Tier differences?

[DaemonBorn]

Sorry if anyones brought this up already but the "Ask Cryptic: Player Progression 2 (Oct. 19)" appears to contradict itself. It states,

"It’s not a linear progression; it’s a difference of around 5 percent in terms of overall ship performance between tier 4 and 5. So the disparity between the two is very small. Effectively, a tier 5 ship is twice as good as a starting ship, and a tier 4 ship is 80 percent better than a starting ship."

If a tier 5 is 100% "better" than a starting ship and a tier 4 is 5% below that shouldn't the tier 4 ship be 95% "better" than a starting ship?

[Zepath]

We're still trying to get our heads around the tiers and how they work ...

I just don't think you're going to get a solid answer ... and I'm not going to say anything because every time I think I understand it, Cryptic says something that confirms to me I'm wrong.

[TruthSeer]

If a tier 5 is 100% "better" than a starting ship and a tier 4 is 5% below that shouldn't the tier 4 ship be 95% "better" than a starting ship?

Not necessarily, they said the power difference isn't that great between tiers 4 and 5 but didn't say anything about the difference between tiers 1-4.

[DaemonBorn]

Not necessarily, they said the power difference isn't that great between tiers 4 and 5 but didn't say anything about the difference between tiers 1-4.

But they did "a tier 4 ship is 80 percent better than a starting ship." a starting ship being tier 1.

[mirkrim]

I wouldn't worry about all of those figures Craig was throwing around. When you consider all the elements that go into making a ship powerful - bridge officers, stations, equipment, and the ship itself - there are many, many factors, and Craig was squashing them all into very simple terms for the sake of explanation.

What I take out of that interview is the point that Tier 5 ships are about twice as good as Tier 1. That seems concrete enough because those are the two ends of the spectrum. So each tier would be about 25% more powerful than the previous one.

[Replica]

Yeah I think when Craig said "5%" he may have meant 1/5th which would be 20%, and explain the 80% better for T4.

Now T5 being 100% better is kinda relative, if that means it can do twice the damage and has twice the shields/armor, then it would be worth 4-T1 ships in a fight. Twice the damage-per-second and twice the time still alive in the fight = 4 times the total damage put out in the battle.

I hope that is one of the things well tested in Beta, and rebalanced if needed. Keeping the T5 ships from being completely untouchable by the T1 ships.

[vobedarkelf]

What he was saying made perfect sense, and it is brilliant game design. As an experienced MMO player this whole advancement system has me even more excited for this game.

The percentages he quoted were just rough estimates to give us the general idea of how each new teir of ships is less and less of an upgrade over the previous one.

Also, for all the people who are starting this "teir 1-5" stuff, cut it out. Think about it for a moment. Your "Teir 1", which I like to call "the newbie ship" only consists of cruisers, and extremely weak ones at that. This is not a real teir of ships. This newbie ship is something you are only going to pilot through a couple hours of tutorial, at which point you will rank up to Lieutenant, and get a T1 ship. This T1 ship will be a huge upgrade over your newbie ship. Did you ever stop to think that the Klingon side probably doesnt have a "newbie ship" teir to it? They do not have a tutorial, so why would they stick you in a newbie ship? Klingon side will just dump you directly into the normal game, and I expect that to be somewhat difficult if you are stuck in a 'newbie ship' intended for tutorial play.

Now, if I am correct that Klingon side will only have "Teir 1-4" ships, it will just confuse the heck out of everybody, and have dumb people saying "OMG why does Fed side have a T5? How much stronger is a Sovereign over a Neg'Var?.. and so on."

Maybe I am wrong about this, and I will eat my words when we learn more about Klingon side, or if a Cryptic person would come in here and set us strait on this "Teir" thing.