
As you can see from the chart above, the Assault/Support skill line progression has become substantially cheaper--a 90% reduction on the total AP needed to reach Assault/Support 10--on the PTS, compared to what it is on Live.
While I agree that the Assault/Support requirements on Live are a bit too much, this swings the pendulum too far in the opposite direction, and judging from the comments on the PTS forum, this is a concern shared by many others. Furthermore, on the PTS, the new skill ranks no longer coincide neatly with the progression of AvA ranks.
So what I propose is a compromise, where instead of progressing in Assault/Support every 3 AvA ranks, we progress every 2 AvA ranks.
- This still reduces the total AP cost of Vigor by over half and still represents a very substantial 2/3 reduction in total AP needed to reach max Assault/Support.
- Reaching the max Assault/Support under the proposal would require advancing to an officer rank (Lieutenant) and would retain some of the feeling of achievement. The 90% reduction in total AP cost was just far too cheapening of something that should have at least some sense of progression and achievement attached to it.
- Keeping the Assault/Support skill ranks aligned with the AvA ranks would make the AvA rank-ups feel more rewarding. This is especially true if the skill ranks are aligned with the AvA ranks that grant a new insignia and title, as this proposal would do.
- It's also a much easier progression to communicate to players and to remember: you get more skills unlocked each time you earn a new insignia and title. The new progression on the PTS, where some skill ranks come right before an AvA rank (e.g., A/S 9 coming just a few thousand shy of AvA 10) or right after an AvA rank (e.g., A/S 5 coming just 2K after getting AvA 6) makes absolutely no sense to me. Did you guys just use a random number generator for the new progression?
- Keeping the skill progression aligned with the AvA progression would mean that each new skill unlock will coincide with the earning of an AvA skill point. You know, for convenience.
Edit/Update: It's been suggested that the passives as the ones that can potentially cause balance problems, and the active skills are the ones that PvEers want the most. So how about this as a further compromise: Use the skill rank progression as I propose here, but move the active skills down a skill rank. So, for example, Vigor would be Assault 4, and Magicka Det would be Assault 6. This would make the active skills are cheaply available as they are now on the PTS, but the powerful passives such as Combat Frenzy 2 would require a Lieutenant rank.
@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert Please consider this. Even though I PvE more than I PvP and have lamented the rate of the PvP skill progression, the progression on the PTS is just far too cheap to have any meaning. And the loss of alignment with the AvA ranks is just... messy.
(Thanks to
@Paulington and
@Enodoc for the ranks' AP requirements.)
Nightfighters ― PC/NA and PC/EU
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