-Reason. Post duplicated when edited, so this version (with messed up quotes) has been removed.
If you can't solve it logically, solve it like a moron.
51 + 1 Foundry Character Slots is NOT enough. Some of us love our characters. If I want to buy more character slots, why can't I? I couldn't experience the entire Delta Recruitment event without deleting a character.
The Iconians themselves can't time travel because their memories revert, but there is nothing to say an Iconian couldn't write everything she needed to do on a PADD, pin it to herself, travel back, read the PADD, do the tasks and return. Or just get one of her Non-Herald underlings to go back in time for her.
Oh yeah, I do Foundry missions for both KDFs and Feds. Just search KSTF (Short for Kinas Special Task Force, where Kinas is the name of the Admiral you will be serving under). The earlier ones are less story based and more combat based, while the later ones have a much heavier story element, but keep the large battles.
Just spitballing: Scale weapon damage on a curve with diminishing returns the same way damage resistance is handled. Scale back energy weapon overcap so that continuous full weapon power is unsustainable. Continuous use of overcap causes ship damage and/or drains shields and/or drains other systems. Raise the energy cost of energy weapons (see previous). Generally, though, there should be no upside without a downside and vice versa.
Nerfing weapon power drain isn't the way to go, as that will always hurt lower end builds way too much (S13 already did it, and is pretty painful for firing more than 4 weapons (which pretty much any end-game ship will realistically fire at any one time (sci vessel with beams and 2 torps broadsiding, any ship with any form of cannon/turret build, any 5-3 ship firing forwards, etc (all partially down to doubling up on torps being totally useless))) without things like Emergency Power To Weapons and things like Plasmonic Crutch to compensate by going into overcap) and does barely anything to high end builds thanks to overcap (which in essence is making carrying EPtW or a load of Weapons Batteries essential and reducing build choice). However, making damage buffs (or stopping damage buffs from stacking) have diminishing returns would be welcome and stop the bloated damage from buff stacking (which is easiest to do with Tacs).
If you can't solve it logically, solve it like a moron.
51 + 1 Foundry Character Slots is NOT enough. Some of us love our characters. If I want to buy more character slots, why can't I? I couldn't experience the entire Delta Recruitment event without deleting a character.
The Iconians themselves can't time travel because their memories revert, but there is nothing to say an Iconian couldn't write everything she needed to do on a PADD, pin it to herself, travel back, read the PADD, do the tasks and return. Or just get one of her Non-Herald underlings to go back in time for her.
Oh yeah, I do Foundry missions for both KDFs and Feds. Just search KSTF (Short for Kinas Special Task Force, where Kinas is the name of the Admiral you will be serving under). The earlier ones are less story based and more combat based, while the later ones have a much heavier story element, but keep the large battles.
So..in a game where your only objective is to blow stuff up some are mad because some blow up stuff more efficently than others??? Wow.
It's slightly more complicated. Posters are complaining that the "blow stuff up" class doing really well in content who's goal is... "blow stuff up".
Cryptic introduces content that is more complex, and players don't play it, because it is not as "efficient" as... "blowing stuff up".
Other posters are upset that their preferred class is not as good at "blowing stuff up", so the "blowing stuff up" class should be penalized... for doing the one niche thing it is supposed to do.
If players and Cryptic desire the "leave the galaxy in ruin" route for gameplay objectives, then why not increase the "blowing stuff up" potential of the other classes?
Why do dual cannons get screwed over in this? If anything it should be swapped or just remove duals from the game...
They removed the only advantage Dual Cannons had left in the game with this new *revamp*...Heavies are more power efficient and they for some moronic reason get a bonus to crit damage...why the heck should they have every single advantage?
I don't get why people are concerned over other people's DPS and the desire or even obsession to control those high DPS players.
Since you've not read, let me point it out. In multiplayer situations, your **** high DPS, it affects other peoples game play experience.... That's why. If a person comes into a match that does.. .let's say 200k DPS, and they run around killing everything in mere seconds, before any other player has a chance to kill anything, do you know what happens? Everyone else gets an AFK penalty for not doing damage. Granted I've only seen that done once, but it most certainly happens to new and "poor" players.
I just don't agree that it's a problem that needs to be fixed in this manner. The fix is to educate your fellow man. Teach him that running beam arrays on the front of his ship with turrets on the rear while using target subsystems buff is not desirable. Help him to learn the benefits of using cloned emergency power to weapons while he saves up for his damage control engineers or A2B doffs.
Knowledge is power. Spreading knowledge is the key. Placing limits that destroy revenue streams is not the best path.
Yeah...sure...we shouldn't nerf insane rampant DPS because some DPSer claims it's a learning tool! Like I guess we can't teach anyone anything unless you blow everything up in time it takes to blink twice.
Asking a DPS'er if we should nerf DPS is like asking the CEO of Pepsi if we should ban soda because it's unhealthy...never get a straight unbiased answer from them because it will hurt them, no matter how much it actually should be done.
I do not think that is that hard to do. They did well with Korfez IMO for example. I think simply adding the Elites for the popular maps then fixing the reward to time ratio would do wonders in balancing the queues out for older content. Later queues could then move its focus from DPS to something else and still be played since rewards vs time spent is ok.
Right now everyone is so focused on Advanced PVE because it gives the best rewards to time ratio. Of course some people are OP when it comes to advanced content. Ranting over DPS levels because of players vaping things is like ranting over people geared for advanced doing Normal, which would result to the same vaping.
Adjusting content IMO will be a win-win for everyone. You get the challenge you wanted (advanced and elites) and everyone gets the rewards that they deserve in the process. It also gives incentive for high-end players to move to harder content, which solves the issue of vaping content. It also keeps Cryptic's cashflow going, since there is an incentive to building for higher-end setups.
I don't get why people are concerned over other people's DPS and the desire or even obsession to control those high DPS players.
Since you've not read, let me point it out. In multiplayer situations, your **** high DPS, it affects other peoples game play experience.... That's why. If a person comes into a match that does.. .let's say 200k DPS, and they run around killing everything in mere seconds, before any other player has a chance to kill anything, do you know what happens? Everyone else gets an AFK penalty for not doing damage. Granted I've only seen that done once, but it most certainly happens to new and "poor" players.
I just don't agree that it's a problem that needs to be fixed in this manner. The fix is to educate your fellow man. Teach him that running beam arrays on the front of his ship with turrets on the rear while using target subsystems buff is not desirable. Help him to learn the benefits of using cloned emergency power to weapons while he saves up for his damage control engineers or A2B doffs.
Knowledge is power. Spreading knowledge is the key. Placing limits that destroy revenue streams is not the best path.
Yeah...sure...we shouldn't nerf insane rampant DPS because some DPSer claims it's a learning tool! Like I guess we can't teach anyone anything unless you blow everything up in time it takes to blink twice.
Asking a DPS'er if we should nerf DPS is like asking the CEO of Pepsi if we should ban soda because it's unhealthy...never get a straight unbiased answer from them because it will hurt them, no matter how much it actually should be done.
What does any of this have to do with my post that you quoted? I'm not a DPSer.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
Personally I don't think a cap will make any difference unless it was done with the sole affect of limiting ships based on how they "should be" (entirely subjective I know).
The perfect example is the ridiculousness escorts can acquire. T6 Escorts broke the game, and it was a move they are unlikely to take back, but all the complaints you see stem from that change and have only built upon this as time has progressed. Many people may think they aren't that big of a deal until you realize that dreadnaughts have the same hard point restrictions. Escorts can have 8 weapon slots and so too do Dreadnaughts. Escorts get all the bonuses with out the downside that a dreadnaught has (speed, inertia, turn speed ect).
Not exactly balanced considering zoom zoom escort compared to the snail that dreadnaughts are. You want balance, you need to look at these things first, the rest would fall into place afterwards. Unless caps are strictly introduce to limit what each ship size, based on mass characteristics [Frigate ---> Dreadnaught (or Battleship if you prefer)] and how they perform because of it, there will NEVER be any semblance of balance in this game.
We can only hope one day they do decide to balance things based on all factors and not just what people are clamoring for on the C-Store.
Of course, there will always be coding errors and unintended interactions when programming something as complex as a game - and these should be fixed. But, beyond those everything else comes down to player choices and skills.
All you have to do is watch a handful of youtube channels to realize that good players can achieve high dps no matter what equipment they use - just check out the guys who do "budget builds" using mission rewards and drops.
While I object to pay-to-win, the majority of equipment is available to anyone willing to put in the time and effort. None of the so-called "exploits" are unique - anyone can use them if they understood how to put the equipment together correctly (and how to pilot a ship).
Rather than complaining, why not learn how to use the equipment and improve your skills.
A cap certainly isn't the answer - it would actually exacerbate another problem. The meta would become even more static and more rigid - everyone would fly the same ships, using the same equipment, doffs, boffs, and traits - and the price for all of that would skyrocket. People, especially new players, would certainly become priced-out and the game would become even more pay-to-win.
Why do dual cannons get screwed over in this? If anything it should be swapped or just remove duals from the game...
They removed the only advantage Dual Cannons had left in the game with this new *revamp*...Heavies are more power efficient and they for some moronic reason get a bonus to crit damage...why the heck should they have every single advantage?
But yeah, a +10% crit severity (which actually works now) and higher damage per shot (Same DPS (Stated)) sort of outweighs that. Especially since power levels can be overcapped so easily.
Maybe giving duals a slightly wider firing arc, like 70 degrees would compensate (but without reducing damage).
Also, those numbers are because Dual Heavies do a lot more spike damage than Duals as they fire more powerfully, but less often. If both were on the Cap, Duals would actually perform better.
I also always run at least one dual and one dual heavy for visual appeal on a cannons ship. Also the Quad if it's the same type and colour.
If you can't solve it logically, solve it like a moron.
51 + 1 Foundry Character Slots is NOT enough. Some of us love our characters. If I want to buy more character slots, why can't I? I couldn't experience the entire Delta Recruitment event without deleting a character.
The Iconians themselves can't time travel because their memories revert, but there is nothing to say an Iconian couldn't write everything she needed to do on a PADD, pin it to herself, travel back, read the PADD, do the tasks and return. Or just get one of her Non-Herald underlings to go back in time for her.
Oh yeah, I do Foundry missions for both KDFs and Feds. Just search KSTF (Short for Kinas Special Task Force, where Kinas is the name of the Admiral you will be serving under). The earlier ones are less story based and more combat based, while the later ones have a much heavier story element, but keep the large battles.
Of course, there will always be coding errors and unintended interactions when programming something as complex as a game - and these should be fixed. But, beyond those everything else comes down to player choices and skills.
All you have to do is watch a handful of youtube channels to realize that good players can achieve high dps no matter what equipment they use - just check out the guys who do "budget builds" using mission rewards and drops.
While I object to pay-to-win, the majority of equipment is available to anyone willing to put in the time and effort. None of the so-called "exploits" are unique - anyone can use them if they understood how to put the equipment together correctly (and how to pilot a ship).
Rather than complaining, why not learn how to use the equipment and improve your skills.
A cap certainly isn't the answer - it would actually exacerbate another problem. The meta would become even more static and more rigid - everyone would fly the same ships, using the same equipment, doffs, boffs, and traits - and the price for all of that would skyrocket. People, especially new players, would certainly become priced-out and the game would become even more pay-to-win.
Erm? So Superior Romulan Operative, Emergency Power To Weapons, Tactical Buff Stacking, Having to have Massive Crit Chance and Severity, Single Beams, and all the other things they always use to bloat their DPS isn't a Static Meta? They already fly the same ships, use the same equipment, DOffs, BOffs, traits, etc.
Plus, new players (and many older ones as well) are already priced-out by the way. Especially when it comes to upgrades and the common DPS bloating gear.
You must be living on Ceti Alpha V to not notice this.
If you can't solve it logically, solve it like a moron.
51 + 1 Foundry Character Slots is NOT enough. Some of us love our characters. If I want to buy more character slots, why can't I? I couldn't experience the entire Delta Recruitment event without deleting a character.
The Iconians themselves can't time travel because their memories revert, but there is nothing to say an Iconian couldn't write everything she needed to do on a PADD, pin it to herself, travel back, read the PADD, do the tasks and return. Or just get one of her Non-Herald underlings to go back in time for her.
Oh yeah, I do Foundry missions for both KDFs and Feds. Just search KSTF (Short for Kinas Special Task Force, where Kinas is the name of the Admiral you will be serving under). The earlier ones are less story based and more combat based, while the later ones have a much heavier story element, but keep the large battles.
Personally I don't think a cap will make any difference unless it was done with the sole affect of limiting ships based on how they "should be" (entirely subjective I know).
The perfect example is the ridiculousness escorts can acquire. T6 Escorts broke the game, and it was a move they are unlikely to take back, but all the complaints you see stem from that change and have only built upon this as time has progressed. Many people may think they aren't that big of a deal until you realize that dreadnaughts have the same hard point restrictions. Escorts can have 8 weapon slots and so too do Dreadnaughts. Escorts get all the bonuses with out the downside that a dreadnaught has (speed, inertia, turn speed ect).
Not exactly balanced considering zoom zoom escort compared to the snail that dreadnaughts are. You want balance, you need to look at these things first, the rest would fall into place afterwards. Unless caps are strictly introduce to limit what each ship size, based on mass characteristics [Frigate ---> Dreadnaught (or Battleship if you prefer)] and how they perform because of it, there will NEVER be any semblance of balance in this game.
We can only hope one day they do decide to balance things based on all factors and not just what people are clamoring for on the C-Store.
Erm.
1. Cruisers and Bigger Ships are the favoured mounts for max DPS. The Scimitar family of ship for example is massive and the highest DPS ship of the lot. The Vengeance (also a massive cruiser) is a preferred mount for many Feds wanting to get stupid DPS.
2. Canonically, Escorts are a big warp core, lots and lots of firepower, good engines, but rather weak hulls and shields. Guess what, that's how they are in STO. Their hulls and shields are much weaker than a Cruiser.
3. T6 Escorts broke NOTHING. Delta Rising and Season 9.5's crafting system revamp are what made super-bloated DPS possible. Prior to those, you had to be insanely lucky/rich to find all the required gear at Mk XII in high quality. If anything, until the advent of Heavy Weapons (which are for all end-game escorts/raiders), Escorts were languishing in a pit of uselessness for the most part being generally inferior to Cruisers (and the lesser known Warship) in all aspects.
4. Heck, T6 is only slightly strong than T5U, with the ONLY difference being an extra BOff seat, which may or may not be useful depending on where it is put.
If you can't solve it logically, solve it like a moron.
51 + 1 Foundry Character Slots is NOT enough. Some of us love our characters. If I want to buy more character slots, why can't I? I couldn't experience the entire Delta Recruitment event without deleting a character.
The Iconians themselves can't time travel because their memories revert, but there is nothing to say an Iconian couldn't write everything she needed to do on a PADD, pin it to herself, travel back, read the PADD, do the tasks and return. Or just get one of her Non-Herald underlings to go back in time for her.
Oh yeah, I do Foundry missions for both KDFs and Feds. Just search KSTF (Short for Kinas Special Task Force, where Kinas is the name of the Admiral you will be serving under). The earlier ones are less story based and more combat based, while the later ones have a much heavier story element, but keep the large battles.
[...]
Rather than complaining, why not learn how to use the equipment and improve your skills.
[...]
May I make a counter-suggestion? Shouldn't you, you know, try to understand what you are replying to before you reply?
I mean, seriously. You make an assumption that has zero to do with the concerns expressed here.
Wow. Just, wow.
Why so hostile?
It's not like I kept spamming the same point over and over and over - which by the way, is responsive to points raised by others earlier in the thread. Or how about just ignoring the comment if you feel that it makes no salient points?
1. Cruisers and Bigger Ships are the favoured mounts for max DPS. The Scimitar family of ship for example is massive and the highest DPS ship of the lot. The Vengeance (also a massive cruiser) is a preferred mount for many Feds wanting to get stupid DPS.
2. Canonically, Escorts are a big warp core, lots and lots of firepower, good engines, but rather weak hulls and shields. Guess what, that's how they are in STO. Their hulls and shields are much weaker than a Cruiser.
3. T6 Escorts broke NOTHING. Delta Rising and Season 9.5's crafting system revamp are what made super-bloated DPS possible. Prior to those, you had to be insanely lucky/rich to find all the required gear at Mk XII in high quality. If anything, until the advent of Heavy Weapons (which are for all end-game escorts/raiders), Escorts were languishing in a pit of uselessness for the most part being generally inferior to Cruisers (and the lesser known Warship) in all aspects.
4. Heck, T6 is only slightly strong than T5U, with the ONLY difference being an extra BOff seat, which may or may not be useful depending on where it is put.
1> Escorts are favored currently in this season, due to both speed and damage as the focus of the season has a PvP vibe with it. PvE max dps, you'd be correct, shame I rarely see anyone using any of the ships you mention as of late, least since the update.
2>Hull/Shields don't matter if they are never hit due to strafing. The problem is as I stated before, the damage is identical across all ships due to hard points/weapon slots. Their damage isn't somehow worse just cause they have less hull/shields. You've ignored my point entirely with this comment.
3> I disagree. Valid point for your second comment but as I said before the foundation is imbalanced from the start. (all previous ST games had hard point restrictions, this one doesn't). They (escorts) were not useless and never have been, they just weren't always top tier.
4>Not even sure why you brought this up, as min/max everything counts. It's like saying why increase a weapon to mkXiV when mkXIII is just as good. Not to mention the trait unlocks t6 give, saying one is just barely better is a bit silly IMO.
You obviously have a thing for escorts, cause you're trying to defend them way too much. It's all good.
My point stands, escorts being able to produce as much dps due to weapon hard points as a dreadnaught is imbalanced, it always has been and it always will be. The problem has always been, that if more hard points were added, to larger ships, one shot alpha strikes would reign supreme. So it's understandable the dilemma the Dev team would face making such changes. I'm simply stating, the foundation is imbalanced by design, thus it stays that way and I do not think a damage cap will change this.
Of course, there will always be coding errors and unintended interactions when programming something as complex as a game - and these should be fixed. But, beyond those everything else comes down to player choices and skills.
All you have to do is watch a handful of youtube channels to realize that good players can achieve high dps no matter what equipment they use - just check out the guys who do "budget builds" using mission rewards and drops.
While I object to pay-to-win, the majority of equipment is available to anyone willing to put in the time and effort. None of the so-called "exploits" are unique - anyone can use them if they understood how to put the equipment together correctly (and how to pilot a ship).
Rather than complaining, why not learn how to use the equipment and improve your skills.
A cap certainly isn't the answer - it would actually exacerbate another problem. The meta would become even more static and more rigid - everyone would fly the same ships, using the same equipment, doffs, boffs, and traits - and the price for all of that would skyrocket. People, especially new players, would certainly become priced-out and the game would become even more pay-to-win.
Adjusting the content is expensive, but will eventually be outdated again, so it is inefficient.
STO is a strange outlier in MMOs since they don't increase the "challenge" when they introduce new enemies. I agree with @e30ernest . The answer is to offer more challenge when they introduce more content. Going back to older content and adding additional challenges would be a great way to revive old content. Maybe it could be part of a Recruitment Event, since we replay that content anyway. Or maybe they could just add a few at a time, similar to how Featured Episodes are handled. Perhaps offer increased rewards for playing at all difficulties for a week, again similar to how Featured Episodes work.
Taking things away from players does not feel good. Giving them new opportunities to use their abilities does.
It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and was surprised to see. I imagine old players with 500k DPS builds (now more like 150k) would be very upset by it. But anything that reasonably deflates their gigantic numbers upsets them, since that's most of their lives in STO now.
STO is too damage obsessed of a game. And that's where 99% of its balance, PvP and end game problems come from. Apparently most of their balancing of new ideas is done first in Excel and then in an in-house number tool. That tells you a lot about how the game is designed. It's very number crazy.
100,000 DPS should be a general speed limit for damage in the game, one way or another. Then you can design any amount of content or new systems around it. How to achieve that would probably be complicated, however, since SO MANY things in the game alter or contribute to the giant pile of damage values the game orbits around. But if it happened, I'd be all for it. The benefit of going over that amount would be that debuffs would basically never affect you.
The two things I can see preventing it are mechanical implementation issues, and Cryptic being afraid that it would impact their monetization.
It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and was surprised to see. I imagine old players with 500k DPS builds (now more like 150k) would be very upset by it. But anything that reasonably deflates their gigantic numbers upsets them, since that's most of their lives in STO now.
STO is too damage obsessed of a game. And that's where 99% of its balance, PvP and end game problems come from. Apparently most of their balancing of new ideas is done first in Excel and then in an in-house number tool. That tells you a lot about how the game is designed. It's very number crazy.
100,000 DPS should be a general speed limit for damage in the game, one way or another. Then you can design any amount of content or new systems around it. How to achieve that would probably be complicated, however, since SO MANY things in the game alter or contribute to the giant pile of damage values the game orbits around. But if it happened, I'd be all for it. The benefit of going over that amount would be that debuffs would basically never affect you.
The two things I can see preventing it are mechanical implementation issues, and Cryptic being afraid that it would impact their monetization.
Another problem with implementing any such change would be the fact that the people with bloated DPS make up a very large percentage of posters on the Forums/Reddit, despite being quite a small portion of the playerbase, and
Raising the floor (but keeping the bloated ceiling where it is (NEVER up it, still recovering from Delta Rising)) would the keep the vocal minority happy (as it wouldn't touch their precious Bloated DPSmobile with it's almost cookie-cutter build), but would also make people who don't want to run a slight variation on one of the (everything to damage, nothing to defense) DPS builds be able to run whatever build they want without being absolutely crucified in DPS output.
If you can't solve it logically, solve it like a moron.
51 + 1 Foundry Character Slots is NOT enough. Some of us love our characters. If I want to buy more character slots, why can't I? I couldn't experience the entire Delta Recruitment event without deleting a character.
The Iconians themselves can't time travel because their memories revert, but there is nothing to say an Iconian couldn't write everything she needed to do on a PADD, pin it to herself, travel back, read the PADD, do the tasks and return. Or just get one of her Non-Herald underlings to go back in time for her.
Oh yeah, I do Foundry missions for both KDFs and Feds. Just search KSTF (Short for Kinas Special Task Force, where Kinas is the name of the Admiral you will be serving under). The earlier ones are less story based and more combat based, while the later ones have a much heavier story element, but keep the large battles.
Comments
-Reason. Post duplicated when edited, so this version (with messed up quotes) has been removed.
Nerfing weapon power drain isn't the way to go, as that will always hurt lower end builds way too much (S13 already did it, and is pretty painful for firing more than 4 weapons (which pretty much any end-game ship will realistically fire at any one time (sci vessel with beams and 2 torps broadsiding, any ship with any form of cannon/turret build, any 5-3 ship firing forwards, etc (all partially down to doubling up on torps being totally useless))) without things like Emergency Power To Weapons and things like Plasmonic Crutch to compensate by going into overcap) and does barely anything to high end builds thanks to overcap (which in essence is making carrying EPtW or a load of Weapons Batteries essential and reducing build choice). However, making damage buffs (or stopping damage buffs from stacking) have diminishing returns would be welcome and stop the bloated damage from buff stacking (which is easiest to do with Tacs).
Cryptic introduces content that is more complex, and players don't play it, because it is not as "efficient" as... "blowing stuff up".
Other posters are upset that their preferred class is not as good at "blowing stuff up", so the "blowing stuff up" class should be penalized... for doing the one niche thing it is supposed to do.
If players and Cryptic desire the "leave the galaxy in ruin" route for gameplay objectives, then why not increase the "blowing stuff up" potential of the other classes?
Why do dual cannons get screwed over in this? If anything it should be swapped or just remove duals from the game...
They removed the only advantage Dual Cannons had left in the game with this new *revamp*...Heavies are more power efficient and they for some moronic reason get a bonus to crit damage...why the heck should they have every single advantage?
Yeah...sure...we shouldn't nerf insane rampant DPS because some DPSer claims it's a learning tool! Like I guess we can't teach anyone anything unless you blow everything up in time it takes to blink twice.
Asking a DPS'er if we should nerf DPS is like asking the CEO of Pepsi if we should ban soda because it's unhealthy...never get a straight unbiased answer from them because it will hurt them, no matter how much it actually should be done.
I do not think that is that hard to do. They did well with Korfez IMO for example. I think simply adding the Elites for the popular maps then fixing the reward to time ratio would do wonders in balancing the queues out for older content. Later queues could then move its focus from DPS to something else and still be played since rewards vs time spent is ok.
Right now everyone is so focused on Advanced PVE because it gives the best rewards to time ratio. Of course some people are OP when it comes to advanced content. Ranting over DPS levels because of players vaping things is like ranting over people geared for advanced doing Normal, which would result to the same vaping.
Adjusting content IMO will be a win-win for everyone. You get the challenge you wanted (advanced and elites) and everyone gets the rewards that they deserve in the process. It also gives incentive for high-end players to move to harder content, which solves the issue of vaping content. It also keeps Cryptic's cashflow going, since there is an incentive to building for higher-end setups.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
The perfect example is the ridiculousness escorts can acquire. T6 Escorts broke the game, and it was a move they are unlikely to take back, but all the complaints you see stem from that change and have only built upon this as time has progressed. Many people may think they aren't that big of a deal until you realize that dreadnaughts have the same hard point restrictions. Escorts can have 8 weapon slots and so too do Dreadnaughts. Escorts get all the bonuses with out the downside that a dreadnaught has (speed, inertia, turn speed ect).
Not exactly balanced considering zoom zoom escort compared to the snail that dreadnaughts are. You want balance, you need to look at these things first, the rest would fall into place afterwards. Unless caps are strictly introduce to limit what each ship size, based on mass characteristics [Frigate ---> Dreadnaught (or Battleship if you prefer)] and how they perform because of it, there will NEVER be any semblance of balance in this game.
We can only hope one day they do decide to balance things based on all factors and not just what people are clamoring for on the C-Store.
All you have to do is watch a handful of youtube channels to realize that good players can achieve high dps no matter what equipment they use - just check out the guys who do "budget builds" using mission rewards and drops.
While I object to pay-to-win, the majority of equipment is available to anyone willing to put in the time and effort. None of the so-called "exploits" are unique - anyone can use them if they understood how to put the equipment together correctly (and how to pilot a ship).
Rather than complaining, why not learn how to use the equipment and improve your skills.
A cap certainly isn't the answer - it would actually exacerbate another problem. The meta would become even more static and more rigid - everyone would fly the same ships, using the same equipment, doffs, boffs, and traits - and the price for all of that would skyrocket. People, especially new players, would certainly become priced-out and the game would become even more pay-to-win.
Dual Heavies cost 12 weapons power, Duals cost 10.
But yeah, a +10% crit severity (which actually works now) and higher damage per shot (Same DPS (Stated)) sort of outweighs that. Especially since power levels can be overcapped so easily.
Maybe giving duals a slightly wider firing arc, like 70 degrees would compensate (but without reducing damage).
Also, those numbers are because Dual Heavies do a lot more spike damage than Duals as they fire more powerfully, but less often. If both were on the Cap, Duals would actually perform better.
I also always run at least one dual and one dual heavy for visual appeal on a cannons ship. Also the Quad if it's the same type and colour.
Erm? So Superior Romulan Operative, Emergency Power To Weapons, Tactical Buff Stacking, Having to have Massive Crit Chance and Severity, Single Beams, and all the other things they always use to bloat their DPS isn't a Static Meta? They already fly the same ships, use the same equipment, DOffs, BOffs, traits, etc.
Plus, new players (and many older ones as well) are already priced-out by the way. Especially when it comes to upgrades and the common DPS bloating gear.
You must be living on Ceti Alpha V to not notice this.
Erm.
1. Cruisers and Bigger Ships are the favoured mounts for max DPS. The Scimitar family of ship for example is massive and the highest DPS ship of the lot. The Vengeance (also a massive cruiser) is a preferred mount for many Feds wanting to get stupid DPS.
2. Canonically, Escorts are a big warp core, lots and lots of firepower, good engines, but rather weak hulls and shields. Guess what, that's how they are in STO. Their hulls and shields are much weaker than a Cruiser.
3. T6 Escorts broke NOTHING. Delta Rising and Season 9.5's crafting system revamp are what made super-bloated DPS possible. Prior to those, you had to be insanely lucky/rich to find all the required gear at Mk XII in high quality. If anything, until the advent of Heavy Weapons (which are for all end-game escorts/raiders), Escorts were languishing in a pit of uselessness for the most part being generally inferior to Cruisers (and the lesser known Warship) in all aspects.
4. Heck, T6 is only slightly strong than T5U, with the ONLY difference being an extra BOff seat, which may or may not be useful depending on where it is put.
Wow. Just, wow.
Why so hostile?
It's not like I kept spamming the same point over and over and over - which by the way, is responsive to points raised by others earlier in the thread. Or how about just ignoring the comment if you feel that it makes no salient points?
Enjoy your thread.
2>Hull/Shields don't matter if they are never hit due to strafing. The problem is as I stated before, the damage is identical across all ships due to hard points/weapon slots. Their damage isn't somehow worse just cause they have less hull/shields. You've ignored my point entirely with this comment.
3> I disagree. Valid point for your second comment but as I said before the foundation is imbalanced from the start. (all previous ST games had hard point restrictions, this one doesn't). They (escorts) were not useless and never have been, they just weren't always top tier.
4>Not even sure why you brought this up, as min/max everything counts. It's like saying why increase a weapon to mkXiV when mkXIII is just as good. Not to mention the trait unlocks t6 give, saying one is just barely better is a bit silly IMO.
You obviously have a thing for escorts, cause you're trying to defend them way too much. It's all good.
My point stands, escorts being able to produce as much dps due to weapon hard points as a dreadnaught is imbalanced, it always has been and it always will be. The problem has always been, that if more hard points were added, to larger ships, one shot alpha strikes would reign supreme. So it's understandable the dilemma the Dev team would face making such changes. I'm simply stating, the foundation is imbalanced by design, thus it stays that way and I do not think a damage cap will change this.
i think you hit the nail on the head good sir
Taking things away from players does not feel good. Giving them new opportunities to use their abilities does.
QED.
Based on both your responses - and to quote Inigo Montoya - "I do not think it means what you think it means."
STO is too damage obsessed of a game. And that's where 99% of its balance, PvP and end game problems come from. Apparently most of their balancing of new ideas is done first in Excel and then in an in-house number tool. That tells you a lot about how the game is designed. It's very number crazy.
100,000 DPS should be a general speed limit for damage in the game, one way or another. Then you can design any amount of content or new systems around it. How to achieve that would probably be complicated, however, since SO MANY things in the game alter or contribute to the giant pile of damage values the game orbits around. But if it happened, I'd be all for it. The benefit of going over that amount would be that debuffs would basically never affect you.
The two things I can see preventing it are mechanical implementation issues, and Cryptic being afraid that it would impact their monetization.
Another problem with implementing any such change would be the fact that the people with bloated DPS make up a very large percentage of posters on the Forums/Reddit, despite being quite a small portion of the playerbase, and
Raising the floor (but keeping the bloated ceiling where it is (NEVER up it, still recovering from Delta Rising)) would the keep the vocal minority happy (as it wouldn't touch their precious Bloated DPSmobile with it's almost cookie-cutter build), but would also make people who don't want to run a slight variation on one of the (everything to damage, nothing to defense) DPS builds be able to run whatever build they want without being absolutely crucified in DPS output.