Well, that would be great, because then, Boarding Party Might be good again.
But I would not want to have a ship without the tactical debuff cleaning, even without a shield distribution (the Borg assimilate ship ability in Ker'rat would be really annoying otherwise, for another example). One would suffice probably then, though. Which is good: More variety!
Boarding party was never a good skill pre TT. The reason is rather simple and is the same reason Heavy Torpedoes suck the big one. AOEs aplenty and an incredibly high Opportunity Cost for the only Bp worth anything (3) when it does land.
Hence why I say TT needs to have it's duration of cleanse 1/2ed to 4 seconds.
I know what tac debuffs stacked can do, as pre season 3 that's what we Premade Boys did when we could. It actually wasn't all -that- bad for those of us that rolled up tough with Resilient Shields (I did it looong before it was "cool").
I'm for them keeping the skill as it is. I don't want 2 seperated skills for it as no one in their right mind would honestly take TT on it's own even for a 10 second tac debuff cleanse. It also clutters up the ensign slots which we don't need. It just needs the cleanse 1/2ed.
Meimeitoo was talkign more about the redistribute though as far as i could tell, (as have i).
Taking that away, (completly, decoupling it from TT is not an issue for me so long as it remains widely avalibile to all), to me would have major negetive efefcts on PVE beyond the simple level of giving the lowest common denominator more "fun".
TT's current prowess as a tac debuff cleanser, ....blah, blah, blah
Then how about we talk about its debuff cleansing abilities instead of concentrating on shield distro? I realize that STO is notorious for trying to fix problem "A" by changing item "B" and thus hardly ever fixes anything, but that doesn't mean we as players need to be equally oblivious does it?
Edit: I do agree with your suggestion to lower TTs cleansing uptime though. Or maybe if instead it could lessen the effects of debuffs? Nah, it'd be a big mess for too little gain, better to just reduce its cleansing uptime
You know when we talk about PvE players... and casual ones particular. I can understand how the low cost high benefit tac team makes sense. I mean to say that I understand Cryptic has a game to sell to those people... and making money is important.
Still tac team is to good for how easy it is to use.... I know a lot of people have talked about natural regen as a solution. It has been mentioned that shield regen should be increased... I don't think it needs increased just spread out... make the amount the same as it is now and tie to shield power (as it is of course now)... but increase the tick rate to once every 3 seconds, and boost the natural rate of disribution.
It would then be great they could edit the tutorial mission again slightly and feature a quick how to disribute your shields.... if the speed of disribution was working properly teaching people to push shield to a facing that needed it would be a good thing.
Of course a change like that would make tac team the way it is WAY to powerful... as no skills would be needed to give that RSP like feeling.... I guess in total it would be a lot of changes all at once... but if it was done properly it really would improve the game.
Still tac team is to good for how easy it is to use...
Measured against what? Why should a bread and butter style power NOT be good and easy to use? You are trying to balance things against a vacuum. WHY should it not be easy to use? Just for the sake of providing PvP a little extra thing to micromanage?
I think too few are asking themselves the most important question..."how does this change make the game more fun?". Until recently I would've said that balance is paramount etc, etc, etc. But lately I've come to realize STO is not a game about strict balance, so using it as anything more than a very loose guideline is going to do nothing for the playerbase. Nothing at all.
I agree wholeheartedly that TT's cleanse is out of hand. I also think that it's a part of the ability that is not really understood by new players, and probably not the reason why people choose it over the other teams when they first try them out. To a new player I think it's the shield redistribution that is the selling point.
I think people slot TT because it's so easy, which makes the cleanse such a pain because everybody and their mother is running it. I think if you can tie it to any team then the easiest pick is whatever ensign level team you have the most room for, i.e. cruiser captains will slot it most easily to an ensign level ET. This will mean less people with really high uptime on tac debuff immunity.
If the proposed change went down lots of things would have to be ironed out, like TT's current cleanse duration, and TT would probably need a buff to its damage increase to make it compete with a shield heal or hull heal.
Personally, I think FOMM should reapply periodically or even be immune to a cleanse by a boff ability, but that's my gut feeling only and I could be talked out of it. I think TT's clease time should be lowered, I like 4 sec, 5 would be fine too so it matches the other teams. 1 sec seems short to me. Again, my gut, just thinking about how long an alpha lasts and how much of it you're going to take the edge off of.
The thing is, we could talk about basing the cleanse duration for all teams on ability level and have a much easier time doing it if the shield redistribution wasn't confounding the balance discussion. IMO. But hey, it was my idea so I'm partial to it.
It's hard to get a grip on 1 ability that does so much, so I suggest busting up what it does, and giving us more freedom in the process, albeit with an increased cost. I know people are sensitive about TT because it's like it's too big to fail now. But we lived in an era of manual redistribution and we did just fine, even though we had to walk both ways to spacedock uphill in the snow barefoot with no doffs to carry our stuff.
Back then somebody figured out how to bind shield redistribution to one key and that was cool. It's really past time that Cryptic made it 1 freaking easily re-mappable button, pointed to it in a tutorial, and put a description of it in load screens.
_______________ CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that? Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
I agree wholeheartedly that TT's cleanse is out of hand. I also think that it's a part of the ability that is not really understood by new players, and probably not the reason why people choose it over the other teams when they first try them out. To a new player I think it's the shield redistribution that is the selling point.
You're thinking like a PvPer and assuming a new or even old player has any inkling of the difference between spike and maintained damage, much less how useful the shield distribution really is against spike. They pick TT because it adds damage and turning. Its like turbo boosting your ship. If it also added a racing stripe to your ship it'd be about perfect lol!
EVERYONE likes to turn better and do more damage (even the CC Sci Vessels welcome that). Once a cruiser pilot gets a hold of a cruiser with 2 ens tac they practically NEVER go back to anything without them because of it.
Measured against what? Why should a bread and butter style power NOT be good and easy to use? You are trying to balance things against a vacuum. WHY should it not be easy to use? Just for the sake of providing PvP a little extra thing to micromanage?
I think too few are asking themselves the most important question..."how does this change make the game more fun?". Until recently I would've said that balance is paramount etc, etc, etc. But lately I've come to realize STO is not a game about strict balance, so using it as anything more than a very loose guideline is going to do nothing for the playerbase. Nothing at all.
No its to good for the following reason....
1.5 years ago tac team was the old tac team... it did not auto magikly quadruple your shields.
PvE was pretty much exactly the way it is now 1.5 years later really nothing has changed... a few NPCS got p2w consoles... but nothing has changed in any major way.
However we now have a ensign level skill that quite frankly gives players 40k in shielding when they used to have 10k if they where to stupid to turn a facing or distribute there shields themselves...
YES Tac team is not a needed skill in pve... it simply makes it un loosable. Yes and having said that I have been on terrible pve pugs that still manage to loose somehow... of course I watch them die with 1 blown facing and 3 full shields... and sometimes one of the other PvE kids is kind enough to tell them they need a tac team. lol
I don't want to see the Tac team shield spin go away... my word I have to pug STFs now and then to I couldn't imagine how bad those pugs would be with out tac team at all. I simply want to see there be a real cost associated with it... cause right now ... Tac team + BFI doffs + EPTS even... its all just way to easy... anyone in this game can tank like a UBER tank in any other MMO, cause frankly Cryptic has given everyone the Super Tank Paladin shield. I am fine with that being an option open to everyone... there simply needs to be a little give to run it.
I simply want to see there be a real cost associated with it... cause right now ... Tac team + BFI doffs + EPTS even... its all just way to easy... anyone in this game can tank like a UBER tank in any other MMO, cause frankly Cryptic has given everyone the Super Tank Paladin shield. I am fine with that being an option open to everyone... there simply needs to be a little give to run it.
Why? I'm not trying to be facetious but I feel you're wanting to change things because in your mind you see it as someone is being wronged. Who?
As others have argued too, can't really put shield distribution on anything else but ensign, either, as you can't ask escorts to sacrifice important things like BO2/CRF2, or up, just to have decent shield distro.
Oh come on... Escorts aren't supposed to be tanks. And don't forget they have a high turn rate which helps to quickly change a facing shield. Automatic shield redistribution makes them to tough.
I would suggest ditching automatic redistribution and improving manual redistribution speed.
Oh come on... Escorts aren't supposed to be tanks. And don't forget they have a high turn rate which helps to quickly change a facing shield. Automatic shield redistribution makes them to tough.
I would suggest ditching automatic redistribution and improving manual redistribution speed.
That's actually my favorite option. Even then, I don't think manual redistribution should be as effective as the current TT. Somewhere in the middle would be nice.
You're thinking like a PvPer and assuming a new or even old player has any inkling of the difference between spike and maintained damage, much less how useful the shield distribution really is against spike. They pick TT because it adds damage and turning. Its like turbo boosting your ship. If it also added a racing stripe to your ship it'd be about perfect lol!
EVERYONE likes to turn better and do more damage (even the CC Sci Vessels welcome that). Once a cruiser pilot gets a hold of a cruiser with 2 ens tac they practically NEVER go back to anything without them because of it.
TT adds nothing to turning. My DHC goes from 1815 to 1855 damage with TT's damage buff. If somebody sold me something that was supposed to be a turbo boost and that's what I got I'd ask for my money back.
I'm not being facetious here, but before you start talking about what players have an inkling of, check your facts.
_______________ CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that? Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
Oh come on... Escorts aren't supposed to be tanks. And don't forget they have a high turn rate which helps to quickly change a facing shield. Automatic shield redistribution makes them to tough.
Keep in mind, though, escorts, with 45 degree DHC arcs, don't do 'strafe' attacks too well.
I would suggest ditching automatic redistribution and improving manual redistribution speed.
Hmm, didn't I suggest this myself, two posts ago? LOL.
You know when we talk about PvE players... and casual ones particular. I can understand how the low cost high benefit tac team makes sense. I mean to say that I understand Cryptic has a game to sell to those people... and making money is important.
Still tac team is to good for how easy it is to use.... I know a lot of people have talked about natural regen as a solution. It has been mentioned that shield regen should be increased... I don't think it needs increased just spread out... make the amount the same as it is now and tie to shield power (as it is of course now)... but increase the tick rate to once every 3 seconds, and boost the natural rate of disribution.
It would then be great they could edit the tutorial mission again slightly and feature a quick how to disribute your shields.... if the speed of disribution was working properly teaching people to push shield to a facing that needed it would be a good thing.
Of course a change like that would make tac team the way it is WAY to powerful... as no skills would be needed to give that RSP like feeling.... I guess in total it would be a lot of changes all at once... but if it was done properly it really would improve the game.
I never said we don't need to move tac team's sheild redistribution off it or that the cleanse isn't too good. Just that outright trashing it wouldn't work. to move onto that point another quote from you.
I don't want to see the Tac team shield spin go away... my word I have to pug STFs now and then to I couldn't imagine how bad those pugs would be with out tac team at all. I simply want to see there be a real cost associated with it... cause right now ... Tac team + BFI doffs + EPTS even... its all just way to easy... anyone in this game can tank like a UBER tank in any other MMO, cause frankly Cryptic has given everyone the Super Tank Paladin shield. I am fine with that being an option open to everyone... there simply needs to be a little give to run it.
You see this is the issue i see when talking to a lot of PVP people, they're used to running mostly in their pre-mades who cross heal and stick in tight groups and what have you religiouslly. This is VERY uncommon in STF's for 99% of the player base, (or whatever the % is that dosen't do serious PvP but does do endgame PVE). This means everyone needs to be able to self tank whatever amounts of fire they will attract.
Tjats the problem i see with your "escorts aren't supposed to be tanks" comment. It's a good comment and hits on a point about escorts being better than they need to be right now. Bu denying them easy acess to TT like sheild redictribution would tottlaly kill them.
Thats not to say though that there isn't an issue with escorts, just that redistribute removal would be amassive overnerf.
Any ship sheild tanking without TT will have the issue that there are fairly regular spikes in damage that are capable of punching through manually re-distributed sheilds. Thats massive hull damage you just took and you've got minimal hull heals. These spikes come far to often for you to expect to keep up with them with your limited hull healing potentiol. With cross healing from a sutiably configured healer, no issues, but otherwise after a few spikes they'll kill you off. And a death in even normal STF''s is a good chance of optional failure, in Fleet actions it's going to severly degrade total fleet marks for everyone.
IMHO the issue with escort overtanking is EPtS1. EPtS2 is right where it need to be and EPtS 3 is a bit weak. Noticed it the last couple of days while writing a big post on sheild vs hull tanking, (been running a TT lacking Hull Tanking Sci ship for a while now for a change of pace), and whilst looking up hard figures in game to put hard numbers to some claims it came to my attention. EPtS resistance bonusus currentlly runs to somthing like 20/25/30%. That means that escorts are only baby steps behind cruisers in terms of resistances. If it was more like 12.5/25/37.5% you'd see a LOT better situation without overnerfing anyone, especially if you decoupled the re-distribute from TT a that would let the weaker sci ships make up for the resistance loss, (sci are about where they should be IMHO).
TT adds nothing to turning. My DHC goes from 1815 to 1855 damage with TT's damage buff. If somebody sold me something that was supposed to be a turbo boost and that's what I got I'd ask for my money back.
I'm not being facetious here, but before you start talking about what players have an inkling of, check your facts.
Lol! you're absolutely correct! I went back to check and indeed, the extra turning is from APO! I have them bound together so i'd come to associate turning with TT. Apologies to anyone I might've misled with that. Dang, I think TT needs a buff now!
But see, I'm a little better than the average player, and I got that fact wrong. I think I have more of an inkling about what players may or may not know than you.
Oh come on... Escorts aren't supposed to be tanks. And don't forget they have a high turn rate which helps to quickly change a facing shield. Automatic shield redistribution makes them to tough.
I would suggest ditching automatic redistribution and improving manual redistribution speed.
That's actually my favorite option. Even then, I don't think manual redistribution should be as effective as the current TT. Somewhere in the middle would be nice.
This is coming from multiple people as their favored change.
So if they went this route there would still be a redistribution rate that Cryptic had to settle on, with some percentage of people pissed at the level no matter where they set it.
What if they went with half of current levels for manual redistribution, with doffs to speed it up if that's what you want to build for? And I'm talking completely separate from my original idea, not tied to teams or anything, just doffs which speed up manual distribution.
_______________ CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that? Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
This is coming from multiple people as their favored change.
So if they went this route there would still be a redistribution rate that Cryptic had to settle on, with some percentage of people pissed at the level no matter where they set it.
What if they went with half of current levels for manual redistribution, with doffs to speed it up if that's what you want to build for? And I'm talking completely separate from my original idea, not tied to teams or anything, just doffs which speed up manual distribution.
I just don't like the idea of using DOFFs to balance powers. Powers should be balanced against each other and DOFFs should be balanced against each other.
The reality, as I see it, is that replaceing TT redistribution with DOFF procs would make those DOFFs as must have as TT currently is. BFI DOFFs are being nerfed for this reason. They are too powerful and you almost have to have them.
If auto-redistribution is removed from TT and manual redistribution is improved, then yes, I can see creating a DOFF that would enhance the rate, but not be totally responsible for it.
I don't see why they don't just make shield distribution stay active while you take damage from the side you are being hit on. Like say you are loosing front shields you tap the front distribution hotkey or button and it just works until you aren't taking damage from that side in certain amount of seconds?
It would mean shield distribution takes a lot less constant managing but still requires the player to watch their shields ?
Tjats the problem i see with your "escorts aren't supposed to be tanks" comment. It's a good comment and hits on a point about escorts being better than they need to be right now. Bu denying them easy acess to TT like sheild redictribution would tottlaly kill them.
Thats not to say though that there isn't an issue with escorts, just that redistribute removal would be amassive overnerf.
I agree with you for the most part... the disribution as an option still avalible to all ships is why I like the doff proposal... escorts that want to slot a few doffs can still have tac team distribution... they may simply have to take a doff or two they like now off... they still get what they have now... but not all at once... they can't have 3 Shield doffs giving them uber tank RSP mode... + tac team as it is.... They can still have they simply need to give somewhere.
This is going to sound bad but here is another theory of mine that sounds harsh but none the less I believe to be true....
Right now there are to many BAD escort pilots mascarading as semi ok escort pilots.
When I first started flying around in escorts 3 or so years ago... not many people did. Because frankly they where very squishy and you had to be extremely crafty when you flew them... you had to stay the heck out of arcs... you had to know where all your enemies where so you didn't go running into the next guys arc... ect. There was a lot more thinking involved in doing it right and surviving. The pay off was getting kills....
Honestly the rush I used to get zipping around in my escorts isn't the same anymore... I have multiple oh no buttons... and killing me is next to impossible I admit that. I did fine before all the oh nos and I would welcome a return to that.
Issue is now there is so many players that jump in there escorts and do alright thanks to things like BFI doffs... enhanced RPSs... and 10 second shield quadrupling tac teams.
Back before all those changes... those players would play an escort for a few days get creamed and go back to there cruisers / sci ships.... In general DPS was lower out there cause frankly most people stuck to ships they could handle.
I guess what I am saying... is all these crutches make flying an escort these days way way to easy... make them hard to fly again and we reduce escorts 20% (guessing) across the board . This is why I feel we can afford to reduce the healing... it will tone down a bunch of the dps naturally when some of those players stop flying escorts.
AS to the STFS... well if the dps in the game does drop for those reasons... there is no reason Cryptic couldn't preform yet another dmg reduction on the borg AIs... I mean they have toned them down what 3 or 4 times now right.
Drop NPC HPs along with the DPS nerf. This means PVE doesn't get gimped for PVP sake, and PVP can stop having an alpha-strike focus and shift towards more lasting jousting matches.
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
AS to the STFS... well if the dps in the game does drop for those reasons... there is no reason Cryptic couldn't preform yet another dmg reduction on the borg AIs... I mean they have toned them down what 3 or 4 times now right.
Borg DPS is no issue, nor difficult to survive. Only problem is the insane spikes they do!
Heck, I have a quote somewhere of me dealing 290k damage with a single FBP pulse! (needless to say, we both died. And yes, it was an iso-charge, and i was a fully buffed tac with FBP3 )
I think I get where you're coming from. At the heart of it you just don't feel most escort pilots deserve to fly escorts. I know you realize that is a purely elitist thing to think but think it nonetheless. There's nothing wrong with thinking that, but I would argue that most players don't share that view and prefer things as they are now. The game has been moving away from what you seem to prefer for a long time now. Most people do not depend, or want to depend on teammates to heal them and keep them alive, they prefer builds that can look after themselves. Naturally a lot of people then like to argue that teaming is an important part of an MMO, etc. But the current STFs are a good example of content that can be done without depending on others that require a team. I know not everyone feels that, but I DO believe most do. I think the pervasiveness of team play in PvP has given a lot of people a skewed view of how the other 99% like to play. Just my opinion but if there were separate team and pug queus, even with just the current bookend missions for rewards, PvP could spring back to life.
That the shift to extra tankyness hasn't benefited cruisers as much is not a wholy undeserved statement; especially with regard to engi cruisers as they go over the maximun required tankyness and get nothing out of it while paying for it in DPS and turning. Honestly, I think cruisers in general need a retuning. Its not a surprise you see most of the favorite cruisers have a more tactical focus.
I think I get where you're coming from. At the heart of it you just don't feel most escort pilots deserve to fly escorts. I know you realize that is a purely elitist thing to think but think it nonetheless.
I think this can only be called elitist, if we want a game where noone is killed. Ever.
Saying that the lowest skilled players should not be able to survive everything in the weakest ship can not possibly be elitist. Mediocrlist maybe?
Many players before all these uber tank changes... stayed away from escorts...
Yes the escort should be the hardest ship to fly properly, and people that can't handle it either need to take the crash course or move on... and most will move on. I know that sounds horrible to Trek people... but its true... The escort should be a high skill ship. It is the games speed tank... or at least it was supposed to be... and by speed tank I don't mean it could tank like a cruiser could... I mean that;
Sci ships have bonuses to shields and Sci Boff skills add shield regen/resist. They also have the most sci console slots and can boost there shield stats the most. They are shield tanks.... again in the sense that they use there shield more then other ship types to stay alive.
Cruisers have bonuses to Hull hit points... and have access to the highest hull resisting skills. They also have the most Engi Console slots and dito they have access to the most hull resist. They are hull tanks... really.
Escorts don't get the best of either... they get enough to cover the basics, and a handful of attack patterns that boost Defense numbers... They instead get the most natural defense from speed... and the most agile ships that allow piloting to come into play.... With that in mind they should obviously be harder to handle. In order to tank dmg in an escort you need to goose the defense number with speed... and wise flying, staying out of arcs, bolting out of range ect.
Yes what we have now skill/doff wise has destroyed that dynamic... cause the most effective shield heal is a provided by a DOFF that don't care which ship class your in. That alone is game breaking.... Throw in Tac team that lets be honest gives the largest boost to escorts that have 2 free ensign slots anyway.
What has happened since Cryptic has added all these tanking marvel skills... is more and more people have dumped there cruisers in favor of ships with more dps (escorts)... what kept that from happening before is people don't like to die in general... even back in the day good escort pilots would go down once or twice in a match with tons of healing... heck no team would rally run more then one or two escorts even if there team had 5 guys that where all top tier escort pilots. Cause frankly keeping them up was a finger mashing headache for the healers....
The way things are now yes the balance is off cause the skill level to survive in an escort isn't really much higher then doing it in a cruiser... so you have a ton of people flying the escort.
What follows is a ton of people saying "YOU CAN"T NERF HEALING TILL YOU DEAL WITH DPS!!!"... well lets be honest the fact that there are twice as many escorts flying around is the reason dps in general is up... remove those mediocre pilots crutches and they won't live long enough to be helping push the dps numbers up.... after a short while most of them will be back in cruisers.
It sounds elitist I know but its true... handicap healing and people will leave the High dps ships that really they likely shouldn't have been in to begin with.
Many players before all these uber tank changes... stayed away from escorts...
Yes the escort should be the hardest ship to fly properly, and people that can't handle it either need to take the crash course or move on... and most will move on. I know that sounds horrible to Trek people... but its true... The escort should be a high skill ship. It is the games speed tank... or at least it was supposed to be... and by speed tank I don't mean it could tank like a cruiser could... I mean that;
Sci ships have bonuses to shields and Sci Boff skills add shield regen/resist. They also have the most sci console slots and can boost there shield stats the most. They are shield tanks.... again in the sense that they use there shield more then other ship types to stay alive.
Cruisers have bonuses to Hull hit points... and have access to the highest hull resisting skills. They also have the most Engi Console slots and dito they have access to the most hull resist. They are hull tanks... really.
Escorts don't get the best of either... they get enough to cover the basics, and a handful of attack patterns that boost Defense numbers... They instead get the most natural defense from speed... and the most agile ships that allow piloting to come into play.... With that in mind they should obviously be harder to handle. In order to tank dmg in an escort you need to goose the defense number with speed... and wise flying, staying out of arcs, bolting out of range ect.
Yes what we have now skill/doff wise has destroyed that dynamic... cause the most effective shield heal is a provided by a DOFF that don't care which ship class your in. That alone is game breaking.... Throw in Tac team that lets be honest gives the largest boost to escorts that have 2 free ensign slots anyway.
What has happened since Cryptic has added all these tanking marvel skills... is more and more people have dumped there cruisers in favor of ships with more dps (escorts)... what kept that from happening before is people don't like to die in general... even back in the day good escort pilots would go down once or twice in a match with tons of healing... heck no team would rally run more then one or two escorts even if there team had 5 guys that where all top tier escort pilots. Cause frankly keeping them up was a finger mashing headache for the healers....
The way things are now yes the balance is off cause the skill level to survive in an escort isn't really much higher then doing it in a cruiser... so you have a ton of people flying the escort.
What follows is a ton of people saying "YOU CAN"T NERF HEALING TILL YOU DEAL WITH DPS!!!"... well lets be honest the fact that there are twice as many escorts flying around is the reason dps in general is up... remove those mediocre pilots crutches and they won't live long enough to be helping push the dps numbers up.... after a short while most of them will be back in cruisers.
It sounds elitist I know but its true... handicap healing and people will leave the High dps ships that really they likely shouldn't have been in to begin with.
Your views on what would happen are generally correct I think. Nerfing the tankyness of ships in general would push a lot of players back to cruisers. I understand you would prefer that but i would not. I prefer it where players can freely fly whatever they want. I also think this has been a change from when the game started, and has been a conscious design decision by the devs. More zippy dakka is more exciting than big and slow. That said, I do think cruisers need to have their attributes shifted around to be less tanky and more zippy to be attractive to players. After all, cruiser nostalgia will only move so many.
Your views on what would happen are generally correct I think. Nerfing the tankyness of ships in general would push a lot of players back to cruisers. I understand you would prefer that but i would not. I prefer it where players can freely fly whatever they want. I also think this has been a change from when the game started, and has been a conscious design decision by the devs. More zippy dakka is more exciting than big and slow. That said, I do think cruisers need to have their attributes shifted around to be less tanky and more zippy to be attractive to players. After all, cruiser nostalgia will only move so many.
I am not convinced people are all that free to choose right now really. I mean in our current system why in the world would you choose a cruiser out side of RP enjoyment... they are terrible in PvP... and frankly they are just as bad in PvE right now.
I hear what you are saying though... it wasn't perfect before, it really isn't now... not sure a complete turn back is what needs to happen... but really we can't keep letting escorts tank the way we do.... it is out side of the design.
Not to argue with you either but I know the devs havn't gotten to where they are due to some grand design. Most of the changes that have led us here where made by ex employees, and there is no overall PVP guy... I think its safe to say Stahl has no grand balance design they have been working on... what works has been happy accidents... what doesn't not so happy accidents. lol
I prefer it where players can freely fly whatever they want.
hah... with the tankiness of escorts, people don't feel justified to fly anything else anymore. This is especially true for PvE, where showing up in anything but an escort means you'll be underperforming. Before, showing up in a sciship or cruiser could be justified by keeping the escorts alive.
People used to be free to fly whatever they wanted, and matter. Now, they're not.
currently basically every ship type tanks about the same, it just depends on how long they can keep it up. a cruiser can cycle whats available to him indefinitely and survive incredible damage. an escort, well they can tank for a long time, much longer then they should be able to but he cant keep up that invincible wall as long as a cruiser or sci can, and he will run out of healing eventually if you can do ok cruiser damage. this is why a dps cruiser almost always beats an escort in an isolated 1v1, attrition.
currently basically every ship type tanks about the same, it just depends on how long they can keep it up. a cruiser can cycle whats available to him indefinitely and survive incredible damage. an escort, well they can tank for a long time, much longer then they should be able to but he cant keep up that invincible wall as long as a cruiser or sci can, and he will run out of healing eventually if you can do ok cruiser damage. this is why a dps cruiser almost always beats an escort in an isolated 1v1, attrition.
This is how i used to feel it... Back when I was cycling HE, TSS,EPtoS and RSP to survive. Now I have so many buttons in my bag that when the last one runs out, the first one is back up. in addition to the original 4 I have, Borg-shield-proc, Borg-hull-proc and BFI. Given that these heal more than any of the original heals, I have twice the healing capacity, and can usually cycle them indefinately against a single cruiser or in STFs (except for one-hit wonders)
Comments
Boarding party was never a good skill pre TT. The reason is rather simple and is the same reason Heavy Torpedoes suck the big one. AOEs aplenty and an incredibly high Opportunity Cost for the only Bp worth anything (3) when it does land.
Meimeitoo was talkign more about the redistribute though as far as i could tell, (as have i).
Taking that away, (completly, decoupling it from TT is not an issue for me so long as it remains widely avalibile to all), to me would have major negetive efefcts on PVE beyond the simple level of giving the lowest common denominator more "fun".
Then how about we talk about its debuff cleansing abilities instead of concentrating on shield distro? I realize that STO is notorious for trying to fix problem "A" by changing item "B" and thus hardly ever fixes anything, but that doesn't mean we as players need to be equally oblivious does it?
Edit: I do agree with your suggestion to lower TTs cleansing uptime though. Or maybe if instead it could lessen the effects of debuffs? Nah, it'd be a big mess for too little gain, better to just reduce its cleansing uptime
Still tac team is to good for how easy it is to use.... I know a lot of people have talked about natural regen as a solution. It has been mentioned that shield regen should be increased... I don't think it needs increased just spread out... make the amount the same as it is now and tie to shield power (as it is of course now)... but increase the tick rate to once every 3 seconds, and boost the natural rate of disribution.
It would then be great they could edit the tutorial mission again slightly and feature a quick how to disribute your shields.... if the speed of disribution was working properly teaching people to push shield to a facing that needed it would be a good thing.
Of course a change like that would make tac team the way it is WAY to powerful... as no skills would be needed to give that RSP like feeling.... I guess in total it would be a lot of changes all at once... but if it was done properly it really would improve the game.
Measured against what? Why should a bread and butter style power NOT be good and easy to use? You are trying to balance things against a vacuum. WHY should it not be easy to use? Just for the sake of providing PvP a little extra thing to micromanage?
I think too few are asking themselves the most important question..."how does this change make the game more fun?". Until recently I would've said that balance is paramount etc, etc, etc. But lately I've come to realize STO is not a game about strict balance, so using it as anything more than a very loose guideline is going to do nothing for the playerbase. Nothing at all.
I agree wholeheartedly that TT's cleanse is out of hand. I also think that it's a part of the ability that is not really understood by new players, and probably not the reason why people choose it over the other teams when they first try them out. To a new player I think it's the shield redistribution that is the selling point.
I think people slot TT because it's so easy, which makes the cleanse such a pain because everybody and their mother is running it. I think if you can tie it to any team then the easiest pick is whatever ensign level team you have the most room for, i.e. cruiser captains will slot it most easily to an ensign level ET. This will mean less people with really high uptime on tac debuff immunity.
If the proposed change went down lots of things would have to be ironed out, like TT's current cleanse duration, and TT would probably need a buff to its damage increase to make it compete with a shield heal or hull heal.
Personally, I think FOMM should reapply periodically or even be immune to a cleanse by a boff ability, but that's my gut feeling only and I could be talked out of it. I think TT's clease time should be lowered, I like 4 sec, 5 would be fine too so it matches the other teams. 1 sec seems short to me. Again, my gut, just thinking about how long an alpha lasts and how much of it you're going to take the edge off of.
The thing is, we could talk about basing the cleanse duration for all teams on ability level and have a much easier time doing it if the shield redistribution wasn't confounding the balance discussion. IMO. But hey, it was my idea so I'm partial to it.
It's hard to get a grip on 1 ability that does so much, so I suggest busting up what it does, and giving us more freedom in the process, albeit with an increased cost. I know people are sensitive about TT because it's like it's too big to fail now. But we lived in an era of manual redistribution and we did just fine, even though we had to walk both ways to spacedock uphill in the snow barefoot with no doffs to carry our stuff.
Back then somebody figured out how to bind shield redistribution to one key and that was cool. It's really past time that Cryptic made it 1 freaking easily re-mappable button, pointed to it in a tutorial, and put a description of it in load screens.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
You're thinking like a PvPer and assuming a new or even old player has any inkling of the difference between spike and maintained damage, much less how useful the shield distribution really is against spike. They pick TT because it adds damage and turning. Its like turbo boosting your ship. If it also added a racing stripe to your ship it'd be about perfect lol!
EVERYONE likes to turn better and do more damage (even the CC Sci Vessels welcome that). Once a cruiser pilot gets a hold of a cruiser with 2 ens tac they practically NEVER go back to anything without them because of it.
No its to good for the following reason....
1.5 years ago tac team was the old tac team... it did not auto magikly quadruple your shields.
PvE was pretty much exactly the way it is now 1.5 years later really nothing has changed... a few NPCS got p2w consoles... but nothing has changed in any major way.
However we now have a ensign level skill that quite frankly gives players 40k in shielding when they used to have 10k if they where to stupid to turn a facing or distribute there shields themselves...
YES Tac team is not a needed skill in pve... it simply makes it un loosable. Yes and having said that I have been on terrible pve pugs that still manage to loose somehow... of course I watch them die with 1 blown facing and 3 full shields... and sometimes one of the other PvE kids is kind enough to tell them they need a tac team. lol
I don't want to see the Tac team shield spin go away... my word I have to pug STFs now and then to I couldn't imagine how bad those pugs would be with out tac team at all. I simply want to see there be a real cost associated with it... cause right now ... Tac team + BFI doffs + EPTS even... its all just way to easy... anyone in this game can tank like a UBER tank in any other MMO, cause frankly Cryptic has given everyone the Super Tank Paladin shield. I am fine with that being an option open to everyone... there simply needs to be a little give to run it.
Why? I'm not trying to be facetious but I feel you're wanting to change things because in your mind you see it as someone is being wronged. Who?
I would suggest ditching automatic redistribution and improving manual redistribution speed.
That's actually my favorite option. Even then, I don't think manual redistribution should be as effective as the current TT. Somewhere in the middle would be nice.
Well I guess your right borg don't cry.... or are we talking about PvP here in which case... engi cruiser has been made obsolete for one.
I'm not being facetious here, but before you start talking about what players have an inkling of, check your facts.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
Keep in mind, though, escorts, with 45 degree DHC arcs, don't do 'strafe' attacks too well.
Hmm, didn't I suggest this myself, two posts ago? LOL.
I never said we don't need to move tac team's sheild redistribution off it or that the cleanse isn't too good. Just that outright trashing it wouldn't work. to move onto that point another quote from you.
You see this is the issue i see when talking to a lot of PVP people, they're used to running mostly in their pre-mades who cross heal and stick in tight groups and what have you religiouslly. This is VERY uncommon in STF's for 99% of the player base, (or whatever the % is that dosen't do serious PvP but does do endgame PVE). This means everyone needs to be able to self tank whatever amounts of fire they will attract.
Tjats the problem i see with your "escorts aren't supposed to be tanks" comment. It's a good comment and hits on a point about escorts being better than they need to be right now. Bu denying them easy acess to TT like sheild redictribution would tottlaly kill them.
Thats not to say though that there isn't an issue with escorts, just that redistribute removal would be amassive overnerf.
Any ship sheild tanking without TT will have the issue that there are fairly regular spikes in damage that are capable of punching through manually re-distributed sheilds. Thats massive hull damage you just took and you've got minimal hull heals. These spikes come far to often for you to expect to keep up with them with your limited hull healing potentiol. With cross healing from a sutiably configured healer, no issues, but otherwise after a few spikes they'll kill you off. And a death in even normal STF''s is a good chance of optional failure, in Fleet actions it's going to severly degrade total fleet marks for everyone.
IMHO the issue with escort overtanking is EPtS1. EPtS2 is right where it need to be and EPtS 3 is a bit weak. Noticed it the last couple of days while writing a big post on sheild vs hull tanking, (been running a TT lacking Hull Tanking Sci ship for a while now for a change of pace), and whilst looking up hard figures in game to put hard numbers to some claims it came to my attention. EPtS resistance bonusus currentlly runs to somthing like 20/25/30%. That means that escorts are only baby steps behind cruisers in terms of resistances. If it was more like 12.5/25/37.5% you'd see a LOT better situation without overnerfing anyone, especially if you decoupled the re-distribute from TT a that would let the weaker sci ships make up for the resistance loss, (sci are about where they should be IMHO).
Lol! you're absolutely correct! I went back to check and indeed, the extra turning is from APO! I have them bound together so i'd come to associate turning with TT. Apologies to anyone I might've misled with that. Dang, I think TT needs a buff now!
But see, I'm a little better than the average player, and I got that fact wrong. I think I have more of an inkling about what players may or may not know than you.
So if they went this route there would still be a redistribution rate that Cryptic had to settle on, with some percentage of people pissed at the level no matter where they set it.
What if they went with half of current levels for manual redistribution, with doffs to speed it up if that's what you want to build for? And I'm talking completely separate from my original idea, not tied to teams or anything, just doffs which speed up manual distribution.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
I just don't like the idea of using DOFFs to balance powers. Powers should be balanced against each other and DOFFs should be balanced against each other.
The reality, as I see it, is that replaceing TT redistribution with DOFF procs would make those DOFFs as must have as TT currently is. BFI DOFFs are being nerfed for this reason. They are too powerful and you almost have to have them.
If auto-redistribution is removed from TT and manual redistribution is improved, then yes, I can see creating a DOFF that would enhance the rate, but not be totally responsible for it.
It would mean shield distribution takes a lot less constant managing but still requires the player to watch their shields ?
I agree with you for the most part... the disribution as an option still avalible to all ships is why I like the doff proposal... escorts that want to slot a few doffs can still have tac team distribution... they may simply have to take a doff or two they like now off... they still get what they have now... but not all at once... they can't have 3 Shield doffs giving them uber tank RSP mode... + tac team as it is.... They can still have they simply need to give somewhere.
This is going to sound bad but here is another theory of mine that sounds harsh but none the less I believe to be true....
Right now there are to many BAD escort pilots mascarading as semi ok escort pilots.
When I first started flying around in escorts 3 or so years ago... not many people did. Because frankly they where very squishy and you had to be extremely crafty when you flew them... you had to stay the heck out of arcs... you had to know where all your enemies where so you didn't go running into the next guys arc... ect. There was a lot more thinking involved in doing it right and surviving. The pay off was getting kills....
Honestly the rush I used to get zipping around in my escorts isn't the same anymore... I have multiple oh no buttons... and killing me is next to impossible I admit that. I did fine before all the oh nos and I would welcome a return to that.
Issue is now there is so many players that jump in there escorts and do alright thanks to things like BFI doffs... enhanced RPSs... and 10 second shield quadrupling tac teams.
Back before all those changes... those players would play an escort for a few days get creamed and go back to there cruisers / sci ships.... In general DPS was lower out there cause frankly most people stuck to ships they could handle.
I guess what I am saying... is all these crutches make flying an escort these days way way to easy... make them hard to fly again and we reduce escorts 20% (guessing) across the board . This is why I feel we can afford to reduce the healing... it will tone down a bunch of the dps naturally when some of those players stop flying escorts.
AS to the STFS... well if the dps in the game does drop for those reasons... there is no reason Cryptic couldn't preform yet another dmg reduction on the borg AIs... I mean they have toned them down what 3 or 4 times now right.
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
Support the "Armored Unicorn" vehicle initiative today!
Thanks for Harajuku. Now let's get a real "Magical Girl" costume!
Borg DPS is no issue, nor difficult to survive. Only problem is the insane spikes they do!
Heck, I have a quote somewhere of me dealing 290k damage with a single FBP pulse!
I think I get where you're coming from. At the heart of it you just don't feel most escort pilots deserve to fly escorts. I know you realize that is a purely elitist thing to think but think it nonetheless. There's nothing wrong with thinking that, but I would argue that most players don't share that view and prefer things as they are now. The game has been moving away from what you seem to prefer for a long time now. Most people do not depend, or want to depend on teammates to heal them and keep them alive, they prefer builds that can look after themselves. Naturally a lot of people then like to argue that teaming is an important part of an MMO, etc. But the current STFs are a good example of content that can be done without depending on others that require a team. I know not everyone feels that, but I DO believe most do. I think the pervasiveness of team play in PvP has given a lot of people a skewed view of how the other 99% like to play. Just my opinion but if there were separate team and pug queus, even with just the current bookend missions for rewards, PvP could spring back to life.
That the shift to extra tankyness hasn't benefited cruisers as much is not a wholy undeserved statement; especially with regard to engi cruisers as they go over the maximun required tankyness and get nothing out of it while paying for it in DPS and turning. Honestly, I think cruisers in general need a retuning. Its not a surprise you see most of the favorite cruisers have a more tactical focus.
I think this can only be called elitist, if we want a game where noone is killed. Ever.
Saying that the lowest skilled players should not be able to survive everything in the weakest ship can not possibly be elitist. Mediocrlist maybe?
Still doesn't make it untrue...
Many players before all these uber tank changes... stayed away from escorts...
Yes the escort should be the hardest ship to fly properly, and people that can't handle it either need to take the crash course or move on... and most will move on. I know that sounds horrible to Trek people... but its true... The escort should be a high skill ship. It is the games speed tank... or at least it was supposed to be... and by speed tank I don't mean it could tank like a cruiser could... I mean that;
Sci ships have bonuses to shields and Sci Boff skills add shield regen/resist. They also have the most sci console slots and can boost there shield stats the most. They are shield tanks.... again in the sense that they use there shield more then other ship types to stay alive.
Cruisers have bonuses to Hull hit points... and have access to the highest hull resisting skills. They also have the most Engi Console slots and dito they have access to the most hull resist. They are hull tanks... really.
Escorts don't get the best of either... they get enough to cover the basics, and a handful of attack patterns that boost Defense numbers... They instead get the most natural defense from speed... and the most agile ships that allow piloting to come into play.... With that in mind they should obviously be harder to handle. In order to tank dmg in an escort you need to goose the defense number with speed... and wise flying, staying out of arcs, bolting out of range ect.
Yes what we have now skill/doff wise has destroyed that dynamic... cause the most effective shield heal is a provided by a DOFF that don't care which ship class your in. That alone is game breaking.... Throw in Tac team that lets be honest gives the largest boost to escorts that have 2 free ensign slots anyway.
What has happened since Cryptic has added all these tanking marvel skills... is more and more people have dumped there cruisers in favor of ships with more dps (escorts)... what kept that from happening before is people don't like to die in general... even back in the day good escort pilots would go down once or twice in a match with tons of healing... heck no team would rally run more then one or two escorts even if there team had 5 guys that where all top tier escort pilots. Cause frankly keeping them up was a finger mashing headache for the healers....
The way things are now yes the balance is off cause the skill level to survive in an escort isn't really much higher then doing it in a cruiser... so you have a ton of people flying the escort.
What follows is a ton of people saying "YOU CAN"T NERF HEALING TILL YOU DEAL WITH DPS!!!"... well lets be honest the fact that there are twice as many escorts flying around is the reason dps in general is up... remove those mediocre pilots crutches and they won't live long enough to be helping push the dps numbers up.... after a short while most of them will be back in cruisers.
It sounds elitist I know but its true... handicap healing and people will leave the High dps ships that really they likely shouldn't have been in to begin with.
Your views on what would happen are generally correct I think. Nerfing the tankyness of ships in general would push a lot of players back to cruisers. I understand you would prefer that but i would not. I prefer it where players can freely fly whatever they want. I also think this has been a change from when the game started, and has been a conscious design decision by the devs. More zippy dakka is more exciting than big and slow. That said, I do think cruisers need to have their attributes shifted around to be less tanky and more zippy to be attractive to players. After all, cruiser nostalgia will only move so many.
I am not convinced people are all that free to choose right now really. I mean in our current system why in the world would you choose a cruiser out side of RP enjoyment... they are terrible in PvP... and frankly they are just as bad in PvE right now.
I hear what you are saying though... it wasn't perfect before, it really isn't now... not sure a complete turn back is what needs to happen... but really we can't keep letting escorts tank the way we do.... it is out side of the design.
Not to argue with you either but I know the devs havn't gotten to where they are due to some grand design. Most of the changes that have led us here where made by ex employees, and there is no overall PVP guy... I think its safe to say Stahl has no grand balance design they have been working on... what works has been happy accidents... what doesn't not so happy accidents.
hah... with the tankiness of escorts, people don't feel justified to fly anything else anymore. This is especially true for PvE, where showing up in anything but an escort means you'll be underperforming. Before, showing up in a sciship or cruiser could be justified by keeping the escorts alive.
People used to be free to fly whatever they wanted, and matter. Now, they're not.
This is how i used to feel it... Back when I was cycling HE, TSS,EPtoS and RSP to survive. Now I have so many buttons in my bag that when the last one runs out, the first one is back up. in addition to the original 4 I have, Borg-shield-proc, Borg-hull-proc and BFI. Given that these heal more than any of the original heals, I have twice the healing capacity, and can usually cycle them indefinately against a single cruiser or in STFs (except for one-hit wonders)