"We are discussing both simple and radical changes that could be made to the skillpoint system, and we are still deliberating on exactly how we want to resolve the issue you point out. One popular idea is to break up skillpoints between ground and space so that you don't have to decide which region to focus on. Another radical idea is to restrict the ship classes you can fly to your captain's class until later levels. This would mean that if your captain was a Tactical officer, she could only fly escorts up until admiral ranks. This along with a restructuring of the space skillpoint tree could lead to some clearer skillpoint choices later on in ranks. Just an idea, nothing confirmed yet. I'm interested what you all would think of this."
Sorry Dstahl, but that's the absolutely worst idea from you I ever read. Not only would it reduce the playable class combinations from 9 to 3 for most of the game (putting STO under every MMO I know of), it also would hurt the Star Trek feeling. You want to be like Kirk and fly a Constitution as a tactical officer? Wait till you're admiral and the Constitution is useless. You want to fly a Galaxy as a scientist like Picard did? Well, wait for your next promotion.. Engineer in an escort like Sisko? Become an admiral first. You want to play like Janeway? Have fun!
Considering the other idea to divide skill points automatically between ground and space is not as bad, but simply not needed. If people want to focus on one area don't hinder them. All my characters have their specializations spread out and it works great, but part of the fun is to find a build that works for you. If people want to play without ground skills that's their right. They just shouldn't complain when they get their butts kicked.in the neglected area.
The skill systems just needs TWO simple fixes.
1) Let all weapon type skills cost the same. The weapons are mostly the same, and the skills all have the same effect. At the moment most people use the weapons with the cheapest skills.
2) Reduce the number of T5 ship skills. We don't need 3 skills for each type. Make one for escorts/birds of prey, one for cruisers, one for science vessels and one for carriers.
I would wager that the vast majority while leveling their first character do not get ships outside their class anyway. But the freedom to is great to have, and once a person is familiar with things I would also wager that their subsequent characters do have their toes in several ponds.
I must have missed that. I can't agree with you more K-Tar. The promise of ship classes being unbound by character class was one of the founding principles of this game that attracted me to it. Changing that would stink the same kind of stench as SWG NGE.
I have to concur, the locking people into tactical officers flying escorts, or engineers flying cruisers is one of the worst ideas ive heard of. i know its just an idea at this stage but no, no, no.
customization and the freedom we have to customize is one of the cool things about any game. locking us in is a bad idea.
im not even sure i like the idea of breaking up the points into ground and space.
if you want to do that then you can already - by distributing your points evenly. separating the two means you get less control as you are then forced to spread them out.
Restricting captains from using a class of ship that's not their own would be bad... rewarding them for using the right ship class however... good :-)
If my captain is tactical and he flies a tactical ship... he knows how things work instinctively, which should increase his abilities. If he hops into a science ship however, he can fly it but things wouldn't come as smoothly to him so not only does he lose his tactical initiative but the science abilities the ship would normally have would also be less effective.
What you need is a special skill you get just for flying the same type of ship as your captains class to encourage people to do it without limiting them to it. Maybe add a 10% cooldown to ALL abilities when using a ship which class doesn't match your class to show that your 'not as quick' as you would be if it was a ship type you were used to.
I think they should just unify the Starship Command Skills, then people have a reason to fly different ships in pvp that that one type that they devoted a lot of skillpoints into. Plus it will give them incentives to deal with overpowered ships, because everybody would have decent access to every ship type if they invested skills in the proper tier of the uniform Starship Command Skill. I may be foggy about reading the reason they were thinking of locking in player type ships per class till admiral, I think this while being on the opposite spectrum of solutions handles the problem of people not being able to fly more then one ship idealy solves the problem just as well as locking in ship classes per your class till admiral levels.
I play as a purist, Sci in Sci...Tac in Escort ...Eng in Cruiser...by choice. But I agree with the OP, don't take away the freedom to choose.
My characters look at the moment like this:
Main: Tactical/Cruiser (Excelsior)
1st alt: Tactical/Bird of Prey
2nd alt:Science/Science
3rd alt: Engineer/Escort
4th alt: Tactical/Cruiser (Galaxy-X)
5th alt: Engineer/Cruiser (but planning to switch to science vessels as soon as the Constitution becomes obsolete, final goal is the D'Kyr)
6th alt: Tactical/Cruiser (looking forward to the Orion bathtub)
7th alt: Science/Escort (looking forward to the Andorian ship)
Restricting captains from using a class of ship that's not their own would be bad... rewarding them for using the right ship class however... good :-)
If my captain is tactical and he flies a tactical ship... he knows how things work instinctively, which should increase his abilities. If he hops into a science ship however, he can fly it but things wouldn't come as smoothly to him so not only does he lose his tactical initiative but the science abilities the ship would normally have would also be less effective.
This was discussed in open beta and rejected, because it would essentially force people into the ships that match their type to stay competetive. And look at the series. Only one out of four had a captain whose specialty would match the ship class in STO. Still they all saved the universe multiple times. (Can't remember how it was in Enterprise at the moment, was Archer an engineer or a pilot?)
Well, he called it a radical idea for a reason. I'd say ditch the idea immediately.
I suspect the idea behind it was that tier 2 to tier 4 skills would be class-specific skills (similar to how we have class-specific selection of ground skills) and only at tier 5 allow it to open up to different ships. Cutting down the ship training skills is fine, cutting down on ship choices at lower tier is bad.
Hell No. My main captain. owns ALL THE SHIPS. except for the Captains Yackt. So yeah. Please. I already help you guys out with how much ship spaces I buy on that one character. Don't do this to us.
I still like the idea of knowing my tactical captain would be more effecient in a tactical vessel and not as effective in say a science vessel. They might still save the universe in practically whatever ship they fly in Star Trek but the right ship for the right class should still make for more effective gameplay.
Glad to see a thread on this topic. There have been some interesting discussions internally about the ship/class restrictions. Intrigued to see more of your input.
If we were talking about ground combat I know my tactical officers shouldn't be as effective as healing as my medics... maybe the new crew system can be used to 'cancel out' those penalties for flying an unmatched ship class or something. It just makes sense to me that fighters fight, fixers fix and healers heal. Sure they can multitask and still get the job done but they should still excel at their chosen field.
Glad to see a thread on this topic. There have been some interesting discussions internally about the ship/class restrictions. Intrigued to see more of your input.
Can you maybe enlighten us to the internal logic behind a move like this. Without that, the only input I can offer is simply, I don't like being restricted. By and large I like the skill system the way it is, though the T5 ship skills are getting a bit out of hand, I think simplification of that aspect can occur without tampering with the lower tiers and certainly without restricting them to career=ship class.
If we were talking about ground combat I know my tactical officers wouldn't be effective as healing as my medics... maybe the new crew system can be used to 'cancel out' those penalties for flying an unmatched ship class or something. It just makes sense to me that fighters fight, fixers fix and healers heal. Sure they can multitask and still get the job done but they should still excel at their chosen field.
Theres got to be middleground somewhere.
But that does not fit Trek logic when it comes to ship Captains. If we had to pigeonhole the Captains Kirk was a Tac officer in a Cruiser. Picard was a pseudo-Science Officer in a Cruiser. Janeway was a Science Officer in a Sci/Cruiser hybrid (in Trek not STO), Sisko was a Tac Officer in an Escort and Archer was a pseudo-Engineer in a Light Cruiser.
I honestly believe the answer to this is the crew system which we still don't know much about. I can imagine it being used to "rebalance" things. If your an engineer on a tactical ship you could have extra tactical positions or something so the 'crew' helps make up for the 'captains' lack of tactical knowledge on the ship, etc. This would allow for the mixed captain/ship classes and fits lore.
Realistically you choose a field and you excel at it and suffer in others. Unless your a genius thats just how life works. You can multitask and do others but you arn't as effective. I believe that's the way it should be in STO as well. If your tactical you would be better in a tactical ship than in a science ship. Your crew becomes the balance.
Can you maybe enlighten us to the internal logic behind a move like this. Without that, the only input I can offer is simply, I don't like being restricted. By and large I like the skill system the way it is, though the T5 ship skills are getting a bit out of hand, I think simplification of that aspect can occur without tampering with the lower tiers and certainly without restricting them to career=ship class.
I would guess that the internal logic would be that by restricting ship class, while leveling it makes it easier for players, especially those leveling their first, to find it easier to spread their points and make it a 'no-brainer' as to where their points would go. eg, science captains would only buff their science skills, and perhaps there's some overlap with the new duty officer system that makes it make more sense.
Why i disagree with that logic is that veterans will know where to put their points, even for newbies it seems a tad heavyhanded to force skill point simplification. Not to mention, if its meant to funnel skillpoints, why make the other skills available at all? Thumbs down from me.
If you hate on the idea, then you are banned from canon arguments,
You don't chose what you want to fly in Starfleet unlike what have now. You're a Tac, Starfleet offers you a tac ship or you stay 2nd officer.
At VA or any "A" you should have some pull, before that you are a canon whipping boy.
*****
Disclaimer, idea sounds lame from a MMO point, but from "I want to be only a Captain", it sounds like you should learn to serve and be a lowly Captain.
No I don't like the idea but thought I should point out the double standards that seem to run rampant.
I always thought the skill system should be cut down to 3 different ship categories
Light Starships (Raiders and Escorts)
Medium Starships (Science Vessels)
Heavy Starships (Cruisers, BattleCruisers, Carriers)
And then the Tier categorization might be
Tier 1: Training [Weight] Starships - Ships mostly used for training purposes. (That explains why NX-01 or TOS Constitutions are used - similar as Germany still has the Gorch Fock as a training vessel.)
Tier 2: Reserve [Weight] Starships - Indicating older or smaller vessels (which most of them are)
Tier 3: Patrol Duty [Weight] Starships - Indicating vessels that mostly operate within the "home territory".
Tier 4: Heavy Duty [Weight] Starships - Indicating vessels that perform a majority of functions in and outside the territory of the owning faction - exploration, combat, border patrols.
Tier 5: Frontline [Weight] Starships - Indicating the newest and most advanced starships, found in a leading role. (Maybe "Command [Weight] Starships might also make sense).
I honestly believe the answer to this is the crew system which we still don't know much about. I can imagine it being used to "rebalance" things. If your an engineer on a tactical ship you could have extra tactical positions or something so the 'crew' helps make up for the 'captains' lack of tactical knowledge on the ship, etc. This would allow for the mixed captain/ship classes and fits lore.
Realistically you choose a field and you excel at it and suffer in others. Unless your a genius thats just how life works. You can multitask and do others but you arn't as effective. I believe that's the way it should be in STO as well. If your tactical you would be better in a tactical ship than in a science ship. Your crew becomes the balance.
They actually have answered this though. Kirk had Scotty a "miracle worker" of an Engineer to make sure his cruiser ran smoothly and Spock to make sure he didn't over look the logical solution. Picard had Data to facilitate his own scientific miracles and LaForge to make things run smoothly, Worf to be the strong arm when needed. We have our BO's these are the skills that round out our crew and properly balanced they can make an Engineering Capt. a great commander of a Escort, or a Tactical Capt. a great science ship commander.
If we were talking about ground combat I know my tactical officers wouldn't be effective as healing as my medics... maybe the new crew system can be used to 'cancel out' those penalties for flying an unmatched ship class or something. It just makes sense to me that fighters fight, fixers fix and healers heal. Sure they can multitask and still get the job done but they should still excel at their chosen field.
Theres got to be middleground somewhere.
If you use the crew system to cancel out penalties instead of adding benefits like ships that have their matching captain the problem remains. It is simply not needed. Not mentioning that the "tactical" ship is something purely made by Cryptic. There never was anything like that on the show, in fact escorts didn't even exist until DS9. Why did they choose Picard to command the Enterprise instead of an engineer? And all ships fight, cruisers are as much built for battle as escorts, just in another way, they were never meant to be "fixing" ships, that would be tenders.
However, there are already benefits for commanding your specific ship class. For example the science captain's abilities profit from the higher aux of the science vessel, the escort has great synergy with the turn rate and damage boosting abilities of the tactical officer etc.
Glad to see a thread on this topic. There have been some interesting discussions internally about the ship/class restrictions. Intrigued to see more of your input.
Heh, I just realized that there are two threads on the front page that claim you had your worst idea ever in that Ask Cryptic.:D Don't let it get you down, we just don't want those things to happen (even though I wouldn't have problems with Romulan allies in the Federation).;)
Yeah i'm in the leave things how they are camp for this one. It's good for both existing and new players imo to NOT be locked in to one class of ship if that's how they wish to play. It gives them broader scope to learn more about the game and classes while they're levelling, rather than having to relearn everything at the highest levels.
And the new crew system can expand this beyond just the bridge officers.
Its pretty common sense that if I train how to fight I'm going to be better in a fighting situation than a healing one, thats a no brainer. But if I was forced into a healing environment I could do it but wouldn't be as effective and would depend on those around me to help fill in the gaps.
This could easily become the backbone of the crew system itself with a LOT of thought and planning.
You're a Tac, Starfleet offers you a tac ship or you stay 2nd officer.
Riker was offered command of the U.S.S. Drake a light Cruiser, I don't think many would argue that Riker was more of a Tactical officer than Picard. I'm not saying that sometimes you don't get a Tac officer in an escort, or a Science officer in a Science ship (Crusher in the Pasteur), but it doesn't always happen like that.
Maybe it would be something if STO ever goes free to play. Paying customers can make their characters as they like, those who play for free are locked into archetypes. But since that's not even on the horizon.... Forget I wrote anything.:D
Of course all of these arguments ignore that Starfleet has a fourth branch - command, and most people start some places else before they go to command. STO picked ignoring the command branch and chose to reflect the basic training, not a bad idea, but we should all essentially recognize that we are now in the Command branch (regardless of the color of our shirts).
Been thinking and... technically anyone in position to be captain isnt a tactical, engineer or science officer, they're a command officer. They can have a tactical, engineer or science background but they also learn command decisions which is essentially a whole 4th class, cept its a mandatory one for anyone who wants to captain a ship.
Kind of makes all the "picard was this, sisko was that" points that everyone has been using (myself included) obselete.
Edit: heh you posted the same thing while I was writing this out.
Comments
customization and the freedom we have to customize is one of the cool things about any game. locking us in is a bad idea.
im not even sure i like the idea of breaking up the points into ground and space.
if you want to do that then you can already - by distributing your points evenly. separating the two means you get less control as you are then forced to spread them out.
If my captain is tactical and he flies a tactical ship... he knows how things work instinctively, which should increase his abilities. If he hops into a science ship however, he can fly it but things wouldn't come as smoothly to him so not only does he lose his tactical initiative but the science abilities the ship would normally have would also be less effective.
What you need is a special skill you get just for flying the same type of ship as your captains class to encourage people to do it without limiting them to it. Maybe add a 10% cooldown to ALL abilities when using a ship which class doesn't match your class to show that your 'not as quick' as you would be if it was a ship type you were used to.
Love the split ground/space skills idea tho.
Being able to fly your favorite ships from the movies and shows, regardless of your class, even at low levels, is one of the best features of STO.
It would be a big mistake to take that away from your players, especially new players.
My characters look at the moment like this:
Main: Tactical/Cruiser (Excelsior)
1st alt: Tactical/Bird of Prey
2nd alt:Science/Science
3rd alt: Engineer/Escort
4th alt: Tactical/Cruiser (Galaxy-X)
5th alt: Engineer/Cruiser (but planning to switch to science vessels as soon as the Constitution becomes obsolete, final goal is the D'Kyr)
6th alt: Tactical/Cruiser (looking forward to the Orion bathtub)
7th alt: Science/Escort (looking forward to the Andorian ship)
This was discussed in open beta and rejected, because it would essentially force people into the ships that match their type to stay competetive. And look at the series. Only one out of four had a captain whose specialty would match the ship class in STO. Still they all saved the universe multiple times. (Can't remember how it was in Enterprise at the moment, was Archer an engineer or a pilot?)
I have Tac/Cruiser, Eng/Escort, Sci/Battle Cruiser; and I think another one but it's been awhile since I played her ><
I suspect the idea behind it was that tier 2 to tier 4 skills would be class-specific skills (similar to how we have class-specific selection of ground skills) and only at tier 5 allow it to open up to different ships. Cutting down the ship training skills is fine, cutting down on ship choices at lower tier is bad.
Theres got to be middleground somewhere.
Can you maybe enlighten us to the internal logic behind a move like this. Without that, the only input I can offer is simply, I don't like being restricted. By and large I like the skill system the way it is, though the T5 ship skills are getting a bit out of hand, I think simplification of that aspect can occur without tampering with the lower tiers and certainly without restricting them to career=ship class.
But that does not fit Trek logic when it comes to ship Captains. If we had to pigeonhole the Captains Kirk was a Tac officer in a Cruiser. Picard was a pseudo-Science Officer in a Cruiser. Janeway was a Science Officer in a Sci/Cruiser hybrid (in Trek not STO), Sisko was a Tac Officer in an Escort and Archer was a pseudo-Engineer in a Light Cruiser.
Realistically you choose a field and you excel at it and suffer in others. Unless your a genius thats just how life works. You can multitask and do others but you arn't as effective. I believe that's the way it should be in STO as well. If your tactical you would be better in a tactical ship than in a science ship. Your crew becomes the balance.
I would guess that the internal logic would be that by restricting ship class, while leveling it makes it easier for players, especially those leveling their first, to find it easier to spread their points and make it a 'no-brainer' as to where their points would go. eg, science captains would only buff their science skills, and perhaps there's some overlap with the new duty officer system that makes it make more sense.
Why i disagree with that logic is that veterans will know where to put their points, even for newbies it seems a tad heavyhanded to force skill point simplification. Not to mention, if its meant to funnel skillpoints, why make the other skills available at all? Thumbs down from me.
You don't chose what you want to fly in Starfleet unlike what have now. You're a Tac, Starfleet offers you a tac ship or you stay 2nd officer.
At VA or any "A" you should have some pull, before that you are a canon whipping boy.
*****
Disclaimer, idea sounds lame from a MMO point, but from "I want to be only a Captain", it sounds like you should learn to serve and be a lowly Captain.
No I don't like the idea but thought I should point out the double standards that seem to run rampant.
And then the Tier categorization might be
They actually have answered this though. Kirk had Scotty a "miracle worker" of an Engineer to make sure his cruiser ran smoothly and Spock to make sure he didn't over look the logical solution. Picard had Data to facilitate his own scientific miracles and LaForge to make things run smoothly, Worf to be the strong arm when needed. We have our BO's these are the skills that round out our crew and properly balanced they can make an Engineering Capt. a great commander of a Escort, or a Tactical Capt. a great science ship commander.
If you use the crew system to cancel out penalties instead of adding benefits like ships that have their matching captain the problem remains. It is simply not needed. Not mentioning that the "tactical" ship is something purely made by Cryptic. There never was anything like that on the show, in fact escorts didn't even exist until DS9. Why did they choose Picard to command the Enterprise instead of an engineer? And all ships fight, cruisers are as much built for battle as escorts, just in another way, they were never meant to be "fixing" ships, that would be tenders.
However, there are already benefits for commanding your specific ship class. For example the science captain's abilities profit from the higher aux of the science vessel, the escort has great synergy with the turn rate and damage boosting abilities of the tactical officer etc.
Heh, I just realized that there are two threads on the front page that claim you had your worst idea ever in that Ask Cryptic.:D Don't let it get you down, we just don't want those things to happen (even though I wouldn't have problems with Romulan allies in the Federation).;)
Its pretty common sense that if I train how to fight I'm going to be better in a fighting situation than a healing one, thats a no brainer. But if I was forced into a healing environment I could do it but wouldn't be as effective and would depend on those around me to help fill in the gaps.
This could easily become the backbone of the crew system itself with a LOT of thought and planning.
Riker was offered command of the U.S.S. Drake a light Cruiser, I don't think many would argue that Riker was more of a Tactical officer than Picard. I'm not saying that sometimes you don't get a Tac officer in an escort, or a Science officer in a Science ship (Crusher in the Pasteur), but it doesn't always happen like that.
Kind of makes all the "picard was this, sisko was that" points that everyone has been using (myself included) obselete.
Edit: heh you posted the same thing while I was writing this out.