The item you're looking to unlock in the Officer Training R&D School is called a Specialization Qualification. If the recipe is missing (or not unlocking correctly) then yes - that's a bug.
OK, thanks for the quick response to that. Indeed, the recipe is not showing up after spending 10 point in the Command Specialization Tree. I'm currently on Tribble now, so I will get a bug report filed.
As to the other, wasn't trying to start something, just was curious. You know we all have been hoping for that for a long time
-Delegated Devestation: I can see this getting exploited by a coordinated team. One person activates it making everyone else immune to weapons offline, then the other four teammates activate it, bypassing the weapons offline penalty and gaining a team wide +200% bonus to energy weapon damage.
You cannot activate Delegated Devastation while under the effects of the power. So the closest a team could get to "exploiting" the power, is a coordinated rotation. Sounds ok to me.
-Take Cover's immunity to control seems like a bit much to me. Combat should be all about the interaction of abilities. One of those interactions is going into a crouch to take less damage, and the counter is to do a knockdown of some sort (I like grenades for this) knocking them out of the crouch. This seems like it will simply remove this interaction, effectively removing a part of the game, at least that is the way I see it.
Thanks for the feedback, with an example. We're open to alternative suggestions, and will take your feedback under consideration.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
You cannot activate Delegated Devastation while under the effects of the power. So the closest a team could get to "exploiting" the power, is a coordinated rotation. Sounds ok to me.
I suppose one of them could be an Engineer to clear the Weapons Offline, but if you're getting to that level of coordination you deserve the payoff.
The item you're looking to unlock in the Officer Training R&D School is called a Specialization Qualification. If the recipe is missing (or not unlocking correctly) then yes - that's a bug.
You cannot activate Delegated Devastation while under the effects of the power. So the closest a team could get to "exploiting" the power, is a coordinated rotation. Sounds ok to me.
Thanks for the feedback, with an example. We're open to alternative suggestions, and will take your feedback under consideration.
Instead of "immunity to control" could it be immunity to certain types of control, like hold/disable/stun? This would leave some options to counter the crouch while still having the effect of not being able to be "controlled" out of the fight.
Also that power didn't mention how long it lasted on the tool tip. I was wondering if that was intentional?
Hey guys, I hear what you're getting at, and we hear your concerns.
But this thread is supposed to be about the abilities, and the specialization specifically. I'd like to steer the conversation away from just discussing the availability (or lack thereof, at the moment) of Command Seats on starships. Even though they are intertwined, it really is a separate subject.
Besides the grindfest the main thing is the issue of playing the same content over and over again that has mostly been around for 3-4 years. Its pretty much phasing out the ppl who came from between beta and beginning of f2p. Most of this issue is the dynamics of mmorpgs only the dungeon aspect is in the game. I'll be honest though just where I'm concerned unless something is changing soon with how the game is as far as the boring aspect of shooting standing still npcs space and ground always the same thing its meh.
It would be a good move to make the Lieutenant Intel seats of the current non-Intel Tier 6 ships be adjusted to a Generic Hybrid seat. So kind of like the universal slots, but the specialization portion of the slot is universal while the regular career portion (Engineering, Tactical, Science) of the slot is fixed.
I was going to suggest this as well. Let the Leutenant slot be a "whatever you want" specialization seat and the commander slots be a specific specialization seat. Then everyone would be able to dabble with the spec officers, but people would still pay to use the highest level space skills.
I would also be willing to buy a token that would let me upgrade a seat on a t5-u (like my Vesta) ship to a universal specialization seat.
Borticus - I do hope you realise what these specialisations and hybrid seating powers are doing to this game?
It is killing it.
Players are leaving and the game is DYING and all the fantastic work that you and all the other Devs have put into it will be all for nothing when the lights go out. That makes me fu@*ing sad and I hope it make you feel that way too.
These abilities are RUSHED out without any standard of testing... How can we test command skills with no slots to put them in. This all goes live in 3 weeks and I guess the new ships won't be on Tribble before then. So they will get ZERO player testing in anger. And don't tell me that it's fine since you have Dev QA testing on your servers. This is worth nothing as the majority of your staff have NO clue about the mechanics of the game (no offense intended). The intel powers are still completely unbalanced, half of them don't work and they have destroyed PVP with no one queuing or going into open warzones anymore. I have every faith that Command powers will be the same (or worse).
We CANNOT TRAIN the spec skills as you need an INSANE amount of spec points to get access to this and at the moment levelling spec trees is at a comparative pace to Tectonic Drift. Only at least with Tectonic Drift you get to see the world, with spec levelling you just get to see Argala, over and over...
Then we cannot USE these skills unless we pay ridiculous sums of money to fly a ship we DO NOT WANT TO FLY. Read here for a description of how the Hybrid station system could (and really should) be monetised. http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1343791
Sorry if this post comes off as offensive/whiney but rushing out this stuff in the manner that DR rushed out specs and intel really has made me pretty sceptical about all of this.
Borticus, could the dev team put a "testing ship" in the Drozana console? Something Tribble-only, like a Fleet Galaxy/Negh'var/D'Deridex with its commander station made into a hybrid-specialization slot and then switch the specialization is accepts with each new one that hits Tribble. Since specializations are a new and ongoing Boff thing, those of use who want to help test them would have a tool to make sure the space powers work.
The item you're looking to unlock in the Officer Training R&D School is called a Specialization Qualification. If the recipe is missing (or not unlocking correctly) then yes - that's a bug.
OK, just checked for this again after today's patch and it is still missing, even though someone added the information on the Command Officer Specialization Tree about it unlocking after spending 10 points. Should I file another bug report or will the one I already filed be enough? Thanks
We have no design plans to allow Boffs to advance to Captain at this time, or any time in the near future. This is likely an oversight in the new code that was setup for the Boff Training Revamp.
So rather than having relatively unique intel, command, and so on ships you have one general mass of T6 content (with T5-U on its heals to add redundancy.)
The point of any of these specializations [from my armchair] is to specialize, making it easier to create compelling ships even after cryptic has spent these past years exploring the more obvious combinations of stations, consoles, and base stats. You may even able to justify two near identical cruiser being released NOW if you have one with intel space on a LT and the other with Command space on a CMDR and LT. Now while that may mean that cryptic can spend less time worrying about what to populate the c-store with [except as far as producing that content is concerned] that has the more relevant benefit of ensuring that as we continue to play more desirable content can be trusted to be released.
As far as gameplay is concerned having one ship that can do everything is the simpler solution but as an ongoing piece of entertainment its the less fun/productive one (see. why we have profession locked boff stations in the first place. Restriction forces strategy and more stragies is something the devs can sell and without it becoming an unreasonably Ferengi practice.)
In short: yay! I approve of the fact that the new spec is being handled like the old spec (broadly.) However what might help further justify the effort of investing in specialized boffs (besides the ground powers and incidental relevance to a new ship) is some other, less conditional, benefit to becoming a specialist. Would a command and intel boff space trait [in a 5th slot] be out of the question?
Hmm, I can see the logic here.
What we have here however is a conflict between two ideals, specialization versus customization. You want each ship to be unique, but at the same time you want them to also to do what the user wants.
A player who wants to explore different play styles could also want to only fly a Sovereign class or a Galaxy class because those are the ships that they fell in love with.
But the point of having different ships at all is that different ships have different capabilities so you don't want to lose that either, so no ship is able to do everything.
I was going to suggest this as well. Let the Leutenant slot be a "whatever you want" specialization seat and the commander slots be a specific specialization seat. Then everyone would be able to dabble with the spec officers, but people would still pay to use the highest level space skills.
I would also be willing to buy a token that would let me upgrade a seat on a t5-u (like my Vesta) ship to a universal specialization seat.
This is a nice compromise and is within the design paradigm already here. A commander engineer, LtCdr Engineer and a Lt universal on an assault cruiser becomes a commander Intel LtCdr Engineer, and a Lt Engineer/specialization uni on the Intel cruiser.
And yes T5-U universal specialization seats would probably sell like hotcakes and be useful. And since you're still not getting the extra boff power that the T6 gets, T5-U is still behind.
"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"
Just a quick update, to address some of the feedback from this thread...
We're planning a patch for Tribble today that will include a lot of tuning and fixes for Command Boff and Command Officer Captain Spec abilities. Please read through them to see how your feedback has already affected some of our design decisions.
We're adding Specialization Qualifications to the Test Vendor at Drozana, as well as the option to purchase additional Specialization Points in bundles of 5x at a time. This should help to facilitate more thorough testing.
We are running a focus test right now with about 2 dozen players flying a Test Command Ship, for focused Command Boff feedback. If you see anyone on Tribble in a ship that looks like an Obelisk, they may need your assistance testing group effectiveness, so feel free to drop them a line. And sorry, no, we're not accepting additional testers for the time being.
Thanks again for your assistance in shaking the bugs out of this feature before it goes live!
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
We're getting into the realm of something I really enjoy in a game now, and that's Customization. The more I can customize and specialize, and personalize, the more I like it. I play Alien races because of the amount of customization available.
I like that we can mix and match starship parts to customize them more toward how we play*.
And I'm liking that we can now start to customize abilities more and more so, to further tune our characters and their supporting cast of Officers.
So why stop there?
Few ships have /Intel seats.
None yet have /Command seats.
Why not let us put in at spacedock, and for a reasonable fee (dilithium or even zen-based items), allow us to remove and replace a particular seat with a hybrid seat?
This upgrade process could also involve some interesting questing too, to take advantage of some of the other, new yet underutilized abilities we have.
Really want that Commander's grade seat in an Engineering/Command hybrid for your Federation Cruiser? Too bad only the Romulans have that technology... but if you really want it, and Section 31 wouldn't mind having it either, here's the (quest) deal - You break in to this secret Romulan facility, steal the plans for the design, and get out without getting caught and bring them back to us, and we'll see about testing out the new design on your ship. Sound fair?
These could also be done as PvE queue or even PvP queue - with one side attempting to infiltrate, undetected and the other to guard the latest set of blueprints.
Conversly, Sabotage Research missions could also be placed - Stop the Klingon Empire from designing a new Sciene/Intel hybrid seat by swapping their design schematics with this one we've tested and found out doesn't work.
This would give up both game-play options, customization options, and some in-depth story options, all with a relative degree of ease.
But wait - there's more...
Why stop there? Already we can further customize various bits of hardware in the form of Technology Upgrades - a very nice touch I might add. Yet there's still more that can be done with upgrading and tweaking that hasn't even been touched yet... consider this:
In TNG Episode 66 (Allegiance):
FALSE PICARD: I was wondering, Mister La Forge... what's our engine efficiency status?
GEORDI: Operating at ninety-three percent, sir.
FALSE PICARD: That's good, but I'd like to increase that efficiency to ninety-five percent.
How many times did Geordi tweak the engines, tune some system, or swap some components to achieve some higher degree of tuning?
Granted we get some measure of this already from exceptional successes from various Duty Officer assignments, others from Acolades, and a bit more from the above mentioned upgrading - though again, I say, why stop there?
Give us some missions to meet with a Tholian Researcher, or a Ferengi Black Marketeer, or a pair of Binar scientists to negotiate (preferably though dialog-driven encounters), special off-the-records assignments, or trading of favors for some rare or experimental alloys, data, systems upgrades, to grant a permanent .5% or 1% specific upgrade to a specific item or system (improve weapon damage, shield drain, power recovery and so on), so that we can further tune and tweak not just our ships, but other items as well - personal shields, armor, weapons, even devices.
Abuse-ability would be easy enough to control - these sorts of missions could only completed for upgrade rewards once**, and to reflect their uncommonality - might only be available one day per week, with a very long cooldown time in the event of mission failure.
Or speaking of tweaking - I'm sure just about everyone has run into this:
Wow, I really like (this particular [engine/weapon/whatever]), but this one has (this trait I really really like) - good case in point:
I have a Deflector Dish with [SIF] and it's really good, but I just found a much higher grade model with [FLOW] instead.
How about... a Special Duty assignment that sends my Chief Engineer and his team to a 72 hour symposium where they learn about a new technique that allows them to then undertake a new 72 hour assignment to remove [SIF] from my old Deflector (destroying it in the process) and replace the [FLOW] I didn't really want with the [SIF] I really do?
Wow, now you're talking about some really good customizing - especially when you're dealing with some of the higher-end/Fleet items - and none with little prices attached to them - some of those Fleet items have some pretty stiff Dilithium costs - and for good reason.. now we can tear one apart for a specific trait? Yeah, that'll get expensive, and fast - but totally worth it in the end for degree of customization available!
* It is not uncommon knowledge that certain items and combinations of items are considered more desireable than others, especially when it comes to things like Ships Weapons - pretty much all of the highest-end, highest-dps players are using pretty much the exact same weapons, consoles, officers and so on to achieve maximum performance. A set of systems like this might just shake up that Min/Maxed mindset, by allowing customizations to play more of role in overall performance, and help "level-the-field" for those looking to achieve those sorts of high-end performance numbers with different kinds of gear.
**It may be more difficult to track, but Once should mean, one specific performance tweak per item - looking to get that extra 1% output from your Warp Core, here it is. Oh, there's a new Warp Core design that makes your old one, even with that tweak look like something a brain-damaged Paklid threw away? Rerun the quest/mission for your new engine, but you're still only getting one particular tweak for it.
Some food for thought for that next Developer Roundtable discussion of What Do We Add Next - feel free to implement any and all of these - I'm certain no one will complain - except for maybe how much work will be involved in making that "perfect" item they've always wanted!
Comments
OK, thanks for the quick response to that. Indeed, the recipe is not showing up after spending 10 point in the Command Specialization Tree. I'm currently on Tribble now, so I will get a bug report filed.
As to the other, wasn't trying to start something, just was curious.
Submitted Ticket #48,152.
You cannot activate Delegated Devastation while under the effects of the power. So the closest a team could get to "exploiting" the power, is a coordinated rotation. Sounds ok to me.
Thanks for the feedback, with an example. We're open to alternative suggestions, and will take your feedback under consideration.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Yes it is missing.
Instead of "immunity to control" could it be immunity to certain types of control, like hold/disable/stun? This would leave some options to counter the crouch while still having the effect of not being able to be "controlled" out of the fight.
Also that power didn't mention how long it lasted on the tool tip. I was wondering if that was intentional?
Besides the grindfest the main thing is the issue of playing the same content over and over again that has mostly been around for 3-4 years. Its pretty much phasing out the ppl who came from between beta and beginning of f2p. Most of this issue is the dynamics of mmorpgs only the dungeon aspect is in the game. I'll be honest though just where I'm concerned unless something is changing soon with how the game is as far as the boring aspect of shooting standing still npcs space and ground always the same thing its meh.
I was going to suggest this as well. Let the Leutenant slot be a "whatever you want" specialization seat and the commander slots be a specific specialization seat. Then everyone would be able to dabble with the spec officers, but people would still pay to use the highest level space skills.
I would also be willing to buy a token that would let me upgrade a seat on a t5-u (like my Vesta) ship to a universal specialization seat.
It is killing it.
Players are leaving and the game is DYING and all the fantastic work that you and all the other Devs have put into it will be all for nothing when the lights go out. That makes me fu@*ing sad and I hope it make you feel that way too.
These abilities are RUSHED out without any standard of testing... How can we test command skills with no slots to put them in. This all goes live in 3 weeks and I guess the new ships won't be on Tribble before then. So they will get ZERO player testing in anger. And don't tell me that it's fine since you have Dev QA testing on your servers. This is worth nothing as the majority of your staff have NO clue about the mechanics of the game (no offense intended). The intel powers are still completely unbalanced, half of them don't work and they have destroyed PVP with no one queuing or going into open warzones anymore. I have every faith that Command powers will be the same (or worse).
We CANNOT TRAIN the spec skills as you need an INSANE amount of spec points to get access to this and at the moment levelling spec trees is at a comparative pace to Tectonic Drift. Only at least with Tectonic Drift you get to see the world, with spec levelling you just get to see Argala, over and over...
Then we cannot USE these skills unless we pay ridiculous sums of money to fly a ship we DO NOT WANT TO FLY. Read here for a description of how the Hybrid station system could (and really should) be monetised. http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1343791
Sorry if this post comes off as offensive/whiney but rushing out this stuff in the manner that DR rushed out specs and intel really has made me pretty sceptical about all of this.
...#LLAP...
OK, just checked for this again after today's patch and it is still missing, even though someone added the information on the Command Officer Specialization Tree about it unlocking after spending 10 points. Should I file another bug report or will the one I already filed be enough? Thanks
Aaaaand done.
Carry On. Hmm, I can see the logic here.
What we have here however is a conflict between two ideals, specialization versus customization. You want each ship to be unique, but at the same time you want them to also to do what the user wants.
A player who wants to explore different play styles could also want to only fly a Sovereign class or a Galaxy class because those are the ships that they fell in love with.
But the point of having different ships at all is that different ships have different capabilities so you don't want to lose that either, so no ship is able to do everything.
It's a hard balance.
This is a nice compromise and is within the design paradigm already here. A commander engineer, LtCdr Engineer and a Lt universal on an assault cruiser becomes a commander Intel LtCdr Engineer, and a Lt Engineer/specialization uni on the Intel cruiser.
And yes T5-U universal specialization seats would probably sell like hotcakes and be useful. And since you're still not getting the extra boff power that the T6 gets, T5-U is still behind.
We're planning a patch for Tribble today that will include a lot of tuning and fixes for Command Boff and Command Officer Captain Spec abilities. Please read through them to see how your feedback has already affected some of our design decisions.
We're adding Specialization Qualifications to the Test Vendor at Drozana, as well as the option to purchase additional Specialization Points in bundles of 5x at a time. This should help to facilitate more thorough testing.
We are running a focus test right now with about 2 dozen players flying a Test Command Ship, for focused Command Boff feedback. If you see anyone on Tribble in a ship that looks like an Obelisk, they may need your assistance testing group effectiveness, so feel free to drop them a line. And sorry, no, we're not accepting additional testers for the time being.
Thanks again for your assistance in shaking the bugs out of this feature before it goes live!
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Hope some of those obelisks are around late tonight when I do get on. Thanks borticus!
Im Romulan. KDF Aligned. I cant train non Romulans. Reward Boffs like the Voth guy don't work. Generic KDF Boffs wont work. Can only train Romulans.
I like that we can mix and match starship parts to customize them more toward how we play*.
And I'm liking that we can now start to customize abilities more and more so, to further tune our characters and their supporting cast of Officers.
So why stop there?
Few ships have /Intel seats.
None yet have /Command seats.
Why not let us put in at spacedock, and for a reasonable fee (dilithium or even zen-based items), allow us to remove and replace a particular seat with a hybrid seat?
This upgrade process could also involve some interesting questing too, to take advantage of some of the other, new yet underutilized abilities we have.
Really want that Commander's grade seat in an Engineering/Command hybrid for your Federation Cruiser? Too bad only the Romulans have that technology... but if you really want it, and Section 31 wouldn't mind having it either, here's the (quest) deal - You break in to this secret Romulan facility, steal the plans for the design, and get out without getting caught and bring them back to us, and we'll see about testing out the new design on your ship. Sound fair?
These could also be done as PvE queue or even PvP queue - with one side attempting to infiltrate, undetected and the other to guard the latest set of blueprints.
Conversly, Sabotage Research missions could also be placed - Stop the Klingon Empire from designing a new Sciene/Intel hybrid seat by swapping their design schematics with this one we've tested and found out doesn't work.
This would give up both game-play options, customization options, and some in-depth story options, all with a relative degree of ease.
But wait - there's more...
Why stop there? Already we can further customize various bits of hardware in the form of Technology Upgrades - a very nice touch I might add. Yet there's still more that can be done with upgrading and tweaking that hasn't even been touched yet... consider this:
In TNG Episode 66 (Allegiance):
FALSE PICARD: I was wondering, Mister La Forge... what's our engine efficiency status?
GEORDI: Operating at ninety-three percent, sir.
FALSE PICARD: That's good, but I'd like to increase that efficiency to ninety-five percent.
How many times did Geordi tweak the engines, tune some system, or swap some components to achieve some higher degree of tuning?
Granted we get some measure of this already from exceptional successes from various Duty Officer assignments, others from Acolades, and a bit more from the above mentioned upgrading - though again, I say, why stop there?
Give us some missions to meet with a Tholian Researcher, or a Ferengi Black Marketeer, or a pair of Binar scientists to negotiate (preferably though dialog-driven encounters), special off-the-records assignments, or trading of favors for some rare or experimental alloys, data, systems upgrades, to grant a permanent .5% or 1% specific upgrade to a specific item or system (improve weapon damage, shield drain, power recovery and so on), so that we can further tune and tweak not just our ships, but other items as well - personal shields, armor, weapons, even devices.
Abuse-ability would be easy enough to control - these sorts of missions could only completed for upgrade rewards once**, and to reflect their uncommonality - might only be available one day per week, with a very long cooldown time in the event of mission failure.
Or speaking of tweaking - I'm sure just about everyone has run into this:
Wow, I really like (this particular [engine/weapon/whatever]), but this one has (this trait I really really like) - good case in point:
I have a Deflector Dish with [SIF] and it's really good, but I just found a much higher grade model with [FLOW] instead.
How about... a Special Duty assignment that sends my Chief Engineer and his team to a 72 hour symposium where they learn about a new technique that allows them to then undertake a new 72 hour assignment to remove [SIF] from my old Deflector (destroying it in the process) and replace the [FLOW] I didn't really want with the [SIF] I really do?
Wow, now you're talking about some really good customizing - especially when you're dealing with some of the higher-end/Fleet items - and none with little prices attached to them - some of those Fleet items have some pretty stiff Dilithium costs - and for good reason.. now we can tear one apart for a specific trait? Yeah, that'll get expensive, and fast - but totally worth it in the end for degree of customization available!
* It is not uncommon knowledge that certain items and combinations of items are considered more desireable than others, especially when it comes to things like Ships Weapons - pretty much all of the highest-end, highest-dps players are using pretty much the exact same weapons, consoles, officers and so on to achieve maximum performance. A set of systems like this might just shake up that Min/Maxed mindset, by allowing customizations to play more of role in overall performance, and help "level-the-field" for those looking to achieve those sorts of high-end performance numbers with different kinds of gear.
**It may be more difficult to track, but Once should mean, one specific performance tweak per item - looking to get that extra 1% output from your Warp Core, here it is. Oh, there's a new Warp Core design that makes your old one, even with that tweak look like something a brain-damaged Paklid threw away? Rerun the quest/mission for your new engine, but you're still only getting one particular tweak for it.
Some food for thought for that next Developer Roundtable discussion of What Do We Add Next - feel free to implement any and all of these - I'm certain no one will complain - except for maybe how much work will be involved in making that "perfect" item they've always wanted!
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster