I guess many other have also seen the upcoming skilltree changes...


This is clearly a "dumbing down" of the most serious magnitude, but what will this mean for PvP? I've tried to analyze this, and see how this affects premades, pugs, and potential new pvpers. I want to divide PvP skill into 4 levels.

Level 1: Being able to set up the right gear and the right boff abilities. This is the first stage of getting pvp-ready. It's not very hard to do, and even PvE can teach you a bit about how this is done. It's mostly a task of matching up gear and abilities, and to avoid the more useless gear and abilities.

Level 2: Putting skillpoints in the right places. This is a bit more tricky atm. especially since the skilltree can be a bit difficult to navigate. To be able to do this right, you have to learn the different mechanics and relationship between skillpoints and gear/abilities/passives.

Level 3: Timing and situational awareness. Using the right abilities at the right time. Knowing when to use what ability, when to fire what weapon, and what heal to use in what situations. Observing other peoples buffs.

Level 4: Teamwork. This is what makes a regular build look like a big flying hax!


So for potential new pvpers, these are steps they have to climb in order to succeed in PvP. For each step they master, the fun of PvP increases. The longer it takes them to master the initial steps, the greater the chance of them dropping out.

The new skilltree removes the need of learning the different mechanics in order to reach level 2. It allows players of lower skill to compete in builds that are similar to the ones more experienced players use. What effect will this have on PvP?

a) It will be easier for new pvpers to gain the level required to have fun in PvP

b) the step from the new level 1-2 to level 3 will be so great that new pvp'ers will feel they are not progressing, and will leave PvP before reaching level 3 (where the real fun begins)

c) another consequence I can not see.

Any thoughts on this? Is dumbing down the skilltree going do be good or bad for PvP? (My initial thought was that this sux, but this is colored by the fact that I already know what all the different boxes do. Taking one step back, I realized that our main concern should be PvP recruitment!)

I think that's pretty much it.

There might be some balance considerations of the specific skill tree mentioned (offense-focused skills at the top end, defensive at the low levels) and the changes in skill cost and effect (75 % of previous effectiveness of skills? What does that really mean? 75 % less extra phaser damage from skills probably works out to about something like 5 % less damage. 25 % less scramble sensors duration change would mean what - 3 seconds? Or is it more? Or less?)

From a learning effect - there might still be some things that you can miss (do you need Weapon Efficiency if you run 100 weapon power anyway), but it's definitely simpler. I don't mind that.

Kinda sad to see the science tree so sparse... But admittedly, the skills weren't doing much good. The names were confusing and just as with weapons and ship specific skills - it was like a second choice to confirm your original choice (ship, weapon, BO powers), and only served to sell respecs. (Respec prices on F2P Tribble are up!)

I kind of think I hit level 3 before level 2, and I still have troubles balancing skills on certain ships (How much do I really need to focus on each BOff power on my science vessel? Should I build my cruiser to be maxxed in healing but a little weaker in damage? I go through a lot of respect trying to fiddle with the balance.) Compared to setting up skills, timing my abilities seems easy.

One thing that I think you missed, is that it appears that it might be harder to chain abilities. All those skills we currently use to buff BOff powers also help to reduce their cooldowns, but it appears that the devs intend the new skills to only buff a single aspect of the ability ('healing skills only buff healing'). Maybe the cool down reductions will come from somewhere else, or maybe it would be a good thing if a cruiser can't keep EPtS 3 up 100% of the time.

[quote]I wonder if the 5 5 7 9 9 or other methods will become obsolete?

Several skills that effect the ship, weapons now have generic skills as well and the average BOff ability is going to be linked to just one skill most likely.....
EPTSx, TSS, ST, SS, Senscan, SNB, CRF, HY, TS, A2D, A2Sif, HE and the other staple Abilities most likely will remain just as important, though I wonder if we players will take a hit in SP in the change-over since the skill tree seems it may get smaller amd we are used to spending on a three-skill system to buff BOff abilities.

Like the DOff system? I could see it being used to tweak a weak area of a build.

The CD is not determined by the skilltree. It's set by the individual bridge officers training in that particular ability. I doubt this will change at all, as it can hardly be simplified.

Well I share the doubts about the new Skilltree, I really dont know why they kept the obviously broken skill tree for almost 2 years and instead of fixing what was wrong with it build it ENTIRELY new now.

But I dont want to judge the Skill tree itsself before I've seen and testet it. Expect m to complain about... well.... tomorrow, if they keep the scheudle.

However: I see one major upside to this:
Pvp might become a little more "fair" between the "just-pvp" guys and the causal pvpers with the seperation of ground and space.
Before, lot of pvpers did just spec into space wich was a real advatadge over those who wantet to have some skill in ground too and didnt have a "just pvp" character.
So since everybody will have the same negatives in the build it will be at least fair.

No, cooldowns are only affected by the skills you spend on your BOFF. At least for space. Ground might be the other way around, but there is no ground skill tree revamp yet.

Until it goes live, the possiblity is it could make SV and cruisers much more harder to pop. Yeah damage could get a buff from it but it will be linear whereas SV cruisers would be exponential.

My bad Like I said, I got down timing abilities long before the skill system.

On your little scale, mastering the skill system is really the hardest part, which is why it's such a big block to learning PvP. You need to learn it early, but it's non-intuitive, obscure, and costs real money to experiment with.

That is why I think PvP in the future will be even less competitive. Because of F2P no one is going to sink RL money into a unintuitive skilltree and still get pwned by those that know the basic and more advance premise of the pvp game.