This is the last I intend to say on the topic for now, then I hope we can move on to focusing on the rest of the Skill Revamp:
The fact that changes to this single item have dominated so much of a discussion supposedly dedicated to discussing far-reaching systemic changes that are having an impact on hundreds - possibly thousands - of other mechanics, is probably a very strong indicator of a need for we developers to consider substantial modifications to the item in question. No single ability, skill, or piece of equipment should ever have this much control over an entire game and its community, nor be the driving force behind the direction of larger balance modifications we might undertake in the name of the game's long-term health.
In the end, it is likely that Plasmonic Leech will have its effectiveness impacted by this Skill Revamp, and nobody will be happy about it - not the players that may have invested so heavily in obtaining it and building around it, nor the developers who will take the heat for a change that clearly needs to happen. The current values you see on Tribble aren't final, but I can pretty much guarantee that it won't end up doing everything that it previously did.
And that's in everybody's best interest. I don't expect the playerbase to see that, nor expect to hear the end of this statement any time soon.
Now... I don't suppose we could get this thread back to discussing the other hundreds of bugs, inaccuracies and unpolished facets of this system, instead of circling this drain (heh) any longer?
Good on you, i'm glad your gonna stand by this one. I'm happy with it, and i own one on every character. People have had it FAR too easy with this thing, and it's needed a nerf ever since it was released. So, at least ONE player around knows what's good for them
But i DO have one question: Will the new Drain Infection skill work with it? I took it, but nothing was added to my weapon tooltips, or the tip for the leech. Just curious if that's intentional or not. Not that i mind much either way.
Real Temporal Operative: Purchased the Special Temporal Agent pack before it was even officially announced!
Now... I don't suppose we could get this thread back to discussing the other hundreds of bugs, inaccuracies and unpolished facets of this system, instead of circling this drain (heh) any longer?
Plasmonic Leech is practically a requirement for Romulans that wish to take any advantage of the AMP mod on cores. -40 subsystem power is too severe of a hit to their power levels for Rom ships to be comparable with their Fed/KDF counterparts. I'd recommend either removing that subsystem power hinderance on Warbirds, or keeping Plas Leach atleast effective enough to counter act that deficiency. Without one of those, it is unlikely that any singularity core ships will be bought in the future by a significant portion of the player base. ...that's all I'll say about the Plasmonic Leech.
Now, on to your statement. Not pressing, but last night, while testing various space sets, did discover that Jem'Hadar Shields's kinetic resist continues to show 'Jem'Hadar Crew Bracing' as the buff icon and name.
Now... I don't suppose we could get this thread back to discussing the other hundreds of bugs, inaccuracies and unpolished facets of this system, instead of circling this drain (heh) any longer?
Plasmonic Leech is practically a requirement for Romulans that wish to take any advantage of the AMP mod on cores. -40 subsystem power is too severe of a hit to their power levels for Rom ships to be comparable with their Fed/KDF counterparts. I'd recommend either removing that subsystem power hinderance on Warbirds, or keeping Plas Leach atleast effective enough to counter act that deficiency. Without one of those, it is unlikely that any singularity core ships will be bought in the future by a significant portion of the player base. ...that's all I'll say about the Plasmonic Leech.
Now, on to your statement. Not pressing, but last night, while testing various space sets, did discover that Jem'Hadar Shields's kinetic resist continues to show 'Jem'Hadar Crew Bracing' as the buff icon and name.
Given that AMP is such an inconsequential mod overall, i SERIOUSLY doubt it's gonna be the end of the world for the poor, Scimitar flying, Crit-stuffed rommies
Real Temporal Operative: Purchased the Special Temporal Agent pack before it was even officially announced!
Just want to show my...lack of discontent with the Leech losing some effectiveness. I run it on five characters, which should right there point out that it's too powerful in its current state. It's still going to be a best in slot for raising power levels, but players who don't have it won't be as far behind running other power raising equipment.
There are numerous ways to gain power you just need to build for it, this was always intentional. You SHOULD have to make choices about where to put your power. -40 power is a pretty small price to pay for everything else they get in return that tradeoff exists for a reason.
What do you think are the chances of a change to it's functionality instead of it's effectiveness. like splitting it's function into a passive drain and a power boost clicky or making it's effect a chance to proc instead of effecting with every shot?
Another thing that does something similar to it is the Supremacy star ship trait. Even though that can't get skilled into it can still be built into.
For this past year or so it seemed the style of things was not to nerf something directly but to instead introduce new features and content to other things to shift the meta. Has that not worked as well as you had hoped or am I just surface reading very poorly?
I am neither supporting nor opposition to this change just wonder just how much or what sort of thought has been put into it? This is a major can of worms to open and I'd like for it to go as smoothly as possible.
Now... I don't suppose we could get this thread back to discussing the other hundreds of bugs, inaccuracies and unpolished facets of this system, instead of circling this drain (heh) any longer?
Plasmonic Leech is practically a requirement for Romulans that wish to take any advantage of the AMP mod on cores. -40 subsystem power is too severe of a hit to their power levels for Rom ships to be comparable with their Fed/KDF counterparts. I'd recommend either removing that subsystem power hinderance on Warbirds, or keeping Plas Leach atleast effective enough to counter act that deficiency. Without one of those, it is unlikely that any singularity core ships will be bought in the future by a significant portion of the player base. ...that's all I'll say about the Plasmonic Leech.
Now, on to your statement. Not pressing, but last night, while testing various space sets, did discover that Jem'Hadar Shields's kinetic resist continues to show 'Jem'Hadar Crew Bracing' as the buff icon and name.
Given that AMP is such an inconsequential mod overall, i SERIOUSLY doubt it's gonna be the end of the world for the poor, Scimitar flying, Crit-stuffed rommies
Just want to show my...lack of discontent with the Leech losing some effectiveness. I run it on five characters, which should right there point out that it's too powerful in its current state. It's still going to be a best in slot for raising power levels, but players who don't have it won't be as far behind running other power raising equipment.
Wholeheartedly agree. I very much stand by Bort's decision and statement on the matter. It's high time the 'uber console' was brought back in line with most of the other power boost consoles on the market.
Sorry for the further detracting from the topic at hand. Just it's often that the Devs get the negative criticism and rare that people actually support their decisions.
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
Been on tribble for a bit now and feel like this revamp is pushing sto in a weird direction. The reason I still play this game is because of its diversity. In a way, it seems like the new system is trying to lock me into one ship, one build. That is not cool. I wouldn't have bought so many if I knew this was going to happen. Cough (let us transfer lobi/ lockbox ships to other characters) cough
This game is very career oriented in the early game which is really straight forward for new players. Im tac. Tac ship, tac skills, moar faw; I think the new skill tree was built with this in mind. But in the end game, the only way to keep it interesting is build diversity. This game SHOULD allow full control of skills like the current traits system. About to tank HSE for your fleet and don't need that sci ultimate? Get rid of it and add more hull capacity. That being said, we all know it will never happen. Locked in skills force players to either purchase respec tokens or buy more character slots and create another alt.
The only solution I can think of is adding skill tree loadouts to the game. This would allow a single captain to have multiple skill trees to choose from depending on which ship they swap to. Just got that new sci ship but fully spec'd into tac? No problem, just swap skill loadouts. Adding them will allow captains who have been in the end game for years to continue to use the diverse build paths that they have itemized for. Skill loadouts would also encourage captains to try more combinations of the new skills and perhaps even buy more ships which cater to a specific build path.
We all love this game. I know everyone here does, or they wouldn't be so concerned. I sincerely hope that there are more quality of life improvements coming to this system which is already so so limited. I have a few friends who work at gaming companies and after telling them about this skill revamp they were so confused. "Wait, you have to pay? You can't just move your skill points around as you please? You earned them... Savage."
This is the last I intend to say on the topic for now, then I hope we can move on to focusing on the rest of the Skill Revamp:
The fact that changes to this single item have dominated so much of a discussion supposedly dedicated to discussing far-reaching systemic changes that are having an impact on hundreds - possibly thousands - of other mechanics, is probably a very strong indicator of a need for we developers to consider substantial modifications to the item in question. No single ability, skill, or piece of equipment should ever have this much control over an entire game and its community, nor be the driving force behind the direction of larger balance modifications we might undertake in the name of the game's long-term health.
In the end, it is likely that Plasmonic Leech will have its effectiveness impacted by this Skill Revamp, and nobody will be happy about it - not the players that may have invested so heavily in obtaining it and building around it, nor the developers who will take the heat for a change that clearly needs to happen. The current values you see on Tribble aren't final, but I can pretty much guarantee that it won't end up doing everything that it previously did.
And this is the last *I* intend to say on the topic for now.
I am saddened that, as it appears now, you very deliberately set out to nerf the Leech, all the while continually stating players would lose nothing.
Do I approve of the Leech nerf? No. But that's not even what it's about now. It's a Skill Revamp, couched in rhetoric about making things easier for people, whilst it was, as it now turns out, seen by the Devs as an opportunity to do some major nerfing. That constitutes a severe breakdown in communication, bordering on... (well, use your imagination).
I don't remember who said it, but a player here posted something like "Whenever a Dev comes out to say players will lose nothing, you can invariably be assured you WILL lose something." Q.E.D.
Guys, guys, guys. The normalization is here to stay, but I've said many, many times that individual powers are subject to further tuning.
So please, stop with the dramatic cries of nerf, and let's approach this from a more civil angle -- how much do I need to increase the *base values* of these re-scaled abilities, in order for them to remain competitive and worthwhile in your current builds?
Why do I use 508 flow caps in Holodeck and 630 drain in Tribble?
Normalizing things given new possibilities. Again, if the current Tribble R&D science drain consoles get changed, my assumptions change a LOT, specially since we're talking balancing a new slope with a new Y intercept.
P.S. By the way, the easy way to "fix" plasmonic leech is to change the base drain number to 3 and keeping the slope at +1 power every 200 drain skill as it stands in Tribble. Anyway, the kiddos running plasmonic leech for DPS usually run with somewhere around 250-350 flow caps so they won't feel a difference. They won't switch from their plasma embassy consoles to the R&D ones because they would loose DPS.
I think this is the nail on the head, Lucho. I put the old Embassy consoles back on in place of the R&D consoles (which actually have more because they have PG and GG) and my damage for most skills are very close to Holodeck. For background, I use the Plasma Emission Torpedo with TS3 and the torpedo/science synergy trait with 3 purple torpedo cooldown chance doffs to keep my science skills at their baseline cooldown. On Holodeck, sensor analysis > GW3 > RSB > TS3 and the light show comes on. With the R&D, the Theta Radiation is very weak but when using the Embassy exotic-plasma consoles, it's almost as good as the R&D on Holodeck. I say it's almost as good because there are less PartGens and less GravGens which results in less pull and less crit on GW as well as less burn on the radiation.
I know some people will laugh but I do about 13 to 15k DPS in Tau Dewa (22 to 30k in CCA) and have been seeing 8 to 11k in Tau Dewa on Tribble. 30% or more loss of DPS is significant, no matter if you do 5k or 100k. I couldn't get in a CCA on Tribble and there is no ISA.
So I think that if the R&D consoles are looked at, it will fix many science ships because I'm sure many use them. They are top notch on Holodeck.
Given that AMP is such an inconsequential mod overall, i SERIOUSLY doubt it's gonna be the end of the world for the poor, Scimitar flying, Crit-stuffed rommies
Every mod in the game, by itself, is inconsequential. It's the cumulative effect of all of them where you get your results. Pointing out that AMP is only 3.3% per subsystem and is thus inconsequential, is a straw man.
I have to say though I'm really not happy how Drain and Drain resist has been combined into a single skill.
They should be made two seperate categories again and the amount of skillpoints available adjusted to match. Or alternatively bake drain resistance into a shield or warp core skill or something.
For instance, ALL of my builds rely very heavily on Insulators, drain resistance is just as important and great to have as straight up damage resistance. But many of my builds have absolutely ZERO points in Flow capacitors... because if i'm not running a drain build or the infamous "Plasmonic Leech" it is of absolutely no use to me, and those are valuble points that I'm otherwise free to spend elsewhere.
This revamp kind of eliminates that freedom of choice.
I mean it's like if we had kinetic resistance baked in with projectile weapon damage, or energy resistance baked in with energy weapon damage.
See the problem?
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
Can we PLEASE get some reasoning as to why no Captain ground abilities are affected by ground skills anymore? I mean, I've lost like 3% critical chance and about 20% critical severity with my Target Optics between Tribble and Holodeck and there's no way to get that back. My Strike Team buff is also much weaker on Tribble than it is on Holodeck, and my Tricorder Scan's debuff is also weaker.
You get the picture, all ground Captain abilities are weaker now and there's no way to counteract that. Is it possible to roll buffs to ground Captain abilities into the Kit Mastery skill? I feel like that's how it should've been in the first place, honestly.
I have to say though I'm really not happy how Drain and Drain resist has been combined into a single skill.
They should be made two seperate categories again and the amount of skillpoints available adjusted to match. Or alternatively bake drain resistance into a shield or warp core skill or something.
For instance, ALL of my builds rely very heavily on Insulators, drain resistance is just as important and great to have as straight up damage resistance. But many of my builds have absolutely ZERO points in Flow capacitors... because if i'm not running a drain build or the infamous "Plasmonic Leech" it is of absolutely no use to me, and those are valuble points that I'm otherwise free to spend elsewhere.
This revamp kind of eliminates that freedom of choice.
I mean it's like if we had kinetic resistance baked in with projectile weapon damage, or energy resistance baked in with energy weapon damage.
See the problem?
In complete honesty, I'm surprised we didn't see that for that very reason...
What everyone buying Zen are really saying while all these bugs are still floating freely:
Stop new content until quality returns
Can we PLEASE get some reasoning as to why no Captain ground abilities are affected by ground skills anymore? I mean, I've lost like 3% critical chance and about 20% critical severity with my Target Optics between Tribble and Holodeck and there's no way to get that back. My Strike Team buff is also much weaker on Tribble than it is on Holodeck, and my Tricorder Scan's debuff is also weaker.
You get the picture, all ground Captain abilities are weaker now and there's no way to counteract that. Is it possible to roll buffs to ground Captain abilities into the Kit Mastery skill? I feel like that's how it should've been in the first place, honestly.
I thought all kit abilities were buffed by the Kit Mastery Skill. Might be a bug. Not enough people test ground.
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A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
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Can we PLEASE get some reasoning as to why no Captain ground abilities are affected by ground skills anymore? I mean, I've lost like 3% critical chance and about 20% critical severity with my Target Optics between Tribble and Holodeck and there's no way to get that back. My Strike Team buff is also much weaker on Tribble than it is on Holodeck, and my Tricorder Scan's debuff is also weaker.
You get the picture, all ground Captain abilities are weaker now and there's no way to counteract that. Is it possible to roll buffs to ground Captain abilities into the Kit Mastery skill? I feel like that's how it should've been in the first place, honestly.
I thought all kit abilities were buffed by the Kit Mastery Skill. Might be a bug. Not enough people test ground.
Kit abilities are buffed fine, but the profession-specific abilities you get for being either Engineering, Science, or Tactical receive no buffs from anything anymore. That includes the three team buff abilities, Tricorder Scan, Target Optics, Reroute Power to Shields, Etc.
For instance, ALL of my builds rely very heavily on Insulators, drain resistance is just as important and great to have as straight up damage resistance. But many of my builds have absolutely ZERO points in Flow capacitors... because if i'm not running a drain build or the infamous "Plasmonic Leech" it is of absolutely no use to me, and those are valuble points that I'm otherwise free to spend elsewhere.
This revamp kind of eliminates that freedom of choice.
I see this again and again... And I fail to see the logic of this complaint. Imagine you're in a supermarket to get some tea. But this time you see that you'd get a sample of some new sweetener brand free if you buy your favourite. The price is the same, it's genuinely free, as far as you're concerned. You may be like me and hate the taste of the stuff, you may think it's a bad business, and object to it on other grounds, but one thing you can't complain about is "waste of my money."
1 new point is more valuable than old 3 pips partly because of these "promotional bundles." Without them adding new skills would've been more difficult.
Then again, I love somewhat more versatile skill specs than typical... (My Romulan beamboat captain has some partgen... Just in case.) Or, to go on with the analogy, I like this sweetener, and think it's a great bargain, and so I might be biased.
I was looking around on tribble and was wondering where you get the Attack Pattern Omega III manual. I noticed it's on the new skill track, unless I just missed seeing it.
I was looking around on tribble and was wondering where you get the Attack Pattern Omega III manual. I noticed it's on the new skill track, unless I just missed seeing it.
Actually yes... I think @borticuscryptic mentioned in the original announcement thread that some tier III manuals are changed from craftable to trainer-purchaseable, but last time I checked they weren't in the officer training store either. Probably the devs jus haven't gotten around to actually adding them yet, but if they're supposed to be there already...
1 new point is more valuable than old 3 pips partly because of these "promotional bundles." Without them adding new skills would've been more difficult.
Actually not the case, as per the initial announcement and by looking it over. The total number of pips you could obtain, generally speaking, would be somewhere close to half the total number available, much like it is with the new points system. In terms of straight up 'you have x bits you can select from y number', there's no actual difference, there are actually no 'freebies' in the main skill tree of the new system, and the additional selection choices at the bottom could easily be adapted to the old system based on the number of points invested into a specific career track.
What everyone buying Zen are really saying while all these bugs are still floating freely:
Stop new content until quality returns
Plasmonic nerf had a long time coming, while I am saddened by the apparent change to already underused and under performing science drain abilities too.
But that's not the feedback I'd like to give, threat and stealth need to be either at unlock 10 or back in unlock 5. Threat in specific is a tank skill to be able to or at least try to gain agro over people with 15+ points in Tactical already. As well I think the carrier unlocks are bit on the high side.
Maybe it should look like this
Threat/stealth 5 or 10
carrier 10 or 5
crith 15
critd 20
I was looking around on tribble and was wondering where you get the Attack Pattern Omega III manual. I noticed it's on the new skill track, unless I just missed seeing it.
Actually yes... I think @borticuscryptic mentioned in the original announcement thread that some tier III manuals are changed from craftable to trainer-purchaseable, but last time I checked they weren't in the officer training store either. Probably the devs jus haven't gotten around to actually adding them yet, but if they're supposed to be there already...
1 new point is more valuable than old 3 pips partly because of these "promotional bundles." Without them adding new skills would've been more difficult.
Actually not the case, as per the initial announcement and by looking it over. The total number of pips you could obtain, generally speaking, would be somewhere close to half the total number available, much like it is with the new points system. In terms of straight up 'you have x bits you can select from y number', there's no actual difference, there are actually no 'freebies' in the main skill tree of the new system, and the additional selection choices at the bottom could easily be adapted to the old system based on the number of points invested into a specific career track.
I didn't mean the bottom unlock tracks, I meant new additions to main trees like Long-range Sensors or Coordination protocols. Otherwise, let's see a standard cookie-cutter build... 6 pips in everything power=36 pips, versus 5 picks in the new system (54 vs 9 if you go for 100 skill) Exactly half in other words, torp and energy crit skills combined, and in OP case "free" flowcaps even if what you're really after is insulators. It might be you never ever use them, but you didn't spend any extra picks on them either.
Given that AMP is such an inconsequential mod overall, i SERIOUSLY doubt it's gonna be the end of the world for the poor, Scimitar flying, Crit-stuffed rommies
Every mod in the game, by itself, is inconsequential. It's the cumulative effect of all of them where you get your results. Pointing out that AMP is only 3.3% per subsystem and is thus inconsequential, is a straw man.
Umm...do you know what a strawman is? It means the person is exaggerating something to a point where NOBODY is saying that. You do realize that pretty much everyone agrees that a crit stuffed scimmy doesn't even need amp to melt anything this game has...right? Much less getting only 3 of the 4 amps (which is possible to do with the tribble skill system).
Since when did playing Romulan = crit stuffed Scimitar?
On my Federation characters, power levels are simple and easy. Romulan power levels just got a bit trickier, and not in a good way.
Given that AMP is such an inconsequential mod overall, i SERIOUSLY doubt it's gonna be the end of the world for the poor, Scimitar flying, Crit-stuffed rommies
Every mod in the game, by itself, is inconsequential. It's the cumulative effect of all of them where you get your results. Pointing out that AMP is only 3.3% per subsystem and is thus inconsequential, is a straw man.
Umm...do you know what a strawman is? It means the person is exaggerating something to a point where NOBODY is saying that. You do realize that pretty much everyone agrees that a crit stuffed scimmy doesn't even need amp to melt anything this game has...right? Much less getting only 3 of the 4 amps (which is possible to do with the tribble skill system).
Since when did playing Romulan = crit stuffed Scimitar?
On my Federation characters, power levels are simple and easy. Romulan power levels just got a bit trickier, and not in a good way.
Romulans are crit-stuffed compared to similarly expensive (or cheap) base faction build unless you go out of your way to make them not to, simply because of SRO availability... It actually matters more on cheap builds, because each extra 1% crit chance is less and less valuable. Haven't played one on Tribble yet (and my rom is pretty much the exact opposite of billion EC in gear scimi...) so can't comment on power issues...
Comments
Good on you, i'm glad your gonna stand by this one. I'm happy with it, and i own one on every character. People have had it FAR too easy with this thing, and it's needed a nerf ever since it was released. So, at least ONE player around knows what's good for them
But i DO have one question: Will the new Drain Infection skill work with it? I took it, but nothing was added to my weapon tooltips, or the tip for the leech. Just curious if that's intentional or not. Not that i mind much either way.
Plasmonic Leech is practically a requirement for Romulans that wish to take any advantage of the AMP mod on cores. -40 subsystem power is too severe of a hit to their power levels for Rom ships to be comparable with their Fed/KDF counterparts. I'd recommend either removing that subsystem power hinderance on Warbirds, or keeping Plas Leach atleast effective enough to counter act that deficiency. Without one of those, it is unlikely that any singularity core ships will be bought in the future by a significant portion of the player base. ...that's all I'll say about the Plasmonic Leech.
Now, on to your statement. Not pressing, but last night, while testing various space sets, did discover that Jem'Hadar Shields's kinetic resist continues to show 'Jem'Hadar Crew Bracing' as the buff icon and name.
Given that AMP is such an inconsequential mod overall, i SERIOUSLY doubt it's gonna be the end of the world for the poor, Scimitar flying, Crit-stuffed rommies
Thank you bort for fixing it!
Another thing that does something similar to it is the Supremacy star ship trait. Even though that can't get skilled into it can still be built into.
For this past year or so it seemed the style of things was not to nerf something directly but to instead introduce new features and content to other things to shift the meta. Has that not worked as well as you had hoped or am I just surface reading very poorly?
I am neither supporting nor opposition to this change just wonder just how much or what sort of thought has been put into it? This is a major can of worms to open and I'd like for it to go as smoothly as possible.
Three Words........ Starship Trait: Supremacy
Wholeheartedly agree. I very much stand by Bort's decision and statement on the matter. It's high time the 'uber console' was brought back in line with most of the other power boost consoles on the market.
Sorry for the further detracting from the topic at hand. Just it's often that the Devs get the negative criticism and rare that people actually support their decisions.
This game is very career oriented in the early game which is really straight forward for new players. Im tac. Tac ship, tac skills, moar faw; I think the new skill tree was built with this in mind. But in the end game, the only way to keep it interesting is build diversity. This game SHOULD allow full control of skills like the current traits system. About to tank HSE for your fleet and don't need that sci ultimate? Get rid of it and add more hull capacity. That being said, we all know it will never happen. Locked in skills force players to either purchase respec tokens or buy more character slots and create another alt.
The only solution I can think of is adding skill tree loadouts to the game. This would allow a single captain to have multiple skill trees to choose from depending on which ship they swap to. Just got that new sci ship but fully spec'd into tac? No problem, just swap skill loadouts. Adding them will allow captains who have been in the end game for years to continue to use the diverse build paths that they have itemized for. Skill loadouts would also encourage captains to try more combinations of the new skills and perhaps even buy more ships which cater to a specific build path.
We all love this game. I know everyone here does, or they wouldn't be so concerned. I sincerely hope that there are more quality of life improvements coming to this system which is already so so limited. I have a few friends who work at gaming companies and after telling them about this skill revamp they were so confused. "Wait, you have to pay? You can't just move your skill points around as you please? You earned them... Savage."
And this is the last *I* intend to say on the topic for now.
I am saddened that, as it appears now, you very deliberately set out to nerf the Leech, all the while continually stating players would lose nothing.
Do I approve of the Leech nerf? No. But that's not even what it's about now. It's a Skill Revamp, couched in rhetoric about making things easier for people, whilst it was, as it now turns out, seen by the Devs as an opportunity to do some major nerfing. That constitutes a severe breakdown in communication, bordering on... (well, use your imagination).
I don't remember who said it, but a player here posted something like "Whenever a Dev comes out to say players will lose nothing, you can invariably be assured you WILL lose something." Q.E.D.
I think this is the nail on the head, Lucho. I put the old Embassy consoles back on in place of the R&D consoles (which actually have more because they have PG and GG) and my damage for most skills are very close to Holodeck. For background, I use the Plasma Emission Torpedo with TS3 and the torpedo/science synergy trait with 3 purple torpedo cooldown chance doffs to keep my science skills at their baseline cooldown. On Holodeck, sensor analysis > GW3 > RSB > TS3 and the light show comes on. With the R&D, the Theta Radiation is very weak but when using the Embassy exotic-plasma consoles, it's almost as good as the R&D on Holodeck. I say it's almost as good because there are less PartGens and less GravGens which results in less pull and less crit on GW as well as less burn on the radiation.
I know some people will laugh but I do about 13 to 15k DPS in Tau Dewa (22 to 30k in CCA) and have been seeing 8 to 11k in Tau Dewa on Tribble. 30% or more loss of DPS is significant, no matter if you do 5k or 100k. I couldn't get in a CCA on Tribble and there is no ISA.
So I think that if the R&D consoles are looked at, it will fix many science ships because I'm sure many use them. They are top notch on Holodeck.
Every mod in the game, by itself, is inconsequential. It's the cumulative effect of all of them where you get your results. Pointing out that AMP is only 3.3% per subsystem and is thus inconsequential, is a straw man.
They should be made two seperate categories again and the amount of skillpoints available adjusted to match. Or alternatively bake drain resistance into a shield or warp core skill or something.
For instance, ALL of my builds rely very heavily on Insulators, drain resistance is just as important and great to have as straight up damage resistance. But many of my builds have absolutely ZERO points in Flow capacitors... because if i'm not running a drain build or the infamous "Plasmonic Leech" it is of absolutely no use to me, and those are valuble points that I'm otherwise free to spend elsewhere.
This revamp kind of eliminates that freedom of choice.
I mean it's like if we had kinetic resistance baked in with projectile weapon damage, or energy resistance baked in with energy weapon damage.
See the problem?
You get the picture, all ground Captain abilities are weaker now and there's no way to counteract that. Is it possible to roll buffs to ground Captain abilities into the Kit Mastery skill? I feel like that's how it should've been in the first place, honestly.
In complete honesty, I'm surprised we didn't see that for that very reason...
Stop new content until quality returns
I thought all kit abilities were buffed by the Kit Mastery Skill. Might be a bug. Not enough people test ground.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I see this again and again... And I fail to see the logic of this complaint. Imagine you're in a supermarket to get some tea. But this time you see that you'd get a sample of some new sweetener brand free if you buy your favourite. The price is the same, it's genuinely free, as far as you're concerned. You may be like me and hate the taste of the stuff, you may think it's a bad business, and object to it on other grounds, but one thing you can't complain about is "waste of my money."
1 new point is more valuable than old 3 pips partly because of these "promotional bundles." Without them adding new skills would've been more difficult.
Then again, I love somewhat more versatile skill specs than typical... (My Romulan beamboat captain has some partgen... Just in case.) Or, to go on with the analogy, I like this sweetener, and think it's a great bargain, and so I might be biased.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
Actually not the case, as per the initial announcement and by looking it over. The total number of pips you could obtain, generally speaking, would be somewhere close to half the total number available, much like it is with the new points system. In terms of straight up 'you have x bits you can select from y number', there's no actual difference, there are actually no 'freebies' in the main skill tree of the new system, and the additional selection choices at the bottom could easily be adapted to the old system based on the number of points invested into a specific career track.
Stop new content until quality returns
Plasmonic nerf had a long time coming, while I am saddened by the apparent change to already underused and under performing science drain abilities too.
But that's not the feedback I'd like to give, threat and stealth need to be either at unlock 10 or back in unlock 5. Threat in specific is a tank skill to be able to or at least try to gain agro over people with 15+ points in Tactical already. As well I think the carrier unlocks are bit on the high side.
Maybe it should look like this
Threat/stealth 5 or 10
carrier 10 or 5
crith 15
critd 20
Or
crith5
threat/stealth 10
carrier 15
critd 20
This.
They havn't been added to the store yet.
I didn't mean the bottom unlock tracks, I meant new additions to main trees like Long-range Sensors or Coordination protocols. Otherwise, let's see a standard cookie-cutter build... 6 pips in everything power=36 pips, versus 5 picks in the new system (54 vs 9 if you go for 100 skill) Exactly half in other words, torp and energy crit skills combined, and in OP case "free" flowcaps even if what you're really after is insulators. It might be you never ever use them, but you didn't spend any extra picks on them either.
Since when did playing Romulan = crit stuffed Scimitar?
On my Federation characters, power levels are simple and easy. Romulan power levels just got a bit trickier, and not in a good way.
Romulans are crit-stuffed compared to similarly expensive (or cheap) base faction build unless you go out of your way to make them not to, simply because of SRO availability... It actually matters more on cheap builds, because each extra 1% crit chance is less and less valuable. Haven't played one on Tribble yet (and my rom is pretty much the exact opposite of billion EC in gear scimi...) so can't comment on power issues...