We are making changes to the method of acquiring and the power provided by class skills, so that they are relevant to low level players without feeling like a skill point trap.

We will make sure that there is still plenty of variety and choice in how you build your character! I want to stress that we are looking to make these changes as endgame neutral as we can. We may end up having to adjust outliers, but our goal throughout this entire revamp is to avoid taking power away from end game players. 

This is going to be a rather long post, so buckle up and get ready to Focus!

Current Problems

Before we begin, I think it’s helpful to explain our understanding of the problems with the current system. We’ve identified three core problems:

• Low level class skills are not worth getting because each level has such marginal effects, and the costs go up exponentially. The “bang for the buck” just isn’t there.

• Having a ton of class skills that each do very little isn’t fun.

• Players don’t find their identity or play style until later, since class skills are hard to find and you don’t get them until later in the game.

With this in mind, here is how this blog post will be ordered.

• Explain the current system for class skills, and the goals for our revamp.

• Provide the general overview of our revamp and how skill levels will work.

• Share our intended path of progression.

• Wrap up the post.

Phew! Without further ado, let’s dive in!

Current vs New System

Once you’ve maxed out all of your class skills and advanced class subskills, the class has reached the peak of its power via its class skills and every class is properly scaled with each other. The skill system was designed with the end game in mind, but because of this the lower levels have been unbalanced for quite some time. This was further compounded by the strength of AI relative to the player and their assets, which would mean that certain playstyles breezed through AI without worrying about the skills. Other classes struggled even more and were caught in a situation where they were spending valuable skill points on skills that did almost nothing for them. If you were an endgame player making an alternate character, you could power through most of this frustration with game knowledge. New players, however, were immediately faced with an unreasonable power disparity.

Our goal is to ensure that all classes feel fun and exciting to play at all points in the game, and that players have access to constant progress. The current system of Focus and Class skills going to level 22, and Class Subskills going to level 20 will be removed. You will be allowed to level your two Advanced Class Subskills at any point during your class advancement.

In order to make sure this transition does exactly what we want it to do, we are keeping 5 clear goals in mind that we will refer back to during and after the skill revamp.

• Allow meaningful class skills/class picking at a low level (within the Nexus), while taking up an appropriate number of skill points.

• Reduce the number of levels of class skills, so that each additional level is more impactful.

• Have all the class skills sum up to the equivalent of what they currently are at endgame.

• Make class skills more accessible by putting them in a character tab, rather than hidden in random AI bases.

• Give big chunks of class bonuses for free at specific points of character progression, and smaller bonuses through expensive class zen skills to get the rest of the class bonuses.  The zen skills will be class locked, but not considered a core class skill.

So… what does it look like? Good question!

This may be confusing, allow me to explain.

How are you changing Focus Skills?

Current Focus Skills will be broken into two skills, with the new Focus skill being 50% of the old Focus skill at the new max level of 3, but its bonuses will not be restricted to ship type. The other 50% of the power from the Focus skill will be restricted only to the correct ship type in the form of a Zen skill that stops at level 50. You will have 100% of the old Focus power at [Fleet/Combat/Recon/Support] Focus 3 and Zen of [Heavy Fighters/Light Fighters/Freighters/Capital Ships] 50.

How are you changing Class Skills?

The above system will be modified slightly for Class skills, but there will not be any ship locked bonuses for them. The first level of the Class skill will have ~33% of its total power in the current system, another ~33% will be provided by the second and third levels combined, and the last ~33% will be provided by the Zen skill at level 50. You will have 100% of the old Class power at [Berserker/Sniper/Fleet Commander/Gunner/Engineer/Shield Monkey/Seer/Speed Demon] Class 3 and Zen of [Berserker/Sniper/Fleet Commander/Gunner/Engineer/Shield Monkey/Seer/Speed Demon] 50.

How are you changing Class Subskills?

Class Subskills will not require you to level separate Zen skills in order to obtain your old levels of power, they will simply be 33% of the current level of power per level and will stop at level 3. You will have 100% of the old Class Subskill power of each of these skills at level 3.

Class Zen Skills?

Class and Focus Zen skills will take increasing amounts of skill points up to level 50 in order to obtain the full power of your Class. They will take 510 levels worth of skill points in order to fully max them out. This should push the scaling of your total power to roughly the same point that it is currently.

How am I supposed to level my class skills?

Great question. Gaining Focus, Class, Class Subskills, and Advanced Subskills will all be locked to level. When you get to the appropriate level, you will be given a special skill point that can be spent on any of the available Focus, Class, or Class Subskill skills. There will be a notification that will alert the player to the ability to gain a new class skill, and gaining the skill will be through a new class tab in the character dialog.  Gaining the skill will not cost regular skill points or credits, and can be trained anywhere. Zen Skills will be trained in your Focus and Class base in Lyceum.

Players will get their full class skills by level 1000, which is a further increase of power to low-mid level players. Our tentative path of progression would see players receiving class skill points at levels 5, 10, 20, 40, 65, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, and 1000 for a total of 15 of these skill points.

Closing

We want to move away from punishing players for making wrong choices before they understand how the game works, and adjusting class skills is the first step. We will determine whether or not more steps need to be taken at a later date. Again, here’s our plan.

• Focus and Class skills are being split into 3 levels, with the majority of their power being distributed throughout those 3 levels. The rest of their power will be shifted into Zen of Focus and Zen of Class skills.
• Class Subskills will be split into 3 levels with all of their power distributed into those 3 levels.
• Players will gain their full class skills by level 1000, with class skill points being awarded at specific levels.

With all of this happening, we understand that things can be a bit confusing and you will have questions. Feel free to post questions, comments and concerns on the forums.

Stay tuned, there are more things yet to come!