The Repair/Siphon Pods are garbage, with or without explosions. Everyone knows all you have to do is sneeze at them and they are gone. These two need to be made such that they are an equal threat as their Bop/to'duj counterparts.
If we give the Kar'fi an additional hanger, obviously other numbers will need to be tweaked. This may be the frigates themselves in some way, the number of waves out, or something else entirely.
I feel invulnerability powers do, in fact, have a place, both in PvE and PvP as a counter to excessive aggro for the former and focus fire for the latter - and anything to break up the unfortunate monstrosity that is the value of focus fire is a plus in my book - where we can, let's reward tactics over blind dogpiling.
Obviously, invulnerability powers need to be situational and contextual, but where they provide a viable tactical option they are useful. Also obviously, if numbers are unbalanced those numbers can be changed, but that's not sufficient justification to throw the baby out with the bathwater - that would be truly lazy design.
The minimum Aux level is an interesting idea, btw.
We'll have to disagree a bit philosophically there. First, as mustrum pointed out, blind focus fire isn't a particularly good idea, at least at higher levels. A good team's focus healing will typically outdo focus fire from an equally skilled team. On weaker teams, focus fire becomes more powerful. So do you balance for top tier PvPers or for the rest? Give a good team invulnerability powers and it can quickly become an issue; taking away invulnerability powers from lower tier play might make blind focus fire a bit more powerful there, but it won't actually break anything. Not to mention that "blind" focus fire will probably just end up finding it's way onto targets without innate invulnerability powers like escorts. The ironic part here being that escorts are even squishier, especially in lower level play where they don't get proper support!
So we disagree about the place of invulnerability powers, perhaps we can agree on other things:
These powers need long cooldowns to prevent abuse (4+minutes). You do not want things to get to the point where you can cycle through your invulnerability powers faster than an enemy team is able to create openings and threaten kills.
These abilities need counters. What makes ablative so much more powerful than an RSP is that it is very difficult to counter since SNB does not work against it (perhaps it should?). Phase shift would be even worse, and should at least be counterable with the likes of PSW, aux draining, and anything else that would make sense. An invulnerability power with no counter might not be the best idea.
No overly long duration. I think ten seconds should be the absolute max for either ablative or phase shift. It's more than enough time to save yourself or have your team save you. Anything more creates annoyance, especially at lower levels where invulnerability abilities are less likely to be countered.
I'm glad you like the idea of an aux threshold. You'll find that I'm full of good ideas
We are, in fact, looking at integrating more special abilities into consoles so that players have the option to use them or not, and in some cases even move them more freely from ship to ship. However: the point is that both should be viable options, so if ship abilities are out of whack, then we need to make efforts to bring them into line. Some may require particular playing styles to get the most out of them and that's fine, but none should be useless.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with to make repair platforms useful then. Detection grid is another problem ability. It's very situation and is only useful when the situation calls for it. It probably doesn't need a buff, but would be a great candidate for consolification -- up against a team of BoPs? Slot it in. Playing FvF? Put something else in instead.
There are, unfortunately, a lot of inconsistencies that we are trying to clean up while at the same time moving the design forward, and this is inevitably going to be a messy process.
Good to hear, I'll expect that when the Khar'fi buff is released it's console will work the same way as the MVAM one then, or that the MVAM console will be changed to work the same way you've described for the Khar'fi console.
By the way, kudos for coming out and communicating with us. Feels more like a discussion while too often these notifications of impending changes feel like a dictation.
1. Adding a second hanger bay.
2. Adding a Kar-fi-only Science console with a power called Phase Shift based off of the Fek'ihri escort NPC currently in the game. This console would come with the ship. If we do this, existing Kar'fi would be given this console for free.
3. Modifying the fighters (only) to give them increased maneuverability to improve their attempts to kamikaze, since right now they miss far too frequently - which sometimes also leads to AI issues.
Becomes untargetable (you actually lose targeting lock on it)
Gains stealth against ships roughly outside of normal combat range
Can move freely through other ships
Cannot launch fighters or frigates
Cannot use torpedos or mines
Costs 10 Auxiliary Power a second to maintain; power will drop if run out of Aux power
Other general carrier changes under consideration:
Limit of 2 (down from 3) waves out at any one time for fighters, BoP and frigates
Recharge time to relaunch for fighters, BoP and frigates reduced to compensate
Fighters gain improved defense to compensate and (possibly) the ability to have a modest chance to take out subsystems depending on the type of fighter
BoPs from hangers gain "something" to compensate
Kar'fi frigates are unchanged (making this a 25% net gain in potential frigates, so a buff to the Kar'fi's offensive power, but a fairly modest one when standard weapons are also taken into account)
Fighters, BoP and frigates may be launched without a target and out of combat
Fighters, BoP and frigates remain out after combat
...also looking into some of the other things mentioned such as some real UI control for your pets and uncommon, rare and very rare versions of pets.
I'd add just one thing. I know that a full pet-control AI for fighters is a longer-term project, but we need a UI button, or at least a slash command, to park fighters, like the /release_pets command a previous Cryptic Engine game had. Please?
[*]Costs 10 Auxiliary Power a second to maintain; power will drop if run out of Aux power
Cool idea. Potential issues:
Can be extended by the likes of EPtA, Aux batteries, EPS power transfer
Might not play well when ships have very high power regen. EPS consoles and EPS power transfer will cause problems since you should be able to theoretically regen more than 10 power each second
Easy fix is to have an upper bound for the time the power can remain active. I like that a smart team should be able preemptively drain the Khar'fi's aux power in order to nullify the skill. I also like the fact that towards the end of the ability aux based heals will suffer. Creates smart interesting gameplay. Something similar could easily be done for that other problem child, ablative, as well.
Other general carrier changes under consideration:
Limit of 2 (down from 3) waves out at any one time for fighters, BoP and frigates
Kar'fi frigates are unchanged (making this a 25% net gain in potential frigates, so a buff to the Kar'fi's offensive power, but a fairly modest one when standard weapons are also taken into account)
Thoughts? Better? Worse?
Definitely better. Limiting Khar'fi frigates to 2 per hangar is a modest compromise, certainly better than having six out at a time. Maybe increase the cooldown a bit too though or those four frigates come out rather quickly.
Hopefully this doesn't effect Vo'quvs as well unless there is some counterbalance to make the pets stronger though (Khar'fi frigates are better than BoPs, hence why having too many out a time creates issues)
I'd add just one thing. I know that a full pet-control AI for fighters is a longer-term project, but we need a UI button, or at least a slash command, to park fighters, like the /release_pets command a previous Cryptic Engine game had. Please?
There have been some discussions today to see what we can do and when. I am cautiously optimistic for at least basic commands, and possibly even things like "intercept torpedoes/mines/fighters" or "escort this friendly target".
Can be extended by the likes of EPtA, Aux batteries, EPS power transfer
Might not play well when ships have very high power regen. EPS consoles and EPS power transfer will cause problems since you should be able to theoretically regen more than 10 power each second
Easy fix is to have an upper bound for the time the power can remain active. I like that a smart team should be able preemptively drain the Khar'fi's aux power in order to nullify the skill. I also like the fact that towards the end of the ability aux based heals will suffer. Creates smart interesting gameplay. Something similar could easily be done for that other problem child, ablative, as well.
Hopefully this doesn't effect Vo'quvs as well unless there is some counterbalance to make the pets stronger though (Khar'fi frigates are better than BoPs, hence why having too many out a time creates issues)
There would still be a 10s cap time, so essentially what this means is if your Auxiliary power is less than about 50 you either will need to use an Aux battery or you will get less than the full 10s time, but you could never get better than 10s regardless of your current Auxiliary power. As you note, it does open up some proactive gameplay both offensively and defensively which I think is a good thing.
The Vo'quv fighters and BoPs would get buffed to compensate in the event we go with this or a similar scenario. So, the Kar'fi gets buffed while the Vo'quv should ideally net about the same; the individual frigates will be unchanged, but the Vo'quv's BoPs will be buffed as individuals (probably damage to close the gap in the loss of 1/3 of their wing strength, probably hull as well), in addition to fighters in general.
[*]Costs 10 Auxiliary Power a second to maintain; power will drop if run out of Aux power
Cool idea. One thing thou: If it costs 10 Aux per second, then the power needs to be limited to a maximum duration of 10 seconds as well. I see your suggestion already says "10 seconds" but it should be made clear in the power tooltip, that this is it's maximum duration. Batteries, Emergency Power to Auxilliary etc, would otherwise be capable of extending the power duration, thus effectively allowing the player alot longer time to "get away".
Second, this proposed power console for the Kar'fi, apparently would be given for FREE to existing Kar'fi owners. Great, getting something for free for a change. My question however is this: Why wasn't the MVAM Console for the Prometheus, given away for free to existing Prometheus owners?
EDIT: First part of my post can be ignored. Heretic beat me to it :P
There would still be a 10s cap time, so essentially what this means is if your Auxiliary power is less than about 50 you either will need to use an Aux battery or you will get less than the full 10s time, but you could never get better than 10s regardless of your current Auxiliary power. As you note, it does open up some proactive gameplay both offensively and defensively which I think is a good thing.
I agree, and if I were you I'd consider adding something similar to ablative as well /nudge
Also, apparently a lot of PvErs don't actually like ablative. How about making it a console so they can regain that slot?
Obviously, invulnerability powers need to be situational and contextual, but where they provide a viable tactical option they are useful. Also obviously, if numbers are unbalanced those numbers can be changed, but that's not sufficient justification to throw the baby out with the bathwater - that would be truly lazy design.
The only invulnerability power this game really needed was RSP, which in its current form with scalable duration based on level and high recharge time was fine.
Healing and resistances are already far more overpowering than damage, any more invulnerability powers are overkill.
The problem currently is tactical team. Pretty much grants any target with shields invulnerability from death.
It wouldn't be so bad if the effect only worked on the person casting, but this can be thrown on other targets by other players.
And the people that say eh just sub it off, well thats TRIBBLE logic right there. Answer me these questions.
What is the cooldown of SNB?
How many subs can you bring to a match?
What is the cooldown of tac team?
How many tac teams can you bring to a match?
See the problem...
In a team vs team premade match players using this skill combined with RSP and shield heals such as TSS and extend shields, can pretty much become invulnerable to normal attacks if they know how to distrubute there tac teams and heals correctly between players.
Pretty much means you need to bring multiple CPB sci ships or scramble spam to even attempt a kill, which imho is not fun.
While the skill seems balanced in PUG matches , in premades its completely overpowering and a must take skill.
Either make tactical team not be able to be passed from player to player, or adjust the shield redistribution duration and effectiveness based on level of tac team.
1. Adding a second hanger bay.
2. Adding a Kar-fi-only Science console with a power called Phase Shift based off of the Fek'ihri escort NPC currently in the game. This console would come with the ship. If we do this, existing Kar'fi would be given this console for free.
3. Modifying the fighters (only) to give them increased maneuverability to improve their attempts to kamikaze, since right now they miss far too frequently - which sometimes also leads to AI issues.
Becomes untargetable (you actually lose targeting lock on it)
Gains stealth against ships roughly outside of normal combat range
Can move freely through other ships
Cannot launch fighters or frigates
Cannot use torpedos or mines
Costs 10 Auxiliary Power a second to maintain; power will drop if run out of Aux power
Other general carrier changes under consideration:
Limit of 2 (down from 3) waves out at any one time for fighters, BoP and frigates
Recharge time to relaunch for fighters, BoP and frigates reduced to compensate
Fighters gain improved defense to compensate and (possibly) the ability to have a modest chance to take out subsystems depending on the type of fighter
BoPs from hangers gain "something" to compensate
Kar'fi frigates are unchanged (making this a 25% net gain in potential frigates, so a buff to the Kar'fi's offensive power, but a fairly modest one when standard weapons are also taken into account)
Fighters, BoP and frigates may be launched without a target and out of combat
Fighters, BoP and frigates remain out after combat
...also looking into some of the other things mentioned such as some real UI control for your pets and uncommon, rare and very rare versions of pets.
Thoughts? Better? Worse?
Not a fan of the phase shift while the current form of tactical team exists.
Its just too much defensive overkill.
Yes i play KDF but i don't want an I-win button.
As for the other general changes all look good, especially fighters with a chance to disable subsytems. Then there might actually be a reason to bring this ship over a lot tankier and more useful CPB science ship.
1. Adding a second hanger bay.
2. Adding a Kar-fi-only Science console with a power called Phase Shift based off of the Fek'ihri escort NPC currently in the game. This console would come with the ship. If we do this, existing Kar'fi would be given this console for free.
3. Modifying the fighters (only) to give them increased maneuverability to improve their attempts to kamikaze, since right now they miss far too frequently - which sometimes also leads to AI issues.
Becomes untargetable (you actually lose targeting lock on it)
Gains stealth against ships roughly outside of normal combat range
Can move freely through other ships
Cannot launch fighters or frigates
Cannot use torpedos or mines
Costs 10 Auxiliary Power a second to maintain; power will drop if run out of Aux power
Other general carrier changes under consideration:
Limit of 2 (down from 3) waves out at any one time for fighters, BoP and frigates
Recharge time to relaunch for fighters, BoP and frigates reduced to compensate
Fighters gain improved defense to compensate and (possibly) the ability to have a modest chance to take out subsystems depending on the type of fighter
BoPs from hangers gain "something" to compensate
Kar'fi frigates are unchanged (making this a 25% net gain in potential frigates, so a buff to the Kar'fi's offensive power, but a fairly modest one when standard weapons are also taken into account)
Fighters, BoP and frigates may be launched without a target and out of combat
Fighters, BoP and frigates remain out after combat
...also looking into some of the other things mentioned such as some real UI control for your pets and uncommon, rare and very rare versions of pets.
Thoughts? Better? Worse?
Not quite sure how I feel about everything, nice that new abilities are coming, kinda sad that some pets getting reduced again, even with buffs, I'll be following the thread. But right now, I'm torn. I love my Vo'quv, I don't pvp outside of interfleet, and while I understand the need for balancing and such...I'm so torn
Maybe buff the energy siphon pods so they transfer the energy to the carrier (like a weaker version of energy siphon 1) would give them more viability?
I'll keep following the thread...and will try to collect my thoughts to better contribute.
Not quite sure how I feel about everything, nice that new abilities are coming, kinda sad that some pets getting reduced again, even with buffs, I'll be following the thread. But right now, I'm torn. I love my Vo'quv, I don't pvp outside of interfleet, and while I understand the need for balancing and such...I'm so torn
Maybe buff the energy siphon pods so they transfer the energy to the carrier (like a weaker version of energy siphon 1) would give them more viability?
At the end of the day, fighters should be cooler and more flexible, albeit fewer in number, and the same will go for the Vo'quv's Birds of Prey.
Regardless of whether you fly fighters or Birds of Prey, your attack wings should not change in quality when flying the Vo'quv, while the Kar'fi's attack wings will actually improve somewhat. The net effect of this is not intended as a nerf of any kind to the Vo'quv, and may even net a slight improvement with smart use of AI controls and hanger slotting.
We'll be looking at the pods as well, definitely - they clearly need some attention.
I don't post much on the forums but I'm a life timer and love STO. I have toons on both sides and was one of the sad KDF only players at release. After all this time I have found time and time again I'm a carrier captain. I have for the most part stopped playing my Fed alts due to the fact they do not have carriers. With Feds now having fighters from the C-store you really need to fix the KDF carriers and then work on making a Fed carrier.
My Eng officer flies the Kar'fi and my Sci officer flies the Vo'qua and I love them both.
Here are my few suggestions.
1. Make different quality hanger bays or skills that work with our pets.
2. Currently AUX settings system is a bit silly and needs to be relooked at. If people are putting 100 AUX make it count for something and not just a few seconds off.
3. Add a new carrier only power. "Scramble flights" Make it a 10 minute cool down or greater so you can't spam it for pvp. But it allows you to get more "Flights" into the game faster by whatever means the Dev crew feels is appropriate.
At the end of the day, fighters should be cooler and more flexible, albeit fewer in number, and the same will go for the Vo'quv's Birds of Prey.
Regardless of whether you fly fighters or Birds of Prey, your attack wings should not change in quality when flying the Vo'quv, while the Kar'fi's attack wings will actually improve somewhat. The net effect of this is not intended as a nerf of any kind to the Vo'quv, and may even net a slight improvement with smart use of AI controls and hanger slotting.
We'll be looking at the pods as well, definitely - they clearly need some attention.
I will happily trade quantity for quality with fighters and BoP's!
I'm no Kar'fi captain, but from my perspective, their frigates can be very powerful with the tricobalt spam and the aceton field, which is pretty crippling to any ship's DPS. Another hanger for another 1-3 frigates is scary, frankly. The Skul fighters on the other hand are pretty sad right now and two more hangers for them would probably be appropriate.
The phase shift thing sounds pretty good, though. Maybe a shorter cooldown on it and no extra hanger would be my preference.
This is really great. I'm glad carriers are being looked at to make them more useful, less spammy, and more viable.
That said, I think the absolute critical need carriers have is AI control. Even if all we got was an "attack my target" command, that would be a HUGE change in how carrier captains play and how other captains play against carriers. Right now carrier attack wings are way too easy to counter, both because of how easy it is to destroy them with AOE, and the fact that they will never deviate from their target, making their actions extremely predictable and thus extremely easy to counter. I fully welcome a comprehensive review of carriers, but if you only changed one single thing about carriers, adding an "attack my target" command would be the biggest bang for your buck.
i was making a list of ideas for special powers for all the ships, and i thought i'd throw out my carrier ideas. for the Vo'qua i was thinking 'aux to thrusters', it would be like aux to battery, but it would be a direct boost to turn rate that lasted 10 seconds but dropped your aux to 0 for the duration. if activated at 125 aux i think a turn rate of 10 would be fair. since its a ship with a lot of science powers and its hangers rely on aux, its a big trade off to use this in a fight, but it would also make life so much easier out of a fight, just pointing the right direction when you want to is such a chore.
for the Kar'fi i was thinking 'hanger bay overload', it increases the launch rate but also deals damage to your ship every second. it should be a skill like cloak that is an activate/deactivate so if your careless and leave it on you could end up doing a lot of damage to yourself. since that ship just has 1 hanger, for the moment, a launch rate boost shouldn't be too overpowered.
At the end of the day, fighters should be cooler and more flexible, albeit fewer in number, and the same will go for the Vo'quv's Birds of Prey.
Regardless of whether you fly fighters or Birds of Prey, your attack wings should not change in quality when flying the Vo'quv, while the Kar'fi's attack wings will actually improve somewhat. The net effect of this is not intended as a nerf of any kind to the Vo'quv, and may even net a slight improvement with smart use of AI controls and hanger slotting.
We'll be looking at the pods as well, definitely - they clearly need some attention.
Your last sentence makes me one very happy Klingon scientist. I would love to run my carrier with siphon pods and not feel like I'm gimping myself.
As it stands, they just feel like their cooldown is too long. Its hard enough getting multple waves on target in PvE. But in PvP, my second wave is usually ready to launch about the time my first wave gets destroyed. I think they need to either get some survivability or a slight reduction in cooldown and they would be much more viable.
Thanks for soliciting feedback from your fellow carrier captains.
Carriers
This is my favorite ship class. They are realistic for the IP and reinforce the idea of a militaristic culture around which the KDF is based. They are big and slow and lumber across the battlefield, but no captain should consider an attack on one without a tactical plan to bypass the defensive systems.
I am pleased with most of the suggestions offered in this thread so far with the exception of carrier pets existing only as animations. I am emphatically opposed to this change for pets. Pets need to exist as seperate objects in order to draw aggro away from from the carrier itself. They are as much a defensive weapon as offensive.
Turn rates need to be adjusted for both the Vo and Kar'Fi. The carrier needs to be as nimble as a cruiser, but not necessarily as fast. I am fine with targets walking away from me (that's what my pets are for). I'm not fine with the majority of my science powers being useless because my target is out of the firing arc.
Fighters
Let's be honest. They are "spam" as they exist today. Marginally useful in PvE as fodder due to their fraigility. The warp-core-breach-instant-suicide is irritating to the point of exclusion. In PvP, they exist only to fill up the screen to keep the other side distracted (see also: mine spam) or lagged for those poor souls with low-end systems. I am torn between reducing their visual impact (i.e. the pyschological swarm effect) and their individual surviability. As previously suggested, I am fine with adjusting the mechanics of the individuals to appear as 'squadrons' so that they appear as greater numbers than actually exist, i.e. 48 fighters as 12 entities. The invidiual survivability can then be balanced and appear realistic given their lower total object count.
Siphon Pods and Shield Repair Drones are utterly useless. I have never met another carrier captain who uses them. Both need individual attention to make them viable or replace them with a new pet type altogether.
Controls
We know this is a heavy problem and one that requires new tech and systems to implement since it does not currently exist in-game except for BOFF controls. However, implementing a space version of the BOFF system could satisfy a large number of popular requests at the same time:
1. High Priority - Basic Pet Controls (Attack, Move, Follow) + (Aggressive, Defensive, Passive)
2. Medium Priority - Pet Type Customization (Ship, Equipment, Skills, Quality, etc.)
If you have a chance to review the forum archives, you'll find a large number of posts requesting Pet Controls. I want the ability to sit back and act as a true command and control ship, directing my firepower from a relatively safe distance (but exposing myself to danger if I lose situational awareness or overextend).
Pets should be launchable without targets. They should be able to begin attack runs outside the 10km engagement sphere. They should exist until recalled or destroyed. Note that we need pet controls to keep deployed pets under our control and avoid players kiting them across the map, which is popular right now.
Vo'quv
FAW needs fixed first, then evaluate changes for the Vo. The combination of FAW changes and simultaneous nerfs to carriers forced many PvP captains to permanently retire. After FAW is corrected, turn your eye towards adjustments and abilities that will buff the defensive capabilities of this ship, not offensive. If the Kar'fi is the sword, the Vo should be the shield.
It would be really cool to introduce some new carrier specific weapons for the Vo around the premise of defensive operations. Specifically, weapons and/or abilities designed for point defense and survivability. A carrier is most effective when it can project it's offensive capabilities and successfully defend it's own existence. This change would also give more distinction between the Vo and Kar'fi as being primarily defensive or offensive based. The pets should still be potent in both cases, but some of the pet effectiveness on the Kar'Fi should exist in that carrier's own offensive capabilities.
Lower-Tier Carriers
This should be a lower priority item than fixing what already exists. However, they need to be offered from Tier 2 forward. Do not reserve these only for Tier 5 players who have spent an entire career refining their builds for use in a different ship class. In addition to the skillpoint and equipment costs, it is a very abrupt change for captains who are new to carrier mechanics and have never played one previously. Make this a viable ship class at lower levels and let captains learn how to be effective.
Kar'fi
I have one in dry dock and have never flown it due to it's fragility. TBH, I am not very excited about the Phase Shift Power. The duration is not long enough to be useful and it gives you similar gameplay benefit as MES. I'd rather see an adjustment to make MES more useful. Add a second hangar (and a third to the Vo) and reduce the number of active waves instead.
Hmm, seeing as the Vo'quv has native subsystem targeting, perhaps the Khar'fi could be given sensor analysis. Makes sense given the more offense posture of the Khar'fi and the fact that there is only one Klingon ship with sensor analysis vs. four of them on the fed side.
So Ive seen a few posts about the frigates slowing down strikes with aceton field. Isnt that kind of the point? To help out the carrier that isnt the tankiest ship around? If it's supposed to be a more attacking or aggressive ship compared to the vo quv, then wouldnt a pet that can cut down on damage being done make sense? I mean you could use every heal and damage resist that you can use, but then you really wouldnt be very aggressive right?
1. Adding a second hanger bay.
2. Adding a Kar-fi-only Science console with a power called Phase Shift based off of the Fek'ihri escort NPC currently in the game. This console would come with the ship. If we do this, existing Kar'fi would be given this console for free.
3. Modifying the fighters (only) to give them increased maneuverability to improve their attempts to kamikaze, since right now they miss far too frequently - which sometimes also leads to AI issues.
Becomes untargetable (you actually lose targeting lock on it)
Gains stealth against ships roughly outside of normal combat range
Can move freely through other ships
Cannot launch fighters or frigates
Cannot use torpedos or mines
Costs 10 Auxiliary Power a second to maintain; power will drop if run out of Aux power
Other general carrier changes under consideration:
Limit of 2 (down from 3) waves out at any one time for fighters, BoP and frigates
Recharge time to relaunch for fighters, BoP and frigates reduced to compensate
Fighters gain improved defense to compensate and (possibly) the ability to have a modest chance to take out subsystems depending on the type of fighter
BoPs from hangers gain "something" to compensate
Kar'fi frigates are unchanged (making this a 25% net gain in potential frigates, so a buff to the Kar'fi's offensive power, but a fairly modest one when standard weapons are also taken into account)
Fighters, BoP and frigates may be launched without a target and out of combat
Fighters, BoP and frigates remain out after combat
...also looking into some of the other things mentioned such as some real UI control for your pets and uncommon, rare and very rare versions of pets.
Thoughts? Better? Worse?
I like a majority of the suggestions, being an Avid Vor'quv and Kar'fi Pilot my self.
I can live with the reduced Number of Pets launched. It'll reduce the Pet damage some, but you have proposed suggestions to improve the pets anyway, so it sounds like it'll balance each other out. At least on Paper.
Something I'd like to suggest for the BoP pet, and that's perhaps give it Green, or Blue Weapons, nothing too crazy maybe just [Acc] or [Acc] [Dmg] Weapons as need be. Also perhaps they should be given better Weapon power then the standard 50/50/50/50 Perhaps 85/25/50/50? Or would that entail having to create a new BoP just for the Vor'quv? As I'm going to assume that they are just standard NPC BoP ships given buffs for the Rank of the item purchased? Also, can you make it so that when you Deploy the BoP pets, they Cloak and stay Cloak until revealed, or are attacking a target? Because right now they only cloak when attacking a target, and they don't always Re-cloak upon return.
Also, what about Siphon Pods? Any love for those Fragile little vampires? I mean a ship explosion kills them all, not to mention FAW takes them out like they were Mines.
Not sure if I like the 10 Aux per second on the Phase Shift. Maybe it it wasn't quite that harsh, only because it would hurt you when you come out of phase incase you were using it to try and wait for recharges/escape a spike. I only think about what Recovery of the Aux would be like when it finally shuts off is all. As said before, the Kar'fi is a pain in the butt to Balance right between it's Aux and it's Weapon power or Shield Power. I'd like to suggest 8 Aux per second instead of 10. So that it will drop some one at 125 Aux to 45 Aux instead of 25 Aux power. Because I'm going to assume that while phase shifted, the drain won't take into account your automatic power recovery?
Hmm, seeing as the Vo'quv has native subsystem targeting, perhaps the Khar'fi could be given sensor analysis. Makes sense given the more offense posture of the Khar'fi and the fact that there is only one Klingon ship with sensor analysis vs. four of them on the fed side.
I suggested the same thing my self, and agree it would make sense to the Kar'fi.
Ok, please let me know if this is relevant to the discussion or not.
Mines are an ever annoying problem because there are 5 man premade runnin 2, 3, and/or 4 launchers. On a single ship, this setup is highly impractical, but it completely overwhelms crowd controlling abilities when 5 ships have the same loadout.... so much so that CC is completely useless. Please limit each ship to loading *only* one launcher. This will, ulitmately, help the servers as well as reduce PvP griefing (and yes, premades with this setup are griefers).
1. Adding a second hanger bay.
2. Adding a Kar-fi-only Science console with a power called Phase Shift based off of the Fek'ihri escort NPC currently in the game. This console would come with the ship. If we do this, existing Kar'fi would be given this console for free.
3. Modifying the fighters (only) to give them increased maneuverability to improve their attempts to kamikaze, since right now they miss far too frequently - which sometimes also leads to AI issues.
Becomes untargetable (you actually lose targeting lock on it)
Gains stealth against ships roughly outside of normal combat range
Can move freely through other ships
Cannot launch fighters or frigates
Cannot use torpedos or mines
Costs 10 Auxiliary Power a second to maintain; power will drop if run out of Aux power
Other general carrier changes under consideration:
Limit of 2 (down from 3) waves out at any one time for fighters, BoP and frigates
Recharge time to relaunch for fighters, BoP and frigates reduced to compensate
Fighters gain improved defense to compensate and (possibly) the ability to have a modest chance to take out subsystems depending on the type of fighter
BoPs from hangers gain "something" to compensate
Kar'fi frigates are unchanged (making this a 25% net gain in potential frigates, so a buff to the Kar'fi's offensive power, but a fairly modest one when standard weapons are also taken into account)
Fighters, BoP and frigates may be launched without a target and out of combat
Fighters, BoP and frigates remain out after combat
...also looking into some of the other things mentioned such as some real UI control for your pets and uncommon, rare and very rare versions of pets.
Thoughts? Better? Worse?
Overall I like this (Particularly everything in the "General Carrier Changes" section, excepting of course the fighter reduction, which I accept grudgingly as necessary.)
Getting the second hangar and Phase Shift both could be quite nice, and I sincerely doubt it'd be overpowered either.
I'd still like to see To'Duj up there as an option though... I just really hate the S'kul fighters for reasons noted elsewhere.
Getting the second hangar and Phase Shift both could be quite nice, and I sincerely doubt it'd be overpowered either.
I'd still like to see To'Duj up there as an option though... I just really hate the S'kul fighters for reasons noted elsewhere.
I am inclined to agree that the combination is unlikely to be overpowered; it would not surprise me if the Kar'fi winds up requiring more than this, but I am loathe to tweak too many things at once. We'll see, though. Where the Vo'quv has sustained surviveability, this will give the Kar'fi punctuated spike surviveability. I suspect the degree of its value will depend on playstyle to a greater extent than the Vo'quv, which will probably always be more forgiving.
Geko was suggesting making the To'Duj available on the Kar'fi as well, so that's a possibility.
Most likely it will. Even shield drain from cloaking can be mitigated with enough power recovery.
It will. As I tested the prototype of it today with no special equipment and doing nothing funky with your Auxiliary power, being at around 50 Aux would last the full ten seconds.
I am inclined to agree that the combination is unlikely to be overpowered; it would not surprise me if the Kar'fi winds up requiring more than this, but I am loathe to tweak too many things at once.
It's been pointed out a couple times, but sensor analysis would probably fit the ticket. Fits with the hybird-science ship philosophy of the carriers as well and gives the KDF more than a single ship with the ability.
Vo'quv gets subsystem targeting, Khar'fi gets sensor analysis, Varanus gets both. I imagine it like each carrier is half a sci ship, but they are opposite halves. Just seems to feel 'right' and symmetrical, if you know what I mean.
That being said i'm in full agreement that there is a risk of doing too much too soon.
Aside from that:
-Only being able to preemptively counter an invulnerability power still seems a bit off. Thoughts on making phase shift vulnerable to PSW like ablative is?
-While the hangar buff is only going to increase the maximum frigates from three to four, they can now be deployed twice as fast, which could end up being problematic. Any thoughts on a slight increase in hangar cooldown to compensate?
-Still waiting on any thoughts you have IRT ablative armor to getting a similar aux drain to phase shift? Or perhaps create a bit more complexity and instead implement the minimum aux (eg. 50) to cast/maintain idea? That way both ablative and phase shift would be vulnerable to aux draining, but in different ways. I think it would create a bit more interesting gameplay.
-Movement/turnrate buff for the duration of phase shift? Is this still under consideration?
Comments
Ok, sounds good!
We'll have to disagree a bit philosophically there. First, as mustrum pointed out, blind focus fire isn't a particularly good idea, at least at higher levels. A good team's focus healing will typically outdo focus fire from an equally skilled team. On weaker teams, focus fire becomes more powerful. So do you balance for top tier PvPers or for the rest? Give a good team invulnerability powers and it can quickly become an issue; taking away invulnerability powers from lower tier play might make blind focus fire a bit more powerful there, but it won't actually break anything. Not to mention that "blind" focus fire will probably just end up finding it's way onto targets without innate invulnerability powers like escorts. The ironic part here being that escorts are even squishier, especially in lower level play where they don't get proper support!
So we disagree about the place of invulnerability powers, perhaps we can agree on other things:
I'm glad you like the idea of an aux threshold. You'll find that I'm full of good ideas
I look forward to seeing what you come up with to make repair platforms useful then. Detection grid is another problem ability. It's very situation and is only useful when the situation calls for it. It probably doesn't need a buff, but would be a great candidate for consolification -- up against a team of BoPs? Slot it in. Playing FvF? Put something else in instead.
Good to hear, I'll expect that when the Khar'fi buff is released it's console will work the same way as the MVAM one then, or that the MVAM console will be changed to work the same way you've described for the Khar'fi console.
By the way, kudos for coming out and communicating with us. Feels more like a discussion while too often these notifications of impending changes feel like a dictation.
1. Adding a second hanger bay.
2. Adding a Kar-fi-only Science console with a power called Phase Shift based off of the Fek'ihri escort NPC currently in the game. This console would come with the ship. If we do this, existing Kar'fi would be given this console for free.
3. Modifying the fighters (only) to give them increased maneuverability to improve their attempts to kamikaze, since right now they miss far too frequently - which sometimes also leads to AI issues.
Phase Shift
Type: Toggle
Duration: 10 seconds
Cooldown: 180 seconds
Effects:
Other general carrier changes under consideration:
...also looking into some of the other things mentioned such as some real UI control for your pets and uncommon, rare and very rare versions of pets.
Thoughts? Better? Worse?
maybe the something the bops could gain would be a self heal? ET1 maybe?
Cool idea. Potential issues:
Easy fix is to have an upper bound for the time the power can remain active. I like that a smart team should be able preemptively drain the Khar'fi's aux power in order to nullify the skill. I also like the fact that towards the end of the ability aux based heals will suffer. Creates smart interesting gameplay. Something similar could easily be done for that other problem child, ablative, as well.
Definitely better. Limiting Khar'fi frigates to 2 per hangar is a modest compromise, certainly better than having six out at a time. Maybe increase the cooldown a bit too though or those four frigates come out rather quickly.
Hopefully this doesn't effect Vo'quvs as well unless there is some counterbalance to make the pets stronger though (Khar'fi frigates are better than BoPs, hence why having too many out a time creates issues)
Keep up the good work.
That sounds interesting. Need to carry aux bats. but hey I can live with that.
The general changes to carriers I can dig on. I like being able to launch without combat, and keep them after.
There have been some discussions today to see what we can do and when. I am cautiously optimistic for at least basic commands, and possibly even things like "intercept torpedoes/mines/fighters" or "escort this friendly target".
There would still be a 10s cap time, so essentially what this means is if your Auxiliary power is less than about 50 you either will need to use an Aux battery or you will get less than the full 10s time, but you could never get better than 10s regardless of your current Auxiliary power. As you note, it does open up some proactive gameplay both offensively and defensively which I think is a good thing.
The Vo'quv fighters and BoPs would get buffed to compensate in the event we go with this or a similar scenario. So, the Kar'fi gets buffed while the Vo'quv should ideally net about the same; the individual frigates will be unchanged, but the Vo'quv's BoPs will be buffed as individuals (probably damage to close the gap in the loss of 1/3 of their wing strength, probably hull as well), in addition to fighters in general.
We discussed it, but there are some complications that make us want to find a different set of solutions if feasible.
Cool idea. One thing thou: If it costs 10 Aux per second, then the power needs to be limited to a maximum duration of 10 seconds as well. I see your suggestion already says "10 seconds" but it should be made clear in the power tooltip, that this is it's maximum duration. Batteries, Emergency Power to Auxilliary etc, would otherwise be capable of extending the power duration, thus effectively allowing the player alot longer time to "get away".
Second, this proposed power console for the Kar'fi, apparently would be given for FREE to existing Kar'fi owners. Great, getting something for free for a change. My question however is this: Why wasn't the MVAM Console for the Prometheus, given away for free to existing Prometheus owners?
EDIT: First part of my post can be ignored. Heretic beat me to it :P
I agree, and if I were you I'd consider adding something similar to ablative as well /nudge
Also, apparently a lot of PvErs don't actually like ablative. How about making it a console so they can regain that slot?
The only invulnerability power this game really needed was RSP, which in its current form with scalable duration based on level and high recharge time was fine.
Healing and resistances are already far more overpowering than damage, any more invulnerability powers are overkill.
The problem currently is tactical team. Pretty much grants any target with shields invulnerability from death.
It wouldn't be so bad if the effect only worked on the person casting, but this can be thrown on other targets by other players.
And the people that say eh just sub it off, well thats TRIBBLE logic right there. Answer me these questions.
What is the cooldown of SNB?
How many subs can you bring to a match?
What is the cooldown of tac team?
How many tac teams can you bring to a match?
See the problem...
In a team vs team premade match players using this skill combined with RSP and shield heals such as TSS and extend shields, can pretty much become invulnerable to normal attacks if they know how to distrubute there tac teams and heals correctly between players.
Pretty much means you need to bring multiple CPB sci ships or scramble spam to even attempt a kill, which imho is not fun.
While the skill seems balanced in PUG matches , in premades its completely overpowering and a must take skill.
See this thread for more info
Either make tactical team not be able to be passed from player to player, or adjust the shield redistribution duration and effectiveness based on level of tac team.
Not a fan of the phase shift while the current form of tactical team exists.
Its just too much defensive overkill.
Yes i play KDF but i don't want an I-win button.
As for the other general changes all look good, especially fighters with a chance to disable subsytems. Then there might actually be a reason to bring this ship over a lot tankier and more useful CPB science ship.
Oh, yes yes yes yes. I will never have to flee from my own pets again, to avoid them redocking.
Not quite sure how I feel about everything, nice that new abilities are coming, kinda sad that some pets getting reduced again, even with buffs, I'll be following the thread. But right now, I'm torn. I love my Vo'quv, I don't pvp outside of interfleet, and while I understand the need for balancing and such...I'm so torn
Maybe buff the energy siphon pods so they transfer the energy to the carrier (like a weaker version of energy siphon 1) would give them more viability?
I'll keep following the thread...and will try to collect my thoughts to better contribute.
At the end of the day, fighters should be cooler and more flexible, albeit fewer in number, and the same will go for the Vo'quv's Birds of Prey.
Regardless of whether you fly fighters or Birds of Prey, your attack wings should not change in quality when flying the Vo'quv, while the Kar'fi's attack wings will actually improve somewhat. The net effect of this is not intended as a nerf of any kind to the Vo'quv, and may even net a slight improvement with smart use of AI controls and hanger slotting.
We'll be looking at the pods as well, definitely - they clearly need some attention.
My Eng officer flies the Kar'fi and my Sci officer flies the Vo'qua and I love them both.
Here are my few suggestions.
1. Make different quality hanger bays or skills that work with our pets.
2. Currently AUX settings system is a bit silly and needs to be relooked at. If people are putting 100 AUX make it count for something and not just a few seconds off.
3. Add a new carrier only power. "Scramble flights" Make it a 10 minute cool down or greater so you can't spam it for pvp. But it allows you to get more "Flights" into the game faster by whatever means the Dev crew feels is appropriate.
I will happily trade quantity for quality with fighters and BoP's!
The phase shift thing sounds pretty good, though. Maybe a shorter cooldown on it and no extra hanger would be my preference.
That said, I think the absolute critical need carriers have is AI control. Even if all we got was an "attack my target" command, that would be a HUGE change in how carrier captains play and how other captains play against carriers. Right now carrier attack wings are way too easy to counter, both because of how easy it is to destroy them with AOE, and the fact that they will never deviate from their target, making their actions extremely predictable and thus extremely easy to counter. I fully welcome a comprehensive review of carriers, but if you only changed one single thing about carriers, adding an "attack my target" command would be the biggest bang for your buck.
for the Kar'fi i was thinking 'hanger bay overload', it increases the launch rate but also deals damage to your ship every second. it should be a skill like cloak that is an activate/deactivate so if your careless and leave it on you could end up doing a lot of damage to yourself. since that ship just has 1 hanger, for the moment, a launch rate boost shouldn't be too overpowered.
Your last sentence makes me one very happy Klingon scientist. I would love to run my carrier with siphon pods and not feel like I'm gimping myself.
As it stands, they just feel like their cooldown is too long. Its hard enough getting multple waves on target in PvE. But in PvP, my second wave is usually ready to launch about the time my first wave gets destroyed. I think they need to either get some survivability or a slight reduction in cooldown and they would be much more viable.
Thanks for soliciting feedback from your fellow carrier captains.
Carriers
This is my favorite ship class. They are realistic for the IP and reinforce the idea of a militaristic culture around which the KDF is based. They are big and slow and lumber across the battlefield, but no captain should consider an attack on one without a tactical plan to bypass the defensive systems.
I am pleased with most of the suggestions offered in this thread so far with the exception of carrier pets existing only as animations. I am emphatically opposed to this change for pets. Pets need to exist as seperate objects in order to draw aggro away from from the carrier itself. They are as much a defensive weapon as offensive.
Turn rates need to be adjusted for both the Vo and Kar'Fi. The carrier needs to be as nimble as a cruiser, but not necessarily as fast. I am fine with targets walking away from me (that's what my pets are for). I'm not fine with the majority of my science powers being useless because my target is out of the firing arc.
Fighters
Let's be honest. They are "spam" as they exist today. Marginally useful in PvE as fodder due to their fraigility. The warp-core-breach-instant-suicide is irritating to the point of exclusion. In PvP, they exist only to fill up the screen to keep the other side distracted (see also: mine spam) or lagged for those poor souls with low-end systems. I am torn between reducing their visual impact (i.e. the pyschological swarm effect) and their individual surviability. As previously suggested, I am fine with adjusting the mechanics of the individuals to appear as 'squadrons' so that they appear as greater numbers than actually exist, i.e. 48 fighters as 12 entities. The invidiual survivability can then be balanced and appear realistic given their lower total object count.
Siphon Pods and Shield Repair Drones are utterly useless. I have never met another carrier captain who uses them. Both need individual attention to make them viable or replace them with a new pet type altogether.
Controls
We know this is a heavy problem and one that requires new tech and systems to implement since it does not currently exist in-game except for BOFF controls. However, implementing a space version of the BOFF system could satisfy a large number of popular requests at the same time:
1. High Priority - Basic Pet Controls (Attack, Move, Follow) + (Aggressive, Defensive, Passive)
2. Medium Priority - Pet Type Customization (Ship, Equipment, Skills, Quality, etc.)
If you have a chance to review the forum archives, you'll find a large number of posts requesting Pet Controls. I want the ability to sit back and act as a true command and control ship, directing my firepower from a relatively safe distance (but exposing myself to danger if I lose situational awareness or overextend).
Here are some good threads worth reviewing if you haven't already seen them:
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=193440
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=199127
Pets should be launchable without targets. They should be able to begin attack runs outside the 10km engagement sphere. They should exist until recalled or destroyed. Note that we need pet controls to keep deployed pets under our control and avoid players kiting them across the map, which is popular right now.
Vo'quv
FAW needs fixed first, then evaluate changes for the Vo. The combination of FAW changes and simultaneous nerfs to carriers forced many PvP captains to permanently retire. After FAW is corrected, turn your eye towards adjustments and abilities that will buff the defensive capabilities of this ship, not offensive. If the Kar'fi is the sword, the Vo should be the shield.
It would be really cool to introduce some new carrier specific weapons for the Vo around the premise of defensive operations. Specifically, weapons and/or abilities designed for point defense and survivability. A carrier is most effective when it can project it's offensive capabilities and successfully defend it's own existence. This change would also give more distinction between the Vo and Kar'fi as being primarily defensive or offensive based. The pets should still be potent in both cases, but some of the pet effectiveness on the Kar'Fi should exist in that carrier's own offensive capabilities.
Lower-Tier Carriers
This should be a lower priority item than fixing what already exists. However, they need to be offered from Tier 2 forward. Do not reserve these only for Tier 5 players who have spent an entire career refining their builds for use in a different ship class. In addition to the skillpoint and equipment costs, it is a very abrupt change for captains who are new to carrier mechanics and have never played one previously. Make this a viable ship class at lower levels and let captains learn how to be effective.
Kar'fi
I have one in dry dock and have never flown it due to it's fragility. TBH, I am not very excited about the Phase Shift Power. The duration is not long enough to be useful and it gives you similar gameplay benefit as MES. I'd rather see an adjustment to make MES more useful. Add a second hangar (and a third to the Vo) and reduce the number of active waves instead.
I like a majority of the suggestions, being an Avid Vor'quv and Kar'fi Pilot my self.
I can live with the reduced Number of Pets launched. It'll reduce the Pet damage some, but you have proposed suggestions to improve the pets anyway, so it sounds like it'll balance each other out. At least on Paper.
Something I'd like to suggest for the BoP pet, and that's perhaps give it Green, or Blue Weapons, nothing too crazy maybe just [Acc] or [Acc] [Dmg] Weapons as need be. Also perhaps they should be given better Weapon power then the standard 50/50/50/50 Perhaps 85/25/50/50? Or would that entail having to create a new BoP just for the Vor'quv? As I'm going to assume that they are just standard NPC BoP ships given buffs for the Rank of the item purchased? Also, can you make it so that when you Deploy the BoP pets, they Cloak and stay Cloak until revealed, or are attacking a target? Because right now they only cloak when attacking a target, and they don't always Re-cloak upon return.
Also, what about Siphon Pods? Any love for those Fragile little vampires? I mean a ship explosion kills them all, not to mention FAW takes them out like they were Mines.
Not sure if I like the 10 Aux per second on the Phase Shift. Maybe it it wasn't quite that harsh, only because it would hurt you when you come out of phase incase you were using it to try and wait for recharges/escape a spike. I only think about what Recovery of the Aux would be like when it finally shuts off is all. As said before, the Kar'fi is a pain in the butt to Balance right between it's Aux and it's Weapon power or Shield Power. I'd like to suggest 8 Aux per second instead of 10. So that it will drop some one at 125 Aux to 45 Aux instead of 25 Aux power. Because I'm going to assume that while phase shifted, the drain won't take into account your automatic power recovery?
I suggested the same thing my self, and agree it would make sense to the Kar'fi.
Mines are an ever annoying problem because there are 5 man premade runnin 2, 3, and/or 4 launchers. On a single ship, this setup is highly impractical, but it completely overwhelms crowd controlling abilities when 5 ships have the same loadout.... so much so that CC is completely useless. Please limit each ship to loading *only* one launcher. This will, ulitmately, help the servers as well as reduce PvP griefing (and yes, premades with this setup are griefers).
Thanks
Most likely it will. Even shield drain from cloaking can be mitigated with enough power recovery.
Overall I like this (Particularly everything in the "General Carrier Changes" section, excepting of course the fighter reduction, which I accept grudgingly as necessary.)
Getting the second hangar and Phase Shift both could be quite nice, and I sincerely doubt it'd be overpowered either.
I'd still like to see To'Duj up there as an option though... I just really hate the S'kul fighters for reasons noted elsewhere.
I am inclined to agree that the combination is unlikely to be overpowered; it would not surprise me if the Kar'fi winds up requiring more than this, but I am loathe to tweak too many things at once. We'll see, though. Where the Vo'quv has sustained surviveability, this will give the Kar'fi punctuated spike surviveability. I suspect the degree of its value will depend on playstyle to a greater extent than the Vo'quv, which will probably always be more forgiving.
Geko was suggesting making the To'Duj available on the Kar'fi as well, so that's a possibility.
It will. As I tested the prototype of it today with no special equipment and doing nothing funky with your Auxiliary power, being at around 50 Aux would last the full ten seconds.
It's been pointed out a couple times, but sensor analysis would probably fit the ticket. Fits with the hybird-science ship philosophy of the carriers as well and gives the KDF more than a single ship with the ability.
Vo'quv gets subsystem targeting, Khar'fi gets sensor analysis, Varanus gets both. I imagine it like each carrier is half a sci ship, but they are opposite halves. Just seems to feel 'right' and symmetrical, if you know what I mean.
That being said i'm in full agreement that there is a risk of doing too much too soon.
Aside from that:
-Only being able to preemptively counter an invulnerability power still seems a bit off. Thoughts on making phase shift vulnerable to PSW like ablative is?
-While the hangar buff is only going to increase the maximum frigates from three to four, they can now be deployed twice as fast, which could end up being problematic. Any thoughts on a slight increase in hangar cooldown to compensate?
-Still waiting on any thoughts you have IRT ablative armor to getting a similar aux drain to phase shift? Or perhaps create a bit more complexity and instead implement the minimum aux (eg. 50) to cast/maintain idea? That way both ablative and phase shift would be vulnerable to aux draining, but in different ways. I think it would create a bit more interesting gameplay.
-Movement/turnrate buff for the duration of phase shift? Is this still under consideration?