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Why are people so irrational when it comes to specialization points?
matthian1701
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Specialization points are a reward for playing the game. They are not the game.
Intended use for rational people: "Hey, neat, specialization points! Now, I can play this game I like to play, at the rate I think is fun, and I'm not at a hard level cap - I can keep "leveling up" for the next months, and maybe years, by earning new skills."
Actual use by people on the forum: "Cryptic put something in the game! That means I need to have it 100% completed within 72 hours or I have lost STO and it will literally be a slap in the face! I will turn this game into a second job, grinding until I hate it because CRAPTIC is forcing me do this! Now excuse me while I make another signature image. My mom says they're cool."
Chill out. It's a game. Play the game for the game. If you don't like that, maybe you just don't like the game.:cool::D:eek:
Intended use for rational people: "Hey, neat, specialization points! Now, I can play this game I like to play, at the rate I think is fun, and I'm not at a hard level cap - I can keep "leveling up" for the next months, and maybe years, by earning new skills."
Actual use by people on the forum: "Cryptic put something in the game! That means I need to have it 100% completed within 72 hours or I have lost STO and it will literally be a slap in the face! I will turn this game into a second job, grinding until I hate it because CRAPTIC is forcing me do this! Now excuse me while I make another signature image. My mom says they're cool."
Chill out. It's a game. Play the game for the game. If you don't like that, maybe you just don't like the game.:cool::D:eek:
Post edited by matthian1701 on
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Comments
There's at least two threads on the front page mainly consisting of rational arguments on both sides that don't fit with your cartoon versions at all.
No you don't.
That might be the fastest way to earn XP, but you can play whatever content you enjoy playing in the game and earn XP as a side effect.
pretty much this. No type of game ever has caused people to grow their E-peen so much as MMOs. And if there is even a tiny and insignificant way to increase the e-peen, people will spend days and month growing it for even the tiniest amount.
And complainig about it at the same time is kind of a sub culture in itself.
As someone pointed out in another thread, people are acting like Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where they need to get NOW!
I agree with you sir that spec points are not the entire game. I'm sticking by my belief that they were meant to be a long term investment.
If you are of the One True Main faith perhaps.
You're going to one extreme of things.
Fine not having all filled within 72 hours, but the other extreme in which we live now also sucks. Playing Argala (Or another DQ patrol) over and over for weeks to fill the tree is just plain boring.
Play the game normally you say?
Well, that way you never get the tree filled because everything else rewards junk XP.
Yes, for playing the normal game they're not necessary, but they are needed for PvP.
I played others games with parallel reward when you played your regular content. And it was cool. Because there was actually a reward. In sto, you barely earn anything from regular content.
Most people are not complaining because they want it NOW, they are complaining because Argala award 4 times more than STF, and takes 5minutes. Because it would take literally years to complete a single tree on a single character by playing regular content (stf, story). Unless you enjoy patrols.
I don't pay any attention to my xp bar..and when I get a level up, it's a pleasant surprise! Yes, spec is neat, and having all the spec would be great, but I don't focus on it. There is FAR too many other things to do. The universe is bigger than Argala. If every ship hovering over Argala was queuing for STFs, there would be tons of matches going.
Bottom line: Spec happens
Ladies and gentlemen, the textbook example of someone turning the reward system into the game, and forcing themselves to do something they hate to "win" it.
My captains have 15-17 spec points each. That is 1/6 of the complete (current) tree, if I added them up correctly, and I am barely playing them.
I can see how some people feel they are 'needed', and apparently think they should be able to 'fill all trees' in a month or two of 'grinding', but really the system hardly seems broken.
You wouldn't even use 'all' of the trees anyways, and the abilities are useful but not exactly game-breakers.
Focus on the couple most useful ones and just fill the others out as you go... not anything to get bent out of shape about (or demand 'massive' changes to the exp grind).
Do we have a bunch of white knights here or noobs?
Since the inception of this game and launch in beta there was an END game. For the first 5 years of STO the max level was 50 then you would do PVEs (almost dead), PvPs (now completely dead) or afterwards with the addition of fleet marks and reps. You telling us that something that worked for 5 years is no longer acceptable because you on your HIGH horse think otherwise?
Dude you don't speak for me but entitled to your opinion. If you want to grind till your eyes and urethra bleed up to you. Grinding to attain something is ok and most MMOs have it. Grinding extremely to attain nothing is moronic and naive. There has to be a balance. I don't grind insanely like others but don't tell us is NOT a problem or that the moon is full of cheese.
Spec points lock away a LARGE number of features of end-game content. Not just little things. These are GAME changing features. Especially when it comes to ground combat, space combat, how you equip your ships, how you equip your player, how you can train boffs with skills that you unlock via spec points, how you earn higher level and quality kits for your own player, etc.
Just for one example alone... With the massive changes in DR's release that screwed over pretty much all space combat in this game, a player that plays WITH "rock and roll" and "attack pattern specialization" and downed-shield-resistance-boost and downed-shield-instant-heal-boost is aided in a MAJOR way compared to a player that has a vanilla T5 ship and no spec points. Not to mention, there are too many things tied to levelling up that lock away too much of this game.
The reason people are pushing to level up to 60 and beyond is because that's how Cryptic locked away all the expansion content. There's no way around it. There's no going back once you get it. It is literally a game changer. Too bad cryptic killed off the game that it changes.
Spec points are not the entire game (but basically the "entire Game" for lvl-60 and above is Replay and Argala) but ablities and also kits need a high level in the Specs.
And maybe you don´t realize that, but there are many casual players in the game (they still spend money) and for some of them/us it takes a week or more to gain another Spec point. THat would meanthat all 4 specs would be finished in 1,5-2 years. Thats a bit too long for a long time investment.
As i pointed out in the other threads about the Spec points : R6D and Starship mastery requirements have been reduced because the Devs realized its reducing the fun of the game if you have to play hours and hours just to see a tiny bit of progress.
But its the same with the Spec. points. If you are a normal and casual player and you play different missions and parts of the game like me (i like Kobali Prime, the Voth and Undine Battlezones and mission replay, i also can only play 1-2 hours per day after work) you won´t get many spec points and you will raise through the ranks so slowly that you barely notice it.
R&D, Starship Mastery and Rep. Systems don´t take nearly as longs as this Specializations.
THey should not be finished within a week or month but even a casual player should be able to get the done within a half year or a 3/4 year. And there will probably be more Specs so there is still enough stuff to grind for but with the current speed many casual players will be left far behind.
Seems awfully counterproductive.
If they weren't here complaining we couldn't bask in their enlightened aura.
I alt-tab out to the forums whilst waiting for my ship to traverse the galaxy (or when waiting on load times).
This is one of the things I have been saying for a long time.
It is good for them to have a long-term goal for us to work on. However, when you lock the ability to use kits, or the Boff skills behind content, you then are not making long-term content. And by changing gameplay so that it just takes a long time to get it, still doesn't make it long-term. It is just annoying.
So, to those that say that players should not be trying to level the CS system, then explain how we are suppose to get Boff skills for the new command ships coming out. The developers know that if they lock things like this behind a tree like this that players will be trying to grind for it.
They use this to pad their metrics. Honestly, if they gave the same xp to all comparative end game content, then do you honestly think that everyone that is running Argala will be doing it so much? No. most, if not all, will be running other content, and gaining the xp the need to unlock the Boff skills.
Yet, that would also make a huge drop in the numbers in the Delta Quardrant. Therefore, the developers know what they are doing. They want the CS system to take a long time, and at the same time want a large number of players to be in the DQ running patrols to pad numbers for the new content.
Think about it. Why would a large number of players still be in DQ if they have done all the episodes, and don't need to be there to level up? There is nothing keeping players there for the queued missions. You can be anywhere for that. And the Kaboli Prime BZ doesn't give near as much as the Dyson BZ, even after it was nerfed. At this point, it is all about padding numbers, and making the metrics say what they want them to.
Otherwise there would not be a larger amount of xp in just Argala, and there would not be abilities for Boff skills for new types of ships they are releasing locked behind it.
The best way for them to make a long-term system that will be better is a proficiency system. Each level there will be a slight increase to one quality, and it caps at a high number. It can have one for Dual Cannons, Single Cannons, Beam Arrays, Dual Beam Banks, etc. And each level will add a very small amount of something like Proc chance, Acc, or base damage.
But, nothing is locked behind it. As you play the game, you will level up the proficiency, and advance. But, at the same time, xp will need to be more evenly spread across the end game content. By doing this, they can drop the extreme xp cost for the CS system, and make it enjoyable to work for. It is not a reward system as it is. It is a grind that is focused toward players that are trying to get the anniversary ship, or buy any of the new over priced C-Store ships.
My character Tsin'xing
actually i have to kidda agree with the OP, i play mostly the same stuff i alway have and have only been to Argala for the story mission.
ok i only get to fill the top bar to get a specilization point once a week on each of my characters and it will likly take a year or two to fill all their current trees but thats fine by me.
i believe thats the way the devs intended for it to work, so that we always feel character progression.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
For many longtime MMOers, we're trained to think that you're not allowed to enjoy the game until the XP stops moving.
Yes, but you need 18 points to equip blue intel or command kit skills. 22(?) to make the Mk III version of boff skills, etc. Or 15 for a free ship trait which Cryptic is valuing at $30 considering the only other way to get them outside of events is to purchase a T6 ship.
I totally agree and I think it's the same problem with the crafting bar. They should have made level 15 max, then have 16-20 show as stars or something. I think that would have stopped a lot of the complaints.
Anyway my outlook on it is simple. The pacing from 50-60 and then throughout the spec trees is glacially slow. It's too slow, it causes frustration and annoyance instead of giving the player a sense of reward. I don't care about getting spec points because they are too much effort to get. I don't even spend them when I get them at the moment as it's irrelevant. I don't get enough to complete them. This is with playing the game most days and doing all sorts of activities within it. The level 50-60 grind is quite literally the same length as 1-50, however the difference is a massive reduction in XP gain too, so in effect it actually doubles the time it takes again.
For those who know anything about game design it's not really a good way to interest your playerbase and it really really hurts the casual players who are trying to do content with the constant knowledge that these useful abilities are gated beyond their reach as far as time goes.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Getting the Spec Trees filled isn't necessarily just for PVP. For the PVE aspect of the game also; The entire game.
So, let's say one doesn't do Argala and just "plays." Good luck in getting any of the Spec Trees filled within the year, most esp so when Cryptic rolls out a new Specialization.
This is exactly what happened with Intel. It comes out. Bunch of people put points in it. Some faster than others; The guys who grind Argala, and the opposite end of the spectrum, the guys who don't care about XPs/SPs.
Filling out a Spec Tree like Intel takes a lot of time and XPs, and that's with a player dedicated to grinding out the big XPs. If you're not one of those, it's going to take FOREVER to fill out a Spec Tree.
So, with people in various stages of completion in Intel... BAM!!!! Command Specialization comes out, which many of us figured would. If you did not complete your Intel Specializaiton, you had ZERO ways to work on Command Spec Tree without leaving a bunch of points in Intel to do nothing.
A few months from now I predict a new Specialization to roll out. And if you were behind the curve on Intel, if you were also behind the curve on completing Command, then you're totally ****ed for the 3rd Primary Specialization.
If you don't work on the big XPs, you're going to be totally left behind to take maximum advantage of the new Specializations.