A Civil Discussion on Skill Point Cap

[Archived Post]

This Thread is a communication to open from the community to the developement team to address the concerns the player base has seen in regards to the skill points being capped in such a way that you're limited to ONE tier 5 skill capped and ALMOST capping another.

A majority of the people in this post agree to the point that there is a skill cap and would just like a more balanced system where we're pretty limited in our choices of tier 5 skills, and wasted skill points on tier 3 and tier 4 ships.



MEGA UPDATE ASK THE DEVS (http://www.startrekonline.com/node/1158)

Current cap is 60700

A good questions for the devs is if this is a cap set in stone for the time being? When can we expect a skill cap increase in an upcoming expansion? Are we going to have to wait 6 months? A year?

According to the devs we should expect Admiral 10 to be available to help us fill all those cracks in the skill point system.

LINKS

Skill Point Calculator (http://sto-builder.binarybit.ch/index.php)

Hammer Post (http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=1678307&postcount=5294)

Al Rivera Skill Discussion (http://www.startrekonline.com/node/956)

Stormshade Response in original thread (http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=1549072&postcount=271)

Massively.com Post (http://www.massively.com/2010/01/28/captains-log-the-great-skill-cap-debate/)

Powers and Bridge Officer Abilities Thread regarding current Admirals and the skill point wall (http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=102435)

If you need others linked, please PM with post information, and I will be happy to add.

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I dub thee the revenant thread or the undead thread. :)

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Hopefully they either revert back to unlimited skill points, or boost the amount we get to use.

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Ninjalo311

If they were changes to then it would have been in the patch notes.

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Patch notes? There's patch notes? *goes to look*

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hope not. I for one support the skill cap, Im looking forward to seeing the variety of different builds for ships, ground, etc. If anything at all, the only thing I think should be changed, is you can only put a few points in as admiral, should be a bit more. other than that, no reason NOT to have a skill cap. I cant image wow with infinate talent points, EQ with unlimited AA, LOTRO being able to equip every trait O_O

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Ninjalo311

If they were changes to then it would have been in the patch notes.

Well this doesn't mean there weren't any changes in that 50mb patch. Also, I still anticipate patches and downtime during head start, maybe not during peak hours like Open Beta, but I do expect it to happen.

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If you're inviting people to be civil, I hope they will be when I say I don't mind about the skill cap; especially after one of the Devs explained why they introduced a limit in the big thread thats now archieved away.

[Archived Post]

If you're inviting people to be civil, I hope they will be when I say I don't mind about the skill cap; especially after one of the Devs explained why they introduced a limit in the big thread thats now archieved away.

I can't speak for every poster on this thread, but I can hope the title of it will prevent alot of the flaming from posters on both sides of the discussion.

(I myself was both a victim and instigator in the last Threadnaught, but as time progressed we all came to a mutual understanding of each other's perspective)

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I agree there needs to be a cap on points. There really is no point in letting everyone be able to do everything. The actual number of points we are limited to is another matter. It does seem off balance at first with you getting a lot of points in the beginning and not enough points when you get to the cool stuff at admiral but that could be simply because I want all the cool stuff. It could also be because the they want to increase the points later on without having to actually add more skills right away. It's really hard to say since the future is pretty unclear (technically the game isn't even released yet so how can we judge?).

I just wish everyone would stop making a big deal about there being a limit. What was the last MMO that allowed you to be 'Captain Super Awesome Commando' in all aspects of the game?

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Since the forums are no longer bogged down, I'll leave my two credits here.

If this were all the skill points we'd ever have available, I'd be in favor of raising the cap ASAP. Not eliminating it altogether, though, because a point cap forces players to make choices about just how they want their characters to play instead of every character being a broken uber-character that can do everything at the highest level possible. Coming from a pen-and-paper RPG background before amassing what I'd like to think of as substantial MMO experience, I understand the difficulties that would be involved in the developers trying to balance gameplay and future content around player characters capable of being the best at everything. But I digress.

If this were all the skill points we'd ever have available, I'd be in favor of raising the cap. Since, however, we have been told by developers that the point cap will be raised in the future, the question for me becomes "How much will the devs raise it by, and will that amount really be enough to allow us adequate improvement of characters already at the previous cap?". I firmly believe that rather than stamping your feet and holding your breath unless the cap is outright removed, the smarter route would be to test the cap raise when it happens (public test servers exist for a reason) and make a case base upon said testing if you honestly believe the increase in skill points is insufficient.

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The Current skill cap is completely nerfing the t3-4 skills and the admiral skills are just pointless.........this has been thrashed over and over and tbh those that are pro cap are ignorant to this fact and I really recommend trying out the STO char builder in order to see that what we are saying is true......cryptic built the skill tree with no cap in mind.......so either they fix the skill tree to work with a cap OR the increase the cap substantially OR they remove the cap entirely

All that needs to be said

Peace

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Is this to become the new ThreadNaught?

I, too, am in favor of a fix of some sort to the current skill cap and the limitations placed on users because of it.

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I do not oppose a cap, but I do feel a little cheated by being mislead - we were told one thing, and then just a couple of weeks before launch, it was taken away from us. While I was very excited about the unlimited cap, I would be happy with a more reasonable number for the existing cap.

The problems that I see are - we are onliy given three character slots. When we max out...then what? From what I understand, end-game content is just raiding and, well, there's a reason I didn't play WoW. I can increase my BOffs, but to what extent? What is their cap?

Also, we are forced to use the skill points to level. At theis point, we can only get one Admiral skill to level 5, I believe. So we're going to have a lot of sub-parr skills at level 9, but as we get higher up, our BETTER skills are not going to get as much love. Is this to prevent people from being over powered?

I support maybe an 80 - 100k cap.

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excellent thread name change. i hope this becomes a good location for people to go for information concerning cap and SP issues.

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Spoke with someone who's hit 11 in head start already.

The open beta numbers are the live numbers - unless they've boosted the number of skill points per level for the later levels without changing the lower levels, the skill cap is still 60700.

Still unacceptable.

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Star Trek Online was a game that was, initially, designed without a skill cap - this is a good system, and one that's been done before in other MMO's; the major examples of this are EVE and, currently, SWG. This is a system that works when it is designed for, but we'll get into that in a bit. Following are a few quotes directly from Cryptic, with links, that talk about the game being designed this way.


You can max out every skill eventually. We plan to keep adding skills to keep ahead of people, and by the time you’ve progressed through the endgame content, you’ll only have about half of the total skills you can acquire anyway.
We do need to clarify one thing, which is in regard to this question and the previous one: The profession you choose – say, Engineer – will limit the ground skills available to you, but not the space skills. So as an Engineer, you can still buy Photon skills (Tactical) or Sensor skills (Science) in space, but on the ground you only get access to Engineering skills. The ground game is more traditionally class-based, whereas in space you’re more limited by the type of ship you fly. We want you to be able to go into different ships and mix up your skills as much as possible.

Source. (http://www.startrekonline.com/node/397)


Were a player to invest the minimum-required skill points to reach Admiral, he'd be about half-developed in terms of a maxed character, though in terms of time it'd take significantly longer to completely max out each available skill.

Source. (http://www.warcry.com/news/view/94807-Star-Trek-Online-Player-Progression-Explained)


There is an endgame for Star Trek Online, and there are multiple options as far as content is concerned. But let us be clear when we say there’s an endgame: Everything we mention is available throughout the game, as well as the endgame. So, for instance, PvP is an endgame activity, but you can PvP throughout the whole game. It’s not like there’s only PvP at the end.
There’s solo and team PvE content available at the endgame if you want to just explore the universe. There are raids throughout the entire game, as well as fleet actions. Raids are instantiated episodes we’re internally calling “raidisodes,” whereas fleet actions are persistent zones that work like massive open missions, which anyone can join.
In terms of how progression works, once you reach Admiral in Star Trek Online, we don’t expect you to have more than half of your skills maxed. You’ll continue to add to your skills. The additional skills don’t necessarily make you more powerful on a linear scale; it’s more about increasing your options and flexibility within the game. Maybe you’ve filled out all your Science skills; now, perhaps you want to explore some Tactical skills, similar to what we mentioned in the previous question.

Source. (http://www.startrekonline.com/node/453)

Seven days prior to the end of Open Beta, Cryptic inadvertently announced that they'd be adding a skill cap to the game, with very little additional information. After two days of posts on the forums, this was confirmed by StormShade. Quotes from Cryptic with source links below.

Ten Ton Hammer: After players reach Admiral 5 can they still earn skill and officer points that they can distribute?

Zeke: They can still earn bridge officer points. Once they hit that cap they won’t be able to earn any more skill points for themselves. So what they’ll be focusing on is getting new bridge officers, building those bridge officers up, getting new equipment, getting new ships, that kind of thing.

Source. (http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/79456)

Hey gang,

I know quite a few of you are upset over this, so let me try and explain this change to you.

We have plans to release more content in the future, and at some point we'd like to raise the skill point cap, in the same way other titles have raised their level cap. The skill point cap is in place to ensure that we can not only add more content later on, but also to make sure that we can balance that content to provide you with a suitable challenge. With a skill point cap in place, we know what you're capable of, and we can balance the challenges in new content to provide you a suitable challenge. With no skill point cap, you'll not only be able to max out every skill in the game, but eventually, when we release new content, it will become trivial to you immediately. When we raise the level cap, you’d be max level right away. In the end, not having a skill point cap hurts the game, and consequently the amount of fun you guys can have.

Star Trek Online is also unique in that your Captain isn’t the end of your avatar. You’ve got Bridge Officers to tinker with, who gain skills on their own. You’ve also got a great number of ships available to you, and all sorts of weapons, consoles and devices to discover and utilize. So even though we made the decision to cap your Captain’s skill gain, it doesn’t mean there’s not more to achieve in the Star Trek Online universe at max level. In fact, we’ve got all sorts of stuff planned, from raid-style Episodes to more Fleet Actions to more Star Clusters. We’ll be talking more about what’s coming post-launch soon.

So yes, much like other MMOs, there is a cap as to how far you can advance your character at launch. Much like other titles, there are also other incentives to keep players invested in the game once they reach that cap. Endgame content is going to have some pretty cool rewards that players will need in order to actually "max out" their characters, everything from more Kits for your captain, to new equipment for your ship, and there's also some really cool powerful Bridge Officers to find out there as well.

Thanks,

Stormshade

Source. (http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=1549072&postcount=271)

This is problematic. There are many reasons why this game should remain as it was designed, without a skill cap. The largest of these is that the system was designed with it in mind, but a lack of skill cap would also, in the context of this game, promote diversity between characters (much as it does in EVE). The reasoning given for a skill cap in the StormShade's post above has been refuted in several ways - the first of these is that they're making work now in an attempt to avoid work later. Instead of implementing a system that works right now, they've broken the current system in anticipation of unknown, undeveloped, and uncertain future content, rather than designing that future content around the working, tested, uncapped system.

A couple of the suggestions for getting around the “instantly level to the new cap” issue: wipe the slate clean – erase any unspent points on level 45 characters, and begin the count for new levels at 0, regardless of skill points actually spent. This would prevent saving up skill points to spend them after the level cap increase in order to gain levels. A second suggestion would be earning a new type of point (e.g. “Fleet Points” or some similar) that can be spent on new skills added in with the level increase, or can be spent on old skills. All new content rewards these points, and only these points count toward increasing your Rank/Grade above Admiral 5.

Here's an excellent summation of the problem, with some concrete examples:


The first two tiers stack to an extent. However things break down from tier 3 - 5 where they all offer EXACTLY the same effect, broadness and application, but for (pointlessly) increasing cost. ALL of the skills from the following three tiers are entirely exclusive to a single damage type and in no way, regardless of tier, stack amongst themselves. They all offer identical benefits to balanced weapons. Tier 3 skills cost 300 per level purchased, tier four skills cost 400 per level purchased, tier 5 skills cost 500 per level purchased.

Skills
Phaser 1 = +10 bonus = costs 300 Skill points
Polaron 1 = +10 bonus = costs 500 Skill points
Phaser 9 = +52 bonus = costs 2700 Skill points
Polaron 9 = +52 bonus = costs 4500 Skill points
Weapons
Phaser Array Mark X = 160 DPS
Polaron Array Mark X = 160 DPS
That doesn't add up

There really isn't any more diversity or uniqueness with or without.

With everything maxxed an Engineering Admiral can't do anything an Engineering Admiral with as few as possible points spent. They can use the same abilities, the same ships, the same BOffs, the same kits.

Those skill points just make you more effective with what you're using. (and no one is going to use the stuff they suck with, right?)

Where the diversity comes in is exactly there: What you're using.

Three Admirals:

(A) Has maxed: Phasers, Disruptors, Escorts, Science Vessels
(B) Has maxed: Phasers, Polaron Beams, Escorts, Cruisers
(C) Has maxed: Phasers, Escorts

Who is going to be better flying their Phaser-equipped Escort?

Answer: None of them, they've all maxed Phasers and Escorts, thus they're all equal.

HOWEVER, realizing they all have Phaser-equipped escorts and are redundant Admital B can go and get his Polaron Beam-Equipped Cruiser, and Admiral A can go and get his Disruptor Equipped Science Vessel so they aren't all stepping on each other's toes... they can then go out and make a balanced team and play some missions together.

Pretty cool huh?

That's gone.


In short, the skill system being capped makes absolutely no sense for this game, unless there is some heavy revamping of the way the system works. The problem with doing this sort of revamping is that the game was so close to launch when this change was announced/implemented, so any new skill system that they add will be going in essentially untested. We all know that adding untested core game mechanics post-launch is a dangerous situation at best, and a game-breaking situation at worst.

The skill point cap at Admiral 5, as of the end of Open Beta was 60700 skill points. This is enough points to invest in 16 ranks of Admiral skills – maxing one and having seven ranks left over for a second. This is obscenely low, and you’d be an idiot not to spend the first nine on your T5 ship skill.

In proactive response to some issues that routinely come up - Cryptic has announced that they'll be adding a respec system, sometime after launch, that will allow us to obtain respecs for in-game resources. We don't know how such a system might work or how much it will cost, however, and Cryptic has also stated that they'll be considering adding a respec purchase option to the cash store. Some people choose to see this as a money-grab or a conspiracy (or both) on Cryptic's part, but that's for each individual to decide based on what they see.

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starships...form. hammer. uberpost. go!

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I don't understand why people are so surprised they capped skill points. I mean, is there a MMO out there that lets you get max rank in everything, that can actually be achieved in a reasonable lifetime? I think back to WoW, and imagine what it would have been like if my hunter could have been max marksman, survival AND beastmaster, along with the half a million other people with the same damn idea.

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Indeed, since the numbers are the same, then I will plop the collection of notes, concerns, and math from the OB discussion on this issue.

Ninja, thanks for opening us with a civil title. I hope that everyone remains so. To spite a hairy title of the last one, we're quite agreeable to debate with on the topic.

Points for "no cap", and points for "cap" and ideas between. However, cap opinions aside, there is a fundamental broken aspect to the existing system that needs serious visiting. From what we're seeing from the numbers being the same as OB, one of the posters of the previous "Threadnaught" made it to RA5, and posted the numbers as being completely limiting, and worse ; seemingly arbitrary.

I will attempt to relay data so that you can make an informed decision about whether you have any suggestions for alternative systems, or, if you also would simply like to be counted among the voices that are attempting to let Cryptic know that we're not satisfied with a system that is currently dysfunctional.

I will be as informative as I can, while attempting some brevity, and explain this by pointing out dev commentary (not opinion).

There are a lot of folks who do not understand the nature of the skill system having been designed to be similar to Eve:OL. Meaning, unlimited skill progression. The difference was in Eve:OL, it takes real time, regardless of played time, and in this, played time. Is that a "good" idea? I can tell you based on the mechanics of the numbers, and that fact that I can't use all skills, merely a subset based on Gear/BOffs/Ships, that I truly thought this was the first honest spin into innovation I have seen in a while.

Regardless of my opinion, I do know that it was MEANT to be unlimited, and 2 years in dev and testing as that. Again, the mechanics produce limitation, and yet afford diversity due to ship / BOffs, and gear. Meaning, you can't be overpowered. As much is precisely what Cryptic said in an interview "...non linear". capping the system now under powers you across the board, effectively "NERF'ing" every class (all 3...) in a single maneuver unless they give a serious overhaul to the system, or at /least/ increase the points we get.

In short, a Science full spec in an unlimited system would be on equal playing terms as a full spec Science spec in correctly functioning cap'ed system. The dev notes say as much is the design if you'll just take a look at the quotes from Cryptic below.


Mach789: By the time I reach Admiral, will my skills be locked or will I be able to max out every skill eventually?

Crytpic: You can max out every skill eventually. We plan to keep adding skills to keep ahead of people, and by the time you’ve progressed through the endgame content, you’ll only have about half of the total skills you can acquire anyway.

Source. (http://www.startrekonline.com/node/397)



Cryptic:...Were a player to invest the minimum-required skill points to reach Admiral, he'd be about half-developed in terms of a maxed character, though in terms of time it'd take significantly longer to completely max out each available skill.

Source. (http://www.warcry.com/news/view/94807-Star-Trek-Online-Player-Progression-Explained)


dudewhat: Once you have maxed out your character completely how will progression work? Is there a[n] endgame for Star Trek Online? If so how will progression work once you have reached the endgame?

Cryptic:...In terms of how progression works, once you reach Admiral in Star Trek Online, we don’t expect you to have more than half of your skills maxed. You’ll continue to add to your skills. The additional skills don’t necessarily make you more powerful on a linear scale; it’s more about increasing your options and flexibility within the game.

Source. (http://www.startrekonline.com/node/453)


So, let's open the debate by asking some simple logic to debate over the opinions of "cap" or "no cap" while we're working through the more pressing issue of math working, or not working.

...If you prefer a cap system, what made you stay when you learned it was meant to be unlimited?

If you don't care, then why are you happily accepting a system that is counter-productively limiting you to a points system versus an open-ended progression? Mind you, this to the point that you cannot even play the EXISTING content correctly. Either, if a person doesn't think they care, after some time they will once they realize just how broken it is ; or you truly don't care, in which case you would leave the game in a month regardless.

So, again, if you think that a CAP system is "good", or is "how it's meant to be played", what made you want to stick around once you found out that the system was uncapped until one week before Open Beta ended?

Finally, the point we've been making is either A) It needs to have a skill system revamp to accommodate the cap, OR, 2) they need to put the unlimited back, and allow for it in the new content (which is the REASON they made this change...nothing to do with being over powered, please remove that from your thinking)

If one were to argue that everyone will be the same, then consider that in any MMO, all mages are the same, etc. In Star Trek online, we /could/ have been trained in all skills, but only capable of performing a subset of those skills at a given time base on your gear, and ship. Therefore, everyone will either be the same between a subset, or the same across the board. If I make three characters, one of each of the only 3 classes in the game, then I will be "just like everyone else" only now I have to relog to do so. The end game means the same thing. We are the same.

This argument, when followed to logical conclusion is no longer logical unless giving way to the statement being absolutely true, in which case one has to concede that uniqueness truly does not exist, and dissatisfaction with this point is only brought up when it suits that perspective.

Further, this isn't even the reason Cryptic made the change. They made the change according to StormShade's reply in the original thread, for end game concerns of being unpredictable for the content immediately at new content release. It's not a question of over powered from one class to another, but, overpowered to content. That says to me "then, raise the content difficulty ; done" or, put a little effort, and create two parts to your content. One with mid-range levels in mind, and one with "all skilled up" in mind. It appears the easy road was the best for their time/budget, but I won't entertain speculative reasons why Cryptic made this decision beyond "they thought it needed to happen". I don't agree that it needed to happen, but I have to live with that opinion since I don't work there :)

Now, read the math that shows how broken the CURRENT system is at this time.
(Was like this in BETA, granted, but so far, appears to be the same in release numbers)



[Real total skill points allowed in new "cap" system:] 60,700

You can train a total of 16 Admiral level skills... Agree or disagree with the skill cap, being RA 5 its very obvious that the system was not designed for a cap. There are 19 skills to choose from and you can only max one of them (with 7 levels left over)...


Please go level yourself out, and play with this. Oh, and since we have REAL numbers from people (Hotot above) who made RA ranks in beta, we know that this template builder is precise now.

http://sto-builder.binarybit.ch/index.php

More Math:

From the following:

http://sto-intel.org/index.php?title=Officer_and_kit_abilities


GROUND:
Engineering has 17 kits, Science has 17, and Tactical has 18 (this according to the current list, and is not exhaustive, but is a good starting point for disproving your rather short sighted, and ill-informed statement)


As an Engineer:
If I train ALL skills in Engineering...how many Tactical kits can I wear?
If I train ALL skills, NOW how many Tactical kits can I wear?

Trick question, the answer is none in both cases. Why? Because the game was /designed/ to have all skills, but limit you through what you can equip at a time.

My extra skills simply afford me the ability to be well trained for my character, as well as having well trained AWAY team. If I over train myself, and gimp my away team (cap system) then I can't play any solo content, yet, the DESIGN was to allow for both (otherwise, WHY is there any away team?). If I over train for BOff's for away team abilities, then I gimp myself (cap system) and become useless in live group mates, which it is designed for (else, why make it an MMO?).

SPACE:
From http://sto-intel.org/index.php?title=Space_bo_abilities (again, not complete list, but a starting point)

As any class:
Your BOffs have 17 Engineering Skills, 16 Science, and 16 Tactical skills that can be learned.

How many officers can your science vessel carry? How many stations can Science officers occupy on a given science vessel? More than the Tactial ship, REGARDLESS of how many skills you have, or not. Ergo, the science vessel will be inherantly better at the science skills than the tactical ship. I simply now have a choice of playing tactical ships when I choose to by going to the space station (uncapped) or having to by logging out, and back in (alts). In the end, the same/same.

How many Tactical consoles can your science vessel carry in a cap system versus a non cap system? The answer is "the same". If I am trained in all skills, I can still only use a subset of those skills in a particular ship, or with a particular kit.

Finally, in conclusion, we ALL agree on these points:
[QUOTE=ArmageddonX]
1. I don't have a problem with a Skill Cap...
2. I do have a problem with a Skill Cap within a system designed not to have one.
3. I do have a problem with the current Skill Cap inside it's current system being so low.
4. I do have a problem with announcing a core game-changing mechanic being turned upside-down two weeks before launch after people had spent, in some cases, over $300 on lifetime subs and Deluxe Editions of the game.
[QUOTE]

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Now that all the trolls have gone I suppose I two will add two merits.

I won't be that person who says that I'll quit if it doesn't get changed. But as stated time, and time again. There is an OBVIOUS flaw in the current system. Being able to max out only one type of ship at the Admiral level is unacceptable. I also agree that the whole "well.... we need to know how balanced you are" is a bunch of nonsense as the example above posted.

There is a cap to how good you can be with a certain type of ship, and a certain type of weapon. This cap exists no matter how many skill points we can get.

At the same time, the future and Starfleet is about bettering yourself. Why not try to be the best captain you can? Being an admiral in Starfleet, I would love to go out and learn how to pilot a new type of ship. Why should I lose the ability to pilot the old type?

I feel the whole skill cap thing is just to conform to other MMO's.

A developer response we have NOT seen is whether or not that the commonly quoted ability to only upgrade 16 Admiral level skills is true. And assuming it is true, I would LOVE to see a develop try to justify why that is an appropriate amount of skills.

I believe the most likely situation is the devs know there is a balance issue, and they are working on it. That would also be a welcome response. But that generic "hah ha! It's on the main page so we addressed the issue" comment about skills is not enough of a response.

[Archived Post]

Edited first post with Hammer post, for those that wish to link additional material, I'll be happy to update.

Again, I am PRO Skill Cap, but in the current condition it does need some balancing.

[Archived Post]

Edited first post with Hammer post, for those that wish to link additional material, I'll be happy to update.

Again, I am PRO Skill Cap, but in the current condition it does need some balancing.

gracias.


10/char

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So this is new topic to abuse and beat the dead horse all over again? such heartless people. :(

[Archived Post]

So this is new topic to abuse and beat the dead horse all over again? such heartless people. :(

if you have nothing constructive to add to the thread, please dont post in it.

[Archived Post]

So this is new topic to abuse and beat the dead horse all over again? such heartless people. :(

Nothing has been changed since open beta, hence not a dead horse, but a current topic about the current build of the Star Trek system.

[Archived Post]

I don't understand why people are so surprised they capped skill points. I mean, is there a MMO out there that lets you get max rank in everything, that can actually be achieved in a reasonable lifetime? I think back to WoW, and imagine what it would have been like if my hunter could have been max marksman, survival AND beastmaster, along with the half a million other people with the same damn idea.

This wasn't meant to be WoW. It is meant to function quite differently.

In essence, imagine in WoW, you played a Druid in the STO design context. In order to play through your content, you /had/ to spend points to gain level 20, 30, and so on. Once you got to each level, you were allowed talents, but, you were only allowed the form you chose at creation. Remember, you have to spend points to level, and you can't get all forms, and level. You either choose to take the very slow path, and earn all your forms, then level, or, level then work on forms. Vertical, fast and focused, or horizontal, slow, and spread out. Now, once at 80, you want to play other forms. You must now pick and choose either A) new content that Blizz put in, or, play through some of the content you played in order to diversify into your other "skills" (forms). In the end, we've either played through the same content with the same character a few times, OR, we've played through with ALTs. Either case, it's YOU that played through that same content. If I wanted to play a different SHIP game, I wouldn't need ALTs, because each ship IS the /alt/. If I wanted to experience different GROUND game, then I'd HAVE to make ALTs, even in the capless system. Hence, diversity, and flexibility, long term playability, and repeatability in balance. Once you got to end content, you'd play through high end content, and veeery slowly be able to spread out, and backfill earlier tiers, and play through the content again, or some mid range content, being a little more diverse, you aren't forced into purely starter content (necessarily).



Cryptic:...Were a player to invest the minimum-required skill points to reach Admiral, he'd be about half-developed in terms of a maxed character, though in terms of time it'd take significantly longer to completely max out each available skill.

Source. (http://www.warcry.com/news/view/94807-Star-Trek-Online-Player-Progression-Explained)


dudewhat: Once you have maxed out your character completely how will progression work? Is there a[n] endgame for Star Trek Online? If so how will progression work once you have reached the endgame?

Cryptic:...The additional skills don’t necessarily make you more powerful on a linear scale; it’s more about increasing your options and flexibility within the game

Source. (http://www.startrekonline.com/node/453)


Notice the intent was to allow for playability through to end-game, and /then/ you work on progression in other branches. There was a design that would be a severely limited points gain in terms of time spent/played versus Beta. Beta was ramped up just so we could get to end game in a week or two, and test content. In our WoW example, you got to level 80, and had all the skills you wanted (in the old "it takes a year to get there" model) but because you wanted to progress through content, you didn't spread your points out. Otherwise, you would be stuck in lower tier, and, lower earnings of SP, and stock piling points at 2-3 per mission for skills that cost 4500 to rank 9 at Tier 5 would put you playing 5 years to stock pile enough to make a few boxes in RA5+. Hence, you'd want to progress :). You'd not get the better gear, or ships, etc. So, built-in to play through is the idea that you will want to progress. 6 months to a year out when you did finally progress through the content in vertical format, you now have the ability to continue making points (the old system, 2 years in dev) and diversifying horizontally. Once you got there, you'd play through high end content, and veeery slowly be able to spread out, and backfill earlier tiers, and play through the content again, or some mid range content, being a little more diverse, you aren't forced into purely start content (necessarily).

Now, the REAL problem with the reason Dev decided to add a cap was because on their drawing board (going by StormShades post in this very thread) is that is unpredictable. They cannot pick a point in time to inject new content, and predictably know that a player is purely science vested, OR, they've played more than the average playtime (a wild variable, and hence "unpredictability" of it all) and have science, AND tactical, and thus, their secondary skills allow them some leg-up (non linear, mind you, as Cryptic stated) but, they have the game, and can give a character all science, then all tactical, and all engineering, then on whim, two of them, or all three, and play through concepts they are working out. What they found is their design didn't account for predictable results. Over powered? No, but unpredictable nevertheless. Whether in small terms (very likely) or large terms (highly unlikely given their design over all), it was enough to make them pause, and rethink the mechanics. Good, bad or indifferent, instead of just balancing the existing mechanics better, they felt it would cost less time/money to just scrap the idea, and go with a cap system, and force us to follow a path instead of spreading points out, and then giving us a cap raise later when people have played a while, and they've been given the ability to put new cheaper content in.

This saves them time, and money. Easy. Does this make it better for us? Only because it means they don't have to work double shifts, get stupid with too much caffeine, and hence make poor code...maybe ;)


Some of us have invested $300+ into this, and want to see it succeed. Though, we're not getting enough feedback with the exceptions "oh, yeah...sorry, we took that out" and "STO has cap, deal with it" replies. Last minute change of core mechanics (core to playability, mind you, not in terms of code, necessarily), poor replies, and poor management of the 600+ page sized banter in concerned, and upset thread-goers. We're rightfully upset over a design change.

This isn't "oh, yeah, cap bad, CAP SMASH!" ...we aren't like that (well, most of us, heh). We didn't just come in here and randomly say "hey, ya know what'd be neat in this game? No cap!" ...no no...heh. We were looking forward to the design it had, which was no cap, and got upset over the last minute change to that very nice design concept.


Disappointment #1:
We'd really LIKE the cap to be gone, and the end content designed to fit it, but, apparently Cryptic doesn't have the vision or resources to make that happen.

Disappointment #2:
We'd have liked to been notified in clear, and concise messages upfront on the main website, removing references to the old system that they've decided to make this change for over all game playability (from their perspective) and end game content.

Disappointment #3:
We would have loved to have been replied to on the bridge of the "USS Threadnaught" that our concerns are noted, and valid, but that the system either A) doesn't work like your assumptions (we don't require math here, just validate that our concerns are real, and leave it there, if you don't want to divulge specifics) or B) "Yes, there is some reworking going on, please give us a chance, we think you'll like the new system" instead of assuming we'd just trust them .

Disappointment #4:
Ignoring us, and wrangling us into a single thread whenever we'd try to raise awareness that our plight has nothing to do with the subject title of original threads intent, meaning, we're not bent on quitting over this, necessarily (well, most of us, heh) but want meaningful honest, and open debate on the subject in a reasonable, and adult manner.

Disappointment #5:
Placating us with minimum details about how weapons stack up (while incredibly grateful we are) didn't quite answer how the over all skill system would be impacted by this and didn't truly address the overarching concerns about the skill system. Dev, please don't let this be taken as we don't appreciate the insight to the details about the weapons ; truly, to spite our grievance, we really do appreciate that insight.

Disappointment #6:
Changing a core mechanic ONE week before release, and not saying "yes, we worked the numbers, and have just now, after careful, and long deliberation, decided this" or "no, we've known this a while now, and we've tried, but it just won't work out in the end" something along those lines to reassure us that you didn't literally just spend 2 years coding something, and 1 week before release, y ou changed such an integral component in the game mechanics. Worse, assuming that a LOT of us truly wanted that design, and spent $300 to play it.

Disappointment #7:
We can't work out the numbers we've seen, and they've given us no indication that we're wrong. A simple "guys, those aren't the numbers we're going with. We can't give you the numbers yet, because we have something else in the works that they won't make sense to you for, but, trust us, it'll work a lot better than your math" would go a LONG way for us. We don't want to trust Cryptic blindly. We want them to come to us, and say (just like they promise to be in touch with us) that they are working on it, and drop little messages to us here and there. Not expecting details ; just better PR.

RE: #7: This point is now a solid complaint, as it appears so far that the release content maintains the broken numbers we saw in OB.

Disappointment #8:
Do not EVER tell any of your customers "XYZ system is as it is, so deal with it". If you aren't fired for that inflaming reply, then clearly someone with my lack of patience for that sort of thing isn't in charge of you. I have worked in customer support as well as eng/dev for 21 years, and I report to Director level, and above (VP, in case you have to ask) of a 9 billion dollar company. One of the things that makes us, and myself /very/ successful, is how we handle our customers. That would have been offense enough to put you on probation at the very least. And so you don't think I am blowing hot air on this one ; the old thread had at least 2 people that are not staying DIRECTLY as a result of that reply by Cryptic representative (employed by, or not, unimportant).

Disappointment #9:
Tribbles don't consume my bridge when I have one in my inventory... I'm just sayin'....

There are more to add to this, I am sure. These, however, are the main points.

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if you have nothing constructive to add to the thread, please dont post in it.

Ehh... and what will you post so constructive which has not been said before in old topic? let me guess you will repeat yourself again for next 500 pages or so.

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Ehh... and what will you post so constructive which has not been said before in old topic? let me guess you will repeat yourself again for next 500 pages or so.

if there are questions or concerns about the state of the skill cap and the skills, i think i have a good foundation of knowledge to be able to answer those questions. if you read the previous thread at all, you would have seen this for yourself.

there are people who have done some great work really breaking things down on the progression of the game and how it affects all captains and to say its beating a dead horse right now, couldnt be further from the truth.

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Ehh... and what will you post so constructive which has not been said before in old topic? let me guess you will repeat yourself again for next 500 pages or so.

Naw, Sinun just wrote a whole new book in the post above yours. New statements, not copy and paste

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There is nothing to discuss. Cryptic gave us the reason behind the decision. You either agree or disagree. If you agree, you should be off playing trek and not waste your time here. If you don't agree, then either learn to live with it or leave the game. Plain and simple. Cryptic is not going to change their decision no matter how many thread people start on this issue.

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There is nothing to discuss. Cryptic gave us the reason behind the decision. You either agree or disagree. If you agree, you should be of play trek and not waste your time here. If you don't agree, then either learn to live with it or leave the game. Plain and simple. Cryptic is not going to change their decision no matter how many thread people start on this issue.

At this point it's a matter of balance, not just the cap.

Please understand that most of the people in this thread have accepted there is a cap, and just wish to find an equalibrium in the skill points and their distribution.

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At this point it's a matter of balance, not just the cap.

Please understand that most of the people in this thread have accepted there is a cap, and just wish to find an equalibrium in the skill points and their distribution.

I understand but the title is misleading. the reason why i said beating dead horse was because if you guys go in same direction all over again you will be ignored by devs and just end up being disappointed. I want skill caps gone too but repeating ourselves over and over again is not going to change anything.

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There is nothing to discuss. Cryptic gave us the reason behind the decision. You either agree or disagree. If you agree, you should be off playing trek and not waste your time here. If you don't agree, then either learn to live with it or leave the game. Plain and simple. Cryptic is not going to change their decision no matter how many thread people start on this issue.

Really? Because they have stated many times that they will (of course to an extent), take this game in the direction that the players want. The players, us, the people who PLAY THE GAME, feel that the current cap is unbalanced. Any good development team is going to listen to feedback from live-play and figure out how to best proceed. We have a right, as paying customers, to attempt to express our opinion to the team.

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I understand but the title is misleading. the reason why i said beating dead horse was because if you guys go in same direction all over again you will be ignored by devs and just end up being disappointed. I want skill caps gone too but repeating ourselves over and over again is not going to change anything.

It's a discussion on the skill cap, not misleading.

Edit: If you want to complain about this post, try making a post about it instead, by criticizing within the thread itself and saying how pointless it is, you're only helping the cause by bumping it.

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I understand but the title is misleading. the reason why i said beating dead horse was because if you guys go in same direction all over again you will be ignored by devs and just end up being disappointed. I want skill caps gone too but repeating ourselves over and over again is not going to change anything.

Hmm. Perhaps you are right. Is there a way to appeal and have the title changed to reflect a little better...?

Perhaps "Civil discussion over skill cap fallout" ? I dunno. I don't pick topics, I just ship large quantities of subject material. I didn't have enough skill points to put into both boxes ;)

(relax, geez, it was a humorous jab with no ill intent!)

Really? Because they have stated many times that they will (of course to an extent), take this game in the direction that the players want. The players, us, the people who PLAY THE GAME, feel that the current cap is unbalanced. Any good development team is going to listen to feedback from live-play and figure out how to best proceed. We have a right, as paying customers, to attempt to express our opinion to the team.

Indeed. Hence bringing it to the new forums. We need to work WITH Cryptic on the game. They won't succeed if everyone sits on their collective thumbs, and says nothing, and just leaves when they aren't happy. Let's work WITH them, and help them to see that from where we sit, things aren't working...

I agree, they are the dev, BUT, we are the consumer, and require a means of input in order to relay positive, and negative feedback regarding the consumer product we are paying for.

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Originally Posted by HappyHappyJoyJoy
Skill points just make you more effective with what you're using.

Three Admirals:

(A) Has maxed: Phasers, Disruptors, Escorts, Science Vessels
(B) Has maxed: Phasers, Polaron Beams, Escorts, Cruisers
(C) Has maxed: Phasers, Escorts

Who is going to be better flying their Phaser-equipped Escort?

Answer: None of them ; they're all equal. [Diversity]

Pretty cool huh?

That's gone.

http://forums.startrekonline.com/sho...&postcount=271

This. A million times this. When I heard about the skill cap I about crapped.

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Not a good topic?

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Not a good topic?

topic seems fine to me.

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topic seems fine to me.

Agreed. Certainly far better than the title of the threadnaught.

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Agreed. Certainly far better than the title of the threadnaught.
yea the discussion really evolved from that thread while we were still in it. the more people know , the better off everyone will be.

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Since we've got such high Dev visibility right now, can we atleast get confirmaiton that they intend on balancing the skill points or cost of skills?

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Cryptic has already posted their response to this question. You can continue to waste your words, and stress out over something that is not going to be changed any time soon because of a vocal MINORITY. This thread needs to die, and you need to go play the game that has been presented to you.

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I see the main concern of the skill cap being that from what i have read you have to pay to reset skills.
which to me is a scam if it's true. I don't mind a skill cap as long as we can reset our tree when we want to for a price of no real word denomination.

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Cryptic has already posted their response to this question. You can continue to waste your words, and stress out over something that is not going to be changed any time soon because of a vocal MINORITY. This thread needs to die, and you need to go play the game that has been presented to you.

There are 5 pages. It's not too difficult to at least read the point before you assume what it's about. Try it. You may find out that the game we payed for that we should be playing is unplayable in it's current state.

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Cryptic has already posted their response to this question. You can continue to waste your words, and stress out over something that is not going to be changed any time soon because of a vocal MINORITY. This thread needs to die, and you need to go play the game that has been presented to you.

Can you link the Dev QA about the skill points from the previous posts? I'd like to link it in my initial post.

NM, found it. Editing first post.

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Cryptic has already posted their response to this question. You can continue to waste your words, and stress out over something that is not going to be changed any time soon because of a vocal MINORITY. This thread needs to die, and you need to go play the game that has been presented to you.

this is a civil discussion. please contribute in a similar manner. as of right now, you arent.

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Since we've got such high Dev visibility right now, can we atleast get confirmaiton that they intend on balancing the skill points or cost of skills?

i would greatly appreciate this.

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Cryptic are planning to sell us "expansions"... that's why there is a skill cap. They've said it themselves.

Money money money...

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I don't understand why people are so surprised they capped skill points. I mean, is there a MMO out there that lets you get max rank in everything, that can actually be achieved in a reasonable lifetime? I think back to WoW, and imagine what it would have been like if my hunter could have been max marksman, survival AND beastmaster, along with the half a million other people with the same damn idea.

And here is where you are mistaken, STO is nothing like WoW other than being a MMORPG.

Here is some text explaining what I wrote above it explains how STO skills and everyone having the same is not making people all running around exactly same. Skills in STO can NEVER be compared to any other system, not even EvE because they are too different systems. In STO diversity is not designed to come from skills it is from other asspects of game, like ship load out,BOs etc. And in fact the Devs as far as they have talked about the game agree with this. As the reason for changing the skill system to cap the points was not about diversity.



To start off STO is not really a game that can be defined based on any other MMO. Mainly because it is basically two games in one. Space and Ground combat.

On one hand we have space combat, where you are the Capt of a ship and are in command of many other people who operate the ship. As the Capt you are not really doing the tasks need but commanding others to do them. The space skills reflect this. So think of gaining space skills as they are you getting better at being a leader. Another departure from other MMOs in the BO who also have to level up and are on your ship providing you with abilities. In space part of the game you can get items that you can also add into slots on your ship. These items are what the developers added to the game along with your BOs to add diversity, the skill system was never designed to achieve this, in fact it was designed for everyone to max them out.
Also in space part of game you have 3 different ships types that you can fly if you want. Each type having different ships each Tier.And each ship of a Tier also has a skill that is specific to that one ship type and only that Tier. What they system was designed to alllow was you to be able to have a "stable" of ships at starbase that you could pick from. So this also allowed for versatility for players that would like to have different types of ships.

And the gear you get for your ship was allo made to work with a maxed out skill system. That is why for example at a lower Tier you can place skill points into buffing up Phasers And then later put points into say Plasma weapons and it will not matter which you use over other. Because even though plasma weapons are in a later tier and higher rank weapon they are also same power as a phaser. The weapons in STO are made so that they are all balanced around you having at some point max skill points into that weapon. They all have same damage potential at same gear rank.

Now onto the other aspect with STO ground combat. Ground portion of the game is what you could compare to every other MMO on market because they are very similar. In ground combat you are now directly controlling your Capt as 1 single entity, unlike in the previously mentioned space combat where you are not but are in command of a whole crew on starship. Also in ground combat your BOs will be with you fighting. If they are wearing a Red shirt they die instantly as soon as you start a fight(Just kidding). So ok back to topic. Now here in ground combat is where your career path makes most impact. Because each of 3 "classes" have different abilities the get. And also each class get's a bunch of different "kits" they can equip that provide unique abilities and bonuses. And this is where the Devs added more diversity between players by you picking what kit you want to use.


Now as you can see in what I have already talked about what the Devs of STO have done is departed from old cookie cutter way most MMOs are made and made a really IMO neat system to allow people to diversify themselves from other players. Great Job right? Well nope because now with skill cap that was slap into place to as has been stated to the community by a Cryptic PR guy, the reason for this was change was to make it easier for them to balance content at some later date. Now keep in mind that as far as many people in beta can tell nothing has been changed to reflect this.

And another issue with this late change in the skill cap is that as the skill system is set up now in game, it ruins any hope for a diverse setup that players will use. Take for example weapons. As it is in game right now Everyone is going to pick Phasers to use because they are cheaper to use skill point wise then
Polarn weapons. But both phasers and polaron do exactaly the same DPS.
Phaser 1 = +10 bonus = costs 300 Skill points
Polaron 1 = +10 bonus = costs 500 Skill points
Phaser 9 = +52 bonus = costs 2700 Skill points
Polaron 9 = +52 bonus = costs 4500 Skill points
Weapons
Phaser Array Mark X = 160 DPS
Polaron Array Mark X = 160 DPS
That doesn't add up. What we are going to see is everyone being in a Escort with xxx skill and xxx weapon all of them are the same.
And that is not only case.
With current system in place you will have to pick a weapon type and only use that weapon type, no matter what else drop.

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Money money money...

HAHAHAHA

Everybody's got a price!

Everybody pays!

*continues to whistle the Ted Dibiase entrance music*

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There is nothing to discuss. Cryptic gave us the reason behind the decision. You either agree or disagree. If you agree, you should be off playing trek and not waste your time here. If you don't agree, then either learn to live with it or leave the game. Plain and simple. Cryptic is not going to change their decision no matter how many thread people start on this issue.

Another post trying to derail the thread. Such draconian attitude, If you don't like it leave because Wiz33 is now head moderator in charge.

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I think one of the confusions everyone seems to have is understanding what a system that is supposed to have a cap looks like, vs a system that isn't supposed to have one. I'm confused as to what the difference is. I've only played WoW so I can see why a cap sounds necessary for any MMO. However, I'm intrigued by OP's and his side's view of the matter.

People who are against the cap repeatedly say that STO was not designed to have a capped system. If someone could maybe go into detail on what exactly that means, that would be really helpful. And then compare it, in depth, to a game that is made with a skill cap out of necessity.

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Cryptic has already posted their response to this question. You can continue to waste your words, and stress out over something that is not going to be changed any time soon because of a vocal MINORITY. This thread needs to die, and you need to go play the game that has been presented to you.

Is it me or do some people want to hide this thread from being seen? What is it any skin off your backs what people do with their time? I really don't understand people like you bossing others around on a internet forum? Is it some sort of social issues you all have and need to express yourself this way on a forum? It just does not seem very sane to do this.

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To those people supporting the skill cap: Are you aware of the fact that it is so low that you cannot even max out two(!) T5 skills? The current cap allows for no flexibility and variety if you don't want to lose on many essential skills - and leave you half-empty-handed at T5 anyway...

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:( I think the best way to get a dev response in this thread is going to have to resort to

"I can't get my Wrath of Kahn costume or Mirror Universe uniform"

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I can't speak for every poster on this thread, but I can hope the title of it will prevent alot of the flaming from posters on both sides of the discussion.

(I myself was both a victim and instigator in the last Threadnaught, but as time progressed we all came to a mutual understanding of each other's perspective)

It does not seem that your views have changed.

Your current view is not to provide feedback bout something they have made no announcement of changing because it might have been changed. I suppose it does not matter to be honest in about 80 hours and 28 minutes somebody will make the information known.

I should also add the fact that I have no problem with a skill cap, if they raise the actual cap to a more reasonable amount. 1.7 Admiral skills is almost an insult.

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Now that all the trolls have gone I suppose I two will add two merits.

I won't be that person who says that I'll quit if it doesn't get changed. But as stated time, and time again. There is an OBVIOUS flaw in the current system. Being able to max out only one type of ship at the Admiral level is unacceptable. I also agree that the whole "well.... we need to know how balanced you are" is a bunch of nonsense as the example above posted.

There is a cap to how good you can be with a certain type of ship, and a certain type of weapon. This cap exists no matter how many skill points we can get.

At the same time, the future and Starfleet is about bettering yourself. Why not try to be the best captain you can? Being an admiral in Starfleet, I would love to go out and learn how to pilot a new type of ship. Why should I lose the ability to pilot the old type?

I feel the whole skill cap thing is just to conform to other MMO's.

A developer response we have NOT seen is whether or not that the commonly quoted ability to only upgrade 16 Admiral level skills is true. And assuming it is true, I would LOVE to see a develop try to justify why that is an appropriate amount of skills.

I believe the most likely situation is the devs know there is a balance issue, and they are working on it. That would also be a welcome response. But that generic "hah ha! It's on the main page so we addressed the issue" comment about skills is not enough of a response.

It is not 16 Admiral skills its only 1.7 skills.

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It does not seem that your views have changed.

Your current view is not to provide feedback bout something they have made no announcement of changing because it might have been changed. I suppose it does not matter to be honest in about 80 hours and 28 minutes somebody will make the information known.

I should also add the fact that I have no problem with a skill cap, if they raise the actual cap to a more reasonable amount. 1.7 Admiral skills is almost an insult.

Probably be less than 80hrs if someone plats straight threw. 80 was avg time they said it would take. Someone who is focused on hitting Max tank will do it in probably 50-60 I would say.

[Archived Post]

It does not seem that your views have changed.

Your current view is not to provide feedback bout something they have made no announcement of changing because it might have been changed. I suppose it does not matter to be honest in about 80 hours and 28 minutes somebody will make the information known.

I should also add the fact that I have no problem with a skill cap, if they raise the actual cap to a more reasonable amount. 1.7 Admiral skills is almost an insult.

My view of an appreciation of a skill cap hasn't changed, however I do see the problem with 1.7 tier 5 skills as is. I had expected the progressions would have changed or addressed in a patch note. Even said I'd eat my own words in the last thread.

[Archived Post]

:( I think the best way to get a dev response in this thread is going to have to resort to

"I can't get my Wrath of Kahn costume or Mirror Universe uniform"

you can always ask where your borg is :)

[Archived Post]

Can you link the Dev QA about the skill points from the previous posts? I'd like to link it in my initial post.

NM, found it. Editing first post.

I'm not talking about those two you have linked. I'm not sure the thread exists unless you can find it in google cache, since it appears the beta forums were deleted? It was a HUGE thread that starting something like "people will quit over the skill cap change." I can't remember the exact title.

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I'm not talking about those two you have linked. I'm not sure the thread exists unless you can find it in google cache, since it appears the beta forums were deleted? It was a HUGE thread that starting something like "people will quit over the skill cap change." I can't remember the exact title.

OH you mean this one's prequel? With alot of those same posters (Such as myself) posting in this very same thread.


Hi, I'm Ninjalo311, pleasure to meet you. You'll notice the Hammer post is also linked from that thread.

Edit: I COULD just link the 6578 posts, (Which I was the last one to post in before forum wipe) but really, it's in the archived area, and alot of that will already be posted here, or linked in the 1st post of this thread, for easy direction of new readers.

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OH you mean this one's prequel? With alot of those same posters (Such as myself) posting in this very same thread.


Hi, I'm Ninjalo311, pleasure to meet you. You'll notice the Hammer post is also linked from that thread.

Edit: I COULD just link the 6377 posts, (Which I was the last one to post in before forum wipe) but really, it's in the archived area, and alot of that will already be posted here, or linked in the 1st post of the forum, for easy direction of new readers.

Yes I saw both your links. In the thread I am referring to Cryptic did finally respond. It is neither one of the two you have linked. It was quite a lengthy explanation of why the change was made. The entire thread went on for about 100+ pages.

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Yes I saw both your links. In the thread I am referring to Cryptic did finally respond. It is neither one of the two you have linked. It was quite a lengthy explanation of why the change was made. The entire thread went on for about 100+ pages.

Got it added.

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Add me to the, no problem with a cap, but either the trees need to be reworked so they make sense, or the cap has to be increased beyound 60,700.

This has to be a hot topic with Cryptic. Frankly I am somewhat shocked that 2 of the biggest hotbutton issues among the community in my opinion (skill cap and auto fire) are never addressed or even mentioned. Hell even if they want to tell us that it is their design choice in both matters and they aren't going to change it, that is fine, but some response would be good.

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Got it added.

Yep Yep...the Stormshade one.

At least you are presenting all sides.

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Personally I prefer capped characters as I love to try out different builds with many alts, and classes, I have a habit of using up all my character slots with different builds, and trying out different ways of getting the best out of a class or race.

For the sudden change of mind by Cryptic though I think they are thinking about money and not the game play experience.

The only reason I see them bringing in skill cap was so the players who love to explore the other races, builds, classes would all use up your character slots with different builds then buy more character slots from the store.

With uncapped builds you can get most of what you want in a character, with capped characters you will want to try out other builds.

So to me this is just a marketing ploy by Cryptic to encourage the players to buy character slots. I see some little nob up in an office with his facts and figures working out they will get an increase in revenue if they cap skill points as players will buy more character slots, and to be honest with the amount of posts there were in Beta forums about lack of character slots (84+ pages on one and 30+ on another that I noticed, there could have been more), they took this as an angle to earn more money out of us instead of saying "Derrr maybe we should increase them as the player base is not too happy with the very very low character slots". Sorry to mention character slots in your thread about skill cap as I know this is totally another subject, but I think the decision by Cryptic is linked between the two.

Well I really do hope that those of you that do stay and have not cancelled thier pre-orders, like 5 of us in the UK, enjoy the game and have fun, I suppose it is Star Trek after all, its just a shame that Cryptic got thier dirty hands on such a fantastic IP oppertunity.

Have fun everyone.

P.S Bogoff to the go away if you dont want to play dum dums :)

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Yep Yep...the Stormshade one.

At least you are presenting all sides.

It's only fair to both sides that a mediator post be available to present all sides of the arguement.

I'll continue to post new DEV responses or valid arguements in the first post.

EDIT: Off to bar, promise not to be belligerent later.

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I posted some simple calculations on the old forum...

the amount of skillups you can do per rank decrease to about 80-85% of the previous rank... until you hit Admiral when it drops to 35% of the previous rank...

if you had had the same decrease as before, you would have been able to max out four skills. which would have been, well.. 'better', from my perspective. I'll see if I can find the post somehow.. will edit if I do.

I just did some simple calculations... (really simple)..

using all your skillpoints to their fullest, you get:
(numbers in parenthesis are how many times in total you get to skill up).

at Tier 1: you can have 7 skills up to 9. and one up to 5. (68)
at Tier 2: you can have 6 at 9. 1 at 6. (60)
at Tier 3: you can have 5 at 9. 1 at 8. (53)
at Tier 4: 5 at 9. (45)
at Tier 5: 1 at 9. 1 at 7. (16)

each tier, drops the number of skillups to 85-88% of the prior tier...
Except tier 5, which drops it to 35% of tier 4.

If they'd kept with up with the curve till the very end, and given tier 5 ~80% of the tier 4, we'd have had 4 skills exactly at Admiral. which would have been excellent.

just saying.
(cross-posted it in a discussion on another forum).

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Just starting the thread with a title that won't assume everyone posting in the thread is quitting. Haven't logged in to see if there have been any changes yet. Assume this thread will be hammered on the front page till those posting below have had their curiosity and concerns addressed.

Edit: I shall link here the epic "Hammer Post" as the previous "threadnaught" called it. This is a long post with the concerns the Anti-Cap/60700 Cap people will be referring to. This will help to alleviate all the "Well I have no idea where they are coming from" posts.

If you need others linked, please PM with post information, and I will be happy to add.


Hammer Post (http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=1678307&postcount=5294)

Al Rivera Skill Discussion (http://www.startrekonline.com/node/956)

Stormshade Response in original thread (http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=1549072&postcount=271)

Massively.com Post (http://www.massively.com/2010/01/28/captains-log-the-great-skill-cap-debate/)

I replied on that website. Though not exactly a fair comparison, now that I look back at my math *sigh* But, I was angry at how the article write didn't recognize the importance of the debate, and presumed to say that it is no big deal when a company makes a huge change. Any other MMO doing that would have been lambasted. Is there some "good ol' boy" network at play here? Does someone at Cryptic know the guy that wrote that, and asked him to down play the issue so we'd have to say "aw, geez, yeah, I guess our argument was nothing after all"...pfft.


I agree, as stated in the epic thread you speak of, that it's natural to presume that cap's are somehow a required mechanic. Every other MMO being your bar means that you will always expect status quo, however. The upset is two fold

1) Why did they change a mechanic after 2 years of development only 1 week before release?

2) Why after 2 years of developing said mechanic did you suddenly decide that you couldn't make it work, and put a cap on a system that numerically, and logistically will not function in a cap system?

I appreciate, and concede that WoW in space is a playable game. I do find it disappointing when a company simply changes their mechanics, and meagerly explains that "'cause every other MMO does it, it's ok". But, more to the point, I'd at least like a game that is designed for a cap, ala WoW, et al.


Using your comparison, however, let's debate one point in your logic:

You said (RE: Eve:OL) "The huge time requirement is a skill cap all its own..."

The point, and purpose of the design is the reason for the disappointment the change was made.

-----------
Cryptic:...Were a player to invest the minimum-required skill points to reach Admiral, he'd be about half-developed in terms of a maxed character, though in terms of time it'd take significantly longer to completely max out each available skill.
(sounds a lot like the mechanics for Eve "takes a long time" eh?)

SOURCE:
http://www.warcry.com/news/view/94807-Star-Trek-Online-Player-Progression-Explained
-----------
dudewhat: Once you have maxed out your character completely how will progression work? Is there a[n] endgame for Star Trek Online? If so how will progression work once you have reached the endgame?

Cryptic:The additional skills don’t necessarily make you more powerful on a linear scale; it’s more about increasing your options and flexibility within the game

SOURCE:
http://www.startrekonline.com/node/453
---------

Does it mean I won't play? Heck no. I bought a lifetime sub, and after all this, still decided to keep it. Why? Because I think, eventually, the game will be fun. The problem will, as you will discover, once you get to Rear Admiral grade 5 (or 10, depending on whether they support level 45, or 50...) realize that you can only have 1 full spec skill out of 19 skill possibles in any given class.

Again. Design, and mechanics. How many talents are you choosing from in a given tree in WoW? 6? 2 major per 3 skill trees? Each class in STO /is/ the tree. Eng/Sci/Tac, and sub skill per tree is 19, so 19x3=57 possible of which you can have 2.

Doesn't add up, does it?


Reviewing what I wrote, truth is, I should have said 19 versus 2, rather than 57 versus two in order to keep it a fair comparison *grrr* and I can't edit my comment... oh well.

I believe we have to create a new image, though. We should tout this more directly as "Current skill system inappropriately designed ; please redo" and drop the tainted "skill cap" part of the conversation. So many people still think this is /about/ the skill cap or not debate. I don't recall ever saying this is a requirement. I've always maintained that I hate Cryptic didn't have the patience/vision to make that system work, but that was my OPINION on the matter. In the end, we all want the system to just work.



----------

Say no to Tier 5 RA Skills! Oh wait, that's what the skill point accumulation already does by forcing me to level through spending points.

Let's have it. Make it just like WoW, guys.

MY OPINION:
Drop this facade that says I can diversify into other skill sets, and give me purely eng based items, and offensive, or defensive skill sets within, and a set number of points that I can spend to max out one tree, or the other of the two, and take away my ability to buy a science ship. I will never fly it, and it's wasting money, and game time. All you'll do in the end is upset the guy that spent a week saving monies to buy one to discover it just looks pretty, and he can't really use it.

DATA FACT:
19 skill choices, of which 2 I can get leveled to anything worth having... OR, if you spend too many points between Tier 1-3, guess what? You will NOT have enough points to spend in Tier 4 to actually GET Tier 5. This means you will NOT rank up. The system design to level needs to no longer be tied to points spent if you maintain a cap.


--------
MY OPINION:
Cryptic will be a shiny knight riding in, on a white horse, and at the last minute, save the day adding enough content, and raising the points system (as stated by StormShade, if you'll recall) in such a way that this WHOLE argument was a giant waste of my time...

IF that happens...Cryptic, I will go spend $100 in your CO Store on frivolous nonsensical toys, and LOVE it.

...I am really holding out for this one, folks...honestly...

[Archived Post]

I believe we have to create a new image, though. We should tout this more directly as "Current skill system inappropriately designed ; please redo" and drop the tainted "skill cap" part of the conversation. So many people still think this is /about/ the skill cap or not debate. I don't recall ever saying this is a requirement. I've always maintained that I hate Cryptic didn't have the patience/vision to make that system work, but that was my OPINION on the matter. In the end, we all want the system to just work.


Nice to see we're in agreement on adjustment of the current system. Please accept my humble apologies in regards to any hostility we may have had towards one another. Going forward this thread is really all about how we ALL are striving to work towards a more balanced and focused skill system we can all agree benefits the players.

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Nice to see we're in agreement on adjustment of the current system. Please accept my humble apologies in regards to any hostility we may have had towards one another. Going forward this thread is really all about how we ALL are striving to work towards a more balanced and focused skill system we can all agree benefits the players.

I also agree if we can't have it as originally intended then the devs need to balance the skill system to work within the confines of a skill cap system.

I would prefer the original capless plan but me thinks they have money on the mind and will insist on a skill cap (even though it will mean FAR more work for the devs hehe oh well tough poopie...it's their fault)

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Unlimited skill points is a bad idea; no matter how you shake it. It will only benefit the power levelers, destroys the element of choice with consequences and kills character progression when new content comes out. There are no benefits to have unlimited skill points and I think Cryptic realizes it.

Seriously, I think the skill cap conversation needs to end. Have a little faith in the guys who get paid good, and I mean darn good money to design video games.

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I also agree if we can't have it as originally intended then the devs need to balance the skill system to work within the confines of a skill cap system.

I would prefer the original capless plan but me thinks they have money on the mind and will insist on a skill cap (even though it will mean FAR more work for the devs hehe oh well tough poopie...it's their fault)

Although I would much rather not have a cap on skills, I'd be OK with a skill cap in the skills are redesigned for it.

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Unlimited skill points is a bad idea; no matter how you shake it. It will only benefit the power levelers, destroys the element of choice with consequences and kills character progression when new content comes out. There are no benefits to have unlimited skill points and I think Cryptic realizes it.

Seriously, I think the skill cap conversation needs to end. Have a little faith in the guys who get paid good, and I mean darn good money to design video games.

Maxing out all skill points do not make one overpowered. They just offer more options. Each ship class, weapon and bridge officer type, requires a certain set of skills. If you have all skills maxed out and are flying in an escort armed with disruptor cannons, you're only using the skills which are needed to pilot an escort and use disroptor cannons. Does it really make you overpowered if you can fly back to the station and switch into a science vessel loaded with phaser beams? What if you have 2 alts?

It just gives you more options, that's all.

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A good questions for the devs is, if this is a cap set in stone for the time being, when can we expect a skill cap increase in an upcoming expansion? Are we going to have to wait 6 months? A year? Do we have the right to know when we may be able to round out that 7 point skill to a 9?

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Maxing out all skill points do not make one overpowered. They just offer more options. Each ship class, weapon and bridge officer type, requires a certain set of skills. If you have all skills maxed out and are flying in an escort armed with disruptor cannons, you're only using the skills which are needed to pilot an escort and use disroptor cannons. Does it really make you overpowered if you can fly back to the station and switch into a science vessel loaded with phaser beams? What if you have 2 alts?

It just gives you more options, that's all.

Uhh . . . yeah they do. I can max out Energy and Projectile weapons to full in an uncapped system. That improves both weapon types I use on a Cruiser. That eliminates choice.

Then, I can max out all of my engineering skills. Again, it removes a choice without consequences. Instead of being asked to pick between DPS and Survivability, I can just max everything.

Then Star Ship Operations; I can max all of those skills, instead chosing to focus on one school; and dabble in another. A ship with maxed everything would be much more powerful than a casual players 60700 Admiral build.

Uncapped only benefits the power levelers; it removes choice without consequences it destroys progression through new content.

Can you image a new expansion coming out with a new rank available. But, since you have already spent enough skill points on an uncapped system, you are automatically ranked up immedietly? What if they introduce multiple tiers of ships at one time? Again, you are automatically ranked up to top tier. It makes no sense in the realm of progression with content in an MMORPG. It doesn't even make sense for a RPG to begin with since it eliminates the idea of choices with consequences in character progression.

Not only that, but once you get to admiral level; getting 800 - 1000 SP a mission, you could just max all of your Lieutenant and LT. CDR skills in a day's worth of play. CDR would take another week.

No skill cap makes no sense whatsoever. It would really break this game, in more ways than one.

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Uhh . . . yeah they do. I can max out Energy and Projectile weapons to full in an uncapped system. That improves both weapon types I use on a Cruiser. That eliminates choice.

Then, I can max out all of my engineering skills. Again, it removes a choice without consequences. Instead of being asked to pick between DPS and Survivability, I can just max everything.

Then Star Ship Operations; I can max all of those skills, instead chosing to focus on one school; and dabble in another. A ship with maxed everything would be much more powerful than a casual players 60700 Admiral build.

Uncapped only benefits the power levelers; it removes choice without consequences it destroys progression through new content.

Can you image a new expansion coming out with a new rank available. But, since you have already spent enough skill points on an uncapped system, you are automatically ranked up immedietly? What if they introduce multiple tiers of ships at one time? Again, you are automatically ranked up to top tier. It makes no sense in the realm of progression with content in an MMORPG. It doesn't even make sense for a RPG to begin with since it eliminates the idea of choices with consequences in character progression.

Not only that, but once you get to admiral level; getting 800 - 1000 SP a mission, you could just max all of your Lieutenant and LT. CDR skills in a day's worth of play. CDR would take another week.

No skill cap makes no sense whatsoever. It would really break this game, in more ways than one.

So you think that only allowing 60700 skill points will give you a choice? If anything, it restricts you onto a narrow path. Once people figure out a few optimal builds, everyone will be using them. It looks good on paper: I have to make a choice between damage or survivability, but when you realize that in most situations, one is better than the other, what's the point of using the less effective one? Kind of like ground skills. Who in their right mind would spend points on ground skills if it's only like 30% of the game?

As far as the whole expansion thing, Cryptic chose to use skill points as form of XP, which was a silly move. Instead of fixing it by unlinking skill points from leveling, they chose to severely limit the players. 1 full admiral skill and 7/9 in another? Really?!

The worst part is that they did not redesign the skills to work within a capped system. There are still skills which are only good for 10 levels and some weapon skill costs make no sense at all.

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So you think that only allowing 60700 skill points will give you a choice? If anything, it restricts you onto a narrow path. Once people figure out a few optimal builds, everyone will be using them.

As far as the whole expansion thing, Cryptic chose to use skill points as form of XP, which was a silly move. Instead of fixing it by unlinking skill points from leveling, they chose to severely limit the players. 1 full admiral skill and 7/9 in another? Really?!

The worst part is that they did not redesign the skills to work within a capped system. There are still skills which are only good for 10 levels and some weapon skill costs make no sense at all.

While I think that 60700 is too low, its better than capless. Also; it will give you plenty of choices, just important ones which make you pick between different pros and cons. Also . . . this game is very hard to come up with, "LEET BUILD!" But if you think about it, without a CAP there will only be one "LEET BUILD" and that is max everything.

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While I think that 60700 is too low, its better than capless. Also; it will give you plenty of choices, just important ones which make you pick between different pros and cons. Also . . . this game is very hard to come up with, "LEET BUILD!" But if you think about it, without a CAP there will only be one "LEET BUILD" and that is max everything.

The thing is though, that skills in this game are not like skills in other games. The choice, comes in the form of which ship you're flying, which weapons your using and which BOs you have and what abilities they have.

I see the skills as equivalent to crew ability. Captains don't pilot ships and don't shoot phasers. There are no regulations in Starfleet which state that your ship can't have a good engineer if you already have a good pilot.

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:( I think the best way to get a dev response in this thread is going to have to resort to

"I can't get my Wrath of Kahn costume or Mirror Universe uniform"

Wait, putting in the WoK code doesn't work anymore?

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Wait, putting in the WoK code doesn't work anymore?

It does but apparently the uniforms will become available when the game officially launches.

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To start with, I, like most others, would be more than happy with any fix to the skill tree as long as it was a fix. No need to totally remove the cap, that is simply the solution that I personally prefer. I would, however, go with an increase in the cap.

That said:



Uhh . . . yeah they do. I can max out Energy and Projectile weapons to full in an uncapped system. That improves both weapon types I use on a Cruiser. That eliminates choice.


You can in a capped system as well. Actually, you would be silly NOT to for the following reasons:

1.) EVERYONE uses those, no matter what you are doing.
2.) Skills fall into these categories:
a. Ground
b. Ship
c. Weapons
d. BO related

So, even if you, for WHATEVER reason decided you wanted to gimp yourself by not taking the weapons skills (in a capped system), you would be overflooded with BO skills...more than you could put on your ship at once and utilize. Hmm...

So yea, that happens in both.

Specifically to:


That eliminates choice.


It does not eliminate choice, it changes where the choice takes place.
Skill Cap places the choice on the skill you chose. They will also dictate the ships loadout...so no choice there.
No Cap places the option on the ship you leave spacedock with along with the ships loadout including all slots and BOs.

I would say that gives you a lot more choices on a much more frequent basis.


Then, I can max out all of my engineering skills. Again, it removes a choice without consequences. Instead of being asked to pick between DPS and Survivability, I can just max everything.


First part - I agree. Second part, I disagree.

There are still consequences. I do not care what you do with that cruiser, you still can not compete in DPS. It can not use cannons, end of story. I want you to go ahead, get a cruiser, slap any configuration you want to on there, max out those DPS skills, and go compete in DPS with an escort. You aren't double dipping there, you are just being more viable.

Also, have you noticed the aggro management in this game? It is heavily dependant upon dps. Gimp your cruiser and see what you can do with that survivability....

Same goes for an escort. Look, I had an engy cpt / escort ship in OB and an engy cap / cruiser in CB. No comparison, the engy helps out the escort, but its nothing even remotely close to the cruiser. End of story. No amount of skilling would change that.


Then Star Ship Operations; I can max all of those skills, instead chosing to focus on one school; and dabble in another. A ship with maxed everything would be much more powerful than a casual players 60700 Admiral build.


The skills you mention here....I think we can agree that they effect BO's. Yes?

If I Have all skills maxed, and you have none maxed, and we are both in the same ship, how many more BOs do I get to carry than you do? How many more BO skills do I get than you?

Zero.

I will be more effective than you with those skills, yes. In the terms of the cooldowns it takes. However, that is using the example of you having no skills maxed. You can limit yourself to only the BO skills you wanted for your BOs, and I could have all my skills maxed.

You take your BOs, I take mine. We have the same number of BOs, the same number of available skills to use, and we are equally effective in how we use those skills. Yet, I have more points invested in BO skills than you do, but somehow I am no more powerful than you are. See where I am going with this ?


Can you image a new expansion coming out with a new rank available. But, since you have already spent enough skill points on an uncapped system, you are automatically ranked up immedietly? What if they introduce multiple tiers of ships at one time? Again, you are automatically ranked up to top tier. It makes no sense in the realm of progression with content in an MMORPG. It doesn't even make sense for a RPG to begin with since it eliminates the idea of choices with consequences in character progression.


I am too tired to go back through and read, but there were several creative solutions to this mentioned many times. Further, I would say this:

You seem to have a great deal of confidence in Cryptic. Did you know that they originally designed this game to have no skill point cap ? Now, if they designed the game with no skill point cap, and said game was an MMO, don't you think that they would have been smart enough to have not designed something as core to the game as the skill tree without seeing something as fundamentally WRONG with it as "OMG, we wont be able to release expansions!" prior to the last week of OB ?

I think so.


Not only that, but once you get to admiral level; getting 800 - 1000 SP a mission, you could just max all of your Lieutenant and LT. CDR skills in a day's worth of play. CDR would take another week.


Perhaps, but it by then you will already have a preferred loadout of <stuff> on your ship with the relevant skills maxed. So getting all those other skills do nothing for your usual loadout. Having them only means that now you can play around with other tactics that before were closed off to you.


No skill cap makes no sense whatsoever. It would really break this game, in more ways than one.


I disagree on a fundamental level. What we have right now is a broken skill tree. Cap, no cap, raise the cap...whatever. It just needs to get fixed.

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While I think that 60700 is too low, its better than capless. Also; it will give you plenty of choices, just important ones which make you pick between different pros and cons. Also . . . this game is very hard to come up with, "LEET BUILD!" But if you think about it, without a CAP there will only be one "LEET BUILD" and that is max everything.

The common leet build will revolve around a T5 ship that fires phasers. We know that is obvious.

Without a cap it people will be flying a T5 ship...that fires phasers, but then they could actually swap the phasers for something other random energy weapon.

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The common leet build will revolve around a T5 ship that fires phasers. We know that is obvious.

Without a cap it people will be flying a T5 ship...that fires phasers, but then they could actually swap the phasers for something other random energy weapon.

I'm sure there will still be FoTM builds. A capless system doesn't stop that. It just means that, should you want to go to that new build, you won't have to respec. Just change your ship / loadout.

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But respecs are coming in game, and possibly in the c-store. So it's a part of this game's future. The point is to prevent the need to respec from happenig, however with any MMO, the min/maxers will find a hole in the dev's intended plans and will be popular one month and nerfed the next. This is the cycle of MMOs.

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This hadn't occurred to me until just now. Everyone wants an example of a capless game (other than Eve) where one can max out in a reasonable amount of time

Planetside.

They now have the Battle Rank (level that decides which "skills" one may chose) set high enough for a player to obtain every skill in the game.

The caveat there is the same as here. While one may have all skills, one can only do so much at the same time. Thus, having all skills is not really better, just alleviates the need to respec when you want to try something new.

Planetside is still active?

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This hadn't occurred to me until just now. Everyone wants an example of a capless game (other than Eve) where one can max out in a reasonable amount of time

Planetside.

They now have the Battle Rank (level that decides which "skills" one may chose) set high enough for a player to obtain every skill in the game.

The caveat there is the same as here. While one may have all skills, one can only do so much at the same time. Thus, having all skills is not really better, just alleviates the need to respec when you want to try something new.

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I just want to know if the devs will actually acknowledge that we understand that the skill tree is broken and that we need something done about it. Because lets face it we are the players and between us we know when something is broken in a game. Either they are....

1. Ignoring us and hoping eventually we will put up and shut up while still taking our subs

2. They are freaking out and thinking omg boys what on earth are we gonna do to sort this mess?

3. Working on it

Either way I think it would be the decent thing considering we ARE paying their wages to have some kind of response to this out and out mess (thoughts of a mass subscription strike comes to mind lol)

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I just want to know if the devs will actually acknowledge that we understand that the skill tree is broken and that we need something done about it. Because lets face it we are the players and between us we know when something is broken in a game. Either they are....

1. Ignoring us and hoping eventually we will put up and shut up while still taking our subs

2. They are freaking out and thinking omg boys what on earth are we gonna do to sort this mess?

3. Working on it

Either way I think it would be the decent thing considering we ARE paying their wages to have some kind of response to this out and out mess (thoughts of a mass subscription strike comes to mind lol)

And thats the point of this thread, to continue to point out flaws that we the player base currently see with the tier 5 skill point layout. If this is intended, when will we be able to balance out those points with additional increases?

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And thats the point of this thread, to continue to point out flaws that we the player base currently see with the tier 5 skill point layout.

Completely agreed. My new sig is pretty much my opinion on the whole mess... Just a shame that the old thread reached a whopping 658 pages without a proper answer from the Devs :(

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First, my thanks to those who researched into the specifics of how the current cap allows one to diversify their training. I, personally, wasn't aware of what the actual number was nor how it truly affected player builds (most notably at the higher ranks).

Once I saw the actual limit as presented in this thread and remembered the reason Cryptic stated for the cap implementation, it became pretty clear to me what I believe the intention is. Expansions will most likely allow a player to raise the cap by so much per expansion, eventually getting them to the point where they can max out considerably more skills. Given that the design for maxing out a character was in place long ago, I'd just have to assume this is how they'd approach it.

I'm a little dismayed by that notion, personally. However, as long as we see either some sort of confirmation in time that either the cost for higher-rank skills will be re-worked, the cap will be reworked, or that expansions will indeed allow for more skill points to be distributed, I'll be alright with the notion of a cap.

Personally, I too would like to see the cap removed (especially in light of the math I've seen posted). However, I'm perfectly willing to accept a cap so long as the current system is re-balanced or we know for certain the ability to advance beyond what is currently available will indeed become available. Out of the two, I'd actually like to see a balance of both ideas implemented: re-balancing the costs/cap and allowing future additions to unlock even more abilities for our characters.

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Add me to the, no problem with a cap, but either the trees need to be reworked so they make sense, or the cap has to be increased beyound 60,700.

This has to be a hot topic with Cryptic. Frankly I am somewhat shocked that 2 of the biggest hotbutton issues among the community in my opinion (skill cap and auto fire) are never addressed or even mentioned. Hell even if they want to tell us that it is their design choice in both matters and they aren't going to change it, that is fine, but some response would be good.

And we who don't really want a cap, agree with you. The 60,700 is far too low, and we would have been pleased with the skill points that it took to get to RA 5 in Closed Beta.

[Archived Post]

What about this as an idea?

We all are aware of the legendary save trek campaign that brought TOS back for one more series? Well seeing as petitions and the like are against forum rules can we not organise a similar thing in order to get the message across? Totally legal and above board. Something that Cryptic/Atari cannot possibly dismiss?

I assume that this would break no rules? Can anyone confirm this?

[Archived Post]

I am for a cap BUT they need to fix it so Admirals are not nerfed.

New toons coming out of the tutorial get 15 skill points to spend. Which is pretty close to what Admirals will get in total. That needs to be rethought and reworked -- the sooner the better.

[Archived Post]

Honestly.... Like I already said it before in a similar thread....

1) Remove the skill cap. This game was made for players to max out their skills overtime so they got something to do when hitting max 'level'.

2) Or if you Cryptic are so bloody insistent on having a cap.... RAISE THE CAP to 105,000 - 120,000 skill points!

3) Or implement a system without a cap at all, BUT makes sure that things take longer and longer time to progress. Such as when you are Lieutenant, all skills cost 100 points in the LT tree, right? When you hit Lieutenant Commander, not only should the skills in Lt. Cmdr. tree cost 200, but also all Lieutenant skills should also cost 200. Then from there when you hit Commander, both Lt and Lt Cmdr skills you want to learn cost 300 and so on.

So when you do hit Admiral, all skills cost 500 to level up and that would give players ALOT of things to do, even repeating exploration and PvP missions so they can grow in skills gradually. This would benefit Cryptic and the players, since players can still max out completely, yet give Cryptic the time needed to get in new content, like Rear Admiral Upper skills/ships/ect and so on.

[Archived Post]

Cryptic's given reason for the skill cap was to keep there from being a problem with people being instantly to the max level when releasing an expansion. And truly this would be a bit of a problem.

However, in implementing a skill cap now, they have made a "later" problem that likely would have required a kludgey fix into a "now" problem that they will have to deal with or have disgruntled customers, which, considering the work that needs to be done now to get STO shipshape, was a boneheaded move, strategically.

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Zalzidrax... Perhaps that's their intention. But 60,700 is DEBILITATING and completely arm chopping, don't believe me? Try to make a good spec with this calculator and you will see why people are so angry at this.

http://sto-builder.binarybit.ch/index.php

Even with careful selection, you can only get one admiral skill to max (9 skill rank) and another to 6-7 skill ranks (which I will abbreviate SR for now).

[Archived Post]

Zalzidrax... Perhaps that's their intention. But 60,700 is DEBILITATING and completely arm chopping, don't believe me? Try to make a good spec with this calculator and you will see why people are so angry at this.

http://sto-builder.binarybit.ch/index.php

Even with careful selection, you can only get one admiral skill to max (9 skill rank) and another to 6-7 skill ranks (which I will abbreviate SR for now).

Added the character creator in the first post.

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That's good.. Hopefully that will help with people realizing how limiting the cap really is...

And why is noone from Cryptic answering our questions? Why are they keeping us in the dark? Why wont they confirm or deny about the 60,700 skill points (unless they already have)? Do they even look at the forums anymore?

[Archived Post]

That's good.. Hopefully that will help with people realizing how limiting the cap really is...

And why is noone from Cryptic answering our questions? Why are they keeping us in the dark? Why wont they confirm or deny about the 60,700 skill points (unless they already have)? Do they even look at the forums anymore?

They are very active on the forums. Just mostly in unimportant threads. They are usually johnny on the spot to shut down the "bad" ones, too. *Note, some of those really do need shutting down, just stating a fact.

However, at this point in time, I hope they are NOT on the forums because they are all working very hard to get the servers back online. Those forum mods should be bringing the devs / network engineers / IT guys some snacks / drinks while they work or somethin. =)

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Apparently auto-fire is more important to people than balanced skill points.

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Meh i like the cap. Could there be more points included? No i'm good with the current level. NOW that being said if there was say certain raid missions that awarded points that reset weekly that would be nice. but i personally think a skill cap is needed for future expacs.

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Meh i like the cap. Could there be more points included? No i'm good with the current level. NOW that being said if there was say certain raid missions that awarded points that reset weekly that would be nice. but i personally think a skill cap is needed for future expacs.

It's not a problem with the cap, it's problem with the uneven tier 5 distribution.

[Archived Post]

Meh i like the cap. Could there be more points included? No i'm good with the current level. NOW that being said if there was say certain raid missions that awarded points that reset weekly that would be nice. but i personally think a skill cap is needed for future expacs.

Even if it means that having a cap that is DEBILITATINGLY low??

60,700 skill points is just too LOW. You can barely max two admiral skills... out of 19. It isn't even remotely reasonable, no matter what excuses are being made... including future expansions.

[Archived Post]

Even if it means that having a cap that is DEBILITATINGLY low??

60,700 skill points is just too LOW. You can barely max two admiral skills... out of 19. It isn't even remotely reasonable, no matter what excuses are being made... including future expansions.

no kidding. Forget about getting the later weapons. everyone's going to be a phaser/disruptor quantum/photon boat. Because those are the only skills that are worth the points put into them.

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Apparently auto-fire is more important to people than balanced skill points.

Seriously, how much more autofire do you need then space bar?

Is someone's thumb THAT out of shape?

no kidding. Forget about getting the later weapons. everyone's going to be a phaser/disruptor quantum/photon boat. Because those are the only skills that are worth the points put into them.

That's what disappoints me the most, I would love to try the later weapons out, just to see something different from what I've been using while leveling, but if they underperform as much as I fear they will without maxing the skill like I do with phasers/disrupters there's no point in using them.

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Seriously, how much more autofire do you need then space bar?

Is someone's thumb THAT out of shape?





personally, spamming the buttons in beta were annoying. for phasers, autofire is sorely needed. cannons less so as with escort i feel its more along the lines of attack runs. torps have no business on autofire.

but of course, just my opinion.


id still love to hear some feedback about the cap from a dev though......

[Archived Post]

Just thought I'd bump this b/c I think it is important.

[Archived Post]

hope not. I for one support the skill cap, Im looking forward to seeing the variety of different builds for ships, ground, etc. If anything at all, the only thing I think should be changed, is you can only put a few points in as admiral, should be a bit more. other than that, no reason NOT to have a skill cap. I cant image wow with infinate talent points, EQ with unlimited AA, LOTRO being able to equip every trait O_O

how do people still not look at the current skill system and not get it was designed to be capless? seriously, WoW? of course in WoW that would be pointless. thats why WoW has at least 3 trees per class and uber ammount of classes to play. PLUS they let you make 1 of each so you can try them all eventually. then also most classes there have their own starting zones and thru the game some have class-specific quests.

in STO? nothing. all quests r the same no matter what THREE classes you choose. Even the trees are the same. Thats why they only allow TWO character slots and later 1 more unlocked. Its so easy. yet people are so easily sold these days by the PR department.

Same price as WoW and half the game. and yes, thats VANILLA not current.

Is there another mmo you want to bring up now?

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how do people still not look at the current skill system and not get it was designed to be capless? seriously, WoW? of course in WoW that would be pointless. thats why WoW has at least 3 trees per class and uber ammount of classes to play. PLUS they let you make 1 of each so you can try them all eventually. then also most classes there have their own starting zones and thru the game some have class-specific quests.

in STO? nothing. all quests r the same no matter what THREE classes you choose. Even the trees are the same. Thats why they only allow TWO character slots and later 1 more unlocked. Its so easy. yet people are so easily sold these days by the PR department.

Same price as WoW and half the game. and yes, thats VANILLA not current.

Is there another mmo you want to bring up now?

Everyone here is just looking for tier 5 balance. There's not going to be a change about the skill cap being removed at this point.

You can always buy more character slots, or still get the annual rate if you don't want to pay lifetime for extras. The limited character slots will probably increase in time with veteran rewards, due to previous cryptic/coh model for an example. (I can't recall if this was before cryptic sold the game to NCsoft or not).

As it is though, an RA is limited in getting even 2 fully capped skills in tier 5, and to many thats something that should be changed.

We also now have a confirmed Commander rank player spotted, maybe higher, so in about 2 to 3 days, we'll be hearing from someone who's at that level and will be in favor of this post with stats and possibly vids. (go go FRAPS)

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There's not going to be a change about the skill cap being removed at this point.


As of right now, the only certainty is that they have not responded to tell us anything at all.

The only reasonable conclusion one could draw from that, if you were to draw one at all, is that they intend to do nothing at all, and just let the tree stay broken (for whatever reason) and leave us in the dark.

[Archived Post]

I will say that I think the tree needs a little reworking to be a tad bit more accomdating towards trying out the later weapons (make them all T4) but I really like the low skill cap right now. I think people are just running to the hills b/c the game took a major swing towards the hardcore (one that I'm a big fan of). For RA, add enough ranks where we can max out two skills, but that's all. RA should be very specialized abilities that you key in on to complete a build. Being able to max one of them plus your T5 cruiser is adequate.

Due to the fact the we are forced to choose what we are going to specialize in, two captains are not likely to have the same set-up in skills perhaps in an entire zone (which is truly innovative in its own right). You could have a groung combat specialized engineering captain who is mediocre at space combat or vice-versa, or perhaps a blend of both.

I don't want an unlimited skill cap, it takes the fun out of it if we're all playing with the same board in the end. I like having to make hard decisions, and find another 4 people who have made simliiar tough decisions on their builds for us to come together and do that high-end raid content. I enjoy running into a wall about tanking, dps, healing, etc. and crunching number afer number trying to eek out the optimum setup.

I will caveat that many of the builds need to be viable at the end game (not necessarily for each raid-isode at first, but provide people with different content where varying builds have the ability to have end game conen). Some builds should NOT be viable at the end game, however, just like with many other MMO's. But to counter the concrete example and provide another one:

No it's not cool to have three captains who are all maxed out and just switch weapons to provide variance. You are all still stepping on each other's toes (you're all DPS'ing). Now however, say you get with your friends and you want to do a really hard top end mission that has rough ground and space components. You'd get a solid space DPS, Heals/Buffs/Debuffs; Space tank; Ground Specialist. Each Officer branch could fill several of the listed roles if spec'd right, providing the ability to make numerous viable teams that are all unique in form. That is cool!

I say let it ride and let's see how it plays out at end game content viability before decisions are made on needing more skill points. For now, I personally am voting it as "working as intended"

[Archived Post]

I can not believe that the game being more "hardcore" is worth being able to only pilot one Tier 5 ship well. What's the point of 8 ship spots if you can only fly 5 well?

[Archived Post]

I will say that I think the tree needs a little reworking to be a tad bit more accomdating towards trying out the later weapons (make them all T4) but I really like the low skill cap right now. I think people are just running to the hills b/c the game took a major swing towards the hardcore (one that I'm a big fan of). For RA, add enough ranks where we can max out two skills, but that's all. RA should be very specialized abilities that you key in on to complete a build. Being able to max one of them plus your T5 cruiser is adequate.

Due to the fact the we are forced to choose what we are going to specialize in, two captains are not likely to have the same set-up in skills perhaps in an entire zone (which is truly innovative in its own right). You could have a groung combat specialized engineering captain who is mediocre at space combat or vice-versa, or perhaps a blend of both.

I don't want an unlimited skill cap, it takes the fun out of it if we're all playing with the same board in the end. I like having to make hard decisions, and find another 4 people who have made simliiar tough decisions on their builds for us to come together and do that high-end raid content. I enjoy running into a wall about tanking, dps, healing, etc. and crunching number afer number trying to eek out the optimum setup.

I will caveat that many of the builds need to be viable at the end game (not necessarily for each raid-isode at first, but provide people with different content where varying builds have the ability to have end game conen). Some builds should NOT be viable at the end game, however, just like with many other MMO's. But to counter the concrete example and provide another one:

No it's not cool to have three captains who are all maxed out and just switch weapons to provide variance. You are all still stepping on each other's toes (you're all DPS'ing). Now however, say you get with your friends and you want to do a really hard top end mission that has rough ground and space components. You'd get a solid space DPS, Heals/Buffs/Debuffs; Space tank; Ground Specialist. Each Officer branch could fill several of the listed roles if spec'd right, providing the ability to make numerous viable teams that are all unique in form. That is cool!

I say let it ride and let's see how it plays out at end game content viability before decisions are made on needing more skill points. For now, I personally am voting it as "working as intended"

At no point in here have you explained, in the absolute slightest, how the current incarnation of the skill tree is not absolutely broken when it comes to weapons and ship skills.

At no point in here have you come close to refuting any of the arguments for any kind of fix.

Under what definition of "hardcore" is pigeonholing you out of options ?

Yet, you want to let it ride?

I refer you to the Hammer Post. Reference via my sig.

[Archived Post]

I will say that I think the tree needs a little reworking to be a tad bit more accomdating towards trying out the later weapons (make them all T4) but I really like the low skill cap right now. I think people are just running to the hills b/c the game took a major swing towards the hardcore (one that I'm a big fan of). For RA, add enough ranks where we can max out two skills, but that's all. RA should be very specialized abilities that you key in on to complete a build. Being able to max one of them plus your T5 cruiser is adequate.

Due to the fact the we are forced to choose what we are going to specialize in, two captains are not likely to have the same set-up in skills perhaps in an entire zone (which is truly innovative in its own right). You could have a groung combat specialized engineering captain who is mediocre at space combat or vice-versa, or perhaps a blend of both.

I don't want an unlimited skill cap, it takes the fun out of it if we're all playing with the same board in the end. I like having to make hard decisions, and find another 4 people who have made simliiar tough decisions on their builds for us to come together and do that high-end raid content. I enjoy running into a wall about tanking, dps, healing, etc. and crunching number afer number trying to eek out the optimum setup.

I will caveat that many of the builds need to be viable at the end game (not necessarily for each raid-isode at first, but provide people with different content where varying builds have the ability to have end game conen). Some builds should NOT be viable at the end game, however, just like with many other MMO's. But to counter the concrete example and provide another one:

No it's not cool to have three captains who are all maxed out and just switch weapons to provide variance. You are all still stepping on each other's toes (you're all DPS'ing). Now however, say you get with your friends and you want to do a really hard top end mission that has rough ground and space components. You'd get a solid space DPS, Heals/Buffs/Debuffs; Space tank; Ground Specialist. Each Officer branch could fill several of the listed roles if spec'd right, providing the ability to make numerous viable teams that are all unique in form. That is cool!

I say let it ride and let's see how it plays out at end game content viability before decisions are made on needing more skill points. For now, I personally am voting it as "working as intended"

so the ground specialist is supposed to gimp himself in 70% of the game just so you can have you fun in space and still be able to do the ground mission? When you stop and look at the skill table is is rather evident that the system was design with a much higher and likely unlimited amount of skill points. In a capped system why would you place the t3-4 ship skills in the game? why would you have all theweapons on different tiers t3-t5 and a capped system with the weapons roughly balanced as to damage out put you really should not buy the t4 and t5 ones.


I seems to get the feeling that some people are again thinking that addition skill points will make you more powerful. after a total of about 85k this is not the case.

all unlimited skill points does is move the place of choosing what equipment and boff skill you will use from when you select your skill to when you outfit your ship.

The design of the ships in this game puts a hard cap on what you can get out of a wide array of skills it really doesn't matter what your phaser skill is at if you put disruptors in your weapon slots.

I still think the lowering of the cap to 45 and the skill cap is am attempt to get us to A.) buy respecs at the cash store and b.) sell us the 5 levels back in 6 months. to put it succinctly it is a cash grab buy crytic and thier owners

[Archived Post]

Due to the fact the we are forced to choose what we are going to specialize in, two captains are not likely to have the same set-up in skills perhaps in an entire zone (which is truly innovative in its own right). You could have a groung combat specialized engineering captain who is mediocre at space combat or vice-versa, or perhaps a blend of both.

I don't want an unlimited skill cap, it takes the fun out of it if we're all playing with the same board in the end. I like having to make hard decisions, and find another 4 people who have made simliiar tough decisions on their builds for us to come together and do that high-end raid content. I enjoy running into a wall about tanking, dps, healing, etc. and crunching number afer number trying to eek out the optimum setup.

Here you go: http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=89921. That's just the beginning. The very first, "which build is better" post. More to come. Pretty soon, all escort captains will have one build, all cruiser captains will have another and all science vessel captains will be crying because of the shield nerf making them utterly useless.

[Archived Post]

I still think the lowering of the cap to 45 and the skill cap is am attempt to get us to A.) buy respecs at the cash store and b.) sell us the 5 levels back in 6 months. to put it succinctly it is a cash grab buy crytic and thier owners



I would LOVE for you to be wrong. I would love it! But sadly, as cryptic is still the big hush hush about the why and when of a MAJOR game feature, we sadly have no proof to the contrary.

[Archived Post]

I seems to get the feeling that some people are again thinking that addition skill points will make you more powerful. after a total of about 85k this is not the case.

all unlimited skill points does is move the place of choosing what equipment and boff skill you will use from when you select your skill to when you outfit your ship.

The design of the ships in this game puts a hard cap on what you can get out of a wide array of skills it really doesn't matter what your phaser skill is at if you put disruptors in your weapon slots.

The worst part is that, in the paltry response this matter has recieved, Cryptic touts the ability to perform unlimited BOff training and try out all the different equipment when you reach cap as something like a consolation prize for the cap being there. The cap nullifies that by forcing you into a spec you can't adjust until you go respec-grinding (and not at all until they actually add the system).

Making such a change at the last minute and not even implementing the auxilliary features the change necessitates is sloppy, regardless of the reason. If it was really about expansions, that should have come up in the early design meetings, not at the 11th hour.

[Archived Post]

hope not. I for one support the skill cap, Im looking forward to seeing the variety of different builds for ships, ground, etc. If anything at all, the only thing I think should be changed, is you can only put a few points in as admiral, should be a bit more. other than that, no reason NOT to have a skill cap. I cant image wow with infinate talent points, EQ with unlimited AA, LOTRO being able to equip every trait O_O

Um Sir In EQ you CAN max out every AA if you grind long enough....

Anyway when I walk into a store and see signs advertising a product for X and they sneakly give me product Y I usually ***** because thats not WHAT THE SIGN SAID. Do not advertise something that you are not prepared to give, it is called false advertisement. How would you like it if your 5 dollar footlong from some random sub shop cost $9.99, especially when there are signs everywhere that say $5.

[Archived Post]

One of my biggest problem with the skill point cap is that the description of the Skills is very poor. It does not even say what is improved by a skill, it only gives examples... It does not descripe anything about the different weapon types.

[Archived Post]

One of my biggest problem with the skill point cap is that the description of the Skills is very poor. It does not even say what is improved by a skill, it only gives examples... It does not descripe anything about the different weapon types.

I forgot about that charming 'feature.' Wouldn't be half as bad if Cryptic had an official posting of skills somewhere.

[Archived Post]

I'm against the cap, people will max out what they need to do what they want on their way to Admiral, once there it's their prerogative as to how they want to spend their time.

Personally I want to get to Admiral as a Cruiser Cap, but then go back, and grind some points for maxing out the otehr ship lines, and then using all the cash I find along the way to buy ships.... Pigeon holing me into just one ship line is absurd.

I do not want a list of alts a mile long like I have in CO... I want to do it all as my one Fed, and one Klingon....

[Archived Post]

They need to increase the skillpoints cap, at the moment you can not fully specialise in one area without re specing so even if you do not cross train your still guna have to respec.....

Increase the skill cap or get rid of it completely...:rolleyes:

Or change the way it forces you to spend skill points you do not want to spend yet to level up....I hate that....:rolleyes:

Also they need to give better descriptions of each skill andwhat it does. Full clear descriptions. Some are better than others but most are a guessing game....

[Archived Post]

I would LOVE for you to be wrong. I would love it! But sadly, as cryptic is still the big hush hush about the why and when of a MAJOR game feature, we sadly have no proof to the contrary.

I would love to be wrong to but i just don't think I am. Why does any corporation exist? To make its shareholders money. The design of sto originally did not make use of a potential revenue stream. A disposal purchase in the cstore in particular. A respec from the cash store does not cause them to have to generate any artwork etc, any and all respecs bought there in CO for example are almost pure profit

[Archived Post]

I am just going to repeat some points and comments that I had made on the old boards here.

1) All weapons are, in theory, equal, yet all weapon skills are not. Specializing in phasers or disruptors is cheaper than specializing in plasma weapons.

2) If all weapons are not equal, then why even have phaser specialization skills? In that case they are a trap waiting to catch an unsuspecting victim.

3) Speaking of traps, all of the ship specialization skills are also traps except for the very first one. The second tier skills aren't so bad if someone knows what single type of ship they want to specialize in, but if you are thinking of trying different ships out to get an actual feel for how they play, then don't take any of those skills.

That, ironically, ends up with you being less skilled in all of your ships.


But I am not just complaining. I have ideas for how to remedy the situation.

1) Increase the cap. I haven't done all of the math, but at the admiral tier it would take 171 skill ranks to fill it up, at 500 points each.
We get 16 ranks. Less than 10%.

On the bright side, though, I suppose you can take out antiproton and polaron weapons, as well as chroniton and tricobalt projectiles, since everyone is avoiding those because phasers and photons are just so much cheaper to train.

2) Increase costs based on our rank, but remove the cap.

When we are tier 1, our skills cost 100 and we can choose any tier 1 skill. How about when we go up to tier 2 you increase all skill costs to 200, even the ones that we haven't taken at tier 1 yet? When we advance to tier 3, all skills cost 300 points, including those tier 1 and tier 2 skills that we haven't yet taken?

Even if you want to charge 1000 points or whatever for those skills we have tiered beyond, it would give us something to work towards.

Cryptic may have visions of us grinding gear at the endgame, but we all have less gear that interests us... If I spent my skill points to be good with phasers, or even plasma or whatever else, that is all that I want. If the cap is removed, I would possibly be more interested in finding a set of polaron weapons. And you know, since I could actually skill up polaron, I may be more inclined to grind for both the gear and the skill points to fill that skill out.


But now? No thanks. Once I have the "best" phasers or disruptors, I am good with weapons. Once I have the best consoles for my limited skills, I am good.

Do encounters become easier to balance if everyone commanding a cruiser can also command an escort and a science vessel? No, but the players are spending more time playing to fill up those skills and to get enough credits to buy those other ships.

I do not see why Cryptic would want to cut us off, and that is what I feel the cap does. It is their way of saying "okay, quit playing now and come back when we have an expansion.
People that go away sometimes stay away. Why not give us a reason to keep on logging in and playing (and paying)? :cool:

[Archived Post]

At no point in here have you explained, in the absolute slightest, how the current incarnation of the skill tree is not absolutely broken when it comes to weapons and ship skills.

At no point in here have you come close to refuting any of the arguments for any kind of fix.

Under what definition of "hardcore" is pigeonholing you out of options ?

Yet, you want to let it ride?

I refer you to the Hammer Post. Reference via my sig.

I said it needs to add more flexibility to allow people to have more weapon options...Learn to read.

People SHOULD only be able to fly 1 T5 ship to the max or a couple pretty good (if you decide to split the points). IT IS NOT PIGEONHOLING IT IS CALLED SPECIALIZATION...look up definition and get back to me. They're called choices folks, and if a game puts you in a place where you're biting your nails racking your brain trying to figure out where to put those last skillpoints, a big A+ for the dev's as they have now made those choices count.

Yes, any game with thses choices will lend itself to certain prefered builds, that's kinda how MMO's go. However, as stated in my post Dev's need to make sure several are VIABLE. Again please read posts...I know it's tough when all you do is flame. Multiple viable specs allow people to play more towards what they want and still accomplish goals.

As it stands, I don't think it's broken. All the people's arguments I think are worth looking at come from weapon and ship skill complaints. I have addressed them both in my original post. ALL other arguements on the topic I considered null (thus no need of counterarguement), I just think people are whining. I think it is now far more hardcore, with a couple tweaks (see my post again for them, go read!!!) the sysem I think could be very impressive.

EDIT: I used some harsh/petty language in here and I'm leaving it in, however, for sake of civil discussion, go read the post I put up and actually let it sink in...then read again. I AM answering your questions, but I'm doing it from a mind set that is a anti-thesis of many people's own currently. When two ideolgical differences clash, there might be no resolution. In this arguement this very well may be true, we just have people that think with some tweaks it's great, and others who can't stand it.

[Archived Post]

so the ground specialist is supposed to gimp himself in 70% of the game just so you can have you fun in space and still be able to do the ground mission? When you stop and look at the skill table is is rather evident that the system was design with a much higher and likely unlimited amount of skill points. In a capped system why would you place the t3-4 ship skills in the game? why would you have all theweapons on different tiers t3-t5 and a capped system with the weapons roughly balanced as to damage out put you really should not buy the t4 and t5 ones.


I seems to get the feeling that some people are again thinking that addition skill points will make you more powerful. after a total of about 85k this is not the case.

all unlimited skill points does is move the place of choosing what equipment and boff skill you will use from when you select your skill to when you outfit your ship.

The design of the ships in this game puts a hard cap on what you can get out of a wide array of skills it really doesn't matter what your phaser skill is at if you put disruptors in your weapon slots.

I still think the lowering of the cap to 45 and the skill cap is am attempt to get us to A.) buy respecs at the cash store and b.) sell us the 5 levels back in 6 months. to put it succinctly it is a cash grab buy crytic and thier owners

The ground specialist is still viable in space but to a lesser extent...think of it as trying to level a pure healer spec in Vanilla Wow or TBC. You're likely going to need help, but in return...your friends/fleet are going to need you to complete high end content. People have made this choice time and time again when playing MMO's, I think this is just another version of that choice.

I agree the game makes you take a wide variety of skills and choose what you're going to be good with, that's the way it should be. If we all could max everything then the only thing different between two people could vary well be the color of the weapons they fire look. That's NOT good design, having you select equipment and BO's that compliment your skills you make a much more refined end product and you become much more of an actual TEAM. Your abilities work together, that's also pretty cool in my book.

[Archived Post]

I said it needs to add more flexibility to allow people to have more weapon options...Learn to read.

People SHOULD only be able to fly 1 T5 ship to the max or a couple pretty good (if you decide to split the points). IT IS NOT PIGEONHOLING IT IS CALLED SPECIALIZATION...look up definition and get back to me. They're called choices folks, and if a game puts you in a place where you're biting your nails racking your brain trying to figure out where to put those last skillpoints, a big A+ for the dev's as they have now made those choices count.

Yes, any game with thses choices will lend itself to certain prefered builds, that's kinda how MMO's go. However, as stated in my post Dev's need to make sure several are VIABLE. Again please read posts...I know it's tough when all you do is flame. Multiple viable specs allow people to play more towards what they want and still accomplish goals.

As it stands, I don't think it's broken. All the people's arguments I think are worth looking at come from weapon and ship skill complaints. I have addressed them both in my original post. ALL other arguements on the topic I considered null, I just think people are whining. I think it is now far more hardcore, with a couple tweaks (see my post again for them, go read!!!) the sysem I think could be very impressive.

"that's kinda how MMO's go." Most MMOs only go like that because they were designed from the ground up to go like that, unlike this game. Marketed and initially designed as a capless system, no respec system in the game because there was no need for one spent some in the wrong place oh well go grind a few more. The ship skills in each tier presented you with a choice then make your leveling a bit easier or bypass and be a little more rounded when you reached admiral. The weapon skills on each of the t3-t5 again didn't really matter under a capless system you could get them all. The system was designed with out a cap in mind, in placing one on it they have broken it. I expect a complete redesign of the skill system in the next few weeks because of this, chances are we will be seeing the fall out in game for months because of this cash grab by the developer, or the developer's owners.

[Archived Post]

"that's kinda how MMO's go." Most MMOs only go like that because they were designed from the ground up to go like that, unlike this game. Marketed and initially designed as a capless system, no respec system in the game because there was no need for one spent some in the wrong place oh well go grind a few more. The ship skills in each tier presented you with a choice then make your leveling a bit easier or bypass and be a little more rounded when you reached admiral. The weapon skills on each of the t3-t5 again didn't really matter under a capless system you could get them all. The system was designed with out a cap in mind, in placing one on it they have broken it. I expect a complete redesign of the skill system in the next few weeks because of this, chances are we will be seeing the fall out in game for months because of this cash grab by the developer, or the developer's owners.

I agree that from the looks of it, it seems to fit a capless system much better. However, going from capless to capped system isn't that hard in this case. Bump the weapons all down to T4 (the "basic" weapon types leave at T3); yes that does favor a photon/quantum/phaser/disruptor from a raw DPS standpoint, but the proc's on the advanced weapontypes could very well make up for it and make it a preferred build, we'll have to get some numbers in on that before a final decision can be truly made and see where they need to be moved.

I'd say double the RA points and you're good. You can max out your favorite T5, plus another skill and have it done. I don't know if I'm going to max out the T3/T4 cruiser stats...you don't gain all that much for going to lvl 9 instead of 7 (especially at T3). It's a nice savings point to eek out some extra goodies for your build. Since you're likely to be flying T5's for the majority of your character career (or T4 if so spec into that), it's the smart way to make your build more efficient.

[Archived Post]

The ground specialist is still viable in space but to a lesser extent...think of it as trying to level a pure healer spec in Vanilla Wow or TBC. You're likely going to need help, but in return...your friends/fleet are going to need you to complete high end content. People have made this choice time and time again when playing MMO's, I think this is just another version of that choice.

I agree the game makes you take a wide variety of skills and choose what you're going to be good with, that's the way it should be. If we all could max everything then the only thing different between two people could vary well be the color of the weapons they fire look. That's NOT good design, having you select equipment and BO's that compliment your skills you make a much more refined end product and you become much more of an actual TEAM. Your abilities work together, that's also pretty cool in my book.

this game is not currently wow, even there there is no reason a healer could not have respecced and made their own life a little bit easier leveling. This Game was designed with out a respec system because there was no need for it under a capless system, The implementation of a respec system that was been promised is a direct result of changing to a capped system, first of many changes we will see i suspect.

Many games in the last several years are backing away from getting people to make that sacrifice. look at wow completely changed the dynamic in wrath. Why? gee i think they might have gotten feedback that the pigeon holing of people is a bit unpopular with many players. A simple question, why should this game go the route of demanding players give up some aspects of the game (IE gimp space so you can support team better on the ground) just because other games demand a healer?

as to your second paragraph. unlimited points will lead to more diversity in load outs, and more people changing things up from time to time, why is this a bad thing? In a capless system instead of choosing when you select your skills you choose when you leave space dock, that it only real difference between the 2.

You would still work with other players I do not care what ship you choose to leave spacedock in you can not to everything in one ship. even a t5 ship only has 5 boff stations, a limited number of device, weapon and console slots, you are still gonna have to specialize when it comes to loading out your ship, no way arround that in the current system. You also going to have to coordinate with your team mates, make sure you have the BoFFs abilities in the group you will need for example.

[Archived Post]

I agree that from the looks of it, it seems to fit a capless system much better. However, going from capless to capped system isn't that hard in this case. Bump the weapons all down to T4 (the "basic" weapon types leave at T3); yes that does favor a photon/quantum/phaser/disruptor from a raw DPS standpoint, but the proc's on the advanced weapontypes could very well make up for it and make it a preferred build, we'll have to get some numbers in on that before a final decision can be truly made and see where they need to be moved.

I'd say double the RA points and you're good. You can max out your favorite T5, plus another skill and have it done. I don't know if I'm going to max out the T3/T4 cruiser stats...you don't gain all that much for going to lvl 9 instead of 7 (especially at T3). It's a nice savings point to eek out some extra goodies for your build. Since you're likely to be flying T5's for the majority of your character career (or T4 if so spec into that), it's the smart way to make your build more efficient.

So why did they change it? they said it was so they could add more content later without us becoming the new maxlevel the instant the content came out. I believe that that could have solved that issue very easily without a cap on the skill point. The only reason I can see for the developers getting told to do this was the creation of a new source of revenue for cryptic. namely selling respecs in the cstore. respecs for cash has an interesting side effect they can actually generate sales by making "errors" you just have to be careful it does not become to blatant. The only reason I can think of for the team to throw away god knows how many hours of developement time on the skill system is some one above them said "do it" the only reason I can think of that the people above the devs would do that is they believe they can generate more income then the extra developer time completely redesigning the skill tree will cost.

[Archived Post]

this game is not currently wow, even there there is no reason a healer could not have respecced and made their own life a little bit easier leveling. This Game was designed with out a respec system because there was no need for it under a capless system, The implementation of a respec system that was been promised is a direct result of changing to a capped system, first of many changes we will see i suspect.

Many games in the last several years are backing away from getting people to make that sacrifice. look at wow completely changed the dynamic in wrath. Why? gee i think they might have gotten feedback that the pigeon holing of people is a bit unpopular with many players. A simple question, why should this game go the route of demanding players give up some aspects of the game (IE gimp space so you can support team better on the ground) just because other games demand a healer?

as to your second paragraph. unlimited points will lead to more diversity in load outs, and more people changing things up from time to time, why is this a bad thing? In a capless system instead of choosing when you select your skills you choose when you leave space dock, that it only real difference between the 2.

You would still work with other players I do not care what ship you choose to leave spacedock in you can not to everything in one ship. even a t5 ship only has 5 boff stations, a limited number of device, weapon and console slots, you are still gonna have to specialize when it comes to loading out your ship, no way arround that in the current system. You also going to have to coordinate with your team mates, make sure you have the BoFFs abilities in the group you will need for example.

As a note, the change for Wow, took 5 years to move that way. I'd expct within 5 years we'll seomething simliar here. I'm not going to open the can of worms as to the reasoning why the change happened (that's a lenghty discussion involving overall game design and audience and the progression of said game).

To your point of what's wrong with it? This now enters the realm of game design for THIS game....when designing high end content....that people will not simply bowl over, a capless system must be built around this premise:

Anyone can do anything and will have maxed stats.

From a design standpoint, that's very difficult to execute and get right. It'll either come off as trivial or just simply impossible to complete. Up to this point, the communication from the dev's has favored this arguement, which people don't seem to be getting. Granted most of the people complaining likely don't have the slightest clue what goes into game design and theory let alone top end content design which is in and of itself a whole different level, so it's to be kinda expected (notice I said most, there are always some informed people on either side of the lines).

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So why did they change it? they said it was so they could add more content later without us becoming the new maxlevel the instant the content came out. I believe that that could have solved that issue very easily without a cap on the skill point. The only reason I can see for the developers getting told to do this was the creation of a new source of revenue for cryptic. namely selling respecs in the cstore. respecs for cash has an interesting side effect they can actually generate sales by making "errors" you just have to be careful it does not become to blatant. The only reason I can think of for the team to throw away god knows how many hours of developement time on the skill system is some one above them said "do it" the only reason I can think of that the people above the devs would do that is they believe they can generate more income then the extra developer time completely redesigning the skill tree will cost.

And if that is the case....I very very seriously doubt any of this thread even matters.

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I personally dont have an issue with a Skill Cap, The only thing i wish they would do is raise the max cap point alittle so you can maybe get maybe a full 3 capped admiral Skills. Other then that i think the current system is the only logical way to do this. :)

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I said it needs to add more flexibility to allow people to have more weapon options...Learn to read.


I read just fine. Adding more flexibility to weapons doesn't fix the ships. It is YOU that didn't read, as I suggested, the Hammer Post. So your own advice, but this time directed at you.

Also, adding more points, yet moving them all into the fourth tier, negates all those new points you just added, because you doubled their cost.


People SHOULD only be able to fly 1 T5 ship to the max or a couple pretty good (if you decide to split the points). IT IS NOT PIGEONHOLING IT IS CALLED SPECIALIZATION...look up definition and get back to me. They're called choices folks, and if a game puts you in a place where you're biting your nails racking your brain trying to figure out where to put those last skillpoints, a big A+ for the dev's as they have now made those choices count.


For someone advocating literacy, you seem to be failing. Where did I even hint at being able to fly more ships? Regardless if that is what *I* find preferable, nowhere in your post did you suggest a fix to the ship problem.

What problem? I hear you asking that without asking it.

Look at the skills. Read them. Especially noting the tier 3 and 4 ship skills. They are useless. Reference: The Hammer Post.


Yes, any game with thses choices will lend itself to certain prefered builds, that's kinda how MMO's go. However, as stated in my post Dev's need to make sure several are VIABLE. Again please read posts...I know it's tough when all you do is flame. Multiple viable specs allow people to play more towards what they want and still accomplish goals.


That is how some MMOs go, yes. That is ONE method. There are others. This game started as another, and took a sudden, sweeping 180 degree approach without having the skill tree to match the new method. Gee, that is what this whole thread is about. Literacy! Hammer Post! Do it!


As it stands, I don't think it's broken. All the people's arguments I think are worth looking at come from weapon and ship skill complaints. I have addressed them both in my original post. ALL other arguements on the topic I considered null (thus no need of counterarguement), I just think people are whining. I think it is now far more hardcore, with a couple tweaks (see my post again for them, go read!!!) the sysem I think could be very impressive.

EDIT: I used some harsh/petty language in here and I'm leaving it in, however, for sake of civil discussion, go read the post I put up and actually let it sink in...then read again. I AM answering your questions, but I'm doing it from a mind set that is a anti-thesis of many people's own currently. When two ideolgical differences clash, there might be no resolution. In this arguement this very well may be true, we just have people that think with some tweaks it's great, and others who can't stand it.

I just give you the same advice, but directing you to the hammer post. You ARE NOT answering it. You are using the same arguments that it refutes. You disregard that the skill tree is broken. I suggest you use a character builder, and see for yourself. Tier 3 and 4 ship skills are useless. Any weapon above tier 3 is useless. How is that NOT a broken skill tree?

Adding more points doesn't fix that. End of story. That will take more work than "Here, have more SP" unless they revert to the ORIGINAL DESIGN.

The ground specialist is still viable in space but to a lesser extent...think of it as trying to level a pure healer spec in Vanilla Wow or TBC. You're likely going to need help, but in return...your friends/fleet are going to need you to complete high end content. People have made this choice time and time again when playing MMO's, I think this is just another version of that choice.

I agree the game makes you take a wide variety of skills and choose what you're going to be good with, that's the way it should be. If we all could max everything then the only thing different between two people could vary well be the color of the weapons they fire look. That's NOT good design, having you select equipment and BO's that compliment your skills you make a much more refined end product and you become much more of an actual TEAM. Your abilities work together, that's also pretty cool in my book.

The game doesn't make you take a wide variety, it actually does the reverse. You get very few skills, actually. Your abilities do not, actually, work together. And, you are deprived of any actual specialization b/c of the unrealistic limitations this ultra low cap places on you. Reference: Hammer post in my sig.

I personally dont have an issue with a Skill Cap, The only thing i wish they would do is raise the max cap point alittle so you can maybe get maybe a full 3 capped admiral Skills. Other then that i think the current system is the only logical way to do this. :)

Raising the skill point cap doesn't somehow make the Tier 3 and 4 ship skills useful, nor does it somehow make the tier 4 and 5 weapon skills useful.

[Archived Post]

And if that is the case....I very very seriously doubt any of this thread even matters.

We'll see in 2-3 days where more than 1 person is 45.

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I totally agree with a cap on skill points. Not everyone should have unlimited skill points. Makes us have to think and use our skill points wisely.

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I read just fine. Adding more flexibility to weapons doesn't fix the ships. It is YOU that didn't read, as I suggested, the Hammer Post. So your own advice, but this time directed at you.

Also, adding more points, yet moving them all into the fourth tier, negates all those new points you just added, because you doubled their cost.

Moving T5 weapons to T4 allows them to be viable at a higher cost than than T3 weapons, procs could very well make them much more valuable than base DPS gain a standard T3 build would allow currently (theory math only here, nobody has hard numbers). That would justify the increase of 900 skillpoints to cap out a T4 weapon than a T3 weapon.


For someone advocating literacy, you seem to be failing. Where did I even hint at being able to fly more ships? Regardless if that is what *I* find preferable, nowhere in your post did you suggest a fix to the ship problem.

What problem? I hear you asking that without asking it.

Look at the skills. Read them. Especially noting the tier 3 and 4 ship skills. They are useless. Reference: The Hammer Post.

They are not useless they are specific to a need, actually there are many T3/T4 ship skills that I'm wanting. Too many right now. Still not settled on what I'm going to get. Hammer post is wrong on this point.


That is how some MMOs go, yes. That is ONE method. There are others. This game started as another, and took a sudden, sweeping 180 degree approach without having the skill tree to match the new method. Gee, that is what this whole thread is about. Literacy! Hammer Post! Do it!

Agreed it took a sudden turn but that's more a PR issue, I don't care about it, I care about functionality. People can go whine all day about not getting what they paid for. MMO community does that more and more in the past decade.



I just give you the same advice, but directing you to the hammer post. You ARE NOT answering it. You are using the same arguments that it refutes. You disregard that the skill tree is broken. I suggest you use a character builder, and see for yourself. Tier 3 and 4 ship skills are useless. Any weapon above tier 3 is useless. How is that NOT a broken skill tree?

Countered...T3/T4 skills are not useless. I do know this from having used T3/4 in OB...the % additions do matter, and they matter alot if you spec to them. Weapons see arguement above. Not enough info to argue broken or not comparativly until we get some raw data from high end. I'm willing to go ahead and say T5 weapons need to be bumped down to T4 to reduce their skill cost. T4's to T3's....wait on data.

Adding more points doesn't fix that. End of story. That will take more work than "Here, have more SP" unless they revert to the ORIGINAL DESIGN.

HAHA...not going to touch this...don't think I need to. What we have is what we have, you don't redesign the skill system. You adjust it going foward. People were the same way about Sector Space at beginning of CB and I had to argue forever for them to keep it the way it was (with the addition of many good asethic tweaks).



The game doesn't make you take a wide variety, it actually does the reverse. You get very few skills, actually. Your abilities do not, actually, work together. And, you are deprived of any actual specialization b/c of the unrealistic limitations this ultra low cap places on you. Reference: Hammer post in my sig.

Actually it doesn't, the hammer post doesn't argue this well at all either. There's implicit arguement at best here, but there's clear spec builds already floating out there. They do work together, you just can't do everything. If you reconcile yourself to being good a select few things, you can be very very good at them in this game.

Raising the skill point cap doesn't somehow make the Tier 3 and 4 ship skills useful, nor does it somehow make the tier 4 and 5 weapon skills useful.
]

Okay reply in full

[Archived Post]

As a note, the change for Wow, took 5 years to move that way. I'd expct within 5 years we'll seomething simliar here. I'm not going to open the can of worms as to the reasoning why the change happened (that's a lenghty discussion involving overall game design and audience and the progression of said game).

To your point of what's wrong with it? This now enters the realm of game design for THIS game....when designing high end content....that people will not simply bowl over, a capless system must be built around this premise:

Anyone can do anything and will have maxed stats.

From a design standpoint, that's very difficult to execute and get right. It'll either come off as trivial or just simply impossible to complete. Up to this point, the communication from the dev's has favored this arguement, which people don't seem to be getting. Granted most of the people complaining likely don't have the slightest clue what goes into game design and theory let alone top end content design which is in and of itself a whole different level, so it's to be kinda expected (notice I said most, there are always some informed people on either side of the lines).

NO it isn't seriously look at the skill table. There is a hard cap on just how powerful you can be it is your ship. after you get about 80-90k skill point you will never get any stronger, you will have reached the pinacle of what your skills can do for you power wise. after that all any more skill points does is GIVE YOU OPTIONS ABOUT WHAT TO EQUIP, thats it you are not any strong just able to use different weapons and boff abilities. you can only have a max of 5 boffs atm in a tier 5 ship, of those 5 only 2 will have access to the lt comm and 1 to the commander skill they have in space, tac for escort, eng for cruisers, sci for science ships. so there are 2 trees that you have skills for that you get limited to no use of, the other t5 ship it does not matter if you have the skill or not you are not in them just one at a time so there is 5 more skills that do not add to your abilites. weapons if you don't have a weapon of the kind equip again no gains there, whats that upto 6 skills there that will not add to your abilities points invested or not.

calling it a skill tree can give people the wrong impression it is more like a table. save for t1/2 it does not stack every skill only affect a 1 to a few abiliities, there is a hard cap on just how storng you can be it is your ship.

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Countered...T3/T4 skills are not useless. I do know this from having used T3/4 in OB...the % additions do matter, and they matter alot if you spec to them. Weapons see arguement above. Not enough info to argue broken or not comparativly until we get some raw data from high end. I'm willing to go ahead and say T5 weapons need to be bumped down to T4 to reduce their skill cost. T4's to T3's....wait on data.Do your T3 and T4 ship skills carry over to T5? No? Then they're completely dead skills. Worthless and a sink of wasted points.

And like I've said, the limit is far too low. For some reason they completely ignored the skill settings at Closed Beta which was at 125k or so. That would have made EVERYONE who didn't want a cap at least quiet. But 60700 is far too low with too many broken skills. T4 and T5 weapons are completely not worth the cost. That's bad. And broken. I don't care how you cut it.

[Archived Post]

As a note, the change for Wow, took 5 years to move that way. I'd expct within 5 years we'll seomething simliar here. I'm not going to open the can of worms as to the reasoning why the change happened (that's a lenghty discussion involving overall game design and audience and the progression of said game).

To your point of what's wrong with it? This now enters the realm of game design for THIS game....when designing high end content....that people will not simply bowl over, a capless system must be built around this premise:

Anyone can do anything and will have maxed stats.

From a design standpoint, that's very difficult to execute and get right. It'll either come off as trivial or just simply impossible to complete. Up to this point, the communication from the dev's has favored this arguement, which people don't seem to be getting. Granted most of the people complaining likely don't have the slightest clue what goes into game design and theory let alone top end content design which is in and of itself a whole different level, so it's to be kinda expected (notice I said most, there are always some informed people on either side of the lines).

The flaw here is that the devs designed specialization to occur transiently in space, not entirely unlike WoW's dual-spec system except that the number of switching options available to a character would eventually reach "all". What starship you're in determines the range of abilities you're even allowed to bring in space and even the tier 5 ships with their slight crossover are supremely focused on their primary area. Even the limited dev communication on the matter has reinforced this, offering unlimited Bridge Officer development post-Cap for experimentation as a consolation prize (yet obtusely failing to acknowledge that they've made this feature worthless by forcing hard specs).

As far as content balance, other games have designed endgame content with difficulty decoupled from the raw level - requiring better gear or other post-endgame bonuses. I fail to see why STO couldn't have gone with something similar, with some endgame content balanced around fresh Admiral 10s who haven't maxed a particular configuration yet and some balanced for players that have at least one maxed configuration available.

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You all do know that all server crashes are caused by them putting in the skill cap right? So that is reason enough to get rid of the skill cap.:eek:

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You all do know that all server crashes are caused by them putting in the skill cap right? So that is reason enough to get rid of the skill cap.:eek:

LOL.

Though, given their tendency to break something every time they change something... :p

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In this down time, I encourage people to use the skill calculator to find optimal builds.

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now that there are rear admirals in game, has the skill cap # been confirmed?

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I am not against a cap persay, but the current cap/system is not designed to go together. So I have decided to implement a "cap" of my own. Once I reach the cap, I will cancel my account until the cap is raised or redesigned. Once they implement a proper skill system, capped or otherwise, I will become a steady subscriber.

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Bumping for importance...

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now that there are rear admirals in game, has the skill cap # been confirmed?

Confirmed RA sighting? I've only seen captains

(Though to be fair I've been spending alot of time Klingon side. And might I add, it's getting awfully repetative, though I don't mind the constant pvp!)

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I don't see any problem with a skill cap, even the current skill cap.

That being said, I think that there should definitely be a "Re-Spec" Option. Just make it so each tier requires that you put x points into the previous before going on, such that, you dont rank up to Lt. Com until you've spent your 6700 points, make that a requirement to get tier two skills. Thankfully, it is coming. See, Lead designer's notice on respec (http://www.startrekonline.com/node/956).

Also, I think that most people are failing to see that the final 2-3 ranks are almost meaningless. 10 points for tier one rank one in an ability? .5 for the last rank? How much does that .5 really help you compared to the +10 of another ability? At Admiral, I for one am not planning to max any of the skills unless I see a re-spec option by then. It doesn't seem logical to push 2 ranks of an ability for minimal gains when those two ranks could be spent on another skill that will offer a greater overall benefit.

While at the moment, I feel I'm in the minority on that count, we can also look at the Other MMOnaught right now, WoW. You have a skill cap there for talents. You don't see anyone allowing the 51 point talent in two different trees. In fact, there are plenty of completely viable builds there that don't even include the final talent in a tree, but rather a hybrid between two trees. They are completely specialized. For a paladin, if you want to do damage, you play Retribution, if you want to tank you play Protection. You don't get to do more than one thing unless you re-spec.

It would be logical that given a hard cap, they should let you respec, that way you can put points into Cruiser captain at lt. commander without feeling like you've wasted those points when you reach commander. As it is now, it would be easier to level if you could put points into skills that would be useful now, instead of making yourself less effective now to put points into what will make you more effective later.

I for one support the skill cap. I do not, however, support the set in stone method.

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/ninja bump

[Archived Post]

I for one support the skill cap. I do not, however, support the set in stone method.

You didn't pay attention to the post, it's not about the fact that there's a skill cap at this point. Everyone is accepting that.

Respecs are incoming to the game. Confirmed by devs, via in game resources and likely c-store purchases.

Please use the skill point planner in the first post, plan your levels, and provide criticism.

At the current rate, we're likely to have respecs at the same time Klingons get a content patch. Anywhere from 1-3 months. That's an optimistic point of view. Last threadnaught, I was the optimist. Now, I''m looking at the end game skill points as half empty.


New people will be joining tomorrow, those who didn't pre order, or played in close beta. To them, I say, review the skill point calculator and provide some feedback. I'll bump in the morning before I go to pick up my CE from gamestop.

[Archived Post]

Off the bat I have to say I haven't actually played yet but I have been watching the forums and did do a bunch of builds in the character builder. I start playing tomorrow when I get my physical game.

I have to agree that the current skill set is broken because of the cap. You really don't need any of the T3/4 weapon skills and severely limiting the T5 skills makes them almost as useless. Basically you can just get enough SP to learn to pilot your T5 ship. Also, given the current cap it makes no sense at all to invest any SP into ground skills since that just takes away from space skills.

Again, I haven't played yet but it sounds to me like the majority of the game takes place in space so if you choose to heavily invest in ground skills you make a handy friend to have planetside but more of a burden in a fleet action.

From what I can see, the cap should be raised, but not really for the T5 reasons most people are going on about. That really should be raised up, but I think the cap should be adjusted to give people a little more wiggle room to make a toon capable of having a few ground skills without sacrificing too much on the space side of things.

A cap is a nice idea because it makes people makes choices but I agree that the current cap really doesn't work with the current tree. Raising the cap to accomodate a few more T5 skills and a little more room in the lower ranks to get a few ground skills would solve a lot of the debate in my opinion.

[Archived Post]

You didn't pay attention to the post, it's not about the fact that there's a skill cap at this point. Everyone is accepting that.

Respecs are incoming to the game. Confirmed by devs, via in game resources and likely c-store purchases.

Please use the skill point planner in the first post, plan your levels, and provide criticism.

At the current rate, we're likely to have respecs at the same time Klingons get a content patch. Anywhere from 1-3 months. That's an optimistic point of view. Last threadnaught, I was the optimist. Now, I''m looking at the end game skill points as half empty.


New people will be joining tomorrow, those who didn't pre order, or played in close beta. To them, I say, review the skill point calculator and provide some feedback. I'll bump in the morning before I go to pick up my CE from gamestop.

Why are you looking at end game skills as half empty? I concede the point that you will not be able to max more than 1 end game skill, and only come close to maxing a second. Lets be honest though, I've planned my character through max level on your calculator and when you get to the end, what do you see?

For me, I plan on being a cruiser in the sky and engineer on the ground. This leaves me with 1 skill to take from engineering class. What else do I see? I see myself tanking, if they allow it by then, so there are only really 2 things important to me at the end levels. I should also mention that at current point, I have not found a single reason to take any ground skills. Whether or not that is likely to change, who knows. One skill I see is is the cruiser level skill, which I'd want to do a little more research on each before I chose assault vs star, but I'd probably say I'd go with assault at the time being. If I'm supposed to be the first in taking hits, I'd probably want Star cruiser though, since there are only a select few tactical BO abilities that I'd want to use at that level, and more science BO abilities. It would really depend on which type of ship offered better damage taking abilities.

Next point, say I were playing an escort, why would I bother taking any abilities from engineering or science officer in my starship at admiral level? Those only effect bridge officer skills, of which, I think it is important to note, you cannot use if you aren't in a cruiser/sci vessel since you don't get those slots in an escort.

So as an Escort, I'd probably opt for one tactical officer skill and one weapon skill. Sure you can't max both, but which is more important? A shorter cooldown or more damage? Or if you're really happy with the weapons on T4, why even take the weapons on T5? It promotes specialization. You might be skilled for all Polaron weapons, while the escort next to you has all antiproton weapons.

This actually benefits you because it removes gear competition. You get your types, he gets his. Please, if you will, name 3 skills you'd want to take as an Escort, a Science Vessel, and a Cruiser, at cap level. Then try to figure out a good reason why you need all three, when you only get 1 officer that can use a cap ability at a time.

You don't want Science vessels rolling on Escort gear. You don't want Escorts rolling on Science Vessel Gear. I don't even see why anyone (except cruisers) would bother taking any of the abilities that increase your hull, speed, and maneuverability since they should never be taking hits.

In conclusion, I can see an argument to give slightly more points to the final tier, to even it out just a little and allow 2 skills to get max. I can also see a good reason why they didn't do that. Thank you though, for providing the calculator, since it gives me a better idea of what I'm putting my points into before I actually do it.

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Next point, say I were playing an escort, why would I bother taking any abilities from engineering or science officer in my starship at admiral level? Those only effect bridge officer skills, of which, I think it is important to note, you cannot use if you aren't in a cruiser/sci vessel since you don't get those slots in an escort.

Woah, wait, back up... what? You seem to think the T5 skills only affect max rank bridge officers. That's just not true. No matter what kind of ship you're flying you're going to have all three types of bridge officers, and ignoring the types that don't suit your ship will leave you very limited.

So as an Escort, I'd probably opt for one tactical officer skill and one weapon skill. Sure you can't max both, but which is more important? A shorter cooldown or more damage? Or if you're really happy with the weapons on T4, why even take the weapons on T5? It promotes specialization. You might be skilled for all Polaron weapons, while the escort next to you has all antiproton weapons.

Tell me now... why would anyone take any T4 or T5 weapons skills when those weapons don't do any more damage than the T3s? It would just be a waste of skill points, and I can easily see people laughing at anyone using anything other than the basic phaser/disruptor weapons.

Then try to figure out a good reason why you need all three, when you only get 1 officer that can use a cap ability at a time.

I'm completely confused by this sentence... Again, the T5 skills aren't any more specific to bridge officer commander abilities than T4 or T3.

For example, the T5 skill Starship Hull Repair says it improves Engineering Team (ensign to lt commander bridge officer ability) and Miracle Worker (an engineer CAPTAIN ability you get at commander 8). That's a great skill for engineering captains in ships OTHER than cruisers because it helps both their own ability and a great engineer BO ability available at lower ranks. However I doubt any of them will pick it due to the current skill limitations.

In fact, engineering and science skills suffer due to the same issue as weapons, where the T4 and T5 skills cost more for the same benefit. It's just worse because, unlike weapons, there are measurable differences between abilities and it comes down to more than just preference on a flavor with equivalent DPS.

You don't want Science vessels rolling on Escort gear. You don't want Escorts rolling on Science Vessel Gear. I don't even see why anyone (except cruisers) would bother taking any of the abilities that increase your hull, speed, and maneuverability since they should never be taking hits.

Huh? Tell me, other than cannons for escorts, what gear is for specific ships? And how are you supposed to control who takes hits with no aggro system other than damage, especially in pvp?

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Woah, wait, back up... what? You seem to think the T5 skills only affect max rank bridge officers. That's just not true. No matter what kind of ship you're flying you're going to have all three types of bridge officers, and ignoring the types that don't suit your ship will leave you very limited.

question. If you aren't using the max rank of a skill, offered to your highest rank bridge officer, why do you feel the need to burn points in a max rank ability? Why should you spend points on admiral rank skill for something to buff your engineering team 1 or 2? If you're an escort class ship, you have one engineer (two if you're fleet escort). I know that I would want emergency power to weapons and energy modulation for my engineer as an escort. (and probably emergency power to shields for the second) If you're a cruiser, that can be one of your admiral powers if you want.



Tell me now... why would anyone take any T4 or T5 weapons skills when those weapons don't do any more damage than the T3s? It would just be a waste of skill points, and I can easily see people laughing at anyone using anything other than the basic phaser/disruptor weapons.

The data we have right now is off of closed beta, open beta, and a few days of head start. You honestly think Cryptic won't do any balancing to make T5 weapons more attractive? Plasma weapons, for example, have a dot effect. Disruptor weapons do more damage to hull, less to shield, quantum weapons fire slower but do more damage than photons. All weapons seem to have one area that they excel in and one they don't. I wouldn't make any assumptions until you see the data coming out of the top end a few months after release when they have done more balancing and tweaking.



I'm completely confused by this sentence... Again, the T5 skills aren't any more specific to bridge officer commander abilities than T4 or T3.

They are more beneficial. See the notes by Al Rivera (lead designer) at http://www.startrekonline.com/node/956 where he explains how the skills work in conjunction with each other.


For example, the T5 skill Starship Hull Repair says it improves Engineering Team (ensign to lt commander bridge officer ability) and Miracle Worker (an engineer CAPTAIN ability you get at commander 8). That's a great skill for engineering captains in ships OTHER than cruisers because it helps both their own ability and a great engineer BO ability available at lower ranks. However I doubt any of them will pick it due to the current skill limitations.

I've not seen Miracle worker yet, nor any data on that, but this only furthers the notion that you should consider what type of ship you want to fly before you make your character, and choose accordingly. If you want to be an engineer and fly an escort, by all means, go ahead and do so. Just understand that a tactical career will offer you more dps choices. As to engineering team, there are still better choices for both ensign and lt commander skills if you are an escort or science vessel, such as emergency power to weapons and aux.


In fact, engineering and science skills suffer due to the same issue as weapons, where the T4 and T5 skills cost more for the same benefit. It's just worse because, unlike weapons, there are measurable differences between abilities and it comes down to more than just preference on a flavor with equivalent DPS.

There is nothing that says you cannot take all T4 skills and completely ignore all T5 skills. If you feel that there are no T5 skills worth your points, don't put points into them. I'd rather get another 52 points of a skill that I use than 52 points of a skill I don't use.



Huh? Tell me, other than cannons for escorts, what gear is for specific ships? And how are you supposed to control who takes hits with no aggro system other than damage, especially in pvp?

Cannons for Escorts, beam weapons for cruisers given their inherent added power levels and more engineering consoles for better power transfer rate, particular stats on a deflector dish might be more beneficial to a science vessel than to an escort, combat engines are more useful to cruisers if they are taking damage than to escorts or science vessels, who should sit almost max range nearly stationary, better shields to cruisers for tanking, consoles to the person using that type of weapon/ability, etc. I'm not saying that any one piece of gear belongs solely to one ship. That is far from it. What I am saying is, you bring 10 people to a fleet action, or even 5, when something cool drops that is a clear upgrade to your cruiser, the one going in first and taking all the hits so your escorts don't get smashed, why would you want your science vessel to keep it? If your science vessel doesn't get hit, why give them the shields? PvP? Psh.

PvP is an entirely different ballgame. When have you ever seen any games that offer PvP and PvE with the same gear at the same effective level and the same skill requirement? Are you going to use the same shields for PvP that you do for PvE? No, you'd get yourself killed. What about engines? Maybe. The same bridge officers? probably not. What about consoles? Not likely. with as many different skills as there are currently in game, there are plenty of ways for you to tailor yourself to pvp and to pve. Choose what you want to do most and gear for it and spec for it. Trying to do both is just double dipping and I'm glad that you can't.

Now, There are agro dumps in game already, in the form of the Ensign Science officer skill Jam Sensors. Expect more of these if Cryptic feels like adding any sort of raid content.

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question. If you aren't using the max rank of a skill, offered to your highest rank bridge officer, why do you feel the need to burn points in a max rank ability? Why should you spend points on admiral rank skill for something to buff your engineering team 1 or 2? If you're an escort class ship, you have one engineer (two if you're fleet escort). I know that I would want emergency power to weapons and energy modulation for my engineer as an escort. (and probably emergency power to shields for the second) If you're a cruiser, that can be one of your admiral powers if you want.

While I think you're underestimating the usefulness of engineering team, personal preference isn't something I'm debating here... my point was, why would anyone ever take that particular skill? Because it's T5, the skill point cost is high and the skill points you actually have available for that tier are extremely limited. As you say, you're more likely to choose to max whichever skill helps your most powerful BO ability if you max anything at all.

As an aside, I'm certainly not trying to say anywhere that you have to max skills. If anything, with the current skill system, I'll probably be taking more variety and less higher ranks due to the scaling and limitations.

The data we have right now is off of closed beta, open beta, and a few days of head start. You honestly think Cryptic won't do any balancing to make T5 weapons more attractive? Plasma weapons, for example, have a dot effect. Disruptor weapons do more damage to hull, less to shield, quantum weapons fire slower but do more damage than photons. All weapons seem to have one area that they excel in and one they don't. I wouldn't make any assumptions until you see the data coming out of the top end a few months after release when they have done more balancing and tweaking.

Honestly, no, I don't trust Cryptic very much. They made the changes to the skill system at the very last minute and didn't even bother tweaking the obvious issues it causes. They certainly could improve the higher tier weapons to make up for the increased cost in training them. They could do a lot of things though. Debating what ifs won't do us much good. If anything, I don't expect Cryptic to even touch any of this with the excuse that the cap will be raised in the "near future." I'd love for them to prove me wrong, but the lack of dev response hasn't been terribly helpful.

While certain weapons may be more appealing despite having the same DPS, the opportunity cost of spending skill points on them instead of somewhere else is very high. With the cap as low as it is, I think the weapons would have to be completely rescaled in order to appeal... but as you say, it's mostly just hypothesis at this point as we don't have hard data from a large end game population yet.


They are more beneficial. See the notes by Al Rivera (lead designer) at http://www.startrekonline.com/node/956 where he explains how the skills work in conjunction with each other.

I'm perfectly aware of how skills work in conjunction with each other. The skill system works like this... T1 skills are extremely general, affecting everything within their particular branch. T2 skills are more specific. They stack with T1 skills, but only on the area they focus. T3-T5 are the most specific skills and stack with the appropriate T1 and T2 skills but NEVER each other.

So for any given ability or weapon you have up to three skills improving it. One T1, one T2, and one T3-T5. Unfortunately those T3-T5 skills are all EXACTLY the same in effectiveness, but not in cost, which is why the skill system is broken.

Any ability or weapon which uses a T4 or T5 specific skill instead of T3 has to be useful enough to make up for the extra cost or else it will be cut as fat. T5 gets this the worst due to the limited number of points available at that tier.

There is nothing that says you cannot take all T4 skills and completely ignore all T5 skills. If you feel that there are no T5 skills worth your points, don't put points into them. I'd rather get another 52 points of a skill that I use than 52 points of a skill I don't use.

My point exactly. It doesn't matter whether it's a T3, T4, or T5 skill, they all add just 52 points. However, T4 and T5 skills cost more. So unless the ability being improved is worth the extra cost, you'd be better off going with a T3 skill.

I'm not saying that any one piece of gear belongs solely to one ship. That is far from it. What I am saying is, you bring 10 people to a fleet action, or even 5, when something cool drops that is a clear upgrade to your cruiser, the one going in first and taking all the hits so your escorts don't get smashed, why would you want your science vessel to keep it? If your science vessel doesn't get hit, why give them the shields?

Prioritizing equipment based on need or greed is fine and all, but what happens when the skill cap causes flavor of the month builds and everyone wants the same equipment? It's not like we're talking a traditional class based game where there's not a lot of overlap between classes or archtypes, every ship can equip everything except cannons. Everyone needs the best shields they can get, tank or not. If you really think you can somehow prevent yourself from ever getting hit, why equip shields at all?

PvP is an entirely different ballgame. When have you ever seen any games that offer PvP and PvE with the same gear at the same effective level and the same skill requirement? Are you going to use the same shields for PvP that you do for PvE? No, you'd get yourself killed. What about engines? Maybe. The same bridge officers? probably not. What about consoles? Not likely. with as many different skills as there are currently in game, there are plenty of ways for you to tailor yourself to pvp and to pve. Choose what you want to do most and gear for it and spec for it. Trying to do both is just double dipping and I'm glad that you can't.

Except you can't do that. You can't have two separate sets of equipment or bridge officers unless your skills overlap. Or are you going to respec every time you switch between PvE and PvP? Are you saying players should have to choose between PvE and PvP like they have to choose between ground and space?

Now, There are agro dumps in game already, in the form of the Ensign Science officer skill Jam Sensors. Expect more of these if Cryptic feels like adding any sort of raid content.

I wouldn't call Jam Sensors an aggro dump as it doesn't actually lower any aggro, it just prevents the target from attacking you for a short period of time. Plus it's single target and it has a relatively long cooldown. Without any way to generate aggro other than damage you're going to have a hard time with a traditional tank approach to the game.

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/ninja bump

Lol I like what you did!!!

I Approve with honours!!!

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this skill system is a pain. its pure donkey bawls. that is all..

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I tend to avoid forums and these sort of discussions like the plague, but the skill system (as originally presented) was the single biggest draw for me to give STO a spin, so I figured I'd add another useless post to the non-discussion.

The ONLY real argument that people seem to have for a cap is to force specialization and thus provide for game balancing/content design. Let me suggest a view of a capless system that makes this point moot.

If those supporting a cap want to force us to roll an alt/reroll for every ship/weapon type/build then they aren't really achieving any sort of specialization they are just supporting the same tired MMO strategy for character development that has always existed and has driven many of us away.

I want to be able to max my skills, and frankly I would be more than fine with that treadmill taking a very long time. I also do not want to be able to do everything at max ability at any given time. I want the ship I pick, the BOs I take and the gear I equip to define how my character will behave at any given point in the game. As I play more and acquire more skillpoints I expand the POTENTIAL flexibility of my character.

The developers have a chance to allow a long and satisfying character development timeline that encourages us to try new things and tests new abilities. If you introduce scarcity into the skillpoint system you change the way people behave. They no longer look at skillpoints as an investment in how your character might behave given the right ship/BO/gear and instead everyone simply marches down a plank towards a predefined character template of either their or another's design.

If I can't do everything at any given point (since I would have to change ships/BO/gear) then what is the issue? How does this possibly make it impossible to design content that demands a variety of player "builds." This discussion presumes that out customization is tied to our skills and there is absolutely no reason this game should develop that way.

I would rather see Cryptic constantly releasing new skills, all of which have marginal increases to our various ship/BO/gear options. If a player wishes to soley focus on the skills that allow them to do X, then so be it. If a player wants to max all their skills so they can alter their role at any given time, so be it. How does a capless system that demands customization at any given moment possibly harm the game for anyone? If alts and respecs allow the hardcare players to essentially bring the same flexibility to bear you haven't increased customization, you have simply made it possible to ONLY those that will roll endless alts and grind the same content over and over.

Make the ships more expensive so that buying them is a significant decision. Continue to restrict the kind of gear and abilities that can be used in a given ship. Provide gear that requires a wide range of skills so that we are motivated to try new gear and not blindly use whatever fits our "build." Only allow us to refit gear in a spacedock to prevent hotswapping on the fly.

I would rather have players discuss their ship/gear/BO customization and how it allows them to play a unique role rather than play copy and paste from every other game with the skill system.

The moment I hit a skill cap I'm going to get bored because my character's career is over. Respeccing simply provides an obnoxious tool for fake flexibility. Gear will always be replaced with new gear and that endless recycling gets tired and boring. Skillpoints last forever and give a degree of permanence to my development. Gear evolution is fun and exciting when it suddenly encourages you to finally put some points in those skills you had, up till then, ignored or avoided. And to say it again, I'm completely fine with Cryptic making the skillpoint grind after you cap out your rank taking significantly longer. I'm even okay with rolling an alt and grinding back to make rank being faster by a significant amount than the time it would take to earn that many more skillpoints at capped rank. Why? Because I don't want alts, I want a character I can invest in over the years. When you release expansions you can raise the curbs on skillpoint gains to allow new players or people who didn't continue grinding past rank cap to "catch up."

Swapping shiip/gear/BO IS the respec. I jump out of my cruiser and get into an escort in order to change my fleet role. Capped characters (which should take a decent grind to achieve) will definitely benefit in so much as they are able to swap freely depending on the ships/gear/BOs at their disposal. Shouldn't they have the benefit of that flexibility? Won't they just roll alts/respec if a cap is in place? How does respeccing force more customization??? I want to see them AVOID ANY RESPEC and instead encourage us to just earn more points, train more skills. My character isn't a robot that I plug new skills into to fill a role, my character is my character and I want him/her to grow with me over time and to reflect the time and energy I've invested in the game.

We SHOULD have to make decisions about how we are going to prep for a given encounter, but the longer we play, the more options our character should have in that preparation. Our skillpoints serve as the modifiers for our builds, our builds are the cumulative effect of our ships/gear/BOs.

Make ships hard to acquire and have each ship restrict abilities and gear/BOs. Make gear dependant on ship type or at least be more heavily modified by ship type. BOs as well should scale based on the ship they operate from. On the ground simply apply the ship mechanics for our kits. The better the gear, the more significant the modifier to your fleet role.

I don't mind having to make decisions, but I want the flexibility to try new things, explore new ideas. If the only way to do so is to roll an alt or buy a respec then this game will have failed like every other MMO has on this subject. My character is just another disposable robot that I can respec at will to get the job done. At no point do I have to do anything save hit the skillpoint cap. Every second I spend playing after that moment has NO value beyond the gear I acquire...why do we WANT Cryptic to reduce the game to this?

Cryptic has a chance to do something very unique and interesting with this game and this change in their plan simply sends the signal that all we can expect is more of the same...I'm not here for the same thing I can get in every other game and I don't think Cryptic is looking to make another MMO clone.

I am hopeful that Cryptic seriously thinks this process through and considers how the game should evolve. As new ships are released they should continue to make those ships focus on specialized roles. Gear and BOs should provide a wide range of options and decisions for us to choose between and acquire. STO should be a game about broadening our options as players, not about putting arbitrary restrictions on us right from the beginning.

Whether you believe it or not, everyone has a serious need to think this issue through and consider what kind of game you want. We CAN have the best of both worlds. A game that allows long term character development and one that forces us to make tough choices about what our characters are capable of at any given moment.

Just my 17 cents...

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It's a brand new day, with page long posts, and still no Dev response. WELCOME NEW PEOPLE. Get to messing with the skill calculator and contribute YOUR two cents.

OMW to buy my copy at my local gamestop.

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ahhh, our baby, the skill cap thread, is back . its go time to see how things are.

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@Avenfeld:

You appear to miss the point behind all of this.

When I am 60 years old, I want to be a doctor, a lawyer, a rock star, a country star, an astronaut, a circus clown, a ringmaster, a tv talk show host, a comedian, and a lead game designer.

After all, I'm sixty years old, shouldn't I be able to max all my skills?

In a capless system the only winner is the kid who spends 20 hours a day on the game.

When you hit cap, you get to experience more difficult content. Sure, it requires gear. Sure it requires skill and coordination. But it isn't about the gear. Some people make it like that, and that is where they fail to see the point. It's about the experience of new content.

I DO want Cryptic to release fun new content when I hit cap.

I DON'T Want to grind starbase 24 (or a new copy of that at level 50) for the next year and a half in order to cap all my skills, which is what you're implying. Forget new game development, you just want new skills. There are already a ton of skills in the game. This is going to generate a ton of balancing issues. Why should the dev's work the rest of their time trying to balance the skills now in game with a ton of new skills instead of working on new content? I do not want to spend the next year or two or longer grinding the same few level 50 instances just because some people don't like skill caps.

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@Avenfeld:

You appear to miss the point behind all of this.

When I am 60 years old, I want to be a doctor, a lawyer, a rock star, a country star, an astronaut, a circus clown, a ringmaster, a tv talk show host, a comedian, and a lead game designer.

After all, I'm sixty years old, shouldn't I be able to max all my skills?

In a capless system the only winner is the kid who spends 20 hours a day on the game.

When you hit cap, you get to experience more difficult content. Sure, it requires gear. Sure it requires skill and coordination. But it isn't about the gear. Some people make it like that, and that is where they fail to see the point. It's about the experience of new content.

I DO want Cryptic to release fun new content when I hit cap.

I DON'T Want to grind starbase 24 (or a new copy of that at level 50) for the next year and a half in order to cap all my skills, which is what you're implying. Forget new game development, you just want new skills. There are already a ton of skills in the game. This is going to generate a ton of balancing issues. Why should the dev's work the rest of their time trying to balance the skills now in game with a ton of new skills instead of working on new content? I do not want to spend the next year or two or longer grinding the same few level 50 instances just because some people don't like skill caps.

apparently, you miss the point of all this. try reading the thread.

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The developers have a chance to allow a long and satisfying character development timeline that encourages us to try new things and tests new abilities. If you introduce scarcity into the skillpoint system you change the way people behave. They no longer look at skillpoints as an investment in how your character might behave given the right ship/BO/gear and instead everyone simply marches down a plank towards a predefined character template of either their or another's design.

QFT.

So much for organic character growth...

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QFT.

So much for organic character growth...

HEY! Data resents that remark....he's not organic!

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171 skill point slots at admiral - 19 skills, 9 points each.
15 skill points can be earned and assigned at admiral rank - only 8.77% of the total available.

I really didn't want to have to rely on elitistjerks.com style cookie cutter builds just to be effective in the game.

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It's a brand new day, with page long posts, and still no Dev response. WELCOME NEW PEOPLE. Get to messing with the skill calculator and contribute YOUR two cents.

OMW to buy my copy at my local gamestop.

Contributed my $200 (two cents per post in the other thread... yeah sounds about right) already. And I'm still seeing the same misinformed opinions being posted here. Not much point in me reiterating points that will be glossed over again anyway. Meh.

Still like the game. It's fun, so I'll be playing it. Do hope something gets done about the cap before I reach it, though - otherwise I don't see myself keeping a subscription. STO's draw was that it wasn't just like all those other MMOs, and this skill cap is a big step in away from that (in that it forces specialization, respecs and starting over with new characters).

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my thoughts are:

every MMORPG has a level cap, and along with a level cap typically has an XP/SP/whatever cap as well. WoW circumvents this a tad by at least still allowing you to accumulate rest XP at 60/70/80, but even then you can't actually gain XP until the next xpac comes out.

So why would anyone expect STO to be any different? The ONLY mistake the devs made was in not having the cap there from the start.

edit - I am also seeing a lot of desire in this thread to basically have chars with completely maxed skills... ugghh. What is the fun in that? What's the fun in playing WoW with every talent maxed? Or playing D&D with every feat in a single character? Keep the skill cap.. it creates more unique characters and prevents a bunch of maxed out rear admirals.

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my thoughts are:

every MMORPG has a level cap, and along with a level cap typically has an XP/SP/whatever cap as well. WoW circumvents this a tad by at least still allowing you to accumulate rest XP at 60/70/80, but even then you can't actually gain XP until the next xpac comes out.

So why would anyone expect STO to be any different? The ONLY mistake the devs made was in not having the cap there from the start.

edit - I am also seeing a lot of desire in this thread to basically have chars with completely maxed skills... ugghh. What is the fun in that? What's the fun in playing WoW with every talent maxed? Or playing D&D with every feat in a single character? Keep the skill cap.. it creates more unique characters and prevents a bunch of maxed out rear admirals.

A) It *is* actually possible to have a non-WoW skill development model. New = good.

B) Not all have a skill cap.

[Archived Post]

my thoughts are:

every MMORPG has a level cap, and along with a level cap typically has an XP/SP/whatever cap as well. WoW circumvents this a tad by at least still allowing you to accumulate rest XP at 60/70/80, but even then you can't actually gain XP until the next xpac comes out.

So why would anyone expect STO to be any different? The ONLY mistake the devs made was in not having the cap there from the start.

edit - I am also seeing a lot of desire in this thread to basically have chars with completely maxed skills... ugghh. What is the fun in that? What's the fun in playing WoW with every talent maxed? Or playing D&D with every feat in a single character? Keep the skill cap.. it creates more unique characters and prevents a bunch of maxed out rear admirals.

*sigh*... you'd think I'd be used to seeing posts like this after the threadnaught...

Look, your big mistake here is thinking that skills work like levels. They don't. More skills do not equal more power, they only give you more options as far as what to equip and still be effective with. The skill system was designed capless with no overlap that allows you to build some kind of god character. No matter what ability, weapon, or ship you're using, each is only affected by three separate skills at most.

Skills are not equivalent to levels, nor talents, nor feats. Their closest counterpart as far as function, even if progression is different, is EVE. No matter how many years you spend training skills in EVE, you'll never be better at flying any one particular ship than anyone else who has maxed the appropriate skills for that ship, no matter how many other ships you can fly.

Finally, the usual advice of try out a character builder for yourself and see how limited you are in the current system applies. Here's one I recommend: http://sto-builder.binarybit.ch/

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apparently, you miss the point of all this. try reading the thread.

Please read my other posts before calling me out.

*sigh*... you'd think I'd be used to seeing posts like this after the threadnaught...

Look, your big mistake here is thinking that skills work like levels. They don't. Most skills do not equal more power, they only give you more options as far as what to equip and still be effective with. The skill system was designed capless with no overlap that allows you to build some kind of god character. No matter what ability, weapon, or ship you're using, each is only affected by three separate skills at most.

Skills are not equivalent to levels, nor talents, nor feats. Their closest counterpart as far as function, even if progression is different, is EVE. No matter how many years you spend training skills in EVE, you'll never be better at flying any one particular ship than anyone else who has maxed the appropriate skills for that ship, no matter how many other ships you can fly.

Finally, the usual advice of try out a character builder for yourself and see how limited you are in the current system applies. Here's one I recommend: http://sto-builder.binarybit.ch/



I have tried out the character builder and I don't find it as limited as you do. I'm used to games limiting you though, so maybe I'm just experiencing bias.

Unless you plan on swapping out your bridge officer powers, you really don't need more than the points they are giving you to be effective at whatever you want to do, given that you make a specific character with specific goals.

If you want to make a super captain, that just isn't realistic. My previous post was more to this point in a rather obscure way. No one is the best at everything. That doesn't make any sense to try to be the best at everything. If they just keep adding more skills, the game is going to get even more complicated and difficult to balance. The way it is now allows for concentrated character building.

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Please read my other posts before calling me out.

i resubmit to you....


apparently, you miss the point of all this. try reading the thread.

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i resubmit to you....

If the point of this thread is not that people feel the current cap system is too low, they want more points, and they think it's not possible to create decent characters that are effective based on the number of points they have without feeling like they have been shoved into a square hole as a circular peg, please enlighten me.

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A) It *is* actually possible to have a non-WoW skill development model. New = good.

B) Not all have a skill cap.

It has nothing to do with WoW and has existed all the way back to D&D from the mid-70s, and on the MMORPG existed since the very first mass market release of UO. Allowing everyone to take and max every skill removes the utility of said skills. It turns a game of balance into haves and have nots.

And yes, ALL MMORPGs and even pen and paper titles have some sort of limiting factor. Whether limited by the spells you can take, skills you can take, xp caps, etc. You need the utility provided by requiring players to choose what to take for their characters and what to give up to take it.

Hell, that's not even a video game thing.. That's just good character building 101. Someone with everything does not make for a very compelling character.

Look, your big mistake here is thinking that skills work like levels.
where did I say that? Please don't condescend me. I have worked in game development (pnp). I get the base concept of advancement which is exactly what the skills are.

More skills do not equal more power, they only give you more options as far as what to equip and still be effective with.
If you are limited by not being effective with blasters, and are now effective with blasters, that seems like an increase in power/advancement/experience/whatever you want to call it. You can now do something that you would otherwise be unable to do, thus advancing.

The skill system was designed capless with no overlap that allows you to build some kind of god character. No matter what ability, weapon, or ship you're using, each is only affected by three separate skills at most.
the skill system was IMPLEMENTED capless. Obviously it was designed to handle a cap, hence it's in place. This is the primary source of confusion for some of you. How it was implemented and how it was designed are two very separate points.

Skills are not equivalent to levels, nor talents, nor feats. Their closest counterpart as far as function, even if progression is different, is EVE.
ummmm.. they are EXACTLY like talents and feats. without said talent/feat/skill you have no bonuses. with it you have bonuses.

but you said it yourself in eve. No matter how much you invest, you are never better at flying a ship than someone else with it maxed... so where is the differential? Where is the utility? Why not just go play a Star Trek FPS? I would hope that not every engineer was the same, or every tactical officer played identical to each other. The ability to customize the utility of your characters is essential to ANY roleplaying game, MMO, PC, or otherwise. If the only goal was to max every stat we had, everyone would be the same. Not very RPG-like at that point.

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While at the moment, I feel I'm in the minority on that count, we can also look at the Other MMOnaught right now, WoW. You have a skill cap there for talents. You don't see anyone allowing the 51 point talent in two different trees. In fact, there are plenty of completely viable builds there that don't even include the final talent in a tree, but rather a hybrid between two trees. They are completely specialized. For a paladin, if you want to do damage, you play Retribution, if you want to tank you play Protection. You don't get to do more than one thing unless you re-spec.



Part of the problem is that in WoW if you maxed your talent tree you would be able to do Protection AND Retribution at the same time.

In STO if you maxed the skill tree, you would still only be able to do one OR the other at the same time because a VERY large amount of what you can do depends on your current equipment.

STO is only like WoW in the sense that they are both MMO's. Your abilities are VERY gear dependent in STO. Unlike WoW where gear barely (if at all) changes what abilities you can use.

There is nothing wrong with being allowed to be a max flyer of all 6 T5 ships, because you can only use ONE at once.

Sure... the WoW box might work, but why do we want it to?

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I have tried out the character builder and I don't find it as limited as you do. I'm used to games limiting you though, so maybe I'm just experiencing bias.

I don't see how you can find 16 ranks worth of T5 skills anything but limiting. It pretty much requires you to choose one or two abilities/weapons/ships that use a T5 skill and not be able to use any others effectively. Considering there are 19 different T5 skills that's a pretty narrow field...

Also, any reason why my last reply to you has been ignored? I covered the whole T3=T4=T5 in effectiveness but T3<T4<T5 in cost issue there.

Unless you plan on swapping out your bridge officer powers, you really don't need more than the points they are giving you to be effective at whatever you want to do, given that you make a specific character with specific goals.

Waaait a minute... didn't you yourself say swapping out powers would be all but necessary for switching between PvE and PvP? I'll ask again, do you expect to have to respec between PvE and PvP or build characters for only one or the other?

If you want to make a super captain, that just isn't realistic. My previous post was more to this point in a rather obscure way. No one is the best at everything. That doesn't make any sense to try to be the best at everything. If they just keep adding more skills, the game is going to get even more complicated and difficult to balance. The way it is now allows for concentrated character building.

Except you're not the best at everything. You're only the best at using whichever ground kit you have equipped for your class and the best at commanding your bridge officers no matter what abilities they use. That's hardly overdoing it compared to, say, Kirk.

And if everyone has equal access to everything, how is that harder to balance? You can skip balancing based on cost, which is really screwed up right now, and just focus on making each weapon and ability balanced. That's a lot easier than most MMOs have it.

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It has nothing to do with WoW and has existed all the way back to D&D from the mid-70s, and on the MMORPG existed since the very first mass market release of UO. Allowing everyone to take and max every skill removes the utility of said skills. It turns a game of balance into haves and have nots.

And yes, ALL MMORPGs and even pen and paper titles have some sort of limiting factor. Whether limited by the spells you can take, skills you can take, xp caps, etc. You need the utility provided by requiring players to choose what to take for their characters and what to give up to take it.

Hell, that's not even a video game thing.. That's just good character building 101. Someone with everything does not make for a very compelling character.

As I just mentioned...... EQUIPMENT is the limiting factor. Even if you are capable of doing everything in STO you cannot possibly do everything at once. What is wrong with people continuing to develop a single character to have variety as opposed to people having to level alt after alt after alt?

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If you want to make a super captain, that just isn't realistic.

It is based on the game design a lot of us were sold. See the links in my signature for examples.

And yes, ALL MMORPGs and even pen and paper titles have some sort of limiting factor. Whether limited by the spells you can take, skills you can take, xp caps, etc. You need the utility provided by requiring players to choose what to take for their characters and what to give up to take it.

Of course they do. STO's limiting factors were what ship you were in, what equipment you had, and how you had trained your BOs.

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OK one more time...they can't charge for respecs in the C-store if you can max all your skills. It's really that simple.

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3111 views. I like this number.

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OK one more time...they can't charge for respecs in the C-store if you can max all your skills. It's really that simple.

definitely one of the issues brought up in the thread.

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OK one more time...they can't charge for respecs in the C-store if you can max all your skills. It's really that simple.

Then don't waste time putting a skill cap in so respecs are necessary and then waste even more time designing a respec system. No skill cap means respecs aren't needed.

Of course, that wouldn't make them money, now would it?

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If the point of this thread is not that people feel the current cap system is too low, they want more points, and they think it's not possible to create decent characters that are effective based on the number of points they have without feeling like they have been shoved into a square hole as a circular peg, please enlighten me.

click the post in my sig.

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I don't see how you can find 16 ranks worth of T5 skills anything but limiting. It pretty much requires you to choose one or two abilities/weapons/ships that use a T5 skill and not be able to use any others effectively. Considering there are 19 different T5 skills that's a pretty narrow field...
umm.. yeah. if I spend 8 years in med school, I'm not going to be a very good lawyer. Sure I can then spend an additional 8 years in law school, but chances are after that I'm not going to be a very good doctor either.

Waaait a minute... didn't you yourself say swapping out powers would be all but necessary for switching between PvE and PvP? I'll ask again, do you expect to have to respec between PvE and PvP or build characters for only one or the other?
WoW offers dual speccing. I know you hate comparing things to wow, but why reinvent the wheel, especially just to replace it with a square for the sake of being different?

Except you're not the best at everything. You're only the best at using whichever ground kit you have equipped for your class
which can be any kit you happen to have on you at the moment.

And if everyone has equal access to everything, how is that harder to balance?
because you now have dozens of skills providing potential game breaking advantages that have to be evened out in the engine. You would do that by taking away utility from other areas of the skill that are offset by other skillsets other classes have. But because everyone is maxed out in everything, you are essentially giving to and taking away from every user equally. At that point why not just do away with the skills completely?

You can't have advancement without limitation. Whether it's a set limit on available skill points, class limits on available skills, grand total limit on applicable skill points, levels, exp, class restrictions, etc. There has to be balance there, and by having no restrictions in number and level of skills within a class, there is no balance, just everything maxed. Eventually it will do one of two things. Either break the game or take away utility and essentially play every character like every character. In action games this might make a little more sense, but in a slightly more tactical RPG style of gameplay, it is really quite boring.

As I just mentioned...... EQUIPMENT is the limiting factor. Even if you are capable of doing everything in STO you cannot possibly do everything at once. What is wrong with people continuing to develop a single character to have variety as opposed to people having to level alt after alt after alt?
except that equipment is only limited by your bag slots. "I HAVE the sniper skill, but I don't HAVE a sniper rifle.. yessh! oh wait a minute, here it is!"

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Part of the problem is that in WoW if you maxed your talent tree you would be able to do Protection AND Retribution at the same time.

In STO if you maxed the skill tree, you would still only be able to do one OR the other at the same time because a VERY large amount of what you can do depends on your current equipment.

STO is only like WoW in the sense that they are both MMO's. Your abilities are VERY gear dependent in STO. Unlike WoW where gear barely (if at all) changes what abilities you can use.

There is nothing wrong with being allowed to be a max flyer of all 6 T5 ships, because you can only use ONE at once.

Sure... the WoW box might work, but why do we want it to?

You continued on Wow, I'll follow up. In WoW, You max your protection, ret, and holy tree, then put on your tanking gear, and try to heal the main tank while the lich king beats on him, you have a dead tank. Try to do ret dps with your holy gear on you? Good luck breaking 2500 dps when most everyone else is pulling over 7000. If you max everything, you still need the gear to do it all. In wow, they let you respec, so you can swap out your gear and talents if you so choose whenever you want, so you can do whatever your gear will let you.


I don't see how you can find 16 ranks worth of T5 skills anything but limiting. It pretty much requires you to choose one or two abilities/weapons/ships that use a T5 skill and not be able to use any others effectively. Considering there are 19 different T5 skills that's a pretty narrow field...

As of now, there are a few of the T5 skills that you would get laughed at for taking. Counting those that have been mentioned previously... that leaves, six? maybe seven? that anyone would consider taking? Now look at what each of those six actually do for you. Most of them improve bridge officer skills. Speaking of which, you only get a total of 12 bridge officer powers. I count 11 blocks you can fill in between T3 and T4, plus 1 block in T5 plus part of another if you so choose. I do believe that means you can max out any power you want to, as long as you choose between the ones that are most important and the ones that aren't.



Also, any reason why my last reply to you has been ignored? I covered the whole T3=T4=T5 in effectiveness but T3<T4<T5 in cost issue there.

if compare the actual skills on T3, T4, and T5, they are set that way currently for balance issues, to prevent you from stacking too many abilities and ranking them all up to over inflate your abilities, would be my best guess as to why they are positioned that way. I'm not a developer and I didn't code it that way.



Waaait a minute... didn't you yourself say swapping out powers would be all but necessary for switching between PvE and PvP? I'll ask again, do you expect to have to respec between PvE and PvP or build characters for only one or the other?

Uhm... yes. That is how it is in just about every single game that I've ever played. it was only just recently that WoW released dual spec, that you had to pay for 20 respecs at one time to get the ability to swap between 2 any time you want at no cost. Most people use that for PvP and PvE.


Except you're not the best at everything. You're only the best at using whichever ground kit you have equipped for your class and the best at commanding your bridge officers no matter what abilities they use. That's hardly overdoing it compared to, say, Kirk.

So now we enter raid content, You have everything maxed, I don't. you've been able to play for 60 hours a week, I have not. Who gets the raid spot? you. Why? cause you play more. Why should you not have to actually make choices in the game instead of just getting everything? TV is TV. It's meant to be dramatic and overdone, not realistic. Try Captain Picard? He turned down an admiral job because of politics, go him. He also broke the prime directive to save the arguably most hated character in TNG. He is far from the best at everything. He relies on Counselor Troy to tell him whats going on, relies on Data to compute everything, relies on Doctor Crusher to fix the sick people, etc. This is only 1 ship as any more ships would be silly for the show. You can't do everything, you need other people to help you out. Since everyone is a captain of their own ship, this makes sense to do it this way.


And if everyone has equal access to everything, how is that harder to balance? You can skip balancing based on cost, which is really screwed up right now, and just focus on making each weapon and ability balanced. That's a lot easier than most MMOs have it.

Balancing is never easy. Right now one of the largest obstacles that Cryptic has for balancing that I can see is Fleet action rewards. Since Cruisers and Science vessels basically get boned at every turn for rewards, only Escorts are even worth playing there, except that if everyone played an escort, what fun would the game be?

If everyone were the same, who would be different? Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

It is based on the game design a lot of us were sold. See the links in my signature for examples.



Of course they do. STO's limiting factors were what ship you were in, what equipment you had, and how you had trained your BOs.


To this, I submit to you, ESRB Notice: Game Experience May Change During Online Play

It happens. Often times things are completely reworked because someone high up realizes that it wont work the way it's designed.

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umm.. yeah. if I spend 8 years in med school, I'm not going to be a very good lawyer. Sure I can then spend an additional 8 years in law school, but chances are after that I'm not going to be a very good doctor either.

There's a huge difference between two completely separate fields with no overlap, and being a good captain with enough knowledge to order bridge officers efficiently. Even then, this is a game, not real life. It doesn't have to be realistic. As I said, compared to the Star Trek series captains like Kirk it's not really a huge leap now is it?

WoW offers dual speccing. I know you hate comparing things to wow, but why reinvent the wheel, especially just to replace it with a square for the sake of being different?

Why use a wheel in a ship? This game is not like WoW, it does not have the same mechanics, and even if you could switch between two specs on the fly you'd still be horribly limited in T5 skills.

because you now have dozens of skills providing potential game breaking advantages that have to be evened out in the engine. You would do that by taking away utility from other areas of the skill that are offset by other skillsets other classes have. But because everyone is maxed out in everything, you are essentially giving to and taking away from every user equally. At that point why not just do away with the skills completely?

You can't have advancement without limitation. Whether it's a set limit on available skill points, class limits on available skills, grand total limit on applicable skill points, levels, exp, class restrictions, etc. There has to be balance there, and by having no restrictions in number and level of skills within a class, there is no balance, just everything maxed. Eventually it will do one of two things. Either break the game or take away utility and essentially play every character like every character. In action games this might make a little more sense, but in a slightly more tactical RPG style of gameplay, it is really quite boring.

The point in having skills is for a sense of progression, which is part of what makes RPGs tick. If you're exactly the same when you start the game as when you get to the end, it can feel empty.

And there's a much more severe problem with characters playing exactly the same way when you use a cap system, look at the flavor of the month builds rampant in games like WoW. I don't see more variety there, I see less.

With the current skill system in STO there are weapon choices that are just flat-out wrong to make because of the additional skill point sacrifice. There's tweaking that needs to be done if they're going to keep the cap. I've touched on this in other posts, but I'll say it again here... there's a major problem with a skill system where you have three tiers of skills which all provide the SAME benefit to different things, but are not proportionate in cost. This is not a big deal in a capless or very high cap system, but as low as the current cap is I don't think I'd recommend taking most T5 skills because they don't measure up compared to the more efficient T3 skills.

which can be any kit you happen to have on you at the moment.

except that equipment is only limited by your bag slots. "I HAVE the sniper skill, but I don't HAVE a sniper rifle.. yessh! oh wait a minute, here it is!"

Well you can't change equipment in battle, and I wouldn't have any problem with not being able to change ground equipment while on an away mission or ship equipment unless you were at a dock. Though Voyager does set a nice precedent for changing ship equipment out in the middle of nowhere...

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OK one more time...they can't charge for respecs in the C-store if you can max all your skills. It's really that simple.

Or maybe they didn't intend for Sandbox Design? Just tossing that out there.

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the majority of your post is "you're wrong. nuh uh. uh huh. nuh uh. uh huh." So we can jsut agree to disagree and I'm fine with that, BUT...

With the current skill system in STO there are weapon choices that are just flat-out wrong to make because of the additional skill point sacrifice. There's tweaking that needs to be done if they're going to keep the cap.

IF this is the case, then you are right. You see it all the time in MMORPGs especially, where one skill gets nerfed (or usually kneejerked) to uselessness and then the devs have to step up to bring utility back to it. If that's the case here then you are absolutely right. In WoW there were plenty of times that a 40 point talent simply didn't have a viable path to get to it and the devs had to go back to the drawing board for that talent tree to make it viable. But then do that, don't just say "screw it.. unlimited skill/talent/feat points.. let them take any any- and every-thing!!"

Like I said.. I've worked on game design before.. balancing is a very tough act.. actually almost impossible. But it is certainly better than providing for a limitless system and people complaining that the end game for every class plays the exact same as for every other person in that class.

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As of now, there are a few of the T5 skills that you would get laughed at for taking. Counting those that have been mentioned previously... that leaves, six? maybe seven? that anyone would consider taking? Now look at what each of those six actually do for you. Most of them improve bridge officer skills. Speaking of which, you only get a total of 12 bridge officer powers. I count 11 blocks you can fill in between T3 and T4, plus 1 block in T5 plus part of another if you so choose. I do believe that means you can max out any power you want to, as long as you choose between the ones that are most important and the ones that aren't.

Just with the first sentence... you don't see a problem with that? As you said, at most you can max out one T5 skill... You want to throw away ground combat, ship skills, and weapon skills, and just focus on the bridge officer skills? That still means you can only actually use one ability that uses a T5 skill properly. One T5 ability, maybe two if they both use the same skill. And again, the tier of the skill the ability uses has nothing to do with what level the ability is. This makes any ability that depends on a T5 skill much more expensive and therefore a lot less likely to be picked.

if compare the actual skills on T3, T4, and T5, they are set that way currently for balance issues, to prevent you from stacking too many abilities and ranking them all up to over inflate your abilities, would be my best guess as to why they are positioned that way. I'm not a developer and I didn't code it that way.

Actually when I look at how the skills are positioned it seems like it's just based on what level you start getting access to them. Phasers are T3 because you've seen tons of them by then and that's the first specific tier, Plasma are T4 because you start seeing those a little later, Antiproton weapons are T5 simply because they're not going to be very common until higher levels.

And with the current issues caused by the skill cap such as worthless T5 skills and weapons that nobody will ever use, I seriously doubt that the Devs had enough foresight to design the skill system (which was originally capless) to balance stacking abilities across tiers.

Uhm... yes. That is how it is in just about every single game that I've ever played. it was only just recently that WoW released dual spec, that you had to pay for 20 respecs at one time to get the ability to swap between 2 any time you want at no cost. Most people use that for PvP and PvE.

Well excuse me for not being a WoW guy. It's no surprise I didn't like a game that required respeccing to play the whole game. There are plenty of better systems, such as skill based instead of level based games. EVE, UO, even FFXI which is a level based game... none of those require respeccing.

So now we enter raid content, You have everything maxed, I don't. you've been able to play for 60 hours a week, I have not. Who gets the raid spot? you. Why? cause you play more. Why should you not have to actually make choices in the game instead of just getting everything? TV is TV. It's meant to be dramatic and overdone, not realistic. Try Captain Picard? He turned down an admiral job because of politics, go him. He also broke the prime directive to save the arguably most hated character in TNG. He is far from the best at everything. He relies on Counselor Troy to tell him whats going on, relies on Data to compute everything, relies on Doctor Crusher to fix the sick people, etc. This is only 1 ship as any more ships would be silly for the show. You can't do everything, you need other people to help you out. Since everyone is a captain of their own ship, this makes sense to do it this way.

Sure, if you're purely talking some sort of pick-up group raiding, a player with the flexibility to fill any gap needed with a quick ship change would be more appealing than someone fixed into one role... but if you only need that one role that's not an issue. And if you're in a fleet their own rules will apply.

Yes, as a captain, Picard delegates various ship duties to his bridge officers. That's his job. He doesn't do everything himself, but he was never supposed to.

In game, you are a captain, and therefore have bridge officers to command. You don't do everything yourself, you rely on your bridge officers in order to actually HAVE any abilities. No matter how many skills you have, you can't use them without bridge officers. Why should the fact that there are other captains around require you to be worse at commanding your bridge officers?

Balancing is never easy. Right now one of the largest obstacles that Cryptic has for balancing that I can see is Fleet action rewards. Since Cruisers and Science vessels basically get boned at every turn for rewards, only Escorts are even worth playing there, except that if everyone played an escort, what fun would the game be?

So your answer to Escorts being the best at doing DPS and "winning" a bigger share of fleet actions is to prevent people from using Escorts if they want to use anything else too? I can't even put into words how illogical that is...

To this, I submit to you, ESRB Notice: Game Experience May Change During Online Play

It happens. Often times things are completely reworked because someone high up realizes that it wont work the way it's designed.

That line has nothing to do with the game or what devs promise or changes. It's just a warning from the ESRB, which rates games so parents can tell what content is in a game and appropriate for their kids. All it's saying is "Hey, you're playing with other people. There's a chance someone could be vulgar, therefore there may be profanity in the game despite the fact that we didn't put that into our rating."

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IF this is the case, then you are right. You see it all the time in MMORPGs especially, where one skill gets nerfed (or usually kneejerked) to uselessness and then the devs have to step up to bring utility back to it. If that's the case here then you are absolutely right. In WoW there were plenty of times that a 40 point talent simply didn't have a viable path to get to it and the devs had to go back to the drawing board for that talent tree to make it viable. But then do that, don't just say "screw it.. unlimited skill/talent/feat points.. let them take any any- and every-thing!!"

Like I said.. I've worked on game design before.. balancing is a very tough act.. actually almost impossible. But it is certainly better than providing for a limitless system and people complaining that the end game for every class plays the exact same as for every other person in that class.

The problem runs deeper than nerfing or simple balance issues. As the skill system is currently, there are quite a few skills that are useless not because they are ineffective, but because of what tier they are in.

Whether you prefer a skill cap or not, there's no disputing that the skill system was originally designed to be capless. And I wish you would stop hearing "wah! wah! I want to learn everything!" and actually listen to the problems.

I have nothing against a skill cap. Most people in this thread who have a problem would be fine with a skill cap. The problem does not lie in the cap itself, but in the major change to how the system works without a single tweak to fix things that change breaks. Plus it was alarmingly last minute, only even announced a week before launch. There hasn't been even a single comment by the devs that any of this is being looked into.

All we have gotten as a response is "you'll be getting respecs." That's it. That hardly solves the underlying problems. While the easiest answer by far is to just remove the skill cap and fix any problems with maxed characters when they actually add new content, instead they've launched a game with a broken skill system and thrown respecs in as a bandaid.

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Well excuse me for not being a WoW guy. It's no surprise I didn't like a game that required respeccing to play the whole game. There are plenty of better systems, such as skill based instead of level based games. EVE, UO, even FFXI which is a level based game... none of those require respeccing.

just wanted to point out that UO most definitely had caps in the early game thanks to skill atrophy. outside of playing a character 24/7 (essentially) there was no way you could devote enough time to every skill that mattered to have a maxed character. Even your most basic mage tanks were a nightmare to keep up due to skill atrophy. That system actually goes back to my doctor/lawyer real life example (which is sort of why I included it).

And wow doesn't "require" respeccing. But for most classes it is easier to just spec one way for 1-80 solo play, and then at the end game for raiding respec differently for raid utility. then there is dual speccing for having both PvE/PvP builds which are also usually completely different.

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just wanted to point out that UO most definitely had caps in the early game thanks to skill atrophy. outside of playing a character 24/7 (essentially) there was no way you could devote enough time to every skill that mattered to have a maxed character. Even your most basic mage tanks were a nightmare to keep up due to skill atrophy. That system actually goes back to my doctor/lawyer real life example (which is sort of why I included it).

I didn't say it was capless, I said it didn't require respeccing. You didn't have to forget how to do one thing in order to do another. Yes if you didn't keep up with the atrophy and just switched your playstyle completely you would forget, but that certainly makes a lot more sense than just trading one skill for another by paying some gold.

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Or maybe they didn't intend for Sandbox Design? Just tossing that out there.

Up until around the end of CB/start of OB, the announced format was no skill cap. A few people have the quote in their sigs and/or a link to when it was said, so you would be incorrect.

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You didn't have to forget how to do one thing in order to do another..
you sort of did though. If you went over to thieving/stealth skills and sluffed off on magic, you would lose those magic skills due to atrophy. Paying to do it immediately is simply a semantic. the net result was you DID have to lose skills to gain more skills to a specialized degree.

capped systems are the norm, plain and simple. I can understand the frustration if indeed cryptic said the game would go live without skill caps and then up and implemented one weeks before launch. However if they never actually stated that as such when asked, I think it's pretty naive (meant in a very literal way, not derogatory) to assume the beta would go live with the same lack of any sort of limit when virtually no other game does this. It may have even been unexpected but certainly not unfounded.

Anyway, off to play. I haven't come across any of the skill balance issues you are stating, but I'm only Lt. Cmdr 1. Needless to say as they do come up I'll certainly voice my opinions and concerns about them in the Powers forum. cheers. :)

Up until around the end of CB/start of OB, the announced format was no skill cap. A few people have the quote in their sigs and/or a link to when it was said, so you would be incorrect.
I would be very interested to see that announcement. If that was the case then I can understand the disappointment when they changed their minds. That being said, I definitely find the "liars" and whatnot name calling fairly childish by some people here. Game design changes direction as things are found to work or not.. Any long time MMOG is typically VERY different gameplay-wise 3+ years down the road as it is from when it launched. This will be no different.

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I would be very interested to see that announcement. If that was the case then I can understand the disappointment when they changed their minds. That being said, I definitely find the "liars" and whatnot name calling fairly childish by some people here. Game design changes direction as things are found to work or not.. Any long time MMOG is typically VERY different gameplay-wise 3+ years down the road as it is from when it launched. This will be no different.

Plenty of people have the comments linked in their signature to the Ten Ton Hammer interview and Warcry interviews.

Also, not sure if they updated the site to reflect the skill cap differences, but the website did indicate a capless system.

Again, I'm PRO Skill cap.

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capped systems are the norm, plain and simple. I can understand the frustration if indeed cryptic said the game would go live without skill caps and then up and implemented one weeks before launch. However if they never actually stated that as such when asked, I think it's pretty naive (meant in a very literal way, not derogatory) to assume the beta would go live with the same lack of any sort of limit when virtually no other game does this. It may have even been unexpected but certainly not unfounded.

Why does every game have to fit the norm? And why does everyone who say this dismiss EVE as the obvious counter-example?

The way the skill system was originally designed, it was described to be virtually the same as EVE. You could learn endlessly, but supposedly they were going to add skills at a rate that prevented you from easily knowing everything at any one time. Now I have nothing against that being a rather naive idea that they could keep ahead of players with a play-based progression instead of time-based like EVE, but to completely gut the system they had designed seems a bit rash don't you think?

If they couldn't get it right in the two years it took them to design the skill system, when will they? Throwing away those two years of work and having to start over from scratch to address the new issues caused by a cap just seems foolish.

I just don't have the same confidence in Cryptic that all the players who say those issues will be addressed do. I want an actual Dev response and a show of good faith that they're actually working on it instead of ignoring it. All I can see happening right now is Cryptic using the "eventual" raising of the cap, along with respecs, as an excuse to dismiss any problems with the skill system as it stands, if they ever respond.

Edit: Also, I think you misread. Not weeks. One week. 7 days.

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the majority of your post is "you're wrong. nuh uh. uh huh. nuh uh. uh huh." So we can jsut agree to disagree and I'm fine with that, BUT...

He probably gets tired of typing out the reason WHY you're wrong with every new person that puts forth your argument. If more people would read the past threads we would need to do less retreading.

IF this is the case, then you are right. You see it all the time in MMORPGs especially, where one skill gets nerfed (or usually kneejerked) to uselessness and then the devs have to step up to bring utility back to it. If that's the case here then you are absolutely right. In WoW there were plenty of times that a 40 point talent simply didn't have a viable path to get to it and the devs had to go back to the drawing board for that talent tree to make it viable. But then do that, don't just say "screw it.. unlimited skill/talent/feat points.. let them take any any- and every-thing!!"

And here you go again. The fact that different weapon types cost different amounts of SP was balanced BECAUSE the system was designed without a cap. They cost more because they had neater side effects but that didn't matter because you could always get more SP. Now there is no reason to go past phasers/disruptors/photons/quantums because the neater side effects DON'T outweigh the additional cost you're paying with your extremely limited SP pool.

I would be very interested to see that announcement.

Check the two links in my signature.

The Ten Ton Hammer interview where the cap was disclosed can be found here. (http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/79456) Note that date on that: January 18th. Six days before the end of Open Beta.

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He probably gets tired of typing out the reason WHY you're wrong with every new person that puts forth your argument. If more people would read the past threads we would need to do less retreading.

Actually, while I feel like every other post I write gets skipped because I don't get any response to them, I thought I did a pretty good job of providing reasons instead of flat out "you're wrong"s.

What I really get tired of is people coming in and only seeing the word capless. Or assuming that enough skills will somehow turn someone into an unstoppable force.

All I'm arguing is that the current skill system is broken. One reason for that is that it was designed capless, but that doesn't mean I think the only answer is to remove the cap. It's the easiest answer, but frankly I'd be happy with just about any response from the devs right about now. We've probably hit over 1,000 posts on this subject by now between this thread and the last with no response.

While I often get sidetracked with the constant "no game is capless" argument and reasons why it "doesn't work", I'm not here to whine about the cap. I just want the broken system fixed.

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Quoting everything is giving me a headache, so I'll just post normally again.

@Taeyan

I agree that the system isn't optimal. It's a quick fix that is hopefully intended to be looked at in extensive detail. I do think it was a needed change though.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I think what they did was right. Cryptic made a very underhanded move by last minute sneak changing a major game mechanic.

This is what I feel is most wrong about the situation. I like the skill cap, I think the skill cap as is is perfectly acceptable. I think the positions for skills need work. Some things should be moved here or there, and utility needs to be added to the T4 and 5 weapons to make them desirable.

We have no idea how ground is going to be treated during end game content, but the fact that for all the skills that are included in Space Related Encounters, there are only 14 total ground skills per class. This automatically leads to the assumption that they aren't nearly as useful. After all, I've not seen any problem with ground combat when I have more people rather than the senseless nearly useless bridge officers.

The change was sneaky and I don't see major announcements stating the change was made. It was posted on an interview for a third party site. This is the heart of the problem. This is why people should really be upset. It does make me worried about the future of the game with possible changes some way down the line that aren't really announced... but the skill cap? Skill placement? These aren't as bad as people are making them out to be. It was a needed change for the game to progress the way the developers actually want it to.

Please try not to forget, the developers made this game. We're paying for it because we want to play their creation. They decide how the game works, they debate changes and design, we just cry about how we think it's not fair until we find out how to exploit the system, then we're on top again until they change something else for us to cry about.

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The change was sneaky and I don't see major announcements stating the change was made. It was posted on an interview for a third party site. This is the heart of the problem. This is why people should really be upset. It does make me worried about the future of the game with possible changes some way down the line that aren't really announced... but the skill cap? Skill placement? These aren't as bad as people are making them out to be. It was a needed change for the game to progress the way the developers actually want it to.

Please try not to forget, the developers made this game. We're paying for it because we want to play their creation. They decide how the game works, they debate changes and design, we just cry about how we think it's not fair until we find out how to exploit the system, then we're on top again until they change something else for us to cry about.

What you're saying is the heart of the problem is the heart of MY problem with the other problems. Because they made this last minute change that screws over a variety of skills with no warning and as little public announcement as possible, I have my doubts that they're going to fix the actual gameplay issues. A little bit of dev response would go a long way towards making me more at ease.

And I think it's funny that you go from "people should really be upset" about the way this was handled in one paragraph to "the developers made this game. [...] we just cry about how we think it's not fair" in the next.

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Having been an active participant in this discussion all through OB, the current status of the game only further emphasises that an unlimited skillcap would actually HELP the game.

We already have people sitting at Admiral becoming bored and once you hit that cap there is nothing to do. It was completely stupid for ANYONE to think that Cryptic would EVER be able to keep ahead of the player base .

However, with the ability to learn ALL skills it would require siginificantly LONGER. Remember: this was what Cryptic wanted by saying REACHING Admiral would only make you a small way finished. The rest of the way would be training the REST of the skills to max and getting into endgame content.

The latter does not exist, the former has been capped thus once you hit the cap. Your done.
Removing the cap and allowing people to train everything actually HELPS improve longevity by giving those characters something to do.
Some might like making new characters and be prepared to PAY for the extra slots however I for one do not.
Even with 5 Slots from my lifetime subscription I would rather max out ONE character to absoloute peak than have to run 4 different characters in 1/4 of the time. Least of all because using up those slots is stupid unless your prepared to delete the character when they come out with the Romulans and the Cardassians.
Anything ELSE they come out that requires a character reset, a.k.a new races, new traits, new powers, new ships, new classes.

Those claiming that everyone will be the same can equally STFU. Sorry, but if you make maxing ALL skills difficult and LONG then the chances of people actually doing it become less likely. EVE has a skill system that would take YEARS to complete in full so I see no reason why STO could adopt a similar strategy to provide players with an endgame skill progression.

The current status of the skill system is just a shambles.
Prior to headstart the advocates of skill capping kept saying that Cryptic would change the skill system to reflect this change in direction, guess what ?
They did not, they have left the skills exactly the same thus your now leveling skills in a capped system that was not meant to be capped.

The end result ?
Whos going to be using Anti-Proton beam weapons and be able to properly SKILL for them ?

The current skill system vs. items is that you can only start training for something when you reach the level that it starts becoming available. Thus the wise will just train Disrupters and Phasers because those become available from start to finish at a much reduced skill cost. Ideally, I wanted to skill into Tetryons or Anti-Protons but no way am I going to do that when its more effective and rewarding to go with the first weapon classes.

Trying to 'save' your skillpoints dosent work, you need to spend to rank up. Thus inorder to get to anti-protons your going to have to go through the entire game worth of ranks skilling other things. Thus, one of those is logically going to be lower ranked weapons.
Phasers and disrupters automatically become the best option which means EVERYONE ends up using the same weapon systems. Equally the same for projectiles. It will be Quantums and Photons all around.

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A little bit of dev response would go a long way towards making me more at ease.

And I think it's funny that you go from "people should really be upset" about the way this was handled in one paragraph to "the developers made this game. [...] we just cry about how we think it's not fair" in the next.
To the first, I agree, to the second,

What I said was, people should be upset about how the change was handled, not upset about the change. They should be asking for the skills to be looked at and balanced accordingly, but that takes time. It won't happen overnight, it will happen over the course of months of testing and data.

Given the attitude of everyone else, I'll probably pick up T4 or 5 weapon skills just because the fact that no one wants them means they will be extremely accessible and quite cheap comparatively. If everyone wants a Purple Disruptor cannon mk X, and I find one, you can bet it's going to be incredibly expensive when I sell it. But that purple anti-proton cannon? No one uses those, complete trash! Might as well vendor it...

The current positioning of skills needs to be looked at, the skill cap is fine.

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I am still mixed, why? because of these factors

The problems that arose out of this decision consist of several factors.

1. Significant and considerable months of corporate communications and marketing messages, had led people to believe the game had no skill cap - Since day 1 when Cryptic got the IP title, establish the web site, and started promoting the features of STO.

2. The IP, plus the fact of no skill cap attracted tremendous amount of interest from both Star-Trek and other MMO players, especially, the ones who use to play SGW pre-nge, a hybrid MMO, "contents, "no skill cap" big IP, etc"

3. Significant large amounts of people had purchased ("pre-ordered" ,"prepaid", "lifetime" and "12 months" ) of the game based on these features, including the no-skill cap, which was a very strong and desirable feature set" for lots of gamers.

4. The timing of such announcement, from closed to open beta - no information, then one week before the commercial release. "Bam", which did not give customers who had purchased the game beforehand, the opportunity to re-evaluated and make another informed decision regarding their buying decision, whatever to cancel, accept, change their status or seek refunds.

5. No testing of such skill cap features, plus other key features, like crafting - through CB to OB, now the commercial release.

6. Finally, for me, the most important, 1. The apparent lack of communication from marketing and developers on how these skill sets and other features work and how things are tied in (interrelated in what area, interdependency and non dependency among the various options , along with a clear written documentation showing the logic tree, max cap and points of each such "path" and "progress" including the "direct & indirect" impact of them. Think SGW pre-nge skill tree - that allows the players to make an informed decision.

I am use to "sink" or "swim" process, and can think and figure out things for myself, and I do not mind it, I like to figure things out, however, this is a game, they set the rule, and right now, it seems like too many players, are sinking, because of the lack of communication and clear logic documentation. Not what they have now, and people have to hunt thru hundreds of forum threads to get some type of answer, on how things work.

I consider myself a highly-intelligent person, but the way they have it set up, its very confusing, thus I am very reluctant to spent skill points, especially after reading the beginning of this post today, where I just found out now the skill cap max is 60,700, which now mess up some other trees that I already invested points in.

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What I said was, people should be upset about how the change was handled, not upset about the change. They should be asking for the skills to be looked at and balanced accordingly, but that takes time. It won't happen overnight, it will happen over the course of months of testing and data.

Unfortunately, they don't have months. There are already rear admirals in game, and even discounting the diehards that have played non-stop to reach that level during head start, a large majority of the player population will be hitting the end game before respecs are even likely to be in. When that happens there will be a lot more outrage than there is right now, due to a lot of players dismissing the issue as "those whiners just want everything."

If the population drops next to nil in a few months with players quitting out of frustration and boredom this game will end up in the same limbo as Champion's, with content that was removed or missing in beta still not available.

Given the attitude of everyone else, I'll probably pick up T4 or 5 weapon skills just because the fact that no one wants them means they will be extremely accessible and quite cheap comparatively. If everyone wants a Purple Disruptor cannon mk X, and I find one, you can bet it's going to be incredibly expensive when I sell it. But that purple anti-proton cannon? No one uses those, complete trash! Might as well vendor it...

You certainly have that option. Then again, you're throwing away all the abilities dependent on T5 engineering or science skills if you do that. Of course you'll probably be in an escort and assume that won't matter because you won't have as many engineering or science BO stations. We'll see how that works out end game, but until then I have my doubts on it's viability.

The current positioning of skills needs to be looked at, the skill cap is fine.

If by needs to be looked at you mean tone down the cost of T4 and T5 skills to make them more attractive, that's basically the same thing as raising the skill cap. If you just raise the effectiveness of T5 skills it still won't help with the current issue of players having to choose just one, which is a nightmare to balance among 19 skills.

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Seems the post has been a hot topic this past day. Those for or against that have a valid argument (such as the hammer post) are welcome to send me the thread you would like to form a COUNTER-HAMMER post to.

Please provide constructive criticism and refrain from name calling and flaming. Trying to show the devs that the player base cares, and improve on an already excellent looking game.

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Unless you plan on swapping out your bridge officer powers, you really don't need more than the points they are giving you to be effective at whatever you want to do, given that you make a specific character with specific goals.

I just want to reach back in time and harp on this because it's one of my biggest sore points.

Swapping out bridge officer powers and ship configurations was and, absurdly, remains one of Cryptic's selling points. I especially love how the forum reply confirming the SP cap mentioned that we still got unlimited bridge officer SP as if that would be useful in any way.

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Am I doing the math wrong here? There are 6 sections to put points with 5 tiers ranging from 100pts to 500pts that you have to bring up to 9 "marks" to be able to move from one tier to the next, I am getting 81k points needed to put 9 marks, once in each tier per 6 sections. Yet the cap is 60,700? That's not even enough... I thought people were just wanting more points (I kept seeing sig with "100k pts nao!"), but less than 81k?

I'm all for the cap, but really, bring it to 81k please!?

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At this point, I would just be happy with any kind of response that "they" know that the tree is broken, and SOMETHING will be done about it.

I read the interviews coming in, and the topic is purposefully neglected.

I listen to the podcasts (Hailing Frequencies anybody?) and they purposefully ignore this question. In fact, in their last interview, they even said that all submitted topics had been discussed when, in fact, there were several people (myself included) that had submitted questions concerning the skill point situation, and it was just utterly ignored. I even sent them an email after the fact which was, surprisingly, ignored. Cryptic ignores this, what we have as "press" ignores this, geeze!

I watch the Cryptic Team on the forums, and the purposefully ignore this issue.

Why? Why are we kept in the dark? Just tell us SOMETHING!

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At this point, I would just be happy with any kind of response that "they" know that the tree is broken, and SOMETHING will be done about it.

I read the interviews coming in, and the topic is purposefully neglected.

I listen to the podcasts (Hailing Frequencies anybody?) and they purposefully ignore this question. In fact, in their last interview, they even said that all submitted topics had been discussed when, in fact, there were several people (myself included) that had submitted questions concerning the skill point situation, and it was just utterly ignored. I even sent them an email after the fact which was, surprisingly, ignored. Cryptic ignores this, what we have as "press" ignores this, geeze!

I watch the Cryptic Team on the forums, and the purposefully ignore this issue.

Why? Why are we kept in the dark? Just tell us SOMETHING!


Like i said, the lack of communication does not surprise me.. this type of decision was not made in a vacuum, and probably been plan for at least 3 or 4 months prior, a decision like this, which effect a software feature that is intertwine thru the core code, it not a decision that will be made like the week before commercial release, CB or OB.

It probably was made way before, and CB and OB was a testbed on the new element, conducted secretly, which could expain why certain elements during CB and OB was not even open up to be tested, especially the high level content.

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I think it may be a bit premature (with the game being live for a total of 24 hours) to be too upset just yet.

We have (I hope) a long game lifetime ahead of us. There are probably things none of us have thought of yet that we will see in the months and years to come as the game evolves. I for one vote for playing the game, pointing out what we think needs to change and working with the devs to grow the game.

On the topic of a skill cap... I think there needs to be one. I was not that well read on the closed beta or previous plans. I had assumed we would not be able to max every skill. As a former Star Wars Galaxies player (3 on my server to unlock jedi when that really meant something) I think the skill system in STO and SWG are very similar. SWG had a cap so that you could only max certain trees and it resulted in some really interesting builds and customizations. I think having a cap in STO will yield the same.

I also think that, if the cap was not originally intended, the skill tress should be revamped to make sure there is some real distinction between paths. If not then I can understand why players would be upset.

Again... some time and constructive feedback and things should improve.

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I think it may be a bit premature (with the game being live for a total of 24 hours) to be too upset just yet.

We have (I hope) a long game lifetime ahead of us. There are probably things none of us have thought of yet that we will see in the months and years to come as the game evolves. I for one vote for playing the game, pointing out what we think needs to change and working with the devs to grow the game.

On the topic of a skill cap... I think there needs to be one. I was not that well read on the closed beta or previous plans. I had assumed we would not be able to max every skill. As a former Star Wars Galaxies player (3 on my server to unlock jedi when that really meant something) I think the skill system in STO and SWG are very similar. SWG had a cap so that you could only max certain trees and it resulted in some really interesting builds and customizations. I think having a cap in STO will yield the same.

I also think that, if the cap was not originally intended, the skill tress should be revamped to make sure there is some real distinction between paths. If not then I can understand why players would be upset.

Again... some time and constructive feedback and things should improve.

we have been giving feedback ever since the change was thrown on us in OB and NOTHING has been even said, let alone done. click the post in my sig for more information

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I think it may be a bit premature (with the game being live for a total of 24 hours) to be too upset just yet.

We have (I hope) a long game lifetime ahead of us. There are probably things none of us have thought of yet that we will see in the months and years to come as the game evolves. I for one vote for playing the game, pointing out what we think needs to change and working with the devs to grow the game.

On the topic of a skill cap... I think there needs to be one. I was not that well read on the closed beta or previous plans. I had assumed we would not be able to max every skill. As a former Star Wars Galaxies player (3 on my server to unlock jedi when that really meant something) I think the skill system in STO and SWG are very similar. SWG had a cap so that you could only max certain trees and it resulted in some really interesting builds and customizations. I think having a cap in STO will yield the same.

I also think that, if the cap was not originally intended, the skill tress should be revamped to make sure there is some real distinction between paths. If not then I can understand why players would be upset.

Again... some time and constructive feedback and things should improve.

I'm just yearning to burn you on the fact that you think this is about a Cap still, and the fact that you haven't read likely any post in this thread, and the fact that this is a discussion on how the skill cap should be more finely tuned, rather than a discussion of the skill cap being removed entirely. (This run on sentance was burn enough)

The game has been live for more than 24 hours, maybe you just picked yours up 24 hours ago, but I've been playing since Friday and there are multiple confirmed Admirals in the game (Heck, the Klingons should have them by now too).

As for being upset, it's a matter of balance not being upset. The rage was in the open beta posts, this is a discussion for improvement.

And here here for the person saying that 100k points may be too high, 81k is OK by me.

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What I really get tired of is people coming in and only seeing the word capless. Or assuming that enough skills will somehow turn someone into an unstoppable force.
to be fair, I never said an unstoppable force. I instead said it takes the utility out of the game if everyone at the top is equal, and removes ALL purpose from the game for the havenots either not yet at the top or unable to put the time in to get there.

RPGs are not shooters. You aren't faceless grunts all punching away at the enemy until you break through. Everyone has a role to play and a function to serve. This means there are no jacks of all trades (or if there are in the form of a hybrid class, then they have to choose on a progression or end up with a little from both). By going to a "shooter" system (for lack of a better term) where at the end skill is all that matters, it ends up, as with shooters, that those who can't invest the time to improve in their gameplay typically can't participate and it grows that distinction substantially. I gloss over EVE because EVE is a perfect example of this. Generally people who come into the game now, even as they approach the top, are typically rarely going to be as good , or be able to become as good, as long time players. It's why EVE has both a long tenured subscription base and at the same time sees very minimal subscription growth. Now if this is the sort of system you want from a game I am definitely not one to argue it, but at the same time it's a veritable death sentence for a game looking for mainstream appeal (of which EVE has virtually none). Hence you put in a cap/limit game where utility is based on the game engine and not the majority on actual player ability, and thus it is realistic for someone to level up a character to the cap and within a short amount of time be just as capable as everyone else.

I can see your points of view, and never have I said (unlike you guys) that you were out and out wrong. But on that same hand I can't see how a purely capless system based totally on skill and somewhat on gear will ever successfully make it in a mainstream MMORPG setting. After as little as 6 months of play it ends up turning into a case of the originals (re: NOT lifetime subscription holders) vs. the johnny come latelys. It's ironic that you guys always hold EVE up because frankly that's the worst situation you could make for a game looking for mainstream market share, and any long time EVE player would tell you just exactly that. They practically pride themselves that the game is a gated niche community.

and the fact that this is a discussion on how the skill cap should be more finely tuned, rather than a discussion of the skill cap being removed entirely. (This run on sentance was burn enough)
unfortunately the majority of solutions seem to be either implement a capless system OR implement a cap high enough that you can essentially take all of the meaty skills anyway. The game only has three classes.. In it's current form there HAS TO be a cap low enough in place to create separate utility inside of those classes. Forget WoW, forget EQ, forget D&D. If there are only three classes and the only difference inside each class is what color your pew pews are, it's going to make any sort of end game trivial at best. "You guys heal, you guys debuff, you guys attack". That may be simplifying it a bit, but in my experience so far with the game not off a whole lot from every (or every IMPORTANT) skill being available.

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Like i said, the lack of communication does not surprise me.. this type of decision was not made in a vacuum, and probably been plan for at least 3 or 4 months prior, a decision like this, which effect a software feature that is intertwine thru the core code, it not a decision that will be made like the week before commercial release, CB or OB.

It probably was made way before, and CB and OB was a testbed on the new element, conducted secretly, which could expain why certain elements during CB and OB was not even open up to be tested, especially the high level content.

So, basically, you believe Cryptic personnel were making bald-faced lies after the decision had already been made?

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I think it may be a bit premature (with the game being live for a total of 24 hours) to be too upset just yet.

We have (I hope) a long game lifetime ahead of us. There are probably things none of us have thought of yet that we will see in the months and years to come as the game evolves. I for one vote for playing the game, pointing out what we think needs to change and working with the devs to grow the game.

On the topic of a skill cap... I think there needs to be one. I was not that well read on the closed beta or previous plans. I had assumed we would not be able to max every skill. As a former Star Wars Galaxies player (3 on my server to unlock jedi when that really meant something) I think the skill system in STO and SWG are very similar. SWG had a cap so that you could only max certain trees and it resulted in some really interesting builds and customizations. I think having a cap in STO will yield the same.

I also think that, if the cap was not originally intended, the skill tress should be revamped to make sure there is some real distinction between paths. If not then I can understand why players would be upset.

Again... some time and constructive feedback and things should improve.

Granted, you was not probably here during CB and OB.. I do not think most people have an issue with the concept of a "cap limitation" and had accept it.

The issues that people like myself are having about Cryptic is the handling, timing and execution of this decision, and the impact of it, which directly had an economic consequence for most of us, prior before this announcement was made.

In some way, I feel I was dupe, based on what been said, indicated and marketed previously by Cryptic (, website, press releases, magazines articles and trade shows), where the market was assuming and believing this, purchase the product way before this announcement was made, and such a decision was kept quiet where customers was still under the belief and still paying for the product, (whatever it was released or not) with this incomplete information. This did not give the customer an opportunity to evaluate it before making their buying decision because they was not aware of this incomplete information.

Because of that, there may be some legal implications and violations of key Federal and States laws relating to Cryptic's selling and marketing practices and the funny thing is, Cryptic could had avoided all of this and this issue, if they have announced the changes way before they engage in any pre-ordered, pre-paid or other sales offerings, including CB and OB. Do not be surprised down the road to see legal issues crop up about Cryptic's selling and marketing practices and this one issue, it probably just one tip of the ice-berg.

So, basically, you believe Cryptic personnel were making bald-faced lies after the decision had already been made?

Not saying there was a deliberate misconducts or malicious effort, what I am saying, a decision like this was made at the one of the highest level, where they had numerous discussions about it because it affected a key feature set of a potential product and resources.

I saying Cryptic communication process failed significantly both internally and externally, especially in the Marketing Department, if anything they the ones who drop the ball and should get the blame, particularity "the head of marketing" or the "product manager" that why they get pay the big buck, to avoid issues like this and manage the customers expectation. In my opinion, these persons did not do their job and fail on all counts.

[Archived Post]

Like i said, the lack of communication does not surprise me.. this type of decision was not made in a vacuum, and probably been plan for at least 3 or 4 months prior, a decision like this, which effect a software feature that is intertwine thru the core code, it not a decision that will be made like the week before commercial release, CB or OB.

It probably was made way before, and CB and OB was a testbed on the new element, conducted secretly, which could expain why certain elements during CB and OB was not even open up to be tested, especially the high level content.

One would think that, with all that planning and test-bedding, that when a decision like this was made, they would -FIX THE TREE- .

Just sayin, if they went through what you are thinking, what were they testing? It sure wasn't a new skill system. Were the testing if anyone would notice?

No, this has the stink of last minute decision written all over it. Lack of any official acknowledgment of this just furthers that train of thought.

[Archived Post]

Glass half full side in me today, hoping they're expecting something to be changed in the next patch, maybe in an upcoming version update versus minor patches being applied.

:cool:

EDIT: I wonder if the admirals in game even speak english, and if they can, why haven't they put in their two cents yet?

[Archived Post]

Glass half full side in me today, hoping they're expecting something to be changed in the next patch, maybe in an upcoming version update versus minor patches being applied.

:cool:

EDIT: I wonder if the admirals in game even speak english, and if they can, why haven't they put in their two cents yet?

Honestly, I think the forums have been rolling a bit too fast. The only reason I can even find this thread is because I subscribe to it.

Maybe they are too busy grind....er....playing.

[Archived Post]

to be fair, I never said an unstoppable force. I instead said it takes the utility out of the game if everyone at the top is equal, and removes ALL purpose from the game for the havenots either not yet at the top or unable to put the time in to get there.

That line wasn't directed towards you, just a general comment about the people who post without reading anything in the thread and without any other argument than "all games have skill caps because having all skills would be overpowered." I don't believe there's as much of a discrepancy between haves and havenots as you're claiming, especially in a play-based progression system. That's not really the point though.

RPGs are not shooters. You aren't faceless grunts all punching away at the enemy until you break through. Everyone has a role to play and a function to serve. This means there are no jacks of all trades (or if there are in the form of a hybrid class, then they have to choose on a progression or end up with a little from both). By going to a "shooter" system (for lack of a better term) where at the end skill is all that matters, it ends up, as with shooters, that those who can't invest the time to improve in their gameplay typically can't participate and it grows that distinction substantially. I gloss over EVE because EVE is a perfect example of this. Generally people who come into the game now, even as they approach the top, are typically rarely going to be as good , or be able to become as good, as long time players. It's why EVE has both a long tenured subscription base and at the same time sees very minimal subscription growth. Now if this is the sort of system you want from a game I am definitely not one to argue it, but at the same time it's a veritable death sentence for a game looking for mainstream appeal (of which EVE has virtually none). Hence you put in a cap/limit game where utility is based on the game engine and not the majority on actual player ability, and thus it is realistic for someone to level up a character to the cap and within a short amount of time be just as capable as everyone else.

To be honest, this game actually does play a lot like a shooter. Minus the equipment and skills, which you can even find in some MMOFPS games like Planetside, what distinguishes this game as an RPG? There's no death penalty, just a short respawn timer. There's not a whole lot of loot progression, which also negates your point about a capped system allowing newly capped players to be effective. Good luck trying that in WoW competing against people who have raided for gear. The only thing missing is the twitch-based gameplay. It's easily comparable to games like Mass Effect, which are somewhere inbetween shooter and RPG without falling directly into either category.

What STO does have is player skill. Knowing how to build an effective ship and bridge officer combination, and how to play it well, and how to react to changes in the situation. Changing power levels on the fly, tactical maneuvering, teamwork... that's where the meat of the gameplay lies. However, you're currently stuck in a straitjacket because of the skill system. You don't have the flexibility to play around with various pieces of equipment, or try out new BO abilities, or even a different ship. You're stuck only being effective in the one build you specifically skill for and you're screwed if you weren't planning ahead the whole time while you were levelling. For a game that's advertised as having no skill cap, I have a feeling a lot of players will freak out when they hit that wall and respecs have not been implemented yet.

I can see your points of view, and never have I said (unlike you guys) that you were out and out wrong. But on that same hand I can't see how a purely capless system based totally on skill and somewhat on gear will ever successfully make it in a mainstream MMORPG setting. After as little as 6 months of play it ends up turning into a case of the originals (re: NOT lifetime subscription holders) vs. the johnny come latelys. It's ironic that you guys always hold EVE up because frankly that's the worst situation you could make for a game looking for mainstream market share, and any long time EVE player would tell you just exactly that. They practically pride themselves that the game is a gated niche community.

The reason for the imbalance between older players and newer players in EVE is the time-based progression. This is not nearly as much of an issue in a game where all you have to do is play an equal (or less usually due to balancing) amount of content in order to catch up. And again, if skills made you more powerful there would be a stronger argument here, but since all they provide is flexibility you can have your equality in power to another player who has played longer. You just have to stick with what you specialized in as you levelled and build flexibility from there.

unfortunately the majority of solutions seem to be either implement a capless system OR implement a cap high enough that you can essentially take all of the meaty skills anyway. The game only has three classes.. In it's current form there HAS TO be a cap low enough in place to create separate utility inside of those classes. Forget WoW, forget EQ, forget D&D. If there are only three classes and the only difference inside each class is what color your pew pews are, it's going to make any sort of end game trivial at best. "You guys heal, you guys debuff, you guys attack". That may be simplifying it a bit, but in my experience so far with the game not off a whole lot from every (or every IMPORTANT) skill being available

The reason for that being the majority of solutions is because that's the easiest solution. There's the much harder solution of completely redoing the skill system so it makes sense and is balanced with a cap, but that's risking an NGE level of change and subsequent fallout. And because this cap was added at the very last minute, disregarding the issues it causes, with no dev communication, and considering their record with Champion's Online... why would anyone trust that they could get that done right in a timely manner?

Again, the game simply doesn't have months of time to get this fixed. In the current MMO market, subscribers will flock to the newest and greatest thing like STO as soon as it comes out, but they won't stick around with a broken game. Once the word gets out that the game has problems it's much much harder to get new players to try it after launch. There are numerous examples of games that have failed or are on the verge of failing due to this kind of issue, and Cryptic does not have the luxury of time on their side.

[Archived Post]

...

I have some of my own ideas on ways to make these forums an awesome, fun place for you guys, but the easiest and most simplistic is simply your input. StormShade has always been fantastic about making sure you guys have his ear, and that tradition will continue. Consider me your voice at Cryptic. While I can not make any promises as this community is already huge, I will always make every effort to reply to any message sent to me, and will pass along any feedback about the game and what you’d like to see from the development team. You are all free to PM me with any ideas or concerns you may have; I would love to hear them.

...



So, Phoxe, since you are our voice....

How about some kind of information about this topic? Pretty please? I don't mean some copy / pasted answer, but something with meat that addresses some of the issues we are bringing to the table.

[Archived Post]

One would think that, with all that planning and test-bedding, that when a decision like this was made, they would -FIX THE TREE- .

Just sayin, if they went through what you are thinking, what were they testing? It sure wasn't a new skill system. Were the testing if anyone would notice?

No, this has the stink of last minute decision written all over it. Lack of any official acknowledgment of this just furthers that train of thought.

IMO, no I do not think this was a last minute decision, because this decision affect the core "foundation" of the product, and its features both from a product and marketing standpoint. , I can already tell this had been discussed, how did they come up with a 60.7k cap limit? They did not just pick it out of thin air.

No, this was not a last minute decision, what I think happen, they did not execute properly and underestimated the customer's feedback and the impact of it entirely, probably because they was trying to keep to their schedule and meet their deadline, without any delay. To me this was a calculated decision where they had weight the risk/benefits of it carefully, and where they fail was the communication and execution of it.

beside if this was a last minute decision, then I would be very worry, because it show the character of what the company is truly about and it highlight the lack of some of the marketing people professionalism - because, one of the first thing you should do is get a strong communication message out and articulate it clearly to gain support for it among your potential customers, especially the ones who prepaid. For me personally, if this was the case, then after my subscription expired, I will not be their customer ever again.

[Archived Post]

IMO, no I do not think this was a last minute decision, because this decision affect the core "foundation" of the product, and its features both from a product and marketing standpoint. , I can already tell this had been discussed, how did they come up with a 60.7k cap limit? They did not just pick it out of thin air.

No, this was not a last minute decision, what I think happen, they did not execute properly and underestimated the customer's feedback and the impact of it entirely, probably because they was trying to keep to their schedule and meet their deadline, without any delay. To me this was a calculated decision where they had weight the risk/benefits of it carefully, and where they fail was the communication and execution of it.

beside if this was a last minute decision, then I would be very worry, because it show the character of what the company is truly about and it highlight the lack of some of the marketing people professionalism - because, one of the first thing you should do is get a strong communication message out and articulate it clearly to gain support it among your potential customers, especially the ones who prepaid. For me personally, if this was the case, then after my subscription expired, I will not be their customer ever again.

Ok. As long as I understand your position.

You think they discussed and tested our current BROKEN skill tree after internal discussion (while they were telling us that we would be having unlimited skills, freeing us to max them all, because the tree offers utility rather than raw power, because that makes sense.

Does it make more sense that, after long discussions and internal testing that they would release the game with the skill tree (what you admit to being a pretty core part of the game) being totally broken?

What we have right this minute is a skill tree that was designed for players to obtain them all. Yet, we have what appears to be a totally random number as a cap to our skill points.

You do realize that this number that they weighed so heavily allows only 1 Tier 5 skill to be maxed?!

You realize that this system that you think they tested in such detail makes 3 groups of tier 3/4 skills totally and completely useless?!

Does *ANY* of what we have *RIGHT NOW* make *ANY* sense at all?

I think anyone can agree that a broken skill tree at launch doesn't really make any sense if for no other reason that the skill tree is so fundamental. Hell, we don't even have a respec system right now!

IMO - It would be a much better thing if this were a last minute decision. To think that they went through a huge internal debate, loads of internal testing, and finally came to a consensus to give us what we have now is just a disgustingly horrid idea. The only way I could forsee something like that would be a temporary cap to hold us back until this first content release they plan on over the coming few weeks.

So, if despite all that is staring you in the face, you want to believe that this is a well thought out plan of action on their part, then by all means. I am happy to just disagree. I just can not ignore the above.

None of this, however, negates the fact that this issue, as a whole, is being completely ignored by anyone with the information to alleviate our concerns. We can't even get a "Yea, we know it is broken. We are working on it."

[Archived Post]

Ok. As long as I understand your position.

You think they discussed and tested our current BROKEN skill tree after internal discussion (while they were telling us that we would be having unlimited skills, freeing us to max them all, because the tree offers utility rather than raw power, because that makes sense.

Does it make more sense that, after long discussions and internal testing that they would release the game with the skill tree (what you admit to being a pretty core part of the game) being totally broken?

What we have right this minute is a skill tree that was designed for players to obtain them all. Yet, we have what appears to be a totally random number as a cap to our skill points.

You do realize that this number that they weighed so heavily allows only 1 Tier 5 skill to be maxed?!

You realize that this system that you think they tested in such detail makes 3 groups of tier 3/4 skills totally and completely useless?!

Does *ANY* of what we have *RIGHT NOW* make *ANY* sense at all?

I think anyone can agree that a broken skill tree at launch doesn't really make any sense if for no other reason that the skill tree is so fundamental. Hell, we don't even have a respec system right now!

IMO - It would be a much better thing if this were a last minute decision. To think that they went through a huge internal debate, loads of internal testing, and finally came to a consensus to give us what we have now is just a disgustingly horrid idea. The only way I could forsee something like that would be a temporary cap to hold us back until this first content release they plan on over the coming few weeks.

So, if despite all that is staring you in the face, you want to believe that this is a well thought out plan of action on their part, then by all means. I am happy to just disagree. I just can not ignore the above.

None of this, however, negates the fact that this issue, as a whole, is being completely ignored by anyone with the information to alleviate our concerns. We can't even get a "Yea, we know it is broken. We are working on it."

Not to mention the fact that they "rebalanced" all the weapons so they all do the same damage at the same weapon Mk. level, but the skill cost to use the later ones are a magnitude higher? It would be one thing if Mk. X Tetryon or Polaron weapons put out more (or even different) damage than Mk. X Phasers or disruptors but that is not the case currently, and yet it costs considerably more skill points to train Tetryon/Polaron to the same level as phasers or disruptors.

[Archived Post]

The reason for the imbalance between older players and newer players in EVE is the time-based progression. This is not nearly as much of an issue in a game where all you have to do is play an equal (or less usually due to balancing) amount of content in order to catch up. And again, if skills made you more powerful there would be a stronger argument here, but since all they provide is flexibility you can have your equality in power to another player who has played longer. You just have to stick with what you specialized in as you levelled and build flexibility from there.

And even then, most people don't even care about the "imbalance" in Eve because the skill domains are so different. If I'm a noob casual player in Eve flying around in a frigate, by most chances I will probably never encounter the 6-year old toons flying supercapitals far away in drone-lala-land. It's as if we're playing separate games; the theoretical disparity is simply not there in practice.

Also "Star Trek" is the only reason why STO would be a "mainstream" MMO, not through its design intent. The design intent was to make a Star Trek MMO that a certain segment of the gaming population would probably want to play. Nobody at Cryptic is trying to make STO the next WoW killer. And they should take lessons from SOE learned with the whole SWG mess.

[Archived Post]

Ok. As long as I understand your position.

1. You think they discussed and tested our current BROKEN skill tree after internal discussion (while they were telling us that we would be having unlimited skills, freeing us to max them all, because the tree offers utility rather than raw power, because that makes sense.

2. Does it make more sense that, after long discussions and internal testing that they would release the game with the skill tree (what you admit to being a pretty core part of the game) being totally broken?

3. What we have right this minute is a skill tree that was designed for players to obtain them all. Yet, we have what appears to be a totally random number as a cap to our skill points.

How do we know? this is an assumption from our end, not their, we are not privilege to the internal coding and business working, or the code itself and it could be working as they intended to, what does not make sense to us, could make sense to them.

4. You do realize that this number that they weighed so heavily allows only 1 Tier 5 skill to be maxed?!

Yes, I do, after many hours of searching and reading thousand of postings to be able to glean this information out, which is one of points I am trying to make - "communication and execution" was an issue

5. You realize that this system that you think they tested in such detail makes 3 groups of tier 3/4 skills totally and completely useless?!

6. Does *ANY* of what we have *RIGHT NOW* make *ANY* sense at all?

From our standpoint, no, from their, it a different story, a corporation, especially software companies, does not do things in vacuum, because the resource requirement is heavily dependent upon human asset, and is the most expensive cost and effort for software companies.

I think anyone can agree that a broken skill tree at launch doesn't really make any sense if for no other reason that the skill tree is so fundamental. Hell, we don't even have a respec system right now!

IMO - It would be a much better thing if this were a last minute decision. To think that they went through a huge internal debate, loads of internal testing, and finally came to a consensus to give us what we have now is just a disgustingly horrid idea. The only way I could forsee something like that would be a temporary cap to hold us back until this first content release they plan on over the coming few weeks.

So, if despite all that is staring you in the face, you want to believe that this is a well thought out plan of action on their part, then by all means. I am happy to just disagree. I just can not ignore the above.

I did not say this was a well-thought out plan, quite the contrary - I said this had been discussed at the highest level numerous times before the business decision was made, and that such decision was a calculated move, was it planned way before we knew about it, " yes", was it well- thought out, "yes & no" that is another issue I am raising, IMO is mixed, dependent upon whom departments you are looking at

None of this, however, negates the fact that this issue, as a whole, is being completely ignored by anyone with the information to alleviate our concerns. We can't even get a "Yea, we know it is broken. We are working on it."

I totally agreed, and this again was some of the points I was raising, the "communication and execution of it failed big time -

[QUOTE]"The only way I could forsee something like that would be a temporary cap to hold us back until this first content release they plan on over the coming few weeks."

Could be and I agreed, and it may be due to trying to meet "hard" deadlines and schedules and to support this line of logic - Here another thought, did you ever wonder why, certain elements was never turn on or tested during CB and OB and how did they come up with a 60,704 or 60,714, whatever the cap number is, which is very specific numerical figure?

From a real world perceptive as someone who has over 20 years of high-tech experience, both in hardware and software mostly in a mid to c-level management role, I never experience a beta program that did not test out every single features/functionality before a commercial release. Cryptic CB/OB was limited and very restricted to specific functions and area, this tell me the followings: they either have a

1. parallel beta program goings with paid testers, ie employees testing everything,

2. They was testing out the various design elements, where the key business decisions, like the one we are was discussing now was made and stress it and testing the core functionality and theories

3. They are inexperienced and do not have any experience in software development and testing, do Cryptic strike you as a company who fall in this category ?

IMO, what I think happen, is the classic example of "Left vs Right" hand syndrome not knowing what the other was doing' which is quite common in software companies or any large type of companies. In this case, the fault may not lie with the developers, they are adhering to a technical/road-map schedule, I believe the goof is on the Marketing/Sales side, and when the reporter ask the developer that question, the communication process had not caught up yet.

In high-tech industry, and for people who work in these industry, whatever in marketing, finance, software engineering, etc... there are certain standard processes to turn the corporate ship - "ECO, MRD, PRD, CO, SRD, Document Controls, RoadMap, BRD, and so on, etc.. people who work in the industry will know what these acronym or teams means, and before you make key changes, you need to get "buy-in" approval from various people. Certain core process was either moving to slow or too fast than others and not in sync. This is what I mean by "communication and execution"

[Archived Post]

How do we know? this is an assumption from our end, not their, we are not privilege to the internal coding and business working, or the code itself and it could be working as they intended to, what does not make sense to us, could make sense to them.

All it takes is a cursory look at the individual skills themselves. To quote from the threadnaught:

The way I see it both sides have points. Unfortunately, the way the skills are designed and the way the game itself was presented lends more credence to leaving the game with no cap. I may be biased in this, I admit. I have always hated rolling alts. In STO, the way I first read it when I became intrested, was that the only real unavoidable choice was which of the three career paths you chose. This only had a strong effect on the ground game and adjusted a few abilities in the space game. As many people have pointed out, this was a selling point that you didn't have t ostart over or respec or whatever if you made a poor choice early on or just changed your mind, you simply just started pumping skills elsewhere cause there was no cap.

First off, to be clear on how skills work, every ability is only affected by THREE skills: the general one (Lt level), the category one (Lt. Com. level), and the specific skill (Com, Captain, and Admiral level).

Ok, now here's the catch to this system... Notice how the final specialization happens (for any given ability or item choice) in one of three ranks? Let's take beam weapons as an example.

First at Lt. Level you take Starship Energy Weapons. Each tick costs 100 SP. All fine here. Then you take Starship Beam Weapons at Lt. Com. at 200 SP a tck. Still ok. Now, here's where you need to pay attentiom: what happens when I make a different choice of beam final specializations:
-Phasers and Disruptors are at the Com. level and are the cheapest
-Plasma and Tetryon are at Captain and are the middle cost
-Polaron and Antiproton (I think it was antiproton) are the most expensive because they are admiral skills

So first off, you don't even start to see some of those weapons until later on in the game, so you have four choices:
1) Pick the early ones and stick to it because that's where you spend points first JUST TO RANK UP.
2) Try to spend points elsewhere carefully and only put points in a final beam weapon at admiral once you've found the weapons you like and then stick with that.
3) Respec as you go everytime you find that your earlier specialization is not what you wanted.
4) Roll a new character to pick a different specialization.

Here's the problem with the above four:
1) Stifles diversity a bit since it funnels most builds into early skills simply due to the way the game progresses. What you can pick early on matches the weapons you currently see so it seems like a good idea at the time.
2) Unfortunately outside of the first two tiers of skills everything is specific so you have to eventually spend points SOMEWHERE to rank up. Something has to give. This again, funnels don the ability to specialize in anything.
3) Having to respeci as you level is just a horrible idea. I'm not going to deeply on that one, either you agree or disagree.
4) Forcing people to make multiple characters in what is esentially an open class system is not wise. It works in games like WoW because there are actual classes.

The core of the back and forth argument stems from wanting diversity in the game world's denizens.

This requires looking at THIS game's mechanics.

First up, the skills: As I touched on earlier, the skills were setup up such that the early skills are generic and broadly usable, but once you hit mid-tier and above eveything is specific. This forces specialization choices from Commander on. This is NOT a top down class tree like, to use everyone's favorite example, WoW. In WoW, the deeper you got, the more things built on each other and builds were based on how you synergized either a deep tree or a mix of multiple tree depths. Here you do NOT have that, early skills are generic and general, and all mid to late skills do NOT, repeat do NOT build on each other. Furthermore, equivilent specializations do NOT cost the same since they are offered at different ranks. This setup is fine in capless system cause you can get to whichever specialization you want as you change your mind or gear and then change it around freely later.

Next, your ship: Ok, there is a lot of variety here. FIrst you pick your ship type, then you load in the BOs (of which there are a lot of choices in skills), then you load in the equipment. Just lookign around in beta when people are lower level and have less gear choices there is still a lot of diversity. Some people like science vessels, others like cruisers or escorts. Some people use all beam arrays (either phaser or disruptor), others like cannons, etc. etc. etc...

I'm not going to belabor this much more, so with this foundation, let's cut to the chase:

Where will DIVERSITY come from:

To the people who support the cap it'll be from people having to pick different and specific builds.

To the people who want no skill cap it will be from your choice of SHIP, BOs, and EQUIPMENT.

Which viewpoint does THIS game support in it's mechanics? It's pretty simple, the fact that every ability or item is supportted by an equivilent three tier skill route and the fact that, outside of ground combat and a few space abilities, your career choice has NO effect on what skills or ships you can choose to use puts it in favor of an open system. Which was how the game was originally designed and intended, as far as anyone knew, up until a week ago, so this checks.

Now in a game like WoW, the people who want a cap have a strong point because the mechanics support them. The trees aren't open and gear choice is dictated by your choice of class AND spec.

In THIS game your choices come from what ship, BOs, and gear you use. For beam weapons, to return to my prior example, you would pick your damage type (6 choices), weapon type (meaning beam arrays, dual banks, cannons, etc. - again 6 choices), and then you make this choice for EVERY WEAPON SLOT ON YOUR SHIP. This doesn't even get into the fact that you have to pick among projectile weapons too as well as the fact that each ship type as a different load out of wepon slots fore and aft. Personal preference and playstyle are reflected in this choice and the skills are spent to match this, not the other way around.

Being able to eventually learn every skill does not make you stronger than someone who had a "reasonable" cap. It just gives you more options on playstyle without the hassle of respecs and alts. Remember, in this game you only have two or three character slots and respecs will be expensive.

The skills do NOT keep stacking! These are not top-down WoW talent trees! This is an open-ended system by design where each specialization is equal in ability so that at the end of the line you can just use whatever is most appealling to you (i.e. MORE FUN). The skill system is not where the bulk of diversity comes in and using WoW as a comparison does NOT fit because the mechanics are too disimilar. The arguments used are valid in WoW and similar systems.

Again to reiterate, a skill cap does not work in an open-ended system with this kind of skill specialization setup! We are not in WoW! Your choices of ship, BOs, and equipment are what set you apart!

~CD

[Archived Post]

You have to look at the 30,000 ft view, not the 3 feet view, in this case. Let assume this was a last minute decision, my points still hold true, a decision like this would have been discussed numerous times at the highest level , it could had be done in one hr, a couple of days, etc, its does not make any difference, and you can be damn sure, that all the key department heads, managers, and key technical peoples had discussed "best, worst, durable and acceptable" options, and how these options affected the time line and hard deadline, etc, etc.

So yes, you can make last minute decisions, businesses does it all the time, I make them for the software company I worked for, but you do not make them in a vacuum, until you have all the necessary ammo in hand to weigh the risks and determine the outcomes and impact of it that it might have on the entire business operation, before making such a move, which is why I said the "communication and execute" of it failed- which is in the realm "Marketing, PR and Sales" and the reason why we have such an uproar. the "Marketing, PR and Sales" department mess up.

[Archived Post]

It's capped? I didn't know that :confused:

Will there be respecs for us??

[Archived Post]

It's capped? I didn't know that :confused:

Will there be respecs for us??

Yes there will be, not likely for atleast 1-3 months (Thats optimistic)

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You have to look at the 30,000 ft view, not the 3 feet view, in this case. Let assume this was a last minute decision, my points still hold true, a decision like this would have been discussed numerous times at the highest level , it could had be done in one hr, a couple of days, etc, its does not make any difference, and you can be damn sure, that all the key department heads, managers, and key technical peoples had discussed "best, worst, durable and acceptable" options, and how these options affected the time line and hard deadline, etc, etc.

So yes, you can make last minute decisions, businesses does it all the time, I make them for the software company I worked for, but you do not make them in a vacuum, until you have all the necessary ammo in hand to weigh the risks and determine the outcomes and impact of it that it might have on the entire business operation, before making such a move, which is why I said the "communication and execute" of it failed- which is in the realm "Marketing, PR and Sales" and the reason why we have such an uproar. the "Marketing, PR and Sales" department mess up.

Thing is, if all this was discussed and the approaching cliff seen last-minute, instead of during initial design, that's still a failure of more than just the marketing. There has also been a lot of developer involvement in the marketing, at least at the upper echelons, so if they weren't aware Marketing was putting out wrong information there's an extra problem.

It's capped? I didn't know that :confused:

Will there be respecs for us??

Well. Cryptic's been as quiet about it as possible, so I'm not surprised...

Yes there will be, not likely for atleast 1-3 months (Thats optimistic)

Well, it didn't take CO that long to add a full-respec system. Of course, CO was designed with an incremental respec system already, so there's probably more work to be done in STO. Which had better have incremental respecs too.

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The problem isn't the skill point cap, it's that the tree is designed to be in the absence of a cap.

eg. Can you imagine WoW's skill trees combined with a sudden change to unlimited points?

All of a sudden you can spec in to everything, but the game is not designed around you spec'ing in to everything ergo the system wouldn't work.

This isn't an argument for no skill cap. It's an argument for a review of the trees and a more sensible setup. You can see how it's currently broken by the way you see 9 point investments in T3/4 ships being completely useless in T5. If a respec comes and you're already T5, the most intelligent thing to do would be drop those ships entirely and spec in to other abilities. You've already passed them, there's no need for you to have them any more, right?

The tree is broken. By the time you can actively spend points on phasers/disruptors, for example, you're getting plasma/teryon weapons. If you want to spec in to plasma or tetryon (note that tier weapons have identical DPS), it costs 900 more points than disruptors/phasers. Heaven forfend you want to use anti-proton or the other one (@4500 points each as opposed to 2700 for phaser/disruptor).

And so on and so forth.

The whole system needs to be redesigned.

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...

The whole system needs to be redesigned.


Or the should revert to original implementation. I do agree, though, that either a tree redesign or a reversion are really the only two acceptable solutions. Nothing else fixes the actual problem(s).

I do agree with your points, though.

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I couldn't agree more. I'm only lvl 12 and already regret points in Cruiser because I want to change to Science.

They need to redo the trees because it was made with no cap in mind or let the original and should I say, current system be in place. We, the players should know how many points we have and be better educated on how we can spend them. As others stated, if you didn't read the forums, you wouldn't know there is a cap.

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Or the should revert to original implementation. I do agree, though, that either a tree redesign or a reversion are really the only two acceptable solutions. Nothing else fixes the actual problem(s).

I do agree with your points, though.

Heh, yeah, I just wanted to avoid stating implicitly that the only solution possible would be removing the skill cap (although I do understand why removing it is a viable option).

It's certainly the easier of the two solutions, the other being trying to build a skill tree around weapons that are doled out by zone/level (eg. there would be no point in having polaron weapon skills spec'able at Lt Commander since there are no polaron weapons that low).

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It's capped? I didn't know that :confused:

Will there be respecs for us??

Perfect example of what I mean - "communication and execution " and this person is not the only one, compound this by thousands of customers who still do not know about the skill cap and points available. I even did not know about the cap and the amount of points available until a couple of days ago - The only reason I found out about knowing the skill point cap, was after reading hundred of forum posting, made by customers, not by developers or any marketing people. To me, this is unacceptable, the people in the marketing and pr department really need to get their "act" together.

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Perfect example of what I mean - "communication and execution " and this person is not the only one, compound this by thousands of customers who still do not know about the skill cap and points available. I even did not know about the cap and the amount of points available until a couple of days ago - The only reason I found out about knowing the skill point cap, was after reading hundred of forum posting, made by customers, not by developers or any marketing people. To me, this is unacceptable, the people in the marketing and pr department really need to get their "act" together.

They're not going to.

Why do you think that at the end of Open Beta during the event they didn't auto-level everyone up to the level where everyone could enjoy the content, not just the precious few who powerleveled their way to Admiral?

Because they didn't want the people in the Open Beta to know about the skill cap and how astonishingly low it is.

They are going to keep sweeping this under the rug as long as they can until finally people realize they're getting screwed and complain in more than just this one thread.

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They're not going to.

Why do you think that at the end of Open Beta during the event they didn't auto-level everyone up to the level where everyone could enjoy the content, not just the precious few who powerleveled their way to Admiral?

Because they didn't want the people in the Open Beta to know about the skill cap and how astonishingly low it is.

They are going to keep sweeping this under the rug as long as they can until finally people realize they're getting screwed and complain in more than just this one thread.

The deafening silence on the mere existence of the cap, let alone acknowledgment of it as a change, is way beyond 'failure to communicate'. The 'smoking gun' interview from Ten Ton Hammer still isn't linked from the front page like dozens of other web articles are and the information explaining and defending the capless system is still among the linked pages on the official site without correction or retraction. It's outright deceptive at this point.

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They're not going to.

Why do you think that at the end of Open Beta during the event they didn't auto-level everyone up to the level where everyone could enjoy the content, not just the precious few who powerleveled their way to Admiral?

Because they didn't want the people in the Open Beta to know about the skill cap and how astonishingly low it is.

They are going to keep sweeping this under the rug as long as they can until finally people realize they're getting screwed and complain in more than just this one thread.

I see people in /zone all the time coming to the realization that they are boned as it comes to skills.

"What, this T3 ship skill is completely useless!!! WTF!!!"
"Why did I invest those extra points into Tachyon Weapons when they don't do any more actual damage?"
"God, I made a huge mistake taking <random skill>, and with limited points....how do I respec?"

Just wish more would come to the forums to show their concern.

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One of my personal favorite things about the communication of the folks at cryptic, is that if you have a thread talking about Champions Online, they yell at you in like 5 posts. Have a long thread bringing up real issues, and they completely ignore you.

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I don't understand why people are so surprised they capped skill points. I mean, is there a MMO out there that lets you get max rank in everything, that can actually be achieved in a reasonable lifetime? I think back to WoW, and imagine what it would have been like if my hunter could have been max marksman, survival AND beastmaster, along with the half a million other people with the same damn idea.

Wow implemented the ability to do...almost that. You can swap between Max Marksman and Max Survival with the click of a button. The same is implemented here. The abilities/skills don't stack so it doesn't matter if I have everything maxed. It doesn't make me any better, it just allows me the ability to swap out what I am using to compliment the group better. Also notable, the game is now live and NO respect option is available yet. So those dumb choices you made when you were first starting out...You're stuck with them, and some one else that played beta that knew how to spend their points is going to be that much better then you, and there is nothing you can do about it.

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The deafening silence on the mere existence of the cap, let alone acknowledgment of it as a change, is way beyond 'failure to communicate'. The 'smoking gun' interview from Ten Ton Hammer still isn't linked from the front page like dozens of other web articles are and the information explaining and defending the capless system is still among the linked pages on the official site without correction or retraction. It's outright deceptive at this point.

I totally agree. 100%

It's beyond non-communication, it's bordering on lying. If not outright.

I see people in /zone all the time coming to the realization that they are boned as it comes to skills.

"What, this T3 ship skill is completely useless!!! WTF!!!"
"Why did I invest those extra points into Tachyon Weapons when they don't do any more actual damage?"
"God, I made a huge mistake taking <random skill>, and with limited points....how do I respec?"

Just wish more would come to the forums to show their concern.

Yeah, I answer all the "Where can I get a respec?" questions in Zone all the time. I can only tell them that it'll be 3-4 weeks before we see them, and the response is almost unilaterally "you're kidding?"

I seriously doubt they put any thought into this cap at all, someone just said "OMG they're gonna outlevel everything, QUICK take 5 levels out and cap the skill gain."

Even with the truncated development cycle, I seriously doubt they planned this game for the long term player.

One of my personal favorite things about the communication of the folks at cryptic, is that if you have a thread talking about Champions Online, they yell at you in like 5 posts. Have a long thread bringing up real issues, and they completely ignore you.

And every single "OMG GET RID OF PINK PHASERS!" thread had a dev response in it. It's ridiculous.

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Dev's locked my thread that was a joke (with no post about why) on the phaser colors, so they're atleast paying attention to these updates, but really the fact that people are complaining over the power hue issue is absurd, it wasn't even known about 72 hours ago, and yet has blown into an issue of mass proportions.

More and more admirals every day, and more and more people complaining about the cap, or mis-use of spending points.

I just know for now, I'll be skipping the tier 3 and 4 ship skills, and will figure out the rest as I go on. Those points will get allocated to ground skills

(Hardships leveling in the 30-50s is no big deal to me but the handicap at the top is what concerns me)

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There's a forum post in the Powers and Bridge Officers forum thats been posted, and linked in the first post of this thread.

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There's a forum post in the Powers and Bridge Officers forum thats been posted, and linked in the first post of this thread.

Nice, good work keeping the thread updated...

But it doesn't mean I like you! :p

:D

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Didn't we have a Dev saying they were going to talk about the skills in the next 'Ask Crypic'? When is that going to happen?

I come from a long line of MMOs and I know the Devs are reading this....and I know most people don't want to read this, but there is a extremely high chance they will never post in this thread, or on this topic. reason, as soon as they do, everything they say (unless they are extremely clear, like 'the skill cap is going to be removed at the next downtime.) will be twisted and questioned. And as soon as they are 1 millisecond off their timetables, the player base will be screaming at them again. I've seen this in WoW, WAR, LOTRO, EvE, SWG, EQ....

I have faith they know this is a issue with the player base, and I have faith they are working to resolve it, in one way or another. I however think if the skill cap stays, they need to re-work the entire skill tree...


-Ariesen
Lifer

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Didn't we have a Dev saying they were going to talk about the skills in the next 'Ask Crypic'? When is that going to happen?

I come from a long line of MMOs and I know the Devs are reading this....and I know most people don't want to read this, but there is a extremely high chance they will never post in this thread, or on this topic. reason, as soon as they do, everything they say (unless they are extremely clear, like 'the skill cap is going to be removed at the next downtime.) will be twisted and questioned. And as soon as they are 1 millisecond off their timetables, the player base will be screaming at them again. I've seen this in WoW, WAR, LOTRO, EvE, SWG, EQ....

I have faith they know this is a issue with the player base, and I have faith they are working to resolve it, in one way or another. I however think if the skill cap stays, they need to re-work the entire skill tree...


-Ariesen
Lifer

Except, there is no reason to believe that they want to resolve this issue. THAT's the problem.

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Didn't we have a Dev saying they were going to talk about the skills in the next 'Ask Crypic'? When is that going to happen?

I have no idea they even said they were going to talk about it. I would guess it was before the change was instituted though.

I come from a long line of MMOs and I know the Devs are reading this....and I know most people don't want to read this, but there is a extremely high chance they will never post in this thread, or on this topic.

I know they are, and I know they won't reply to this topic. I just feel it's "Dirty Pool" to hoodwink people into thinking the game is still capless with all of the information you can find through the website still pointing that direction. It's only until you get to the forums that you read that on ONE and only one interview, 7 days prior to the end of Open Beta, did they announce they changed their minds.

They only made 1 post in a thread that had over 100,000 views that basically said "It breaks future content" and then left it at that. Nothing beyond that, 5000 replies later, we're still in the dark about what is going on with the skills system.

Reason, as soon as they do, everything they say (unless they are extremely clear, like 'the skill cap is going to be removed at the next downtime.) will be twisted and questioned. And as soon as they are 1 millisecond off their timetables, the player base will be screaming at them again. I've seen this in WoW, WAR, LOTRO, EvE, SWG, EQ....

I must ask, why is that a bad thing?

This, seemingly, is a last minute decision. They threw a skill cap on a system that wasn't designed for it and have basically left the public in the dark about it. You can only get 16 of 171 skill choices at Admiral level as it currently stands. If you take out the 5 ships you won't be flying, you get 16 of 126 skills.

The system wasn't designed to be limited by a cap. No one will ever use polarons if they have phasers maxed out, simply because the phasers will do so many % more damage.

They should be grilled and taken to task over this. Especially seeing as how they launched with a half finished skill system without respecs to boot.

I have faith they know this is a issue with the player base, and I have faith they are working to resolve it, in one way or another. I however think if the skill cap stays, they need to re-work the entire skill tree...

That is where you and I differ. I have only to look at Champions Online to have any faith I might have in Cryptic to take care of things tested.

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Can anyone else confirm the ship skill section looks abit different?