Except that you have to remember that the majority of current ubers are designed for people of levels less than 1000. Only Kidd, Oly, and RP are designed for endgame players (which essentially just means level 1500+).

All the other ubers wouldn't have to be redesigned simply because people don't have enough SP to get any more powerful at that point. Sure, they might find alternative ways to spend those skill points, but so long as the new skill(s) are not unbalanced, it really should not be a problem.

Personally, I think it would be cool to have as many as twice the number of subskills as we currently have. For one, these additional subskills would cost more and more skill points to get, making balance easier; furthermore, it would really identify the difference between two different higher leveled players.

Just some quick maths;

Currently you've got Focus, Class, and Subskillsx3, for a total 100 cumulative levels. This costs, as most people know, 5050 Skill Points, or 1010 levels. Now if you add in one extra subskill, it now takes 120 cumulative levels, or 7260 SP, or 1452 levels. Add in another and you're up to nearly 2000 levels, and all this is not counting the large amount of SP spent on basic skills.

The only problem I really see with this is that it would tend to invalidate some of the Zen skills, but I never really liked them anyway.

You maths are wrong. Focus+Class are in a separate pool from the sub-skills; costs 2650 to get all 5 to 20. Adding another sub-skill would be another 2000ish SP, but that only pushes the minimum level to max (T21) everything vital from ~1400 to ~1800.

You may be correct that UZ and bana are balanced for level 1000 or less, but levels begin to mean something entirely different if you throw in a major curve-ball like this. As it is, levels DO mean something different as a result of changes to the costs of core skills (pushing max (T20) class skills from level 700ish to over 1000)

Current endgame content would get a lot easier if we had a complete 4th subskill. There is no question about this and frankly, there is also no question that this would be a bad thing. I usually agree with you on stuff, Clam, but I think you are way off base here (that and saying Crazy Glue should be reinvented as a tractor skill... cmon man).

What I think Jeff is suggesting is that there'll be a new subskill but you can't max all 4. I can sort of get behind that -- variety is good -- but I have pointed out that it would take some rebalancing if people are to take it seriously. Right now there are certain subskills that must be taken to 20 under all circumstances (e.g. Arsenal Expertise), which really kills the spirit of having players optimize their setups with different subskill balances.

But.... if we're already talking about mutually exclusive skills that endgame players can get for their classes, why not fix the other class-related endgame problem, which is T21 class skills. I also already explained why the marginal benefit of 20 to 21 is unbalanced among the eight classes. That's completely understandable as they were never designed to go beyond 20. So get rid of that all together and let people pick some of a few different advanced specializations. Shield Monkey could decide whether to be extra tanky or extra heal-y, Speed Demon could go for some shield regen (PvAI) or elec temp (PvP?), and so on. Now you have your class variation, you have a nice bonus to endgame players, and you don't have to rebalance everything to make it work.

Yeah, that was basically what I was thinking. Or another way to put it would be to improve the classes with a 4th skill, but not in their core competency. e.g. a skill that would make zerker better for solo pve, but not at all better in Oly, such as increased speed and electric regen while shields are at 100%. Or help SD and Seer in places like Oly, but don't improve their PvP much.

Also to fully max out 4 sub-skill would be a ton of skill points. I don't think many people would do it. Most would probably just choose a mixture or subset of the 4 until they get really, really high.

Weapon Mastery
"The Gunner must find and exploit weaknesses in the enemy's armor."
+ Damage
Adds gunner targeting (While hitting the target destruction skill effect and range increase over time. Scales with range.)

Seer: +1 4D

This indeed makes me happy.

This doesn't :S

"Current endgame content would get a lot easier if we had a complete 4th subskill. There is no question about this and frankly, there is also no question that this would be a bad thing. I usually agree with you on stuff, Clam, but I think you are way off base here (that and saying Crazy Glue should be reinvented as a tractor skill... cmon man). "

First I'll point out that when I suggested tractors concerning Crazy Glue, I was more or less joking - the only thing that I really suggested concerning Crazy Glue was that it do ANYTHING - I prefer not to have skills that I've invested in do absolutely nothing.

Concerning my point here - I think the point still stands - t20 content should not be constantly beefed so that it is always equally difficult. UZ and other T20 content should not be particularly difficult for a player who has totally maxed out t21 skills or perhaps has moved on to t22.

If we were to assume that no new content for higher tech levels would ever be introduced, then yes - it would be problematic to make current content that much easier, but I would like to think that this game is on a path towards expansion and development. My point is more meant to indicate that the game needs to focus more on creating developmental paths that works towards allowing players to do more difficult, new content.

Personally, I would recommend that the 4th subskill (or mutually exclusive subskills) be given a new skill point cost that is not consistent with the other subskills and perhaps more matches up to say the piloting scheme where it is substantially more expensive in SP to acquire new skill points - this way even highly advanced players would have to try particularly hard to level and develop to be able to gather their advantages. Also, I don't think it would be hard to make it so a fourth subskill could be acquired until a certain tech level is acquired, etc.

Sorry what? Who's talking about beefing content? The act of refraining from giving players bonus skills is not a beef to the content they do...

UZ was already laughably easy with endgame T20 gear, and even more so with T21. You must be joking if you think that it's been "constantly beefed" in any possible sense of that phrase.

You're missing the point of the overall post. There is going to come a point as we included more difficult t21 content, t22, t23, etc when players will find the current endgame content easy unless it is constantly beefed. Many of the posts on this thread don't really seem to look forward to when more difficult content is introduced along with the new tech levels - content where a 4th subskill might not be over powered. If a 4th subskill were introduced, I would hope that its overall design would backbone the next major stretch of game development - say from t21 to t25. It seems to me posts in the development notes thread would benefit from responses of where the game could go, laying future groundwork, rather than being fixed on how the game is now. Nowhere in my suggestion did it say that a current player should be able to max or even heavily develop a current subskill - rather I suggest limitations based on tech level - perhaps the first 3-4 points are available once you have all t21 skills, then the next 3-4 when t22 skills are maxed out, etc.

Basically, I think that an additional, powerful subskill is not problematic if its development and obtainment unfolds along with the introduction of new, higher level content.

I am quite aware of the point of the post. I'm simply calling you out on this bit of nonsense you keep bringing up, which is that somehow not going along with this idea would be a beef to T20 content.

I am perfectly in favor of advanced, mutually exclusive class skills. That's an instant doubling or tripling of variety, which this game definitely needs. I have already pointed out a few reasons why I think there's a more elegant way to achieve this than simply adding a fourth subskill to each class and letting players pick and choose how they want to invest. Specifically,

1. Certain current subskills are more discrete than others (Arsenal Expertise).
2. T21 class skills are unbalanced anyway.

I am not sure why no one has engaged me on this point but I guess that's life.

The reason your concerned is because you thing current ubers will become too easy. Yes, that is the case but saying you need to beef the ubers so they fit with new power is silly. It's like saying we need to boost Speedy gonz and scortch, if someone with t21 gear came and did them it'd be a synch. But just because its easy doesn't make it a bad thing. If t22 for instance was released I doubt many people would still do t21, and those who worked hard to get the t22 would then go back and do t21 (easily) and newer players would benefit greatly because of it, t21 oly ship prices would go down, most gear would be cheaper (commod wise), etc.

not exactly cause t21 isnt wide spread through the game yet. if t22 were to come out right now you would still have teams doing/attempting oly

Why don't we focus on more zones? Instead of a 4th, more than likely make the game easier skill?

Oly is becoming pretty unfun.