Which is why Heretic is going over the ship right now, I'm sure the lowered shields is to balance out having drones that heal your hull. It just didn't make any sense because the drones suck atm, lets see what the difference is when the changes hit tribble.
I'm glad the Varry's getting some love, do you have any idea when the modifications will go to holodeck Heretic?
Salami would probably have a much better idea than I, though he may not be at liberty to say yet. It is in with the same batch of fixes for carriers and fighters and a number of other balances fixes, however.
Sorry, but that doesn't sound right to me. Every other ship pays for it's special ability by losing a console slot only, no other ship loses shields or hull. Ablative is probably the best PvP skill in the game, and even then the Intrepid only loses a console slot. The fact that the Varanus has lower shields than every other science ship seems more like a hold out to when it had higher hull -- analogous to the Raptor having more hull (but less shields) than federation equivalents. If the original reasoning was to have the Varanus lose both an engineering console *and* shields for it's ability, then that seems like poor, inconsistent reasoning -- bordering on favoritism for one faction.
2 things: 1. I see no reason why the Veranus is gimped in comparisson to Fed ships. So if you want to keep the low shields, give it more hull than the Fed ships. 2. I really regret the fact, that most of the new KDF ships don't have a cloak. Most KDF tactics require a cloaked approach, that's their "thing". So I would really appreciate giving the Veranus (and the Marauder) a cloak. Then it would actually make sense, why it doesn't only loose a console, but also shields. OR give the KDF a Universal Cloaking Console (UCC), so that players can determine if they need their ship to be cloaked or not. Thank you.
So that's why my Long Range Science Vessel Retrofit has less shields than the Recon Science Vessel! It got a special power that boosts his hull, so of course it has less shields to compensate.
Sorry, but that doesn't sound right to me. Every other ship pays for it's special ability by losing a console slot only, no other ship loses shields or hull. Ablative is probably the best PvP skill in the game, and even then the Intrepid only loses a console slot. The fact that the Varanus has lower shields than every other science ship seems more like a hold out to when it had higher hull -- analogous to the Raptor having more hull (but less shields) than federation equivalents. If the original reasoning was to have the Varanus lose both an engineering console *and* shields for it's ability, then that seems like poor, inconsistent reasoning -- bordering on favoritism for one faction.
PSW > Ablative. There's nothing like waiting for a 'trepid pilot to hit his "OH TRIBBLE!" button and knock him right back out with PSW. I do agree the less shields/more hull mechanic is imbalanced however, since it's shields we rely on a lot more on than hull.
Drones are not worth that. Even ignoring shields, a resistance console + ~2.5k more hull (after spec) is already way better than healing drones. How many drones would be needed just to recover that loss (assuming they arent spending time healing each other or photonic fleets like they usually do)?
I think a simple solution would be to get rid of the drones completely. They A) Cause spam/lag, Heal each other more than anything and C) Follow cloaked ships revealing their location to the enemy. Instead, give it a cloak - so the ship is squishier but at least can cloak. This gives klingons something unique without being overpowered, and an actual reason for players to go in the ship (I *never* see Klingon pugs in the varanus).
This would also allow Klingon teams to bring fully cloaked teams - at the moment you need science but you cant leave a single sci ship as the only non cloaked vessel, it will get annihilated. I also think all other Klingon ships should get what gaius suggested - a cloak console - to give options
edit: fixed hull. best to check in game yourself - lesson learned.
Whoa, guys. Take it down a notch, or I will just rely on the patch notes for any future ship communications I am responsible for.
Ships are balanced with a large number of factors to try to get ships that aren't carbon copies of each other but play differently. Sometimes the balancing works right out of the gate in which case nobody notices, sometimes it doesn't, and then we have to adjust, which is why we are vastly improving the Varanus drones, something you haven't, remember, had a chance to even play with yet. If that doesn't address all the issues, then we will iterate and adjust again.
There is a very complex set of balancing formulas to weigh the benefits of hull strength versus shields versus consoles versus types of bridge officer stations. This formula is an approximation, and cannot be perfect. Where there are issues the formula is not properly accomodating, we evolve the formula or simply hand-adjust individual ships as time in the schedule permits.
In the case of the Varanus, it has a special console-less ability that factors into this formula. It was not granting the correct amount of healing before; once it is, then - especially in groups - if it is not pulling its own weight, then we are more than happy to reexamine the issue again and readjust again, if that's what is required.
We are looking at a vast amount of ship issues and trying to tackle them in something resembling a logical order. There is a lot to do, and note that most of the rebalancing issues I have been tackling - the Varanus, the Garumba, fighters and carriers, mines, the Kar'fi - have been on my own time.
Whoa, guys. Take it down a notch, or I will just rely on the patch notes for any future ship communications I am responsible for.
Ships are balanced with a large number of factors to try to get ships that aren't carbon copies of each other but play differently. Sometimes the balancing works right out of the gate in which case nobody notices, sometimes it doesn't, and then we have to adjust, which is why we are vastly improving the Varanus drones, something you haven't, remember, had a chance to even play with yet. If that doesn't address all the issues, then we will iterate and adjust again.
We are looking at a vast amount of ship issues and trying to tackle them in something resembling a logical order. There is a lot to do, and note that most of the rebalancing issues I have been tackling - the Varanus, the Garumba, fighters and carriers, mines, the Kar'fi - has been on my own time.
You speak of the drones but what about the shield capacity on the Varanus?
its does not seem to be as high as the Fed Science vessels of the same tier.
Whoa, guys. Take it down a notch, or I will just rely on the patch notes for any future ship communications I am responsible for.
Ships are balanced with a large number of factors to try to get ships that aren't carbon copies of each other but play differently. Sometimes the balancing works right out of the gate in which case nobody notices, sometimes it doesn't, and then we have to adjust, which is why we are vastly improving the Varanus drones, something you haven't, remember, had a chance to even play with yet. If that doesn't address all the issues, then we will iterate and adjust again.
There is a very complex set of balancing formulas to weigh the benefits of hull strength versus shields versus consoles versus types of bridge officer stations. This formula is an approximation, and cannot be perfect. Where there are issues the formula is not properly accomodating, we evolve the formula or simply hand-adjust individual ships as time in the schedule permits.
In the case of the Varanus, it has a special console-less ability that factors into this formula. It was not granting to correct amount of healing before; once it is, then - especially in groups - if it is not pulling its own weight, then we are more than happy to reexamine the issue again and readjust again, if that's what is required.
We are looking at a vast amount of ship issues and trying to tackle them in something resembling a logical order. There is a lot to do, and note that most of the rebalancing issues I have been tackling - the Varanus, the Garumba, fighters and carriers, mines, the Kar'fi - have been on my own time.
*Looks left, looks right* well it seems analyses of various ship aspects are still missing some variables that appear to be invisible to us or are at least so "obscure" they are not perceived correctly.
Whoa, guys. Take it down a notch, or I will just rely on the patch notes for any future ship communications I am responsible for.
the only thing we are somewhat peeved about is the inequity of trade offs regarding the special abilities. the rest of what we are saying is just brain storming. we don't know any details about the work you have done on it, so please don't feel that we are criticizing that work, we greatly appreciate it in fact.
Ships are balanced with a large number of factors to try to get ships that aren't carbon copies of each other but play differently. Sometimes the balancing works right out of the gate in which case nobody notices, sometimes it doesn't, and then we have to adjust, which is why we are vastly improving the Varanus drones, something you haven't, remember, had a chance to play with yet. If that doesn't address all the issues, then we will iterate and adjust again.
excellent! that's great that its not just a carbon copy. we want it to be different, but competitive too.
We are looking at a vast amount of ship issues and trying to tackle them in something resembling a logical order. There is a lot to do, and note that most of the rebalancing issues I have been tackling - the Varanus, the Garumba, fighters and carriers, mines, the Kar'fi - has been on my own time.
its a shame that you have to put so much of your own (unpaid?) time into these issues, we appreciate the effort, but dont work TOO hard ok? its hard for us to tell whats going on or how hard you are all working because we just arnt seeing alot happening from our limited perspective. from some of the things Dan has said it does sound like its been crazy lately. but since we know these issues are being addressed now, we are talking here about it so we can pass along input to make sure its gotten right this cycle so you don't have to keep knocking heads with it and other already released stuff.
gorn seem to be heavy mine users, maybe instead of subsystem targeting it could get some kind of special mine ability along with those mine improvements you mentioned. that would definitely be something different
the only thing we are somewhat peeved about is the inequity of trade offs regarding the special abilities. the rest of what we are saying is just brain storming. we don't know any details about the work you have done on it, so please don't feel that we are criticizing that work, we greatly appreciate it in fact.
As stated earlier in this thread, on internal builds the Varanus support drones have had their healing increased by over four times. In addition, new functionality has been built into the platforms. The intention is for the Varanus' support drones and repair platforms be the counterbalance to the fact that their shields and other stats do not match the Federation equivalent.
Balancing this is going to be tricky, as shields only benefit you, whereas the repair platforms benefit your entire team. Nevertheless, we want the Varanus' strengths to be unique.
If, after testing and seeing how it works in the Holodeck environment the above is not sufficient (or too sufficient), we are perfectly willing to reexamine them and adjust them as needed again.
As stated earlier in this thread, on internal builds the Varanus support drones have had their healing increased by over four times. In addition, new functionality has been built into the platforms. The intention is for the Varanus' support drones and repair platforms be the counterbalance to the fact that their shields and other stats do not match the Federation equivalent.
Balancing this is going to be tricky, as shields only benefit you, whereas the repair platforms benefit your entire team. Nevertheless, we want the Varanus' strengths to be unique.
If, after testing and seeing how it works in the Holodeck environment the above is not sufficient (or too sufficient), we are perfectly willing to reexamine them and adjust them as needed again.
wasn't sure how up to date anything already posted was. increasing the healing and other stuff is all good, but there's still the problem with them getting zapped out of existence so easily. consider making the drones non targetable like i said, and only vulnerable to AOE.
i know what a chore balance can be, done alot of modding in the past with the intention of bringing perfect game play balance. when i modded star trek legacy i would edit stats and test it out over and over again. there's nothing quite as time consuming as that, and your not done till you think its perfect.
Salami would probably have a much better idea than I, though he may not be at liberty to say yet. It is in with the same batch of fixes for carriers and fighters and a number of other balances fixes, however.
wasn't sure how up to date anything already posted was. increasing the healing and other stuff is all good, but there's still the problem with them getting zapped out of existence so easily. consider making the drones non targetable like i said, and only vulnerable to AOE.
i know what a chore balance can be, done alot of modding in the past with the intention of bringing perfect game play balance. when i modded star trek legacy i would edit stats and test it out over and over again. there's nothing quite as time consuming as that, and your not done till you think its perfect.
We're still talking internally about making all/many/some/most deployables such as repair platforms generally masked until you get close to them, both to remove screen spam and to make them more effective, but there are a lot of issues that touches. In the updated version of the Varanus, the platforms (not the drones) will have a PBAoE friendly mask energy signature effect, which may be enough for this purpose. All of this does wind up making the Varanus more a group ship than a solo ship, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
As for the Varanus getting zapped out existence, the repair drones' heal cooldown has also been reduced, so the healing is fairly constant, so while the Varanus definitely has its shields down more than its counterparts, its hull repair ability - especially when stacked with existing hull repair abilities - means that its shields being down isn't nearly so dangerous. The healing drones healing factor is not quite as front heavy as Hazard Emitters, but it is constant with no cooldown, stacks with Hazard Emitters, and can be applied to friendly targets as well.
That being said, there is room to move the healing rate even higher if that winds up being necessary, but I want to see how it performs on Holodeck before doing that. Increasing anything's effectiveness by four times is something to be careful about, granted in this case I think it is in fact warranted.
While you're here Heretic, it's a little off-topic, but I was wondering if similar changes planned (and/or needed) for the repair drone of the Vulcan D'Kyr ship ?
While you're here Heretic, it's a little off-topic, but I was wondering if similar changes planned (and/or needed) for the repair drone of the Vulcan D'Kyr ship ?
We're still talking internally about making all/many/some/most deployables such as repair platforms generally masked until you get close to them, both to remove screen spam and to make them more effective, but there are a lot of issues that touches. In the updated version of the Varanus, the platforms (not the drones) will have a PBAoE friendly mask energy signature effect, which may be enough for this purpose. All of this does wind up making the Varanus more a group ship than a solo ship, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
As for the Varanus getting zapped out existence, the repair drones' heal cooldown has also been reduced, so the healing is fairly constant, so while the Varanus definitely has its shields down more than its counterparts, its hull repair ability - especially when stacked with existing hull repair abilities - means that its shields being down isn't nearly so dangerous. The healing drones healing factor is not quite as front heavy as Hazard Emitters, but it is constant with no cooldown, stacks with Hazard Emitters, and can be applied to friendly targets as well.
That being said, there is room to move the healing rate even higher if that winds up being necessary, but I want to see how it performs on Holodeck before doing that. Increasing anything's effectiveness by four times is something to be careful about, granted in this case I think it is in fact warranted.
There's a whole other thread with all of that, but put briefly:
Fewer waves, but generally individual elements tougher to cut down spam
Kar'fi getting a second hanger bay
Lower tier carriers for some tiers (probably not all, at least not immediately)
Fighters getting improved defense so harder to hit
Fighters can be called out before you enter combat
AI controls for fighters
Other things as well are being considered. All of this is still internal; I am not 100% sure yet exactly when it will all go out.
Oh wow, I had heard some of that, but not the full list. Cool.
It appears to me that you guys are working on a TON of different things all at once. Which means things are released in huge batches. Would it be better for you guys to work on lesser things at once, so more stuff gets released faster, and then we can see the effects sooner (and be able to adjust things still in the pipeline), instead of releasing a ton of stuff at once, then trying to filter out what is causing any problems that might show up?
Or is that just impractical in this business?
Edit: Oh, do Varanus drones remove the Peng secondary?
Oh wow, I had heard some of that, but not the full list. Cool.
It appears to me that you guys are working on a TON of different things all at once. Which means things are released in huge batches. Would it be better for you guys to work on lesser things at once, so more stuff gets released faster, and then we can see the effects sooner (and be able to adjust things still in the pipeline), instead of releasing a ton of stuff at once, then trying to filter out what is causing any problems that might show up?
Or is that just impractical in this business?
Edit: Oh, do Varanus drones remove the Peng secondary?
Varanus drones are just healing, so no, they do not remove the Peng secondary.
As for release scheduling, it generally is about a month between major baseline updates due to the necessity for QA time, code merges, and dependencies and so on, so there's no really good alternative, unfortunately.
So let me get this right? The buffed veranus lolpets are going to be more powerful than ablative (that does NOT loose any shields). Doubt it, you speak of "complex balance" but really its simple. Evry other ship works special -> less console and then this one works special -> less shields and less console.
You must understand, It's really nice that you do this, post for feedback etc. But don't take it the wrong way when we disagree.
So let me get this right? The buffed veranus lolpets are going to be more powerful than ablative (that does NOT loose any shields). Doubt it, you speak of "complex balance" but really its simple. Evry other ship works special -> less console and then this one works special -> less shields and less console.
You must understand, It's really nice that you do this, post for feedback etc. But don't take it the wrong way when we disagree.
oh i didn't mean the Varanus itself getting zapped out of existence, i was talking about the drones/platforms. currently every time i see them used they last about 5 seconds before a FAW gets them.
i like those fighter changes, but targeting them is always going to be a problem as long as they exist. i don't know if this would be possible, but could every pet a ship launches be considered 1 target? instead of them all being individual targets? maybe make it team based. you could select every mine, fighter, photonic ship, saucer section, pet, everything as 1 target and you can choose to shoot at that to thin it out, rather then each individual unit of spam. i think i have played games in the past like that, were you can click on a fighter and your ships would shoot at all fighters.
oh i didn't mean the Varanus itself getting zapped out of existence, i was talking about the drones/platforms. currently every time i see them used they last about 5 seconds before a FAW gets them.
i like those fighter changes, but targeting them is always going to be a problem as long as they exist. i don't know if this would be possible, but could every pet a ship launches be considered 1 target? instead of them all being individual targets? maybe make it team based. you could select every mine, fighter, photonic ship, saucer section, pet, everything as 1 target and you can choose to shoot at that to thin it out, rather then each individual unit of spam. i think i have played games in the past like that, were you can click on a fighter and your ships would shoot at all fighters.
In regards to the drones/platforms being zapped out of existence, I think the repair platforms' PBAoE mask will help to some extent, and there are some new tools coming for addressing opponents who are relying too indiscriminate a usage of FAW as well... I will check out the drones however, and make sure they are getting the same defense bonus fighters are being given.
As for squadrons of fighters (or just all deployables, as you suggest) being considered one target, we actually did look into this, but it'd be an extremely fundamental change to the way the system works, and the amount of work it would take would be hard to justify right now with all of the other things we need to make happen yesterday. There also is some concern it would not necessarily solve all the issues, as then it'd be impossible to target the torpedoes you care about and not the mines you don't care about.
I had a Tac in a Varanus and was also Gorn I enjoyed the ship sure the repair platform and drone "seemed useless" but in fact did make a difference although small increasing the repair is a great idea would be cool if you got some sort of bonus for being in your native species ship though.
In regards to the drones/platforms being zapped out of existence, I think the repair platforms' PBAoE mask will help to some extent, and there are some new tools coming for addressing opponents who are relying too indiscriminate a usage of FAW as well... I will check out the drones however, and make sure they are getting the same defense bonus fighters are being given.
As for squadrons of fighters (or just all deployables, as you suggest) being considered one target, we actually did look into this, but it'd be an extremely fundamental change to the way the system works, and the amount of work it would take would be hard to justify right now with all of the other things we need to make happen yesterday. There also is some concern it would not necessarily solve all the issues, as then it'd be impossible to target the torpedoes you care about and not the mines you don't care about.
i figured it would be tough to do, but if there was ever time, higher value targets like torps could be left out of the spam catch all target.
what do you think about a station change up for the Varanus? maybe with a COM engineering station, LT tactical, and a LTC, LT, and ENS science stations. then it would truly be a support ship, and still have more science stations then not so its still primarily a science ship.
any of the native tier 5 ships this could be done to, sovereigns with commander tactical stations, star cruisers with commander science stations, fleet escorts with commander engineering stations. I've been brainstorming more interesting station setups like this, and when i was done i was going to post them all somewhere on the forum
Whoa, guys. Take it down a notch, or I will just rely on the patch notes for any future ship communications I am responsible for.
I apologize if it was my post you thought was out of line, and I do very much appreciate what you are doing. While I see disagreement and criticism, I don't see anyone being abusive towards you like your statement implies. That being said, it does peeve me off to see all of these exceptions to the rules that always seem to be on the Klingon side and always seem to make things worse for the faction.
The newest example is the Peng debacle. Every other craftable item is BoE, but this one is BoP. Or the Vorcha having less health and one less device slot to make up for it's turn rate, while no other cruiser in the game has stats adjusted based on turn rate. Not having efficient boffs hurts as well, which seems like it would be a quick fix.
However, that being said having the Varanus lose shields (unlike what beagles thinks it does not also lose hull) as well as a console slot is the wrong way to go. Being inconsistent is only going to breed discontent, as you can already see. The hull repair drones should be balanced around losing a console slot only, same as every other ship in the game.
I really wanna see how well the drones heal the hull before I complain about the shield capacity. The drone buff won't only help the varanus, but the team as a whole. It's not gonna be possible to balance a ship that special ability which heals the team vs ships that don't. I don't expect the number of my Varanus to match my DSSV ever and it shouldn't
We're still talking internally about making all/many/some/most deployables such as repair platforms generally masked until you get close to them, both to remove screen spam and to make them more effective, but there are a lot of issues that touches. In the updated version of the Varanus, the platforms (not the drones) will have a PBAoE friendly mask energy signature effect, which may be enough for this purpose. All of this does wind up making the Varanus more a group ship than a solo ship, but that's not necessarily a bad thing..
Sounds like a good change but would you be looking at carrying over any such change to the Tal'Kyr onto the playable shuttle?
It would be welcomed if it did, in theory its one of my favorite shuttles but suffers so much from its very low turn rate compared to other shuttle (its almost unusable in The Vault) but if it was somehow masked it would give it an interesting new lease of life. I think a mask energy signature ability but with shields still active and able to fire while active but easier to be detected at very close range and obviously able to be detected while firing weapons. It could make it an interesting ship for coop play supporting a larger main ship at lower levels before you gain access to the D'Kyr itself
As a big fan of shuttles/fighters i would welcome anything that made the more viable ships for using at higher levels then now even if in more of a support capacity then as a solo ship
Comments
True story.
Salami would probably have a much better idea than I, though he may not be at liberty to say yet. It is in with the same batch of fixes for carriers and fighters and a number of other balances fixes, however.
Sorry, but that doesn't sound right to me. Every other ship pays for it's special ability by losing a console slot only, no other ship loses shields or hull. Ablative is probably the best PvP skill in the game, and even then the Intrepid only loses a console slot. The fact that the Varanus has lower shields than every other science ship seems more like a hold out to when it had higher hull -- analogous to the Raptor having more hull (but less shields) than federation equivalents. If the original reasoning was to have the Varanus lose both an engineering console *and* shields for it's ability, then that seems like poor, inconsistent reasoning -- bordering on favoritism for one faction.
2 things: 1. I see no reason why the Veranus is gimped in comparisson to Fed ships. So if you want to keep the low shields, give it more hull than the Fed ships. 2. I really regret the fact, that most of the new KDF ships don't have a cloak. Most KDF tactics require a cloaked approach, that's their "thing". So I would really appreciate giving the Veranus (and the Marauder) a cloak. Then it would actually make sense, why it doesn't only loose a console, but also shields. OR give the KDF a Universal Cloaking Console (UCC), so that players can determine if they need their ship to be cloaked or not. Thank you.
So that's why my Long Range Science Vessel Retrofit has less shields than the Recon Science Vessel! It got a special power that boosts his hull, so of course it has less shields to compensate.
... Wait a moment ...
That's not acceptable!
Every other ship with a "bonus ability" "pays" a console, this ship pays a console AND shields? Doesn't sound right!
Like Mustrum said, the intrepid looses 1 console for ablative, no shields. And i would say ablative is a much more powerful skill.
PSW > Ablative. There's nothing like waiting for a 'trepid pilot to hit his "OH TRIBBLE!" button and knock him right back out with PSW. I do agree the less shields/more hull mechanic is imbalanced however, since it's shields we rely on a lot more on than hull.
28500:::::Hull:::::::::::28500
1.3::::::::Shields:::::::1.2
13:::::::::Turn:::::::::::13
3::::::::E. Console:::::2
4::::::::S. Console:::::4
2::::::::T. Console:::::2
None::::Special::::::: Drones
Drones are not worth that. Even ignoring shields, a resistance console + ~2.5k more hull (after spec) is already way better than healing drones. How many drones would be needed just to recover that loss (assuming they arent spending time healing each other or photonic fleets like they usually do)?
I think a simple solution would be to get rid of the drones completely. They A) Cause spam/lag,
This would also allow Klingon teams to bring fully cloaked teams - at the moment you need science but you cant leave a single sci ship as the only non cloaked vessel, it will get annihilated. I also think all other Klingon ships should get what gaius suggested - a cloak console - to give options
edit: fixed hull. best to check in game yourself - lesson learned.
Ships are balanced with a large number of factors to try to get ships that aren't carbon copies of each other but play differently. Sometimes the balancing works right out of the gate in which case nobody notices, sometimes it doesn't, and then we have to adjust, which is why we are vastly improving the Varanus drones, something you haven't, remember, had a chance to even play with yet. If that doesn't address all the issues, then we will iterate and adjust again.
There is a very complex set of balancing formulas to weigh the benefits of hull strength versus shields versus consoles versus types of bridge officer stations. This formula is an approximation, and cannot be perfect. Where there are issues the formula is not properly accomodating, we evolve the formula or simply hand-adjust individual ships as time in the schedule permits.
In the case of the Varanus, it has a special console-less ability that factors into this formula. It was not granting the correct amount of healing before; once it is, then - especially in groups - if it is not pulling its own weight, then we are more than happy to reexamine the issue again and readjust again, if that's what is required.
We are looking at a vast amount of ship issues and trying to tackle them in something resembling a logical order. There is a lot to do, and note that most of the rebalancing issues I have been tackling - the Varanus, the Garumba, fighters and carriers, mines, the Kar'fi - have been on my own time.
You speak of the drones but what about the shield capacity on the Varanus?
its does not seem to be as high as the Fed Science vessels of the same tier.
*Looks left, looks right* well it seems analyses of various ship aspects are still missing some variables that appear to be invisible to us or are at least so "obscure" they are not perceived correctly.
the only thing we are somewhat peeved about is the inequity of trade offs regarding the special abilities. the rest of what we are saying is just brain storming. we don't know any details about the work you have done on it, so please don't feel that we are criticizing that work, we greatly appreciate it in fact.
excellent! that's great that its not just a carbon copy. we want it to be different, but competitive too.
its a shame that you have to put so much of your own (unpaid?) time into these issues, we appreciate the effort, but dont work TOO hard ok? its hard for us to tell whats going on or how hard you are all working because we just arnt seeing alot happening from our limited perspective. from some of the things Dan has said it does sound like its been crazy lately. but since we know these issues are being addressed now, we are talking here about it so we can pass along input to make sure its gotten right this cycle so you don't have to keep knocking heads with it and other already released stuff.
gorn seem to be heavy mine users, maybe instead of subsystem targeting it could get some kind of special mine ability along with those mine improvements you mentioned. that would definitely be something different
As stated earlier in this thread, on internal builds the Varanus support drones have had their healing increased by over four times. In addition, new functionality has been built into the platforms. The intention is for the Varanus' support drones and repair platforms be the counterbalance to the fact that their shields and other stats do not match the Federation equivalent.
Balancing this is going to be tricky, as shields only benefit you, whereas the repair platforms benefit your entire team. Nevertheless, we want the Varanus' strengths to be unique.
If, after testing and seeing how it works in the Holodeck environment the above is not sufficient (or too sufficient), we are perfectly willing to reexamine them and adjust them as needed again.
wasn't sure how up to date anything already posted was. increasing the healing and other stuff is all good, but there's still the problem with them getting zapped out of existence so easily. consider making the drones non targetable like i said, and only vulnerable to AOE.
i know what a chore balance can be, done alot of modding in the past with the intention of bringing perfect game play balance. when i modded star trek legacy i would edit stats and test it out over and over again. there's nothing quite as time consuming as that, and your not done till you think its perfect.
What fixes for carriers/fighters?
We're still talking internally about making all/many/some/most deployables such as repair platforms generally masked until you get close to them, both to remove screen spam and to make them more effective, but there are a lot of issues that touches. In the updated version of the Varanus, the platforms (not the drones) will have a PBAoE friendly mask energy signature effect, which may be enough for this purpose. All of this does wind up making the Varanus more a group ship than a solo ship, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
As for the Varanus getting zapped out existence, the repair drones' heal cooldown has also been reduced, so the healing is fairly constant, so while the Varanus definitely has its shields down more than its counterparts, its hull repair ability - especially when stacked with existing hull repair abilities - means that its shields being down isn't nearly so dangerous. The healing drones healing factor is not quite as front heavy as Hazard Emitters, but it is constant with no cooldown, stacks with Hazard Emitters, and can be applied to friendly targets as well.
That being said, there is room to move the healing rate even higher if that winds up being necessary, but I want to see how it performs on Holodeck before doing that. Increasing anything's effectiveness by four times is something to be careful about, granted in this case I think it is in fact warranted.
There's a whole other thread with all of that, but put briefly:
Other things as well are being considered. All of this is still internal; I am not 100% sure yet exactly when it will all go out.
It's on my list of things to look at, in fact.
Oh wow, I had heard some of that, but not the full list. Cool.
It appears to me that you guys are working on a TON of different things all at once. Which means things are released in huge batches. Would it be better for you guys to work on lesser things at once, so more stuff gets released faster, and then we can see the effects sooner (and be able to adjust things still in the pipeline), instead of releasing a ton of stuff at once, then trying to filter out what is causing any problems that might show up?
Or is that just impractical in this business?
Edit: Oh, do Varanus drones remove the Peng secondary?
Varanus drones are just healing, so no, they do not remove the Peng secondary.
As for release scheduling, it generally is about a month between major baseline updates due to the necessity for QA time, code merges, and dependencies and so on, so there's no really good alternative, unfortunately.
You must understand, It's really nice that you do this, post for feedback etc. But don't take it the wrong way when we disagree.
Disagreement is fine, and in fact welcomed.
As noted in more detail in another thread: http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=3698489&postcount=773
i like those fighter changes, but targeting them is always going to be a problem as long as they exist. i don't know if this would be possible, but could every pet a ship launches be considered 1 target? instead of them all being individual targets? maybe make it team based. you could select every mine, fighter, photonic ship, saucer section, pet, everything as 1 target and you can choose to shoot at that to thin it out, rather then each individual unit of spam. i think i have played games in the past like that, were you can click on a fighter and your ships would shoot at all fighters.
In regards to the drones/platforms being zapped out of existence, I think the repair platforms' PBAoE mask will help to some extent, and there are some new tools coming for addressing opponents who are relying too indiscriminate a usage of FAW as well... I will check out the drones however, and make sure they are getting the same defense bonus fighters are being given.
As for squadrons of fighters (or just all deployables, as you suggest) being considered one target, we actually did look into this, but it'd be an extremely fundamental change to the way the system works, and the amount of work it would take would be hard to justify right now with all of the other things we need to make happen yesterday. There also is some concern it would not necessarily solve all the issues, as then it'd be impossible to target the torpedoes you care about and not the mines you don't care about.
i figured it would be tough to do, but if there was ever time, higher value targets like torps could be left out of the spam catch all target.
what do you think about a station change up for the Varanus? maybe with a COM engineering station, LT tactical, and a LTC, LT, and ENS science stations. then it would truly be a support ship, and still have more science stations then not so its still primarily a science ship.
any of the native tier 5 ships this could be done to, sovereigns with commander tactical stations, star cruisers with commander science stations, fleet escorts with commander engineering stations. I've been brainstorming more interesting station setups like this, and when i was done i was going to post them all somewhere on the forum
I apologize if it was my post you thought was out of line, and I do very much appreciate what you are doing. While I see disagreement and criticism, I don't see anyone being abusive towards you like your statement implies. That being said, it does peeve me off to see all of these exceptions to the rules that always seem to be on the Klingon side and always seem to make things worse for the faction.
The newest example is the Peng debacle. Every other craftable item is BoE, but this one is BoP. Or the Vorcha having less health and one less device slot to make up for it's turn rate, while no other cruiser in the game has stats adjusted based on turn rate. Not having efficient boffs hurts as well, which seems like it would be a quick fix.
However, that being said having the Varanus lose shields (unlike what beagles thinks it does not also lose hull) as well as a console slot is the wrong way to go. Being inconsistent is only going to breed discontent, as you can already see. The hull repair drones should be balanced around losing a console slot only, same as every other ship in the game.
Sounds like a good change but would you be looking at carrying over any such change to the Tal'Kyr onto the playable shuttle?
It would be welcomed if it did, in theory its one of my favorite shuttles but suffers so much from its very low turn rate compared to other shuttle (its almost unusable in The Vault) but if it was somehow masked it would give it an interesting new lease of life. I think a mask energy signature ability but with shields still active and able to fire while active but easier to be detected at very close range and obviously able to be detected while firing weapons. It could make it an interesting ship for coop play supporting a larger main ship at lower levels before you gain access to the D'Kyr itself
As a big fan of shuttles/fighters i would welcome anything that made the more viable ships for using at higher levels then now even if in more of a support capacity then as a solo ship
PS keep up the good work