Fortunately I have a test server to test builds on before committing Live... and alts on Live who will go first and play the canary as I navigate this new coalmine. Test three times, measure twice, cut once .
But you have to waste a lot of time doing that -- any spec XP, dil, marks, EC, loot you earn while testing evaporates because you're using a copied character on the test server.
If respecs were cheap, we wouldn't lose any character gains just the cost.
XP, dil, marks, and EC are all free in tribble and it's not like it takes long to test anyways. I find tribble incredibly useful for testing and now that we get free respecs on tribble it's even better.
I somewhat agree with the OP but it's easy to experiment on tribble.
the free respecs on tribble are there for testing the new skill system, don't expect that to be a permanent fixture once the new skill system goes live.
You don't know that. Everything else has stayed.
true, I don't know if the free respecs will stay but on the other hand you don't know for sure they wont be removed either.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Oh well when mistakes are made trying to rebuild our characters, Never fear "Zen-Storeman" will swoop in to our rescue and sell us another Skill retrain token, and he'll continue to fly in and save the day every time we need to tweak our builds to recapture what this revamp is undoing all for a measly 500 zen. What a guy
Oh well when mistakes are made trying to rebuild our characters, Never fear "Zen-Storeman" will swoop in to our rescue and sell us another Skill retrain token, and he'll continue to fly in and save the day every time we need to tweak our builds to recapture what this revamp is undoing all for a measly 500 zen. What a guy
Which is why I am thrilled to be on Tribble testing builds, and sitting on ~7-10 free respecs per toon.
I think the *real* impending joy will be on the powers that be deciding to couple the "skill GUI happy change" with reworking Resists and Strengthens.
This pattern has occurred often enough with this particular developer that I am in awe of the ability for the leads to STILL say things like "players lose nothing." It ranks up there with "our forcing you to use multiple enhancements in CoX is really a blessing." Every time they state they are altering one thing you can bet they are attempting to alter 12.
Oh well when mistakes are made trying to rebuild our characters, Never fear "Zen-Storeman" will swoop in to our rescue and sell us another Skill retrain token, and he'll continue to fly in and save the day every time we need to tweak our builds to recapture what this revamp is undoing all for a measly 500 zen. What a guy
And the rest...
Remember, if you have R&D-'improved' equipment, and you find that "X Console" doesn't work as well as it should anymore, you'll need to get "Y Console", and then go and spend resources fixing it up to the level you had "X Console" to regain parity.
Cryptic have made a quite ingenious system whereby any 'revamp' of one system, has knock-on effects that will have players scrambling not just for new equipment, but the dilithium and other resources to fix that equipment up to the level they're used to. Nothing is "good enough" as delivered anymore, it has to be repaired, meaning more dilithium, and more zen being bought to buy it, as well as the respecs.
Why introduce a brand new zone, or improve the game, when all you need do is routinely "revamp" one aspect of it, causing knock-on effects throughout?
Why introduce a brand new zone, or improve the game, when all you need do is routinely "revamp" one aspect of it, causing knock-on effects throughout?
Quite.
"Fixing" a console is on average ~50 cents worth of EC and ~ 2 bucks worth of Dil.....
multiplied by "insert nerf swag impact x" number of consoles/weapons...
Far better to have them altering dynamics that have lasted for six of six years than you know returning us a genuine exploration zone experience that "meets our fine standards."
Whoa..hold up a sec here guys. Are you saying cryptic is reworking the talent trees and specialization so they can steath in a way for people to "eventually" have to spend zen and dil to improve thier characters? I understand the retrain tokens and I'm fine with that but if I have to spend zen or dil to upgrade my character in ANYWAY, no matter how small or big then thats one hell of a deal breaker. Please someone thats on tribble explain this??
Whoa..hold up a sec here guys. Are you saying cryptic is reworking the talent trees and specialization so they can steath in a way for people to "eventually" have to spend zen and dil to improve thier characters?
op has it totally nailed.. with some nice follow up additions from many others. I do think there may be a little something to the 'make or break' comments, a change to the core is a far greater trifling, than a change to items that interact with it. I'm very much hoping the overall feel of the game remains the same, as I think for many players, it is only the little familiar consistencies amongst the 'x number' of inconsistencies, that maintain a tentative equilibrium (*).
One thing to keep an eye on is whether the AI's NPCs get cranked down when players get hit with "fixes."
I'm wary of the "fixing strengthens and resists" because the system warts and all has already been "fixed" to a standard by buffing the AI's stats to "cope" with the L33t brigade DPSers.
A $5 paywall on every respec makes about as much sense as a $15 monthly paywall to play the game. In theory, it's "everyone who wants to (respec)/(play for a month) will pay money," but in reality, it's more like "100% of 10 is less than 10% of 1000," which explains the popularity of the F2P model.
I think this is one of those things that would make more sense as a free mechanic to entice players into, say, trying a variety of C-Store ships with matching C-Store costumes. Allowing players to swap on the fly between two or three specs (the "dual spec" concept most modern MMO players will expect), allowing free or low-cost (EC or dil) respecs, and offering additional spec slots for either EC, dil, or (if absolutely necessary) Zen seems like the way to go. It would be close to the current system for inventory, character slots, etc., where you get some slots for free with the option to buy more. The current respec system is equivalent to having one character slot and paying 500 Zen every time you want to delete a character to try a new race, career, or faction.
The skill revamp is nothing more than a major nerf to everybody who played by the rules the past years and choose to become good at them.
The false advertising cryptic showed in the blog is not surprising at all and fully upholds what to expect from them.
I’m not at all worried about the DPS peeps. Cryptic being cryptic will simply tune a few parameters down while opening new options waiting to go for.
Good players will still be good players (just have to replay/pay) after the revamp while bad players will still be bad players.
Tinkering with 5 year old items and game mechanics while advertising “peeps loose nothing” is cryptic at its finest. The misconception they could issue in a brave and balanced new world even more than that. (LOL)
The whole skill revamp is the ultimate acknowledgment of failure in game design.
Post edited by peterconnorfirst on
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Whoa..hold up a sec here guys. Are you saying cryptic is reworking the talent trees and specialization so they can steath in a way for people to "eventually" have to spend zen and dil to improve thier characters? I understand the retrain tokens and I'm fine with that but if I have to spend zen or dil to upgrade my character in ANYWAY, no matter how small or big then thats one hell of a deal breaker. Please someone thats on tribble explain this??
The biggest change to the skill trees is the fact that you no longer spend multiple points to improve a skill. One skill point buys one skill. Many skills have improved versions, much like in the specialization trees.
Starting at level 5, you will earn 1 space skill point every level up to 50, which is where the current skill system caps out. You will earn 1 ground skill point every 5 levels.
For existing characters, your skills will be reset to zero and you will gain the appropriate skill points for your level to spend on the new skill tree. You will not have to spend zen or dil for this to happen. This is what Cryptic might refer to as a "free respec", but it's not a free respec token.
What people are justifiably complaining about is that you must spend 1 skill point at a time and commit each skill before anything new unlocks. You don't get to spend a bunch of points and shuffle them around before you commit, so if you make a mistake you're going to have to respec to fix it.
You DO have to pay careful attention to what unlocks what and the bonus unlock bars at the bottom are not entirely intuitive unless you've been reading the forums and/or experimenting on Tribble. You could easily misspend a point and lock yourself out of gaining a particular skill or bonus. In addition, the bonus bars force you to make point-in-time, either-or decisions; you will have to choose what bonuses you get, what training manuals you can create, and you can't get all of them. You will lock yourself out of some bonuses and manuals and the system is specifically designed to force that choice.
HOWEVER, I will point out that there are some mitigating factors here...
#1 - The skill tree works almost exactly like the specialization tree does, so the mechanic is not completely unfamiliar to people who are used to that.
#2 - There's nothing forcing you to spend points. You could conceivably save them up, just like you can in the old system. So you could decide to hold off on unlocking anything every single level and spend them in batches. Not sure why you'd want to do this, but you can.
#3 - There's nothing stopping you from examining the entire skill tree and the bonus bars to decide in advance where you are going to allocate your points. Stuff might be greyed out if it's not unlocked, but skills aren't hidden. Mouse-over is your friend.
#4 - Each new tier unlocks when you spend a set amount of skill points and the UI clearly shows how much you need to spend to do it, unlike the current spec trees that don't show the tier unlock costs.
#5 - You could choose to copy a character over to Tribble and plan out your skill tree before making any changes. I think this is a cop-out on Cryptic's part... it might be free, but it's not effortless. I will NOT want to do this for every single alternate character. A free respec token would be better.
I DO strongly recommend that everyone try this out on Tribble at least once before it goes live.
I'll be on tribble and get used to the new system before I change anything on holodeck. That said, I agree that repec tokens should be obtainable with anything but zen, and it only hurts the games progression. Locking diversity behind this sort of payment is a bad idea...
my problem is all of the skills sound useful to me so what is best, for example is it better to buy say hull restoration, hull capacity or both and is it worth buying mk2 and mk3 of these skills or buying some other skill instead and will I spend enough to pick up bonus skills and if I do which one choice of the 2 bonus skills offered do I take.
with a limited number of choices you can make this is an absolute minefield where one wrong choice could spell disaster.
I made all the wrong choices with the old system that is obvious to me so it would be nice to take this chance to get it right without having to worry about making the same mistakes all over again.
going on tribble and testing things out is all very good but they only need to tweek some other setting like enemy hit points for example a few weeks after it goes live to make all your choices seem like a short sighted catastrophe and at the end of the day you cant try every permutation of all the skills anyway.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
I would say, based on my limited interaction with the system, that people need to keep their eyes on the things they feel they really have to have and prioritize where they put skill points more heavily than before. (I'm mainly talking about the space skills.)
You need to think short-term and long-term about how you spend your points, instead of thinking you're going to put 6 points in some skills and 3 points in others and be relatively well-balanced. The new system is far less granular than the old one and far less forgiving in some ways. To offset that, I think there are fewer bad choices than before and there are good reasons to try to balance out your skills across all three areas.
If you have your eye on one of the Ultimate skills in your bonus bars, you have to spend a minimum of 25 points in a particular area (Eng, Sci, or Tac) to get it. This will only leave 21 points to spend elsewhere (46 -25), and you'll likely end up dividing those more or less evenly across the other two categories. You will not have a well-balanced character if you don't spread those points around, but maybe you don't want a well-balanced character... your call.
I would concentrate on Tier unlocks over buying advanced versions of skills. You will have to upgrade some skills anyway. By concentrating on getting all the must-have Mk I skills in each tier, you'll make sure that you don't overspend in an area and regret it later. You need to make sure you've reserved enough points to spend on the skills you're going to want in the final tier.
Keep an eye on the bonus bars for particular bonus skills or training manuals you want your character to have. This will enforce spending in particular areas and you're probably going to have to give up something else you want.
Remember that some skills, such as control or drain skills, now encompass both their primary effect and also your resistance to that effect. Neglecting to spend here will leave you more vulnerable. Control resistance includes all of the control effects, including disable, hold, placate, confuse, etc. So if you want more than the base resistance you'll need to spend here.
Ironically, expect to spend more time on selecting skills than you did before, at least until the new system becomes familiar to you. Impulsively selecting skills is more likely to cause you issues down the road, at the end of your skill progression. This isn't exactly new, but again you can't spend your points in a granular fashion anymore and you're going to have to give up some bonuses.
I would say, based on my limited interaction with the system, that people need to keep their eyes on the things they feel they really have to have and prioritize where they put skill points more heavily than before. (I'm mainly talking about the space skills.)
You need to think short-term and long-term about how you spend your points, instead of thinking you're going to put 6 points in some skills and 3 points in others and be relatively well-balanced. The new system is far less granular than the old one and far less forgiving in some ways. To offset that, I think there are fewer bad choices than before and there are good reasons to try to balance out your skills across all three areas.
If you have your eye on one of the Ultimate skills in your bonus bars, you have to spend a minimum of 25 points in a particular area (Eng, Sci, or Tac) to get it. This will only leave 21 points to spend elsewhere (46 -25), and you'll likely end up dividing those more or less evenly across the other two categories. You will not have a well-balanced character if you don't spread those points around, but maybe you don't want a well-balanced character... your call.
I would concentrate on Tier unlocks over buying advanced versions of skills. You will have to upgrade some skills anyway. By concentrating on getting all the must-have Mk I skills in each tier, you'll make sure that you don't overspend in an area and regret it later. You need to make sure you've reserved enough points to spend on the skills you're going to want in the final tier.
Keep an eye on the bonus bars for particular bonus skills or training manuals you want your character to have. This will enforce spending in particular areas and you're probably going to have to give up something else you want.
Remember that some skills, such as control or drain skills, now encompass both their primary effect and also your resistance to that effect. Neglecting to spend here will leave you more vulnerable. Control resistance includes all of the control effects, including disable, hold, placate, confuse, etc. So if you want more than the base resistance you'll need to spend here.
Ironically, expect to spend more time on selecting skills than you did before, at least until the new system becomes familiar to you. Impulsively selecting skills is more likely to cause you issues down the road, at the end of your skill progression. This isn't exactly new, but again you can't spend your points in a granular fashion anymore and you're going to have to give up some bonuses.
You do not NEED to upgrade ships... your T5 works just fine... your T5-U works just fine... if you need the absolute new shiny then you can choose to upgrade (buy) the new ship or just can stick with your T5/T5U or T6 freebie. It's par for the course for MMOs where there is a new content, the old stuff doesnt shine as much as the newest shiny drops. In a few years will come the T7s. Sides the reason to buy the new ships is the ship traits... just as folks bought the old T5s for the consoles.
As for the skill ravamp... once the DPSers figure out the optimal build... everyone will use the same build types... I see ground as being almost all the same across all classes...
You do not NEED to upgrade ships... your T5 works just fine...
When your Tier 5 ship gets one-shotted 6 times in a row on a Normal Patrol Mission, even though you have a solid build and gear. You "Need" to upgrade ships.
I also think this will drive a number of players away from the game completely due to the hidden nerfs in the revamp. This isn't a bad as what Star Wars Galaxy did, but it's coming close and that experience proved that even a wonderful IP can lose their player base if they jerk them around too much.
You would think todays gaming companies would learn something from other games past failures / mistakes ...
Required observation of the practical realities of online gaming:
If everything you would want to do in the game were free, then the game would shut down and go away.
And the free workaround:
If you're concerned about blowing your spec, transfer your character to Tribble and experiment there. Delete and transfer again if needed. Get things into a decent state there and then finally do it on Holodeck. You've got weeks to experiment.
If you're concerned about blowing your spec, transfer your character to Tribble and experiment there. Delete and transfer again if needed. Get things into a decent state there and then finally do it on Holodeck. You've got weeks to experiment.
After playing around with the system a couple of times so far, I have to say that I believe it is possible to do a reasonable job of spending skill points without necessarily having to copy them over to Tribble every time. The end result of the skill tree is fairly predictable once you see it a couple of times.
It will require a certain amount of pre-planning that we didn't really have to do under the old system if we didn't want to. Pre-planning is now necessary if you don't want to have to blow Zen on respecs or get stuck with a suboptimal build. That's true whether you transfer to Tribble or not.
The thing is, there is a QoL issue that wasn't as big a deal under the old system. If we are now saying that transferring characters over to Tribble is a must, then patching Tribble and copying characters over is now a big deal for everybody and it gets worse when you consider alts.
How much Holodeck game time should the average player really be expected to lose to copying characters over to Tribble and testing every time they level up a character? How many newbies even know enough to copy characters over to Tribble? It's not like they make it really easy to find, unless you're a forum junkie. There's nothing in-game that tells you how to do it.
How many newbies are going to think to look at the skills they haven't unlocked before they start buying skills? The deck is really stacked against them now. Those people are going to end up being forced to buy respecs, live with their uninformed choices, or to delete their characters and start over. That won't sit well.
I understand Cryptic gotta make money. I get that. But creating an inflated market for what should be a largely unnecessary service in any game is bad form. It won't affect me a whole lot because I'll plan the best I can and live with the result, but I'm advocating for the new users this new system claims to be trying to help. They really need to hand out at least one free respec token per character in addition to the skill reset at launch.
I'm pretty sure the implementation of free and unlimited character respecs would not kill off the game ...
That would pretty effectively remove the QoL issues, even though I doubt Cryptic will do that.
If they're bound and determined to keep selling respecs, there are other things they can do to address those QoL issues. My suggestion for Skill Templates would be one way, though it couldn't be done soon enough for the launch of 11.5. Other people have suggested a commit system, which also will not be in place for launch if ever. An officially supported skill planner (also not at launch) would be another way. In-game character transfers would be another way. Importable skill sheets, etc, the list goes on.
The only things they can do reasonably quickly to address those are
1. Free and unlimited respecs
2. Some amount of free respec tokens, perhaps earning one automatically at level 50, or one every rank, etc
3. In-game help to tell players how to transfer characters to Tribble, in the form of a tooltip associated with opening the skill UI, or by some other means that's intuitive to find.
Took me about 1 hour to set up my build on tribble, fire up the parser, and go test it out with my Scimitar. As of now, not much has changed. Slightly better DPS overall, perhaps due to the armor pen skill. Other than that, I was able to replicate my current holodeck build with this new tree.
^ Well put. I could live with the 1 free respec token per character, although I would really prefer respec tokens be free of charge or have a small EC or dil cost. If Cryptic absolutely must make people jump through a hoop to respec, I think something along the lines of a CoX style respec trial would be better than shelling out $5 a pop.
As a courtesy, I think they should allow like a 1-week free respeccing grace period for when this goes live.
^ Well put. I could live with the 1 free respec token per character, although I would really prefer respec tokens be free of charge or have a small EC or dil cost. If Cryptic absolutely must make people jump through a hoop to respec, I think something along the lines of a CoX style respec trial would be better than shelling out $5 a pop.
As a courtesy, I think they should allow like a 1-week free respeccing grace period for when this goes live.
Comments
true, I don't know if the free respecs will stay but on the other hand you don't know for sure they wont be removed either.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Which is why I am thrilled to be on Tribble testing builds, and sitting on ~7-10 free respecs per toon.
I think the *real* impending joy will be on the powers that be deciding to couple the "skill GUI happy change" with reworking Resists and Strengthens.
This pattern has occurred often enough with this particular developer that I am in awe of the ability for the leads to STILL say things like "players lose nothing." It ranks up there with "our forcing you to use multiple enhancements in CoX is really a blessing." Every time they state they are altering one thing you can bet they are attempting to alter 12.
And the rest...
Remember, if you have R&D-'improved' equipment, and you find that "X Console" doesn't work as well as it should anymore, you'll need to get "Y Console", and then go and spend resources fixing it up to the level you had "X Console" to regain parity.
Cryptic have made a quite ingenious system whereby any 'revamp' of one system, has knock-on effects that will have players scrambling not just for new equipment, but the dilithium and other resources to fix that equipment up to the level they're used to. Nothing is "good enough" as delivered anymore, it has to be repaired, meaning more dilithium, and more zen being bought to buy it, as well as the respecs.
Why introduce a brand new zone, or improve the game, when all you need do is routinely "revamp" one aspect of it, causing knock-on effects throughout?
Quite.
"Fixing" a console is on average ~50 cents worth of EC and ~ 2 bucks worth of Dil.....
multiplied by "insert nerf swag impact x" number of consoles/weapons...
Far better to have them altering dynamics that have lasted for six of six years than you know returning us a genuine exploration zone experience that "meets our fine standards."
I miss Delta Volanis.
Tinfoil hat stuff.
*oh and space barbies
I'm wary of the "fixing strengthens and resists" because the system warts and all has already been "fixed" to a standard by buffing the AI's stats to "cope" with the L33t brigade DPSers.
Time will tell.
A $5 paywall on every respec makes about as much sense as a $15 monthly paywall to play the game. In theory, it's "everyone who wants to (respec)/(play for a month) will pay money," but in reality, it's more like "100% of 10 is less than 10% of 1000," which explains the popularity of the F2P model.
I think this is one of those things that would make more sense as a free mechanic to entice players into, say, trying a variety of C-Store ships with matching C-Store costumes. Allowing players to swap on the fly between two or three specs (the "dual spec" concept most modern MMO players will expect), allowing free or low-cost (EC or dil) respecs, and offering additional spec slots for either EC, dil, or (if absolutely necessary) Zen seems like the way to go. It would be close to the current system for inventory, character slots, etc., where you get some slots for free with the option to buy more. The current respec system is equivalent to having one character slot and paying 500 Zen every time you want to delete a character to try a new race, career, or faction.
*cough cough*
The skill revamp is nothing more than a major nerf to everybody who played by the rules the past years and choose to become good at them.
The false advertising cryptic showed in the blog is not surprising at all and fully upholds what to expect from them.
I’m not at all worried about the DPS peeps. Cryptic being cryptic will simply tune a few parameters down while opening new options waiting to go for.
Good players will still be good players (just have to replay/pay) after the revamp while bad players will still be bad players.
Tinkering with 5 year old items and game mechanics while advertising “peeps loose nothing” is cryptic at its finest. The misconception they could issue in a brave and balanced new world even more than that. (LOL)
The whole skill revamp is the ultimate acknowledgment of failure in game design.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
The biggest change to the skill trees is the fact that you no longer spend multiple points to improve a skill. One skill point buys one skill. Many skills have improved versions, much like in the specialization trees.
Starting at level 5, you will earn 1 space skill point every level up to 50, which is where the current skill system caps out. You will earn 1 ground skill point every 5 levels.
For existing characters, your skills will be reset to zero and you will gain the appropriate skill points for your level to spend on the new skill tree. You will not have to spend zen or dil for this to happen. This is what Cryptic might refer to as a "free respec", but it's not a free respec token.
What people are justifiably complaining about is that you must spend 1 skill point at a time and commit each skill before anything new unlocks. You don't get to spend a bunch of points and shuffle them around before you commit, so if you make a mistake you're going to have to respec to fix it.
You DO have to pay careful attention to what unlocks what and the bonus unlock bars at the bottom are not entirely intuitive unless you've been reading the forums and/or experimenting on Tribble. You could easily misspend a point and lock yourself out of gaining a particular skill or bonus. In addition, the bonus bars force you to make point-in-time, either-or decisions; you will have to choose what bonuses you get, what training manuals you can create, and you can't get all of them. You will lock yourself out of some bonuses and manuals and the system is specifically designed to force that choice.
HOWEVER, I will point out that there are some mitigating factors here...
#1 - The skill tree works almost exactly like the specialization tree does, so the mechanic is not completely unfamiliar to people who are used to that.
#2 - There's nothing forcing you to spend points. You could conceivably save them up, just like you can in the old system. So you could decide to hold off on unlocking anything every single level and spend them in batches. Not sure why you'd want to do this, but you can.
#3 - There's nothing stopping you from examining the entire skill tree and the bonus bars to decide in advance where you are going to allocate your points. Stuff might be greyed out if it's not unlocked, but skills aren't hidden. Mouse-over is your friend.
#4 - Each new tier unlocks when you spend a set amount of skill points and the UI clearly shows how much you need to spend to do it, unlike the current spec trees that don't show the tier unlock costs.
#5 - You could choose to copy a character over to Tribble and plan out your skill tree before making any changes. I think this is a cop-out on Cryptic's part... it might be free, but it's not effortless. I will NOT want to do this for every single alternate character. A free respec token would be better.
I DO strongly recommend that everyone try this out on Tribble at least once before it goes live.
with a limited number of choices you can make this is an absolute minefield where one wrong choice could spell disaster.
I made all the wrong choices with the old system that is obvious to me so it would be nice to take this chance to get it right without having to worry about making the same mistakes all over again.
going on tribble and testing things out is all very good but they only need to tweek some other setting like enemy hit points for example a few weeks after it goes live to make all your choices seem like a short sighted catastrophe and at the end of the day you cant try every permutation of all the skills anyway.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
You need to think short-term and long-term about how you spend your points, instead of thinking you're going to put 6 points in some skills and 3 points in others and be relatively well-balanced. The new system is far less granular than the old one and far less forgiving in some ways. To offset that, I think there are fewer bad choices than before and there are good reasons to try to balance out your skills across all three areas.
If you have your eye on one of the Ultimate skills in your bonus bars, you have to spend a minimum of 25 points in a particular area (Eng, Sci, or Tac) to get it. This will only leave 21 points to spend elsewhere (46 -25), and you'll likely end up dividing those more or less evenly across the other two categories. You will not have a well-balanced character if you don't spread those points around, but maybe you don't want a well-balanced character... your call.
I would concentrate on Tier unlocks over buying advanced versions of skills. You will have to upgrade some skills anyway. By concentrating on getting all the must-have Mk I skills in each tier, you'll make sure that you don't overspend in an area and regret it later. You need to make sure you've reserved enough points to spend on the skills you're going to want in the final tier.
Keep an eye on the bonus bars for particular bonus skills or training manuals you want your character to have. This will enforce spending in particular areas and you're probably going to have to give up something else you want.
Remember that some skills, such as control or drain skills, now encompass both their primary effect and also your resistance to that effect. Neglecting to spend here will leave you more vulnerable. Control resistance includes all of the control effects, including disable, hold, placate, confuse, etc. So if you want more than the base resistance you'll need to spend here.
Ironically, expect to spend more time on selecting skills than you did before, at least until the new system becomes familiar to you. Impulsively selecting skills is more likely to cause you issues down the road, at the end of your skill progression. This isn't exactly new, but again you can't spend your points in a granular fashion anymore and you're going to have to give up some bonuses.
I will tell you what this reminds me of
this>
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
As for the skill ravamp... once the DPSers figure out the optimal build... everyone will use the same build types... I see ground as being almost all the same across all classes...
When your Tier 5 ship gets one-shotted 6 times in a row on a Normal Patrol Mission, even though you have a solid build and gear. You "Need" to upgrade ships.
You would think todays gaming companies would learn something from other games past failures / mistakes ...
Oh yeah, Pre-CU FTW !!!
If everything you would want to do in the game were free, then the game would shut down and go away.
And the free workaround:
If you're concerned about blowing your spec, transfer your character to Tribble and experiment there. Delete and transfer again if needed. Get things into a decent state there and then finally do it on Holodeck. You've got weeks to experiment.
"The higher the fewer."
After playing around with the system a couple of times so far, I have to say that I believe it is possible to do a reasonable job of spending skill points without necessarily having to copy them over to Tribble every time. The end result of the skill tree is fairly predictable once you see it a couple of times.
It will require a certain amount of pre-planning that we didn't really have to do under the old system if we didn't want to. Pre-planning is now necessary if you don't want to have to blow Zen on respecs or get stuck with a suboptimal build. That's true whether you transfer to Tribble or not.
The thing is, there is a QoL issue that wasn't as big a deal under the old system. If we are now saying that transferring characters over to Tribble is a must, then patching Tribble and copying characters over is now a big deal for everybody and it gets worse when you consider alts.
How much Holodeck game time should the average player really be expected to lose to copying characters over to Tribble and testing every time they level up a character? How many newbies even know enough to copy characters over to Tribble? It's not like they make it really easy to find, unless you're a forum junkie. There's nothing in-game that tells you how to do it.
How many newbies are going to think to look at the skills they haven't unlocked before they start buying skills? The deck is really stacked against them now. Those people are going to end up being forced to buy respecs, live with their uninformed choices, or to delete their characters and start over. That won't sit well.
I understand Cryptic gotta make money. I get that. But creating an inflated market for what should be a largely unnecessary service in any game is bad form. It won't affect me a whole lot because I'll plan the best I can and live with the result, but I'm advocating for the new users this new system claims to be trying to help. They really need to hand out at least one free respec token per character in addition to the skill reset at launch.
That would pretty effectively remove the QoL issues, even though I doubt Cryptic will do that.
If they're bound and determined to keep selling respecs, there are other things they can do to address those QoL issues. My suggestion for Skill Templates would be one way, though it couldn't be done soon enough for the launch of 11.5. Other people have suggested a commit system, which also will not be in place for launch if ever. An officially supported skill planner (also not at launch) would be another way. In-game character transfers would be another way. Importable skill sheets, etc, the list goes on.
The only things they can do reasonably quickly to address those are
1. Free and unlimited respecs
2. Some amount of free respec tokens, perhaps earning one automatically at level 50, or one every rank, etc
3. In-game help to tell players how to transfer characters to Tribble, in the form of a tooltip associated with opening the skill UI, or by some other means that's intuitive to find.
Took me about 1 hour to set up my build on tribble, fire up the parser, and go test it out with my Scimitar. As of now, not much has changed. Slightly better DPS overall, perhaps due to the armor pen skill. Other than that, I was able to replicate my current holodeck build with this new tree.
I like it.
As a courtesy, I think they should allow like a 1-week free respeccing grace period for when this goes live.
I could go for that!