Crew is silly right now. We could pretty much pull it out of the game, buff everyone's out-of-combat regeneration, and nobody would notice. It's on our short list of orphaned powers features. If anyone feels strongly that it should be left in the game, I'd be interested in hearing what you wish it did.
Crew is broken, yeah. I'd say, either remove it altogether, or fix it. Which is to say, undo the counter-intuitiveness of it, where my large Ody crew gets wiped out in seconds, and my wee Vesta crew just can't seem to die.
On the primary note of this matter - that of the team decoupling - I can't help but wonder if a change of this magnitude that includes, essentially, a neutering of Sci PvP via cleansing of subnuc might have been one of those changes that "are held off for a massive restructuring of the gameplay" - and instead of having people "learn to play with 3 teams at once", have people learn to deal with the separation of Tac Team's value, instead...
On the crew issue, quickest "fix" I can think of is instead of "x many or y%", just make each hit kill "Z many" crew. Yeah, an escort might only take 3-4 hits while a cruiser might never run out of crew, but if there's a "significant enough" impact to losing crew (at most 10% off max DPS or defense), then perhaps slotting crew survival tools and/or breaking off from combat to save some crew...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Those worried about sci being neutered are really not thinking through the possible builds.
Is there possibly more counters to VM... yes. Is anyone using VM in PvP right now really ? Not really. Is there possibly more clears to sub nuke ... yes... but in PvP do we care about that its the buff strip that is key and there is nothing that can help with that... having people cleared is all well and good but if they have no extra resistance heals they are going to die after being stripped.
Tykens and Siphen are cleared by Hazards and this change doesn't effect them at all.
Sci team does clear Tachyon beam but how many people really know that. Or use it in PvP much.
I mean seriously clear wise what does this effect ?
Tractor beam... No... in fact there will be fewer people running Polarized Hull so they can slot a Sci team... so this is a win.
Gravity Well... nope not cleared by any teams... but it is completely ignored by people running aux to damp... so do you think perhaps if a few people drop aux to damp in favor of a higher level engi team this might in fact make GW better ?
By running more team heals to clear debuffs people are making themselves more likely to fall victim to other skills.
By running extra sub nuke clears... they reduce the total number of Resistance heals on a team to keep people alive after they have had there buffs stripped.
Overall this change in fact makes science stronger... and no I have not lost my marbles.
I'd like to see crew stay. Here's what I was thinking. Turn crew into a distributable like power levels.
Add in departments like engineering, science labs, tactical/armory, etc. Maybe 4-5 main departments. These would not be interior maps, they would just be a UI element like the power levels are or maybe even it's own tab on the character equip UI. Each department would have a min/max level of crew that can be assigned to it.
When you assign crew from your general pool to a department, they give passive buffs to your ship. The maximum number of crew in each department can cap out the potency of the buffs. However if you don't assign enough crew to a department, then your ship will actually under perform in certain areas. Example: If I assign maximum crew to my engineering, my in combat regeneration will be higher. Because I have max crew in engineering though, I don't have enough in tactical. So now my tactical abilities suffer because I don't have enough people tending to those systems.
You can then shift your crews around depending on what passives you want. The thing is, you can't change them in battle. Once you enter Red Alert, your crew levels are locked. So in order to reassign crew during battle, you link crew to the Team abilities.
If you use Engineering Team on yourself for example, it would still do the same thing it does now but it would also temporarily move crew into your main engineering department. This would provide a temporary boost the passive in that area. It would pull crew from other systems though, so even though you get a temporary boost in one department, you would get a temporary loss in another. If you have a department capped out in crew, you won't get any more benefits. You won't lose anything from other departments though. This would only redistribute your own crew when used on yourself. It would not redistribute crew on other ships when used on allies.
In order to balance this with the difference in crew levels between large and small ships, department size would be based on the category of your ship. A smaller escort has less crew, but it also has small facilities that need less crew to man them. Cruisers have lots of crew, but have larger facilities and need more crew to man them.
You could even go one step further and add in new ship equipment. Things like labs, armories, main engineering modules, etc. These could determine how many crew can be assigned to each area. The could come with stats if you wanted to make them more desirable. Maybe a Starfleet science lab would work better on a cruiser while a science vessel would benefit more from a Dyson science lab (with it's advanced Dyson tech). Escorts might not even have a full science lab, just a smaller science station.
Anyway, this is just a really, really rough concept. I'm just shooting out a general idea rather than a set system. Naturally it would have to be polished and fine tuned, but I think in general something like this could work. It might be too involved for the type of game STO is though. I'm not sure if the average player wants to go that far down the micromanagement rabbit hole.
Basically I'd like to see crew further integrated into the system rather than just outright purged. That said, I won't be upset if you do decide to just purge it. As it is now, it does nothing worth noting.
My concern with this change is that yet again my Science captain has been nerfed. People being able to spam the teams without having to think about a shared cool down means that my subnuc is going to be much less useful, as will most other debuffs.
I would actually really like Cryptic to spend some time and work in detail to completely revamp many of the bridge officer abilities and captain abilities. Many of them, especially engineering are extremely lacking and could do with a boost in particular the ensign level skills. Some skills need switching from one career branch to another, in my view something like tractor beam is something that should belong in engineering instead of science. Nadion inversion hardly gets used because of it's stupidly long cool down.
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Take the ship, hull, shields and crew status. Click one of the facings. That creates a standing order to redistribute shield strength to that facing. Just like the cruiser command auras are standing orders until you change them (or die or change zones). Make the distribution to any one shield facing just as effective as tac team is now. It will be less effective in combat, because you'll have to use your brain and choose whether you're balancing to one shield facing or another or to all of them.
My concern with this change is that yet again my Science captain has been nerfed. People being able to spam the teams without having to think about a shared cool down means that my subnuc is going to be much less useful, as will most other debuffs.
Sub nuc is not the only viable science debuff. You are supposed to use more than a single button to win. Bait your target into blowing his science team as a shield heal by reducing his shields to paper mach
For the sake of completion, you forgot SS and JS. Last I heard, Siphon could also be cleared using ST. Not too sure about TR, though. Sensor Scan is also cleared by ST.
And there are those who use VM. It's nice to get vapers to stop cloaking at least for the amount of time you need to kill them.
Could you be missing the entire point of his explanation any more severely?!
Apparently. I just didn't read the part where he mentions that people using a sci power as a hull heal and an eng power as a shield heal is contrary to their game design. Nope.
Eng Team doesn't really do anything special. It's 2x the heal at 2x the cooldown of A2SIF but without the damage resistance. Disabled subsystems come back in a second or two, so I don't see why anyone cares about repairing those. Clears engineering debuffs... like... Aceton Beam? Which no one uses and HE clears it too.
For the sake of completion, you forgot SS and JS. Last I heard, Siphon could also be cleared using ST. Not too sure about TR, though. Sensor Scan is also cleared by ST.
And there are those who use VM. It's nice to get vapers to stop cloaking at least for the amount of time you need to kill them.
That is true... really though... I still don't see it making sense for people to have a ton more sci teams... and VM has been of questionable use in PvP for a while anway. Your right about it catching clokers... but if I was really worried about that I don't know CPB 1 is cheaper. Also I doubt many vapers are going to start running sci team... perhaps I'm wrong... if they do though I bet a tractor beam would catch them. I can't see people running a ton of extra sci on there vapers all of a sudden.
I will be on tribble more later to test this but please consider how powerful you will make some ships by doing these changes. I can already tell my Recluse will be nearly invincible. Any ship that can slot ET3, ST3, TT1, and still have room for all the other non team skill heals like TSS, HE, EPTS, and Aux2SIF will basically have god mode almost and is not a good idea to give that to any ship, I like my Recluse but still don't want complete god mode on it lol.
Apart from tac team you have far better options for hull repair and shield balancing (which in combat tac team blaces to the one that is being hit) and Hazard emitters fix the hull both far better than ENG team,
Sci team, plasma fires in space don't hurt enough to warrant a spechal power to clean off the hull unless of course the player is completely inept
Why do you need "god mode" in this game it is as easy as gulping down air the only hard part of the game is Into the hive and Hive onslaught hard mode (and that is debatable) and the dyson ground forces you to keep alert but nothing more
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Is there possibly more counters to VM... yes. Is anyone using VM in PvP right now really ? Not really.
Can we take a closer look at that, eh?
What's going to be the duration on a VM? How many folks are going to put the points into Decomp for the small return it offers compared to the larger return that Subsystem Repair offers at a much lower cost?
Then we look at the actual disabled systems, eh? Look at the various abilities that are generally spammed...TT/EPtS...they're repairing systems. Throw in various proc cleanses - run WCE (Cleanse Everything)...etc, etc, etc.
Outside of DOFF'd VM on a vaper to guarantee they decloak after they cloak...things are already pretty much heavily against the use of VM, no? That doesn't mean that this change doesn't make that worse...does it?
Is there possibly more clears to sub nuke ... yes... but in PvP do we care about that its the buff strip that is key and there is nothing that can help with that... having people cleared is all well and good but if they have no extra resistance heals they are going to die after being stripped.
Um, the debuff is pretty heinous. How many folks out there can fly around fine until you've got 2-3 or more Sci dropping SNB on them? It's not from the buff stripping - it's from nailing the CDs on their heals and buffs. If you're looking at a bar full of timers telling you that you can do something tomorrow...you pretty much know you're going to die shortly.
As for the additional damage resistance/damage reduction that's missing from ET/ST...are we going to completely ignore the diminishing returns that are in play regarding those resistances/reductions?
If you add in AtS1...(@125 Aux, +33.2 DRR)...47.0%.
If you add in HE2...(@125 Aux, +31 DRR)...46.5%.
So the AtS1's providing +9.4% DR for that +33.2 DRR (@125 Aux) and the HE2's providing +8.9% DRR (@125 Aux)...
That's if there are no other buffs already in play boosting damage resistance - in which case they'll provide even less of a boost.
If we look at shield damage reduction instead, eh?
Say we start off with the 10% (90% to shields, either 10% or 5% to hull - yes, with kinetic we'd be looking at 95% to shields - but I'm sticking with energy to match the hull example from above)...we go with some standard STF-like shields for 10% more, work in 125 Shield Power for 35% more, and toss in an EPtS1 for 30% more...
Gravity Well... nope not cleared by any teams... but it is completely ignored by people running aux to damp... so do you think perhaps if a few people drop aux to damp in favor of a higher level engi team this might in fact make GW better ?
It's not a case that everybody need make the changes...it's about how it will affect folks that already have abilities slotted...
By running extra sub nuke clears... they reduce the total number of Resistance heals on a team to keep people alive after they have had there buffs stripped.
...so when I'm supporting somebody (yes, I fly a support T'varo) I currently face an opportunity cost in whether to drop out TT1 or ET1. I will oft stack ET1 & AtS1...which I think is something you overlooked in discussing the teams. As if they would be used as replacements instead of in conjunction with other abilities.
Right now, somebody's getting hit and they're not sporting TT already or they're not facing debuffs...they're likely to get the APD1, ET1, AtS1, TSS2, and either HE1 or HE2 from me.
With these changes going live, I could drop one of the HE's or PH (I only have it there for my DR cycle since I'm hull tanking while blipping while cloaked) for ST1...
TT1, APD1, ET1, AtS1, ST1, TSS2, and either the HE1 or HE2...no need to choose between TT1, ET1, ST1...can drop them all out on the target. So I've basically cleansed the target, healed the target, and in the case of them having been stripped - boosted their resists/reductions.
And uh...you don't see that as a problem?
I'm in a frickin' T'varo...lol...that's not a problem?
edit: Heck, if Willard was an Eng instead of a Sci...I could throw EPS at them too to boost their power. So how is this not a problem?
Apparently. I just didn't read the part where he mentions that people using a sci power as a hull heal and an eng power as a shield heal is contrary to their game design. Nope.
Eng Team doesn't really do anything special. It's 2x the heal at 2x the cooldown of A2SIF but without the damage resistance. Disabled subsystems come back in a second or two, so I don't see why anyone cares about repairing those. Clears engineering debuffs... like... Aceton Beam? Which no one uses and HE clears it too.
Yup, apparently you missed the point entirely. His was not a discourse on Team ability X vs. Y per se, but about their concurrency.
His main reasoning went along the lines of saying pretty much everyone chains TT, thus making it hard to squeeze in both ET and ST. As a result, the last 2 were being used less often than ppl might actually want. Who wouldn't want a nice ST handy against the Voth?! But not when it interferes with your TT chaining, was his point.
ET is one of those abilities you only really need an Ensign version of (if at all); and it's also about the only useful Ensign Engineering ability available, next to the EPtX series. So, typically, on ships with 3x Ensign Engineering stations available, 10:1 you'll see an ET1 slotted on the 3rd position. And so, the dev's point was that now ET can safely phone home again, without interfering with, or being interfered by, some otther Team ability (most notably, your dual TT).
So, do you now see how irrelevant your notion about the actual value of ET really is within what the dev tried to explain?
Off-topic indulgence: Since we can do a double-tap MW3, ET, as a hull healer, has, to Engineers, lost much its significance to date. It is still, however, useful for bringing stuff online. 2-4 seconds may not seem like a long time to you; but, as Data might say, in combat it can be an eternity.
sci team
shield heal that potentially wastes 3 quarters of the healunless tt was used to distribute shields
5 seconds of immunity to.... what does this stop that HE doesnt?
It clears Subnucleonic Beam, which can be the greatest hazard of all.
* is it viable to put up a working pve build without TT? Answer is NO. Cause there's no shield distribution, and borg shield eating proc being cleared by TT only.
* we all know you cannot auto bind shield redistribution with 3+ abilities. I.e. shield distro + 2 abilities works, SD + 3+ abilities just doesn't
* every time I want to put sci team or eng team into build I keep thinking "it would fit nicely perhaps if there was no shared cooldown between them".
TT shield balancing aint OP its just the only useful and working ability in game, because with pings 100 - 200 area it's practically imposible to balance shields manualy in reasonable time. From what I can tell TT shield balancing happens without user actions and subsequent "user action processing lag" (i.e. you have to press TT button five times for it to "connect").
Two things to keep in mind:
* TT auto balances the shield facing being pounded right now.
* with pings 100-200 6 seconds real time is not enough to balance the shields (CEE 3rd act is a good example)
So, as much as I enjoy a little pvp whine every now and then, this is just not constructive. And I kinda start to see why were're not seeing a lot of dev interaction on forums. Cause every time they do open a dialog they get buckets of sh*** poured over them.
Just to be fair, from what I see, he's mainly talking premade strategy. Which, honestly, probably won't see that much change.
The major shifts are probably going to be in pug gameplay/Kerrat/C&H shenanigans. Which you and I probably do more.
One could take my current Sci defensive array of Boff powers. I run both TT and ST as it is - 1 of each. There have been a number of times when I've taken a subnuke and gotten pressured - had to use up my clear, and hope I would be able to tough out the DPS without TT. Or when someone got hit by that - had to pick which to send him - TT or ST. Sending someone ST or TT also made me vulnerable by putting the other on cooldown, so when sending someone ST, I had to hope no one noticed I did it and try to vape me. Now, though, it won't be a problem.
Premades won't see much change. Based on what I've heard, people specialize in what teams they carry - so it won't make much difference. It's in those builds which carry mixed teams that you'll see an impressive boost in clearing when needed.
Like I said, in full premades where there's amazing teamwork and everyone can just yell for whatever team they need, no biggie. Not much difference. But in a pug/tag-team, I don't have to worry about using clears now.
Incidentally, what does TT repair? Weapons?
Edit:Whether this is a good or bad thing, I don't know. Sure, I'll be able to pump more healing downrange, but so will others. Pug time to kill is most likely going up, though.
I wonder if it would be a good idea to add buff strips to many science debuff abilities. That would add alot more to the buff/debuff/cleanse/strip gameplay.
* is it viable to put up a working pve build without TT? Answer is NO. Cause there's no shield distribution, and borg shield eating proc being cleared by TT only.
Um...that's not the only cleanse for it. And you're not the only person there - so you don't have to carry the cleanse yourself. And even without the cleanse, you can still tank the damage without shields...and...yeah...I just don't get this.
It may apply to certain builds - in which case they're dependent on somebody else, but this is a MMO...
I wonder if it would be a good idea to add buff strips to many science debuff abilities. That would add alot more to the buff/debuff/cleanse/strip gameplay.
Personally, I'm not a fan in the least of the whole strip/cleanse system that exists in STO - it's entirely too yo-yo (somebody called it binary).
Both cleanses and the SNB strip are too powerful imho. An Ensign ranked cleanse does so as well as a LCdr does - a Lt as well as a Cmdr. SNB strips 1 buff or 9001 buffs. There's no middle-ground - no play. It's pretty much binary as somebody stated.
If cleanses were partial cleanses or additional resistance that reduced the effectiveness of debuffs...if SNB's strip was limited...what would we have?
We'd have more folks flying around with a mix of buffs and debuffs...rather than folks either buffed to Hell or debuffed to Hell...
Like I said, in full premades where there's amazing teamwork and everyone can just yell for whatever team they need, no biggie. Not much difference. But in a pug/tag-team, I don't have to worry about using clears now.
Incidentally, what does TT repair? Weapons?
Yep you summed up what I was getting at nicely. For premades no real change that I see. Good premades are good because they stack Resistance heals like mad and everyone that needs a team clear gets it when asked for... or before they know they need it. For premade builds I don't think this will change much... perhaps a few teams will carry a couple extra teams they may not have before... they will trade some sustained resistance heals or some CC for it though. Which is why I say its a wash... more spike heal less sustained. With the current vaper vaper vaper meta I don't think that is a bad change.
For pugs yes for sure this will effect some change. However I think in those situations that is where changing a build around a little but will be a good thing. Science ships Pugging Kerrating what have you... still want to go and pick on the escort. lol An escort that chooses to slot a sci team will have less shield Resistance (they won't drop Hazards)... so nuke them when you see 25s on there EPTS (to ensure they don't have it back right away). Unless there team mates help them at least. That means NO shield resist accept what there shield power and any mods on there shield give them. Also I would bet 90% of the time VM WILL work just fine on escorts... because there is no real good option for running an engi team on most escorts. If they are doing that... well use a gravity well... sure omega may counter it but fire it when its down being pulled and aftershocked for 15s till its back up is darn annoying and will kill half there defense.
I understand I think where you are coming from Virus... I just think when you are out there in the wild playing against this change... you will likely come to agree with me. The team clears are short (even if they are doffed). The heals themselves are in fact not that strong... heck even my science ship with Aux DHC on it can crit a cannon hit for more then Engi team or Sci team heals for. So if people really are choosing that over having proper resist skills I think we will end up making out just fine vs them in more of the 1v1 1v2 type encounters in the Cap and Slaps and KRats.
Well, virusdancer says it does, so... I haven't actually observed it, however.
It doesn't repair weapons no... I have sat though enough stupid tholian disables to know that.
Tac team does of course clear tac debuffs like Beta and Delta and FOMM. It does it for 10s as well... Tac debuffs got hit a heck of a lot harder back with the tac team change then this change will hurt sci debuffs. There used to be a time people would willingly run Beta 3 over omega and even delta 3.
Just throwing it out here if the devs are watching this thread.
This is the change I would make to the teams and clears in general to go along with this in a possible upcoming revamp.
Tac Team - 5s (instead of crazy ideas like adding 2 skills just reduce the up time to a proper in line time)
Same clears it has now. Beta Delta FOMM
Reduced clear time should improve the value of those tactical debuffs. (Fix the darn pet beta stacking though its just plain dumb) The shield spin I think it would be ok at 5... but perhaps a logical fix would be to change the times for each level... 5s for level 1 7.5 for 2 and 10 for 3
Engi Team -
Change engi team to clear Aceton beam / Eject Warp plasma / Boarding Parties (I know that doesn't seem logical... but its a game man people can cope) / Plasma dots
Science Team -
Change sci team to clear SS / VM / Tykens / Siphen / Tachyon beam / CPB (cloak debuff) / Sensor Scan
Hazard Emitters - Remove all clears from hazards. Hazards is a HEAL and the strongest one in the game it should not be clearing things at all.
With that there would be a few tweeks that would need to happen on carrier pets... Pets using plasma torpedos should likely have there DOT capped (vs players) or have there weapon type changed to photons or something. As I mentioned it would also be a great idea to fix the way some pets apply beta.
I think doing that would take care of a few issues.
1) It makes clears super easy to understand for new and old players. There are people playing this game that just don't know what does what... because its not intuitive, New system would be easy... if it comes from a Tac/Engi/Sci boff... it is cleared by that Team.
2) It improves a lot of debuffs while not making them impossible to clear... Hazards negates far to many things as it is the standard go to heal that eeveryone has at least one copy of.
3) It gives ship types obvious Strong Vs and Weak Vs setups... Science Ships will be weakest Vs other Science... and the same for both Cruisers and Escorts. Cruisers would be come stronger vs escorts and Science then current as they could use things like Aceton and Warp Plasma debuffs on them and be more likely to effect them. Same for the other classes Cruiser debuffs would have the least effect on other cruisers who could all afford to slot an engi team with little issue.
It doesn't repair weapons no... I have sat though enough stupid tholian disables to know that.
Tac team does of course clear tac debuffs like Beta and Delta and FOMM. It does it for 10s as well... Tac debuffs got hit a heck of a lot harder back with the tac team change then this change will hurt sci debuffs. There used to be a time people would willingly run Beta 3 over omega and even delta 3.
Also clears Boarding Parties.
Not that, y'know, Boarding Parties are all *that* useful with all the Rifts, Wells (gravity type, not lockbox BS type), and Fire-at-Willard going around atm. But hey, at least y'know what to do if you get Boarded (party at Thissler's).
If you feel Keel'el's effect is well designed, please, for your own safety, be very careful around shallow pools of water.
Like I said, I may be mistaken...I've never had really had to fight this kind of rage against Cryptic like I am now. I've always been the middle-guy, lol - arguing with the Cryptic haters and Cryptic fanbois...finding that middle-ground where things aren't as good as some say nor as bad as some say. Not doing the everything is roses nor doing the everything is manure.
The lingering bit from Geko in PO158.5, the F.Gal-X stats (again, I don't even have a Fed toon), this change...was just too much for me. So yeah, I'm sitting here TRIBBLE to my screens repeatedly...giving Cryptic the finger.
Some folks have seen enough of my posts to see I'm not normally like this in the least...but yeah, I'm seeing red all over the place...so I'm not thinking as clearly as I normally do (heh, even my befuddled and senile moments tend to be more clear than my posts in the past couple of days).
Personally glad to see them putting things back to the way they used to be.
Back in the old days when they did not share a CD..... people still had vapers, still had tanks and the sun still rose every morning and set every evening. Bringing it back is not the end of the world, it just means that you will need to adapt your builds and in some cases, you now have better options instead of cookie cutter FOTM stuff. Give it a month, new FOTM builds will be up and life goes on.
I think a lot of people don't remember back when they where not on a global... and they all did things like give you stupid high resistance along with there heals and clears.
I think this version will work better as all those resistances where spun off into new skills. (aux to sif was not a launch skill) and hazards and TSS never had the resistance on it it has now.
This time with no global... you have to make a choice... take the Spike heal with a clear... or take the Resistance heavy HOT. We know no one will be dumping hazards, just talking TSS/PH/Sif/Damps here these are the skills people are most likely to DROP to slot a second none ship class team. PvP wise I am not sure that is a better option... it is a choice.
You can choose... have more spiky heals and an extra Debuff clear with less resistance vs pressure dmg. Or be glad you can share your tac team in a pug if you feel the need but keep your build as you have it now and have a solid resistance roll vs pressure dmg. Considering the Vape PvP meta I don't see this as a bad change at all...
Pugs will be more Vape resistant... and Premades will most likely see very little if any change.
I understand I think where you are coming from Virus... I just think when you are out there in the wild playing against this change... you will likely come to agree with me. The team clears are short (even if they are doffed). The heals themselves are in fact not that strong... heck even my science ship with Aux DHC on it can crit a cannon hit for more then Engi team or Sci team heals for. So if people really are choosing that over having proper resist skills I think we will end up making out just fine vs them in more of the 1v1 1v2 type encounters in the Cap and Slaps and KRats.
But that's the thing - I'm not looking at it as a case of choosing AtS or ET nor choosing TSS or ST...I'm looking at being able to drop everything out at the same time, like I said would be possible from Willard with the changes.
I could drop out TT1, APD1, ET1, AtS1, STx, HEx, TSSx out on a friendly at the same time.
As it stands now, it's been a case of having to make a decision regarding what to cleanse or what to hope that somebody out there would cleanse. *made situations would be very different than PUG situations. I've been thanked more for healing from dropping TT out on folks than dropping out any actual heals...it's mind-boggling at times.
But as it currently stands, somebody or a group of somebody's is trying to kill me. I'm faced with the choice of what's most important based on what's going on. Are they hitting me with Tac debuffs? Have they hit me with VM? Are they stacking SNB? I have to think about what's going on - what I'm most likely to run into out there - carry spare BOFFs should I need to switch them out either while out of combat or after a respawn.
Likewise, I ran Geist (RIP, one of the deleted) for almost a year as a Sci in a Hegh'ta with 4x Sci BOFFs. I purposely created that conflict in a target...they couldn't cover all the debuffs I dropped out. In many cases, it was the only way to take out some of the tanks with their inflated egos.
*mades aren't likely to see many changes. Folks in Escorts aren't likely to see many changes. Everybody else though?
Look at the old BOFF layout from Renim's Sci Ody, eh?
Heh, while I generally dropped the TT2 for APD1...imagine being able to switch out the AtS1/ExS1 for an ET2...and there being no shared CD issues between the TT, ET, ST for that build? You'd be able to work the cleanses, resistance, and heals...cause there's nothing stopping you from stacking ExS, ST, TSS while you're dropping out ET, AtS, HE - and you can still drop out the TT at the same time.
Comments
Crew is broken, yeah. I'd say, either remove it altogether, or fix it. Which is to say, undo the counter-intuitiveness of it, where my large Ody crew gets wiped out in seconds, and my wee Vesta crew just can't seem to die.
On the crew issue, quickest "fix" I can think of is instead of "x many or y%", just make each hit kill "Z many" crew. Yeah, an escort might only take 3-4 hits while a cruiser might never run out of crew, but if there's a "significant enough" impact to losing crew (at most 10% off max DPS or defense), then perhaps slotting crew survival tools and/or breaking off from combat to save some crew...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Those worried about sci being neutered are really not thinking through the possible builds.
Is there possibly more counters to VM... yes. Is anyone using VM in PvP right now really ? Not really. Is there possibly more clears to sub nuke ... yes... but in PvP do we care about that its the buff strip that is key and there is nothing that can help with that... having people cleared is all well and good but if they have no extra resistance heals they are going to die after being stripped.
Tykens and Siphen are cleared by Hazards and this change doesn't effect them at all.
Sci team does clear Tachyon beam but how many people really know that. Or use it in PvP much.
I mean seriously clear wise what does this effect ?
Tractor beam... No... in fact there will be fewer people running Polarized Hull so they can slot a Sci team... so this is a win.
Gravity Well... nope not cleared by any teams... but it is completely ignored by people running aux to damp... so do you think perhaps if a few people drop aux to damp in favor of a higher level engi team this might in fact make GW better ?
By running more team heals to clear debuffs people are making themselves more likely to fall victim to other skills.
By running extra sub nuke clears... they reduce the total number of Resistance heals on a team to keep people alive after they have had there buffs stripped.
Overall this change in fact makes science stronger... and no I have not lost my marbles.
Add in departments like engineering, science labs, tactical/armory, etc. Maybe 4-5 main departments. These would not be interior maps, they would just be a UI element like the power levels are or maybe even it's own tab on the character equip UI. Each department would have a min/max level of crew that can be assigned to it.
When you assign crew from your general pool to a department, they give passive buffs to your ship. The maximum number of crew in each department can cap out the potency of the buffs. However if you don't assign enough crew to a department, then your ship will actually under perform in certain areas. Example: If I assign maximum crew to my engineering, my in combat regeneration will be higher. Because I have max crew in engineering though, I don't have enough in tactical. So now my tactical abilities suffer because I don't have enough people tending to those systems.
You can then shift your crews around depending on what passives you want. The thing is, you can't change them in battle. Once you enter Red Alert, your crew levels are locked. So in order to reassign crew during battle, you link crew to the Team abilities.
If you use Engineering Team on yourself for example, it would still do the same thing it does now but it would also temporarily move crew into your main engineering department. This would provide a temporary boost the passive in that area. It would pull crew from other systems though, so even though you get a temporary boost in one department, you would get a temporary loss in another. If you have a department capped out in crew, you won't get any more benefits. You won't lose anything from other departments though. This would only redistribute your own crew when used on yourself. It would not redistribute crew on other ships when used on allies.
In order to balance this with the difference in crew levels between large and small ships, department size would be based on the category of your ship. A smaller escort has less crew, but it also has small facilities that need less crew to man them. Cruisers have lots of crew, but have larger facilities and need more crew to man them.
You could even go one step further and add in new ship equipment. Things like labs, armories, main engineering modules, etc. These could determine how many crew can be assigned to each area. The could come with stats if you wanted to make them more desirable. Maybe a Starfleet science lab would work better on a cruiser while a science vessel would benefit more from a Dyson science lab (with it's advanced Dyson tech). Escorts might not even have a full science lab, just a smaller science station.
Anyway, this is just a really, really rough concept. I'm just shooting out a general idea rather than a set system. Naturally it would have to be polished and fine tuned, but I think in general something like this could work. It might be too involved for the type of game STO is though. I'm not sure if the average player wants to go that far down the micromanagement rabbit hole.
Basically I'd like to see crew further integrated into the system rather than just outright purged. That said, I won't be upset if you do decide to just purge it. As it is now, it does nothing worth noting.
Mine Trap Supporter
I would actually really like Cryptic to spend some time and work in detail to completely revamp many of the bridge officer abilities and captain abilities. Many of them, especially engineering are extremely lacking and could do with a boost in particular the ensign level skills. Some skills need switching from one career branch to another, in my view something like tractor beam is something that should belong in engineering instead of science. Nadion inversion hardly gets used because of it's stupidly long cool down.
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Could you be missing the entire point of his explanation any more severely?!
This.
And this.
Sub nuc is not the only viable science debuff. You are supposed to use more than a single button to win. Bait your target into blowing his science team as a shield heal by reducing his shields to paper mach
For the sake of completion, you forgot SS and JS. Last I heard, Siphon could also be cleared using ST. Not too sure about TR, though. Sensor Scan is also cleared by ST.
And there are those who use VM. It's nice to get vapers to stop cloaking at least for the amount of time you need to kill them.
Apparently. I just didn't read the part where he mentions that people using a sci power as a hull heal and an eng power as a shield heal is contrary to their game design. Nope.
Eng Team doesn't really do anything special. It's 2x the heal at 2x the cooldown of A2SIF but without the damage resistance. Disabled subsystems come back in a second or two, so I don't see why anyone cares about repairing those. Clears engineering debuffs... like... Aceton Beam? Which no one uses and HE clears it too.
That is true... really though... I still don't see it making sense for people to have a ton more sci teams... and VM has been of questionable use in PvP for a while anway. Your right about it catching clokers... but if I was really worried about that I don't know CPB 1 is cheaper.
Apart from tac team you have far better options for hull repair and shield balancing (which in combat tac team blaces to the one that is being hit) and Hazard emitters fix the hull both far better than ENG team,
Sci team, plasma fires in space don't hurt enough to warrant a spechal power to clean off the hull unless of course the player is completely inept
Why do you need "god mode" in this game it is as easy as gulping down air the only hard part of the game is Into the hive and Hive onslaught hard mode (and that is debatable) and the dyson ground forces you to keep alert but nothing more
Disagree.
That's kind of insulting.
Can we take a closer look at that, eh?
What's going to be the duration on a VM? How many folks are going to put the points into Decomp for the small return it offers compared to the larger return that Subsystem Repair offers at a much lower cost?
Then we look at the actual disabled systems, eh? Look at the various abilities that are generally spammed...TT/EPtS...they're repairing systems. Throw in various proc cleanses - run WCE (Cleanse Everything)...etc, etc, etc.
Outside of DOFF'd VM on a vaper to guarantee they decloak after they cloak...things are already pretty much heavily against the use of VM, no? That doesn't mean that this change doesn't make that worse...does it?
Um, the debuff is pretty heinous. How many folks out there can fly around fine until you've got 2-3 or more Sci dropping SNB on them? It's not from the buff stripping - it's from nailing the CDs on their heals and buffs. If you're looking at a bar full of timers telling you that you can do something tomorrow...you pretty much know you're going to die shortly.
As for the additional damage resistance/damage reduction that's missing from ET/ST...are we going to completely ignore the diminishing returns that are in play regarding those resistances/reductions?
Say somebody's got the following, k?
2x E-Neut Mk XII's (+21.2 DRR each)
Damage Accolade (+2 DRR)
3 Starship Threat Control (+5.4 DRR)
6 Starship Hull Plating (+12.6 DRR)
They're looking at a DR of 37.6%...
If you add in AtS1...(@125 Aux, +33.2 DRR)...47.0%.
If you add in HE2...(@125 Aux, +31 DRR)...46.5%.
So the AtS1's providing +9.4% DR for that +33.2 DRR (@125 Aux) and the HE2's providing +8.9% DRR (@125 Aux)...
That's if there are no other buffs already in play boosting damage resistance - in which case they'll provide even less of a boost.
If we look at shield damage reduction instead, eh?
Say we start off with the 10% (90% to shields, either 10% or 5% to hull - yes, with kinetic we'd be looking at 95% to shields - but I'm sticking with energy to match the hull example from above)...we go with some standard STF-like shields for 10% more, work in 125 Shield Power for 35% more, and toss in an EPtS1 for 30% more...
1 - ((1 - 0.1) * (1 - 0.1) * (1 - 0.35) * (1 - 0.3))
1 - (0.9 * 0.9 * 0.65 * 0.7)
1 - 0.36855 = 63.145%
Let's add in the 18.5% from a 125 Aux TSS3...
1 - ((1 - 0.1) * (1 - 0.1) * (1 - 0.35) * (1 - 0.3) * (1 - 0.185))
1 - (0.9 * 0.9 * 0.65 * 0.7 * 0.815)
1 - 0.30036825 = 69.963175%
+6.818175% shield damage reduction
There's a forest around those trees...
With folks running high insulators and spamming shield heals...shield stripping is very niche.
The ability to drop out the cleanses from TT, ET, and ST at the same time instead of having to make an opportunity cost choice decision...
If one ignores the APO...if one ignores EPtE...if one ignores TBR...if one ignores all the ways one can brute force their way out of a tractor...
It's not a case that everybody need make the changes...it's about how it will affect folks that already have abilities slotted...
Folks are already carrying them...they just couldn't use them at the same time.
If they give anything up for it...
I disagree. Lol, not on the marbles bit - not calling you crazy or anything. I just disagree.
With the way I currently run Willard, I've got the following BOFF layout...
TT1, APD1, TS3, APO3
TS1
ET1, AtS1
PH1, TSS2, GW1
HE1, HE2
...so when I'm supporting somebody (yes, I fly a support T'varo) I currently face an opportunity cost in whether to drop out TT1 or ET1. I will oft stack ET1 & AtS1...which I think is something you overlooked in discussing the teams. As if they would be used as replacements instead of in conjunction with other abilities.
Right now, somebody's getting hit and they're not sporting TT already or they're not facing debuffs...they're likely to get the APD1, ET1, AtS1, TSS2, and either HE1 or HE2 from me.
With these changes going live, I could drop one of the HE's or PH (I only have it there for my DR cycle since I'm hull tanking while blipping while cloaked) for ST1...
TT1, APD1, ET1, AtS1, ST1, TSS2, and either the HE1 or HE2...no need to choose between TT1, ET1, ST1...can drop them all out on the target. So I've basically cleansed the target, healed the target, and in the case of them having been stripped - boosted their resists/reductions.
And uh...you don't see that as a problem?
I'm in a frickin' T'varo...lol...that's not a problem?
edit: Heck, if Willard was an Eng instead of a Sci...I could throw EPS at them too to boost their power. So how is this not a problem?
Yup, apparently you missed the point entirely.
His main reasoning went along the lines of saying pretty much everyone chains TT, thus making it hard to squeeze in both ET and ST. As a result, the last 2 were being used less often than ppl might actually want. Who wouldn't want a nice ST handy against the Voth?! But not when it interferes with your TT chaining, was his point.
ET is one of those abilities you only really need an Ensign version of (if at all); and it's also about the only useful Ensign Engineering ability available, next to the EPtX series. So, typically, on ships with 3x Ensign Engineering stations available, 10:1 you'll see an ET1 slotted on the 3rd position. And so, the dev's point was that now ET can safely phone home again, without interfering with, or being interfered by, some otther Team ability (most notably, your dual TT).
So, do you now see how irrelevant your notion about the actual value of ET really is within what the dev tried to explain?
Off-topic indulgence: Since we can do a double-tap MW3, ET, as a hull healer, has, to Engineers, lost much its significance to date. It is still, however, useful for bringing stuff online. 2-4 seconds may not seem like a long time to you; but, as Data might say, in combat it can be an eternity.
It clears Subnucleonic Beam, which can be the greatest hazard of all.
Dat's why all of them cleanses have cooldowns.
Recently I was thinking about:
* is it viable to put up a working pve build without TT? Answer is NO. Cause there's no shield distribution, and borg shield eating proc being cleared by TT only.
* we all know you cannot auto bind shield redistribution with 3+ abilities. I.e. shield distro + 2 abilities works, SD + 3+ abilities just doesn't
* every time I want to put sci team or eng team into build I keep thinking "it would fit nicely perhaps if there was no shared cooldown between them".
TT shield balancing aint OP its just the only useful and working ability in game, because with pings 100 - 200 area it's practically imposible to balance shields manualy in reasonable time. From what I can tell TT shield balancing happens without user actions and subsequent "user action processing lag" (i.e. you have to press TT button five times for it to "connect").
Two things to keep in mind:
* TT auto balances the shield facing being pounded right now.
* with pings 100-200 6 seconds real time is not enough to balance the shields (CEE 3rd act is a good example)
So, as much as I enjoy a little pvp whine every now and then, this is just not constructive. And I kinda start to see why were're not seeing a lot of dev interaction on forums. Cause every time they do open a dialog they get buckets of sh*** poured over them.
So, Can we keep this constructive?
Just to be fair, from what I see, he's mainly talking premade strategy. Which, honestly, probably won't see that much change.
The major shifts are probably going to be in pug gameplay/Kerrat/C&H shenanigans. Which you and I probably do more.
One could take my current Sci defensive array of Boff powers. I run both TT and ST as it is - 1 of each. There have been a number of times when I've taken a subnuke and gotten pressured - had to use up my clear, and hope I would be able to tough out the DPS without TT. Or when someone got hit by that - had to pick which to send him - TT or ST. Sending someone ST or TT also made me vulnerable by putting the other on cooldown, so when sending someone ST, I had to hope no one noticed I did it and try to vape me. Now, though, it won't be a problem.
Premades won't see much change. Based on what I've heard, people specialize in what teams they carry - so it won't make much difference. It's in those builds which carry mixed teams that you'll see an impressive boost in clearing when needed.
Like I said, in full premades where there's amazing teamwork and everyone can just yell for whatever team they need, no biggie. Not much difference. But in a pug/tag-team, I don't have to worry about using clears now.
Incidentally, what does TT repair? Weapons?
Edit:Whether this is a good or bad thing, I don't know. Sure, I'll be able to pump more healing downrange, but so will others. Pug time to kill is most likely going up, though.
Um...that's not the only cleanse for it. And you're not the only person there - so you don't have to carry the cleanse yourself. And even without the cleanse, you can still tank the damage without shields...and...yeah...I just don't get this.
It may apply to certain builds - in which case they're dependent on somebody else, but this is a MMO...
edit: Was able to check it again in game - and - nada. Weapon disables are just so short, it gave the appearance that it was doing something...lol.
Personally, I'm not a fan in the least of the whole strip/cleanse system that exists in STO - it's entirely too yo-yo (somebody called it binary).
Both cleanses and the SNB strip are too powerful imho. An Ensign ranked cleanse does so as well as a LCdr does - a Lt as well as a Cmdr. SNB strips 1 buff or 9001 buffs. There's no middle-ground - no play. It's pretty much binary as somebody stated.
If cleanses were partial cleanses or additional resistance that reduced the effectiveness of debuffs...if SNB's strip was limited...what would we have?
We'd have more folks flying around with a mix of buffs and debuffs...rather than folks either buffed to Hell or debuffed to Hell...
It does not repair any disabled subsystem.
Well, virusdancer says it does, so... I haven't actually observed it, however.
Yep you summed up what I was getting at nicely. For premades no real change that I see. Good premades are good because they stack Resistance heals like mad and everyone that needs a team clear gets it when asked for... or before they know they need it. For premade builds I don't think this will change much... perhaps a few teams will carry a couple extra teams they may not have before... they will trade some sustained resistance heals or some CC for it though. Which is why I say its a wash... more spike heal less sustained. With the current vaper vaper vaper meta I don't think that is a bad change.
For pugs yes for sure this will effect some change. However I think in those situations that is where changing a build around a little but will be a good thing. Science ships Pugging Kerrating what have you... still want to go and pick on the escort. lol An escort that chooses to slot a sci team will have less shield Resistance (they won't drop Hazards)... so nuke them when you see 25s on there EPTS (to ensure they don't have it back right away). Unless there team mates help them at least. That means NO shield resist accept what there shield power and any mods on there shield give them. Also I would bet 90% of the time VM WILL work just fine on escorts... because there is no real good option for running an engi team on most escorts. If they are doing that... well use a gravity well... sure omega may counter it but fire it when its down being pulled and aftershocked for 15s till its back up is darn annoying and will kill half there defense.
I understand I think where you are coming from Virus... I just think when you are out there in the wild playing against this change... you will likely come to agree with me. The team clears are short (even if they are doffed). The heals themselves are in fact not that strong... heck even my science ship with Aux DHC on it can crit a cannon hit for more then Engi team or Sci team heals for. So if people really are choosing that over having proper resist skills I think we will end up making out just fine vs them in more of the 1v1 1v2 type encounters in the Cap and Slaps and KRats.
It doesn't repair weapons no... I have sat though enough stupid tholian disables to know that.
Tac team does of course clear tac debuffs like Beta and Delta and FOMM. It does it for 10s as well... Tac debuffs got hit a heck of a lot harder back with the tac team change then this change will hurt sci debuffs.
This is the change I would make to the teams and clears in general to go along with this in a possible upcoming revamp.
Tac Team - 5s (instead of crazy ideas like adding 2 skills just reduce the up time to a proper in line time)
Same clears it has now. Beta Delta FOMM
Reduced clear time should improve the value of those tactical debuffs. (Fix the darn pet beta stacking though its just plain dumb) The shield spin I think it would be ok at 5... but perhaps a logical fix would be to change the times for each level... 5s for level 1 7.5 for 2 and 10 for 3
Engi Team -
Change engi team to clear Aceton beam / Eject Warp plasma / Boarding Parties (I know that doesn't seem logical... but its a game man people can cope) / Plasma dots
Science Team -
Change sci team to clear SS / VM / Tykens / Siphen / Tachyon beam / CPB (cloak debuff) / Sensor Scan
Hazard Emitters - Remove all clears from hazards. Hazards is a HEAL and the strongest one in the game it should not be clearing things at all.
With that there would be a few tweeks that would need to happen on carrier pets... Pets using plasma torpedos should likely have there DOT capped (vs players) or have there weapon type changed to photons or something. As I mentioned it would also be a great idea to fix the way some pets apply beta.
I think doing that would take care of a few issues.
1) It makes clears super easy to understand for new and old players. There are people playing this game that just don't know what does what... because its not intuitive, New system would be easy... if it comes from a Tac/Engi/Sci boff... it is cleared by that Team.
2) It improves a lot of debuffs while not making them impossible to clear... Hazards negates far to many things as it is the standard go to heal that eeveryone has at least one copy of.
3) It gives ship types obvious Strong Vs and Weak Vs setups... Science Ships will be weakest Vs other Science... and the same for both Cruisers and Escorts. Cruisers would be come stronger vs escorts and Science then current as they could use things like Aceton and Warp Plasma debuffs on them and be more likely to effect them. Same for the other classes Cruiser debuffs would have the least effect on other cruisers who could all afford to slot an engi team with little issue.
Also clears Boarding Parties.
Not that, y'know, Boarding Parties are all *that* useful with all the Rifts, Wells (gravity type, not lockbox BS type), and Fire-at-Willard going around atm. But hey, at least y'know what to do if you get Boarded (party at Thissler's).
Like I said, I may be mistaken...I've never had really had to fight this kind of rage against Cryptic like I am now. I've always been the middle-guy, lol - arguing with the Cryptic haters and Cryptic fanbois...finding that middle-ground where things aren't as good as some say nor as bad as some say. Not doing the everything is roses nor doing the everything is manure.
The lingering bit from Geko in PO158.5, the F.Gal-X stats (again, I don't even have a Fed toon), this change...was just too much for me. So yeah, I'm sitting here TRIBBLE to my screens repeatedly...giving Cryptic the finger.
Some folks have seen enough of my posts to see I'm not normally like this in the least...but yeah, I'm seeing red all over the place...so I'm not thinking as clearly as I normally do (heh, even my befuddled and senile moments tend to be more clear than my posts in the past couple of days).
Back in the old days when they did not share a CD..... people still had vapers, still had tanks and the sun still rose every morning and set every evening. Bringing it back is not the end of the world, it just means that you will need to adapt your builds and in some cases, you now have better options instead of cookie cutter FOTM stuff. Give it a month, new FOTM builds will be up and life goes on.
I think this version will work better as all those resistances where spun off into new skills. (aux to sif was not a launch skill) and hazards and TSS never had the resistance on it it has now.
This time with no global... you have to make a choice... take the Spike heal with a clear... or take the Resistance heavy HOT. We know no one will be dumping hazards, just talking TSS/PH/Sif/Damps here these are the skills people are most likely to DROP to slot a second none ship class team. PvP wise I am not sure that is a better option... it is a choice.
You can choose... have more spiky heals and an extra Debuff clear with less resistance vs pressure dmg. Or be glad you can share your tac team in a pug if you feel the need but keep your build as you have it now and have a solid resistance roll vs pressure dmg. Considering the Vape PvP meta I don't see this as a bad change at all...
Pugs will be more Vape resistant... and Premades will most likely see very little if any change.
But that's the thing - I'm not looking at it as a case of choosing AtS or ET nor choosing TSS or ST...I'm looking at being able to drop everything out at the same time, like I said would be possible from Willard with the changes.
I could drop out TT1, APD1, ET1, AtS1, STx, HEx, TSSx out on a friendly at the same time.
As it stands now, it's been a case of having to make a decision regarding what to cleanse or what to hope that somebody out there would cleanse. *made situations would be very different than PUG situations. I've been thanked more for healing from dropping TT out on folks than dropping out any actual heals...it's mind-boggling at times.
But as it currently stands, somebody or a group of somebody's is trying to kill me. I'm faced with the choice of what's most important based on what's going on. Are they hitting me with Tac debuffs? Have they hit me with VM? Are they stacking SNB? I have to think about what's going on - what I'm most likely to run into out there - carry spare BOFFs should I need to switch them out either while out of combat or after a respawn.
Likewise, I ran Geist (RIP, one of the deleted) for almost a year as a Sci in a Hegh'ta with 4x Sci BOFFs. I purposely created that conflict in a target...they couldn't cover all the debuffs I dropped out. In many cases, it was the only way to take out some of the tanks with their inflated egos.
*mades aren't likely to see many changes. Folks in Escorts aren't likely to see many changes. Everybody else though?
Look at the old BOFF layout from Renim's Sci Ody, eh?
Heh, while I generally dropped the TT2 for APD1...imagine being able to switch out the AtS1/ExS1 for an ET2...and there being no shared CD issues between the TT, ET, ST for that build? You'd be able to work the cleanses, resistance, and heals...cause there's nothing stopping you from stacking ExS, ST, TSS while you're dropping out ET, AtS, HE - and you can still drop out the TT at the same time.