Skill System Revamp

pwlaughingtrendy · February 2016

We're proud to announce our new Skill System Revamp! We have set out to create a more streamlined experience that makes gaining levels and skills more enjoyable and impactful.

Learn more about the c-c-c-c-changes.

~Morrigan "LaughingTrendy"

comrademoco · February 2016

In George Takeis words.....

Oooooh my!

daveyny · February 2016

B-I-N-G-O-!!!

I see a bad moon rising for some folks who like to complain...

https://youtu.be/w6iRNVwslM4

Personally, Reading about it, informs me, but leaves me in the dark as to how it performs for me.
I'll reserve judgement till I actually get to figure it out on Tribble and then the Holodeck.

cbrjwrr · February 2016

Hmm.

hajmyis · February 2016

so we get 60 skill points. 45 space and 15 ground?

or do we unlock everything as time goes by?

r5e4w3q2 · February 2016

A list of Skills that were turned into Unlocks includes:

Batteries
Perception
Driver Coil
Threat Control
… and more!

So if we invest heavily in tactical skills we get bonus threat even if we don't want it? Poor escorts...

The consolidation of Science skills, while welcome, seem a bit odd. Sensors is under Control Powers?

Coordination Protocols - Hanger pets only? No separation pets, No summoned pets?

capttrevor · February 2016

I got lost about 1/4 of the way through the blog post, to be honest.

antonine3258 · February 2016

I'll need to see this on Tribble for how it works under the hood, but it certainly seems less confusing.

blitzy4 · February 2016

I agree. I'm a bit confused on some fronts, but I'll just try it on tribble to answer my questions.

jasonyeefong · February 2016

simplified skills so we can "git good m8"

davefenestrator · February 2016

Can you say anything about respec costs yet? Currently the high 500-zen respec cost is a barrier to people trying new skills.

I understand we will all get at least a single free respec, but players will have to use that blind, without any experience to know the consequences of their choices. At a minimum players should get _2_ free respecs so they can do-over their first attempt.

capttrevor · February 2016

Yeah, hopefully the tribble server will answer all of my questions!

sabrevt1100 · February 2016

This made my head hurt.

cbrjwrr · February 2016

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1119247/noob-guide-to-tribble/p1

For when the system is on Tribble.

legendarylycan · February 2016

so um...all the skill boosts on consoles, engines, deflectors, shields, whatever...what's happening with those since they'll be boosting something that no longer exists?

@borticuscryptic you wanna chime in here?

daveyny · February 2016

This doesn't tell us if we all will be starting from scratch or will Level-60 players be able to mostly fill the tree at the get-go?

comrademoco · February 2016

They way I understood it thus far was like a more elaborate specialization system.

blitzy4 · February 2016

And at the moment at least, the system isn't in place.

rhodgher · February 2016

Two questions:
Does every player has to rebuild his/hers skill tree from schratch even when the player has a skill tree filled
(and so starting with a not completly filled skill tree?

Can we have more skill trees available to choose from?
I mean when being tactical you can't make optimal use of science ships like the Krenim one. I think it would be nice to be able to buy (zen) the option to build a second skill tree for use with such a science ship, or for use with an escort, or a cruiser etc. Then we could choose the appropriate skill tree for a the ship we want to use. (Like choosing the role for a bridge officer: command or intel.

EDIT
I find it difficult to fully understand the impact of this on gameplay. I'll have to read this a few times more and get to tribble to try to find out.

alexhurlbut · February 2016

daveyny wrote: »

This doesn't tell us if we all will be starting from scratch or will Level-60 players be able to mostly fill the tree at the get-go?

We should be getting a full reset at this point since this is really a new skill tree with all skills adjusted. So we should be able to get our skill points back (albeit adjusted for the new system) to spend on the new skill tree.

borticuscryptic · February 2016

I'll do my best to keep up on answering questions as they come up here. Please feel free to drop me a line on Twitter if you think I didn't answer an important question. Some things I can't answer because they are business decisions beyond my authority (such as price of respecs), but I can address questions about the new system specifically.

hajmyis wrote: »

so we get 60 skill points. 45 space and 15 ground? or do we unlock everything as time goes by?

You will get a total of 46 Space Points and 10 Ground Points. There are 90 Space Skill Nodes you can purchase, and 20 Ground Skill Nodes. So no, you won't be able to buy everything.

hajmyis wrote: »

So if we invest heavily in tactical skills we get bonus threat even if we don't want it? Poor escorts...

No, Threat Control is still a choice you can make or not make. Up to you.

shadowfang240 wrote: »

so um...all the skill boosts on consoles, engines, deflectors, shields, whatever...what's happening with those since they'll be boosting something that no longer exists?

Items, Traits, Set Bonuses, etc... are all being updated to reflect the new Skills. It may not be a 1:1 translation in all cases, but you won't get 'nothing' out of an item that is currently giving you 'something.'

blitzy4 wrote: »

And at the moment at least, the system isn't in place.

Keep an eye on Tribble. This will arrive soon.

rhodgher wrote: »

Does every player has to rebuild his/hers skill tree from schratch even when the player has a skill tree filled

Yes, everybody's skills will be refunded, and you'll need to re-spend your points.

trillbuffet · February 2016

shadowfang240 wrote: »

so um...all the skill boosts on consoles, engines, deflectors, shields, whatever...what's happening with those since they'll be boosting something that no longer exists?

Yeah its how this system works with gear grind. You revamp something and tell your players how great its going to be. Then the catch 22 is that your old gear will need to be replaced via the never ending gear grind, Is just like them redoing every single art icon to something unrecognizable + add in the 1000's of boffs personally I have that will never be trained because of how badly that system was implemented it pretty much stopped me from playing any alts along with the starship mastery system. So I suspect more of the same with this as another deck of cards piled onto the deck for reason not to bother with this game.

tunebreaker · February 2016

borticuscryptic wrote: »

You will get a total of 46 Space Points and 10 Ground Points. There are 90 Space Skill Nodes you can purchase, and 20 Ground Skill Nodes. So no, you won't be able to buy everything.

That's a shame

darkhorse281 · February 2016

shadowfang240 wrote: »

so um...all the skill boosts on consoles, engines, deflectors, shields, whatever...what's happening with those since they'll be boosting something that no longer exists?

@borticuscryptic you wanna chime in here?

One of my many concerns for sure, says were not supposed to lose anything but I'm betting that wont be the case. I'll have to see this before I make any judgements, but seems to me I and many others will have ship/character builds that will no longer be worth a damn. Hopefully were pleasantly surprised instead of disappointed.

jdfosterrocks · February 2016

daveyny wrote: »

B-I-N-G-O-!!!

I see a bad moon rising for some folks who like to complain...

Personally, Reading about it, informs me, but leaves me in the dark as to how it performs for me.
I'll reserve judgement till I actually get to figure it out on Tribble and then the Holodeck.

every change cryptic studios makes yes there will always be complaints. This is for every game ever made, even laws, policies ect. in real life you just can't get 100 percent approval rate. Anyway moving on...

This is gonna be interesting. I agree that the skill points needed to be changed. I'm very happy that they have decided to revamp it. They pointed out that you may only get a small percentage of that skill, or have to sacrifice ground for space or vice versa. I personally want to thank Cryptic Studios for doing this.

mrsmitty81 · February 2016

have a feeling some stuff is going to be nerfed into the ground from this skill change thingy

inferiority · February 2016

This actually looks good, taking the Specialisation trees as inspiration.

The only part of this that worries me is that Threat Control is currently optional. Under the new system, it's going to become mandatory...

lucho80 · February 2016

So damn confused. Now specializing in drain adds drain resistance so my drain boat won't be as effective since everyone and their mothers invests in drain because of plasmonic leech. I do like the control expertise skill, and the shield mastery sounds awesome for a damage reflection build.

Long range targeting sensors = The one everyone will fill, and the answer to cannon builds problems.

daveyny · February 2016

trillbuffet wrote: »

shadowfang240 wrote: »

so um...all the skill boosts on consoles, engines, deflectors, shields, whatever...what's happening with those since they'll be boosting something that no longer exists?

Yeah its how this system works with gear grind. You revamp something and tell your players how great its going to be. Then the catch 22 is that your old gear will need to be replaced via the never ending gear grind, Is just like them redoing every single art icon to something unrecognizable + add in the 1000's of boffs personally I have that will never be trained because of how badly that system was implemented it pretty much stopped me from playing any alts along with the starship mastery system. So I suspect more of the same with this as another deck of cards piled onto the deck for reason not to bother with this game.

I've turned most of my extra BOff's into Manuals.
It's not perfect (nothing ever is) but it's the wave of the future, so harping on thing's-gone-by, is kinda-sorta futile.

chipg7 · February 2016

This looks like a really, really good change. Builds nicely off the visual, easy-to-read layout of the specialization trees. Doing my incremental adjustments to specific skills will be missed, but I like the new system overall. Some skills being a bonus unlock is also nice.

Will players be getting an opportunity to reset their skills at the launch? For example, will my lvl60 toons be presented with having all 60 levels' worth of points ready to drop into the new system? If so, (EDIT: Borticus was too fast, while I was typing. Thanks for the super-quick clarification!) I know what my entire day is going to be the day season 11.5 drops

Another question. For players who specialize, will it be noted on the toon? For example, one of my toons is specialized as a medic under the current skills system. Will that toon, if I then explicitly choose the Medic path under the new system, be noted as a Medic somehow? Maybe a passive icon of some type, or having it listed on the character's info page? That'd be a nice way to really make characters unique. And it's show other players in the team what your science role is, in this example.

Thanks for all this. Been looking forward to these changes for a while now, and I'm really happy with what's been shown so far!

risian4 · February 2016

Hmm not really a fan of the splitting of ground and space skills. This will make several of my toons more or less redundant.

I'm also not sure if this combining of skills is a good thing. For example, I invested heavily in Graviton Generators, but not in Subspace decompiler etc. So does this mean I will now get a lot of things that I consider not useful, just because I want to invest in GG, and thus will have weaker other skills?

I guess I'll be on Tribble a lot, it's a bit confusing all. Not because the explanation wasn't clear, just need to see this with my own eyes before I judge... but tbh, I think the skill system is fine as it is.

Skill System Revamp

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