Hello Borticus, a month has passed since the PSW3 nerf, when we all agreed that science offensive abilities needed a balance pass.
Any ETA or progress that you can share with us?
a starting point for base line resist of 0 skill points like we have now should be 50 skill points. then add a sloping effectiveness curve for the less resist you have, and same for the more resist you have. with 99 resist and 4 resist consoles, the effect should only be about 25%. 0 skill points and 0 consoles should make a skill 175% effective against you, something like that
Tbh I don't necessarily want to hear what their plans are. Firm plans are something that have to go up the chain of command, try to get put in the schedule, pushed back down to get time in the cycle, yadda yadda.
I'm more interested in what they are talking about. What ideas are you bouncing around in team sessions. What do you guys see as real problems, where are you thinking that you want to go with the changes. We know you can't give dates and TRIBBLE because it's not necessarily in your control, and people cry when dates change by like 20 minutes.
Things like "these are the specific things we are thinking about" is stuff that the forums love to hear because it gives US a chance to hash it out on the forums and generates interest and excitement (or fear lol) among the playerbase. Give us a bone to chew on and generally we are happy. It tells us that you are concerned with our issues and let's us know where you want to go and why. Tell us conversations you had at Pax, in Las Vegas, whatever, it gives us fodder to mull over while you guys do the gruntwork.
When you don't say anything the playerbase generally feels ignored and has a tendency to whine and snipe which makes Branflakes already thankless job worse. DO IT FOR BRANFLAKES SANITY! Honestly I wouldn't doubt Bran has a bottle of Jack in his desk drawer just to get through the day. His liver can't take much more of this captain!
Tbh I don't necessarily want to hear what their plans are. Firm plans are something that have to go up the chain of command, try to get put in the schedule, pushed back down to get time in the cycle, yadda yadda.
I'm more interested in what they are talking about. What ideas are you bouncing around in team sessions. What do you guys see as real problems, where are you thinking that you want to go with the changes. We know you can't give dates and TRIBBLE because it's not necessarily in your control, and people cry when dates change by like 20 minutes.
Things like "these are the specific things we are thinking about" is stuff that the forums love to hear because it gives US a chance to hash it out on the forums and generates interest and excitement (or fear lol) among the playerbase. Give us a bone to chew on and generally we are happy. It tells us that you are concerned with our issues and let's us know where you want to go and why. Tell us conversations you had at Pax, in Las Vegas, whatever, it gives us fodder to mull over while you guys do the gruntwork.
When you don't say anything the playerbase generally feels ignored and has a tendency to whine and snipe which makes Branflakes already thankless job worse. DO IT FOR BRANFLAKES SANITY! Honestly I wouldn't doubt Bran has a bottle of Jack in his desk drawer just to get through the day. His liver can't take much more of this captain!
I believe it's "whenever they get the time and resources", aka, don't get your hopes up any time soon.
Oh, I know, they are all busy with game-breaking issues like this:
"Repositioned the Enterprise Panels unlocked on Fleet Starbases as part of the 5th special project so they no longer clip into the wall"
and
"The fix to the Enterprise panels also includes moving the potted plant so that it does not block the Ent-F"
(from today tribble release notes)
They are obviously quite busy, as one can conclude from the very short patch notes for the latest Tribble Patch. They are working on some big stuff, I would guess.
This makes sense, actually. They've stated that they're not allowed to talk about the big stuff that's upcoming. So, if there's a lot of silence on their end, it could mean they're working on something. . .hopefully something we'll like.
My PvP toon is Krov, of The House of Snoo. Beware of my Hegh'ta of doom.
They are obviously quite busy, as one can conclude from the very short patch notes for the latest Tribble Patch. They are working on some big stuff, I would guess.
Sure there is a new lock box and likely a new andorian escort in it... but really they have been quite cause its the end of the summer and likey been rolling people out on vacation for the past 3-4 weeks.
Sure there is a new lock box and likely a new andorian escort in it... but really they have been quite cause its the end of the summer and likey been rolling people out on vacation for the past 3-4 weeks.
Alright, I'll list out a couple things we've been discussing. You're welcome to offer feedback.
DISCLAIMER: These are discussions ONLY at this point. No testing, even internally, has yet been undertaken.
1) Increase the benefit the Aux Levels give to Offensive Science Abilities.
This would, effectively, increase the maximum performance of most Sci abilities. The thought here is that since Science ships have an innate Aux bonus, they would benefit from this change to a larger proportion. It may also become necessary to scale these benefits differently so that 60-75 Aux Power becomes 100% ability effectiveness, instead of 50... but maybe not.
2) Increase the tactical value of Science Consoles.
We've discussed a couple different options here:
** a) Make all Science consoles dual-stat, so that they increase both offense and defense Sci skills. (e.g., Power Insulators console now also increases Flow Capacitors, etc.)
** b) Add a new set of stats to all Science Consoles. Examples include: +Cooldown Reductions (for Sci only) or Improved Sensor Analysis (which might encourage Sci ships to not universally use Sci console slots as "dump" slots for Cstore consoles).
3) Reduce and/or eliminate many (or even all) "Global" cooldowns.
This would allow for better combo effects when using certain abilities in conjunction with one another. For example, it is currently impossible to use Tyken's Rift and Energy Siphon at the same time, even though using them both in tandem could be seen as an ideal tactical choice - they affect the same enemy stats, they use the same captain skills & consoles, etc.
4) Introduce diminishing returns on Damage Boost abilities.
Part of the issue here is not just Science's underperformance, but also Tac's overperformance. We've talked about potentially finding a way to apply harsher diminishing returns on Damage Buffs as a result. We don't like this option as much, since it would upset many players and have a tangible impact on PvE. But it's still been discussed.
4b) If we ever did the above, we might also end up putting diminishing returns on Hull Heals, so that Spike Healing became less of an issue. In essence, any time your Hull is healed, you'd become temporarily resistant to additional healing. The more heal abilities you use in rapid succession, the less effective each would be. But again, this is not seen as an ideal option because of how many players it would impact negatively.
5) And lastly, we've discussed just doing a great big "improvement" pass on every Science ability, one-by-one. Each one would receive an individual review with the express purpose of making them more effective for both PvP and Group PvE (STFs, Fleet Events, etc). This is likely what should end up happening - at least over the short term, to address some stand-out single-power issues - but it's among the most time-consuming options of the things we've discussed, so finding time in our schedule to focus on it is a difficult proposition.
This is not the complete list of ideas we've floated, but some of the others are a too far-fetched (in terms of technical requirements) for me to feel comfortable talking about them publicly.
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Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
2. Actually I've kind of felt for a while that sci consoles need this exact thing. You shouldn't be going "hey I'll just load up on more Field generators here" instead of any and anything else. If you don't mind me suggesting I would also very sincerely recommending you move the field gen back to being a 1 per ship item, and restore it to +35 percent capacity gain. This will allow Sci ships to be able to field more sci consoles, comfortably. Especially if you combine this with #1.
3. Sci skills shouldn't have shared CDs. I'll agree with that completely. The good sci skills each have incredibly high opp costs, vs healing.
4. Dear god do not do this. The last thing you need to do is kick Escorts in the junk, given how ludicrously easy it is to overcome their damage. And tac boosted sci, is only seen as "OP" because Debuff CC right now is at a very low point in STO due to insane resistances to the sci skills, and a handful of other sci abilities (like grav well) being completely useless in pvp. Back when tacs could boost the sci skills the first go around due to the sheer strength of sci sci, and things like CPB, it was completely un appealing for a tac to be in a sci ship. (as it is right now honestly Sci Sci is still the Game Winner in pvp. People are just pissed because they don't see a gazillion damage by their names and feel inadequate. )
5. This one should have gone without saying after I made all of those videos for you guys.
Alright, I'll list out a couple things we've been discussing. You're welcome to offer feedback.
[ 3) Reduce and/or eliminate many (or even all) "Global" cooldowns.
This would allow for better combo effects when using certain abilities in conjunction with one another. For example, it is currently impossible to use Tyken's Rift and Energy Siphon at the same time, even though using them both in tandem could be seen as an ideal tactical choice - they affect the same enemy stats, they use the same captain skills & consoles, etc.
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I am very supportive of this, with one extra caveat: When you reduce the cooldowns of the science abilities, how about adding an Aux Power reduction as well, similar to how Beam Overload works? It has the benefit of making Science ships more effective (with the general cooldown reduction), but it reduces the OP of quick chains of abilities.
It occurs to me that most tactical skills have an innate weapon power reduction (from the weapons themselves), but science has none of these things.
1) Increase the benefit the Aux Levels give to Offensive Science Abilities.
This would be a good move, I approve it.
If you decide to do it, there are two powers that need to be tuned according to the new aux bonus, specifically:
- Photonic Shockwave
- Tractor Beam Repulsor
PSW does little damage and the damage output is not tied to aux level atm.
TBR has repulsion effect tied to auxiliary level but damage output is independent from power levels, so actually it works better with zero aux power (because this way you can keep your enemy within 5km tbr range)
** a) Make all Science consoles dual-stat, so that they increase both offense and defense Sci skills. (e.g., Power Insulators console now also increases Flow Capacitors, etc.)
** b) Add a new set of stats to all Science Consoles. Examples include: +Cooldown Reductions (for Sci only) or Improved Sensor Analysis (which might encourage Sci ships to not universally use Sci console slots as "dump" slots for Cstore consoles).
3) Reduce and/or eliminate many (or even all) "Global" cooldowns.
I like this one too, but only if you fix photonic officer ability making it work as a straight cooldown reduction like the doff one.
If you dont, this would give science ships with ltc eng slot an unfair advantage over pure science ships (aux2bat + 3 technicians doff would result in a fire everything-recharge everything strategy that is not available to pure science ships because photonic officer works differently.
5) And lastly, we've discussed just doing a great big "improvement" pass on every Science ability, one-by-one. Each one would receive an individual review with the express purpose of making them more effective for both PvP and Group PvE (STFs, Fleet Events, etc). This is likely what should end up happening - at least over the short term, to address some stand-out single-power issues - but it's among the most time-consuming options of the things we've discussed, so finding time in our schedule to focus on it is a difficult proposition.
If you need help on this one i can help you (sci pvper since 2010, mail me ingame at @hulkhogan.ita), and I like the "short term" part of the phrase
4) Introduce diminishing returns on Damage Boost abilities.
Part of the issue here is not just Science's underperformance, but also Tac's overperformance. We've talked about potentially finding a way to apply harsher diminishing returns on Damage Buffs as a result. We don't like this option as much, since it would upset many players and have a tangible impact on PvE. But it's still been discussed.
4b) If we ever did the above, we might also end up putting diminishing returns on Hull Heals, so that Spike Healing became less of an issue. In essence, any time your Hull is healed, you'd become temporarily resistant to additional healing. The more heal abilities you use in rapid succession, the less effective each would be. But again, this is not seen as an ideal option because of how many players it would impact negatively.
Some observations here:
1) _Hull_ healing absolutely isn't the problem. The problem with the heal/damage balance is that the introduction of TT-based shield redistribution essentially quadrupled everyone's shield capacity, MACO introduced more shield resists for eveyone, BFI doffs give everyone a kind of free RSP on a 45s cooldown, the duration of RSP has been increased and the borg shield proc provides 50% resist. _Shield_ resists/healing is the major problem here.
If you cut the TT redistribution down to 5s, reduce the proc chance of the BFI doff and prevent its proc from being applied multiple times simultaneously (currently this can happen even with just a single doff), you will have essentially solved the healing/resist problem without having to mess with the heal system itself.
PVP matches between two good groups take hours these days and kills are often only scored by lucky phaser procs against the shield subsystem because the shield healing/resist from abilities/procs that are independent of the ship type is beyond good and evil and has almost entirely removed the differences between ship classes when it comes to self-healing shields.
2) Tactical damage boosts basically haven't changed since S1.2. The games used to work before with these levels, it should work now without having to tweak this aspect significantly. (Apart from the fact that you once removed tac boosts for sci abilities and then reintroduced it... what is your true intention?)
Alright, I'll list out a couple things we've been discussing. You're welcome to offer feedback.
DISCLAIMER: These are discussions ONLY at this point. No testing, even internally, has yet been undertaken.
1) Increase the benefit the Aux Levels give to Offensive Science Abilities.
This would, effectively, increase the maximum performance of most Sci abilities. The thought here is that since Science ships have an innate Aux bonus, they would benefit from this change to a larger proportion. It may also become necessary to scale these benefits differently so that 60-75 Aux Power becomes 100% ability effectiveness, instead of 50... but maybe not.
sounds good, they need to have a greater effect in most cases.
2) Increase the tactical value of Science Consoles.
We've discussed a couple different options here:
** a) Make all Science consoles dual-stat, so that they increase both offense and defense Sci skills. (e.g., Power Insulators console now also increases Flow Capacitors, etc.)
** b) Add a new set of stats to all Science Consoles. Examples include: +Cooldown Reductions (for Sci only) or Improved Sensor Analysis (which might encourage Sci ships to not universally use Sci console slots as "dump" slots for Cstore consoles).
i think this is not the problem that it used to be. now flow cap consoles buff weapon procs, glider, P2W consoles, and partial gens are great for anyone using any sci skills offensively, some P2W consoles, and warp plasma. wish partials buffed plasma weapon proc too. sci slots are not just for shield hitpoints generators anymore. giving a flow cap console insulators too would just make resistance even more of a problem. i almost always run 2 flow cap on my excelsior and 3 particle on my plasma and iso belching fleet ktinga.
3) Reduce and/or eliminate many (or even all) "Global" cooldowns.
This would allow for better combo effects when using certain abilities in conjunction with one another. For example, it is currently impossible to use Tyken's Rift and Energy Siphon at the same time, even though using them both in tandem could be seen as an ideal tactical choice - they affect the same enemy stats, they use the same captain skills & consoles, etc.
ya a lot of sci skills are hamstrung by their system cooldown, they cant spike with thier abilities very well, and none of them work well enough on their own. some system cool downs are important, like the team skills, beam skills, EPtX skills, stuff like that. i don't see why using TSS should make FBP go on a cool down though.
4) Introduce diminishing returns on Damage Boost abilities.
Part of the issue here is not just Science's underperformance, but also Tac's overperformance. We've talked about potentially finding a way to apply harsher diminishing returns on Damage Buffs as a result. We don't like this option as much, since it would upset many players and have a tangible impact on PvE. But it's still been discussed.
even the most potent firepower can disappear in the spike healing ether when a dedicated healer is around. when one is not, it can seem like damage is overpowered right now. without a sci crippling someone a match can go on indefinitely with healing outpacing damage. tac is performing well, the others are under performing, don't nerf tac to under performing too
theres a lot of complaining by pve'ers about how powerful a tac/sci combo is, but their experience is limited to their little sandbox, that happens to be in a 10 thousand square mile desert, that we play in. some sci skills deal knetic and energy damage, those are in a tac captains realm of expertise. in effect, their damage dealing is very specialized and has no real use in a strong team, its sort of irreverent. sci/sci should be focusing on disabling and setting up kills, tac/sci cant really do that at all when he is trying to deal damage. disregard the pve complaints that their sci captain isn't a tac captain. to appease them i suggest making npc's have negative sensor, insulator and dampener resistance so a sci/sci can be better at pve.
4b) If we ever did the above, we might also end up putting diminishing returns on Hull Heals, so that Spike Healing became less of an issue. In essence, any time your Hull is healed, you'd become temporarily resistant to additional healing. The more heal abilities you use in rapid succession, the less effective each would be. But again, this is not seen as an ideal option because of how many players it would impact negatively.
hmm. reducing how ludicrous spiky damage and healing is would be something i would approve of. it would make unskilled players who get one shot more happy at least. i'd prefer more sturdy tall ship combat were everything takes a lot of hits and time to take down, but were healing cant out pace the damage forever. in a way its sort of balanced right now, but its unideal for new players and favors the very skilled the most
5) And lastly, we've discussed just doing a great big "improvement" pass on every Science ability, one-by-one. Each one would receive an individual review with the express purpose of making them more effective for both PvP and Group PvE (STFs, Fleet Events, etc). This is likely what should end up happening - at least over the short term, to address some stand-out single-power issues - but it's among the most time-consuming options of the things we've discussed, so finding time in our schedule to focus on it is a difficult proposition.
this would be good, there are several stinkers in the line up that need an overhaul. these changes should be made with the effects doffs have in mind as well.
This is not the complete list of ideas we've floated, but some of the others are a too far-fetched (in terms of technical requirements) for me to feel comfortable talking about them publicly.
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i think you will get plenty of useful feedback from this, by the people that know this stuff best. exciting times!
3) Reduce and/or eliminate many (or even all) "Global" cooldowns.
This would allow for better combo effects when using certain abilities in conjunction with one another. For example, it is currently impossible to use Tyken's Rift and Energy Siphon at the same time, even though using them both in tandem could be seen as an ideal tactical choice - they affect the same enemy stats, they use the same captain skills & consoles, etc.
I'm sure this will end up creating some super-powered combo of doom, but id be happy to see this.
First, thank you so very much for doing this with us all. You just became one of my favorite developers in a single post. The ship artists are now in second place. Sorry guys!
1) Increase the benefit the Aux Levels give to Offensive Science Abilities.
I think that is option would be the easiest for you guy to play with and tweak to get predictable results! I strongly feel that this option out of the four options is the best short term solution because most Science Ship builds run high Auxiliary power comparatively to Escorts and Cruisers.
I also think the benefit should increase with the rank of the Ability being used starting at rank II.
2) Increase the tactical value of Science Consoles.
I also do not like this option at all because it would help Tactical Captains in Tactical Escorts to throw in a low level Science Bridge Officer ability to increase their Alpha Strike potential. Please do not do this! Imagine if you will an Escort with a two console buff to Tractor Beam Repulse I and no auxiliary power? I don?t want to see that thank you.
Please NO to both #3 & #4. Unless anyone can convince me otherwise, I think those two solutions will be more trouble than they are worth.
5) And lastly, we've discussed just doing a great big "improvement" pass on every Science ability
This is, in my own opinion, what needs to be done. In fact, I think that only four of the main science abilities really need to be tweaked/re-worked in order to have the science abilities once again be worthwhile.
Jam Sensors should placate for 3 seconds but de-buff the targets ACC modifier for a duration that improves with countermeasures skill and aux power/ resisted by sensors skill. This would be extremely useful in PVE against bosses and in PVP against Escorts or Cruiser Beam Boats as sci.
Tachyon Beam: like Beam Target Shields, should have a chance, small chance, to disable shield subsystem for 5 seconds. Its drain should also only affect the shield facing that it pulses against, not all shields.
Charged Particle Burst should not damage shields but de-buff shield resistances over duration. Damage is too easily healed. It would be much better to have charged particle burst render EPTS-I & II less effective. This really makes science worthwhile in PVP because Cruises have trouble getting by Escort Shields and vice versa. Just saying a soft counter to EPTS would be great news! In PVE, the faster I get past enemy shields the better. It is win/win I think
Energy Siphon/Tykens rift: The fix for these is to not have them share a cool-down with each other.
Alright, I'll list out a couple things we've been discussing. You're welcome to offer feedback.
DISCLAIMER: These are discussions ONLY at this point. No testing, even internally, has yet been undertaken.
1) Increase the benefit the Aux Levels give to Offensive Science Abilities.
This would, effectively, increase the maximum performance of most Sci abilities. The thought here is that since Science ships have an innate Aux bonus, they would benefit from this change to a larger proportion. It may also become necessary to scale these benefits differently so that 60-75 Aux Power becomes 100% ability effectiveness, instead of 50... but maybe not.
2) Increase the tactical value of Science Consoles.
We've discussed a couple different options here:
** a) Make all Science consoles dual-stat, so that they increase both offense and defense Sci skills. (e.g., Power Insulators console now also increases Flow Capacitors, etc.)
** b) Add a new set of stats to all Science Consoles. Examples include: +Cooldown Reductions (for Sci only) or Improved Sensor Analysis (which might encourage Sci ships to not universally use Sci console slots as "dump" slots for Cstore consoles).
So you're considering that the issue is only about DPS? Such a revamp will serve no purpose since the purpose of science abilities isn't DPS at all. Indeed it's an interesting side-effect, but what we do want to do as sci is debuffing, controlling targets, etc, and this is something we can't really do since most of our abilities have little control effects.
What i'd like to see is stronger science powers, ie powers you can't counter easily. Real energy drains. Tractor beams harders to escape from. For instance, I'd like to see a real use to tractor beam III or gravity well III, since it deals almost no dps at least it could hold the targets better.
And what about wider effects science abilities? A good engineer can heal a team of 5 including himself, but it's extremely challenging or impossible to use control abilities on more than 1 target.
So if you boost the DSP you're doing it wrong, because it's definitely not what this class is about.
1) Increase the benefit the Aux Levels give to Offensive Science Abilities.
*LIKE
2) Increase the tactical value of Science Consoles.
** a) Make all Science consoles dual-stat
*LIKE
** b) Add a new set of stats to all Science Consoles. Examples include: +Cooldown Reductions (for Sci only)
*NO LIKE, making things shoot more often does not make them hit harder
3) Reduce and/or eliminate many (or even all) "Global" cooldowns.
*NO LIKE, same as above, only because i can shoot it more often doesn't make it hit harder.
granted, some cooldowns seem a bit crazy
4) Introduce diminishing returns on Damage Boost abilities.
HELLZ NO!
the problem is not that Sci ships can't TANK the damage of Escorts, the problem is that they don't dish out any notable damage / or *FEEL* like they don't.
5) doing a great big "improvement" pass on every Science ability
this might be the best solution, just rebuild the whole class.
***
personal experience report:
i have 11 Characters, 3 of them are Science Captains, and not one is flying a SCI ship.
even my Caitian Captain that i specifically lvld to 50 for the Atrox, which i bought for 2000 Zen... is now sitting in a Cruiser because all the high end SCI abilities are just not good.
It does not matter if i PvE or PvP i do not get any feedback what i do to the other ship,
i know i HATE it when i fight a Sci ship and it starts messing with my systems or cooldowns and sucks energy from me i FEEL the crippling effects.
But when i am the Sci ship throwing these effects at the enemy player, i do not get any feedback from the game what is happening to him, i do not SEE if his energy levels only drop a bit or if a system is completely offline. Those weird Tykens Rift nebula stuff... i still have no idea what these things even do exactly, also i dislike the idea of such skills to begin with, they feel too much like *magic* instead of Science.
And with NPCs i am not even sure IF they have such a thing like energy levels.
So, Damage and Healing has yellow numbers above the ship and health bars which directly tell me whats going on, the bulk of the Sci abilities do not give me any feedback and therefore i feel like they are doing nothing.
And ultimately, with 6 Weapon Slots and 2 Tactical Consoles i just don't feel that my weapons are doing damage at all.
I guess i'm the prime example of a BAD Sci Captain... i just can't have fun with that stuff.
Weird enough, the Sci Captain abilities, SubNuc Beam, that Holo Fleet and Sensor Scan are realy good, but i don't need a Sci ship for those, they work just fine with an Escort or Cruiser.
I'd also like to point out that the reason Sci console slots are the "dumping" ground for universal consoles is because most of the Sci consoles suck, or they're only useful for boosting one power/skill. They don't provide the more general bonuses that the Eng and Tac consoles do.
Eng and Tac consoles are useful in more situations and they stack or complement each other better. Sci consoles generally only affect one Science-related skill and Sci skills tend to have a narrow focus or a specific niche.
Since the consoles really only affect one specific Sci ability, the way Sci abilities are nerfed at present makes consoles even less useful than they would be otherwise.
Give me a good reason to want to keep Sci consoles in my Sci slots and I will.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
2) Increase the tactical value of Science Consoles.
We've discussed a couple different options here:
** a) Make all Science consoles dual-stat, so that they increase both offense and defense Sci skills...
** b) Add a new set of stats to all Science Consoles...
I like b) a lot. Not sure about a), because that might make those consoles very strong (unless the relative bonuses are smaller than now).
3) Reduce and/or eliminate many (or even all) "Global" cooldowns.
...
I'd like that very much, because most "good" abilities have a) long cooldowns and b)shared cooldowns. For example starting CD on all deflector abilities when using Tachyon beam, Gravity well, Tyken's Rift, Energy siphon is very annoying. It means that when you use 1 sci ability in a fight, you usually send a bunch more on CD resulting in you using only a fraction of those you have. That's the part I find harder about playing sci than tac and eng. You have to plan well ahead: "Should I use a GW now, or is it better if I use nothing and save for a later hypothetical problem.
When I sum it up, not only you are forced to use just a few sci powers at a time, you are also pushed to choose whether even using them at all. And that's quite against the fact that you want to have cool abilities to use.
Note: Still, careful about some very nasty combos you might end up enabling for PvP.
5) And lastly, we've discussed just doing a great big "improvement" pass on every Science ability,...
Yeah, there's nothing I could possibly have against this. But as you say, very time consuming it is. So while this could be slowly running in the background, I'd really like to see some testing of the solution number 3).
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. 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.
I like all these ideas I would just ask for one additional thing. If you end up doing a pass on them doing them skill by skill. I would recommend as a slow but balancing process of opening up skills where the federation and KDF are not always using the same exact skills and that way they can be more "Star Trek" that way. Klingons more or less on the science front would use things like bio weapons and other nasty things where the Federation in their moral high ground would be more into other scientific means.
I'd just like to see it more polished where each side has things that are more relevant to the faction than one faction just being a copy of the other.
1) Increase the benefit the Aux Levels give to Offensive Science Abilities.
This would, effectively, increase the maximum performance of most Sci abilities. The thought here is that since Science ships have an innate Aux bonus, they would benefit from this change to a larger proportion. It may also become necessary to scale these benefits differently so that 60-75 Aux Power becomes 100% ability effectiveness, instead of 50... but maybe not.
This is not the solution IMHO. As it stands, the passive bonus is fine. The only thing that could be done here to improve it would to increase the bonus to around 120%-150% at 75 power.
2) Increase the tactical value of Science Consoles.
We've discussed a couple different options here:
** a) Make all Science consoles dual-stat, so that they increase both offense and defense Sci skills. (e.g., Power Insulators console now also increases Flow Capacitors, etc.)
This could be good, but you need to consider the consoles carefully.
3) Reduce and/or eliminate many (or even all) "Global" cooldowns.
The big issue with the shared cooldowns is that they are just too long. I have a CC build with 2 GWs, II and III. If I use one, the other goes on a 45s cooldown. Try reducing the shared cooldown on powers. For an example, make the GW cooldown 30s instead of 45.
4) Introduce diminishing returns on Damage Boost abilities.
Bad idea. Not only would this cut the teeth of Tacs, but the amount of hate this would generate would be staggering. Not to mention, its not the issue at hand.
What we need borticus is better control. As it stands, Gravity Well as an example is useless against Escorts, as they can evasive out of it. They should not be able to do that unless they dial full engines (100/100). Drains are useless, they dont take out enough power for them to matter. Tractor Beams are also poor, when used on a fully resisted target, it has almost no effect.
And lastly, we've discussed just doing a great big "improvement" pass on every Science ability, one-by-one.
Damage wise, I'd say only a small amount of improvement is needed. We're not DPS, but having a little more damage wouldn't be a bad thing. I'd say 10-25% would be enough.
I'd also like to point out that the reason Sci console slots are the "dumping" ground for universal consoles is because most of the Sci consoles suck, or they're only useful for boosting one power/skill. They don't provide the more general bonuses that the Eng and Tac consoles do.
Eng and Tac consoles are useful in more situations and they stack or complement each other better. Sci consoles generally only affect one Science-related skill and Sci skills tend to have a narrow focus or a specific niche.
Since the consoles really only affect one specific Sci ability, the way Sci abilities are nerfed at present makes consoles even less useful than they would be otherwise.
Give me a good reason to want to keep Sci consoles in my Sci slots and I will.
I don't agree with the idea sci consoles are junk. Let me explain why. A while ago I was under same impression. Till tet glider came. Then flow cap + tet glider/energy siphon = almost hax. flows + leech + glider = hax. Shield regen console, at high shield power and w regen shield = good regen boost (regens are definitely a great choice for vessels that can't afford a lot of heals required by a cov shield). Shield cap console (that I don't personally use) is also good for some players and quite a few use it. Sensors is also good in decloaking klinks from farther distances. Biodunction is not bad, but i think there are other consoles that are better. Haven't tried others (like decompiler, countermeasure and particles - which should make warp plasma even sweeter- or whatever I missed) and I really can't talk about them.
Now about how they complement eachother, that's an excellent point. I don't really see how can be improved though, due to the specific of each console. Maybe if skill tree is revamped for sci, into 2 types, crowd control (tractor beams, dampners, viral matrix, particles, etc) and drains (siphons, flows, shield emitter, tac beam, etc), then complementing would be easier. Along with reducing the amount of those many sci consoles to a more restricitve set that pertains to the new skills. I'm probably over-simplifying the whole aspect a bit, but I do that just to be easier to get to the point w/o writing 5 pages. addressing sci issues is definitely a very hard thing to do with respect of ballance.
I personally use engi consoles slots to dump p2w, but other than mvam console and leech, I rarely use p2w, I know, personal preference, lol, but I do not believe the sci consoles are useless. sci powers, as a contrast could use some love, but we should have at least 2-3 weeks to test things on tribble before they roll into holodeck so we won't have any surprises or unwanted bugs that can't be discovered unless too late.
Hear! Sons of Kahless
Hear! Daughters too.
The blood of battle washes clean.
The Warrior brave and true.
We fight, we love, and then we kill...
i dont know if this suggestion is simple or not, but borticus, why dont we start by reducing the resistances to sci powers just a bit?
I dont want you to remove them, but clearly you added resistances to the point of disabling some powers, then why dont reduce that resistances just a bit, maybe a 20% or 25% and we test it.
With that solution, you could give us the scientists back and we can have some common ground to work with.
The sci community wont feel so frustrated and I think you may get additional useful feedback from all of us.
i dont know if this suggestion is simple or not, but borticus, why dont we start by reducing the resistances to sci powers just a bit?
I dont want you to remove them, but clearly you added resistances to the point of disabling some powers, then why dont reduce that resistances just a bit, maybe a 20% or 25% and we test it.
With that solution, you could give us the scientists back and we can have some common ground to work with.
The sci community wont feel so frustrated and I think you may get additional useful feedback from all of us.
What do you think?
Xenovita, this is a personal opinion, but I'd rather wait 6 months and have a proper sci rebalance than patching this and that, then only to end up having a major overhaul anyways. This is definitely a hard task since if sci powers become too strong, then we go back to the nightmares we had few years ago (remember viral matrix?). I can only hope that cryptic devs get the best ideas we post here and take time to properly fix the sci.
Hear! Sons of Kahless
Hear! Daughters too.
The blood of battle washes clean.
The Warrior brave and true.
We fight, we love, and then we kill...
Comments
I'm more interested in what they are talking about. What ideas are you bouncing around in team sessions. What do you guys see as real problems, where are you thinking that you want to go with the changes. We know you can't give dates and TRIBBLE because it's not necessarily in your control, and people cry when dates change by like 20 minutes.
Things like "these are the specific things we are thinking about" is stuff that the forums love to hear because it gives US a chance to hash it out on the forums and generates interest and excitement (or fear lol) among the playerbase. Give us a bone to chew on and generally we are happy. It tells us that you are concerned with our issues and let's us know where you want to go and why. Tell us conversations you had at Pax, in Las Vegas, whatever, it gives us fodder to mull over while you guys do the gruntwork.
When you don't say anything the playerbase generally feels ignored and has a tendency to whine and snipe which makes Branflakes already thankless job worse. DO IT FOR BRANFLAKES SANITY! Honestly I wouldn't doubt Bran has a bottle of Jack in his desk drawer just to get through the day. His liver can't take much more of this captain!
^^^ What he said. :cool:
Too long.
Thanks for bringing it back up
Oh, I know, they are all busy with game-breaking issues like this:
"Repositioned the Enterprise Panels unlocked on Fleet Starbases as part of the 5th special project so they no longer clip into the wall"
and
"The fix to the Enterprise panels also includes moving the potted plant so that it does not block the Ent-F"
(from today tribble release notes)
This makes sense, actually. They've stated that they're not allowed to talk about the big stuff that's upcoming. So, if there's a lot of silence on their end, it could mean they're working on something. . .hopefully something we'll like.
Sure there is a new lock box and likely a new andorian escort in it... but really they have been quite cause its the end of the summer and likey been rolling people out on vacation for the past 3-4 weeks.
bang on the mark!
Edit: Yeah, I understand its purpose though. I just have bad memories of what SCI use to be in pvp. 3 or 4 man sci/sci with one or two tac/escort.
DISCLAIMER: These are discussions ONLY at this point. No testing, even internally, has yet been undertaken.
1) Increase the benefit the Aux Levels give to Offensive Science Abilities.
This would, effectively, increase the maximum performance of most Sci abilities. The thought here is that since Science ships have an innate Aux bonus, they would benefit from this change to a larger proportion. It may also become necessary to scale these benefits differently so that 60-75 Aux Power becomes 100% ability effectiveness, instead of 50... but maybe not.
2) Increase the tactical value of Science Consoles.
We've discussed a couple different options here:
** a) Make all Science consoles dual-stat, so that they increase both offense and defense Sci skills. (e.g., Power Insulators console now also increases Flow Capacitors, etc.)
** b) Add a new set of stats to all Science Consoles. Examples include: +Cooldown Reductions (for Sci only) or Improved Sensor Analysis (which might encourage Sci ships to not universally use Sci console slots as "dump" slots for Cstore consoles).
3) Reduce and/or eliminate many (or even all) "Global" cooldowns.
This would allow for better combo effects when using certain abilities in conjunction with one another. For example, it is currently impossible to use Tyken's Rift and Energy Siphon at the same time, even though using them both in tandem could be seen as an ideal tactical choice - they affect the same enemy stats, they use the same captain skills & consoles, etc.
4) Introduce diminishing returns on Damage Boost abilities.
Part of the issue here is not just Science's underperformance, but also Tac's overperformance. We've talked about potentially finding a way to apply harsher diminishing returns on Damage Buffs as a result. We don't like this option as much, since it would upset many players and have a tangible impact on PvE. But it's still been discussed.
4b) If we ever did the above, we might also end up putting diminishing returns on Hull Heals, so that Spike Healing became less of an issue. In essence, any time your Hull is healed, you'd become temporarily resistant to additional healing. The more heal abilities you use in rapid succession, the less effective each would be. But again, this is not seen as an ideal option because of how many players it would impact negatively.
5) And lastly, we've discussed just doing a great big "improvement" pass on every Science ability, one-by-one. Each one would receive an individual review with the express purpose of making them more effective for both PvP and Group PvE (STFs, Fleet Events, etc). This is likely what should end up happening - at least over the short term, to address some stand-out single-power issues - but it's among the most time-consuming options of the things we've discussed, so finding time in our schedule to focus on it is a difficult proposition.
This is not the complete list of ideas we've floated, but some of the others are a too far-fetched (in terms of technical requirements) for me to feel comfortable talking about them publicly.
-
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
2. Actually I've kind of felt for a while that sci consoles need this exact thing. You shouldn't be going "hey I'll just load up on more Field generators here" instead of any and anything else. If you don't mind me suggesting I would also very sincerely recommending you move the field gen back to being a 1 per ship item, and restore it to +35 percent capacity gain. This will allow Sci ships to be able to field more sci consoles, comfortably. Especially if you combine this with #1.
3. Sci skills shouldn't have shared CDs. I'll agree with that completely. The good sci skills each have incredibly high opp costs, vs healing.
4. Dear god do not do this. The last thing you need to do is kick Escorts in the junk, given how ludicrously easy it is to overcome their damage. And tac boosted sci, is only seen as "OP" because Debuff CC right now is at a very low point in STO due to insane resistances to the sci skills, and a handful of other sci abilities (like grav well) being completely useless in pvp. Back when tacs could boost the sci skills the first go around due to the sheer strength of sci sci, and things like CPB, it was completely un appealing for a tac to be in a sci ship. (as it is right now honestly Sci Sci is still the Game Winner in pvp. People are just pissed because they don't see a gazillion damage by their names and feel inadequate. )
5. This one should have gone without saying after I made all of those videos for you guys.
I am very supportive of this, with one extra caveat: When you reduce the cooldowns of the science abilities, how about adding an Aux Power reduction as well, similar to how Beam Overload works? It has the benefit of making Science ships more effective (with the general cooldown reduction), but it reduces the OP of quick chains of abilities.
It occurs to me that most tactical skills have an innate weapon power reduction (from the weapons themselves), but science has none of these things.
Well, thank you for the update, I really appreciate it.
www.divisionhispana.com
Thank you very much, I really appreciate this post.
This would be a good move, I approve it.
If you decide to do it, there are two powers that need to be tuned according to the new aux bonus, specifically:
- Photonic Shockwave
- Tractor Beam Repulsor
PSW does little damage and the damage output is not tied to aux level atm.
TBR has repulsion effect tied to auxiliary level but damage output is independent from power levels, so actually it works better with zero aux power (because this way you can keep your enemy within 5km tbr range)
I don't like this one.
I like this one, very nice idea!
I like this one too, but only if you fix photonic officer ability making it work as a straight cooldown reduction like the doff one.
If you dont, this would give science ships with ltc eng slot an unfair advantage over pure science ships (aux2bat + 3 technicians doff would result in a fire everything-recharge everything strategy that is not available to pure science ships because photonic officer works differently.
No, damage boosts are fine, just remove tac damage boosts effect on science powers (omega or Alpha should not improve gravity well or tbr or psw)
If you need help on this one i can help you (sci pvper since 2010, mail me ingame at @hulkhogan.ita), and I like the "short term" part of the phrase
Thanks again for posting this and updating us.
1) _Hull_ healing absolutely isn't the problem. The problem with the heal/damage balance is that the introduction of TT-based shield redistribution essentially quadrupled everyone's shield capacity, MACO introduced more shield resists for eveyone, BFI doffs give everyone a kind of free RSP on a 45s cooldown, the duration of RSP has been increased and the borg shield proc provides 50% resist. _Shield_ resists/healing is the major problem here.
If you cut the TT redistribution down to 5s, reduce the proc chance of the BFI doff and prevent its proc from being applied multiple times simultaneously (currently this can happen even with just a single doff), you will have essentially solved the healing/resist problem without having to mess with the heal system itself.
PVP matches between two good groups take hours these days and kills are often only scored by lucky phaser procs against the shield subsystem because the shield healing/resist from abilities/procs that are independent of the ship type is beyond good and evil and has almost entirely removed the differences between ship classes when it comes to self-healing shields.
2) Tactical damage boosts basically haven't changed since S1.2. The games used to work before with these levels, it should work now without having to tweak this aspect significantly. (Apart from the fact that you once removed tac boosts for sci abilities and then reintroduced it... what is your true intention?)
sounds good, they need to have a greater effect in most cases.
i think this is not the problem that it used to be. now flow cap consoles buff weapon procs, glider, P2W consoles, and partial gens are great for anyone using any sci skills offensively, some P2W consoles, and warp plasma. wish partials buffed plasma weapon proc too. sci slots are not just for shield hitpoints generators anymore. giving a flow cap console insulators too would just make resistance even more of a problem. i almost always run 2 flow cap on my excelsior and 3 particle on my plasma and iso belching fleet ktinga.
ya a lot of sci skills are hamstrung by their system cooldown, they cant spike with thier abilities very well, and none of them work well enough on their own. some system cool downs are important, like the team skills, beam skills, EPtX skills, stuff like that. i don't see why using TSS should make FBP go on a cool down though.
even the most potent firepower can disappear in the spike healing ether when a dedicated healer is around. when one is not, it can seem like damage is overpowered right now. without a sci crippling someone a match can go on indefinitely with healing outpacing damage. tac is performing well, the others are under performing, don't nerf tac to under performing too
theres a lot of complaining by pve'ers about how powerful a tac/sci combo is, but their experience is limited to their little sandbox, that happens to be in a 10 thousand square mile desert, that we play in. some sci skills deal knetic and energy damage, those are in a tac captains realm of expertise. in effect, their damage dealing is very specialized and has no real use in a strong team, its sort of irreverent. sci/sci should be focusing on disabling and setting up kills, tac/sci cant really do that at all when he is trying to deal damage. disregard the pve complaints that their sci captain isn't a tac captain. to appease them i suggest making npc's have negative sensor, insulator and dampener resistance so a sci/sci can be better at pve.
hmm. reducing how ludicrous spiky damage and healing is would be something i would approve of. it would make unskilled players who get one shot more happy at least. i'd prefer more sturdy tall ship combat were everything takes a lot of hits and time to take down, but were healing cant out pace the damage forever. in a way its sort of balanced right now, but its unideal for new players and favors the very skilled the most
this would be good, there are several stinkers in the line up that need an overhaul. these changes should be made with the effects doffs have in mind as well.
i think you will get plenty of useful feedback from this, by the people that know this stuff best. exciting times!
I'm sure this will end up creating some super-powered combo of doom, but id be happy to see this.
First, thank you so very much for doing this with us all. You just became one of my favorite developers in a single post. The ship artists are now in second place. Sorry guys!
I think that is option would be the easiest for you guy to play with and tweak to get predictable results! I strongly feel that this option out of the four options is the best short term solution because most Science Ship builds run high Auxiliary power comparatively to Escorts and Cruisers.
I also think the benefit should increase with the rank of the Ability being used starting at rank II.
I also do not like this option at all because it would help Tactical Captains in Tactical Escorts to throw in a low level Science Bridge Officer ability to increase their Alpha Strike potential. Please do not do this! Imagine if you will an Escort with a two console buff to Tractor Beam Repulse I and no auxiliary power? I don?t want to see that thank you.
Please NO to both #3 & #4. Unless anyone can convince me otherwise, I think those two solutions will be more trouble than they are worth.
This is, in my own opinion, what needs to be done. In fact, I think that only four of the main science abilities really need to be tweaked/re-worked in order to have the science abilities once again be worthwhile.
Jam Sensors should placate for 3 seconds but de-buff the targets ACC modifier for a duration that improves with countermeasures skill and aux power/ resisted by sensors skill. This would be extremely useful in PVE against bosses and in PVP against Escorts or Cruiser Beam Boats as sci.
Tachyon Beam: like Beam Target Shields, should have a chance, small chance, to disable shield subsystem for 5 seconds. Its drain should also only affect the shield facing that it pulses against, not all shields.
Charged Particle Burst should not damage shields but de-buff shield resistances over duration. Damage is too easily healed. It would be much better to have charged particle burst render EPTS-I & II less effective. This really makes science worthwhile in PVP because Cruises have trouble getting by Escort Shields and vice versa. Just saying a soft counter to EPTS would be great news! In PVE, the faster I get past enemy shields the better. It is win/win I think
Energy Siphon/Tykens rift: The fix for these is to not have them share a cool-down with each other.
So you're considering that the issue is only about DPS? Such a revamp will serve no purpose since the purpose of science abilities isn't DPS at all. Indeed it's an interesting side-effect, but what we do want to do as sci is debuffing, controlling targets, etc, and this is something we can't really do since most of our abilities have little control effects.
What i'd like to see is stronger science powers, ie powers you can't counter easily. Real energy drains. Tractor beams harders to escape from. For instance, I'd like to see a real use to tractor beam III or gravity well III, since it deals almost no dps at least it could hold the targets better.
And what about wider effects science abilities? A good engineer can heal a team of 5 including himself, but it's extremely challenging or impossible to use control abilities on more than 1 target.
So if you boost the DSP you're doing it wrong, because it's definitely not what this class is about.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
*LIKE
2) Increase the tactical value of Science Consoles.
** a) Make all Science consoles dual-stat
*LIKE
** b) Add a new set of stats to all Science Consoles. Examples include: +Cooldown Reductions (for Sci only)
*NO LIKE, making things shoot more often does not make them hit harder
3) Reduce and/or eliminate many (or even all) "Global" cooldowns.
*NO LIKE, same as above, only because i can shoot it more often doesn't make it hit harder.
granted, some cooldowns seem a bit crazy
4) Introduce diminishing returns on Damage Boost abilities.
HELLZ NO!
the problem is not that Sci ships can't TANK the damage of Escorts, the problem is that they don't dish out any notable damage / or *FEEL* like they don't.
5) doing a great big "improvement" pass on every Science ability
this might be the best solution, just rebuild the whole class.
***
personal experience report:
i have 11 Characters, 3 of them are Science Captains, and not one is flying a SCI ship.
even my Caitian Captain that i specifically lvld to 50 for the Atrox, which i bought for 2000 Zen... is now sitting in a Cruiser because all the high end SCI abilities are just not good.
It does not matter if i PvE or PvP i do not get any feedback what i do to the other ship,
i know i HATE it when i fight a Sci ship and it starts messing with my systems or cooldowns and sucks energy from me i FEEL the crippling effects.
But when i am the Sci ship throwing these effects at the enemy player, i do not get any feedback from the game what is happening to him, i do not SEE if his energy levels only drop a bit or if a system is completely offline. Those weird Tykens Rift nebula stuff... i still have no idea what these things even do exactly, also i dislike the idea of such skills to begin with, they feel too much like *magic* instead of Science.
And with NPCs i am not even sure IF they have such a thing like energy levels.
So, Damage and Healing has yellow numbers above the ship and health bars which directly tell me whats going on, the bulk of the Sci abilities do not give me any feedback and therefore i feel like they are doing nothing.
And ultimately, with 6 Weapon Slots and 2 Tactical Consoles i just don't feel that my weapons are doing damage at all.
I guess i'm the prime example of a BAD Sci Captain... i just can't have fun with that stuff.
Weird enough, the Sci Captain abilities, SubNuc Beam, that Holo Fleet and Sensor Scan are realy good, but i don't need a Sci ship for those, they work just fine with an Escort or Cruiser.
i think thats all the feedback i got to offer.
Eng and Tac consoles are useful in more situations and they stack or complement each other better. Sci consoles generally only affect one Science-related skill and Sci skills tend to have a narrow focus or a specific niche.
Since the consoles really only affect one specific Sci ability, the way Sci abilities are nerfed at present makes consoles even less useful than they would be otherwise.
Give me a good reason to want to keep Sci consoles in my Sci slots and I will.
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Thanks a lot for that.
That might be a good idea.
I like b) a lot. Not sure about a), because that might make those consoles very strong (unless the relative bonuses are smaller than now).
I'd like that very much, because most "good" abilities have a) long cooldowns and b)shared cooldowns. For example starting CD on all deflector abilities when using Tachyon beam, Gravity well, Tyken's Rift, Energy siphon is very annoying. It means that when you use 1 sci ability in a fight, you usually send a bunch more on CD resulting in you using only a fraction of those you have. That's the part I find harder about playing sci than tac and eng. You have to plan well ahead: "Should I use a GW now, or is it better if I use nothing and save for a later hypothetical problem.
When I sum it up, not only you are forced to use just a few sci powers at a time, you are also pushed to choose whether even using them at all. And that's quite against the fact that you want to have cool abilities to use.
Note: Still, careful about some very nasty combos you might end up enabling for PvP.
I'd rather not open that Pandora's box. While it might end up fixing Science, somehow, it has a great potential to bork a lot of other stuff.
Yeah, there's nothing I could possibly have against this. But as you say, very time consuming it is. So while this could be slowly running in the background, I'd really like to see some testing of the solution number 3).
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!
I'd just like to see it more polished where each side has things that are more relevant to the faction than one faction just being a copy of the other.
This is not the solution IMHO. As it stands, the passive bonus is fine. The only thing that could be done here to improve it would to increase the bonus to around 120%-150% at 75 power.
This could be good, but you need to consider the consoles carefully.
The big issue with the shared cooldowns is that they are just too long. I have a CC build with 2 GWs, II and III. If I use one, the other goes on a 45s cooldown. Try reducing the shared cooldown on powers. For an example, make the GW cooldown 30s instead of 45.
Bad idea. Not only would this cut the teeth of Tacs, but the amount of hate this would generate would be staggering. Not to mention, its not the issue at hand.
What we need borticus is better control. As it stands, Gravity Well as an example is useless against Escorts, as they can evasive out of it. They should not be able to do that unless they dial full engines (100/100). Drains are useless, they dont take out enough power for them to matter. Tractor Beams are also poor, when used on a fully resisted target, it has almost no effect.
Damage wise, I'd say only a small amount of improvement is needed. We're not DPS, but having a little more damage wouldn't be a bad thing. I'd say 10-25% would be enough.
I don't agree with the idea sci consoles are junk. Let me explain why. A while ago I was under same impression. Till tet glider came. Then flow cap + tet glider/energy siphon = almost hax. flows + leech + glider = hax. Shield regen console, at high shield power and w regen shield = good regen boost (regens are definitely a great choice for vessels that can't afford a lot of heals required by a cov shield). Shield cap console (that I don't personally use) is also good for some players and quite a few use it. Sensors is also good in decloaking klinks from farther distances. Biodunction is not bad, but i think there are other consoles that are better. Haven't tried others (like decompiler, countermeasure and particles - which should make warp plasma even sweeter- or whatever I missed) and I really can't talk about them.
Now about how they complement eachother, that's an excellent point. I don't really see how can be improved though, due to the specific of each console. Maybe if skill tree is revamped for sci, into 2 types, crowd control (tractor beams, dampners, viral matrix, particles, etc) and drains (siphons, flows, shield emitter, tac beam, etc), then complementing would be easier. Along with reducing the amount of those many sci consoles to a more restricitve set that pertains to the new skills. I'm probably over-simplifying the whole aspect a bit, but I do that just to be easier to get to the point w/o writing 5 pages. addressing sci issues is definitely a very hard thing to do with respect of ballance.
I personally use engi consoles slots to dump p2w, but other than mvam console and leech, I rarely use p2w, I know, personal preference, lol, but I do not believe the sci consoles are useless. sci powers, as a contrast could use some love, but we should have at least 2-3 weeks to test things on tribble before they roll into holodeck so we won't have any surprises or unwanted bugs that can't be discovered unless too late.
Hear! Daughters too.
The blood of battle washes clean.
The Warrior brave and true.
We fight, we love, and then we kill...
I dont want you to remove them, but clearly you added resistances to the point of disabling some powers, then why dont reduce that resistances just a bit, maybe a 20% or 25% and we test it.
With that solution, you could give us the scientists back and we can have some common ground to work with.
The sci community wont feel so frustrated and I think you may get additional useful feedback from all of us.
What do you think?
www.divisionhispana.com
Xenovita, this is a personal opinion, but I'd rather wait 6 months and have a proper sci rebalance than patching this and that, then only to end up having a major overhaul anyways. This is definitely a hard task since if sci powers become too strong, then we go back to the nightmares we had few years ago (remember viral matrix?). I can only hope that cryptic devs get the best ideas we post here and take time to properly fix the sci.
Hear! Daughters too.
The blood of battle washes clean.
The Warrior brave and true.
We fight, we love, and then we kill...