I have been playing for nearly two years and I will tell you one thing.
STO is a game of cycles.
Yes, I believe that we are in the "escort-age" and do you want to know why?
PvP is struggling. Cryptic is desperate to capture the interest of he MMO market. And most kids just love to blow things up, and escorts provide that attraction more than cruisers or sci ships at the moment in my opinion.
I have 2x science captains (Atrox, Voqov), 2x engineer captains (Oddy, Bort), and 2x tactical captains (MVAM, Jemmy). Depending on the team I am with, I decide which ship to use. Each ship does its job very well.
I can say one thing from experience as a cruiser captain. I always loose the match when I am focused in dps and not on supporting my team. When I support my team, we rarely loose.
Well I run 1 of each I run my sci in a DSSV (healboat, polaron and a little CC: GW and TR), Engi Excelsior (tries for a little of everything (as that's my play style)) and tac (Patrol escort, excelsior (same build as the engi) and MVAE) I chose my what I am working with which profession I need and then if I land tac I have to decide what hole I need to fll
There reason why the cruiser concept in this game is muddled because the game was not created by those who study war, obviously. You don't have to be a soldier or veteran to google or go to the library to research war machines and their purpose. Cruisers and battleships were not built to just take punishment and not dish it out. They had the most type of firepower than any other war machine in the world. They could not only fight ship to ship and sink eachother, but engage aircraft, and provide fire support for ground troops several miles inland.
This "tank" idea from other MMO games is a big contradiction to what a tank is. A tank is the most feared ground machine on the battlefield in the world because it is hard to kill and it can kill any troop, light armored, medium armored, all the way up to another tank. This idea of tanking and not being able to fight back is a ridiculous idea for a multiplayer game because there is no reward for taking hits and healing, but there is rewards for the most damage and kills. Just play some Fleet action missions and you will see that the most kills get the best end game drops. Tank players lose out on this when they are playing alongside many escort players because escorts easily kills. If you think this is a fair way of rewarding players, then you are totally blind.
The idea with cannons (in star trek, anyway) is that they're so unwieldy that they're only practical on a ship that can bring them to bear with its own maneuverability. Now, if you want a new energy weapon for broadside cruisers that carries a big penalty in exchange for big damage, that might be a worthy argument, but the idea of cruisers being maneuverable enough to make fixed cannons viable is just silly.
I have been playing for nearly two years and I will tell you one thing.
STO is a game of cycles.
Yes, I believe that we are in the "escort-age" and do you want to know why?
PvP is struggling. Cryptic is desperate to capture the interest of the MMO market. And most kids just love to blow things up, and escorts provide that attraction more than cruisers or sci ships at the moment in my opinion.
I have 2x science captains (Atrox, Voqov), 2x engineer captains (Oddy, Bort), and 2x tactical captains (MVAM, Jemmy). Depending on the team I am with, I decide which ship to use. Each ship does its job very well.
I can say one thing from experience as a cruiser captain. I always loose the match when I am focused soley on dps and not on supporting my team. When I support my team, we rarely loose.
This happens because PUG teams get more players tthat are stranger to eachother and don't know eachother enough to trust working together. Many cases they don't even communicate, just be the first to fly off in their own direction. Most matchs with the PUG teams vs the established team have the established team winning all the time. Its destroying PVP because the established teams have their ships, skills, and tactics so fine tuned that they mop the floor with other newly put together teams, and it's cause new players to lose morale for PVP because they will never win. This is why the PVP population is at an all-time low.
To bring life back to PVP, the Dev need: 1) balance the firepower of ships so one type of ship doesn't dominate PVP. 2) They need to change the scenarios for PVP, making Capture and Hold more of a destroy and defend. Instead of siting in one spot to waiting for an emblem to change you set up a station that the other side has to destroy while trying to fighting you. People are more interersted in fighting than taking over checkpoints. 3) Make things in PVP to where teams can't spawn kill eachother by making the station weapons actual hardpoints tha can't be destroy and have real devistation against player ships. Randomize where teams will spaw so the victor team can't sit on a spawn point and kill everything that pops up. 4) Finally, change these old stale maps to something new. They have been using most of these maps since launch, and players are bored of it.
Leave it to someone like yourself who doesn't know bullistics, to tell me what guns will do and won't do. I shot many calibur weapons for 13 years because it was my job. Not only did I shoot them but had to know the mechanics of the weapon, affecective ranges and damage done by these weapons. I shot 5.56, 7.62, 9mm, 50 Cal., 25mm, 30mm, 40mm, and 120mm. I ran ranges and did battle damage assesments in the US and in Iraq. If it has anything to do with grunts and tankers, I did it. The planes are armed with 30mm machine guns in those days. The size of one round is as thick as 3 of your fingers together will make a hole in 12 inch thick aluminum armor of a M113, large enough to put you head through it. That's a light, medium armored army vehicle, so imagine the round going through a thiner skin plane with wind speeds 200-300 mph. If the holes don't split your wings, the wind will finish the job. Fighter planes's structure can't stand the 300 mph wind pressure after it's structure beams have been split by 30mm bullets. The planes will decentergrate after the pressure, so if you think those guns can't destroy planes, you are sadly mistaken.
I don't think taking some of the turn rate from the escort will solve the problem because there ships like the Galaxy types that are at the bottom rung of the turn rate latter. We players has been asking for a turn rate boost for the Galaxy types since the game's launch, yet the Devs don't think we need one. I sight balancing the weapons as a better way to even the playing field without making all the ships totally identical in performance.
yeah you made exactly my point...the fighter planes had bigger caliber guns than the bombers atleast those mounted on turrets...and bigger caliber means greater range.
and some parts of the plane (plates behind the pilots seat for instance) could withstand those smaller calibers actually.
and yes, what i wrote was, that when fired upon, fighters had to break off their attack...and if hit, they had to break off completely the attack. But being hit does not mean shot down.
anyway, i have no intention to derail this thread, since i know already you are a strong opinionated person. So i'll just leave it at that.
But you should read this from the section "the 8th AF" until "Bombing japan" (somewhere below the middle) to learn that the heavy armaments on the bombers were proven only semi usefull and to some extend a disadvantage.
The idea with cannons (in star trek, anyway) is that they're so unwieldy that they're only practical on a ship that can bring them to bear with its own maneuverability. Now, if you want a new energy weapon for broadside cruisers that carries a big penalty in exchange for big damage, that might be a worthy argument, but the idea of cruisers being maneuverable enough to make fixed cannons viable is just silly.
I'm not the one asking for cannons to be put on crusiers because the effect will make the game look more Star Wars like than Star Trek. This game is already drifting to match other Sci-Fi lore because many of the canon escorts are not supposted to be armed with cannons, only the Defiant class. With ships flying around as fast as small fighterships and firing reapeating energy cannons, it can be argued that STO is copying Star Wars or some other space based Sci-Fi show. I am asking for beam power to match the cannons or come close to it because that's all we have as enegy weapons for cruisers.
yeah you made exactly my point...the fighter planes had bigger caliber guns than the bombers atleast those mounted on turrets...and bigger caliber means greater range.
and some parts of the plane (plates behind the pilots seat for instance) could withstand those smaller calibers actually.
and yes, what i wrote was, that when fired upon, fighters had to break off their attack...and if hit, they had to break off completely the attack. But being hit does not mean shot down.
anyway, i have no intention to derail this thread, since i know already you are a strong opinionated person. So i'll just leave it at that.
But you should read this from the section "the 8th AF" until "Bombing japan" (somewhere below the middle) to learn that the heavy armaments on the bombers were proven only semi usefull and to some extend a disadvantage.
I did not make your point because those turrets on the bombers were made to shoot holes in other planes. They are .50 calibur or machine guns. The pilots wore flak vest that doesn't stop bullets and will minimize wounds from shrapnel from flak. You can look up flak for yourself. The plate in front of the pilot was made to stop flak and will only stop 9 mil, through 7.62. Nothing is stopping .50 cal rounds but tank armor, and there are no such planes flying around, even today with that kind of armor. Bombers never went one on one with fighter planes, there were always groups of fighters to take on bombers. The fighters didn't have avionics so they had to fire from close distance while straight on to target, and risk getting killed by the the machine gun turrets. Since you are so ignorant on the supbject, I suggest you get off your lazyboy chair, and go to the library read the books on this subject, go to your Military Day events, or go to a museum where there are WWII fighter planes and bombers and asked veterants who operated these things. Better yet, join the military and you will have all the access to this information and more, as long as you're not a criminal.
Most of the ideas in this thread and the many others like it are not geared to do what you say is the wish of the Cruiser crowd, not infringing on the Escort.
Thier have been ideas that the Cruiser needs buffing, the Engineer class needs buffing, the Science class needs buffing, the Tactical class need debuffing, Escorts need debuffing, etc etc.
No one has really given any simple and conclusive ideas that would make the cruiser crowd happy that doesn't infringe on the Tactical/Escort and fixes the perception that the Cruisers suck in the mind of the average Cruiser player.
To close that gap between Cruiser and Escort performance to a level that the average, unexperienced player finds adequite does remove the Escort viability as the primary Damage Dealing class of vessel in the game and if that happens why would anyone play a tac/Escort?
Why would anyone want to play a Tac/Escort or escort period if the choice of going cruiser nets you only a slight loss in total damage output of less than say even 1500 points total? Why would anyone choose the lesser survivable vessel?
Why would anyone want to play a Tac/Escort if teh Cruisers are bumped in turn rate and have thier enertia changed to make them more nimble in combat? Who would not choose the Cruiser for a loss of a little turn rate, gaining near Escort damage capability and the greater tanking?
Why would someone not choose the idea of new buffed beam arrays on thier existing cruiser if they do damage equal to a DHCs and have that wonderful 270 degree firing arc? You would have all the tankiness of a Crusier with Escort damage output and no need to really have to manuever to keep weapons on target.
I'm not saying that the Cruiser may need something to make them feel betetr in play or that the Engineer class needs something to ake them more fun to play or that Science is in the same boat.
As a game Developer Cryptic needs to make sure all their game aspects are fun to play to some extent but the bulk of the ideas offered up in the forums does that at the expense of the tactical/Escort class and will have us back here again in the forums debating the " Escorts need a buff" threads in 6 months and furthering ignoring the true fix for fan driven perceptions of how a vessel should play as oppossed to a game viewpoint of how they are designed to be played.
This is just like the 31/31/31 arguments against Paladins in WoW.
If a Cruiser is loaded to the gills with DPS abilities, they lose most of their tanking abilities.
Not all true, but most. Due to the increased number of Engineering BOff ability openings when compared to an Escorts.
Even if they give Cruisers a more flexible BOff layout allowing greater access to Tactical abilities it won't change much in the way of their damage output due to the design of FAW and BO. I wouldn't recommend cannons for Cruisers as a way of increasing damage, let the Escorts keep their Defiant styled weapons.
Again, increasing the turn rate and changing the inertia is not going to put us over the top or anywhere near the mobility of Escorts. You act as if we want a mid teens turn rate.
For the largest ships Fed side we aren't even asking for a 9, we are asking for an 8 tops.
When tweaking numbers you don't tweak based on the average or poor players performance. You tweak or create based on its maximum potential.
So when I say I think that gap should be smaller, I mean smaller when played by competent players closest towards its best performance. Right now that gap is 83%+ for Escorts when played by players of equal skill.
Bumping that to close the gap to something closer to 38%-42% for Enginner/Science piloted Cruisers. I believe for Tac Captains in a Cruiser that difference would be something closer to a 20%-24% difference for Tac Captains. And there wouldn't be a very large increase in durability for the Tac Captain over the Escorts because the abilities of the BOffs would all be geared towards damage and not survivability.
To close that gap between Cruiser and Escort performance to a level that the average, unexperienced player finds adequite does remove the Escort viability as the primary Damage Dealing class of vessel in the game and if that happens why would anyone play a tac/Escort?
Why would anyone want to play a Tac/Escort or escort period if the choice of going cruiser nets you only a slight loss in total damage output of less than say even 1500 points total? Why would anyone choose the lesser survivable vessel?
Why did players choose to play anything other than a Warrior for melee dps in WoW?
Why did players choose to play anything other than a Priest for healing in WoW?
Why did players choose to play anything other than a Mage for ranged dps in WoW?
I did not make your point because those turrets on the bombers were made to shoot holes in other planes. They are .50 calibur or machine guns. The pilots wore flak vest that doesn't stop bullets and will minimize wounds from shrapnel from flak. You can look up flak for yourself. The plate in front of the pilot was made to stop flak and will only stop 9 mil, through 7.62. Nothing is stopping .50 cal rounds but tank armor, and there are no such planes flying around, even today with that kind of armor. Bombers never went one on one with fighter planes, there were always groups of fighters to take on bombers. The fighters didn't have avionics so they had to fire from close distance while straight on to target, and risk getting killed by the the machine gun turrets. Since you are so ignorant on the supbject, I suggest you get off your lazyboy chair, and go to the library read the books on this subject, go to your Military Day events, or go to a museum where there are WWII fighter planes and bombers and asked veterants who operated these things. Better yet, join the military and you will have all the access to this information and more, as long as you're not a criminal.
just do us a favour and klick on the link i provided and actually read the subsection i pointed out, before further derailing this thread. it is little known fact that machine guns had proven little effective on bombers during the second world war.
but knowing you, you chose to ignore facts in fovour of your own opinion.
This is just like the 31/31/31 arguments against Paladins in WoW.
If a Cruiser is loaded to the gills with DPS abilities, they lose most of their tanking abilities.
Not all true, but most. Due to the increased number of Engineering BOff ability openings when compared to an Escorts.
Even if they give Cruisers a more flexible BOff layout allowing greater access to Tactical abilities it won't change much in the way of their damage output due to the design of FAW and BO. I wouldn't recommend cannons for Cruisers as a way of increasing damage, let the Escorts keep their Defiant styled weapons.
Again, increasing the turn rate and changing the inertia is not going to put us over the top or anywhere near the mobility of Escorts. You act as if we want a mid teens turn rate.
For the largest ships Fed side we aren't even asking for a 9, we are asking for an 8 tops.
When tweaking numbers you don't tweak based on the average or poor players performance. You tweak or create based on its maximum potential.
So when I say I think that gap should be smaller, I mean smaller when played by competent players closest towards its best performance. Right now that gap is 83%+ for Escorts when played by players of equal skill.
Bumping that to close the gap to something closer to 38%-42% for Enginner/Science piloted Cruisers. I believe for Tac Captains in a Cruiser that difference would be something closer to a 20%-24% difference for Tac Captains. And there wouldn't be a very large increase in durability for the Tac Captain over the Escorts because the abilities of the BOffs would all be geared towards damage and not survivability.
Why did players choose to play anything other than a Warrior for melee dps in WoW?
Why did players choose to play anything other than a Priest for healing in WoW?
Why did players choose to play anything other than a Mage for ranged dps in WoW?
There reason why the cruiser concept in this game is muddled because the game was not created by those who study war, obviously.
Except the federation Cruiser is not a battleShip nor was it ever designed with that sole purpose in mind. In the confines of STO the Devs have made the Federation Cruiser more Defensive in nature.
Star Fleet is a psuedo military construct built for exploration first and foremost with defense of its members second and while a Cruiser can bring firepower to a conflict, that application of damage is not its primary function.
Really? Children on a BattleShip? Families on a vessel of war?
if you want to play a realistic interpretation of naval combat, then you should play a naval combat simulation like silent hunter or whatever.
A sci fi MMO is therefore hardly suited to meet your expectations nor will it ever try to represent combat in a realistic way...it is by definition: fiction.
Well, it sounded like you implied that i fly with my backside facing my opponents on purpose.
No, your ego heard what it wanted.
I don't have to imagine a military versions of a plane because know military tech and civilian tech. There couldn,t be a military version of it without changing the whole wings of the plane thus changing what it does. If you made the 787 a military plane, it would have to be a new type of AWACS because that plane don't make manuvers that are drastic from civilian airliners.
and you still missed the point of my metaphoric example.
And the weapons are not really that different. Sure a beam array does far less damage than a cannon, but then you can shoot 8 at the same time, but only 4 cannons. If you do a plain dps calculation (without any mods etc.) you will see that a 4 cannons 3 turrets vs. 8 beams setup is only ~15% different.
Beams do more DPV than cannons and Cannons do more DPS than beams.
Two different types of damage are applied by weapon in STO.
Beams are designed for sustained High Damage Per Volley attacks with low DPS.
Cannons are designed for Burst Damage Per Second attacks with low DPV.
To say beams do less damage than Cannons is misleading and only half true. Beams do less DPS than cannons only. They are not a burst weapon.
My beams manage a little over 500 DPH at 5km with EPtW cycling I scrape 300 unbuffed so for me this would be an upgrade and this is AFTER I refined my character and ship build in favour of beams
So on these grounds yes I do suck, apparently I suck majorly but me being me I won't deny that as I have no self respect so yeah, call me what you will.
Have you looked at DontdrunkImshoots testing on overclocked Weapon Power used with beams? You should, with EPTW be able to push your weapons power past 125 and see a benefit in increased damage for the effort.
Use some other abilities mentioned in the same thread and you can get some outstanding damage from beams with or without a Tactical Toon at the helm.
Cannons it seems do not benefit from this quirk in the mechanics of the game.
Not really, I found the cycling EPtX really failed dismally in my hands, I trid to do it but I always found the next one in line to be on cooldown or I got blown up because I needed something that was unavailable to me. I find I can usually put a hole in those build though, there is usually some weakness (usually warp plasma) that I exploit the moment it shows up and while it isn't a game ender it's enough to keep a stalemate going
Unless you are a master clicker, cycling can be a little difficult without a good Key bind.
What cruiser do you enjoy flying the most, and I will try to suggest a KB that may work for you to tie to your Spacebar (or any key).
Though it may require you using a bindfile for the key bind to be possible.
just do us a favour and klick on the link i provided and actually read the subsection i pointed out, before further derailing this thread. it is little known fact that machine guns had proven little effective on bombers during the second world war.
but knowing you, you chose to ignore facts in fovour of your own opinion.
Because fighter planes attack in packs, they don't go one on one with a bomber group. Do yourself a favor and read the whole story an not just one little passage. You seem to be focusing on the failded versions of bombers becasue there are so many prototypes.
Look, you lot, STOP IT! enough is enough and this has nothing to do with Star trek or STO!
Now lets get back on topic here. Cruisers don't have the same firepower of escorts and YES they can tank but I think we do need to up them a little, not by much but certainly a bit, Just to close down the gap produced by the changing of content focus and the non enhancement of cruisers an sci ships to compensate.
If anything we as engineers are complaining about our ships not being up to much; lets look at our poor science colleges they're in even worse condition, take an escort into a STF and it'll destroy everything before anything has a chance to do anything, take a cruiser into an STF and it can tank to the point of taking no damage. Sci ships don't have these luxuries, they can't keep up with the damage of cruisers and the devs made most of their skills either effectual to NPCs or just ineffectual.
So lets stop bashing each other, lets stop having a go at eachother for suggesting ideas that may encroach on escort territory and perhaps suggest ways to tone them down a little or find ways of keeping escorts a little above them.
Personally my escort bores the living daylights out of me because it's just too powerful (but if I tone it down people complain that I'm a noob and I'm not doing enough DPS so as an escort pilot I can't win), my cruiser feels underpowered (despite it's recent upgrade) and my science is only effective as a healboat.
This needs sorting such that the other tow classes can support escorts better be that by increasing beam damage, decreasing DC/DHC, a mix of the two or even reworking the combat system such that DPS is not the be all and end all in the game.
Now lets get back on topic here. Cruisers don't have the same firepower of escorts and YES they can tank but I think we do need to up them a little, not by much but certainly a bit, Just to close down the gap produced by the changing of content focus and the non enhancement of cruisers an sci ships to compensate.
I've often said I'd be all for a slight turning bump for cruisers, a slight DPS increase might be ok as well, provided they lost some tankyness... maybe at a 2 for 1 ration of tankyness vs. DPS? That seems to be how they are designed as a general rule. I say this because it might have the happy unexpected consequence of making players need to learn to play their cruisers from early levels intead of walking into E STFs thinking staying at 10 km and scowling at a Tac cube will be sufficient..... even if they only learned a few basics it'd be an improvement that would be instantly felt across the game!
Sadly the players that consider themselves "true trek fans" will never accept that cruisers aren't the be all and end all since they want their giant battleships... but without going KDF. I would feel a lot more sympathetic towards them if so often they wouldn't say how they think escort and sci pilots should support their big hero ships. Naturally I'm a "Sisko" style of captain so that #$%^ won't fly with me...
I've often said I'd be all for a slight turning bump for cruisers, a slight DPS increase might be ok as well, provided they lost some tankyness... maybe at a 2 for 1 ration of tankyness vs. DPS?
I think this with the opposite ratio for escorts (perhaps a slightly lower shield mod) I think escorts could use a slight boost to max hull though, the number of times my escorts have been 1 shotted by the borg is unreal.
I would feel a lot more sympathetic towards them if so often they wouldn't say how they think escort and sci pilots should support their big hero ships. Naturally I'm a "Sisko" style of captain so that #$%^ won't fly with me...
Well in all fairness everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I do see why escorts are the primary damage dealers, frankly they aren't that good at much else, I think sci ships and cruisers could use a slight damage boost, science more than cruisers they've paid for it by having most of their skills nerfed.
Sitting a cruiser at 10km at endgame and expecting it to be as successful as during the story is fair however it wrong, I personally have noticed my weapons are more effective during the story for a given distance than they are in STFs at the same distance. I think cruises could work better as a support ship if they were dishing out more damage at 5km than they are presently thus keeping us "Kirks" and "Picards" out of the way of you "Siskos" while still dealing out enough damage to nicely supplement yours, I've said this multiple times and I would be quite happy both as a cruiser pilot and as an escort pilot.
Perhaps we could make this a beam-wide buff thereby escorts would also be affected if they use them or perhaps we could make it a property of cruisers as beams are their primary weapon whereas escort primary weapons are cannons, which frankly don't need any more damage potential.
How does this sound to you? (for anyone else - if you have nothing nice to say, don't say it. I'm here to discuss this not bash anyone)
We have escorts that can deal 15,000 to 20,000
Dps while the cruiser is lucky to deal 4,000
Escorts at high speed have a better defence
Value than any cruiser because you simply can't
Hit them even with max skills and 30% Acc weapons
The entire system is broken and won't be fixed
Because cryptic is making money off making the
Escorts predators with the I win button and cruisers
And science ships there prey.
It's easy to see that if you look at it
There is no uber lock box cruiser is there ?
No there isn't and there won't be because
Cruisers are the entertainment for the escorts
Nothing else can explain the total lack of balance
Between the classes
Go escort or go home...........
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
jellico, while threads like these exist there is still a chance for us to force the hands of the devs and if we ever give up then they will continue to make us less and less useful.
So come on, this thread is still open, there is still time to oppose the current combat system, there is still time for us to discuss solutions to the problem and it's not just us cruiser pilots who need to talk about this but we do need to get the escort crowd in on it and give them reasons to support our requests, naturally of course this involves them looking at our ideas and suggesting ways to improve upon them to make them better for all of us rather than saying things like "L2P".
So come on guys, let's all work together to create a better game for all of us and if you escort pilots don't need cruisers then suggest ways to make us more useful to you rather than just saying "Escorts are meant to be the primary DDs" We know this already! We also know that we are supposed (according to the game mechanics) to be a support class but in a game of DPS a low DPS ship isn't going to be any real good as support now is it?
Look, if we can all come to an agreeable solution that we can all stand behind maybe we can post it as a new thread, stand behind it there and maybe then the devs will make it happen, I know it probably wont work but we will never know if we don't try.
I still say it's maneuverability that's the issue. Escorts fly like one would expect a fighter to fly - not a large ship. No, the Escort is not as large as the Cruiser - but it is still a large ship. If maneuverability were addressed, I believe you would see that many of the issues complained about would also be addressed.
I've always been surprised by the focus on X or Y, while ignoring Z which would work toward fixing X and Y without requiring either an arms race or an arms embargo...
I still say it's maneuverability that's the issue. Escorts fly like one would expect a fighter to fly - not a large ship. No, the Escort is not as large as the Cruiser - but it is still a large ship. If maneuverability were addressed, I believe you would see that many of the issues complained about would also be addressed.
The problem with this is that if escorts didn't move as fast as they do it would be even easier to get DC/DHCs on a target and keep them there thus they would do even more damage than they do now...
I agree that escorts do move a little faster than they should but slowing them down without lowering their damage output would cause yet more problems in PvE... something we don't need
The problem with this is that if escorts didn't move as fast as they do it would be even easier to get DC/DHCs on a target and keep them there thus they would do even more damage than they do now...
I agree that escorts do move a little faster than they should but slowing them down without lowering their damage output would cause yet more problems in PvE... something we don't need
Um, they can adjust their speed. So I'm not sure what you're saying there. They don't have stop and go... they can adjust the speed.
Now if you lower that top speed - lower the turn rate.... then they would have a harder time getting on target. It's the absurd maneuverability that allows them to keep those DHCs on the target while the Cruiser tends to sport BAs. It's what allows packs of them to line up on a single facing or maneuver around to attack the weak facing.
Picture DHCs on a Cruiser for a moment - it would be pretty bad, no? You couldn't keep them on the target - your damage output would drop. Tada, if Escorts did not have the crazy maneuverability that they do...their damage output would drop.
And like I said, adjusting that would not only affect their offensive capabilities - but it would also affect their defensive capabilities. An Escort can easily hug a target's weakest arc - which means they're facing less of a threat/less damage.
If you just adjust a certain weapon up or down, then they'll just switch weapons but still maintain the advantage because of their maneuverability.
I think this with the opposite ratio for escorts (perhaps a slightly lower shield mod) I think escorts could use a slight boost to max hull though, the number of times my escorts have been 1 shotted by the borg is unreal.
TBH neither an escort nor cruiser should get one shot UNLESS they're in the wrong place. Much like a WoW raid, part of STFs is not "standing in the fire" as it were.. ie, being in a bad position (unless its a gate.. those cheeky gates can get you anywhere below a certain range it seems! but gates are not moving cubes of doom, so its nowhere as bad.)
I think cruises could work better as a support ship if they were dishing out more damage at 5km than they are presently thus keeping us "Kirks" and "Picards" out of the way of you "Siskos" while still dealing out enough damage to nicely supplement yours, I've said this multiple times and I would be quite happy both as a cruiser pilot and as an escort pilot.
This is how it works right now, the only difference is that effective weapons range is quite a bit closer. The challenge lies more in positioning and the cruiser's dismal turning. My cruiser has 2 RCS consoles... I still say a slight turn buff to cruisers would make them far more effective and fun to fly. Mainly because they could be "in position" more often. If spreadsheet balance must be maintained some tankyness would not be missed.
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Well I run 1 of each I run my sci in a DSSV (healboat, polaron and a little CC: GW and TR), Engi Excelsior (tries for a little of everything (as that's my play style)) and tac (Patrol escort, excelsior (same build as the engi) and MVAE) I chose my what I am working with which profession I need and then if I land tac I have to decide what hole I need to fll
This "tank" idea from other MMO games is a big contradiction to what a tank is. A tank is the most feared ground machine on the battlefield in the world because it is hard to kill and it can kill any troop, light armored, medium armored, all the way up to another tank. This idea of tanking and not being able to fight back is a ridiculous idea for a multiplayer game because there is no reward for taking hits and healing, but there is rewards for the most damage and kills. Just play some Fleet action missions and you will see that the most kills get the best end game drops. Tank players lose out on this when they are playing alongside many escort players because escorts easily kills. If you think this is a fair way of rewarding players, then you are totally blind.
This happens because PUG teams get more players tthat are stranger to eachother and don't know eachother enough to trust working together. Many cases they don't even communicate, just be the first to fly off in their own direction. Most matchs with the PUG teams vs the established team have the established team winning all the time. Its destroying PVP because the established teams have their ships, skills, and tactics so fine tuned that they mop the floor with other newly put together teams, and it's cause new players to lose morale for PVP because they will never win. This is why the PVP population is at an all-time low.
To bring life back to PVP, the Dev need: 1) balance the firepower of ships so one type of ship doesn't dominate PVP. 2) They need to change the scenarios for PVP, making Capture and Hold more of a destroy and defend. Instead of siting in one spot to waiting for an emblem to change you set up a station that the other side has to destroy while trying to fighting you. People are more interersted in fighting than taking over checkpoints. 3) Make things in PVP to where teams can't spawn kill eachother by making the station weapons actual hardpoints tha can't be destroy and have real devistation against player ships. Randomize where teams will spaw so the victor team can't sit on a spawn point and kill everything that pops up. 4) Finally, change these old stale maps to something new. They have been using most of these maps since launch, and players are bored of it.
yeah you made exactly my point...the fighter planes had bigger caliber guns than the bombers atleast those mounted on turrets...and bigger caliber means greater range.
and some parts of the plane (plates behind the pilots seat for instance) could withstand those smaller calibers actually.
and yes, what i wrote was, that when fired upon, fighters had to break off their attack...and if hit, they had to break off completely the attack. But being hit does not mean shot down.
anyway, i have no intention to derail this thread, since i know already you are a strong opinionated person. So i'll just leave it at that.
But you should read this from the section "the 8th AF" until "Bombing japan" (somewhere below the middle) to learn that the heavy armaments on the bombers were proven only semi usefull and to some extend a disadvantage.
I'm not the one asking for cannons to be put on crusiers because the effect will make the game look more Star Wars like than Star Trek. This game is already drifting to match other Sci-Fi lore because many of the canon escorts are not supposted to be armed with cannons, only the Defiant class. With ships flying around as fast as small fighterships and firing reapeating energy cannons, it can be argued that STO is copying Star Wars or some other space based Sci-Fi show. I am asking for beam power to match the cannons or come close to it because that's all we have as enegy weapons for cruisers.
I did not make your point because those turrets on the bombers were made to shoot holes in other planes. They are .50 calibur or machine guns. The pilots wore flak vest that doesn't stop bullets and will minimize wounds from shrapnel from flak. You can look up flak for yourself. The plate in front of the pilot was made to stop flak and will only stop 9 mil, through 7.62. Nothing is stopping .50 cal rounds but tank armor, and there are no such planes flying around, even today with that kind of armor. Bombers never went one on one with fighter planes, there were always groups of fighters to take on bombers. The fighters didn't have avionics so they had to fire from close distance while straight on to target, and risk getting killed by the the machine gun turrets. Since you are so ignorant on the supbject, I suggest you get off your lazyboy chair, and go to the library read the books on this subject, go to your Military Day events, or go to a museum where there are WWII fighter planes and bombers and asked veterants who operated these things. Better yet, join the military and you will have all the access to this information and more, as long as you're not a criminal.
This is just like the 31/31/31 arguments against Paladins in WoW.
If a Cruiser is loaded to the gills with DPS abilities, they lose most of their tanking abilities.
Not all true, but most. Due to the increased number of Engineering BOff ability openings when compared to an Escorts.
Even if they give Cruisers a more flexible BOff layout allowing greater access to Tactical abilities it won't change much in the way of their damage output due to the design of FAW and BO. I wouldn't recommend cannons for Cruisers as a way of increasing damage, let the Escorts keep their Defiant styled weapons.
Again, increasing the turn rate and changing the inertia is not going to put us over the top or anywhere near the mobility of Escorts. You act as if we want a mid teens turn rate.
For the largest ships Fed side we aren't even asking for a 9, we are asking for an 8 tops.
When tweaking numbers you don't tweak based on the average or poor players performance. You tweak or create based on its maximum potential.
So when I say I think that gap should be smaller, I mean smaller when played by competent players closest towards its best performance. Right now that gap is 83%+ for Escorts when played by players of equal skill.
Bumping that to close the gap to something closer to 38%-42% for Enginner/Science piloted Cruisers. I believe for Tac Captains in a Cruiser that difference would be something closer to a 20%-24% difference for Tac Captains. And there wouldn't be a very large increase in durability for the Tac Captain over the Escorts because the abilities of the BOffs would all be geared towards damage and not survivability.
Why did players choose to play anything other than a Warrior for melee dps in WoW?
Why did players choose to play anything other than a Priest for healing in WoW?
Why did players choose to play anything other than a Mage for ranged dps in WoW?
Beams: Accuracy Bonus
Cannon: Resistance Penetration (ignore x% of target resist)
would work out well and help to counter the extreme defense or shield resists that are beginning to run rampant.
just do us a favour and klick on the link i provided and actually read the subsection i pointed out, before further derailing this thread. it is little known fact that machine guns had proven little effective on bombers during the second world war.
but knowing you, you chose to ignore facts in fovour of your own opinion.
Never played wow and you missed the point.
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A sci fi MMO is therefore hardly suited to meet your expectations nor will it ever try to represent combat in a realistic way...it is by definition: fiction.
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Have you looked at DontdrunkImshoots testing on overclocked Weapon Power used with beams? You should, with EPTW be able to push your weapons power past 125 and see a benefit in increased damage for the effort.
Use some other abilities mentioned in the same thread and you can get some outstanding damage from beams with or without a Tactical Toon at the helm.
Cannons it seems do not benefit from this quirk in the mechanics of the game.
R.I.P
Actually that might work.
Gives beams an inherent 5% bonus accuracy and give cannons a inherent 5% resistance penetration.
R.I.P
Unless you are a master clicker, cycling can be a little difficult without a good Key bind.
What cruiser do you enjoy flying the most, and I will try to suggest a KB that may work for you to tie to your Spacebar (or any key).
Though it may require you using a bindfile for the key bind to be possible.
R.I.P
I have never been a clicker I've always used for keyboard for anything I can
Because fighter planes attack in packs, they don't go one on one with a bomber group. Do yourself a favor and read the whole story an not just one little passage. You seem to be focusing on the failded versions of bombers becasue there are so many prototypes.
Now lets get back on topic here. Cruisers don't have the same firepower of escorts and YES they can tank but I think we do need to up them a little, not by much but certainly a bit, Just to close down the gap produced by the changing of content focus and the non enhancement of cruisers an sci ships to compensate.
If anything we as engineers are complaining about our ships not being up to much; lets look at our poor science colleges they're in even worse condition, take an escort into a STF and it'll destroy everything before anything has a chance to do anything, take a cruiser into an STF and it can tank to the point of taking no damage. Sci ships don't have these luxuries, they can't keep up with the damage of cruisers and the devs made most of their skills either effectual to NPCs or just ineffectual.
So lets stop bashing each other, lets stop having a go at eachother for suggesting ideas that may encroach on escort territory and perhaps suggest ways to tone them down a little or find ways of keeping escorts a little above them.
Personally my escort bores the living daylights out of me because it's just too powerful (but if I tone it down people complain that I'm a noob and I'm not doing enough DPS so as an escort pilot I can't win), my cruiser feels underpowered (despite it's recent upgrade) and my science is only effective as a healboat.
This needs sorting such that the other tow classes can support escorts better be that by increasing beam damage, decreasing DC/DHC, a mix of the two or even reworking the combat system such that DPS is not the be all and end all in the game.
REASONABLE SUGGESTIONS PLEASE!
That's as reasonable as a suggestion can be.
I've often said I'd be all for a slight turning bump for cruisers, a slight DPS increase might be ok as well, provided they lost some tankyness... maybe at a 2 for 1 ration of tankyness vs. DPS? That seems to be how they are designed as a general rule. I say this because it might have the happy unexpected consequence of making players need to learn to play their cruisers from early levels intead of walking into E STFs thinking staying at 10 km and scowling at a Tac cube will be sufficient..... even if they only learned a few basics it'd be an improvement that would be instantly felt across the game!
Sadly the players that consider themselves "true trek fans" will never accept that cruisers aren't the be all and end all since they want their giant battleships... but without going KDF. I would feel a lot more sympathetic towards them if so often they wouldn't say how they think escort and sci pilots should support their big hero ships. Naturally I'm a "Sisko" style of captain so that #$%^ won't fly with me...
I think this with the opposite ratio for escorts (perhaps a slightly lower shield mod) I think escorts could use a slight boost to max hull though, the number of times my escorts have been 1 shotted by the borg is unreal.
Well in all fairness everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I do see why escorts are the primary damage dealers, frankly they aren't that good at much else, I think sci ships and cruisers could use a slight damage boost, science more than cruisers they've paid for it by having most of their skills nerfed.
Sitting a cruiser at 10km at endgame and expecting it to be as successful as during the story is fair however it wrong, I personally have noticed my weapons are more effective during the story for a given distance than they are in STFs at the same distance. I think cruises could work better as a support ship if they were dishing out more damage at 5km than they are presently thus keeping us "Kirks" and "Picards" out of the way of you "Siskos" while still dealing out enough damage to nicely supplement yours, I've said this multiple times and I would be quite happy both as a cruiser pilot and as an escort pilot.
Perhaps we could make this a beam-wide buff thereby escorts would also be affected if they use them or perhaps we could make it a property of cruisers as beams are their primary weapon whereas escort primary weapons are cannons, which frankly don't need any more damage potential.
How does this sound to you? (for anyone else - if you have nothing nice to say, don't say it. I'm here to discuss this not bash anyone)
Dps while the cruiser is lucky to deal 4,000
Escorts at high speed have a better defence
Value than any cruiser because you simply can't
Hit them even with max skills and 30% Acc weapons
The entire system is broken and won't be fixed
Because cryptic is making money off making the
Escorts predators with the I win button and cruisers
And science ships there prey.
It's easy to see that if you look at it
There is no uber lock box cruiser is there ?
No there isn't and there won't be because
Cruisers are the entertainment for the escorts
Nothing else can explain the total lack of balance
Between the classes
Go escort or go home...........
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
So come on, this thread is still open, there is still time to oppose the current combat system, there is still time for us to discuss solutions to the problem and it's not just us cruiser pilots who need to talk about this but we do need to get the escort crowd in on it and give them reasons to support our requests, naturally of course this involves them looking at our ideas and suggesting ways to improve upon them to make them better for all of us rather than saying things like "L2P".
So come on guys, let's all work together to create a better game for all of us and if you escort pilots don't need cruisers then suggest ways to make us more useful to you rather than just saying "Escorts are meant to be the primary DDs" We know this already! We also know that we are supposed (according to the game mechanics) to be a support class but in a game of DPS a low DPS ship isn't going to be any real good as support now is it?
Look, if we can all come to an agreeable solution that we can all stand behind maybe we can post it as a new thread, stand behind it there and maybe then the devs will make it happen, I know it probably wont work but we will never know if we don't try.
I've always been surprised by the focus on X or Y, while ignoring Z which would work toward fixing X and Y without requiring either an arms race or an arms embargo...
The problem with this is that if escorts didn't move as fast as they do it would be even easier to get DC/DHCs on a target and keep them there thus they would do even more damage than they do now...
I agree that escorts do move a little faster than they should but slowing them down without lowering their damage output would cause yet more problems in PvE... something we don't need
Um, they can adjust their speed. So I'm not sure what you're saying there. They don't have stop and go... they can adjust the speed.
Now if you lower that top speed - lower the turn rate.... then they would have a harder time getting on target. It's the absurd maneuverability that allows them to keep those DHCs on the target while the Cruiser tends to sport BAs. It's what allows packs of them to line up on a single facing or maneuver around to attack the weak facing.
Picture DHCs on a Cruiser for a moment - it would be pretty bad, no? You couldn't keep them on the target - your damage output would drop. Tada, if Escorts did not have the crazy maneuverability that they do...their damage output would drop.
And like I said, adjusting that would not only affect their offensive capabilities - but it would also affect their defensive capabilities. An Escort can easily hug a target's weakest arc - which means they're facing less of a threat/less damage.
If you just adjust a certain weapon up or down, then they'll just switch weapons but still maintain the advantage because of their maneuverability.
TBH neither an escort nor cruiser should get one shot UNLESS they're in the wrong place. Much like a WoW raid, part of STFs is not "standing in the fire" as it were.. ie, being in a bad position (unless its a gate.. those cheeky gates can get you anywhere below a certain range it seems! but gates are not moving cubes of doom, so its nowhere as bad.)
This is how it works right now, the only difference is that effective weapons range is quite a bit closer. The challenge lies more in positioning and the cruiser's dismal turning. My cruiser has 2 RCS consoles... I still say a slight turn buff to cruisers would make them far more effective and fun to fly. Mainly because they could be "in position" more often. If spreadsheet balance must be maintained some tankyness would not be missed.