I would improve jam sensors to be a blind some sort of power. Perhaps accuracy debuff with a DOFF.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
Hey Borticus, I'm actually located not far from your offices, I could come over and demonstrate as well as discuss the solutions the issues regarding balance in STO PVP if you'd like. PM me if interested.
I think, if they take you up on your offer, I can donate some gas money to you, at this point, I have nothing else to waste my money on as I refuse to waste a dim more on this LOL MMO.
Ok, right... I guess I should clarify something here, and this may be a difference of terminology that's led to some miscommunication in the past.
When we state something like "scales from 4-16 based on XX skill" those numbers are assuming 0 skill for the low end, and 100 skill for the top end (or 99, close enough for rounding). So players that min-max to achieve additional bonuses above and beyond that, via specific gear sets and consoles, will exceed the ranges given.
In Zorandra's case, the numbers being given are expected, but atypical because they are the result of a build that has been custom tailored to exceed expectations. Our systems allow players to do that, but are not generally considered a measuring stick with which to make overall balance decisions.
Borticus, I strongly feel that it is a mistake to base something on a high end of 100 skill points used. In fact, I strongly feel that your team should assuming at least 150 skill on the high end. I mean, seriously! Do they not realize how easy it is to greatly exceed 100 skill points on the ?high? end. 100 skill-points base is a middle range!
Ok, right... I guess I should clarify something here, and this may be a difference of terminology that's led to some miscommunication in the past.
When we state something like "scales from 4-16 based on XX skill" those numbers are assuming 0 skill for the low end, and 100 skill for the top end (or 99, close enough for rounding). So players that min-max to achieve additional bonuses above and beyond that, via specific gear sets and consoles, will exceed the ranges given.
In Zorandra's case, the numbers being given are expected, but atypical because they are the result of a build that has been custom tailored to exceed expectations. Our systems allow players to do that, but are not generally considered a measuring stick with which to make overall balance decisions.
Umm, Borticus, You folks are, to say it simply doing it wrong.
How do you ever expect to create a balance, if you simply ignore the top end of what is possible in your decision making? Players are humans, humans are primed to min max when put under pressure, which pvp and high end pve will do. One must take the full range of possible values into account in balancing or one can simply forget any balance from the get go. Since there will always be players that will go the last mile to create that ueber build to exploit the system. And then the system is not prepared for it and it breaks down.
This right here is the main reason balance in this game is in shambles. In PvP and PvE alike. Please think carefully if you want to keep doing it or do it right.
I hear what you're all saying, so don't take this as being dismissive... but isn't this kind of a self-policing system? Sure you can raise Flow Capacitors to 200+ but can't you also choose to invest just as heavily into Power Insulators to offset that?
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
I hear what you're all saying, so don't take this as being dismissive... but isn't this kind of a self-policing system? Sure you can raise Flow Capacitors to 200+ but can't you also choose to invest just as heavily into Power Insulators to offset that?
Some of our ships don't have 4 science console slots to compensate for that much drain. There should be a more fair middle ground here ;p Not "Insta drained to utter uselessness permanently" Even though I have max power insulators and Purple XII insulator console equipped, it does nothing to protect me from mass drain. At best it saves me from an Aceton...
Edit: Maybe Power Insulators aren't working correctly? But even my deflector has 22.2 power insulation, so that is +30 + 22.2 +99?
Maybe if you give power insulators 30% more effectiveness over Flow Capacitors?
I hear what you're all saying, so don't take this as being dismissive... but isn't this kind of a self-policing system? Sure you can raise Flow Capacitors to 200+ but can't you also choose to invest just as heavily into Power Insulators to offset that?
To be very, very blunt and honest with you, no, not in the least! The reason players cannot self-police against things like Flow Capacitors with two hundred (200+) plus skill-points modified by ship equipment, consuls and abilities is because the drain ability is balanced on a minimum of zero (0) skill-points to a maximum of one hundred (100) skill points. The reason for this balance decision based on player base skill points is because not all ships are capable of exceeding this maximum by a large margin and because all ships are capable of this margin.
The issue is actually stemmed in the class system, where it is possible to MAX, MAX and MIN, MIN.
For example: A tactical Escort cannot hope to ever stack enough resistances against a MAX, MAX Flow Capacitor build because the Flow Capacitor MAX, MAX is far above the possible margin that the Escort can resist against it. The only way to solve for this miss match is to never allow stacking of multiple consoles of the same bonus. Even then, it would only help mitigate the issue.
Look at the math here:
A science vessel with MAX, MAX flow capacitor skill has four slots that he or she can get +30% bonuses for a total of 120%. Assuming he has MAX out the skill already he or she already has 220% theoretically. This is without ability bonuses or equipment bonuses or bonuses from PROC or anything else.
A tactical escort has typically two slots to put Power Insulators to offset for a total of 60% and if he or she max out power insulators that is a total of 160%.
The science vessel rightly has a higher margin; but by 40% and likely by 60% or higher due to equipment and other things. This is only if the Escort player as MAX out defense. Likely, what is happening is the Science Flow Capacitor bonuses far exceed the defense that a player will typically have against power drain abilities because they will typically only put 6/9 points into power insulators and never use power insulator consoles because having shields is more important.
The truth of the matter is, the game should be balanced around the actual MIN of 0 skill point bonus and maximum of 300 point skill bonus. Only then will abilities fall in line with their intended functions.
Look... I am willing to work with others here in the community to help. Give us the "spreedsheet" and we can and will fix the balance issues for free!!!!!!!
For those upset about power drain builds. Have you tried using Beam target Aux on your attacks. I know when I was pvp with fleet mates. One of the guys on other team had karfi that was draining. At first his team was slaugthering us. Till I switch up skills and went with Beam target aux and start making sure I took out his pets. Then the match turn. Once I switch tactics he was no longer able to lock me down.
For those upset about power drain builds. Have you tried using Beam target Aux on your attacks. I know when I was pvp with fleet mates. One of the guys on other team had karfi that was draining. At first his team was slaugthering us. Till I switch up skills and went with Beam target aux and start making sure I took out his pets. Then the match turn. Once I switch tactics he was no longer able to lock me down.
Some of us use cannons :P Even so, I don't think that is a viable strategy that will work in all case scenarios.
I hear what you're all saying, so don't take this as being dismissive... but isn't this kind of a self-policing system? Sure you can raise Flow Capacitors to 200+ but can't you also choose to invest just as heavily into Power Insulators to offset that?
It would help if you published the math behind all those skills.
How do these things work? Is it (attacker's skill points - defender's skill points) * base value or is it base * attacker's increasing multiplier * defender's decreasing multiplier? Or something else entirely?
Essentially the question boils down to: If I add two flowcap consoles and my opponent adds two insulator consoles, will they cancel each other out? And what about situations where you attack people with two different abilities? Say one 4-console boosted energy drain and one 4-console boosted slow. Then even in a "1 cancels 1" situation, the target can only defend against one of the attackers to get back into your 100 baseline scenario and will be unable to resist the second attack vector. Remember that you can choose to put all attacks on a single target, but you cannot focus all innate resists of a team on a single person to counter that since innate resists cannot be cast on others whereas attacks can be projected onto others.
Now knowing that they balance the game from the standpoint of either having a zero skill point bonus or a 100 skill point bonus, the failure of balanced content is so easy to understand. I mean, common, it is easy to get nearly +300 bonuses in almost any given skill.
Look at this:
Skill-9 points = 99% bonus to base in Flow Capacitors
4 x Rare MK XI flow capacitor consoles = +114
Assume another +36 from ship equipment such as deflector and etc.
Total = 249% and that isn?t even the most you can get?. That is 149 points above their balance margin. In fact, because the balance is from 0 to 100, theoretically, players are at a min of -14% even if they are putting 9 points into power insulators. What a joke!
Funny is, some attacks like tachyon beam are heavily resisted by even 4/9 power insulators.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
I hear what you're all saying, so don't take this as being dismissive... but isn't this kind of a self-policing system? Sure you can raise Flow Capacitors to 200+ but can't you also choose to invest just as heavily into Power Insulators to offset that?
Why invest heavily into a skill that is useful sometimes when you can just spec into a skill that's useful all the time.
The simple solution is to make the resist skills such as power insulators far more effective probably 75% more effective than it currently is for it to be worth speccing into.
Once again I am willing to stop by Crytptic HQ to show the more serious balance issues in regards to STO PVP. I have a excellent grasp on the PVP mechanics in STO especially in regards to PVP and the rest of the PVP community can vouch for that.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] Aytanhi of TSI, TSI fleet founder and leader OrganizedPVP channel Admin Feel free to ask me about PVP or starship strategies. "No, I am not Borg!" /channel_join OrganizedPVP If you are interested in learning PVP, looking for a team, or a private match
Why invest heavily into a skill that is useful sometimes when you can just spec into a skill that's useful all the time.
The simple solution is to make the resist skills such as power insulators far more effective probably 75% more effective than it currently is for it to be worth speccing into.
75% sounds way too high :P
But without knowing how exactly Power Insulator vs Flow Capacitor is effective when Power Insulator starts being lower than Flow Capacitor
IE: I have 30 Power Insulator but the opponent has 31 Flow Capacitor? Exactly what is the math here and how much will they be able to drain from me?
I hear what you're all saying, so don't take this as being dismissive... but isn't this kind of a self-policing system? Sure you can raise Flow Capacitors to 200+ but can't you also choose to invest just as heavily into Power Insulators to offset that?
There are a couple of other issues to bring up on this. Others have brought up differening ships have differing capabilities to resist/boost. As well as only being able to resist so much.
In addition there's the following:
1st unless things have changed Boff powers dependent on Flow Cap were more easily resisted via Flow Caps in the past. I don't know if this has changed or not as I haven't tested lately, but could if you'd like. On the other hand, NPC powers ei pets and consoles were not resisted as well by Flow Cap points. Imo, this should be reversed and passive weapon powers from gear should be in the NPC source group.
A second issue is many Sci powers have multiple aspects which are boosted by multiple abilities. For example TBR (Tractor Beam Repulsers) has damage boosted by one ability and the push by a second ability combined w/aux power. Again I haven't tested lately, but in the past the push was resistable by investing in skill, but the damage was not. Energy Siphons similar to plas leech has the drain resistable, but nothing to deal w/the gain. Often there's a way to resist one effect and no soft counter to mitigate the 2nd effect.
As I recall from previous Dev posts this past spring/late winter the end goal of drain resistance absent skills was the more being drained the more resistant a ship naturally became w/a minimum base a ship wouldn't drop below from pure drains ~30 I thought. For example if it took X drain to get a subsytem to 50 it may take 2X or more to get it to 40. To me this seemed like a reasonable approach which would deal O.K. w/force multiplier effects from passives attacks in particular. Whatever happened to this? I can tell you I've been drained to all zeros in subsystems by pets combined w/boff/console powers etc from 1 ship.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
I hear what you're all saying, so don't take this as being dismissive... but isn't this kind of a self-policing system? Sure you can raise Flow Capacitors to 200+ but can't you also choose to invest just as heavily into Power Insulators to offset that?
From how it was before it was nerfed so badly that a lot of toons I had personally for energy stealing are now useless because of those changes that make what you are asked possible.
The simple solution is to make the resist skills such as power insulators far more effective probably 75% more effective than it currently is for it to be worth speccing into.
Hmm... this would be devastating to CPB, Tachyon, E-Siphon and Tykens, but they already are useless, so it wouldn't matter much
I hear what you're all saying, so don't take this as being dismissive... but isn't this kind of a self-policing system? Sure you can raise Flow Capacitors to 200+ but can't you also choose to invest just as heavily into Power Insulators to offset that?
You have to look at the opportunity cost of something like this.
1) Specializing in Flow Caps gives you an addition to your offense that is useful against most opponents and possibly only disadvantaged against 1 opponent type that specialized to resist you. (Remember, Flow Caps is a T1 skill, that buffs a wide range of things from Tetryon and Polaron procs to Plasmonic Leech).
2) Specializing in Power Insulators would give you a defense useful against one specific offense and disadvantage you against the single basically universal offense - raw damage, as you sacrificed Field Generators to be resistant to drains.
Both examples give up field generators to achieve their goals, but only the Flow Caps build gets a nearly universally usable end result from it.
this is why the skill tree merger was a bad idea. how can a shield drain power also be resisterd by a power drain power?
anything that is done to power insulators to resist power drains stops shield drains/damage way too much as well. they need to be split into 2 different skill tree boxes imo.
also as a side note, was just in a match against some klingons. kept getting hit by something that would reduce all my power to 0. had this happen mutliple times. would be at full power then BAM! 0. and about a dozen siphion pods kept me at between 8-13 power most of the match as well.
this is why the skill tree merger was a bad idea. how can a shield drain power also be resisterd by a power drain power?
anything that is done to power insulators to resist power drains stops shield drains/damage way too much as well. they need to be split into 2 different skill tree boxes imo.
also as a side note, was just in a match against some klingons. kept getting hit by something that would reduce all my power to 0. had this happen mutliple times. would be at full power then BAM! 0. and about a dozen siphion pods kept me at between 8-13 power most of the match as well.
As a klink, (as that is my lolaron toon) I've drained people completely dry through sheer procs, infact I did this two times the last time I pvped in kerrat. Any other drains on the field lengthens the amount of time you recover from it. were there lolarons on the field?
Some of you are advocating for increased resistances, and yet the bulk of the PvP crowd argued against increased resistances when the skill revamp took place late last year. We can't have it both ways.
The other arguments about opportunity costs and build choices seem to possess an equivalent duality: You can't build yourself effectively to resist Drains without "gimping" something else, and so request the ability to do so with decreased cost. Isn't having to give up one aspect of your effectiveness in favor of another the very essence of a multi-tiered balance system?
As for the players arguing that Escorts don't have the same control and resistance capabilities that a Science vessel can have? ... well, I don't mean to sound harsh, but ... yes, and that should have been obvious. But you could flip the same argument on its head for a Science vessel attempting to obtain Escort-like DPS and maneuverability.
Every aspect of any system is a give-and-take. Is our existing system perfect? No, not by a long shot. But every single tweak sends ripples out to a dozen other balancing vectors that need to be taken into consideration.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Some of you are advocating for increased resistances, and yet the bulk of the PvP crowd argued against increased resistances when the skill revamp took place late last year. We can't have it both ways.
The other arguments about opportunity costs and build choices seem to possess an equivalent duality: You can't build yourself effectively to resist Drains without "gimping" something else, and so request the ability to do so with decreased cost. Isn't having to give up one aspect of your effectiveness in favor of another the very essence of a multi-tiered balance system?
As for the players arguing that Escorts don't have the same control and resistance capabilities that a Science vessel can have? ... well, I don't mean to sound harsh, but ... yes, and that should have been obvious. But you could flip the same argument on its head for a Science vessel attempting to obtain Escort-like DPS and maneuverability.
Every aspect of any system is a give-and-take. Is our existing system perfect? No, not by a long shot. But every single tweak sends ripples out to a dozen other balancing vectors that need to be taken into consideration.
Bort, this isn't a weapon specific resist, this is a power drain resist it is clear that Power insulators is not effective enough against power level drains. Most of PvP will argue that builds that can completely shut down all of your power levels permanently until you are dead, should not exist no matter if you are flying an escort or a cruiser.
Why? Because there is no counter except "change your ship" which isn't game balance. And I'm still skeptical as to how effective power insulators would even be in a ship with 4 science consoles. The effectiveness of flow capacitors to assist power drain abilities is way too high.
Some of you are advocating for increased resistances, and yet the bulk of the PvP crowd argued against increased resistances when the skill revamp took place late last year. We can't have it both ways.
The other arguments about opportunity costs and build choices seem to possess an equivalent duality: You can't build yourself effectively to resist Drains without "gimping" something else, and so request the ability to do so with decreased cost. Isn't having to give up one aspect of your effectiveness in favor of another the very essence of a multi-tiered balance system?
As for the players arguing that Escorts don't have the same control and resistance capabilities that a Science vessel can have? ... well, I don't mean to sound harsh, but ... yes, and that should have been obvious. But you could flip the same argument on its head for a Science vessel attempting to obtain Escort-like DPS and maneuverability.
Every aspect of any system is a give-and-take. Is our existing system perfect? No, not by a long shot. But every single tweak sends ripples out to a dozen other balancing vectors that need to be taken into consideration.
I don't know what you've been reading. I don't really care.
The thing is, stuff is not necessarily Mutually Exclusive like you think they are. Resistances, namely for power drains, (and specifically speaking there is one offender here and that is siphon pods) are almost non existent. On the flip side, Shield Drain Attacks for example, are laughably ineffective.
So you were saying?
That build right there is All But Immune, to Shield Drain Attacks, it should be All But Immune to Power drain as well but you guys broke the skill tree on Power Drains, outside of Target Subsystems, and Esiphon. Tykens, lolaron, Assims, and most damning, Siphon Pods don't care about your insulators. They also don't care about how many batteries you feed your ship, how many times EPS Power gets thrown on you, how many Emergency powers you have. It's Strip The Ship with nothing to answer to it. If you can't see why this is stupid, maybe you should look into sweeping floors instead of game design.
This build also, does a great job of ignoring grav well and TBR repels. Other things, though such as Chronitons, Tractor, and Warp Plasma it does nothing on, because you guys once again have Resistances that Do Not Work Correctly.
"But your ground game will suck with that build!" Who honestly cares about lolground. No one. No seriously, no one cares about it. And those that do build dedicated ground toons anyway.
As far as CC goes... what planet are you guys on. Because CC in this game, in the Sci Department has been sorely lacking ever since you guys revised the skill tree and gave us this stupid pile of Fail.
here's my suggestion.
Revert Back. Put the old tree back in, minus Ship Specific Specs. Add Resistance skills that Work Correctly.
Now, cap those resistances from skill spec at 25 percent like a smart person would. Then add a subsequent +25 percent resistance against any second or third attack that fits the type you just got hit by. (ie got hit by chroniton, get an extra +25 percent vs Tractor beam), for Stuns, keep the stun immunity, same for scramble. (even though frankly Scramble is a terrible mechanic anyway)
Would it really kill you guys, to try it our way for once. Instead of saying you do, while still only putting up a half hearted effort, and the effort you do do, has almost 0 basis in the #s, videos, graphs, and posts we feed you.
Some of you are advocating for increased resistances, and yet the bulk of the PvP crowd argued against increased resistances when the skill revamp took place late last year. We can't have it both ways.
The other arguments about opportunity costs and build choices seem to possess an equivalent duality: You can't build yourself effectively to resist Drains without "gimping" something else, and so request the ability to do so with decreased cost. Isn't having to give up one aspect of your effectiveness in favor of another the very essence of a multi-tiered balance system?
As for the players arguing that Escorts don't have the same control and resistance capabilities that a Science vessel can have? ... well, I don't mean to sound harsh, but ... yes, and that should have been obvious. But you could flip the same argument on its head for a Science vessel attempting to obtain Escort-like DPS and maneuverability.
Every aspect of any system is a give-and-take. Is our existing system perfect? No, not by a long shot. But every single tweak sends ripples out to a dozen other balancing vectors that need to be taken into consideration.
I posted to the general discussion forums about this but I think having the same standards for PvE and PvP doesn't do either one any favors unless you want PvP to be "Elite PvE."
Builds, stats, and design have to be separate or PvP will simply be PvE with a smarter opponent.
Some of you are advocating for increased resistances, and yet the bulk of the PvP crowd argued against increased resistances when the skill revamp took place late last year. We can't have it both ways.
The other arguments about opportunity costs and build choices seem to possess an equivalent duality: You can't build yourself effectively to resist Drains without "gimping" something else, and so request the ability to do so with decreased cost. Isn't having to give up one aspect of your effectiveness in favor of another the very essence of a multi-tiered balance system?
As for the players arguing that Escorts don't have the same control and resistance capabilities that a Science vessel can have? ... well, I don't mean to sound harsh, but ... yes, and that should have been obvious. But you could flip the same argument on its head for a Science vessel attempting to obtain Escort-like DPS and maneuverability.
Every aspect of any system is a give-and-take. Is our existing system perfect? No, not by a long shot. But every single tweak sends ripples out to a dozen other balancing vectors that need to be taken into consideration.
Borticus, I don't recall anyone ever arguing that science vessels should have the same dps as an escort in the PVP section. Or anyone complaining that an escort can't tank as well as a cruiser, we are "concerned" with certain abilities being too powerful especially when compared to the rest of the abilities available to that class which causes these abilities to be chosen over all the other abilities available.
The reason every single tweak sends out these giant ripples is because you always tweak the ability too far, and or too shallowly. Plasmonic Lecch, Carrier Pets, Feedback Pulse, Eject Warp Plasma, Subnucleonic Beam, Viral Matrix, etc. For example are all abilities that have been buffed, nerfed, and then rebuffed again and again without any serious feedback from the pvp community.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] Aytanhi of TSI, TSI fleet founder and leader OrganizedPVP channel Admin Feel free to ask me about PVP or starship strategies. "No, I am not Borg!" /channel_join OrganizedPVP If you are interested in learning PVP, looking for a team, or a private match
Some of you are advocating for increased resistances, and yet the bulk of the PvP crowd argued against increased resistances when the skill revamp took place late last year. We can't have it both ways.
The other arguments about opportunity costs and build choices seem to possess an equivalent duality: You can't build yourself effectively to resist Drains without "gimping" something else, and so request the ability to do so with decreased cost. Isn't having to give up one aspect of your effectiveness in favor of another the very essence of a multi-tiered balance system?
As for the players arguing that Escorts don't have the same control and resistance capabilities that a Science vessel can have? ... well, I don't mean to sound harsh, but ... yes, and that should have been obvious. But you could flip the same argument on its head for a Science vessel attempting to obtain Escort-like DPS and maneuverability.
Every aspect of any system is a give-and-take. Is our existing system perfect? No, not by a long shot. But every single tweak sends ripples out to a dozen other balancing vectors that need to be taken into consideration.
Thats because in Cryptics ultimate wisdom you made ONE resist Resist pretty much every single sci skill.
Frankly you simply have the base values on the drains set way to high.
Leaches is pretty much -1.5 with almost no points speced in to it.... and gets up to the -2 mark with almost no spend point wise so its sort of a no brainer.... Frankly for what Flow Cap does (Energy Drain... Shield Drain... Tet Glider... Tet Weapons... Ect Ect) It has no place in the first tier of the skill tree... who doesn't put at least 6 points in flow caps... I mean really there is pretty much ZERO cost to spec it so why would you not.
Yes escorts should be more vulnerable to sci attacks of all kinds... the basic counter being tier 2 isn't to expensive to put some points into... However having said that... Have you played this game at all lately... one guy with a siphen a leach and a some siphen pods will shut ANY ship down... even a fairly well resisted sci ship.
I understand the boosting skill and the reisist skills are now merged and that is unlikely to change... however it creates a major issue... if you boost the resist it negates far to many skills.... as it is shield stripping skills have all been pretty much dropped by the PvP community, as even the resist from the defacto deflectors reduces there usefulness to much. Drains don't seem to be hampered near as much by the small number created by deflectors and 3-6 points in.
Perhaps what you need to look at is the amount of resist provided against EACH skill on its own. I think its interesting that a few points in more then HALF the effectiveness of Tachyon and CPB... yet FULL spend and extra Consoles seems to barely reduce the amount of Power Drain....
The other issue is the shear amount of Energy Drain that can be brought onto a target...
Aceton + Leach + Siphen + Siphen Pods + Target Subs... Can All be stacked to hit at the same time... Its easy to do, and it is pretty much insta win. Frankly the amount of skill it takes to over come a team that has 1-2 people running that type of build... is easily 4x the skill it takes to spam that junk.
Yes at one time it was the same issue with shield strips... one team running a couple shield stripping sci ships had the same advantage cause the resist where just not good enough.
I think at this time it may be time to dial the shield strip resist back slightly and increase the power drain resist a bit at the same time. Or examine the base values of both somewhat if you are leaving resist values as they are.
As a klink, (as that is my lolaron toon) I've drained people completely dry through sheer procs, infact I did this two times the last time I pvped in kerrat. Any other drains on the field lengthens the amount of time you recover from it. were there lolarons on the field?
To follow up on this I was in the match and there were a lot of drains in it. What I think may have happened is some used Polarons w/CVS or FAW and multiproc'd an entire team at times. In other words I can get ~50 drain from polarons (which I wasn't using) and similar to phaser procs rolling/stacking polarons can do the same now. Someone had a post on this not too long ago. So, if it procs 2x w/in a pass it drains 100 to each thing it hits.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
Ugh, yes science ship has 4 console but why would I slot 4 resistance consoles there? So that I do low dmg and on top of that I will have weak sci abilities that are barely noticeable without sci consoles ? What would I bring to my team ?
Even if I would put max resistances consoles to my ship I would be drained dry by power syphons and other flavour of the month. It would just take a few seconds longer.
On the other hand, a person who takes 5/9 in insulators pretty much gimps my shield draining attacks without any resistance console.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
Well I would rather implement a cap on how much certain skills can drain if they are focused from more sources. So the higher your resistances, the less the overall drain would be.
Now on power it doesnt matter if you resist 25% or 50% of the -power stuff, because you can get it from 10 sources. So even if you reduced a 20 drain to 10, you will still end up at -100. So no matter how high my resists are, I will end up with no power. This is a flaw in the system, because someone once again forgot that pvp is a team game.
It would work the same for shield drains, the problem is, there is not so many shield draining abilities that can be applied at the same moment by whole team compared to power drains.
If I make the effort and have 240 in some resist skill it better works !
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
Comments
I think, if they take you up on your offer, I can donate some gas money to you, at this point, I have nothing else to waste my money on as I refuse to waste a dim more on this LOL MMO.
Borticus, I strongly feel that it is a mistake to base something on a high end of 100 skill points used. In fact, I strongly feel that your team should assuming at least 150 skill on the high end. I mean, seriously! Do they not realize how easy it is to greatly exceed 100 skill points on the ?high? end. 100 skill-points base is a middle range!
Umm, Borticus, You folks are, to say it simply doing it wrong.
How do you ever expect to create a balance, if you simply ignore the top end of what is possible in your decision making? Players are humans, humans are primed to min max when put under pressure, which pvp and high end pve will do. One must take the full range of possible values into account in balancing or one can simply forget any balance from the get go. Since there will always be players that will go the last mile to create that ueber build to exploit the system. And then the system is not prepared for it and it breaks down.
This right here is the main reason balance in this game is in shambles. In PvP and PvE alike. Please think carefully if you want to keep doing it or do it right.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Some of our ships don't have 4 science console slots to compensate for that much drain. There should be a more fair middle ground here ;p Not "Insta drained to utter uselessness permanently" Even though I have max power insulators and Purple XII insulator console equipped, it does nothing to protect me from mass drain. At best it saves me from an Aceton...
Edit: Maybe Power Insulators aren't working correctly? But even my deflector has 22.2 power insulation, so that is +30 + 22.2 +99?
Maybe if you give power insulators 30% more effectiveness over Flow Capacitors?
| Join Date: January 2009 | Computer | Fleet: Broken Wings |
To be very, very blunt and honest with you, no, not in the least! The reason players cannot self-police against things like Flow Capacitors with two hundred (200+) plus skill-points modified by ship equipment, consuls and abilities is because the drain ability is balanced on a minimum of zero (0) skill-points to a maximum of one hundred (100) skill points. The reason for this balance decision based on player base skill points is because not all ships are capable of exceeding this maximum by a large margin and because all ships are capable of this margin.
The issue is actually stemmed in the class system, where it is possible to MAX, MAX and MIN, MIN.
For example: A tactical Escort cannot hope to ever stack enough resistances against a MAX, MAX Flow Capacitor build because the Flow Capacitor MAX, MAX is far above the possible margin that the Escort can resist against it. The only way to solve for this miss match is to never allow stacking of multiple consoles of the same bonus. Even then, it would only help mitigate the issue.
Look at the math here:
A science vessel with MAX, MAX flow capacitor skill has four slots that he or she can get +30% bonuses for a total of 120%. Assuming he has MAX out the skill already he or she already has 220% theoretically. This is without ability bonuses or equipment bonuses or bonuses from PROC or anything else.
A tactical escort has typically two slots to put Power Insulators to offset for a total of 60% and if he or she max out power insulators that is a total of 160%.
The science vessel rightly has a higher margin; but by 40% and likely by 60% or higher due to equipment and other things. This is only if the Escort player as MAX out defense. Likely, what is happening is the Science Flow Capacitor bonuses far exceed the defense that a player will typically have against power drain abilities because they will typically only put 6/9 points into power insulators and never use power insulator consoles because having shields is more important.
The truth of the matter is, the game should be balanced around the actual MIN of 0 skill point bonus and maximum of 300 point skill bonus. Only then will abilities fall in line with their intended functions.
Look... I am willing to work with others here in the community to help. Give us the "spreedsheet" and we can and will fix the balance issues for free!!!!!!!
Some of us use cannons :P Even so, I don't think that is a viable strategy that will work in all case scenarios.
| Join Date: January 2009 | Computer | Fleet: Broken Wings |
How do these things work? Is it (attacker's skill points - defender's skill points) * base value or is it base * attacker's increasing multiplier * defender's decreasing multiplier? Or something else entirely?
Essentially the question boils down to: If I add two flowcap consoles and my opponent adds two insulator consoles, will they cancel each other out? And what about situations where you attack people with two different abilities? Say one 4-console boosted energy drain and one 4-console boosted slow. Then even in a "1 cancels 1" situation, the target can only defend against one of the attackers to get back into your 100 baseline scenario and will be unable to resist the second attack vector. Remember that you can choose to put all attacks on a single target, but you cannot focus all innate resists of a team on a single person to counter that since innate resists cannot be cast on others whereas attacks can be projected onto others.
Look at this:
Skill-9 points = 99% bonus to base in Flow Capacitors
4 x Rare MK XI flow capacitor consoles = +114
Assume another +36 from ship equipment such as deflector and etc.
Total = 249% and that isn?t even the most you can get?. That is 149 points above their balance margin. In fact, because the balance is from 0 to 100, theoretically, players are at a min of -14% even if they are putting 9 points into power insulators. What a joke!
Why invest heavily into a skill that is useful sometimes when you can just spec into a skill that's useful all the time.
The simple solution is to make the resist skills such as power insulators far more effective probably 75% more effective than it currently is for it to be worth speccing into.
Once again I am willing to stop by Crytptic HQ to show the more serious balance issues in regards to STO PVP. I have a excellent grasp on the PVP mechanics in STO especially in regards to PVP and the rest of the PVP community can vouch for that.
Aytanhi of TSI, TSI fleet founder and leader OrganizedPVP channel Admin
Feel free to ask me about PVP or starship strategies. "No, I am not Borg!"
/channel_join OrganizedPVP If you are interested in learning PVP, looking for a team, or a private match
75% sounds way too high :P
But without knowing how exactly Power Insulator vs Flow Capacitor is effective when Power Insulator starts being lower than Flow Capacitor
IE: I have 30 Power Insulator but the opponent has 31 Flow Capacitor? Exactly what is the math here and how much will they be able to drain from me?
| Join Date: January 2009 | Computer | Fleet: Broken Wings |
There are a couple of other issues to bring up on this. Others have brought up differening ships have differing capabilities to resist/boost. As well as only being able to resist so much.
In addition there's the following:
1st unless things have changed Boff powers dependent on Flow Cap were more easily resisted via Flow Caps in the past. I don't know if this has changed or not as I haven't tested lately, but could if you'd like. On the other hand, NPC powers ei pets and consoles were not resisted as well by Flow Cap points. Imo, this should be reversed and passive weapon powers from gear should be in the NPC source group.
A second issue is many Sci powers have multiple aspects which are boosted by multiple abilities. For example TBR (Tractor Beam Repulsers) has damage boosted by one ability and the push by a second ability combined w/aux power. Again I haven't tested lately, but in the past the push was resistable by investing in skill, but the damage was not. Energy Siphons similar to plas leech has the drain resistable, but nothing to deal w/the gain. Often there's a way to resist one effect and no soft counter to mitigate the 2nd effect.
As I recall from previous Dev posts this past spring/late winter the end goal of drain resistance absent skills was the more being drained the more resistant a ship naturally became w/a minimum base a ship wouldn't drop below from pure drains ~30 I thought. For example if it took X drain to get a subsytem to 50 it may take 2X or more to get it to 40. To me this seemed like a reasonable approach which would deal O.K. w/force multiplier effects from passives attacks in particular. Whatever happened to this? I can tell you I've been drained to all zeros in subsystems by pets combined w/boff/console powers etc from 1 ship.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
From how it was before it was nerfed so badly that a lot of toons I had personally for energy stealing are now useless because of those changes that make what you are asked possible.
Hmm... this would be devastating to CPB, Tachyon, E-Siphon and Tykens, but they already are useless, so it wouldn't matter much
You have to look at the opportunity cost of something like this.
1) Specializing in Flow Caps gives you an addition to your offense that is useful against most opponents and possibly only disadvantaged against 1 opponent type that specialized to resist you. (Remember, Flow Caps is a T1 skill, that buffs a wide range of things from Tetryon and Polaron procs to Plasmonic Leech).
2) Specializing in Power Insulators would give you a defense useful against one specific offense and disadvantage you against the single basically universal offense - raw damage, as you sacrificed Field Generators to be resistant to drains.
Both examples give up field generators to achieve their goals, but only the Flow Caps build gets a nearly universally usable end result from it.
anything that is done to power insulators to resist power drains stops shield drains/damage way too much as well. they need to be split into 2 different skill tree boxes imo.
also as a side note, was just in a match against some klingons. kept getting hit by something that would reduce all my power to 0. had this happen mutliple times. would be at full power then BAM! 0. and about a dozen siphion pods kept me at between 8-13 power most of the match as well.
As a klink, (as that is my lolaron toon) I've drained people completely dry through sheer procs, infact I did this two times the last time I pvped in kerrat. Any other drains on the field lengthens the amount of time you recover from it. were there lolarons on the field?
The other arguments about opportunity costs and build choices seem to possess an equivalent duality: You can't build yourself effectively to resist Drains without "gimping" something else, and so request the ability to do so with decreased cost. Isn't having to give up one aspect of your effectiveness in favor of another the very essence of a multi-tiered balance system?
As for the players arguing that Escorts don't have the same control and resistance capabilities that a Science vessel can have? ... well, I don't mean to sound harsh, but ... yes, and that should have been obvious. But you could flip the same argument on its head for a Science vessel attempting to obtain Escort-like DPS and maneuverability.
Every aspect of any system is a give-and-take. Is our existing system perfect? No, not by a long shot. But every single tweak sends ripples out to a dozen other balancing vectors that need to be taken into consideration.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Bort, this isn't a weapon specific resist, this is a power drain resist it is clear that Power insulators is not effective enough against power level drains. Most of PvP will argue that builds that can completely shut down all of your power levels permanently until you are dead, should not exist no matter if you are flying an escort or a cruiser.
Why? Because there is no counter except "change your ship" which isn't game balance. And I'm still skeptical as to how effective power insulators would even be in a ship with 4 science consoles. The effectiveness of flow capacitors to assist power drain abilities is way too high.
| Join Date: January 2009 | Computer | Fleet: Broken Wings |
I don't know what you've been reading. I don't really care.
The thing is, stuff is not necessarily Mutually Exclusive like you think they are. Resistances, namely for power drains, (and specifically speaking there is one offender here and that is siphon pods) are almost non existent. On the flip side, Shield Drain Attacks for example, are laughably ineffective.
Wanna bet? In theory if all the resistances were working correctly, this is what an All Around I Kick Your Face In, and Resist Your TRIBBLE build looks like. http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/index.php?build=ThunderMagik_0
So you were saying?
That build right there is All But Immune, to Shield Drain Attacks, it should be All But Immune to Power drain as well but you guys broke the skill tree on Power Drains, outside of Target Subsystems, and Esiphon. Tykens, lolaron, Assims, and most damning, Siphon Pods don't care about your insulators. They also don't care about how many batteries you feed your ship, how many times EPS Power gets thrown on you, how many Emergency powers you have. It's Strip The Ship with nothing to answer to it. If you can't see why this is stupid, maybe you should look into sweeping floors instead of game design.
This build also, does a great job of ignoring grav well and TBR repels. Other things, though such as Chronitons, Tractor, and Warp Plasma it does nothing on, because you guys once again have Resistances that Do Not Work Correctly.
"But your ground game will suck with that build!" Who honestly cares about lolground. No one. No seriously, no one cares about it. And those that do build dedicated ground toons anyway.
As far as CC goes... what planet are you guys on. Because CC in this game, in the Sci Department has been sorely lacking ever since you guys revised the skill tree and gave us this stupid pile of Fail.
here's my suggestion.
Revert Back. Put the old tree back in, minus Ship Specific Specs. Add Resistance skills that Work Correctly.
Now, cap those resistances from skill spec at 25 percent like a smart person would. Then add a subsequent +25 percent resistance against any second or third attack that fits the type you just got hit by. (ie got hit by chroniton, get an extra +25 percent vs Tractor beam), for Stuns, keep the stun immunity, same for scramble. (even though frankly Scramble is a terrible mechanic anyway)
Would it really kill you guys, to try it our way for once. Instead of saying you do, while still only putting up a half hearted effort, and the effort you do do, has almost 0 basis in the #s, videos, graphs, and posts we feed you.
I posted to the general discussion forums about this but I think having the same standards for PvE and PvP doesn't do either one any favors unless you want PvP to be "Elite PvE."
Builds, stats, and design have to be separate or PvP will simply be PvE with a smarter opponent.
Borticus, I don't recall anyone ever arguing that science vessels should have the same dps as an escort in the PVP section. Or anyone complaining that an escort can't tank as well as a cruiser, we are "concerned" with certain abilities being too powerful especially when compared to the rest of the abilities available to that class which causes these abilities to be chosen over all the other abilities available.
The reason every single tweak sends out these giant ripples is because you always tweak the ability too far, and or too shallowly. Plasmonic Lecch, Carrier Pets, Feedback Pulse, Eject Warp Plasma, Subnucleonic Beam, Viral Matrix, etc. For example are all abilities that have been buffed, nerfed, and then rebuffed again and again without any serious feedback from the pvp community.
Aytanhi of TSI, TSI fleet founder and leader OrganizedPVP channel Admin
Feel free to ask me about PVP or starship strategies. "No, I am not Borg!"
/channel_join OrganizedPVP If you are interested in learning PVP, looking for a team, or a private match
Thats because in Cryptics ultimate wisdom you made ONE resist Resist pretty much every single sci skill.
Frankly you simply have the base values on the drains set way to high.
Leaches is pretty much -1.5 with almost no points speced in to it.... and gets up to the -2 mark with almost no spend point wise so its sort of a no brainer.... Frankly for what Flow Cap does (Energy Drain... Shield Drain... Tet Glider... Tet Weapons... Ect Ect) It has no place in the first tier of the skill tree... who doesn't put at least 6 points in flow caps... I mean really there is pretty much ZERO cost to spec it so why would you not.
Yes escorts should be more vulnerable to sci attacks of all kinds... the basic counter being tier 2 isn't to expensive to put some points into... However having said that... Have you played this game at all lately... one guy with a siphen a leach and a some siphen pods will shut ANY ship down... even a fairly well resisted sci ship.
I understand the boosting skill and the reisist skills are now merged and that is unlikely to change... however it creates a major issue... if you boost the resist it negates far to many skills.... as it is shield stripping skills have all been pretty much dropped by the PvP community, as even the resist from the defacto deflectors reduces there usefulness to much. Drains don't seem to be hampered near as much by the small number created by deflectors and 3-6 points in.
Perhaps what you need to look at is the amount of resist provided against EACH skill on its own. I think its interesting that a few points in more then HALF the effectiveness of Tachyon and CPB... yet FULL spend and extra Consoles seems to barely reduce the amount of Power Drain....
The other issue is the shear amount of Energy Drain that can be brought onto a target...
Aceton + Leach + Siphen + Siphen Pods + Target Subs... Can All be stacked to hit at the same time... Its easy to do, and it is pretty much insta win. Frankly the amount of skill it takes to over come a team that has 1-2 people running that type of build... is easily 4x the skill it takes to spam that junk.
Yes at one time it was the same issue with shield strips... one team running a couple shield stripping sci ships had the same advantage cause the resist where just not good enough.
I think at this time it may be time to dial the shield strip resist back slightly and increase the power drain resist a bit at the same time. Or examine the base values of both somewhat if you are leaving resist values as they are.
To follow up on this I was in the match and there were a lot of drains in it. What I think may have happened is some used Polarons w/CVS or FAW and multiproc'd an entire team at times. In other words I can get ~50 drain from polarons (which I wasn't using) and similar to phaser procs rolling/stacking polarons can do the same now. Someone had a post on this not too long ago. So, if it procs 2x w/in a pass it drains 100 to each thing it hits.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
Even if I would put max resistances consoles to my ship I would be drained dry by power syphons and other flavour of the month. It would just take a few seconds longer.
On the other hand, a person who takes 5/9 in insulators pretty much gimps my shield draining attacks without any resistance console.
Reduce the effectiveness of Power Drain abilities
Increase the effectiveness of Shield Draining Abilities
Place a limit as too how low Power Drain Abilities can go on a Target
Reduce effectiveness of Polaron Weapon Proc
Check to make sure Power Insulators is working correctly
| Join Date: January 2009 | Computer | Fleet: Broken Wings |
Now on power it doesnt matter if you resist 25% or 50% of the -power stuff, because you can get it from 10 sources. So even if you reduced a 20 drain to 10, you will still end up at -100. So no matter how high my resists are, I will end up with no power. This is a flaw in the system, because someone once again forgot that pvp is a team game.
It would work the same for shield drains, the problem is, there is not so many shield draining abilities that can be applied at the same moment by whole team compared to power drains.
If I make the effort and have 240 in some resist skill it better works !