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Fixing the Enhanced Battle Cloak
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It seems the fix to the Enhanced Battle Cloak is not easy. I can only guess why that is so, to be honest, so my fix is also only a guess on what could be faster.
Let's forget for a moment entirely how Enhanced Battle Cloak works.
Instead, let's take Battle Cloak. It has a 15 second cooldown after you decloak, but then you can use it at any time.
Why not create a version of Battle Cloak that has only a 2-3 second cooldown after decloak? And then we call that "Enhanced Battle CLoak" and put it on the B'rel.
The play dynamic would be very different from what we have now, to be sure - you wouldn't be able to just fire a torp or a power at cloak - you need to conciously cloak, use all abilities you want to use, and then cloak again. It will require some more micro-management, essentially, but in exchange the issues of Enhanced Battle Cloak as it is now are gone. As a "drawback" it won't feel like the original version of cloak as people wouldn't just fire torps when decloaking, they could use everything.
Why it might be easier than fixing Enhanced Battle Cloak: It's basically just replacing one number for a cooldown for another. It doesn't require thinking and changing the interaction with dozens of powers and weapons.
Let's forget for a moment entirely how Enhanced Battle Cloak works.
Instead, let's take Battle Cloak. It has a 15 second cooldown after you decloak, but then you can use it at any time.
Why not create a version of Battle Cloak that has only a 2-3 second cooldown after decloak? And then we call that "Enhanced Battle CLoak" and put it on the B'rel.
The play dynamic would be very different from what we have now, to be sure - you wouldn't be able to just fire a torp or a power at cloak - you need to conciously cloak, use all abilities you want to use, and then cloak again. It will require some more micro-management, essentially, but in exchange the issues of Enhanced Battle Cloak as it is now are gone. As a "drawback" it won't feel like the original version of cloak as people wouldn't just fire torps when decloaking, they could use everything.
Why it might be easier than fixing Enhanced Battle Cloak: It's basically just replacing one number for a cooldown for another. It doesn't require thinking and changing the interaction with dozens of powers and weapons.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Seriously, i think that whole concept of battlecloak is not very appropriate for the klingon faction (game play wise).
I know in canon they where able to cloak in battle under certain circumstances.
But since STO is a game, i think that the game mechanic should encourage KDF players to fight more like (honorable) klingons are supposed to and not like some Romulan Pahtak (no offense rommy fans
I am fine with having them normal cloak, but instead of being able to run away from a battle, klingon players should be encouraged to fight to the death.
(I think it would suit much better to klingons than constantly runnning away.)
So instead of giving them a even better opportunity to flee from battle they should rather get a permanent "go down fighting" power, just passive so they do more damage the closer death comes.
Another thing is IF a romulan faction gets introduced, they surely will have Battlecloak on some of their ships too, how will a battle between those two ships look like?
Will they ever decloak, will there ever be a winner?
Will it become a run away fest?
Will there be a difference between them at all, except for their looks?
Live long and prosper.
Jam haddar can win battles too, they don't care for honor, klingons (should) do.
Game mechanics should urge players to play less like jem haddar (or duras
Just my opinion.
Live long and prosper.
A 2-3 second cooldown on the advanced cloak. That would basically turn the cloak into a near instant 'reset button' for any alpha strike or fight gone wrong. No, I think this would be the wrong way to go to correct the battle cloak issues.
The whole honour concept is not so black and white. It is rather shades of gray. And as Gowron once said: history is writtne by the victors!. Honour is therefore satisfied.
Well then there is obviously no big difference between the Jem'Hadar and the klingons.
(Except for their motives, and the fact that the Jem'hadar are honest enough not to hide behind that honor thing)
I was thinking that the Klingon honor does forbit to attack those who cannot defend themselves.
(DS9: Rules of Engagement)
Having such a powerful tool, like a battlecloak makes nearly all enemies defenseless against them.
So wouldn't it be dishonorable to attack them if there is no danger involved at all?
Live long and prosper.
Just because you lost doesn't mean you were defenseless.
A defenseless person is someone that cannot mount a defense. Unarmed, unskilled in combat, and posing no threat.
But that hardly describes any Starfleet vessels, which in STO kill thousands of NPC ships, and also tend to kill other PvP players.
If you unequip all shields and weapons and call out: "I am unarmed and will not fight", and a Klingon still battlecloaks, shockwaves and kills you, then you might argue that was dishonorable.
But hey, as you said:
This man was Chancellor, leader of the Klingon Empire. If he seems dishonorable to you, why do you assume that every Klingon actually is honorable. Why do you assume someone is even playing a honorable Klingon?And not just one that does what is necessary to advance in the Klingon Empire?
And it doesn't change the fact that Klingons have been using Cloak for a long time, and your "cowardly" Enhanced Battle Cloak Bird of Prey was invented and used by a high-ranking Klingon. Worf - arguably one of the most honorable examples - had no issues using Cloak, stealth or hit & run tactics.
A medieval knight may be a fighting machine at his time, but against a modern soldier, he IS defensless.
If the tactical advantage is big enough, it doesn't make any difference.
When getting alpha striked by 3 or 5 Birds of Prey, it doesn't matter if your ship has shields and weapons equipped or not.
Just because someone is leader of the high council doesn't mean that he is the most honorable klingon.
Why do i assume that klingons are honorable?
I don't know, maybe because they talk all the time about it, because their whole culture is aligned torwards honorful behaviour?
I know myself than some klingons are not honorable, but most of them are (i hope).
If i would play a klingon i would try to play honorful, just because that's the whole point of being klingon, don't you think?
Why do so many players play dishonorful Klingons?
Just because they have the means to do it and many people tend to interpret things (like klingon honor) to suit their requirements.
(Thats why i am against giving them Battlecloak, it should be reserved to the romulans)
Worf was a bit irritated, when he first saw the defiant cloak and he should have protested against it because the treaty of algeron (he didn't know that the cloak was a gift form the romulans).
Hit&Run tactics, when did he used it?
I think the whole Klingon honor code is just a big lie, to make them feel better.
If they prefer not to use it then they should be honest enough to to say so.
I just think that fighting honorable has something to do with fairness.
Maybe i would be just a bad klingon. :cool:
Live long and prosper.
Or: There is nothing more honorable than victory.
I don't know man, I think that that would just make things harder for B'Rel pilots; my reasoning is that the ship is considerably more flimsy than the standard T5 with the hit-and-run setups you see, and I don't really see that changing with a quick cloak design, I just see continued dependence on the cloak by pilots.
I think that the answer is to grant the ship some sort of bonus while using the cloak, like a partial shield penetration, or +20% torpedo damage if fired while cloaked, or something along those lines and have the trade-off be that the ship is more easily detected after attacking.
I don't know, just a thought.
No, it's not pointless, quite the contrary.
Because ethics are very important if someone claims to be honorable.
Fed BoP ?!?
If you give them ANOTHER ability in exchange for the Battlecloak, then where is the problem?
Live long and prosper.
They are very different things, and we lack any cultural background to understand the ins and outs of it. It is afterall, fictional, so the definition of honor varies episode to episode and movie to movie.
It is an alien culture, one with concepts similar to concepts in our own, but nothing that directly translates 1:1, making any claims of what is and isn't honorable irrelevant.
This thread also has nothing to do with Klingon honor, it is about a broken game mechanic.
Personally I'm not even sure what is still broken with EBC, and what may have changed since its release.
Something to keep in mind, though, is that reworking various weapons has been stated as a dev goal, specifically transphasic torpedoes. It could be that if those get a proper revamp, EBC might be more useful for transphasics. But that probably isn't enough either. I do think that maybe it should get bonuses to torpedo use, to represent how it was used in canon. Then again, that is probably too much of a niche use for it.
I can see this as one possible solution.
Another I see is the canon approach: Eliminate decloak-to-fire for Torpedoes completely with the EBC.
After all, unless your enemy is foolish enough to un-equip their shields completely, no battle can be won solely by Torpedoes, so why the decloak at all? Just disallow Boff powers that affect torpedoes from actually taking affect while cloaked, that way people can still prep normal decloak-and-Alpha Strikes, but can't use HYIII Plasma Torps, at point blank range from cloak, for example.
I've wondered for awhile now why it didn't work that way from the beginning.
Not to continue the whole ethics debate, but the whole "that is not honourable therefore klingons cant do it" argument is really starting to get on my nerves with STO.
Klingons, and especially the concept of Klingon Honour, is nowhere near as black and white as people seem to think. That is precisely why even Klingons themselves often have difficulty understanding what is, or is not, considered "honourable".
As it stands, whether or not cloaking during combat is "honourable" is dependant on the reasoning behind doing it.
If you're cloaking specifically to run from a fight then yes its more romulan and less klingon. However, if you're using it as a tool to regroup and prepare a second strike, which is precisely what the majority of klingon players use it for, then it is indeed an honourable use of the cloak. There is no honour in just running in and dieing either, so if you use a decloak, attack, and recloak in an effort to find a weakness before beginning your actual strike, then that too is also an honourable use.
Point is, there are a hundred different ways at looking at it with just as many scenarios being honourable as there dishonourable. That distinction between the two is the Klingon holly grail.
As far as the B'Rel's cloak is concerned, it doesn't matter how you dress it up, Feds are always going to complain that it's overpowered and unfair which is precisely why it has wound up in the sorry mess that it is currently in.
In my opinion we should stop looking for excuses as to why a small ship is as powerful as a T5 ship needs to be, and simply give the B'Rel exactly the same stats as the Hegh'Ta. If it really needs a unique ability, then give it the following;
Periscope - Captain takes hold of the periscope
Gives the BoP increased damage for x-seconds
Everything would then be fine and balanced.
Battle cloaks are just the favourite complaint of the underskilled . Ask anybody who loves to harp on battle cloak to post fraps of them selves pvp'ing and getting killed by it and they won't do it. Why because the second they throw that up on youtube they know that they will have the comments start rolling in " whats that doing on your bar!" " where did you get that build" "wtf is that doing on your ship/class" " dude lol...." and they will have just proved that it wasn't the enemy that killed them it was their ignorance in game mechanics.
Finally considering the fact that battle cloak has a 20sec CD after decloaking and how flimsy a BoP really is. If you can't either ensnare or destroy that ship within those 20sec you and your team have already done so many things wrong with your skills/equip that the battle cloak wont really make a difference anyhow you were dead before you even queued for pvp.
People have this romaticized viewpoint that klingons should ALWAYS give the other guy a chance to win and fight to the death!
Remember that DS9 episode when martok commanded 5 bird of preys into hit and run missions? If we're going by your logic, then:
1. Those guys won't hit and run but kill everything until they die
2. They wouldn't try and go back to their own lines like "cowards" rather they should've all died glorious deaths when faced with overwhelming odds.
Running away = cowardice? /lol. It's called a tactic. Calling the running guy a "coward" to try and anger him is also a tactic. Psychological warfare is very underrated.
And remember, this isn't an accurate representation of ST, which is fiction after all. It can't and never will work like ST canon. Why? People are people. Some adhere to this knight-in-shining-armor goodie goodie ruleset in combat. Others will hunt you in cold blood. Some like to RP, some like to PvP, and some (like me) like to make fun of PvE people. (PvE is hard yo!)
Telling BoPs that, even with the flimsiest hull / shields and 1 less bridge officer slot, they need to stay and fight to the death instead of actually using battlecloak to try and regroup with others if losing, is laughable.
The B'rel is further penalized by having this "enhanced battle cloak." I don't necessarily agree with mustrum's idea, but saying klingons should always fight to the death is like saying "we feddies can't kill you when we already have all of these advantages on our sides (for more on this, ask any pvp veteran which side's favored right now in team v team matches). Please stay and be penalized further cause we don't want to fight fairly!"
You missed the entire point to the episode。klingons have nothing at all against attacking the weak。 Reread it， the entire point was to juxtapose worf's warped，human-sense of honor vs the klingon sense of honor。
But, having said that, this is a thread about game mechanics, not a thread about the philosophical underpinnings of the Klingon Empire. I don't think making the 'advanced battle cloak' a standard battle cloak with a freakishly short cooldown is the way to go. Honestly, I think it would work well if they just fixed the 'light up effect' so it could be effectively healed and supported by allies while cloaked.