I believe that the line "Players Lose Nothing" from the Skill System Revamp blog will be the new tag line of infamy,
right up there with "Delta Rising is the best expansion ever, and the players love it".
Expect 'Baghdad Bob' signatures to wit pretty soon.
I believe that the line "Players Lose Nothing" from the Skill System Revamp blog will be the new tag line of infamy,
right up there with "Delta Rising is the best expansion ever, and the players love it".
Expect 'Baghdad Bob' signatures to wit pretty soon.
I have to admit, I smiled a little when I saw there was already a signature mocking the whole "people are gonna eat crow" comment.
"There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
Does this in any way affect me playing Space Barbie and flying around watching skittle-beams off the shoulder of Orion while going pewpewpew and making wooshing sounds at the door anytime I get up to go to the kitchen for more coffee?
They're going to nerf your wooshing sounds, they'll by 10% less convincing.
"Let me guess, my theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters and you don't like my tie" - The Doctor
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!" -Agatha Heterodyne
Something Ive noticed and perhaps I missed this in one of the update posts. My question is before we had
Starship Weapon training at lt (increased all weapon damage)
and Starship energy weapons (increased energy weapon damage) , Starship projectile weapons at lt commander (increases mine and torpedo damage),
Now we only have energy weapon and projectile weapon skills. So does that mean we are going to completely lose the extra damage from the Lt Starship Weapon skill?
Also , Are the "perks" taken from existing skills? Other then the ones that were converted like Starship batteries. I mean the additional power lv perks from Engineering.
I ask this because when i take my current toon, match the specs to the new skill system in tribble. My power lv bonuses are lower.
Current power levels (on luna class with all traits/equipment removed) set to balance; Weapon = 69/50 Shields= 70/50 Engines= 70/50 Aux=81/50
revamped with same conditions: weapon= 69/50 Shields= 67/50 Engines= 67/50 aux = 82/50
This is with ALL the power lv skills and the weapon and Auxiliary perk. Im only matching with weapons wiht the perk and lower by 3 points in shields and engines. Similar number differences for each setting btw. Atk, Def, Speed
( These were on a Luna class with EVERYTHING removed including traits. )
Then when is comes to "not loosing anything" Some skills like hull Repair have been split into 2 tree Damage Control, and Hull healing. This means it will take 6 points to match what would otherwise equal 3 points.
Before I had a total on 174 points in space skills of a total of 315. Each Skill having a total of 9 points(ranks) per skill. 35 total skills x9 = 315 possible points in skills.
giving me Current: 174/315 = .55 55% of total possible skills (ranks in skills)
vs Revamp: 44/90 =.48 a total possible of 48%
55% of total current skills is more then 48% so that alone is a nerf which is whatever but since before it would only take 9 points in one skill to give the equivalent on 6 points in 2 skills, that brings my choices down even more if I attempt to maintain the same build
Since Hull healing previously increased both hull regen rate and hull healing ability. now those are split limiting my effective choices even more.
While chosing specs before, i could add remove, move around them till I found what all i wanted for sure before locking them in.
Now you must lock them in to move up to the next rank, this means any one mistake can not be corrected while picking.
In space before I could see how many total space skills, and ground skills I had allocated with my equipment additions. With out seeing this you have to go looking arround at each one and add them up basically "guessing" at what you have.
IE: Space Skill
Particle Generators: 215
vs
control expertise: Add 100 from skill, 24.5 from deflector, 25 from console etc to find ?
Something Ive noticed and perhaps I missed this in one of the update posts. My question is before we had
Starship Weapon training at lt (increased all weapon damage)
and Starship energy weapons (increased energy weapon damage) , Starship projectile weapons at lt commander (increases mine and torpedo damage),
Now we only have energy weapon and projectile weapon skills. So does that mean we are going to completely lose the extra damage from the Lt Starship Weapon skill?
They probably changed our baseline skill to match what we have had with weapons training.
With 3 points in energy, my beams on test are showing the same damage as they do on live.
"Let me guess, my theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters and you don't like my tie" - The Doctor
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!" -Agatha Heterodyne
Well finally able to test a semi current version of my Klingon Level 60 Tactical. While it is not exactly my current version of this toon what I did find was quite revealing. I cannot duplicate my build PERIOD. Is this a good thing maybe. Three extra space points would fix that. Did I gain things? Yes my beam damage went through the roof even with lvl 13 fleet gear. I can only imagine what the Lvl 14's will do. Did I lose things YES big time my surviablity dropped at least 30% compared to the pre revamp on the sme ship a T-6 intel fleet raptor. Will the DPS boost make up for this? Only time will tell. One big downside is to unlock higher tiers I had to put points in threat generation that negates my embassy reduce threat console. Not a good thing for a Raptor that now is squishier then before. Tanking ships and cruisers with far tougher shields and hull this isn't a real game changer but for escorts and raptors it is.
That said there are somethings that need changing real fast before it goes live. The corrupted damage deal no matter how you slice it Rom get an extra DOT Plasma damage 2 offerings out of three really if you max out Eng skills. Should this be changed YES. Instead of an extra DOT granted to Plasma users may I be so bold to say a chance of warp core explosion be granted as one choice, Complete Shield and weapon failure as another and complete hull failure as the third. Remove the Plasma DOT and replace it with these and you will see Eng being for more then just tanking. Science seems ok so far.
So I ported over a engineer, tac, and sci, level 60 each.
Duplicating builds is for the most part not possible. We can get close on space. Ground would take at minimum 3-4 more point. I don't care what the propaganda published in this and the Tribble test skill revamp thread state, they are just that. A sales pitch to ease a bad deal.
On my KDF sci, weapons skills were at 99 on Holodeck. PSG at 99. On Tribble to get the same functions from kits, and PSG, I have no where near the endurance and armor and only have enough point to get basic weapons skill. The KDF engineer fares somewhat closer, about 2-3 points off.
In space the engineer was primarily a carrier captain so was spec'd accordingly. In any build far more points have to be used in the tac tree. In no case have I been able to obtain an ultimate ability. Training manual access is pitiful. Some of the unlocks are good, but I still find too many sacrifices. PVE side most will still be fine. I was not able to do any STFS on Tribble. Every time I queued and instanced in the mission ended or I was booted from the queue.
So. Where does this leave my decision to continue or move on? Where does this leave the choices for the rest of you?
I am not amused. We have no say in this implementation and i dont support it
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
I logged on hated the UI design and was not impressed with it at all. Said it in another thread anyone he believes the statement from the announcement about players not losing anything is fooling themselves. This skill revamp will reduce the effectiveness of current builds whether it be sci/eng/tact or subsystem power, and you will not be able to reproduce the exact current Holodeck build you have on Tribble or when this revamp goes live.
It is already know that certain Dev's are appalled by the way we currently melt PvE in mere minutes rather than the 15 min timer the match has. This is their chance to introduce nerfs and balance that. Be it a good or a bad thing, those that have spent a lot of time and money maxing their current builds are going to have that time and invest devalued once again. Even if its only by 10% as a ball park number
I logged on hated the UI design and was not impressed with it at all. Said it in another thread anyone he believes the statement from the announcement about players not losing anything is fooling themselves. This skill revamp will reduce the effectiveness of current builds whether it be sci/eng/tact or subsystem power, and you will not be able to reproduce the exact current Holodeck build you have on Tribble or when this revamp goes live.
It is already know that certain Dev's are appalled by the way we currently melt PvE in mere minutes rather than the 15 min timer the match has. This is their chance to introduce nerfs and balance that. Be it a good or a bad thing, those that have spent a lot of time and money maxing their current builds are going to have that time and invest devalued once again. Even if its only by 10% as a ball park number
If the devs are appalled at the idea that players are melting PvE content in minutes instead of hours, then they need to bring better AI, instead of the craptastic HP sponges they have been throwing at us. Throw in some AI that actually uses abilities at the proper time, and the min/maxers will be lost. I would rather have challenging opponents than opponents with tons of HP that do stupid things.
(I know I was exaggerating, but my point is there)
Nerfs are not needed. Just some small balancing here and there, but NOTHING MAJOR. And if the devs claim Players lose nothing, then they better damn well hold that true, because players never forget it when devs flat out lie about something.
Now if they came right out front and said some abilities may be changed to tailor to the new system which may cause some player builds to be affected, then I wouldn't hold it against them.
I logged on hated the UI design and was not impressed with it at all. Said it in another thread anyone he believes the statement from the announcement about players not losing anything is fooling themselves. This skill revamp will reduce the effectiveness of current builds whether it be sci/eng/tact or subsystem power, and you will not be able to reproduce the exact current Holodeck build you have on Tribble or when this revamp goes live.
It is already know that certain Dev's are appalled by the way we currently melt PvE in mere minutes rather than the 15 min timer the match has. This is their chance to introduce nerfs and balance that. Be it a good or a bad thing, those that have spent a lot of time and money maxing their current builds are going to have that time and invest devalued once again. Even if its only by 10% as a ball park number
If the devs are appalled at the idea that players are melting PvE content in minutes instead of hours, then they need to bring better AI, instead of the craptastic HP sponges they have been throwing at us. Throw in some AI that actually uses abilities at the proper time, and the min/maxers will be lost. I would rather have challenging opponents than opponents with tons of HP that do stupid things.
(I know I was exaggerating, but my point is there)
Nerfs are not needed. Just some small balancing here and there, but NOTHING MAJOR. And if the devs claim Players lose nothing, then they better damn well hold that true, because players never forget it when devs flat out lie about something.
Now if they came right out front and said some abilities may be changed to tailor to the new system which may cause some player builds to be affected, then I wouldn't hold it against them.
Well if we examine the statement, mainly the bit in bold and caps it does leave the possibility of changes open
Players Lose Nothing – AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, everything available in the current system will be made available under the new system, and investments in equipment and ships retain full value.
Oh, it has the requisite amount of Marketing doublespeak to cover their butts in court, but I sincerely hope whoever wrote that is getting dirty looks in the office all day long. Its the functional equivalent of beaming Dev-credibility out into space and then using it for target practice. I'm sure the mechanics/balance guys just love being hammered with that while trying to do their very necessary job.
Oh, it has the requisite amount of Marketing doublespeak to cover their butts in court, but I sincerely hope whoever wrote that is getting dirty looks in the office all day long. Its the functional equivalent of beaming Dev-credibility out into space and then using it for target practice. I'm sure the mechanics/balance guys just love being hammered with that while trying to do their very necessary job.
Yup marketing guys are great at throwing the peeps tuning the engine to the wolves, Been on the receiving end myself and just realised now i'm on the other side of the fence, i'm doing the same thing by picking holes in statements. Although tbh i'm been around this game long enough to have reservations about changes like these.
How about if we wait until we actually see the damned thing before we start jumping to conclusions and threatening to quit playing ? Oh yeah, wrong crowd
Totally agree. Go to Tribble , play with it and then provide feedback. I myself think this will work. Does need some more polishing before going live. That's why it's on Tribble. Test drive before you complain.
Well it will "increase" my dps. More ranged dmg armor and shield pen +0.5 crth for me and frenezy wich mhe also cd reduction... On the other hand bye engi skills only eps and maneuvering sci skills yea drain and here is the problem it has been hard nerfed 50% of his old eficiency wich means less amp bonus so range and extra pen ad cd for drains death... My build is the faw scimi of all time not very imaginative but what about hybrid builds with prtg and torp power. U cant invest on torps without doing in energy eficiency now...
All I see with this revamp is everyone still going to Tac, then throwing in a little Sci/Eng as garnish.
What exactly distinguishes any of the career path choices from each other after this skill release, other than the color of their shirt and a few mini-games specifically designed for the paths?
Had this been introduced at release... it likely would have been much different- but at this point, I fail to see the "glamour" or shine this really adds to the game. Which problems does this really resolve, or does it simply just create new ones? Seems to be a mediocre "content release" excuse for not having anything ready on the table for Season 11.5, IMO.
I'm not convinced, and many, many others aren't either. I won't bother advising PWE/Cryptic to hold off on releasing this because it's apparently already planned and they've proven they don't really take input from their customers anyway.
"Cult of DOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!" aside, this is a surefire way to head in the direction of trickling off potential capital gains, but hey, don't say you weren't warned.
(Disclaimer: I may have omitted exclamation points from "Cult of DOOOOMMM!!!!!!", YMMV)
It's not you- it's me. I just need my space.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
From reviewing and playing around with the system the build choices are limited and you have to follow a very narrow path....
So you can be a jack of all trades average at everything you do, or you can excel at tanking but suck at DPS excel at Science stuff but nothing else or go the glass cannon dps route and thats it no other real options.
After reading this thread and the other related threads over on Reddit, I have decided on a few things
1) Firm believer in the thought "New and Improved!" is usually neither. Especially with MMO's. Sometimes it seems all Devs really want is a new marker on their gunbelt.
2) Not going to Tribble to 'test'. Seen too many times with this lot where the only feedback they listen to is the stuff which confirms/supports their own preconcieved notions.
3) I am genuinely going to give this new system the benefit of the doubt when it arrives on Holodeck. And yes, I will probably purchase a few Respec Tokens. Because I am going to get it all wrong the first time.
- Oh. Waitaminnit. I am going to spend Real Currency, again, to repair something I have already repaired once. Now I see the impetus for revamping the Shill, err, Skill Tree. Kudos to the Sales Staff for the excellent continued milking going on here.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
3) I am genuinely going to give this new system the benefit of the doubt when it arrives on Holodeck. And yes, I will probably purchase a few Respec Tokens. Because I am going to get it all wrong the first time.
- Oh. Waitaminnit. I am going to spend Real Currency, again, to repair something I have already repaired once. Now I see the impetus for revamping the Shill, err, Skill Tree. Kudos to the Sales Staff for the excellent continued milking going on here.
My thoughts exactly with this revamp. Its a marketing ploy to make money.
Is the current system so broken that it needs to be completely overhauled and so complicated that you need to be a rocket scientist to understand it. No its not. A few tweaks to powers and updates to the description text and bam done.
However this doesn't involve resetting everyones skill tree and creating a new UI that will initially confuse people and have them struggle at 1st to replicate the perfectly good builds Cryptic/PWE are destroying.
The reason for a complete rebuild/revamp, to sell respect tokens and make money. Addressing power creep,broken powers ect is an after thought. But by nerfing errr.. readjusting powers it may also encourage multiple respects as players try to figure out how to make X power as good as it was before not aware that it was nerfed
I have ported three toons to tribble (FED Eng, ROM Sci, and KDF Tac), as these three are very focused builds on Holodeck (tank/support, drain/control, DPS/agility). So far I have only tested the FED Eng, but what I have found seems to be promising for builds that don't try to be everything. (NOTE: Only space skills addressed at this time.)
Translating the skills from live to test doesn't exactly port 1:1, but after reading through ALL of the skills first, the similarities became apparent. For Space skills, I ended up buying all but 2 ENG skills(28 total), plus a dip into SCI tree(13) for shield/sci boffs abilities, and few TAC skills(5) for energy damage and accuracy. This proved to have some rather interesting results.
1) My overall power levels pretty much stayed the same.
2) Overall speed (combat/full impulse) went up a tick, not a massive amount, but noticable. The Full Impulse Shunt from ENG skill tree is a boon when dropping from Full Impulse into the middle of combat. Plus
3) My out of combat hull points on test were the exact same as live, but during combat I noticed they went even higher. Then I read the fine print on the Threatening Stance, and noticed the chance for temporary boost to max hit points. At a potential of adding 50% to max hull, this may be a little overpowered. Overall, a Plus.
4) The removal of crew as a hull repair metric has proven to be a huge nerf, but potentially a needed one on tank builds. Essentially, it sets hull repair rates to what is currently regarded as 0 crew. I don't entirely agree with this setting, as it means that weaker ships will be boned on regen the moment they go to red alert. Though considering the fact my tank's hull repair rate was still 74.9% per minute... Still a minus in my book.
5) My DPS went up just slightly, even though I only took 2 skills to improve energy, mostly thanks to a dip into SCI skills to get the three that reduced damage drop off over range. Being in a cruiser means that turning to stay close constantly can be difficult at best. Not suffering so much energy drop off is a big plus in the long run. So Plus here.
6) The ENG ultimate is being heavily misunderstood I think. The corruption ability, plus the three boosts to it DO NOT affect plasma weapons at all. Rather, it's an active ability with a 2min cooldown that applies a debuff for 15 sec. For that duration, it deals plasma damage each second. It deals more every time the target fires energy weapons. The three boosts for the corruption 1)increase the base plasma burn, 2)Turns the extra plasma damage when firing energy weapons into a 3Km AoE centered on the target, and 3)Reduces target's outgoing damage by 33.3%.
This has the two interesting effects by giving ENG/Tank captains a really effective damage dealer every few minutes, as well as really putting the pain on enemies that spam BFaW. Bonus if they have hanger bays, as it melts their hanger pets. Big Plus.
7) Not skill related, but skill tree related, the spreading of training abilities across the three skill tracks is really annoying. This means in order to train all skills of one class you'll need 3 captains each, for a total of nine for all available skills. And having a captain with mostly cross-class skills is going to suffer with it's base class abilities. This just seems odd to me. (The either/or system for ground skill training is even more annoying in my book, but at least there you'll only need a second toon to access them all.) Minus.
I have yet to test any of this in an Elite PvE queue, but look forward to it. Overall, ENG/Tank builds seem to lean towards the unaffected/benefits column for switching to the new skills. Next up is my SCI drain/control.
I get on tribble: Server unavailable at this time.
Actualy only for a short moment server was available most of the time it is not. Many disconnects also.
Please explain how do I test if server is not available most of the time? And why is the server not available most of the time.
Why are server uptimes and downtimes not clearly communicated in the forum?
PS: I can access holodeck, also internet is working fine etc. I am 100% sure it is not a local issue on my PC.
It's a test server. It goes up and down at any time to do patch work. Thus the whole point of a test server
Yes, I'm that Askray@Batbayer in game. Yes, I still play. No, I don't care. Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker. Tiktok: @Askray Facebook: Askray113
I have done some extensive testing of my builds and come to the conclusion that in all cases my builds cannot be replicated to perform the same as on Holodeck. In all cases my builds get worse.
Which means maximizing builds on Holodeck is currently better possible then on Tribble.
So in case some one is saying his or her build is performing better on Tribble after setting skillpoints, I am sure this person has not fully optimized his build on Holodeck (not spend his skillpoints on holodeck smart enough).
PS: if you can spend skill points in 0-9 steps per skill its logical that finetuning is better posible then when only 3 steps are available per skill (which is a far more rougher skale).
Also I noticed Test server has been more stable last few days. I did not had the "Server unavailable at this time." message anymore.
All I see with this revamp is everyone still going to Tac, then throwing in a little Sci/Eng as garnish.
What exactly distinguishes any of the career path choices from each other after this skill release, other than the color of their shirt and a few mini-games specifically designed for the paths?
well, what made then different before? The captain abilities and a handful of skills related to GROUND. Otherwise the careers were the same before this revamp.
All I see with this revamp is everyone still going to Tac, then throwing in a little Sci/Eng as garnish.
What exactly distinguishes any of the career path choices from each other after this skill release, other than the color of their shirt and a few mini-games specifically designed for the paths?
The fact is the game content is targeted at DPS players and this system revamp has nothing to do with game/content balance that is something as an Engineer Capt who loves tanking and protecting my team I hope they look at and give me that role rather than me soaking up the threat to boost my DPS
On the one hand it looks like this system will have choices and consequences. So it's not so simple to have massive damage and be able to tank while you do it. Perhaps in time we could see the return of tank and support roles - pending gear of course, some of that stuff is so potent it'll perform even without the associated skillpoints.
But on the other hand such a system doesn't encourage much experimentation in my honest and humble opinion. The problem with trees is that there are only so many branches, and so many paths you can follow. The current system allows you to put points wherever you like, with whatever values you want. Only your level and available points hold you back.
I'll wait until the skill planner is updated to play around with this new system, no way I'm attempting to figure it out in-game
Better figure it now on Tribble... it will be less painless and certainly cheaper.
I have no trouble porting over any level 60 alts. The point is that you are trying to get equivalence to your existing toon... NOT exceeding or maximizing to the same level as your current Holodeck alt. There are some new skills, some skills got eliminated, others placed in different roles.
Granted, some issues (i.e. Plasmonic Leech, Aux power scaling, etc) have been altered. People can cry nerf depending on what end of the DPS spectrum they live at... but the skill revamp is as advertised.... you can most definitely recreate your existing toon at its current level of expertise. Anything more or new... and the promise no longer holds.
My opinion is that this whole new set up is going to change the game in very bad ways. My build is defense based and i relied on the ability to pick and choose what I wanted favoring space... I can only guess that as this new system is implemented that there will be a large loss of my ability to survive. Damage I can't see changing too much with the new system so most accept this new system but I don't. Mainly the unlocking path is the major issue, With the old system If I needed Starship warp core potential in engineering I did not need to waste skill points in a useless passive down that line with that alone I see this update will be flawed. Please think this over.
This comment is for the developers only Trolls keep your comments to yourself I will not argue this matter.
Comments
Expect 'Baghdad Bob' signatures to wit pretty soon.
I have to admit, I smiled a little when I saw there was already a signature mocking the whole "people are gonna eat crow" comment.
They're going to nerf your wooshing sounds, they'll by 10% less convincing.
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!" - Agatha Heterodyne
Actualy only for a short moment server was available most of the time it is not. Many disconnects also.
Please explain how do I test if server is not available most of the time? And why is the server not available most of the time.
Why are server uptimes and downtimes not clearly communicated in the forum?
PS: I can access holodeck, also internet is working fine etc. I am 100% sure it is not a local issue on my PC.
Starship Weapon training at lt (increased all weapon damage)
and Starship energy weapons (increased energy weapon damage) , Starship projectile weapons at lt commander (increases mine and torpedo damage),
Now we only have energy weapon and projectile weapon skills. So does that mean we are going to completely lose the extra damage from the Lt Starship Weapon skill?
Also , Are the "perks" taken from existing skills? Other then the ones that were converted like Starship batteries. I mean the additional power lv perks from Engineering.
I ask this because when i take my current toon, match the specs to the new skill system in tribble. My power lv bonuses are lower.
Current power levels (on luna class with all traits/equipment removed) set to balance; Weapon = 69/50 Shields= 70/50 Engines= 70/50 Aux=81/50
revamped with same conditions: weapon= 69/50 Shields= 67/50 Engines= 67/50 aux = 82/50
This is with ALL the power lv skills and the weapon and Auxiliary perk. Im only matching with weapons wiht the perk and lower by 3 points in shields and engines. Similar number differences for each setting btw. Atk, Def, Speed
( These were on a Luna class with EVERYTHING removed including traits. )
Then when is comes to "not loosing anything" Some skills like hull Repair have been split into 2 tree Damage Control, and Hull healing. This means it will take 6 points to match what would otherwise equal 3 points.
Before I had a total on 174 points in space skills of a total of 315. Each Skill having a total of 9 points(ranks) per skill. 35 total skills x9 = 315 possible points in skills.
giving me Current: 174/315 = .55 55% of total possible skills (ranks in skills)
vs Revamp: 44/90 =.48 a total possible of 48%
55% of total current skills is more then 48% so that alone is a nerf which is whatever but since before it would only take 9 points in one skill to give the equivalent on 6 points in 2 skills, that brings my choices down even more if I attempt to maintain the same build
Since Hull healing previously increased both hull regen rate and hull healing ability. now those are split limiting my effective choices even more.
Would appreciate if a dev could answer this.
While chosing specs before, i could add remove, move around them till I found what all i wanted for sure before locking them in.
Now you must lock them in to move up to the next rank, this means any one mistake can not be corrected while picking.
In space before I could see how many total space skills, and ground skills I had allocated with my equipment additions. With out seeing this you have to go looking arround at each one and add them up basically "guessing" at what you have.
IE: Space Skill
Particle Generators: 215
vs
control expertise: Add 100 from skill, 24.5 from deflector, 25 from console etc to find ?
With 3 points in energy, my beams on test are showing the same damage as they do on live.
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!" - Agatha Heterodyne
That said there are somethings that need changing real fast before it goes live. The corrupted damage deal no matter how you slice it Rom get an extra DOT Plasma damage 2 offerings out of three really if you max out Eng skills. Should this be changed YES. Instead of an extra DOT granted to Plasma users may I be so bold to say a chance of warp core explosion be granted as one choice, Complete Shield and weapon failure as another and complete hull failure as the third. Remove the Plasma DOT and replace it with these and you will see Eng being for more then just tanking. Science seems ok so far.
Duplicating builds is for the most part not possible. We can get close on space. Ground would take at minimum 3-4 more point. I don't care what the propaganda published in this and the Tribble test skill revamp thread state, they are just that. A sales pitch to ease a bad deal.
On my KDF sci, weapons skills were at 99 on Holodeck. PSG at 99. On Tribble to get the same functions from kits, and PSG, I have no where near the endurance and armor and only have enough point to get basic weapons skill. The KDF engineer fares somewhat closer, about 2-3 points off.
In space the engineer was primarily a carrier captain so was spec'd accordingly. In any build far more points have to be used in the tac tree. In no case have I been able to obtain an ultimate ability. Training manual access is pitiful. Some of the unlocks are good, but I still find too many sacrifices. PVE side most will still be fine. I was not able to do any STFS on Tribble. Every time I queued and instanced in the mission ended or I was booted from the queue.
So. Where does this leave my decision to continue or move on? Where does this leave the choices for the rest of you?
I am not amused. We have no say in this implementation and i dont support it
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Expatriot Might Characters in EXILE
It is already know that certain Dev's are appalled by the way we currently melt PvE in mere minutes rather than the 15 min timer the match has. This is their chance to introduce nerfs and balance that. Be it a good or a bad thing, those that have spent a lot of time and money maxing their current builds are going to have that time and invest devalued once again. Even if its only by 10% as a ball park number
If the devs are appalled at the idea that players are melting PvE content in minutes instead of hours, then they need to bring better AI, instead of the craptastic HP sponges they have been throwing at us. Throw in some AI that actually uses abilities at the proper time, and the min/maxers will be lost. I would rather have challenging opponents than opponents with tons of HP that do stupid things.
(I know I was exaggerating, but my point is there)
Nerfs are not needed. Just some small balancing here and there, but NOTHING MAJOR. And if the devs claim Players lose nothing, then they better damn well hold that true, because players never forget it when devs flat out lie about something.
Now if they came right out front and said some abilities may be changed to tailor to the new system which may cause some player builds to be affected, then I wouldn't hold it against them.
Well if we examine the statement, mainly the bit in bold and caps it does leave the possibility of changes open
Players Lose Nothing – AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, everything available in the current system will be made available under the new system, and investments in equipment and ships retain full value.
Yup marketing guys are great at throwing the peeps tuning the engine to the wolves, Been on the receiving end myself and just realised now i'm on the other side of the fence, i'm doing the same thing by picking holes in statements. Although tbh i'm been around this game long enough to have reservations about changes like these.
Totally agree. Go to Tribble , play with it and then provide feedback. I myself think this will work. Does need some more polishing before going live. That's why it's on Tribble. Test drive before you complain.
What exactly distinguishes any of the career path choices from each other after this skill release, other than the color of their shirt and a few mini-games specifically designed for the paths?
Had this been introduced at release... it likely would have been much different- but at this point, I fail to see the "glamour" or shine this really adds to the game. Which problems does this really resolve, or does it simply just create new ones? Seems to be a mediocre "content release" excuse for not having anything ready on the table for Season 11.5, IMO.
I'm not convinced, and many, many others aren't either. I won't bother advising PWE/Cryptic to hold off on releasing this because it's apparently already planned and they've proven they don't really take input from their customers anyway.
"Cult of DOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!" aside, this is a surefire way to head in the direction of trickling off potential capital gains, but hey, don't say you weren't warned.
(Disclaimer: I may have omitted exclamation points from "Cult of DOOOOMMM!!!!!!", YMMV)
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
So you can be a jack of all trades average at everything you do, or you can excel at tanking but suck at DPS excel at Science stuff but nothing else or go the glass cannon dps route and thats it no other real options.
1) Firm believer in the thought "New and Improved!" is usually neither. Especially with MMO's. Sometimes it seems all Devs really want is a new marker on their gunbelt.
2) Not going to Tribble to 'test'. Seen too many times with this lot where the only feedback they listen to is the stuff which confirms/supports their own preconcieved notions.
3) I am genuinely going to give this new system the benefit of the doubt when it arrives on Holodeck. And yes, I will probably purchase a few Respec Tokens. Because I am going to get it all wrong the first time.
- Oh. Waitaminnit. I am going to spend Real Currency, again, to repair something I have already repaired once.
Now I see the impetus for revamping the Shill, err, Skill Tree. Kudos to the Sales Staff for the excellent continued milking going on here.
My thoughts exactly with this revamp. Its a marketing ploy to make money.
Is the current system so broken that it needs to be completely overhauled and so complicated that you need to be a rocket scientist to understand it. No its not. A few tweaks to powers and updates to the description text and bam done.
However this doesn't involve resetting everyones skill tree and creating a new UI that will initially confuse people and have them struggle at 1st to replicate the perfectly good builds Cryptic/PWE are destroying.
The reason for a complete rebuild/revamp, to sell respect tokens and make money. Addressing power creep,broken powers ect is an after thought. But by nerfing errr.. readjusting powers it may also encourage multiple respects as players try to figure out how to make X power as good as it was before not aware that it was nerfed
Translating the skills from live to test doesn't exactly port 1:1, but after reading through ALL of the skills first, the similarities became apparent. For Space skills, I ended up buying all but 2 ENG skills(28 total), plus a dip into SCI tree(13) for shield/sci boffs abilities, and few TAC skills(5) for energy damage and accuracy. This proved to have some rather interesting results.
1) My overall power levels pretty much stayed the same.
2) Overall speed (combat/full impulse) went up a tick, not a massive amount, but noticable. The Full Impulse Shunt from ENG skill tree is a boon when dropping from Full Impulse into the middle of combat. Plus
3) My out of combat hull points on test were the exact same as live, but during combat I noticed they went even higher. Then I read the fine print on the Threatening Stance, and noticed the chance for temporary boost to max hit points. At a potential of adding 50% to max hull, this may be a little overpowered. Overall, a Plus.
4) The removal of crew as a hull repair metric has proven to be a huge nerf, but potentially a needed one on tank builds. Essentially, it sets hull repair rates to what is currently regarded as 0 crew. I don't entirely agree with this setting, as it means that weaker ships will be boned on regen the moment they go to red alert. Though considering the fact my tank's hull repair rate was still 74.9% per minute... Still a minus in my book.
5) My DPS went up just slightly, even though I only took 2 skills to improve energy, mostly thanks to a dip into SCI skills to get the three that reduced damage drop off over range. Being in a cruiser means that turning to stay close constantly can be difficult at best. Not suffering so much energy drop off is a big plus in the long run. So Plus here.
6) The ENG ultimate is being heavily misunderstood I think. The corruption ability, plus the three boosts to it DO NOT affect plasma weapons at all. Rather, it's an active ability with a 2min cooldown that applies a debuff for 15 sec. For that duration, it deals plasma damage each second. It deals more every time the target fires energy weapons. The three boosts for the corruption 1)increase the base plasma burn, 2)Turns the extra plasma damage when firing energy weapons into a 3Km AoE centered on the target, and 3)Reduces target's outgoing damage by 33.3%.
This has the two interesting effects by giving ENG/Tank captains a really effective damage dealer every few minutes, as well as really putting the pain on enemies that spam BFaW. Bonus if they have hanger bays, as it melts their hanger pets. Big Plus.
7) Not skill related, but skill tree related, the spreading of training abilities across the three skill tracks is really annoying. This means in order to train all skills of one class you'll need 3 captains each, for a total of nine for all available skills. And having a captain with mostly cross-class skills is going to suffer with it's base class abilities. This just seems odd to me. (The either/or system for ground skill training is even more annoying in my book, but at least there you'll only need a second toon to access them all.) Minus.
I have yet to test any of this in an Elite PvE queue, but look forward to it. Overall, ENG/Tank builds seem to lean towards the unaffected/benefits column for switching to the new skills. Next up is my SCI drain/control.
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Which means maximizing builds on Holodeck is currently better possible then on Tribble.
So in case some one is saying his or her build is performing better on Tribble after setting skillpoints, I am sure this person has not fully optimized his build on Holodeck (not spend his skillpoints on holodeck smart enough).
PS: if you can spend skill points in 0-9 steps per skill its logical that finetuning is better posible then when only 3 steps are available per skill (which is a far more rougher skale).
Also I noticed Test server has been more stable last few days. I did not had the "Server unavailable at this time." message anymore.
My character Tsin'xing
The fact is the game content is targeted at DPS players and this system revamp has nothing to do with game/content balance that is something as an Engineer Capt who loves tanking and protecting my team I hope they look at and give me that role rather than me soaking up the threat to boost my DPS
On the one hand it looks like this system will have choices and consequences. So it's not so simple to have massive damage and be able to tank while you do it. Perhaps in time we could see the return of tank and support roles - pending gear of course, some of that stuff is so potent it'll perform even without the associated skillpoints.
But on the other hand such a system doesn't encourage much experimentation in my honest and humble opinion. The problem with trees is that there are only so many branches, and so many paths you can follow. The current system allows you to put points wherever you like, with whatever values you want. Only your level and available points hold you back.
I'll wait until the skill planner is updated to play around with this new system, no way I'm attempting to figure it out in-game
I have no trouble porting over any level 60 alts. The point is that you are trying to get equivalence to your existing toon... NOT exceeding or maximizing to the same level as your current Holodeck alt. There are some new skills, some skills got eliminated, others placed in different roles.
Granted, some issues (i.e. Plasmonic Leech, Aux power scaling, etc) have been altered. People can cry nerf depending on what end of the DPS spectrum they live at... but the skill revamp is as advertised.... you can most definitely recreate your existing toon at its current level of expertise. Anything more or new... and the promise no longer holds.
This comment is for the developers only Trolls keep your comments to yourself I will not argue this matter.