Pre-play 0.6.0 impression - highbies delight, newbies bane

[Mahrs]

The four level system is, on the surface, a treat for us younger captains.  However, as you peel the onion back, you can see where things fall down rather quickly: the movement of formerly Tier 1 skills to Tier 3.  Allow me to illustrate with a 10 point Captain I was playing with on an ARP ship: kicking it in Kongo, doing noob stuff - extra repair party, faster repair and DC cool down, reduced fire chance, slightly better AA/secondaries and a turret boost.

 

Old Points

BoS (1), EM (2), HA (3), SI (3), BFT (1).  

Cost to make the same Captain today:

BoS (3), SI (3), BFT (3), HA (2), EM (2) - new total?  13 pts.  

 

What about my new Bismarck Captain?  16 pts bought me:

BoS, BFT, EM, SI, AFT, MCSA

Today?

BoS, BFT, EM, SI, AFT - 16 all by themselves...do I want MCSA/AA?  That's now a 20(!) pt Captain.  

 

You could do on like this, but what strikes me is that the skill system rework is intended to simply inflate the cost of skills - or, said another way: devalue Captain skill points.  My destroyers might come out roughly equal, but all my cruisers and battleships will now be less capable.  For players with high skill Captains, they miss out on a few "trifles" that would round out a classic build as some skills are cheaper and some more expensive.  For players with 10-16 pt Captains, previously "bread and butter" builds will now be out of reach entirely.  This should help tip game balance in favor of more experienced players considerably in my assessment.   I will be interested to see how this plays out over time.  The one true newbie boon in all this: CE is a LOT more accessible than it once was. 

[Jim_Byrnes]

CE access is so important to most of my ships and was the seeldom reached brass ring on the old tree. Haven't updated yet but waiting to see how many of my high pt captains re configure.

[Mahrs]

Well, CE is now a 10 pt get instead of 15...you will need to give up something you used to have to get it for 10 pts, though.  OTOH, you can make a pretty troll build for RN CL just by grabbing SI and CE with your 10 pt captain for low-mid tier play.  If you want to spec you ships like you did before, it'll actually take you MORE than 15 pts for CE.  CE becomes easier to attain, but new captains will need to give up something for it.  Experienced captains will not...or, at least not to the same degree. The biggest challenges for traditional builds is the 3-pt cluster.  The BFT, BoS skills that people used to round out builds with are now thrice as expensive - 9 pts to take both now, versus 2 pts before.  Saving a point on DE and CE won't cover that for newer Captains.  It's arguable whether they see anything like the same value out of the new Lvl 1 skills.  DD certainly won't see anything as valuable as BFT at that level, and CA/CL/BB won't see anything as valuable as that or BoS at that level.  Another post said there are going to be hard choices made.  For players that don't have 19 pt Captains, that's true.  For players that do, they can basically take all the same skills they did before, maybe more in some cases, less in others depending on the player and the build.  

 

It will be interesting...I'm already trying to figure out what to do about the choices facing my Captains.  They're going to be less capable than they were...I just haven't decided where to sacrifice capability yet.

[TheKrimzonDemon]

I've only been able to duplicate my builds on my DD's, and that really, really annoys me.