Skill revamp and power creep

risian4 · April 2016

I know Cryptic will most likely analyse their data, but I am curious about the players' experiences too.

Do you think the skill revamp has caused (even more) power creep? Were your missions faster completed, or are you not seeing much difference?

neos472 · April 2016

my thoughts about it this is that now with things simpler to understand people can understand what does what quicker and generally an improved performance overall.

risian4 · April 2016

I wanted to reserve judgement on this, but a few minutes ago I apparantly did over 50k DPS for the first time I'm playing the game. I've always stayed well below 45k, usually well below 40k even and this time I didn't do anything different, used the same build I've been using for months. In fact, I couldn't even use some of my abilities and torpedoes all the time because things were destroyed so quickly so I expected to perform a lot worse.

So far each ISA I've been in was completed in less than 5 minutes, possibly a lot less.

risian4 · April 2016

neos472 wrote: »

my thoughts about it this is that now with things simpler to understand people can understand what does what quicker and generally an improved performance overall.

Possibly, but I doubt that. I shouldn't judge from one result of course, but I have played this game for years, and the build I was using is a build I've been using for months now. And I'm suddenly seeing an increase of almost 25% in my DPS. I don't think that can be explained by 'things being simpler'.

mmps1 · April 2016

Some toons for me it's been almost a 50% boost. Fanks devs ♡

duncanidaho11 · April 2016

neos472 wrote: »

my thoughts about it this is that now with things simpler to understand people can understand what does what quicker and generally an improved performance overall.

That's what I and a few others I've been talking to have been finding as well. The max may not have changed much (slightly down was what I was hearing) but lower/mid ranges seems to have been moved up (through ease of use and I suspect some rebalancing) which I've been finding particularly supports a greater range of playstyles than a strict damage focus.

"Power creep" maybe at the population level but the effects are likely an improvement for the game.

quammen · April 2016

After just playing with respecs on tribble without parsing I find myself in a strange situation. I divided my skill points equally (15 eng, 15 sci, 16 tac), put quiet everywhere 1-2 points in it and my presidio deals with the same equipment 30% more damage (30k->45k). Aggro is same as before (threat control, no threatening stance). Survival is easier.
For fun i switched faw II for beam overlord II and got 30k DPS.
I still have to test other ships with a more science damage approach.

So far, power creep is strong in this update.

fatman592 · April 2016

I've gotten about a 5-8k boost to DPS. Some of that is from restored Kemo crits, but my biggest single source of damage is now Gravity Well 3. TBR and DSRB have lost some damage, but overall it has been a strong buff. New skill system grants debuffs all over the place.

risian4 · April 2016

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

neos472 wrote: »

my thoughts about it this is that now with things simpler to understand people can understand what does what quicker and generally an improved performance overall.

That's what I and a few others I've been talking to have been finding as well. The max may not have changed much (slightly down was what I was hearing) but lower/mid ranges seems to have been moved up (through ease of use and I suspect some rebalancing) which I've been finding particularly supports a greater range of playstyles than a strict damage focus.

"Power creep" maybe at the population level but the effects are likely an improvement for the game.

It will certainly help the lower end players. But I'm not so sure if it's a good thing. Missions like ISA were already a joke, even if you PUGged those missions. And it's gotten even worse.

Unless they did this because they're planning the release of new Elite versions of the Borg missions, but otherwise I don't think this is a good development.

seaofsorrows · April 2016

I have definitely seen a boost in DPS. I have also seen a slight reduction in toughness, but that was mostly by my own design. I decided that some defense was worth sacrificing to push my DPS higher, that was my choice.

Overall, I don't really think it really had much effect on Power Creep. Why? Because overall, things are still as they always were. Your skilled players that used to face roll the content still face roll the content. The players that are lost are likely still lost but they're probably closer to being better then they were a few days ago.

Why?

Because the skill system really is easier to understand for new players. It doesn't require a lot (or really any) research to make the 'right' choices. The system is better because it doesn't have any bad options like the old system did. Before, your struggling players were using bad skills, tactics and gear. Now at least, 1/3 of that should be mostly fixed allowing them to focus on other ways to improve.

For the players that were already steam rolling everything.. we still are. The change was focused more at those on the lower end of the spectrum and I do believe it will help them. These players weren't causing power creep before, and they still aren't.

lianthelia · April 2016

Did you expect any less? They don't care about the game at all they just care about selling more power creep...MOAR DEEPZ

Really starting to question if it's worth sticking around...obviously they don't give two licks about balance. They had a great opportunity to try and balance some stuff and instead they just ramped up DPS even more.

grayfoxjames · April 2016

Power-creep is more than evident. ISA Pugs are being completed faster than ever I feel...seems like everyone is just DPSing the heck out of everything.

Remember Tac lost Attack Pattern skill so I believe that was probably rounded up for everyone. Two new skills that were never there before, Hull and Shield Pen. Also, CritD/CritH for Energy and Torps were combined into one where as before you had to spend points in one and the other if I recalled. Not to mention the minus distance penalty skill.

I believe Science got Shield Hardness as a new skill that was never there before I think. This did not happen really on the Engineering side, don't think there's anything that wasn't already there before (besides of course the ultimate abilities).

neos472 · April 2016

grayfox you are either slightly misinformed or remembering an earlier tribble build in which we had shield pen but it got swapped to hitting the shields harder essentially a tetryon effect. attack patterns were maximized across the board so for people who specced into it have more skills elsewhere.

grayfoxjames · April 2016

reyan01 wrote: »

risian4 wrote: »

I wanted to reserve judgement on this, but a few minutes ago I apparantly did over 50k DPS for the first time I'm playing the game. I've always stayed well below 45k, usually well below 40k even and this time I didn't do anything different, used the same build I've been using for months. In fact, I couldn't even use some of my abilities and torpedoes all the time because things were destroyed so quickly so I expected to perform a lot worse.

So far each ISA I've been in was completed in less than 5 minutes, possibly a lot less.

As have posted elsewhere, I found myself in an ISA instance that lasted 57 seconds yesterday.

My enthusiasm toward this game was already in decline. This has not helped. At all.

lol oh gees...with my slow laptop I think I would probably end up warping into a completed ISA with those times lol

nikephorus · April 2016

I'm not a fan of the new skill system even tho my damage has increased pretty significantly.

lordsteve1 · April 2016

I found it improved my damage output.

Playing in science ships it's always been a tricky one to get right but it now seems I can slap on every science trick I'd ever need (particles, drains, controls) and still have plenty spare to give myself a fairly tough ship with space for tactical choices as well.

We did a run in the science channel the other day and I got my best ever parse on that toon and that was in CPE which has some time-gating to slow the run down. Plus it was only the second run i'd done in that ship and only a day after the revamp. It was an improvement of around 2-3K DPS i'd say, and i made some big mistakes, so it could easily go higher.

I don't care for ISA anymore as it's just an epeen waving contest in there. I'm all for people improving their builds and the like but geez guys, can we just get back to playing the game rather than chasing magic numbers all day.

seaofsorrows · April 2016

reyan01 wrote: »

To be honest, I'll be laughing at those boasting about their DPS numbers from now on because, frankly, it's hilarious that anyone thinks that those numbers mean anything in content that can be completed in 57 seconds by a PuG

Why do you still play ISA?

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I like a lot of your posts.. but man this is getting old. Every post you make is complaining about ISA.. if you hate it that much, just stop running it.

Clearly it's not the best queue for you to run. Instead of constantly complaining and trying to bend the rest of the game to make this mission more accommodating to you, maybe it's best if you found something else to do? That or start running it with fleet mates or friends that aren't DPS heavy.

Every post you make is a complaint about ISA and bashing on Fire At Will. Not everyone plays your way my friend, there are other things to do. Again, I'm sorry if this sounds snotty, it's not meant to. I just know anytime I see one of your posts that it's going to be an ISA rant. It doesn't seem like your time is best spent with that particular piece of content.

nikephorus · April 2016

@seaofsorrows noob isa apologist. :-P

lordsteve1 · April 2016

seaofsorrows wrote: »

reyan01 wrote: »

To be honest, I'll be laughing at those boasting about their DPS numbers from now on because, frankly, it's hilarious that anyone thinks that those numbers mean anything in content that can be completed in 57 seconds by a PuG

Why do you still play ISA?

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I like a lot of your posts.. but man this is getting old. Every post you make is complaining about ISA.. if you hate it that much, just stop running it.

Clearly it's not the best queue for you to run. Instead of constantly complaining and trying to bend the rest of the game to make this mission more accommodating to you, maybe it's best if you found something else to do? That or start running it with fleet mates or friends that aren't DPS heavy.

Every post you make is a complaint about ISA and bashing on Fire At Will. Not everyone plays your way my friend, there are other things to do. Again, I'm sorry if this sounds snotty, it's not meant to. I just know anytime I see one of your posts that it's going to be an ISA rant. It doesn't seem like your time is best spent with that particular piece of content.

In fairness though a lot of people play ISA because there's nothing else popping so they have no choice. And then there's the flip-side where a large number for people are so obsessed with increasing their DPS that running ISA has become almost like an addiction for them.
I know you can run fleet queues or other premades but sometimes you just want to go play a pug run and have it last longer the 1 minute. ISA itself is not actually that bad a mission, it's got a decent set-up and should really require some level of coordination to succeed. But power-creep has turned it into a complete joke along with every other queue, mission and battlezone in the game.

I think Reyan is just as entitled to keep pointing out his hatred for the way ISA currently is as all the other people sticking their oh so great DPS records.

taylor1701d · April 2016

Well ever since traits, Lockbox abilities and weapon rarity/mk increase was introduced, its been a blatant Power Creep cash grab monsoon.
We're hit every month with new pokemon ships and abilities.
It never ends.

Haven't tried my build yet, but I expect a 5-10% increase based on what everyone has been saying.

dareau · April 2016

Skillwise, Borticus's mantra, while "inaccurate", is not inaccurate in the "wrong" way.

Especially for Science types. While I didn't go for "100% accuracy", I swear that I've gotten every skill point that I had before plus practically doubled my "tactical" investments...

How?

Well, if you figure that, in "most" builds, 3 pips = 1 "nu-block", the 6 in Gravigens, 3 in Decompiler, 3 in the Other Admiral-level sci skill, and like 3 in sensors that I had would "require" 5 of the 46 "nu-points", but I jumped from ~84/54s to 100 in all of these and got a spare DPS boost from the control amplification skill and had 2 "nu-points" that could be spent on either new toys or...

The Tactical skills I had neglected for so long in my "original" builds to keep science and engineering up somewhat...

Then the "subsystem specific power generation" skills of the engineering tree - I had like 4 weaps, 6 Aux, 3 engines & shields (so maybe 5 "blocks") but only needed 4 to get back to or over what I once had (offensive power, defensive power, weapons spec, aux spec). Extra? Tac...

Overall, in Tactical, I had like 3 in the original Lt. skill (skipped attack patterns), 3s in accuracy/defense, 3s in energy / Projectile Lt Cmdr stuffs, 3 in the "not threat control" Captain skill, and like 1 or 2 in the Admiral level crit-enhancers. Now, I've got 12-15 Tac blocks (from maybe 7, and a few of them are higher than before...)

Along with:
Getting that last 15 in partigens
Range dropoff reducers at max
Bonus shield hardness and shield capacities (was 3, maybe 6 in the "old system", all 3s (equivalent 9) now...)
Touch less efficiency (4 down to ~3)
more drain - was I think 4-6 in flowcaps for 69-84 base and 3 (54) in insulators, now got 100s for the cost of 2 blocks

And maybe the only... sacrifice... I made along the way was in hull cap - which, on most sci vessels, that +5% overall hull isn't such a massive boost that would "ensure" that I'd be able to take an extra hit or two...

And limited play experience backs this up some - I'm still lasting as long, if not actually a little longer, solo against the tac cubes of Khitomer advanced (only dying once instead of 2-3 times) - and I chewed up and spat out the Na'kuhl wings during the FE, even handier than usual...

bobbydazlers · April 2016

personally I didn't notice an awful lot of difference, my last skill set before was very poor and as I copied the new skill set from the DPS web site I was hoping for much better results.
I didn't pug but played aiding the deferi and it may have gone very slightly better but not enough that I could say it was anything outstanding.
still even a slight improvement is better then none I guess.

having said that there may have been some boosts to enemy hit points and shield strength there that I am not aware of so this could account for the fact that it didn't seem that much better and I don't measure what DPS I do so I have no way of knowing if I am doing more or not.

seaofsorrows · April 2016

reyan01 wrote: »

Okay - I apologise; but I will however point out that I don't play/run ISA. You are right that I do post - a little too often - about my dislike of ISA, but those posts also point out the reasons I dislike it are the very reasons that I very rarely play it anymore.

Fair enough.

Again, I apologize if I came off sounding like I was attacking you, that wasn't my intent. I just think you have a lot of good points and ideas outside of the ISA situation, that's all.

It's all good man.

alcyoneserene · April 2016

grayfoxjames wrote: »

I believe Science got Shield Hardness as a new skill that was never there before I think.

Yes, except 'to maintain current performance' we have to place 1/3 in it, otherwise shields are frail and feel like they do nothing much - after extended testing of an alt and a main in tribble using 2 missions on elite where there's no NPC support and where I don't use certain abilities or pets for consistency.

The other necessary 1/3 value was Long Range Targeting Sensors for beam users, and another shield one which I can't find. Can anyone confirm which it was? Shield Restoration or Shield Regeneration?

I've already written my concerns in other threads regarding this revamp. Based on what we were told, many skill interactions were behaving 'not as intended' and so expected more balance between careers and abilities as DPS would have been scaled back.

Even if existing DPS-or-nothing type builds are supposed to be fragile and vulnerable to everything, the addition of 'Receive All Healing for % dmg dealt' practically expects players to play TAC and chase DPS above everything else. I already have 2 Tac Mains and many Tac ships (inc a 34K DHC & 44K DPS DBB Pug ISA Scimitar in the old skill system without min-maxing) and it bores me to no end to chase a number against scripted NPCs. Not basing DPS chasers, but on a team with them where everyone has but that goal in mind is not my idea of team dynamics with diversity of play styles that we have to adapt to on the spot.

risian4 wrote: »

Do you think the skill revamp has caused (even more) power creep? Were your missions faster completed, or are you not seeing much difference?

Been doing extensive testing on my own in tribble on a sci alt and a sci main trying to discover a generalist type build suitable for me for all my toons across all career types and builds - I can't afford to waste 500 zen multiplied by 11 to get it wrong and regret it for a long time as was the case on a few toons before - and then have no confidence they won't change something yet again that will cause us to require respeccing to maintain current performance like in the case of shield hardness, or in the total and complete loss of previously used respec tokens to figure out the old skill system which they never had in mind to refund.

What I noticed is the more I respec and repeat the mission sequence, the more particular I become and the more questions pop up that I can't really answer. 1/3 skill point in an ability makes a big difference, and having that 1 somewhere else can be a great loss.

Take Damage Control, on a science ship flown by my alt, 0/3 I've observed to be ~ 1%/sec hull hp regen on a KSV out of combat. 1/3 Dmg Control raises it to ~3%/sec, which is 3 times faster, meaning a cloaked or battle cloaked ship can regenerate considerable hull and re-enter the battle under a more reasonable time frame. I suspect the same to be true of shield regeneration with the exception that it's a constant and not altered by combat status, so more testing, more respeccing, more stress (instead of fun, something a MMO game should be to continue playing and have others to still play with...) that they'll pull the plug on free respec tokens for tribble (nevermind no tribble access for those who've never had membership).

As far as power creep, I haven't parsed or tested STFs (tribble pugs are a ghost town), but I'm concerned that my generalist build, while it seems to perform reasonably, will lose so much effective DPS once I get it just right to my linking that it'll hurt the team, which is ironic as I'm aiming for team play and build diversity with a tac skill tree that's the highest of the 3 still.

risian4 · April 2016

reyan01 wrote: »

seaofsorrows wrote: »

reyan01 wrote: »

To be honest, I'll be laughing at those boasting about their DPS numbers from now on because, frankly, it's hilarious that anyone thinks that those numbers mean anything in content that can be completed in 57 seconds by a PuG

Why do you still play ISA?

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I like a lot of your posts.. but man this is getting old. Every post you make is complaining about ISA.. if you hate it that much, just stop running it.

Clearly it's not the best queue for you to run. Instead of constantly complaining and trying to bend the rest of the game to make this mission more accommodating to you, maybe it's best if you found something else to do? That or start running it with fleet mates or friends that aren't DPS heavy.

Every post you make is a complaint about ISA and bashing on Fire At Will. Not everyone plays your way my friend, there are other things to do. Again, I'm sorry if this sounds snotty, it's not meant to. I just know anytime I see one of your posts that it's going to be an ISA rant. It doesn't seem like your time is best spent with that particular piece of content.

Okay - I apologise; but I will however point out that I don't play/run ISA. You are right that I do post - a little too often - about my dislike of ISA, but those posts also point out the reasons I dislike it are the very reasons that I very rarely play it anymore.

And they're good reasons. Especially cause it's not just ISA, but almost every mission except the time gated ones are completed in a fraction of the time of how long they were intended to last. Fleet alert, KASA, CCA even ground missions like Khitomer ground: most of them are a joke nowadays and it seems to have gotten worse after Tuesday, even with random groups.

captainpugwash1 · April 2016

I had a high of 30k then after the new skills did 41k & nearly fell out of my computer chair, then i started thinking mmmmm was that me or was i being carried by team mates,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,only time will tell.

noroblad · April 2016

Its hard to say. The revamp has brought back a lot of powerhouse players who were not bothering to do group content or something. Nearly every group I have been in since the patch has had one cowboy that kills everything before anyone else can even get to it. Which is fine, as I just want marks, but it makes it hard to say. I can't believe these players are 10k dps noobs who suddenly went to 300k dps due to the skill revamp. They have to be retired players who are back for a week or two ... that makes it impossible to say.

That said, I think the average beam blasting no skill player probably gained between 10 and 20% damage. Its probably less for top end players (less %) but might actually be more total (% of big number being big!).

Science got weird, except without the women. My science ship did more damage after the change because I was able to move a lot of aux power into other systems without losing anything. But a top sci ship wouldnt gain damage from that like I did.

sheldonlcooper · April 2016

I haven't parsed or played much with my best sci, but I got the impression that the kemo is beefed up a good bit which would put her close to 50,000. As I said earlier, the biggest drawback is the reduced size gravity wells. I run around 420 particles and 200 control. Thinking of trying to increase that to compensate, but it would be at expense of plasma damage.

The first thing I did Thursday was the new red alert - without buying any skills. And it was fine (except for the tiniest gravity wells ever). Oddly I would say that it felt like ISE before delta rising. IT felt about right. Maybe they should just remove skills entirely and tune to that.

seansamurai1 · April 2016

Torpedos and exotic damage has had a nice boost from my experience. My lolsome Sci torp boat has just got even more lolsome since the respec, 25-50k crits arent uncommon with my transphasics now. Its glorious watching a group of ships disappear into my gravity well, then 5 go pop as a breen transphasic monster crits along with a spread. I hated the revamp at first but for my sci, I love it. Not even touched my tac yet.

e30ernest · April 2016

I am seeing bigger gains on my ships that were in the "DPS channel mid-range" (30-50k DPS) especially on my beam ships but lesser gains on the high-end (75k DPS+), My sci ships have gained a bit (due mostly to pet buffs, drain infection and control amplification) but my "pure-kinetic" ships have stayed roughly the same.

I wouldn't put much weight on ultra-fast ISA PUGs right now given there are a number of broken mechanics some people are exploiting (such as plasma wave consoles buffing embassy consoles, FBP overperforming, Nandi trait bug and maybe more).

taylor1701d · April 2016

@noroblad
"Science got weird, except without the women".

lol

You win the thread good sir.

Skill revamp and power creep

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