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Message to Capt. Geko regarding Sovereign refit
acejim
Member Posts: 22 Arc User
Hi Captain Geko,
Thank you for all the great new ships being added to the Fleet starbase. I really appreciate the really hard work the team is putting into this game.
I want to give you feedback about the new Fleet Sovereign refit which has me a bit concerned. As you know from the posts from these forums, many of us are very passionate about our ships, and many of us here are really passionate about the Sovereign. We have been really excited about the new Sovereign refit.
My concern is that the new boff arrangement for the the Fleet Sovereign refit goes too far. Yes it gives us a huge tactical boost, alot more than we expected, however, with this change it loses one of the qualities many of us loved about the Sovereign, which is the great balance between offense and defense (tanking ability). The only thing I felt we needed was just a slight boost to Tactical ability without upsetting this balance.
As it stands with this new boff arrangment, the Fleet Sovereign refit is the most tactical cruiser which is awesome, however this is done at a too great of the price on its tanking ability. It is now one of the weakest tanks among tier 5 cruisers. The balance is gone.
The following is one of the popular boff arrangements a group of us have to discussing in another thread:
Com ENG
LtCom ENG
LtCom TAC
Lt Sci
This arrangement loses one ENS TAC for one LtCom TAC. This gives us the boost in Tactical without sacrificing its tanking ability.
Please consider this arrangement or any other that will help maintain some balance.
Another option is to give us 2 variants of the Fleet Sovereign refit. One with the original (balanced) boff arrangement and other with the new Tactical heavy boff arrangement. This will give some of us a choice of staying with our current balanced arrangement and stay competitive with other fleet ships in endgame. I don't like the idea of having to change my gameplay style at endgame just to stay flying a Sovereign.
Once again...thank you.
Thank you for all the great new ships being added to the Fleet starbase. I really appreciate the really hard work the team is putting into this game.
I want to give you feedback about the new Fleet Sovereign refit which has me a bit concerned. As you know from the posts from these forums, many of us are very passionate about our ships, and many of us here are really passionate about the Sovereign. We have been really excited about the new Sovereign refit.
My concern is that the new boff arrangement for the the Fleet Sovereign refit goes too far. Yes it gives us a huge tactical boost, alot more than we expected, however, with this change it loses one of the qualities many of us loved about the Sovereign, which is the great balance between offense and defense (tanking ability). The only thing I felt we needed was just a slight boost to Tactical ability without upsetting this balance.
As it stands with this new boff arrangment, the Fleet Sovereign refit is the most tactical cruiser which is awesome, however this is done at a too great of the price on its tanking ability. It is now one of the weakest tanks among tier 5 cruisers. The balance is gone.
The following is one of the popular boff arrangements a group of us have to discussing in another thread:
Com ENG
LtCom ENG
LtCom TAC
Lt Sci
This arrangement loses one ENS TAC for one LtCom TAC. This gives us the boost in Tactical without sacrificing its tanking ability.
Please consider this arrangement or any other that will help maintain some balance.
Another option is to give us 2 variants of the Fleet Sovereign refit. One with the original (balanced) boff arrangement and other with the new Tactical heavy boff arrangement. This will give some of us a choice of staying with our current balanced arrangement and stay competitive with other fleet ships in endgame. I don't like the idea of having to change my gameplay style at endgame just to stay flying a Sovereign.
Once again...thank you.
Post edited by acejim on
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Comments
Given she is Fleet Tier 5, she should be something well worth the wait. While Big Fleets will get her in 7 months, small fleets like mine (under 6 players) will be grinding for 2 years to get her.
And with us being told that the Sovereign Refit is going to be in the C-store, I don't want her to be antiquated like the other C-store ships as soon as I purchase her (Fleet Ships being +1 over C-store ships).
Actually the precedence for 2 LtCom has already been set. The Atrox Carrier has the following boff arrangement:
Com Sci
LtCom Sci
LtCom Eng
Lt Tac
So it is not unreasonable to request a LtCom ENG and a LtCom Tac.
Also with a COM ENG and Ens ENG, you can no longer chain Emergency Power to Shields 3.
Trust me, you cannot tank too well with this boff arrangement. At least no where close. Remember that the Sovereign is a cruiser with poor turn rate compared to an escort, so it cannot easily turn its shield facing away or run as fast as an escort.
Also if you use the Lt Universal for Engineering, than you do not have Sci abilities which helps supplement tanking with Transfer Shield strength, Sci Team, hazard emitters.
I think they swung the pendulum too far from balanced offense and defense to crazy extreme offense (for a cruiser) with significantly diminished defense.
Given the choice, I'll stay with the current sovereign layout. Just wish we will get a Fleet Sovereign variant with the current layout.
However, I see that the Heavy Cruiser retrofit and its fleet version has the original Sovereign (Assault cruiser) layout now.
the carriers are untunable lumps that cant interact with thier surroundings very well, have few weapons, and have to rely on pets to accomplish much. that is a lot different from a lean cruiser, sci ship, or escort having 2 LTC stations. that exists no were in game
i happen to be one of the best cruiser tanker/survives there is in pvp, i can assure you, not being able to chain EXTREMELY selfish EPtS3 is not a death sentence, you never need more then 2 copies of version 1.
i could tank multiple escorts in that thing all say, with 2 copies of EPtS1, RSP1, ET3, and A2S3. throw in some HE and TSS and some shield distro doffs on top and you will be unkillable for 5 minutes of constant escort fire if you know how to play.
with the universal used for engineering as well, you could have 2 copies of EPtW1, EPtS1/2, RSP1, ET3, and A2S3. thats proboly what i would do, thats still a lot of survivability. and some shield distro doffs
2 copies of EPtS3 arent going to save you if your not smart enough to use TT or even to manually distribute your shields at all times.
Havn't taken a look at the Fleet BoP's have you? :rolleyes:
Anyhow, I agree that the Sovereign with 2 LTC slots may be overdone. But right now I rather have the LTC Engineering and LT Science for survivability.
actually i have, i am intimately aware of all ship related things right now, just check the first link in my sig. in fact i think you posted in that thread already.
the bird of prey you are referring to has about 16k health for its second LTC station, i doubt the op want to trade that much hitpoints for the sovereigns second LTC station.
Actually I use Tactical Team as well...an awesome skill. With the current boff arrangement, I can tank with the best of them and dish out alot of damage at the same time. I regularly get 1st place in Fleet Actions. What I love about the current boff layout is the fact that I can do both well. That is the beauty of its balance. Just upset that we no longer have this fine balance but rather a gross skew towards tactical. I'm sure I can adapt to these changes by changing my play style.
I don't know...for me...it feels like a sumo wrestler trying to fight like a ninja. Its a cruiser trying too hard to be an escort. So much so that it loses it identity in the process and becomes not good in anything. It still can't DPS as well as an escort and certainly can not tank as well as most cruisers now. So it is now something entirely different. Not the ship I have come to know and love.
As the OP said, I hope we can also have a fleet variant with the original boff layout as I prefer the LtCom ENG over the LtCom TAC anyday.
I agree with dontdrunkimshoot, as someone who will probably fly that BoP, its a heavy trade, although I do think the hull will be buffed a bit.
http://johneaves.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/the-evolutions-of-the-uss-midway-cv-41-and-the-uss-enterprise-ncc-1701-e/final-e-small/
Could you please comment on this, any word would be awesome.
Thanks keep up the good work.
Rivera responded to that on Priority One.
Seems like the same Trade-off we had between the Hegh'ta and the B'Rel Refit. HPs to offset the Enhanced Cloak. Yet, there are master captains that don't need those extra HPs.
So we lose HPs again, but this time for the sake of a LTC slot? A second LTC slot is just easily going to offset the loss of HPs. Hazzard 3, SIF2. So you gain more than you lost.
I don't actually make the refits, I just play with them
really, i must of blanked out when he said it, what did he say about that design for the refit!!!!????:eek:
Sorry Raj. Yes...Captain Geko said he saw the link to John Eaves Nemesis refit design and said that the look was not different enough to compell them to put the resources into it.
well plus that the nacelles are to low, they are normally visible when looking at the ship from the front view. Plus i swear the saucer its to small and needs to be a little wider. The deflector dish does not have that glow above. Phaser arrays in the wrong place, missing torpedo tubes, new paint scheme and patterns. The is a alot i can get into but these are the main points.
Not different enough! Even the nemesis sovereign is different to the one in first contact and insurrection, 1st new paint job and patterns, the nacelles have been risen and moved forwards, don't like that they moved them forwards makes the sovereign class shorter now
http://johneaves.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/plans-nem-small2.jpg
nemesis version, half done refit. As seen in the movie.
http://johneaves.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/the-evolutions-of-the-uss-midway-cv-41-and-the-uss-enterprise-ncc-1701-e/final-e-small/
nemesis version, fully done refit. Which was suppsoed to be at the end of the movie after the spacedock scene but was cut due to budgets. So at least they could add it in here or the nemesis version as seen in the movie.
I know about these, but I was suggesting something they could do to fix the current model, not redesign a new one. I personally think they should redesign it and make her look like she did in Nemesis, but I am willing to compromise if they just fix the current version.
Hey Dontdurnkimshoot,
Perhaps having 2 LtComs is the way to go with these new Fleet ships. Afterall, these fleet ships are essentially the "new" upper tier of ships. Looking at the boff layouts of the fleet ships, it looks like they are running out of combinations...to a point that we are seeing similar boff layouts in different ships (eg/ Fleet Heavy Cruiser retrofit and Regular Assault Cruiser).
I know way back when the Excelsior refit was first introduced, they were actually considering a boff layout of ComENG, LtCom TAC, LtCom Sci, Ens ENG. However, when many cried "Overpowered" they changed it to its current boff layout of Com ENG, LtCom TAC, Lt ENG, Lt Sci, and Ens ENG. Also for the Galaxy Retrofit, they were considering 2 Com ENG and they were considering upscaling other tier 5 ships. For the Assault cruisers, they were considering the boff layout we mentioned in this thread (Com ENG, LtCom Eng, LtCom TAC, Lt Sci) and for the Star cruiser (ComENG, LtCom ENG, LtCom Sci, Lt Tac).
So as the game progresses, this 2 LtCom idea may be the way to go for top-tiered Fleet ships.
Your thoughts please.
well the sovereign in game should look like the nemesis version, don't understand why it does not look like it? What do you think needs fixing?
thankfully we talked them down from that craziness. its simply to powerful, and at this point they would never retroactively uprate older ships with that setup. the current station setup for tier 5 is COM, LTC, LT, LT, ENS, if they change that its not tier 5 anymore.
people are way to quick to call something tier 6, these fleet ships are hardly tier 6. they have the same number of stations, the same number of weapons and just 1 additional console and up to 10% more hitpoints.
there are a ton of additional combinations that i can think of with the usual tier 5 station setup, imagine if they swapped the COM and ENS station type on the sovereign, and all the other original tier 5 ships for the fleet version. it would still be a cruiser and have more engineering stations then tactical. its them that arent imaginative enough.
As a compromise, if they fix the "floating windows" on the underside of the saucer, fix the font for the name/hull numbering, and give her the starfleet markings she is missing, it would be a improvement and shouldn't require a new model. I wouldn't mind them at least lightening the hull color a bit either, but I can deal with that. I would like to see them make her look like she did in nemesis just because that was the most recent design though. I liked the design a lot better than the one we have.
Could they improve the colour of the ship, as in nemesis it is brighter. I might be okay with this.
How much do you think will cost to get the refit???
I still think 2 LtCom is not anymore OP. However considering other options to give the Sovereign a tactical boost without totally nerfing its tanking ability. How about the following:
Com ENG
Lt Eng
LtCom Tac
Ens Tac
Lt Universal
I basically swapped the Ens Eng with the Lt Tac. This amounts to loss of only one Engineer ability (LtCom Eng ability) and gain an LtCom Tac ability. The Lt Universal now can be free to use as a Lt Sci as with original layout. This way we are not forced choose between a Lt ENG or Lt Sci in the Universal slot. Therefore the net difference is lose one LtCom Eng ability for one LtCom Tac ability. This allows the Sovereign to still be the most tactical Cruiser while not being the worst tanker.
This is a compromise. However, I still favour the LtCom Tac and LtCom ENG.
LTC Tactical
CMDR ENG
LTC ENG
LT SCI
But then we easily will have people aruging over it being OP. And I really don't like the idea of using the Excelsior BO Configuration, nor the current Fleet Sovereign configuration. Cryptic needs to stay true to the Sovereign configuration.
Which is funny, because this is the only Fleet ship that has a different BO configuration than it's earlier counterparts.
This is why I think Cryptic is out of ideas and why they should've just made a Tier 6. Or revised the ship system to where we could upgrade our ships as we level.
when your talking about it not having enough survivability, i seriously hope your not talking about pve. i could do 100% of the pve story content on normal without shields if i wanted too with any tier 5 ship. the sovereign is absolutely fine as is, it will be a thing of beauty with 4 tactical consoles, 1 LTC tactical power, 2 LT tactical powers, and 2 ENS tactical powers.
But what of Sovereign Captains who want that CMD+ LCR Engineering slot? Do we have to get the middle bird by the Dev Team and force us to another Fleet ship like the Star Cruiser or the Galaxy so we could have that slot? Or we have to sit back in our old Sovereigns and not even participate?
Is there not supposed to be a C-Store (Zen store) Sovereign coming (maybe sooner than you'll be able to get to the fleet one)? Hope for it to have the Lt. Comm. eng slot if you so value it.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
However, the issue here is not that we are whining because we can't survive in PVE or PVP. I can survive in PVE story content without barely using any boff abilities. The issue is game play style. Many of us love flying the current Sovereign for its balance of offense and defense. It is a playstyle preference. Now with the new Fleet Sovereign boff setup, we can no longer enjoy the same playstyle or feel. We will be essentially flying a vastly different ship...an escort with a Sovereign skin. We were very happy with the current Sovereign. But in endgame, to continue to fly the ship we love, we have change our playstyle. I guess you can say we are also fans of this balanced playstyle. Therefore with the upcoming Fleet Sovereign boff setup, we'll have to give up our preferred playstyle to fly the Sovereign or give up flying the Sovereign to fly a different ship with our preferred playstyle (such as the Fleet heavy cruiser retrofit, which has exactly the same boff layout as the current sovereign).
One way to please both groups is to have 2 Fleet variants: one with the original balanced boff layout and second, the new Tactical heavy variant.
Of course another way, is to change the boff layout to Com ENG, LtCom Eng, LtCom TAC, Lt Sci. This allows us to continue our current playstyle and fly the Sovereign. I agree with Ace...this is a reasonable setup for Fleet ships (which as essentially tier 5.5). It still has 12 boff stations...so it is still Tier 5.
um, yes? the difference between your beloved COM and LTC engendering station sovereign and the fleet sovereign's stats are 10% more hitpoints and shields, and a 4th tactical console. these fleet ships arent tier 6, they arent tier 5.5, they arent even +1. +1 ships had an extra ENS or LT station power. the fleet ships are merely 5.1 ships, like the odyssey and bortasq.
i hate to break it to you, but the stat difference between the fleet and stock sovereign is a nearly unnoticeable drops in the bucket. if you like playing your engineering heavy version, go for it, but stop trying to stifle something different becase its out of your confort zone. your sovereign already has 3 tactical powers, the sovereign you want has 3 tactical powers. sure for balance and consistency reasons they arent as high end as you would like them to be, but they are all that ship with its limited tactical potential needs. only a ship with as many tactical stations as geko's fleet sovereign is really going to be able to take advantage of 4 tac consoles.
You really think that the C-store version is going to be en par with the Fleet version? Doubt it.
Yes, they very much are +1, because you gain a console slot. So if you want to call them Teir 5.5 ships, go right ahead.
And we can argue over X power over Y ability til the cows come home, the fact remains the Devs themselves have stated that Enterprises are Pure Cruisers, which means that the Sovereign should have a Commander Engineering and a LTC Engineering BO slots.
If people want a LTC Tactical slot, they can very much go fly that blasted Odyssey or the Excelsior. End of story.
However, if they make her LTC Tac / CMDR + LTC ENG / LT Sci, I'd agree to that. But again, that refit should be done properly as a Tier 6 ship. Which is why Fleet Starbase ships should be Tier 6 ships or the entire ship system completely revamped.