on numerous levels but perhaps I'm just biased towards less randomness where I see little value from it.
"The only thing mankind learns from the study of history is that mankind does not learn from the study of history." ~G. Santayana
Lunge III for example is indeed available in the Officer training school for tacs, however Torpedo Spread III or Beam Overload III are not. And I haven't found them added to any skill I wouldn't have points in.
This problem of Boff only appearing abilities effectively stopping to be available in the game needs to be adressed asap.
Other than that, the system is definitely interesting. I'll say that if it doesn't bug (similarly to loadouts), it can be very helpful, as from my experience, you can indeed have the same Boff have different abilities on different ships without needing to reset them manually after each ship swapping.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
I found that Training Manuals need "Any civilian or officer" that I do not have.
I have a total 98 duty officers, only 7 of them are doing assignments.
I can't see why the "Requires" field still keeping red-out and telling me that "You do not have a required Duty Officer."
Comments
That's what I figured, but I just wanted to double check. Thanks again.
Considering the persistent nature of the new BOFF abilities, but also the need to train multiple BOFFs, I wouldn't have a problem with a modest amount of Dilithium per manual for the higher end abilities (Lt Commander and Commander).
Some LtC and C abilities are currently available from the Trainer. I assume these will still be offered as-is? In which case, they are EC and not Dil, correct? We could classify them as Common manuals.
Then there are the higher-tier versions of those abilities that are currently only available from a Captain skill unlock or sometimes on a Rare/VR BOFF. I would classify these as Uncommon manuals. I would think that 100-200 Dil per Uncommon manual is very reasonable.
Above that, I believe there are very rarely seen BOFF abilities, abilities normally only seen on unique BOFFs, or abilities that are difficult to unlock through the skill system because they require a lot of points dedicated to high-end skills. I would classify these as Rare manuals. I would strongly hesitate to pay more than 1K Dil to craft one. I'd be less reserved about 500 Dil per Rare manual.
Cryptic might introduce VR/Epic level BOFF abilities at some point which we might have to classify as VR or Epic manuals with a significantly higher cost rivalling what we might pay for high end Rep or Fleet gear. But I don't consider anything currently in the game to hit this mark.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
So basically majority of my characters will need to redo every single setup per boff across all my characters lol. Yeah good luck with that.
My character Tsin'xing
The ground skills appeared in the menu and the specializations we active, but the skills did not work when I tested them.
Here's how it happened:
I took the two BOFFs to the Dyson sphere battlezone (a Tac speced into Intel and Sci speced into Command) and went looking for Voth. The Intel powers appeared in the Tac BOFF's bar but could not be clicked, and the Command BOFF hand no powers showing. When I got into combat, they began using the Tac and Sci powers they had previously had, but no Intel or Comm abilities.
After I left combat, I confirmed again that the spec powers were active in the character menus.
Affected Tribble character: Selari 2
Ticket submitted #48213
Thanks for replying and clarifying.
I'm assuming that any boffs that currently have these rare abilities will keep them.
You should really consider adding the rare abilities to the Officer Training school. Otherwise, you are putting new characters at a disadvantage, because they won't be able to obtain these abilities except on certain boffs. I never understood why BFaW3 and THY3 were captain-trainable, but not BO3 and TS3.
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
I like how Take Cover IV made the boffs crouch, I think more command abilities should do this, force your boffs to do something as they usually just go off uncontrolled and won't even come over to revive their captain!
The Revitalize graphic is great.
I tried Strategic Analysis, Shock and Awe, and Overwhelm Shields (all IV), but it was hard to tell how well they worked. At least they made the Voth die faster, so I guess that's the point. The "mark" on the marked foe is good too, but it's hard to tell if this will attract your boffs to focus fire on that target specifically. Again, things die too fast to really tell.
Coordonate Bombing Strike take a bit to get used to, it wasn't clear exactly where the bombs would fall, but after a couple tries it was clear that you should target an enemy directly in front with others in between. Like a ground version of the lance? not sure how often enemies will be lined up like that, or if they'll stay for 5sec or not.
All together interesting abilities,
Same thing happened with me. Trained a boff in Command specialization, loaded her up with 6 or so abilities, and went to the sphere battlezone. None of her command abilities would show up in her bar, but when I switched back to her engineering abilities they showed up and worked fine. i.e. if she had two command and two eng then only the two eng would show up.
Either way, only a few of the abilites are things I would like boffs to have, perhaps Strategic Analysis or the ones that debuff all targets resistance, like tactial debuffs. If a boff uses Take Cover, does that mean the rest will crouch and stop moving? Anyway, will like to see later when they can use the ground abilities. Thanks for the hard work!
That sounds pretty cool actually.
does this also work with the borg engineer boff as well?
My character Tsin'xing
i forgot what she came with as i have retrained my boffs so many times over the years
If the influx of bridge officers into the game is changed, these might need changes too.
Next part ... i find the cost of dilithium to actually be an issue ... because this will negativly affect the usage of training now, will make alot of boff skills very expensive and time consuming.
While i can see that a cost component in dilithium is highly desired by management, it should not be put on the PADD , but instead be put in as a cost for "using" the highest rank skills instead of at the beginning where the padds are taking very long to craft, and are expensive in components as well.
One use i can see for all the bridge officers going around the game, is to have the ability to send the uncommisioned boff into a mission, and have him create the training manual for you.
This way the whole "boff system" could stay relativly "unchanged" and instead of commison/training a boff you send him off to write the training manual in return for 1 of the skills he can make.
That way all the options currently in the game where one gets boffs can stay in the game, and the trading/training system would stay in place, with an added upgrade that you can either trade boffs or training manuals through the exchange, and can use the training manuals themselves to train your bridge officers with.
The whole creation of the special captain skills could then stay as is in the R&D system, while the rest of the system would use the vendor/boff training manuals.
So are we still going to be able to train our other bridge officers in TS3? I would rather not have to use a bridge officer with no space traits just to use a specific skill. The same goes for Overload 3, Scatter Volley 3 and all of the other skills you can't currently craft training manuals for.
Disagreed. While I'd rather see no dilithium cost, I'm already finding this system superior to what we have now and can't wait for it to go live. Making the abilities permanent is such a great change and a huge quality of life improvement. 500 dilithium for captain skills is a small price to pay for this convenience. It's even better for Romulans, where getting boffs trained can be a complete nightmare. Not to mention untradeable boffs.
All in all, a major improvement, they just need to do something about boff-only rare abilities. Preferably before this goes live...please, devs, don't release another system before all the components are in place.
I've compiled a list of abilities that will no longer be trainable if the system goes live as is. This information was taken from the STO wiki.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Bridge_officer_abilities
Engineering Ground
Weapons Malfunction III
Reroute Power to Shields III
Science Ground
Tachyon Harmonic III
Stasis Field III
Vascular Regenerator III
Tactical Ground
Battle Strategies III
Draw Fire III
Smoke Grenade III
Lunge III
Ambush II
Ambush III
Stun Grenade II
Engineering Space
Auxiliary to Structural III
Boarding Party III
Reverse Shield Polarity III
Aceton Beam III
Science Space
Mask Energy Signature III
Polarize Hull III
Tractor Beam III
Transfer Shield Strength III
Charged Particle Burst III
Energy Siphon III
Tractor Beam Repulsors III
Tyken's Rift III
Viral Matrix III
Tactical Space
Beam Array: Overload III
Torpedo: Spread III
Target Weapons Subsystems III
Target Shields Subsystems III
Target Engines Subsystems III
Target Auxiliary Subsystems III
Attack Pattern Delta III
Cannon: Scatter Volley III
We need a better option than "use them now before the system goes live." I have a small legion of boxed up Boffs with soon to be non trainable abilities that will disappear when this goes live.
Definitely, especially seeing the list of now un-trainable abilities that frtoaster posted. Perhaps a DOff mission that's triggered by the now-deprecated 'Train' Button to launch a DOff mission to make a Training manual from a selected ability that consumes the BOff?
Yes, was thinking something along those lines, too...
After seeing that List it's clear we need some way to keep access to those skills for new players or they'd be set at a serious disadvantage!
Possible solutions I could think of:
Doff jobs that consume Boffs originally carrying that skill in exchange for a Manual in that Skill
Doff Jobs that yield a Manual in that Skill on Crit Success, like nowadays when you sometimes get those boosts to one skill or another for a time period...
Maybe make those the final, repeatable Mission of a new Doff job chain... Input an empty Padd, requires a suitable Doff ... Energy / Projectile Weapons Officer for BO3 / TS3, Assault Squad for Lunge etc... with a reasonable chance for a Crit Success... maybe 15% on a white 20% green 30% blue 40% purple
Make them available in the Officer Training R&D Section if certain requirements are met, like 6 points in Starship Projectile Weapon Specialization AND Lvl 15 in Projectile R&D -> Unlock Torp Spread 3 as trainable
going along any of those ways I'd expect prices for said Manuals to level out around maybe 300k on the Exchange... if at first they go well into the 7 digit range you still could tweak it a bit and make those manuals a random drop from Bosses in missions... but please, regular Missions, something a Lvl 30ish player has a chance to earn by himself, not STF Bosses.
Other Possibilites:
add them as Mission Rewards, Acc bind on Pickup and let ppl pick from a few of the good ones... the True Way Missions come to mind here... right now they offer some crappy ground gear and next to no XP... might keep ppl from hitting the Skip button quite so often.
A choice of Torp Spread 3 / Viral Matrix 3 / Aux2Sif 3 would make for a valid reward for the end mission of a Story Arc imo.
Random Drop of one non-Trainable Skill Manual through the R&D asstistance job at the Academy.
Random Drops from Lockboxes / R&D / Duty officer Packs (really would hate that one as it'd make them unaffordable for beginners)
Speaking of the aspiring new Captains... having to pay Dil to craft a Manual may be a bit hard for them at first, but 500 should be bearable...
Optionally you could grant them a few empty Padds with the Promotions at Lvl 30 and 40, at which point Captain-trained Skills become an issue for the first time...
In general I like that new system a lot... and it'll make life a lot easier for the new guys as the XP cost to train skills via the new system is considerably less...
I remember when I was leveling, it took me quite a bit to fully train my Boffs in their Skills.
Now if you want to change the Ens Skill on your default Tac Boff from HY1 to TT1 it looks like it'll cost you 400 xp only instead of 1000 ... few of us may still remember but it'll be a big help for the new guys.
Some Dil cost is unavoidable in this system and I guess we can be glad it's so little...
Look at it from the marketing standpoint: right now I got around 7 "Space" Boffs and at least 4 "Ground" Boffs on every Toon in order to run different Loadouts and/or different Ships... Even though I got LTS and thus extra Boff slots I think I bought 2 extra seats on just about every Toon I have... something ppl in the Future won't have to do that often... they gotta compensate for that to some extend at least.
Thinking about it... I prolly would've made due with the seats I got if I didn't make it a habit to keep one slot free on every toon at any time so I can provide Training for fleetmates/friends/strangers that ask politely.
So I wouldn't worry too much about the newbies... any Fleet that's worth it's salt will take care of their new guys, I know mine will and I won't mind passing a self-crafted training manual on to one of our noobs in need here and there.
I want to be clear I understand what you're saying.
The list below would not be available, at all, from any source, to incorporate into the BOFFs of our choosing?
I.e. there is simply no way to apply these skills to BOFFs in play unless they magically had them in the first place?
That list is, bluntly, way too long and way too extensive for that to an acceptable go forward state as it would massively undermine the utility, function and reception of what is otherwise a step in the right direction.
Similarly, there still needs to be a BOFF value for boffs we don't want in our bridge crews. They need a sink/exit utility function desperately. I've heard nothing that suggests that has been addressed yet.
Thanks for the heads up on this!
That is the list of abilities that can only be obtained from uncommon, rare, or very rare bridge officers according to the STO wiki. In other words, neither boff trainers found on stations nor captains can train those abilities. If a boff did not originally come with such an ability, the only way to obtain it is to be trained by another boff.
According to this dev post, it will no longer be possible to use boffs to train other boffs. And they have not yet determined how those rare boff abilities will be incorporated into the new system.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=21690631&postcount=30
Wow. So, considering that I've tailored every one of my toons to have level 6 in a bunch of stats specifically so I can train BOffs, you folks are going to give a free Respec token for each character, right?
Right?
My character Tsin'xing
Interesting. Do they work? I really think they should just add all rare boff abilities to the Officer Training school.
My character Tsin'xing
Thank you for the clarification earlier and I completely concur with this.
We have rare equipment and rare officer base traits.
Honestly, if there is one place I would like to see _less_ rarity and the focus be on player construction, selection and acquisition in a structured, organized way it would be in the boff skills themselves.
I fail to see how 'skills' are rare in the context of the game nor how maintaining this model has any value going forward.
We're abandoning the rare person trains rare skill model. So let's just be done with it and standardize the way we get skills and the costs of skills across specific tiers and uses.
Makes a hell of a lot more sense to me on numerous levels but perhaps I'm just biased towards less randomness where I see little value from it.
This problem of Boff only appearing abilities effectively stopping to be available in the game needs to be adressed asap.
Other than that, the system is definitely interesting. I'll say that if it doesn't bug (similarly to loadouts), it can be very helpful, as from my experience, you can indeed have the same Boff have different abilities on different ships without needing to reset them manually after each ship swapping.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
I have a total 98 duty officers, only 7 of them are doing assignments.
I can't see why the "Requires" field still keeping red-out and telling me that "You do not have a required Duty Officer."
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