I have a very simple stance. Different but Equal. No one ship type should be extremely better at any role than another. If the goal is to kill a target six beams should be as effective as three DHCs and 3 turrets....
I think what you really want is a cruiser with an escort's boff layout and console slots. Maybe a cruiser costume for one of the tankier escorts would work for you?
I say this because you keep trying to find different angles from which to try to make a case that doesn't exist. It may surprise you that beams doing less DPS than DHCs is not a big secret or some new revelation. Of COURSE they do less damage, they have huge firing arcs and long range (less dps dropoff at range). They are lower dps weapons for lower dps ships. You also conveniently forget to mention the 180 Torp shot that goes along with those six beams as well as the seventh beam for no energy charge, courtesy of our pointy eared BFFs over at Tau Dewa.
As far as the trinity in STO goes. I agree that its terribly misplaced for the IP. Thankfully we have a very soft trinity where no one class/ship combination is required. At least not out of Hive and No Win, or so I have heard. Unfortunately, changing the game in a way that would make all ships equal at all things just isn't in the cards for STO. Frankly, even if they wanted to I'd prefer they didn't touch code any more than they had to. Therefore, players need to understand what the different ships lean towards and decide if they want to use that strength or not.
As far as the trinity in STO goes. I agree that its terribly misplaced for the IP.
I am confused. How are you against crippling over-specialization which forces teamwork, aka "the trinity", while also believing in the very concept of a "low DPS ship"? These two beliefs seem to be contradictory to me.
I'm with Bareel and Monaw on this one as well as bein with DDIS regarding the solution, as for KDF battle cruisers being at a defensive disadvantage they aren't at all, if anything fed cruisers are because KDF cruisers have the firepower to destroy stuff in a reasonable amount of time without an escort to do it for them.
I have said before, you can tank all day long but that is pointless if it means the attacker never dies, that's called damage sponging (see USS Houston), a tank can actually kill stuff by itself (See KDF Battlecruisers), I'm fine with escorts having survivability and damage provided that doesn't lead to double standards as it seems to, someone comes on the forums saying "I wanna make my escort survive tac cubes and kill them" and everyone looks up and says "Oh yeah you can do that see <Insert place here> and enjoy", yet the moment someone looks up and says "I wanna make my cruiser do what his escort is" everyone looks up and says "No, you're not allowed to do that, damage is his job not yours, how dare you even suggest a fed cruiser killing stuff, learn to play!". That's just unfair.
Science ships don't lose out like cruisers do due to beam array weakness as they have sciencey stuff to back them up and drive good damage out of them, they also only run 4 BAs if they are sensible reducing drain and further increasing damage, for example I have a fleet Excelsior and a fleet Nova on my engineer, I know cruiser pilots who dream of doing what my Excelsior does, I have balanced my boff skills giving me 6 damage boosting skills, 6 heal/resist skills and if I sacrifice one self heal I can have 3/4 team heals and it does well for a fed cruiser built to it's two strengths with a little added on the side. my fleet Nova playing to a different tactic has 3 damage boosting skills, 6 heal/resistance skills, 2 holds and 1 drain, the point being to lay down damage through multiple methods which it does well and take a beating while it does so which scarily it does almost as well as (sometimes even better than) my Excelsior, all in all it does nearly as much damage as the Excel, takes nearly as much damage as the Excel AND all the while is more annoying to the enemy than the Excel.
TLDR (above paragraph only): A fleet science ship can give a fleet Excelsior a run for its money.
so if a properly built science ship can compete with a properly built cruiser, albeit by different methods and requiring more thought, and the escort can survive as long as a cruiser against the same enemy and dish out the damage to kill the thing, why shouldn't the cruiser (and science ship) compete with the escort on a damage front?
We all know that escorts (if built right) can compete with cruisers in terms of defence, I'm thinking of this sort of thing for cruisers and damage, if you build right for it you can get damage that competes with escorts in a similar way to how escorts compete with cruisers as tanks if you get what I'm getting at, it is kinda hard to explain
Still, you did not answer the question.
What parameters would you use to define Beam Arrays being "competitive" with DHC's in Damage, Drain, Firing Arcs, etc.
At what point and with what stats would you and others be happy with Beam Arrays?
Versus my viewpoint, which is that a cruiser should be able to kill enemies just as effectively as an escort, but using a somewhat different style of play focused around sustained brawling and power management instead of the escort's slashing attacks and buff stacking.
Which is what we have going on in the game right now. Many Cruiser players are using OverCapping, DEM DOffs, AtB builds and other ideas to both increase thier damage output and manage thier power levels.
Why is these ideas and others not the accepted norms for Cruiser play? A basics of Cruiser play if you will.
Escorts have a basics that most players need to know before they become effective. I could name several players that once where beginers and now are more thans most likely to learning the basics of thier class and ship.
As you said the Escorts are merely fast little buff stackers, easily nullified with the right abilities.
Right so the extra science utility common on fed ships and that extra area for a battery don't matter. And the extra HE or TSS don't matter, as well as the stronger shields that can survive and extra hit or the stronger hull that can survive one more shot don't matter.
I like what you have to say most of the time momaw, but if you insist upon posting up things that don't make sense I will be forced to reconsider that view.
Galaxy R and neghvar: same boffs and consoles yet the neghvar is infinitely better for EVERYTHING from tanking to dealing damage.
Vorcha and assautl cruiser: same boffs and console, yet the vorcha is the better ship all around.
The Fleet klinker cruisers turn the heat up to eleven, the fed fleet cruisers... have no point at all.
Oh and look, the klinkers get a cloack becuase that is what they pay for with their miniscule hit to shield stats and hull. (and btw: the difference in hull and shieklds is SO miniscule it does not evn register in a game where survivasl comes at the hand of magic boff powers and not at the hand of base hull/shield stats.)
Since you seem to ignore this on a regular basis: moblility is the first line of defense and fed cruisers get shafted with no compensation. Being able to build a zombie starship is of no use to anyone.
So... you basically just said what I said. If you re-read my post, you will see that I am actually a fan of pushing ships further towards... how did you put it? "their individual strengths". So make cruisers tankier with lower damage, make escorts faster, more damage, but far less survivability/durability, and make science ships depend even more in their abilities, like the three should have been in the first place.
hey, newsflash:
Science ships already rely fully on their abilities to disrupt and control. That is their whole reason for doing anything - to spam disables, scrambles and drain power so that their heavy hits get into the targets (trics for the win?) or in organzied teams leave their target helpless and victim to an escort bum rush.
Escorts already dish out excessive amounts of damage, and combine it with ludicrously high mobility (so high in fact that they can turn circles inside a crusiers shield bubble if they want to and the pilot is immune to vertigo.) and a ridiculously powerful tac buff line that increases survivability more than most engineering powers. Pattern omega and tac team: immunity to snars, roots, massive reistance boosts and naturally an abundance of tac teams - the single one most TRIBBLE addition to the gameplay ever made aside the ages old 30 second "you do nothing" VM: instead of fixing the abyssmal standard shield redistribution system by making it NOT SUCK HORRIBLY they made tac team auto reditribute at an insane rate so that it became mandatroy for the very survival in this game.
And cruisers... do nothing. everyone can use tss, Extends are getting broken so easily by interrupts its not even funny + they limit the mobility of their target with a stupidly low max range.
Now the things that remain are engineering teams which will mostly be in global because the cruiser needs to use tac teams to NOT GET MAULED by insane escort dps and aux to sif, which is naturally a single heal dependant on the least useful power stat for a cruiser: aux.
a heal with a low magnitude and a resistance boost that is negated by everyone running beta, delta, mark target or sensor scan.
array dps is forgetable unless buffed to the max by tac capatins - unlike for example dual cannons which even engineering captains can get mileage out off.
What you seem to not know, or have forgotten or have simply learned to ignore is the history of buffs/nerfs that led us to where we are now.
First, there was...
- Dual heavy cannon armed ships ripped all others ships apart in mere seconds. RSP was the only defense (lasted 15 secs back then). Beam arrays still had bite but not in the extreme cannons had. not even close.
Fed v klink balance: Feds sat in a ball, klinks tried to jump straglgers. Klinks won by sheer firepower, feds won by meeting dumb klinkers from time to time. The kind of dumb that flys his bop into 5+ feds and expects to live.
Funny thing aside: devs and some deranged palyers actually tried to argue against auto fire, bumbling on about skill and how mashing the same button is such a joy. Devs caved in half way: weapons autofire, shield dsitribution does not. A cryptic decision for sure.
Then there came:
- Science team: science team suddenly got ultra important because it gave shield resistance.
Combined with RSF it made engin cruisers almost durable. But alas their damage sucked balls now that arrays got their 20% damage nerf - for no other reason but afore mentioned bop users whining like hell.
Bug with the cannons rotatinos got fixes: now you could fire all cannons instead of having to stagger it, escort damage expldoed and to this day shows no signs of coming down again. I think it left orbit years ago in search for a less stupid dev team.
Most Science powers were broken still - aside of VM which would kill you by putting your ship out of business forever.
Fed vs klink balance. The sam, but with klinkers in plain better ships.
funny thing aside:
Fed cruiser turn rate Detate! Now with inertia fixed, the powerslide was gone and so was the fed crusiers only fun way of fighting - by sliding through space - going one way and pointing the other. Fed mobility still sucks to this day and is the single greatest hindrance to fed cruisers - not being able to turn around and present am unscathed shield or bring guns to bear.
Then there came:
- le grande overhaul(e?)
Shield resitances! woot! Healing revamp! woot! Global cooldowns! longer cooldowns! shorter cooldowns!
Shield resitance stacking up to perfect shields that took bascially no credible amount of damage anymore! Subnuke now was mandatory! Dual cannons got more damage potential in retaliation - which did absolutely jack shiite to solve the issue but creates troubles for us now!
Arrays still sucked TRIBBLE but at least you could hide behind perfect shields and simply WAIT our opponent to death - people that fall asleep at the helm get mauled by cruisers!
Fd vs klink: Klingon population gets poluted by newbs that refuse to learn, ship wise klinks still pwn but conastantly whine on about lack of science ships and escorts that do not have an inbuild firing arc bug.
funny thing aisde:
Spiral dancing is born by fed cruisers circling upwards like some sort of TRIBBLE in order to exploit ****ty cannon arcs.
- oh snap! giving crusiers perfect shields was a moronic move! TO THE NERF MOBILE!!! capped resistance is a thing now and in fact escorts dish oput sop much damage that even max cap resistance cannot sto pshields from melting in seconds - tac team becomesa must by shield distribution never gettign adjusted to the new realites, skill tree revamp nerfs tanking powers and buffs attack powers, arrays still suck, dual cannons do wtf damage and the defence stat now actually does something by making escorts hard to hit while maintaining the idea that apo should buff EVRYTHING and give immunity to movement impeeding abilitys (the only thing that removes defence). combined with the fact that escorts can now get enough shield hardening to make arrays fire a warm sizzling thing that only gets threatenign when a whole team does it after subnuking your shin ship.
Fed vs klink balance: klink ships still are better, but the playerbase has normalized - lots dumb klinkers now. Oh and klinkers still do not have the allure that the iconic feds have, who would have thought.
Funny thing aside: people ar baffled why they would make a dreadnought that fields dual heavys but has basdically the turn rate of a dead elephant frozen in carbonite and why a weapon that was shown to perform several strikes in seconds is now a 3 minute cooldown weapon with forgettable damage (unless you are tac and get a crit) and the ability to miss tractored carriers at pointblank with regularity o na ship that has no boff or consoel layout to reflect the whole "warship" thing. klinks get an escort with powerful tanking and a lance that can be buffed even more (beta, apo etc) and actually can hit stuff. woot!
After that we have the console wars, the lock box wars etc but the fundamental balance remains the same: escorts ho, science yo, cruisers no.
Funny thing aside encore: science powere got incredilby irritating be destroying your ability to do anything.
- i do not gurantee accuracy in where chronological order is involved.
this was claydermunch, here sicne launch, captain of everything and current user of a GX dread with his Tac captain Syria, because some times, one does meet someone off guard.
Oh and look, the klinkers get a cloack becuase that is what they pay for with their miniscule hit to shield stats and hull.
Actually, Klingons have the cloak because the cloak is Star Trek canon. Just be happy the cloak does not function canonically. What you seem to not know, have forgotten, or have simply learned to ignore is the history of the IP itself.
Jack Emmert: "Starfleet and Klingon. ... So two factions, full PvE content." Al Rivera hates Klingons Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert All cloaks should be canon.
What parameters would you use to define Beam Arrays being "competitive" with DHC's in Damage, Drain, Firing Arcs, etc.
I would be happy with the following stats (Based on Mk XII common):
Fires 4 shots per cycle (Return power after last shot, as per DHCs)
Damage: 249.1, 199.22 DPS (13% increase)
Range 10km
1 second recharge
Drains 8 power when fired with other weapons
250 Degree FA
Compared to the equivalent DHC:
Fires 2 shots per cycle (As current, Return power after last shot, as current)
Damage: 383.5, 255.7 DPS
Range: 10km
2 Second recharge
Drains 12 power when fired with other weapons
+10% Critical severity
Which would lead to the following:
6 beam broadside cycle (24 shots): 5977.248 (Subract reduction from power drain, something I can't calculate)
4 DHC Cycle (16 Shots): 6136 (Subract reduction from power drain)
Meaning DHCs still have the upper hand but not by as much until buffed and as we all know CRF is amazingly powerful compared to things like FAW and BO however it does make beams a better weapon than they are now. I would also like to see FAW take weapon Acc into account and maybe even see a CRF equivalent for Beams. This would put cruisers in a better position to keep damage levels high when escorts are unable to burst on a target without making them a primary DD machine.
I do have a spreadsheet if anyone wants it showing all the formulae I used to to get the results I did.
I am confused. How are you against crippling over-specialization which forces teamwork, aka "the trinity", while also believing in the very concept of a "low DPS ship"? These two beliefs seem to be contradictory to me.
Easy, while I find the trinity concept ill fitting to STO what we actually have is an incredibly soft trinity that has "low dps ships" that aren;t as low dps as the more traditional tanks usually are in other games.
While there are outliers of course (galaxy is too Engi focused), no ship is forced to perform any role or is required to get through any content (with the exception of No Win and Hive, which again is what I keep hearing). What we have are ships that lean towards DPS, tanking/healing, and CC that then get an overlay of abilities with boff powers. An escort's frail nature make it a requirement by its pilots to learn how get the most out of a limited amount of defensive boff powers. Cruisers work the same way, a cruiser pilot has to learn to make the most out of a limited number of dps tac and power management boff abilities.
As things stand today a cruiser broadside should be six regular beams, the romulan beam, and the 180 torp while having near 100%uptime on EPtW and cycling Aux2B x 2. Heck, with technician doffs my regent has the equivalent of 8 tac boff powers, more than your average escort!
First off I'm getting annoyed at the weapon arc argument. Which is easier, to take a ship with double the turn rate and keep their 45 degree weapons on target, or a ship with half the turn rate and keep their 80 degree weapons on target? Strangely enough I find keeping DHCs on target much easier as it makes more sense in my brain to point at the enemy.
What parameters would you use to define Beam Arrays being "competitive" with DHC's in Damage, Drain, Firing Arcs, etc.
At what point and with what stats would you and others be happy with Beam Arrays?
(Note, any of the below would satisfy me)
When a cruiser with 7 beam arrays puts out the same amount of hurt as an escort with 3 DHCs and 3 turrets when at 5km range without getting gimmicky.
When a beam array has a reasonable advantage over a DHC, and a DHC has a reasonable advantage over a BA depending upon the encounter. For example at 9km range vs a mobile target the BA outperforms the DHC while at 2km range against a heavily resistant target the DHC will outperform.
When a torpedo that does not require LOBI or a specific ship can be used in a broadside. Or even an Engie boff ability that would do this would be an amazing addition.
When buffer tanking becomes a bit more viable and sustain tanking becomes a bit weaker. I know offtopic
Which is what we have going on in the game right now. Many Cruiser players are using OverCapping, DEM DOffs, AtB builds and other ideas to both increase thier damage output and manage thier power levels.
Why is these ideas and others not the accepted norms for Cruiser play? A basics of Cruiser play if you will.
Escorts have a basics that most players need to know before they become effective. I could name several players that once where beginers and now are more thans most likely to learning the basics of thier class and ship.
As you said the Escorts are merely fast little buff stackers, easily nullified with the right abilities.
Guess what, nearly all my escorts also overcap, one uses DEM (steamrunner is OP I'm sorry), and I'm sure I could stick an AtB build on one of the dozens of potential setups. And I have done this with cruisers and they work to a point, other than they still deal less damage than an escort and tend to be even more thin skinned depending on the ship.
I had a rather scathing reply/remark to your comment, but halfway through your story I was laughing so hard I decided to relent and give you a high five for telling a great (albeit true) story.
But I will say this. I am fully aware of what Cryptic has done in terms of nerfs and buffs. I am also fully aware of how those have affected the game.
But here's your "newsflash": This game is free to play now. They are catering to a different crowd than they used to. That crowd is anywhere between 12-23, and those people are usually using their parent's money to pay for in-game stuff.
Now I don't know about you, but when I was 12, I had no patience, I wanted everything now, and I wanted to be the hero, the center of attention, the one who did everything. Which ships have the ability to put out HUGE damage? Escorts. But they weren't the hero ships, cruisers were. However, F2Pers soon learned that escorts gave you the most bang for your buck. And they then gravitated towards them.
However, they then found out that suddenly they couldn't survive jack squat. Granted they could kill things like a TRIBBLE, but what does that matter if you're dead? It doesn't. So the giant BMW train came along, and Cryptic was forced to adjust heals, hull strengths, shield strengths etc, and make their money makers, the escorts, stronger.
Then the disco balls of death came up, with cruisers using BFAW (lots of them), and escorts went squish. Out came the BMW again, and beams were summarily nerfed. BFAW was also nerfed (not 100% sure on that, but it seems like it).
Now I am probably biased, but it seems like the majority of nerfs/buffs were favoring escorts over every other class. I can understand that (probably incorrect assumption, but I seem to see lots of freebie escorts zipping around, and a heck of a lot of P2P escorts zipping around too).
I am not arguing that there is an imbalance between the classes. A perfect example would be to pit the ultimate escort up against the ultimate cruiser and the ultimate science ship. 9 times out of 10, the science ship will get smashed first, and then the escort will lay waste to the cruiser.
But in the end, it seems the escort always wins. But it's the escort that makes them money, so... I understand why this is.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
Take a look at the game, see how myna cruisers are flying around?
Don't ever tell me there is no money to mbe made by making cruisrs not suck as much.
+ your chain of arguments still dies a the hands of the "boom your argument is dead" elephant stepping on it:
klinkr cruisers are well designed, they hav good mobility but not overly much, they have good damage potential, but not overly much (and not so much it would throw raptors or dps bops out of the game) and their tanking is very good.
Fed cruisers have no mobility to speak of, they have horrible damage potential and their defense is basically crippled by thd fact that just about anybody can sit in their rear arcs with no effort at all, and thanks to apo and consorts the whol tractor/plasma stuff does absolutly nothing to stop those people from sitting behind a fed whale forever.
There is no gamepaly reason for this, the game would not suddenly change overnight if you gave fed cruisers the mobility of klinkers (or basically klinker mobility -1) but you would remedy an injust disadvantage that FED cruisers NVER got any compensation for.
Feds have ****ty mobility, and they do get nothing. They do not tank better, they sure as hell do not do more damage (how could they, beam arrays are such a horrible weapon) and that leaves the question: why was this done the way it was done?
heck, star trek even demonstrated that crusiers are surprisingly nimble (yes they won't out turn a small agile ship, but alas: noone asks for that.) and good jack of all trades.
Bring up fed mobility, unnerf beam arrays or better: rework em entirely. We do not need a 4 cycle beam array, make it one cycle every 4 seconds: Hammerblows. Steady hammerblows that deliver a drumbeat of destrcution.
redo FAW so that it acts like the beam version of rapdid fire, do a scatter volley for equivalent for spam removal.
There are no arguments against that other then "do not want" and "but thats an escorts job!" (which are both dumb, especialy the last sicne noone says arrays should out damage dhc.)
You need to remebe that not only tac captains are populating the game! Yes, tacs can buiff arrays to become a somewhat useful weapon for the duration of their buffs, but after that its back to "oh look it tickeles". Science and engineering capotains do not even get the chance.
They are stuck with the base weapon.
Well used Engineering captains in a cruisers are the epitomy of annoying damange sponge, but they just don't DO anything aside lobbing a heal once in a while (so... 6k from that aux to sif 6 is... exactly one dhc volley. wow.... that was worth it not having a tac captain instead to actuall contribute....).
But ok, back to basics:
klinks get mobility, tank and damage.
Feds get nothing. Bring feds up to klink levels without making them klinks (meaning no dhc for fed cruisers, so unnerf the bloody arrays already!)
Bring up fed mobility, unnerf beam arrays or better: rework em entirely. We do not need a 4 cycle beam array, make it one cycle every 4 seconds: Hammerblows. Steady hammerblows that deliver a drumbeat of destrcution.
redo FAW so that it acts like the beam version of rapdid fire, do a scatter volley for equivalent for spam removal.
Well, or just reduce the power drain figure. At -10 power per beam array, you need +50 weapon power (first array is free) to not suffer horrifying dips. Importantly, that's a sustained +50, because unlike escorts cruisers do not make buff-stacked gun runs.
The target should be that the drain from a beam broadside is fully compensated by EPTW3, which meshes perfectly with the idea of cruisers choosing between defense or offense.
And yes, an overhaul of the tactical abilities is needed as well. Beam tactics are either specialized or tradeoffs, while cannon abilities are general purpose all pro and no con.
I noticed that there is a lot of focus on the short-comings of cruisers in this thread, however that's not surprising considering the name suggests as such. But let's take a look at the strengths of the cruiser. High hull, strong shields, very good survivability. Many PvPers will tell you that a well built cruiser is very VERY difficult to destroy. So why not take advantage of that strength?
In this game, there are a number of abilities that mess with something's sensors. Jam Sensors, Sensor Targeting Assault, Scramble Sensors, Sensor Analysis, and so on and so forth. Basically all of those abilities mess with your targeting systems. And all of them are quite effective and rather infuriating when applied correctly/timed perfectly.
Also Science ships, Klingon Ships, Carriers, and Tholian Ships all have built in abilities (sensor analysis, subsystem targetting, cloaking, fighters, etc), and other ships have console abilities (practically every C-store ship in existence).
So here's an idea. Why not incorporate all of the 3 above traits into actually being something USEFUL on a cruiser. Now I am sure by now a few of you know what I am about to suggest, but bear with me. Quick summary: cruisers are tanky, sensors can be messed with, and ships have built in abilities (some based solely on ship class). So... let's do the same with cruisers.
Ability:
Targeting Sensor Lock
For X seconds, this ship is the only ship that registers as an enemy to X (either a specific target or nearest number/range of targets). All other ships register as friendly and cannot be targeted. Enemy ship(s) affected by this ability cannot change targets to another ship, even a friendly one. Also during this time, all incoming damage to this ship is reduced by X% (OR increase this ship's defense and resistances by X%) all heals to this ship are increased by X%, and this ship is immune to disables, holds, and placates. Also restores all damaged subsystems upon activation.
X cooldown. Note: This ability is affected by Starship Threat Control (duration of ability, number of targets affected/range within which targets are affected), Starship Hull Repair (heal increase), Starship Emitters (heal increase), Starship Armor Reinforcements (damage reduction/defense increase), and Starship Hull Plating (damage reduction/defense increase).
I left all the actual numbers/values as X because that would be up to the devs/playerbase to argue about and decide, but it's a start. Ideally however, it would have at least a 33% uptime (preferably more), with a maximum value of X being 40%. I also put the things that affect it because if you look at what those skills do, it would make sense for them to enhance whatever it is I had them increasing.
Known Problems with this Ability: possibly overpowered, especially with the disable, hold and placate immunity, also not entirely sure how to deal with more than one person activating this ability, especially if they are on opposite teams (everyone firing on the other team's tank XD... which brings back memories of skype calls while playing league... STOP FOCUSING THE TANK YOU IDIOTS!!!)
So what I did here was I took threat control (only useful in PvE) and made a PvP/general usage version. You guys are complaining cruisers don't do enough damage, are flying bricks, are only healers in PvP. In actuality they are wonderful tanks. But tanks are useless in PvP, since it's usually you waste the escorts, then sci ships, and THEN kill the cruisers. Which ruins the whole point of a tank. But while at work I was thinking about a build for League of Legends, and this thread came into mind, since the build I was going for centered around a champion that excels at taunting/disrupting his opponents (anyone who plays, it's Shen with his wonderful AoE taunt XD).
Basically what this ability does is forces either everyone or a specific target to attack the cruiser using it (taunt), and reinforces it's already great tankiness with increased defense/reduced incoming damage (yes, there is a difference, but tank), and increased heals to it (more tank). It also removes your opponents ability to cross heal (note: it says that you cannot change targets, even to other friendlies, does two things, one, keeps you from cross healing, and two, keeps you from inadvertently healing your opponents since they register as friendly, but this is the disrupt). So you have your taunt, your tank, and your disrupt. Everything a good tank should have in ANY MMO.
I think if this was put in, players might find themselves complaining a lot less, because cruisers would suddenly become VERY useful, all without ever changing a thing on BAs or the cruisers themselves. Cryptic gave us these wonderful tank ships that can be insanely hard to destroy. What I proposed just takes advantage of that.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
Irritating in PvP, anytime you take control away from a player it is a bad idea typically. In addition PvP is one of the few places a cruiser can do a role, that is keeping other ships alive while also keeping itself alive.
No, overall bad idea sorry.
Now special cruiser (and some Sci like say Nebula) beam arrays to nearly mirror DHCs in performance is a good idea. Because really if we compare BAs to DCs they are not that bad off. And it just might make cryptic some cash and we all know how much they loooove that.
Irritating in PvP, anytime you take control away from a player it is a bad idea typically. In addition PvP is one of the few places a cruiser can do a role, that is keeping other ships alive while also keeping itself alive.
No, overall bad idea sorry.
Now special cruiser (and some Sci like say Nebula) beam arrays to nearly mirror DHCs in performance is a good idea. Because really if we compare BAs to DCs they are not that bad off. And it just might make cryptic some cash and we all know how much they loooove that.
Well you'll have to forgive me trying to take advantage of an existing strength as opposed to giving it another one. And please, tell me how giving beam arrays that mirror DHCs in damage is a good idea. Because that's not only imbalanced, but silly. I mean come on, how is something with that level of DPS and a 250 degree firing arc NOT overpowered? And making it cruiser only? I think in your zeal to get your point across, you've lost sight of balance and have crossed into the zone of just plain silly.
Another point to make is that my idea does not "take control away from the player". You can still move on your own, choose abilities on your own, heal yourself, and do whatever you want. It just makes it so you can't target anything other than that cruiser offensively, or yourself defensively. So it's not a true taunt, just a target limiter.
Unlike your whacked idea, mine is actually viable and plausible, and... wait for it... reasonable. Cruisers are already great tanks. Give them an ability that goes along with that, takes advantage of that, and scales off of those kinds of skills. Your idea on the other hand, turn damage sponge tanks (cuz face it, that's what cruisers were designed to do) into damage dealing damage sponges. So you will basically make cruisers that can hurt like an escort without sacrificing anything in survivability in return. That sir, is not balance, but madness.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
Well you'll have to forgive me trying to take advantage of an existing strength as opposed to giving it another one. And please, tell me how giving beam arrays that mirror DHCs in damage is a good idea. Because that's not only imbalanced, but silly. I mean come on, how is something with that level of DPS and a 250 degree firing arc NOT overpowered? And making it cruiser only? I think in your zeal to get your point across, you've lost sight of balance and have crossed into the zone of just plain silly.
Another point to make is that my idea does not "take control away from the player". You can still move on your own, choose abilities on your own, heal yourself, and do whatever you want. It just makes it so you can't target anything other than that cruiser offensively, or yourself defensively. So it's not a true taunt, just a target limiter.
Unlike your whacked idea, mine is actually viable and plausible, and... wait for it... reasonable. Cruisers are already great tanks. Give them an ability that goes along with that, takes advantage of that, and scales off of those kinds of skills. Your idea on the other hand, turn damage sponge tanks (cuz face it, that's what cruisers were designed to do) into damage dealing damage sponges. So you will basically make cruisers that can hurt like an escort without sacrificing anything in survivability in return. That sir, is not balance, but madness.
*Beats head against table*
1) Keep a 45 degree arc on a target with 20 turn rate is no more difficult than an 80 degree arc on a target with 10 turn rate.
2) 'Nearly mirror in performance' does not mean exactly the same. And I'm talking BASE performance because and meant with turrets (So DHC + Turret = 1 BA + 1 new special BA overall roughly) ...
3) You MUST use boff abilities to get any decent mileage out of DHCs. The weapons themselves are not that amazing without a weapon ability and an attack pattern. And to make them truely powerful you need to add on Captain abilities and a DEM and/or EPTW leading me to the final point of...
4) If the cruiser with these weapons is packing the damage abilities like say a DEM pair and an EPTW3 then it will not be as tanky anyway.
Let me try explaining this aspect of the cruiser one last time.
The Cruiser Hull is no more tanky than any other ship in the game by virtue of being a cruiser. Only its prefrence for engineer boff abilities and consoles combined with the typically secondary forcus of science boff abilities and consoles grant it that effect. That is also why the Tholian Ships Are Better Tanks & PvP Healers than any Cruiser.
And yes it would require new boff abilities or a rework of the current ones to get where I would want it most likely.
*edit add*
So lets take this for the proposed weapon, the Heavy Beam Array
Firing Arc: 240 degree, Forward Mount Only
Base Damage: 110 (for reference standard BAs are 100)
Firing Cycle: Exactly as DHCs (this is the important part)
Energy Drain: 8 or 9 (If 9 then tac on a 5% accuracy bonus to weapon type)
That is not broken by any stretch of the imagination, yet would be a huge boon.
wow you basically ignord almost the whole thread to write up that wall of boring.
Stop trying to shoehorn new powers and abilites onto fed cruisers.
Fed cruisers need 2 things:
Mobility and unnerfed arrays.
I see nothing like that in your post. Instead i see a convoluted mess of "not fun and totally beside the problem" there.
Just give fed cruisers near klink cruiser mobility, un-nerf beam arrys and make them a credible weapon. Parity. Klinks already got good cruisers that do all the cruisers jobs + good supplemental damage AND are fun to play.
Just elevate fec cruisers to that.
DONE.
nothing, esle, needed. really. This is it. This is not bloody rocket science, this does not need sweeping changes of the core of the game. Juist - bring - fed - cruisers - up - to - klinker - cruisers in terms of mobility and damage potential.
DONE. Really. It is this easy. Noone loses ANYTHING with this.
Fed cruisers just need their mobility boosted and beam arrays need to be brought up in oomph.
Done, this is not magic, look at the klingon crusiers, they work well. Emulate that.
As for Beam arrays:
God does this need to be on every page?!
Majke it one cycle every 4 seconds, quadruple the damage. Done. You are done with the weapon itself.
Now add "beam array rapid fire" and "beam arrays scatter volley" as powers that do EXACTLY what one would expect them too: rapid incrases the volume of fire (magnitude up for debate), scatter does aoe cone damage (magnitude up fo debate).
Combined with the fact that its now a weapon with as higher base daamge, meaning BO1-3 is viable for all cruisers and added on to a movement buff to the fed cruisers we woudl have relaitve parity between klinkers and feds and between classes as a whole.
Sci and cruisers get a buff, escorts do not get nerfed. Cruisers get more fun to play as, escorts do not lose a single thing.
Easy. Do it. And sinc everyone can use BA at will, this will not even ceate imbalance. for anyone. again a win/win situation.
This is easy. This is not an introdution of any sort of new magic system. Just the altreration or copy pasta of 2 powers, the base turnrate of fed cruisers and the base stats of Beam arrays.
This is something that can be done in 5 minutes and thrown onto the test server to test it out.
I find your close-mindedness almost amusing. If anything I pity your inability to 1) keep your idiocy from being known to all, and 2) see other people's points of view.
For starters, I have read this whole thread. If you look back along it, I have also participated throughout much of it.
But as is, I am starting to get tired of it. The same things are being said over and over, regardless of how intelligent they may or may not be. Let's just go with your post though, since it's right here.
KDF battlecruisers are more effective because they can use DHCs and are more offensively oriented than fed cruisers. And this game is based more on DPS than on anything else.
And before you say "oh oh they have the same stats" look at their maneuverability and look at where their bonus power is. They have a much higher turn rate and their power is more offensively based. They have a much higher inertia rating, so they turn better, they move around better, and they are just better overall in many areas. But they lack heavily in the science department. TRIBBLE for tat.
So even if you "Just give fed cruisers near klink cruiser mobility, un-nerf beam arrys and make them a credible weapon." it still won't matter. Because most fed ships still won't have the tactical ability of a KDF battlecruiser. For starters, they still can't use DHCs (which do much more than 20% greater than BAs, since a mk X white BA has a DPS of 190-200, a mk X white DHC has something like 250-270) and they will still have lower inertia ratings which will make it harder for them to move around.
Your "simple fix" really isn't as simple as you blindly believe it is. You need to look at it from a balance perspective. You would have these two changes and do nothing to make KDF battlecruisers better? Because you are under the false impression that they don't need the buff? Regardless of if that's true, KDF battlecruisers are supposed to be significantly faster and more maneuverable than fed cruisers.
So if you gave the Sovy a 10 base turn to compete with the vor'cha, the devs would have no choice but to buff the vor'cha to 13, which would then make them have to buff sci ships up to 16, which would then move escorts up to the low 20s. You cannot change one without changing all the others. And after all that was said and done, you would be facing the same problem as you started with.
Please try to think a little before rage-posting.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
Jack Emmert: "Starfleet and Klingon. ... So two factions, full PvE content." Al Rivera hates Klingons Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert All cloaks should be canon.
I find your close-mindedness almost amusing. If anything I pity your inability to 1) keep your idiocy from being known to all, and 2) see other people's points of view.
For starters, I have read this whole thread. If you look back along it, I have also participated throughout much of it.
But as is, I am starting to get tired of it. The same things are being said over and over, regardless of how intelligent they may or may not be. Let's just go with your post though, since it's right here.
KDF battlecruisers are more effective because they can use DHCs and are more offensively oriented than fed cruisers. And this game is based more on DPS than on anything else.
And before you say "oh oh they have the same stats" look at their maneuverability and look at where their bonus power is. They have a much higher turn rate and their power is more offensively based. They have a much higher inertia rating, so they turn better, they move around better, and they are just better overall in many areas. But they lack heavily in the science department. TRIBBLE for tat.
So even if you "Just give fed cruisers near klink cruiser mobility, un-nerf beam arrys and make them a credible weapon." it still won't matter. Because most fed ships still won't have the tactical ability of a KDF battlecruiser. For starters, they still can't use DHCs (which do much more than 20% greater than BAs, since a mk X white BA has a DPS of 190-200, a mk X white DHC has something like 250-270) and they will still have lower inertia ratings which will make it harder for them to move around.
Your "simple fix" really isn't as simple as you blindly believe it is. You need to look at it from a balance perspective. You would have these two changes and do nothing to make KDF battlecruisers better? Because you are under the false impression that they don't need the buff? Regardless of if that's true, KDF battlecruisers are supposed to be significantly faster and more maneuverable than fed cruisers.
So if you gave the Sovy a 10 base turn to compete with the vor'cha, the devs would have no choice but to buff the vor'cha to 13, which would then make them have to buff sci ships up to 16, which would then move escorts up to the low 20s. You cannot change one without changing all the others. And after all that was said and done, you would be facing the same problem as you started with.
Please try to think a little before rage-posting.
what.
WHAT Science department are you ranting on about? Do you refer to science ships?
How the heck do those come into play when we are talking about the gapping CANYNON that divides the klink cruisers from FED cruisers in terms of usability? Not to mention that with the vo quv, karfi, varanus and bop theres is enough scince on the klinker side to make you weep sorry tears. The carriers have the added benefit of being able to sick some truly nasty pets onto you while simultanously harassing you with since powers.
KDF battlecruisers are more effective because they can use DHCs and are more offensively oriented than fed cruisers. And this game is based more on DPS than on anything else.
YOU DON'T SAY! WOW! Your incredible insight into the flippin obvious is stunning!
YEEEEES! more offensivly oriented! Thats why the neghvar has the same console and boff layput that the Galaxy R, double the crew and still enough turnrate to run circles around fed cruisers. I totally see the offensive thinking there, with all the engineering slots.
Or do you consider the abillity to carry DHC as attribute that defines a ship as offensive oriented? BEcause the flipping GX dread carrys those and i do not see it turning circles around anything but moons.
Totally TRIBBLE for tat, Doctor Lecter!
The klingons do not suffer from fed crusiers being brought up to their level of mobility, nor do they suffer from changes to beam arrays (and if you would have spent more time thinking about it, you would have noticed that i proposed BA oriented boff powers which would be the primary tool for adjusting the final dps, much like cannon powers are now for Cannons) since they can use them too.
They also still maintain their monopoly on dual cannons everywhere.
No ship calls would suffer from fed cruisers beign able to move around without broken legs - you do not need to buff everyone else. Science ships would also benefit from un-nerfing Beam arrays.
And after all that was said and done, you would be facing the same problem as you started with.
no, i would not.
The problem is the fact that Federation cruisers lack the mobility of their klingon counterparts, which makes their defense more diffilcult as it is impossible to present a new shield to a threat, which makes them totally dependable on tac team and the broken because never updated shield distribution.
This is a fundamental rift - klingosn cruisers are fun to use, fed cruisers are not. All becuase of such a simple thing as turnrate. The weakness of Beam arrays (unny, how BA are always brought up as being the reason for fed cruisers being whales) comes into it as an multiplying factor.
By giving fed cruisers a turn rate buff, i remove the problem and by giving Beam Arrays a do over i have a good TRIBBLE with to further adjust.
I would not face the same problem again. Because its flippin fixed.
YOU DON'T SAY! WOW! Your incredible insight into the flippin obvious is stunning!
hereticknight085 stuns you.
hereticknight085 crits you for incredibly obvious damage.
You die.
reynoldsxd has been slain by hereticknight085!
Jack Emmert: "Starfleet and Klingon. ... So two factions, full PvE content." Al Rivera hates Klingons Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert All cloaks should be canon.
He's already lost, so he's just blowing smoke to make it look like he can win. When faced with logic and common sense, people who "know they are right" as with that poster, just fluster and call other people stupid and wrong (like reynold has insisted upon doing).
He seems oblivious to the fact that you cannot buff just one ship class without changing or doing something to the other ship classes, in the same category. You cannot buff the move rate on just fed cruisers without adjusting all the other ship classes accordingly. Just like you cannot buff a specific weapon's damage without adjusting other weapons accordingly. You cannot give weapons that are class specific without adjusting other ship weapons accordingly.
For the sake of fairness and balance, you cannot change just one thing. Not as drastically as that guy and even OP is suggesting. Sorry guys.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
HYou cannot give weapons that are class specific without adjusting other ship weapons accordingly./QUOTE]
While I agree with everything else you have said in that post this 1 line sticks out, if I may bring your attention to DHCs, Escort class only with no adjustment to other weapons, DDIS has some more in depth knowledge than me but I must admit if they were to take DHCs out of the game tomorrow nothing would die (with the exception of failbuilds and NPCs but even that would take forever), could you imagine CSE? Optional failed every time by every group (With a very small number of exceptions, I can just about do BoPs with my fleet Excel thanks to that 4th Tac console), MRRML wouldn't work because beams wouldn't be able to bring the cubes down fast enough.
I'm fine with beams applying support damage but damage held off by a combination of EPtS1, TSS1 and manual distribution, stretching to RSF3 EPtS1 and TT1 to hold off the more powerful ones compared to powerful DHC runs needing TSS2, EPtS1 and TT1 all the way up to RSP being the only thing thats going to save your backside, no beam-boat wil EVER force you to use RSP unless you are using Mk VI shields.
He's already lost, so he's just blowing smoke to make it look like he can win. When faced with logic and common sense, people who "know they are right" as with that poster, just fluster and call other people stupid and wrong (like reynold has insisted upon doing).
He seems oblivious to the fact that you cannot buff just one ship class without changing or doing something to the other ship classes, in the same category. You cannot buff the move rate on just fed cruisers without adjusting all the other ship classes accordingly. Just like you cannot buff a specific weapon's damage without adjusting other weapons accordingly. You cannot give weapons that are class specific without adjusting other ship weapons accordingly.
For the sake of fairness and balance, you cannot change just one thing. Not as drastically as that guy and even OP is suggesting. Sorry guys.
I have yet to see you explain how the beam arrays I have proposed over and over again would be gamebreaking.
I mean we have just had a science vessel released that can mount DHCs and has a pet and yet I don't see you up in arms that all other science vessels need a buff to compete.
It is not being suggested that cruisers get double the turn rate of other ships. Nor the damage. It is being suggested that cruisers should not do HALF the damage of other ships nor have HALF the turn rate. Do you not understand that REDUCING the gap that cruisers currently have with the other ships would in no way destroy balance because the game is currently in an unbalanced state with the current gaps?
Does the Fleet Vor'Cha destroy balance with its ability to nearly match a raptor in sustained DPS? nope.
Does the Vesta or Fleet Nebula or Tholian ships make all fed PvP cruisers worthless even though they are better healers? nope.
Does the Defiant make all other Escorts worthless by virtue of its 5th Tac Console? nope.
No one is suggesting a complete change to make cruisers have the best damage output in the game. I am just suggesting that the GAP needs to be smaller.
While I agree with everything else you have said in that post this 1 line sticks out, if I may bring your attention to DHCs, Escort class only with no adjustment to other weapons, DDIS has some more in depth knowledge than me but I must admit if they were to take DHCs out of the game tomorrow nothing would die (with the exception of failbuilds and NPCs but even that would take forever), could you imagine CSE? Optional failed every time by every group (With a very small number of exceptions, I can just about do BoPs with my fleet Excel thanks to that 4th Tac console), MRRML wouldn't work because beams wouldn't be able to bring the cubes down fast enough.
I'm fine with beams applying support damage but damage held off by a combination of EPtS1, TSS1 and manual distribution, stretching to RSF3 EPtS1 and TT1 to hold off the more powerful ones compared to powerful DHC runs needing TSS2, EPtS1 and TT1 all the way up to RSP being the only thing thats going to save your backside, no beam-boat wil EVER force you to use RSP unless you are using Mk VI shields.
I'm afraid that does need looking at...
DHCs are not class specific. Escorts are not the only ships that can use them. Battlecruisers can, BoPs can, Destroyers can, the new Breen Warship can, and so on and so forth.
And on another note, the ships that use those weapons/have the ability to use them, are designed for damage dealing. Everything I listed above is considered a damage dealing ship-class. Fed cruisers are SUPPORT SHIPS. If anything, you should be complaining about how such an iconic ship set got side-lined into a support tank/healer role. Which is why I suggested my earlier ability, to take advantage of this inherent tankiness. You gotta get it into your head already, cruisers are not a damage dealing ship class. They were never designed as such. They can do damage, but they aren't meant to be the primary damage dealers.
That's why they are restricted from using DHCs. They were never meant to be the ones dishing out the main punishment. They were designed to keep those pain giving ships alive, and tank NPCs so the real damage dealers wouldn't be in danger.
The cruisers that I see the most praise for are those that spec into threat control, and then keep the NPCs full attention so that the escorts can come in and kill off the boss with no danger of being attacked.
In PvP the cruisers that are the most praised are the ones that heal the escorts and keep them from being exterminated, even under focus fire.
That is their role, and they can do it quite well.
I have yet to see you explain how the beam arrays I have proposed over and over again would be gamebreaking.
I mean we have just had a science vessel released that can mount DHCs and has a pet and yet I don't see you up in arms that all other science vessels need a buff to compete.
It is not being suggested that cruisers get double the turn rate of other ships. Nor the damage. It is being suggested that cruisers should not do HALF the damage of other ships nor have HALF the turn rate. Do you not understand that REDUCING the gap that cruisers currently have with the other ships would in no way destroy balance because the game is currently in an unbalanced state with the current gaps?
Does the Fleet Vor'Cha destroy balance with its ability to nearly match a raptor in sustained DPS? nope.
Does the Vesta or Fleet Nebula or Tholian ships make all fed PvP cruisers worthless even though they are better healers? nope.
Does the Defiant make all other Escorts worthless by virtue of its 5th Tac Console? nope.
No one is suggesting a complete change to make cruisers have the best damage output in the game. I am just suggesting that the GAP needs to be smaller.
I agree the gap needs to be smaller. But what you're suggesting is too much. The one thing you always seem to ignore, and it's starting to become a little annoying, is the firing arc issue. Beam arrays have a 250 degree firing arc. That's why your idea is too powerful. Something with that level of a firing arc doing the level of damage you're suggesting? I cannot in good conscience stand behind it. The cruiser captain in me is practically drooling in agreement, but the rest of me, not really.
Now if we absolutely MUST buff BAs, then I would say give them back the 20% damage they lost due to the disco ball nerf (the only thing that reynold idiot suggested that makes sense), and give them a very VERY slight acc increase (no more than 5%). But if you do that, don't do anything else. Maybe give cruisers a little more hull, so that you don't have the stupidity of an escort having 50k hull with the strongest hulled cruiser only having 13k more.
Or... reduce escort hull and shields. Make them less able to tank, and more dependent on healing/actual tanks.
In all honesty, this whole game-wide obsession with DPS (outside of PvP), is just silly.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
The cruisers that I see the most praise for are those that spec into threat control, and then keep the NPCs full attention so that the escorts can come in and kill off the boss with no danger of being attacked.
Something my Excelsior can do BECAUSE I can push the barriers of beam damage
Now if we absolutely MUST buff BAs, then I would say give them back the 20% damage they lost due to the disco ball nerf (the only thing that reynold idiot suggested that makes sense), and give them a very VERY slight acc increase (no more than 5%). But if you do that, don't do anything else. Maybe give cruisers a little more hull, so that you don't have the stupidity of an escort having 50k hull with the strongest hulled cruiser only having 13k more.
Actually given the sheer amount of damage the escort health is kinda needed to survive at all, that said, a buff to beams (I can get behind a reversal of the nerf and stick with that) and a percentage based heal system should fix that giving cruisers and science ships a noticeable healing bonus over escorts
Comments
I think what you really want is a cruiser with an escort's boff layout and console slots. Maybe a cruiser costume for one of the tankier escorts would work for you?
I say this because you keep trying to find different angles from which to try to make a case that doesn't exist. It may surprise you that beams doing less DPS than DHCs is not a big secret or some new revelation. Of COURSE they do less damage, they have huge firing arcs and long range (less dps dropoff at range). They are lower dps weapons for lower dps ships. You also conveniently forget to mention the 180 Torp shot that goes along with those six beams as well as the seventh beam for no energy charge, courtesy of our pointy eared BFFs over at Tau Dewa.
As far as the trinity in STO goes. I agree that its terribly misplaced for the IP. Thankfully we have a very soft trinity where no one class/ship combination is required. At least not out of Hive and No Win, or so I have heard. Unfortunately, changing the game in a way that would make all ships equal at all things just isn't in the cards for STO. Frankly, even if they wanted to I'd prefer they didn't touch code any more than they had to. Therefore, players need to understand what the different ships lean towards and decide if they want to use that strength or not.
I am confused. How are you against crippling over-specialization which forces teamwork, aka "the trinity", while also believing in the very concept of a "low DPS ship"? These two beliefs seem to be contradictory to me.
I have said before, you can tank all day long but that is pointless if it means the attacker never dies, that's called damage sponging (see USS Houston), a tank can actually kill stuff by itself (See KDF Battlecruisers), I'm fine with escorts having survivability and damage provided that doesn't lead to double standards as it seems to, someone comes on the forums saying "I wanna make my escort survive tac cubes and kill them" and everyone looks up and says "Oh yeah you can do that see <Insert place here> and enjoy", yet the moment someone looks up and says "I wanna make my cruiser do what his escort is" everyone looks up and says "No, you're not allowed to do that, damage is his job not yours, how dare you even suggest a fed cruiser killing stuff, learn to play!". That's just unfair.
Science ships don't lose out like cruisers do due to beam array weakness as they have sciencey stuff to back them up and drive good damage out of them, they also only run 4 BAs if they are sensible reducing drain and further increasing damage, for example I have a fleet Excelsior and a fleet Nova on my engineer, I know cruiser pilots who dream of doing what my Excelsior does, I have balanced my boff skills giving me 6 damage boosting skills, 6 heal/resist skills and if I sacrifice one self heal I can have 3/4 team heals and it does well for a fed cruiser built to it's two strengths with a little added on the side. my fleet Nova playing to a different tactic has 3 damage boosting skills, 6 heal/resistance skills, 2 holds and 1 drain, the point being to lay down damage through multiple methods which it does well and take a beating while it does so which scarily it does almost as well as (sometimes even better than) my Excelsior, all in all it does nearly as much damage as the Excel, takes nearly as much damage as the Excel AND all the while is more annoying to the enemy than the Excel.
TLDR (above paragraph only): A fleet science ship can give a fleet Excelsior a run for its money.
so if a properly built science ship can compete with a properly built cruiser, albeit by different methods and requiring more thought, and the escort can survive as long as a cruiser against the same enemy and dish out the damage to kill the thing, why shouldn't the cruiser (and science ship) compete with the escort on a damage front?
Still, you did not answer the question.
What parameters would you use to define Beam Arrays being "competitive" with DHC's in Damage, Drain, Firing Arcs, etc.
At what point and with what stats would you and others be happy with Beam Arrays?
R.I.P
Which is what we have going on in the game right now. Many Cruiser players are using OverCapping, DEM DOffs, AtB builds and other ideas to both increase thier damage output and manage thier power levels.
Why is these ideas and others not the accepted norms for Cruiser play? A basics of Cruiser play if you will.
Escorts have a basics that most players need to know before they become effective. I could name several players that once where beginers and now are more thans most likely to learning the basics of thier class and ship.
As you said the Escorts are merely fast little buff stackers, easily nullified with the right abilities.
R.I.P
Galaxy R and neghvar: same boffs and consoles yet the neghvar is infinitely better for EVERYTHING from tanking to dealing damage.
Vorcha and assautl cruiser: same boffs and console, yet the vorcha is the better ship all around.
The Fleet klinker cruisers turn the heat up to eleven, the fed fleet cruisers... have no point at all.
Oh and look, the klinkers get a cloack becuase that is what they pay for with their miniscule hit to shield stats and hull. (and btw: the difference in hull and shieklds is SO miniscule it does not evn register in a game where survivasl comes at the hand of magic boff powers and not at the hand of base hull/shield stats.)
Since you seem to ignore this on a regular basis: moblility is the first line of defense and fed cruisers get shafted with no compensation. Being able to build a zombie starship is of no use to anyone.
hey, newsflash:
Science ships already rely fully on their abilities to disrupt and control. That is their whole reason for doing anything - to spam disables, scrambles and drain power so that their heavy hits get into the targets (trics for the win?) or in organzied teams leave their target helpless and victim to an escort bum rush.
Escorts already dish out excessive amounts of damage, and combine it with ludicrously high mobility (so high in fact that they can turn circles inside a crusiers shield bubble if they want to and the pilot is immune to vertigo.) and a ridiculously powerful tac buff line that increases survivability more than most engineering powers. Pattern omega and tac team: immunity to snars, roots, massive reistance boosts and naturally an abundance of tac teams - the single one most TRIBBLE addition to the gameplay ever made aside the ages old 30 second "you do nothing" VM: instead of fixing the abyssmal standard shield redistribution system by making it NOT SUCK HORRIBLY they made tac team auto reditribute at an insane rate so that it became mandatroy for the very survival in this game.
And cruisers... do nothing. everyone can use tss, Extends are getting broken so easily by interrupts its not even funny + they limit the mobility of their target with a stupidly low max range.
Now the things that remain are engineering teams which will mostly be in global because the cruiser needs to use tac teams to NOT GET MAULED by insane escort dps and aux to sif, which is naturally a single heal dependant on the least useful power stat for a cruiser: aux.
a heal with a low magnitude and a resistance boost that is negated by everyone running beta, delta, mark target or sensor scan.
array dps is forgetable unless buffed to the max by tac capatins - unlike for example dual cannons which even engineering captains can get mileage out off.
What you seem to not know, or have forgotten or have simply learned to ignore is the history of buffs/nerfs that led us to where we are now.
First, there was...
- Dual heavy cannon armed ships ripped all others ships apart in mere seconds. RSP was the only defense (lasted 15 secs back then). Beam arrays still had bite but not in the extreme cannons had. not even close.
Fed v klink balance: Feds sat in a ball, klinks tried to jump straglgers. Klinks won by sheer firepower, feds won by meeting dumb klinkers from time to time. The kind of dumb that flys his bop into 5+ feds and expects to live.
Funny thing aside: devs and some deranged palyers actually tried to argue against auto fire, bumbling on about skill and how mashing the same button is such a joy. Devs caved in half way: weapons autofire, shield dsitribution does not. A cryptic decision for sure.
Then there came:
- Science team: science team suddenly got ultra important because it gave shield resistance.
Combined with RSF it made engin cruisers almost durable. But alas their damage sucked balls now that arrays got their 20% damage nerf - for no other reason but afore mentioned bop users whining like hell.
Bug with the cannons rotatinos got fixes: now you could fire all cannons instead of having to stagger it, escort damage expldoed and to this day shows no signs of coming down again. I think it left orbit years ago in search for a less stupid dev team.
Most Science powers were broken still - aside of VM which would kill you by putting your ship out of business forever.
Fed vs klink balance. The sam, but with klinkers in plain better ships.
funny thing aside:
Fed cruiser turn rate Detate! Now with inertia fixed, the powerslide was gone and so was the fed crusiers only fun way of fighting - by sliding through space - going one way and pointing the other. Fed mobility still sucks to this day and is the single greatest hindrance to fed cruisers - not being able to turn around and present am unscathed shield or bring guns to bear.
Then there came:
- le grande overhaul(e?)
Shield resitances! woot! Healing revamp! woot! Global cooldowns! longer cooldowns! shorter cooldowns!
Shield resitance stacking up to perfect shields that took bascially no credible amount of damage anymore! Subnuke now was mandatory! Dual cannons got more damage potential in retaliation - which did absolutely jack shiite to solve the issue but creates troubles for us now!
Arrays still sucked TRIBBLE but at least you could hide behind perfect shields and simply WAIT our opponent to death - people that fall asleep at the helm get mauled by cruisers!
Fd vs klink: Klingon population gets poluted by newbs that refuse to learn, ship wise klinks still pwn but conastantly whine on about lack of science ships and escorts that do not have an inbuild firing arc bug.
funny thing aisde:
Spiral dancing is born by fed cruisers circling upwards like some sort of TRIBBLE in order to exploit ****ty cannon arcs.
- oh snap! giving crusiers perfect shields was a moronic move! TO THE NERF MOBILE!!! capped resistance is a thing now and in fact escorts dish oput sop much damage that even max cap resistance cannot sto pshields from melting in seconds - tac team becomesa must by shield distribution never gettign adjusted to the new realites, skill tree revamp nerfs tanking powers and buffs attack powers, arrays still suck, dual cannons do wtf damage and the defence stat now actually does something by making escorts hard to hit while maintaining the idea that apo should buff EVRYTHING and give immunity to movement impeeding abilitys (the only thing that removes defence). combined with the fact that escorts can now get enough shield hardening to make arrays fire a warm sizzling thing that only gets threatenign when a whole team does it after subnuking your shin ship.
Fed vs klink balance: klink ships still are better, but the playerbase has normalized - lots dumb klinkers now. Oh and klinkers still do not have the allure that the iconic feds have, who would have thought.
Funny thing aside: people ar baffled why they would make a dreadnought that fields dual heavys but has basdically the turn rate of a dead elephant frozen in carbonite and why a weapon that was shown to perform several strikes in seconds is now a 3 minute cooldown weapon with forgettable damage (unless you are tac and get a crit) and the ability to miss tractored carriers at pointblank with regularity o na ship that has no boff or consoel layout to reflect the whole "warship" thing. klinks get an escort with powerful tanking and a lance that can be buffed even more (beta, apo etc) and actually can hit stuff. woot!
After that we have the console wars, the lock box wars etc but the fundamental balance remains the same: escorts ho, science yo, cruisers no.
Funny thing aside encore: science powere got incredilby irritating be destroying your ability to do anything.
- i do not gurantee accuracy in where chronological order is involved.
this was claydermunch, here sicne launch, captain of everything and current user of a GX dread with his Tac captain Syria, because some times, one does meet someone off guard.
Actually, Klingons have the cloak because the cloak is Star Trek canon. Just be happy the cloak does not function canonically. What you seem to not know, have forgotten, or have simply learned to ignore is the history of the IP itself.
Al Rivera hates Klingons
Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert
All cloaks should be canon.
I would be happy with the following stats (Based on Mk XII common):
Fires 4 shots per cycle (Return power after last shot, as per DHCs)
Damage: 249.1, 199.22 DPS (13% increase)
Range 10km
1 second recharge
Drains 8 power when fired with other weapons
250 Degree FA
Compared to the equivalent DHC:
Fires 2 shots per cycle (As current, Return power after last shot, as current)
Damage: 383.5, 255.7 DPS
Range: 10km
2 Second recharge
Drains 12 power when fired with other weapons
+10% Critical severity
Which would lead to the following:
6 beam broadside cycle (24 shots): 5977.248 (Subract reduction from power drain, something I can't calculate)
4 DHC Cycle (16 Shots): 6136 (Subract reduction from power drain)
Meaning DHCs still have the upper hand but not by as much until buffed and as we all know CRF is amazingly powerful compared to things like FAW and BO however it does make beams a better weapon than they are now. I would also like to see FAW take weapon Acc into account and maybe even see a CRF equivalent for Beams. This would put cruisers in a better position to keep damage levels high when escorts are unable to burst on a target without making them a primary DD machine.
I do have a spreadsheet if anyone wants it showing all the formulae I used to to get the results I did.
Easy, while I find the trinity concept ill fitting to STO what we actually have is an incredibly soft trinity that has "low dps ships" that aren;t as low dps as the more traditional tanks usually are in other games.
While there are outliers of course (galaxy is too Engi focused), no ship is forced to perform any role or is required to get through any content (with the exception of No Win and Hive, which again is what I keep hearing). What we have are ships that lean towards DPS, tanking/healing, and CC that then get an overlay of abilities with boff powers. An escort's frail nature make it a requirement by its pilots to learn how get the most out of a limited amount of defensive boff powers. Cruisers work the same way, a cruiser pilot has to learn to make the most out of a limited number of dps tac and power management boff abilities.
As things stand today a cruiser broadside should be six regular beams, the romulan beam, and the 180 torp while having near 100%uptime on EPtW and cycling Aux2B x 2. Heck, with technician doffs my regent has the equivalent of 8 tac boff powers, more than your average escort!
(Note, any of the below would satisfy me)
When a cruiser with 7 beam arrays puts out the same amount of hurt as an escort with 3 DHCs and 3 turrets when at 5km range without getting gimmicky.
When a beam array has a reasonable advantage over a DHC, and a DHC has a reasonable advantage over a BA depending upon the encounter. For example at 9km range vs a mobile target the BA outperforms the DHC while at 2km range against a heavily resistant target the DHC will outperform.
When a torpedo that does not require LOBI or a specific ship can be used in a broadside. Or even an Engie boff ability that would do this would be an amazing addition.
When buffer tanking becomes a bit more viable and sustain tanking becomes a bit weaker. I know offtopic
Guess what, nearly all my escorts also overcap, one uses DEM (steamrunner is OP I'm sorry), and I'm sure I could stick an AtB build on one of the dozens of potential setups. And I have done this with cruisers and they work to a point, other than they still deal less damage than an escort and tend to be even more thin skinned depending on the ship.
I had a rather scathing reply/remark to your comment, but halfway through your story I was laughing so hard I decided to relent and give you a high five for telling a great (albeit true) story.
But I will say this. I am fully aware of what Cryptic has done in terms of nerfs and buffs. I am also fully aware of how those have affected the game.
But here's your "newsflash": This game is free to play now. They are catering to a different crowd than they used to. That crowd is anywhere between 12-23, and those people are usually using their parent's money to pay for in-game stuff.
Now I don't know about you, but when I was 12, I had no patience, I wanted everything now, and I wanted to be the hero, the center of attention, the one who did everything. Which ships have the ability to put out HUGE damage? Escorts. But they weren't the hero ships, cruisers were. However, F2Pers soon learned that escorts gave you the most bang for your buck. And they then gravitated towards them.
However, they then found out that suddenly they couldn't survive jack squat. Granted they could kill things like a TRIBBLE, but what does that matter if you're dead? It doesn't. So the giant BMW train came along, and Cryptic was forced to adjust heals, hull strengths, shield strengths etc, and make their money makers, the escorts, stronger.
Then the disco balls of death came up, with cruisers using BFAW (lots of them), and escorts went squish. Out came the BMW again, and beams were summarily nerfed. BFAW was also nerfed (not 100% sure on that, but it seems like it).
Now I am probably biased, but it seems like the majority of nerfs/buffs were favoring escorts over every other class. I can understand that (probably incorrect assumption, but I seem to see lots of freebie escorts zipping around, and a heck of a lot of P2P escorts zipping around too).
I am not arguing that there is an imbalance between the classes. A perfect example would be to pit the ultimate escort up against the ultimate cruiser and the ultimate science ship. 9 times out of 10, the science ship will get smashed first, and then the escort will lay waste to the cruiser.
But in the end, it seems the escort always wins. But it's the escort that makes them money, so... I understand why this is.
And yet... they've yet to make an escort 3 pack...
They'd make far more money if they implemented "different but equal"
Don't ever tell me there is no money to mbe made by making cruisrs not suck as much.
+ your chain of arguments still dies a the hands of the "boom your argument is dead" elephant stepping on it:
klinkr cruisers are well designed, they hav good mobility but not overly much, they have good damage potential, but not overly much (and not so much it would throw raptors or dps bops out of the game) and their tanking is very good.
Fed cruisers have no mobility to speak of, they have horrible damage potential and their defense is basically crippled by thd fact that just about anybody can sit in their rear arcs with no effort at all, and thanks to apo and consorts the whol tractor/plasma stuff does absolutly nothing to stop those people from sitting behind a fed whale forever.
There is no gamepaly reason for this, the game would not suddenly change overnight if you gave fed cruisers the mobility of klinkers (or basically klinker mobility -1) but you would remedy an injust disadvantage that FED cruisers NVER got any compensation for.
Feds have ****ty mobility, and they do get nothing. They do not tank better, they sure as hell do not do more damage (how could they, beam arrays are such a horrible weapon) and that leaves the question: why was this done the way it was done?
heck, star trek even demonstrated that crusiers are surprisingly nimble (yes they won't out turn a small agile ship, but alas: noone asks for that.) and good jack of all trades.
Bring up fed mobility, unnerf beam arrays or better: rework em entirely. We do not need a 4 cycle beam array, make it one cycle every 4 seconds: Hammerblows. Steady hammerblows that deliver a drumbeat of destrcution.
redo FAW so that it acts like the beam version of rapdid fire, do a scatter volley for equivalent for spam removal.
There are no arguments against that other then "do not want" and "but thats an escorts job!" (which are both dumb, especialy the last sicne noone says arrays should out damage dhc.)
You need to remebe that not only tac captains are populating the game! Yes, tacs can buiff arrays to become a somewhat useful weapon for the duration of their buffs, but after that its back to "oh look it tickeles". Science and engineering capotains do not even get the chance.
They are stuck with the base weapon.
Well used Engineering captains in a cruisers are the epitomy of annoying damange sponge, but they just don't DO anything aside lobbing a heal once in a while (so... 6k from that aux to sif 6 is... exactly one dhc volley. wow.... that was worth it not having a tac captain instead to actuall contribute....).
But ok, back to basics:
klinks get mobility, tank and damage.
Feds get nothing. Bring feds up to klink levels without making them klinks (meaning no dhc for fed cruisers, so unnerf the bloody arrays already!)
Well, or just reduce the power drain figure. At -10 power per beam array, you need +50 weapon power (first array is free) to not suffer horrifying dips. Importantly, that's a sustained +50, because unlike escorts cruisers do not make buff-stacked gun runs.
The target should be that the drain from a beam broadside is fully compensated by EPTW3, which meshes perfectly with the idea of cruisers choosing between defense or offense.
And yes, an overhaul of the tactical abilities is needed as well. Beam tactics are either specialized or tradeoffs, while cannon abilities are general purpose all pro and no con.
In this game, there are a number of abilities that mess with something's sensors. Jam Sensors, Sensor Targeting Assault, Scramble Sensors, Sensor Analysis, and so on and so forth. Basically all of those abilities mess with your targeting systems. And all of them are quite effective and rather infuriating when applied correctly/timed perfectly.
Also Science ships, Klingon Ships, Carriers, and Tholian Ships all have built in abilities (sensor analysis, subsystem targetting, cloaking, fighters, etc), and other ships have console abilities (practically every C-store ship in existence).
So here's an idea. Why not incorporate all of the 3 above traits into actually being something USEFUL on a cruiser. Now I am sure by now a few of you know what I am about to suggest, but bear with me. Quick summary: cruisers are tanky, sensors can be messed with, and ships have built in abilities (some based solely on ship class). So... let's do the same with cruisers.
Ability:
Targeting Sensor Lock
For X seconds, this ship is the only ship that registers as an enemy to X (either a specific target or nearest number/range of targets). All other ships register as friendly and cannot be targeted. Enemy ship(s) affected by this ability cannot change targets to another ship, even a friendly one. Also during this time, all incoming damage to this ship is reduced by X% (OR increase this ship's defense and resistances by X%) all heals to this ship are increased by X%, and this ship is immune to disables, holds, and placates. Also restores all damaged subsystems upon activation.
X cooldown.
Note: This ability is affected by Starship Threat Control (duration of ability, number of targets affected/range within which targets are affected), Starship Hull Repair (heal increase), Starship Emitters (heal increase), Starship Armor Reinforcements (damage reduction/defense increase), and Starship Hull Plating (damage reduction/defense increase).
I left all the actual numbers/values as X because that would be up to the devs/playerbase to argue about and decide, but it's a start. Ideally however, it would have at least a 33% uptime (preferably more), with a maximum value of X being 40%. I also put the things that affect it because if you look at what those skills do, it would make sense for them to enhance whatever it is I had them increasing.
Known Problems with this Ability: possibly overpowered, especially with the disable, hold and placate immunity, also not entirely sure how to deal with more than one person activating this ability, especially if they are on opposite teams (everyone firing on the other team's tank XD... which brings back memories of skype calls while playing league... STOP FOCUSING THE TANK YOU IDIOTS!!!)
So what I did here was I took threat control (only useful in PvE) and made a PvP/general usage version. You guys are complaining cruisers don't do enough damage, are flying bricks, are only healers in PvP. In actuality they are wonderful tanks. But tanks are useless in PvP, since it's usually you waste the escorts, then sci ships, and THEN kill the cruisers. Which ruins the whole point of a tank. But while at work I was thinking about a build for League of Legends, and this thread came into mind, since the build I was going for centered around a champion that excels at taunting/disrupting his opponents (anyone who plays, it's Shen with his wonderful AoE taunt XD).
Basically what this ability does is forces either everyone or a specific target to attack the cruiser using it (taunt), and reinforces it's already great tankiness with increased defense/reduced incoming damage (yes, there is a difference, but tank), and increased heals to it (more tank). It also removes your opponents ability to cross heal (note: it says that you cannot change targets, even to other friendlies, does two things, one, keeps you from cross healing, and two, keeps you from inadvertently healing your opponents since they register as friendly, but this is the disrupt). So you have your taunt, your tank, and your disrupt. Everything a good tank should have in ANY MMO.
I think if this was put in, players might find themselves complaining a lot less, because cruisers would suddenly become VERY useful, all without ever changing a thing on BAs or the cruisers themselves. Cryptic gave us these wonderful tank ships that can be insanely hard to destroy. What I proposed just takes advantage of that.
Irritating in PvP, anytime you take control away from a player it is a bad idea typically. In addition PvP is one of the few places a cruiser can do a role, that is keeping other ships alive while also keeping itself alive.
No, overall bad idea sorry.
Now special cruiser (and some Sci like say Nebula) beam arrays to nearly mirror DHCs in performance is a good idea. Because really if we compare BAs to DCs they are not that bad off. And it just might make cryptic some cash and we all know how much they loooove that.
Well you'll have to forgive me trying to take advantage of an existing strength as opposed to giving it another one. And please, tell me how giving beam arrays that mirror DHCs in damage is a good idea. Because that's not only imbalanced, but silly. I mean come on, how is something with that level of DPS and a 250 degree firing arc NOT overpowered? And making it cruiser only? I think in your zeal to get your point across, you've lost sight of balance and have crossed into the zone of just plain silly.
Another point to make is that my idea does not "take control away from the player". You can still move on your own, choose abilities on your own, heal yourself, and do whatever you want. It just makes it so you can't target anything other than that cruiser offensively, or yourself defensively. So it's not a true taunt, just a target limiter.
Unlike your whacked idea, mine is actually viable and plausible, and... wait for it... reasonable. Cruisers are already great tanks. Give them an ability that goes along with that, takes advantage of that, and scales off of those kinds of skills. Your idea on the other hand, turn damage sponge tanks (cuz face it, that's what cruisers were designed to do) into damage dealing damage sponges. So you will basically make cruisers that can hurt like an escort without sacrificing anything in survivability in return. That sir, is not balance, but madness.
*Beats head against table*
1) Keep a 45 degree arc on a target with 20 turn rate is no more difficult than an 80 degree arc on a target with 10 turn rate.
2) 'Nearly mirror in performance' does not mean exactly the same. And I'm talking BASE performance because and meant with turrets (So DHC + Turret = 1 BA + 1 new special BA overall roughly) ...
3) You MUST use boff abilities to get any decent mileage out of DHCs. The weapons themselves are not that amazing without a weapon ability and an attack pattern. And to make them truely powerful you need to add on Captain abilities and a DEM and/or EPTW leading me to the final point of...
4) If the cruiser with these weapons is packing the damage abilities like say a DEM pair and an EPTW3 then it will not be as tanky anyway.
Let me try explaining this aspect of the cruiser one last time.
The Cruiser Hull is no more tanky than any other ship in the game by virtue of being a cruiser. Only its prefrence for engineer boff abilities and consoles combined with the typically secondary forcus of science boff abilities and consoles grant it that effect. That is also why the Tholian Ships Are Better Tanks & PvP Healers than any Cruiser.
And yes it would require new boff abilities or a rework of the current ones to get where I would want it most likely.
*edit add*
So lets take this for the proposed weapon, the Heavy Beam Array
Firing Arc: 240 degree, Forward Mount Only
Base Damage: 110 (for reference standard BAs are 100)
Firing Cycle: Exactly as DHCs (this is the important part)
Energy Drain: 8 or 9 (If 9 then tac on a 5% accuracy bonus to weapon type)
That is not broken by any stretch of the imagination, yet would be a huge boon.
wow you basically ignord almost the whole thread to write up that wall of boring.
Stop trying to shoehorn new powers and abilites onto fed cruisers.
Fed cruisers need 2 things:
Mobility and unnerfed arrays.
I see nothing like that in your post. Instead i see a convoluted mess of "not fun and totally beside the problem" there.
Just give fed cruisers near klink cruiser mobility, un-nerf beam arrys and make them a credible weapon. Parity. Klinks already got good cruisers that do all the cruisers jobs + good supplemental damage AND are fun to play.
Just elevate fec cruisers to that.
DONE.
nothing, esle, needed. really. This is it. This is not bloody rocket science, this does not need sweeping changes of the core of the game. Juist - bring - fed - cruisers - up - to - klinker - cruisers in terms of mobility and damage potential.
DONE. Really. It is this easy. Noone loses ANYTHING with this.
Fed cruisers just need their mobility boosted and beam arrays need to be brought up in oomph.
Done, this is not magic, look at the klingon crusiers, they work well. Emulate that.
As for Beam arrays:
God does this need to be on every page?!
Majke it one cycle every 4 seconds, quadruple the damage. Done. You are done with the weapon itself.
Now add "beam array rapid fire" and "beam arrays scatter volley" as powers that do EXACTLY what one would expect them too: rapid incrases the volume of fire (magnitude up for debate), scatter does aoe cone damage (magnitude up fo debate).
Combined with the fact that its now a weapon with as higher base daamge, meaning BO1-3 is viable for all cruisers and added on to a movement buff to the fed cruisers we woudl have relaitve parity between klinkers and feds and between classes as a whole.
Sci and cruisers get a buff, escorts do not get nerfed. Cruisers get more fun to play as, escorts do not lose a single thing.
Easy. Do it. And sinc everyone can use BA at will, this will not even ceate imbalance. for anyone. again a win/win situation.
This is easy. This is not an introdution of any sort of new magic system. Just the altreration or copy pasta of 2 powers, the base turnrate of fed cruisers and the base stats of Beam arrays.
This is something that can be done in 5 minutes and thrown onto the test server to test it out.
I find your close-mindedness almost amusing. If anything I pity your inability to 1) keep your idiocy from being known to all, and 2) see other people's points of view.
For starters, I have read this whole thread. If you look back along it, I have also participated throughout much of it.
But as is, I am starting to get tired of it. The same things are being said over and over, regardless of how intelligent they may or may not be. Let's just go with your post though, since it's right here.
KDF battlecruisers are more effective because they can use DHCs and are more offensively oriented than fed cruisers. And this game is based more on DPS than on anything else.
And before you say "oh oh they have the same stats" look at their maneuverability and look at where their bonus power is. They have a much higher turn rate and their power is more offensively based. They have a much higher inertia rating, so they turn better, they move around better, and they are just better overall in many areas. But they lack heavily in the science department. TRIBBLE for tat.
So even if you "Just give fed cruisers near klink cruiser mobility, un-nerf beam arrys and make them a credible weapon." it still won't matter. Because most fed ships still won't have the tactical ability of a KDF battlecruiser. For starters, they still can't use DHCs (which do much more than 20% greater than BAs, since a mk X white BA has a DPS of 190-200, a mk X white DHC has something like 250-270) and they will still have lower inertia ratings which will make it harder for them to move around.
Your "simple fix" really isn't as simple as you blindly believe it is. You need to look at it from a balance perspective. You would have these two changes and do nothing to make KDF battlecruisers better? Because you are under the false impression that they don't need the buff? Regardless of if that's true, KDF battlecruisers are supposed to be significantly faster and more maneuverable than fed cruisers.
So if you gave the Sovy a 10 base turn to compete with the vor'cha, the devs would have no choice but to buff the vor'cha to 13, which would then make them have to buff sci ships up to 16, which would then move escorts up to the low 20s. You cannot change one without changing all the others. And after all that was said and done, you would be facing the same problem as you started with.
Please try to think a little before rage-posting.
But the rage is so delicious.
Al Rivera hates Klingons
Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert
All cloaks should be canon.
If you take a single DHC and add a turret they are much closer to beam arrays which is what most are proposing as the base measuring stick.
Secondly the weapon energy drain mechanic hoses beam arrays much more than anything else as I have gone over several times already in this thread.
what.
WHAT Science department are you ranting on about? Do you refer to science ships?
How the heck do those come into play when we are talking about the gapping CANYNON that divides the klink cruisers from FED cruisers in terms of usability? Not to mention that with the vo quv, karfi, varanus and bop theres is enough scince on the klinker side to make you weep sorry tears. The carriers have the added benefit of being able to sick some truly nasty pets onto you while simultanously harassing you with since powers.
YOU DON'T SAY! WOW! Your incredible insight into the flippin obvious is stunning!
YEEEEES! more offensivly oriented! Thats why the neghvar has the same console and boff layput that the Galaxy R, double the crew and still enough turnrate to run circles around fed cruisers. I totally see the offensive thinking there, with all the engineering slots.
Or do you consider the abillity to carry DHC as attribute that defines a ship as offensive oriented? BEcause the flipping GX dread carrys those and i do not see it turning circles around anything but moons.
Totally TRIBBLE for tat, Doctor Lecter!
The klingons do not suffer from fed crusiers being brought up to their level of mobility, nor do they suffer from changes to beam arrays (and if you would have spent more time thinking about it, you would have noticed that i proposed BA oriented boff powers which would be the primary tool for adjusting the final dps, much like cannon powers are now for Cannons) since they can use them too.
They also still maintain their monopoly on dual cannons everywhere.
No ship calls would suffer from fed cruisers beign able to move around without broken legs - you do not need to buff everyone else. Science ships would also benefit from un-nerfing Beam arrays.
no, i would not.
The problem is the fact that Federation cruisers lack the mobility of their klingon counterparts, which makes their defense more diffilcult as it is impossible to present a new shield to a threat, which makes them totally dependable on tac team and the broken because never updated shield distribution.
This is a fundamental rift - klingosn cruisers are fun to use, fed cruisers are not. All becuase of such a simple thing as turnrate. The weakness of Beam arrays (unny, how BA are always brought up as being the reason for fed cruisers being whales) comes into it as an multiplying factor.
By giving fed cruisers a turn rate buff, i remove the problem and by giving Beam Arrays a do over i have a good TRIBBLE with to further adjust.
I would not face the same problem again. Because its flippin fixed.
hereticknight085 stuns you.
hereticknight085 crits you for incredibly obvious damage.
You die.
reynoldsxd has been slain by hereticknight085!
Al Rivera hates Klingons
Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert
All cloaks should be canon.
Though beside the point, I love it :P
He's already lost, so he's just blowing smoke to make it look like he can win. When faced with logic and common sense, people who "know they are right" as with that poster, just fluster and call other people stupid and wrong (like reynold has insisted upon doing).
He seems oblivious to the fact that you cannot buff just one ship class without changing or doing something to the other ship classes, in the same category. You cannot buff the move rate on just fed cruisers without adjusting all the other ship classes accordingly. Just like you cannot buff a specific weapon's damage without adjusting other weapons accordingly. You cannot give weapons that are class specific without adjusting other ship weapons accordingly.
For the sake of fairness and balance, you cannot change just one thing. Not as drastically as that guy and even OP is suggesting. Sorry guys.
I have yet to see you explain how the beam arrays I have proposed over and over again would be gamebreaking.
I mean we have just had a science vessel released that can mount DHCs and has a pet and yet I don't see you up in arms that all other science vessels need a buff to compete.
It is not being suggested that cruisers get double the turn rate of other ships. Nor the damage. It is being suggested that cruisers should not do HALF the damage of other ships nor have HALF the turn rate. Do you not understand that REDUCING the gap that cruisers currently have with the other ships would in no way destroy balance because the game is currently in an unbalanced state with the current gaps?
Does the Fleet Vor'Cha destroy balance with its ability to nearly match a raptor in sustained DPS? nope.
Does the Vesta or Fleet Nebula or Tholian ships make all fed PvP cruisers worthless even though they are better healers? nope.
Does the Defiant make all other Escorts worthless by virtue of its 5th Tac Console? nope.
No one is suggesting a complete change to make cruisers have the best damage output in the game. I am just suggesting that the GAP needs to be smaller.
DHCs are not class specific. Escorts are not the only ships that can use them. Battlecruisers can, BoPs can, Destroyers can, the new Breen Warship can, and so on and so forth.
And on another note, the ships that use those weapons/have the ability to use them, are designed for damage dealing. Everything I listed above is considered a damage dealing ship-class. Fed cruisers are SUPPORT SHIPS. If anything, you should be complaining about how such an iconic ship set got side-lined into a support tank/healer role. Which is why I suggested my earlier ability, to take advantage of this inherent tankiness. You gotta get it into your head already, cruisers are not a damage dealing ship class. They were never designed as such. They can do damage, but they aren't meant to be the primary damage dealers.
That's why they are restricted from using DHCs. They were never meant to be the ones dishing out the main punishment. They were designed to keep those pain giving ships alive, and tank NPCs so the real damage dealers wouldn't be in danger.
The cruisers that I see the most praise for are those that spec into threat control, and then keep the NPCs full attention so that the escorts can come in and kill off the boss with no danger of being attacked.
In PvP the cruisers that are the most praised are the ones that heal the escorts and keep them from being exterminated, even under focus fire.
That is their role, and they can do it quite well.
I agree the gap needs to be smaller. But what you're suggesting is too much. The one thing you always seem to ignore, and it's starting to become a little annoying, is the firing arc issue. Beam arrays have a 250 degree firing arc. That's why your idea is too powerful. Something with that level of a firing arc doing the level of damage you're suggesting? I cannot in good conscience stand behind it. The cruiser captain in me is practically drooling in agreement, but the rest of me, not really.
Now if we absolutely MUST buff BAs, then I would say give them back the 20% damage they lost due to the disco ball nerf (the only thing that reynold idiot suggested that makes sense), and give them a very VERY slight acc increase (no more than 5%). But if you do that, don't do anything else. Maybe give cruisers a little more hull, so that you don't have the stupidity of an escort having 50k hull with the strongest hulled cruiser only having 13k more.
Or... reduce escort hull and shields. Make them less able to tank, and more dependent on healing/actual tanks.
In all honesty, this whole game-wide obsession with DPS (outside of PvP), is just silly.
Something my Excelsior can do BECAUSE I can push the barriers of beam damage
Actually given the sheer amount of damage the escort health is kinda needed to survive at all, that said, a buff to beams (I can get behind a reversal of the nerf and stick with that) and a percentage based heal system should fix that giving cruisers and science ships a noticeable healing bonus over escorts
Fixed by my Percentage based heal system idea