Just wanted to let everyone know about something we are working on. There will be a full dev blog about it soon, but I wanted to start getting everyone's feedback on it now before it went to tribble.
We are in the middle of revamping the skill system. This change will come in stages. The first stage will be a space skill revamp. The second stage will be a ground skill revamp. Finally, we hope to split ground and space skill into 2 separate pools. The timeline of these changes are still very TBD, but by the time Free to Play is released, we may only have the space skills updated. Any changes will come with a free respec.
There are 4 main reasons for the changes:
Captain skills keep you from changing ships - if you spec into a Star Cruiser, you are discouraged from trying an escort because you have to respec (or you have to spec your skills broadly can cannot specialize if you want to change ships often).
Tactical skills discourage you from using anything but phaser, disruptors, photons and quantums - it's too expensive to spec into skills like antiproton since the skills cost almost twice as much for the same bonus.
Skills are confusing - what the heck does Astometrics do anyway?! - Its very confusing to cross reference what skills are affecting what abilities.
I put all my points into space, why is ground combat so hard? - We want to separate the pools so we can ensure good game balance.
So here what the skills changes will look like:
Starfleet Training skills all go away. That branch will be gone. Instead of a captain skill that buff one particular ship's hull, shields, turn rate, etc, there will now be a skill that just buffs HPs for all ships, a skill that just buffs Shield HPs for all ships, a skill that just buffs turn rate and speed for all ships, etc.
There will no longer be skills that just affect one damage type. There will be weapon skills, beam skills, cannons skill, torpedo skills, etc., but not phaser skills or antiproton skills.
Many skills will now simply grant a passive bonus instead of affecting a handful of abilities. For instance, you can buy a skill that will buff your energy damage resistance, but that skill will not affect any of your click abilities.
Some skills will still affect your click abilities, but they will be less obscure. For instance, you can buy a Starship Hull Repair skill. That skill will simply make all your ship hull healing abilities better. It will only make hull healing abilities better, it will only affect the healing aspect of those abilities, and no other skills will affect hull healing abilities.
All abilities used to use 3 skills to improve them. This is changed. All abilities will only use one skill at most. Many abilities will no longer utilize any skills at all. The effectiveness (magnitude or duration) of those skills will be modified to approximately 75% of what you can achieve now with full skills. For example, if an ability would grant a base 10% debuff, and could be improved to a 20% debuff if you have max (9 levels) in all 3 skills that affected that ability, then that ability now will just come with a flat 17.5% debuff.
The number of skills will be cut in approximately half. As such the cost of all skills will be approximately doubled.
At this point, we are only focusing in stage 1 (Space Skills). Here is a quick glance of what the new skill may look like (still very early and subject to change):
Tier 1
Starship Weapons Training
Batteries - Increases duration of Battery consumables
Starship Hull Repair - Improves hull healing
Emitters - Improves Shield Heal
Tier 2
Starship Energy Weapons Training
Starship Projectile Weapons Training
Starship Subsystem Repair
Starship Warp Core Efficiency (bonus power when low)
Structural Integrity - Bonus HP
Inertial Dampeners - Res Hold, Disable, Knock and Slows
Shield Systems - Shield HP
Tier 3
Starship Beam Weapons
Starship Cannon Weapons
Starship Maneuvers - Defense
Electro-Plasma System - Energy Transfer Rate
Starship Warp Core Potential - bonus power to all systems
Impulse Thrusters - Speed +Turn
Sensors - Stealth Detection, Resist Confuse and Placate
Tier 4
Starship Mines
Starship Torpedo Weapons
Targeting Systems - Acc
Starship Engine Performance - Bonus Engine Power
Starship Shield Performance - Bonus Shield Power
Hull Plating - Energy Dam Res
Countermeasure Systems - Confuse and Placate
Tier 5
Starship Tactics - Weapon Proc
Energy Weapon Specialization - Energy Wep Crit Hit and Severity
Projectile Weapon Specialization - Projectile Wep Crit Hit and Severity
Starship Auxiliary Systems Performance - Bonus Auxiliary Power
Starship Weapon Systems Performance - Bonus Weapon Power
Armor Reinforcements - Physical Dam Res
Graviton Generators - Bonus to Hold, Disable, Knock and Slow
Note, Engineering Team Leader, Science Team Leader, and Tactical Team Leader have been moved to the Career specific trees. They are still Tier 1 skills, and all classes will have access to all 3 skills. These skills, may, however, change once we begin Stage 2 (Ground Skill revamp).
Or course, all Traits, and Items and abilites will be updated to utilize the new skills.
Remember, this is all very early and subject to change. Look for a complete Dev Blog on this subject as this gets closer to release on tribble. Once this new system is released, we will be looking for your feedback and doing lots of tuning and adjustments.
Enjoy!
First of all id like to appologise for the lack of a dev watch these past 2 weeks a lot of the news on the dev tracker is bug fixes and small tweaks or comments about the DOFF System and since i throughly covered that last time i have decided to avoid it like the plauge this time and cover.
