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Announcements post #86: Talents preview.

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<pre>From: Ilyos, the Arbiter
Subject: Talents preview.

Greetings Starmourners,

We've briefly mentioned before that post level 75 progression will take on a different aspect in Starmourn. While you will still gain experience, this experience will not increase your level but will allow you to purchase talent points that will further enhance your character. These talents are mostly geared towards enhancing your PvE experience and will have minimal impact in PvP. Individual bonuses are meant to be small but they add up over time and you will soon find yourself becoming more adept at hunting, questing and gathering loot.

We have a preview ready of what we're thinking about implementing talent-wise. Head on over to the forums (if you want the spoilers), following this announcement's link and take a look at what we've planned and let's talk about it!

While these talents are all coded in, the values might (and probably will) change before they're live. Also, we still have a lot of work to do content wise, since we'd like to expand the main quest some more before releasing the system.</pre>
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Comments

  • SteveSteve
    edited October 2019
    holds breath

    edit: stopped holding breath
  • ReelocReeloc
    hyperventilates
  • AzlynAzlyn
    Cool options, not invasive to PVP as advertised, and looks pretty well-balanced at first blush. Nice work! I like the idea of being able to loot chips, too.

    I recognize this is geared towards ground activities, which I suppose makes sense for the XP system. Should we expect something similar or some other endgame system for hacking/captaincy in the (maybe far) future?
  • SteveSteve
    edited October 2019
    Initial impression: this is a great start for this system, and I think it addresses a number of playstyles, interests, and does what it should do. Of course, I don't have access to information about talent point acquisition, and some of the talent numbers are hidden, but that's ok.

    Here are my three main thoughts:
    • I like the cooldown reduction ones.
    • I also like that this system helps people who want to get more mod drops.
    • I'd like to know whether crit hits can also apply to bleed ticks and other damage over time abilities. If that's true, then I am sold on all of these talents.
  • XiruXiru
    Well.

    This is motivating.
    Vote for Starmourn! Don't hurt Poffy.
  • IkchorIkchor
    Starmourn's shootable populace:
    "Why do I hear boss music?"
    I forgot I was going to call myself Ike while in chargen, so now I'm Zarrach.
  • PoetPoet
    This looks like it should be fun to play around with. Question- I see there's a reset option. Is that an at will thing, or is it limited to a single use, once a day or ??
    [Cassandra]: Poet will be unsurprised to learn that she has unread news.
  • RocketCatRocketCat
    Om nom nom... looks GREAT!

    Only thing that touches on PvP is a max resistance of 7.5%, which seems totally fine. I would just make sure to exclude faction guards and engi bots from the pve bonuses. Pretty sure Engineers aren't interested in me hitting their bots with 6k damage Vacuumspheres.

    And nowww... to stay up theorycrafting my talent plan.
    Hi, I'm Ata. Oh and maybe some other people, too. o:) Check out my various packages for Nexus: Vuu combat system, Global Pathfinder, Slicer Tools, Ship compass, JS from command line, Vitals Tracker, and Equipment Manager.
  • CubeyCubey
    Very nice. I'll also assume faction guards and bots/turrets aren't affected by these talents (and if they are, they shouldn't be).

    A pretty elegant solution overall. A question I have is: will we have more endgame mobbing areas, ones where you're expected to not only be capped on level but also have significant talent investments?
  • IkchorIkchor
    If this works out (and has any unforeseen kinks worked out) could we expect to see this expanded to beyond just general XP and get trait trees for Captaincy and Hacking?
    I forgot I was going to call myself Ike while in chargen, so now I'm Zarrach.
  • AlbionAlbion
    edited October 2019
    First thought - crit shouldn't work for AoE, or at least it should get balanced with that in mind.

    Nanoseers would have a >(1/2)^n probability of wiping out a room of n mobs instantly with a vacuumsphere.
  • AlbionAlbion
    edited October 2019
    More thoughts on the balance of combat focused talents:

    Crit is top tier, basically must have for every class. Elevates classes with on demand aoe to clear entire rooms at incredible speeds. 

    Damage resistance is decent. Affects pvp too and gives reliable damage reduction over long run that is comparable to 10% dodge for light armour. Even better than dodge for medium and heavy.

    Dodge is not remotely good. Same problems as evasion. 

    Second wind is just OK on its own, but I can see it being bonkers for AoE bashing Nanos with maxed crit. Basically go room to room dropping vacuumspheres, getting back to full health and continuing. Could probably average like 3s per mob.

    As always, the talents seem to make the better classes even better.

    Tldr: crit >>>>>> second wind > damage resistance > dodge

    For pvp damage resistance doesn't mean anything since damage strats are not remotely viable 1v1 assuming you know what you're doing. 
  • CubeyCubey
    Albion said:
    For pvp damage resistance doesn't mean anything since damage strats are not remotely viable 1v1 assuming you know what you're doing. 
    Doesn't your strategy usually involve a damage kill? But then it works because of muscular damage + affs so I get your point.
  • AlbionAlbion
    It's impossible on nanos and engineers, and for the rest it only works if they let me do it. 
  • CubeyCubey
    And yet you used that strategy against me each time we fought. I'm not sure I like the implications.
  • MatlkaelMatlkael
    UGH I MISS YOU STARMOURN

    9 MORE SEMESTERS UNTIL I'M DONE WITH ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL
    Mereas Eyrlock
    "They're excited, but poor."
    - Ilyos (August 2019)
  • IkchorIkchor
    edited October 2019
    Wonder if we'll have figured out what happened to Earth and imprisoned the Ishvana in a potato powered computer by the time Mereas is finished school.
    I forgot I was going to call myself Ike while in chargen, so now I'm Zarrach.
  • IlyosIlyos
    Okay, let's address a few of the questions:
    - Talent resetting will probably be free for a while after launch. Afterwards, the cost to reset your talents will be equivalent to the experience you'd need to gain your next talent point (or something in that ballpark)
    - Experience required to acquire talent points will grow steadily as you acquire more and more points. If you were to keep on leveling past 75, you can imagine that you'd be getting 2-3 talent points per level. So if you're 75.99 when this will launch, you'd have enough to gain ~2.5 points.
    - Crits will apply whenever you deal damage, so technically yes, you might be able to crit on periodic damage effects (this is subject to change as we get some real data)
    - For hacking, we've some other updates planned in the near future, stay tuned for that
    - Initially, I had the thought of creating a talent that would allow you to convert a part of the xp you gain while doing captaincy activities into normal xp (and maybe vice-versa). Still on the fence about this, will see about this in the future. There will be more captaincy updates in the future, but still too early to say what form these will take.
    - I will have to create checks so that you don't abuse the talent features by killing your own loyals. If you do manage to get procs on your own loyals, these will probably be bugs.

    If there's any other sensible talent features you'd like to see, let us know!
  • ArquenTavasArquenTavas
    Really liking these, can't wait to see thek in action.
  • SteveSteve
    I'd like to gently disagree with some points made above.

    • RE: evasion being mediocre at best. This doesn't seem quite right to me. In PvP, I would not be happy with this sort of evasion, period. Similarly, I would not like to see crits in PvP. However, in PvE, I think 10% avoidance is really solid for long-term efficiency, especially coupled with the other three long-term efficiency boosters (crit, % damage reduction, % recovery on kill).
    • RE: some kind of way to convert experience in captaincy to ground game experience or vice versa. @Ilyos I don't think this sort of mechanic is a good idea. I've heard a number of people request something like ways to convert the other way, from ground experience to captaincy, but it's important to keep experience and captaincy experience separate. I believe these requests for conversion are not about that captaincy experience is hard to come by, because that isn't really the case; the truth is, it's very, very fast to get up to a corvette, and getting a destroyer is also relatively quick. But, that assumes gaining captaincy experience through incursioning, which isn't really the most engaging system (though some of us, including myself, like it for what it is). I'd call that a number of players don't find incursions compelling to be an underlying problem for which they are requesting experience conversion -- to bypass incursions. Another underlying reason is that people want to upgrade to a more suitable economy ship. Personally, I think a light economy ship should be added to bridge the gap between interceptor and freighter.
    • Here's the point: this sort of conversion mechanic only serves to obfuscate underlying concerns that should be directly addressed, not simply swept under the rug. If the best way for most people to get up to destroyer or freighter is to ground bash, or if the best way for a captain to get ground experience is by incursions, then something else is wrong and you're not solving any problems with this sort of mechanic.

    I'd also like to say a few other things.
    • Damage over time crits! Yaaaaay!
    • If crits really do bring existing disparities in class power into focus, then that will help the staff balance things out. It's pretty much guaranteed that nanoseers would be bonkers with AoE crits.
    • But, it seems to me that, from the outset, only single-target abilities should be able to crit.
    • It might not be a bad idea to make the damage resistance talent inapplicable versus players, just to keep things straight; I don't think it's a good idea to add 7.5% DR to all classes for PvP purposes when, if there is too much underlying damage or a damage route is too strong or too weak, that should be changed without having to consider this talent.
  • SteveSteve
    What about a mentor talent that increases experience gained by characters under level 75 that are grouped with that player? Something like 10 ranks, 2% increase per rank, and a mentee cannot benefit from this talent beyond 20%? It could stack with the bonus for a 30 level or more gap between the players.
  • SlanderSlander
    Okay, here's my dissension post. All I see here boils down to 'ways to make marks faster' and I think that's a fairly significant problem because it doesn't address what I see as the real problem, lack of long-term/endgame engagement. I mean, yea, this stuff will require endgame but it doesn't answer the question I've had for a long time - 'Why?'

    I feel like we need, and have for some time needed, long term goals but we're being given ways to reach those goals faster. Problem is that the goals don't exist. It's like everyone complained about things taking too long in other IRE games so everything here got thrown at us immediately. Like I've had a five room ship for a long time and I could easily bump it up to seven rooms if I had the marks. The reason I haven't is because I don't care, because there's no reason to, and talents appear to be a way to make marks (that I don't have a use for) faster.

    Like... We levelcap at 75 so the entry-barrier to PvP isn't crazy high. Okay, cool, Achaea made theirs essentially 80 for PvP entry and then you can spend forever getting to dragon after that. Dragon is 'a thing' one can aim for and yes, it has benefits, but overall at this point I'd say that it's a more of a self-contained goal than anything else, given how many people prefer to hunt in lesser form. 

    I dunno. I'm really caffeinated and rambly. This is just something that I've been thinking about for a while and when I saw there was a plan for post-75 stuff I got excited until I read what it's going to entail.
    I'm gone.
  • RylekRylek
    edited October 2019
    Rather than just 'harder' as end game content, I'd rather see something like what Imperian has. Rip off bosses and boss areas. Have goals that unlock access to a boss, and have unique boss mechanics that need to be figured out and followed. Have said bosses drop unique things. Things that are fun, interesting, useful. Not required really, the more powerful things should have a limited time duration. But a -reason- to get together and hike over to X and murder/capture X.

    Drop Ideas:
    -Pets
    -Unique weapon/armor mods
    -Ship upgrades (yes, there should be ship versions of these areas)
    -Customization caskets
    -Temporary artifacts
    -Passcodes that unlock exciting new areas
  • XiruXiru
    Rylek said:
    -Passcodes that unlock exciting new areas
    ... I love this idea. Though I love the idea of getting a passcode that can be used as part of a monthly promo or something. (One where you gain it IG and then can use it in various areas of the game, once per RL day. Passcodes could be gained from like different ranked NPCS/quests. Hacking a low level terminal might just get you small returns, whereas killing a big boss mob may gain you a passcode that gives you higher returns, with a chance of something great. 
    Vote for Starmourn! Don't hurt Poffy.
  • KirinKirin
    Some of these talents could probably be incorporated in mods. mods right now are just a tack on damage with no real benefits to using lower levels of mods

    Overall I like the conceptualization of these skills
  • SteveSteve
    I was thinking about the questing talent. 20% cooldown reduction is nice, but I think I'd find it more meaningful if we received increased the rewards -- 20% experience and 20% marks -- instead. We could also add a talent that increases faction favor (though I admit that I don't know how non-Song organization point stuff works; Song does Song quests to gain favor per quest, which is spent on a Lord Commander vote when one arises.) There are two reasons I don't think cooldown reduction is as good as increasing questing rewards:

    1. If cooldown reduction is the quest talent, it's harder to fine-tune other quest talents.
    2. I don't really think I'd be able to get much use out of the 20% cooldown reduction without playing for extended periods, which isn't a leisure I have very often. Similarly, I think I'd rather not repeat a quest multiple times in one sitting when I could be doing something else to get the same benefit. It just doesn't seem like a benefit I'd really be able to take advantage of.
  • ZhedanZhedan
    Slander said:
    Okay, here's my dissension post. All I see here boils down to 'ways to make marks faster' and I think that's a fairly significant problem because it doesn't address what I see as the real problem, lack of long-term/endgame engagement. I mean, yea, this stuff will require endgame but it doesn't answer the question I've had for a long time - 'Why?'

    I feel like we need, and have for some time needed, long term goals but we're being given ways to reach those goals faster. Problem is that the goals don't exist. It's like everyone complained about things taking too long in other IRE games so everything here got thrown at us immediately. Like I've had a five room ship for a long time and I could easily bump it up to seven rooms if I had the marks. The reason I haven't is because I don't care, because there's no reason to, and talents appear to be a way to make marks (that I don't have a use for) faster.

    Like... We levelcap at 75 so the entry-barrier to PvP isn't crazy high. Okay, cool, Achaea made theirs essentially 80 for PvP entry and then you can spend forever getting to dragon after that. Dragon is 'a thing' one can aim for and yes, it has benefits, but overall at this point I'd say that it's a more of a self-contained goal than anything else, given how many people prefer to hunt in lesser form. 

    I dunno. I'm really caffeinated and rambly. This is just something that I've been thinking about for a while and when I saw there was a plan for post-75 stuff I got excited until I read what it's going to entail.
    I do have to say, I hope I can bash mindlessly as high as I want, even if there aren't benefits to leveling anymore aside from talents. It's nice to be able to keep going and break apart in the xp ranks! (@Xiru stop judging me, I feel it already)
  • XiruXiru
    Zhedan said:

    I do have to say, I hope I can bash mindlessly as high as I want, even if there aren't benefits to leveling anymore aside from talents. It's nice to be able to keep going and break apart in the xp ranks! (@Xiru stop judging me, I feel it already)
    Yeah, whatever, @Zhedan - just take me hunting. ;)
    Vote for Starmourn! Don't hurt Poffy.
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