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[Cyan Leader]

So the question I would like to ask now is: Will we wait 2 more years for the skills to be balanced/reworked?

Considering the amount of threads regarding skills system, we can safely say that the current skill system wasn't received the way Alex expected I think.

Alex goal iirc was to reduce choice so that new players wouldn't be overwhelmed and to promote multiple playthroughs. I can't say for sure either were achieved, with how strict the skill points are I feel that new players just spend a bunch of time planning on where to spend their points and trying to guess if the later things are good or not. I really don't want this to happen but if he truly wants to reach his goal, skills need to work a little bit like it works for officers, with a few random choices per level up.

[Megas]

I like it if skills for the player worked like it does for cores.  Have two boxes, one for combat (the twelve) and another for mostly campaign stuff (like colonies).

And put the permanent stuff separate from everything else, or replace them with new skills that are not permanent.

[intrinsic_parity]

My understanding was that the goal of the new skill system was to create more interesting choices and tradeoffs, rather than having every skill available at any point in the game more or less. Also trying to get away from the system where every skill needs to be balanced against every other skill.

[TaLaR]

It sure forces you to make choices, I'm just not sure the choices are all that interesting.

First of all, you are specced for certain ships, and can't freely swap ship during combat. Yes, old tree encouraged some specialization, but not to nearly to this point.

Then in many skill pairs, the better one is rather obvious. Which for the most part also makes double-dipping a no go, because you are saddled with too many useless skills in process.

[SonnaBanana]

I want more skills, less tiers and a higher level cap.

[intrinsic_parity]

Double dipping is not useful because the level cap is too low IMO. If the level cap was 20, I would definitely wrap over getting 5 skills in all trees.

Also, the only place where I see piloting specialization being an issue is with phase ships, otherwise you just take shields + armor and are good at flying everything else (except maybe carriers, but who wants to personally pilot a carrier). Those phase ship skills didn't exist at all in the last patch, so those are additional choices. You can still fly other things too, I sometimes fly doom without phase skills, and it's pretty much the same as doom from the last patch, which was good.

I definitely agree that not every choice is as interesting as it could be, and some rebalancing is necessary, but I think it's a lot closer to that goal than the last skill system. Old tree just meant you took all the obvious best skills and then decided which unimportant/QOL skills to give up/take. It was incredibly uninteresting.

[AcaMetis]

Old tree just meant you took all the obvious best skills and then decided which unimportant/QOL skills to give up/take. It was incredibly uninteresting.

That sounds like the current system with fewer forced choices between two skills, one of which is usually either a dud or clearly superior, honestly.

[intrinsic_parity]

Old tree just meant you took all the obvious best skills and then decided which unimportant/QOL skills to give up/take. It was incredibly uninteresting.

That sounds like the current system with fewer forced choices between two skills, one of which is usually either a dud or clearly superior, honestly.

Nah, the current system actively prevents you from taking all the best skills like you could before. You have to give up some very good skills to get other very good skills. There are definitely some dud/filler skills that don't make interesting choices (a lot of carrier skills IMO, because carriers are kinda bad now), but that can be improved by buffing/rebalancing skills.

I do think adding a third option, especially at the low tiers, could alleviate some of the feeling of having only one viable path through the tree.

[TaLaR]

Also, the only place where I see piloting specialization being an issue is with phase ships, otherwise you just take shields + armor and are good at flying everything else (except maybe carriers, but who wants to personally pilot a carrier). Those phase ship skills didn't exist at all in the last patch, so those are additional choices. You can still fly other things too, I sometimes fly doom without phase skills, and it's pretty much the same as doom from the last patch, which was good.

There big ones for me are:
- Shield vs Phase
- Ranged specialization (Conquest/Paragon) vs armor
- EWM(all high tech, except Paragon and maybe Odyssey) vs GI

[ArkAngel]

I personally like the new skill system.
Some skills aren't super useful to my current playthrough and I need to pick them to get to other ones, But thats not too common honestly. I like having to make a choice between two skills, instead of having a ton of skills offered up at the start, because it feels like I'm making more of a meaningful choice.
My first playthrough I struggled hard to decide what to do for my levels initially, because all the skills seemed useful.

[intrinsic_parity]

Also, the only place where I see piloting specialization being an issue is with phase ships, otherwise you just take shields + armor and are good at flying everything else (except maybe carriers, but who wants to personally pilot a carrier). Those phase ship skills didn't exist at all in the last patch, so those are additional choices. You can still fly other things too, I sometimes fly doom without phase skills, and it's pretty much the same as doom from the last patch, which was good.

There big ones for me are:
- Shield vs Phase
- Ranged specialization (Conquest/Paragon) vs armor
- EWM(all high tech, except Paragon and maybe Odyssey) vs GI

IDK, to me, the phase skill really locks you into piloting 3-4 ships or you completely waste your skills. Those other ones you mentioned don't really lock you in, you can still make builds that take advantage of ranged specialization on most cruisers/capitals. EWM benefits a fair amount of midline ships, even if it's not doing as much. They're much less limiting, and I think make for interesting tradeoffs where you can still make builds that take advantage of them on a wide variety of ships. I do think ranged specialization could use a minor buff to be a bit more generally useful, but I think the tradeoffs are interesting there and not excessively limiting like phase specialization.

[Megas]

Worse, it seems the best part of Phase Mastery is the extra speed from elite, which makes respec more expensive when I do not want to pilot Phase anymore and want a normal ship.

I am half considering not taking Combat 4 and 5 because I change flagships too much to want to spend excessive story points reassigning skills depending on which ship I feel like piloting at any given moment.

I frequently swap from phase ship to big capital and back.

[Amoebka]

I would prefer if both C4 skills had a shield part and a phase part to them. That way you wouldn't simply autopick the one matching your flagship, and swapping between phase and shield ships wouldn't be a pain.

[Megas]

It would be even worse after carriers get added to the mix.  However, carriers seem mediocre enough late in this release that it is not worth piloting them for the fighters.

[SCC]

Strike Commander has a similar issue like shield and phase skills, since it does nothing to non-carriers.