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Why not turn tactical and engineer captain powers into team abilties
sophlogimo
Member Posts: 6,507 Arc User
In space combat, it is said that engineer captains are very selfish, with their healing powers that affect themselves and only themselves.
But that is not the only class that is selfish. There is the other selfish one, the one that gets to be "the hero".
Isn't that something that should be fixed for both classes? I definitely think so.
Now, what could one do? I have a proposal: Get rid of self-only-buffing powers as such. All captain powers (the class-specific ones, that is) should be scaled down in magnitude, but should affect the whole team at once. (I originally thought only of engineers and tacticals, hence the subject line, but it actually applies to scis as well)
Examples:
And so on.
I know this is highly unlikely to happen. But wouldn't it be even more fun than what we have now?
But that is not the only class that is selfish. There is the other selfish one, the one that gets to be "the hero".
Isn't that something that should be fixed for both classes? I definitely think so.
Now, what could one do? I have a proposal: Get rid of self-only-buffing powers as such. All captain powers (the class-specific ones, that is) should be scaled down in magnitude, but should affect the whole team at once. (I originally thought only of engineers and tacticals, hence the subject line, but it actually applies to scis as well)
Examples:
- Attack Pattern Alpha now increases not the Tactical captain's ship's damage by 50%, but the whole team's damage by 10% per ship.
- Subnucleonic beam now affects each team member's target (as long as it is in the 90 degree arc of that team member), but lasts shorter.
- Miracle Worker gives about 20% of its current shield heal and hull heal, but to all team members at once.
And so on.
I know this is highly unlikely to happen. But wouldn't it be even more fun than what we have now?
Remember, STO is nothing but a cosmetics game, where only the rule of cool matters. The game mechanics are intentionally out of balance, don't try to "optimize" anything, as it would just frustrate you.
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Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Miracle worker is the Engineers last ditch action to save HIS ship
you are suggesting that poor old scotty leaps from ship to ship fixing things at distances of hundreds of kms in a few seconds
ATTACK patterns should also NOT carry over
imagine Im in attack mode and all of a sudden some lt commander tac decides to overrule me and put me in a different pattern (id have him arrested for getting us killed of course)
_I Dont know why Crytic made this game (startrek "ESCORT" online) eng and scie are forced to "support" all the escort and each new escort get more power and more self heals, look at the steamrunner ...
_Im a startrek fan thats why im here, but each patch im get more disapointed and at the end i will no longer loging anymore but to Cryptic or PWE dont care this they only wantme farm dilithium endless for gold players because they cant persuade my to become a gold player...
_Please Cryptic PWE dont kill this game......
I'd rather have 50% damage to my own weapons than 10% to the 3 Cruisers spamming heals on themselves as I can make use of it effectively, they can't/won't.
My main concern is that every class would feel the same to play, I might be clicking buttons with different icons but I'd have the same damage, healing and debuff potential (within the confines of the ship and BOff layout) as a Tac that I would as a Sci or Eng, I just wouldn't have control over the other two classes use of their buffs and debuffs but I'd still get them. The character classes already play very similar, homogenising them even further because people don't want to play to their ship and character classes strengths just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.
I can't say it would, and before the inevitable screaming that I'm a Tac looking to protect my advantage my Sciscort gets far more use than my Tac/ Escort does.
Make them all feel the same and it won't matter what class or character I'm playing. I don't think that's 'fun' at all TBH.
To be entirely honest, I'd be grateful for the average Cruiser to actually have a decent build. Most have pitifully low damage potential but to make it worse they don't even share a heal: if an Escort can share heals (and they're usually the only heals I'll receive) then surely the Odyssey with 60k hull and 13k shields can throw the occasional Engineering Team or HE to the Escorts?
I can't speak for others but in a game that's all about damage, if those Cruisers can't do it themselves then just help the damage dealer to do it, sitting and laughing as it has to run away to heal just drags the whole thing out for no reason.
He can't even shoot straight. - Joseph Stalin on his son's (failed) suicide attempt.
Your escort is a light support vessel your job is to keep the annoying little fleas off the big ships
so engaging fighters , mines and probes is your first duty
to protect the lumbering kings of the battlefield like the carriers
meanwhile the Cruisers should engage multiple targets and do what they are designed for
Anchoring a battle line
"No."
Fleet powers (Science Fleet, Tactical Fleet, Engineering Fleet) already do what you're looking for. There's zero need to take the powerful self buffs and turn them into watered-down team buffs when we already have watered-down team buffs.
Tactical Fleet gives +Damage and +Accuracy (and thus +Critical); Engineering Fleet gives +System Power and +Damres; Science Fleet gives +Turn and a buff to science abilities (and therefore hull and shield heals).
Additionally, many abilities are either already ally-targettable (like EPS Power Transfer) or work for teammates just as well as for yourself (Fire on My Mark, Sensor Scan).
This also applies for ground combat: Engineering Proficiency, Scientific Aptitude, etc.
There's a reason why you don't see these abilities used very much: They might be team-wide buffs, but the boosts they provide are very weak. Whilst they can make things run slightly smoother, they will not turn the tide of a fight - they are more "flavour" than "useful".
So I repeat: There is zero need to take the powerful self buffs and turn them into watered-down team buffs. We already have watered-down team buffs that are hardly ever used - we don't need more of them. And we certainly don't need more of them at the expense of abilities that are genuinely situationally useful like APA and Miracle Worker.
So what's the difference between the classes then? All of them will have SubNuc, all will have APA, all will have RSF, MW, Scattering Field etc, the only difference will be which button you press but every class will have access to every Captain ability. That sounds pretty homogeneous to me.
I like Science and I like fast, maneuverable ships. I can't deal the damage of a Tac but I can debuff the target I'm firing on so that the whole team benefits. Unlike a Tac where I can just hit anything and kill it with a Sci it's usually in my interests to time my abilities so that I get more use for them: is the full Aux Sensor Scan that's coming up better for me or the Tac that's firing on a Cube 10km away? Is the SubNuc that just came off CD better for me or my team mate? Should I hit Scattering Field now or save it for my team mate who's about to lose shields and running out of CDs?
Cruisers are the big guys, they can keep a whole team of Escorts alive if they so choose but many choose not to. that's what Cruisers are good at but instead everyone wants to play one of the most defensive ship types in an offensive manner.
If they want to DPS then they need an Escort, why spread all Captain abilities across all classes because some just won't accept that they ship they like the look of isn't suitable for the role they want to fill?
He can't even shoot straight. - Joseph Stalin on his son's (failed) suicide attempt.
The problem I see is, that playing a non damage class effectively and beneficial to a team is more difficult and the rewards are mostly damage based (which is Crypric'S design fault) , so it is not worth the effort really for the min/maxers.
Only way to counter this, is to make playing engineer and science, and the respective ship classes, more attractive.
The key there would be better individual rewards either directly or indirectly.
That would of course create the question from the tacscorts why they don't get as good rewards all of a sudden and they'd cry"unfair!"
The answer is easy, but would not be accepted because most of us are lazy in nature and want to go the way of the least resistance: because it is by design more difficult to play an engineer or a science... therefore the reward is greater.
Want the greater reward, work more for it.
In the end it all hinges on a good and balanced game design.
The design is not balanced, reward and effort is out of whack, so people play the easiest/most efficient class.
Once they get used to playing that way, any objective that would favor the more difficult playstyle will meet resistance of the now tactical majority, so it gets nerfed and be tac friendly again and be "fair" for those unable or unwilling to adapt their playstyle: playing another class or play cooperatively with another class.
Of course there will still be engineers and science, and some of them are even good at what they do (and some think they are, because they have no other experience to compare it to), but the reward will always be lacking for them despite the greater relative work they put in.
If cryptic had designed things differently and damage was complicated to produce, it might very well be the engineer or the science captain that turned out to be the most efficient class, but that would only be another slightly unbalanced system.
We already have it in the form of One Fleet power, Tactical Fleet
+xx% All Damage strength for 30 secs
+x Starship Maneuvers for 30 secs
+xx Starship Targeting Systems for 30 secs
This can be used on self and friends. FOMM can be considered team play as it decreases the resistances of the target for everyone. Tactical team is a team ability for yourself and 4others.
Science Fleet
+xx% Turn rate
+x Starship Operations Training
This Fleet ability is only used on the player and does not effect the team.
Dampening Field (space) is a Team ability. SNB can be considered a team ability since all benefit from the target losing thier buffs. The same can be said for Sensor Scan.
Engineering Fleet
+xx all damage resistance for 30 secs
+xx Starship Warp Core Training for 30 secs
+xx Engineering Training for 30 secs
This fleet ability is only used on the player and does not effect the team. In fact none of the Engineering Captain abilities help the team at all.
Seems like the Engineer class is the one that needs to step up and help in a team setting with thier Captain abilities and fleet powers.
Funny though, as I thought all Fleet powers where team based.
Why handicap the Escort player for knowing how (or learning how from someone else's experience) to play thier class and the ships designed for it just becuase the Science or Engineer did not learn thier class and how to play them?
Why handicap the Escort player becuase the game is designed around Pew-Pew? Why not insist and demand the game be made better to accomidate the Science and Engineer class contributions to combat instead?
Push to have healing count towards rewards, or better yet just push for rewards not based on the level of one's participation.
R.I.P
Agreed,
The problem is folks want to fly that big Enterprise Cruiser and obliterate enemies instantly. But the Enterprise never did that. The most memorable battles were long and drawn out, usually decided by engineers pulling out all their tricks to keep the ship together.
Unless the descriptions are wrong (and they may be) it looks like only the Tactical Fleet team buff helps the whole team. The Engineer and Science may need to be changed to do the same.
R.I.P
Engineering and Science fleet have been team abilties since as long as I can remember (at least July 2010)
The Wiki and the Short descriptions have never been particularly accurate...
Skillpoint Cap increased to Level 51
Players now earn a new Rank at 46 and unlock these new Fleet Abilities at 48. These are click team buffs that last for a 30 second duration. Depending on the captain, the buffs provide the following:
Tactical Fleet provides a damage and attack vector skill buff to your entire team over the duration. Tactical Fleet bonuses do not stack with other active Tactical Fleets.
Science Fleet provides a shield damage resistance and science skill buff to your entire team over the duration. Science Fleet bonuses do not stack with other active Science Fleets.
Engineering Fleet provides a damage resistance and engineering skill buff to your entire team over the duration. Engineering Fleet bonuses do not stack with other active Engineering Fleets.
Tactical Fleet II:
+30% All Damage for 30 seconds
+16 Starship Maneuvers for 30 seconds
+16 Starship Targeting Systems for 30 seconds
Science Fleet II:
+16 Starship Shield Emitters for 30 seconds
+16 Starship Power Insulators for 30 seconds
Reduces Damage to Shields by 33% for 30 seconds
Engineering Fleet II:
+26.6 All Damage Resistance Rating for 30 Seconds
+16 Starship Hull Repair for 30 seconds
+16 Starship Warp Core Potential for 30 seconds
I would say that there are currently some pretty powerful team buffs already in place. The problem is that people don't seem to know that they exist, likely because by the time you get them, your captain's powers window is likely full, so these last abilities don't get automatically added.
Then STOwiki is wrong (again) and this thread is pointless as the different classes already have Captain abilities that contribute to the team. I thought they did but who knows what may have been borked in past patches that goes unnoticed?
Thanks for clearing that up.:D
That having been cleared up, I do feel that the Science Fleet and Engineering Fleet may need to do a little more than they currently do.
Or if the above post is accurate , then things are fine.
R.I.P
Yes I have a Tactical Captain in an Escort, and no I don't blow up enemies instantly. I have one in a Bird of Prey also. When I want to lurk under cloak and suprise people with High burst damage that is what I do. I also have an Engineer in a Cruiser When I want to sit back and help the squishy Escorts stay alive by Healing I do that also. Making all classes Vanilla by giving them the same abilities isn't the answer. Their needs to be an incintive to to play a support role.
Tacs really aren't that overpowered.
It's just that many people consider increased DPS to be the final word in "what's good".
An Engineer Captain's Damage Mitigation and Power management, and a Science Captain's balance of DPS/Mitigation and Utility can be just as effective as a Tactical Captain's Increased Mobility and Damage Output. It's just that it's a lot, lot simpler to leverage and see different results from +damage than from anything else (particularly in PVE).
Mixing and matching the Ship Types can draw out the benefits of the different "classes" though - For example: a Tac in a Cruiser, or an Engineer in an Escort, etc. can strike a very useful balance between survivability and damage output. The best Endgame PVE Tanks I've seen have been certain Tac players in Cruisers.
when forming a team the captains get say 3 minutes to choose a leader and Agree (all of them) to that
if they do then HIS skills work for everyone
if they don't they don't
To me playing with a team and knowing that I was able to contribute heals and Draw Aggro so that Escorts could maneuver about unimpeded is its own reward, as much so as seeing things blow up from my torpedo spreads. For Fleet actions why not add rewards for those that do the most healing, and team rewards for those that don't have ships destroyed at all.
What you're stating here is the classic logical fallacy of "Damage is good, everything else is worthless".
Killing fast is not the trick - Killing fast and not dying is.
(At least usually. Because even then, there are some cases where you don't even have to kill at all - Freighter Fleet missions, for example...)
There isn't a very heavy penalty for dying - but there is a penalty. And watching the respawn timer creep up and up and up won't do much for your DPS rate.
At lower levels of difficulty (basically all PVE before endgame, and quite a lot afterwards) then yes, you can certainly get by with a Tac Escort. That's the fault of the game being easy once you've mastered the nuances of gameplay and the mechanics of all the various player and BOFF abilities - like anything, STO gets easy with practice, and the bar is set fairly low in PVE in order to let new players feel that they're not being penalised for making unoptimised build choices.
But once you start encountering Teamed Content that is actually designed to be challenging, then other teammate combinations start to be better performing - you won't see many teams of 5x Tac Escorts running the endgame raids on Elite. And you certainly won't see many of them dominating in PVP.
There are many things that are more desirable than a few extra DPS: Team Cross-healing, at least one person who can "tank" Donatra or a Tac Cube, Gravity Wells and/or TBRs in "No Win Scenario"... etc.
R.I.P
I didn't start playing this game because I wanted to blow things up. I started because I wanted to be a Science Officer and get to do some Exploring. Boy was I disappointed.
Most Selfish: Eng captain. Only has 1 group-wide buff power, and a second single target self or ally buff.
Eng Captain:
> EPS Power Transfer: Self or ally EPS/power level buff, benefits self or one target on a single application
> Rotate Shield Frequency: Self only shield resistance buff
> Miracle Worker: Self only heal
> Nadion Inversion: Self only power level resistance buff
> Engineering Fleet: Group-wide buff, benefits the entire team on a single activation
Middle of the road: Tac captain. Has more group benefiting powers than self benefiting powers. All ally buffs are AoE or debuff force multipliers and all of them benefit the entire team with a single application.
Tac Captain:
> Attack Pattern Alpha: Self Only Damage Boost
> Fire on my Mark: Target Debuff, force multiplier, benefits the entire team on a single activation
> Go Down Fighting: Self only damage boost
> Tactical Initiative: Group-wide buff, benefits the entire team
on a single activation (and for a Tac/Escort most likely benefits non-Escorts more than themselves)
> Tactical Fleet: Group-wide buff, benefits the entire team on a single activation
Least Selfish, or Most group benefiting: Sci captain. All powers benefit the entire group in some fashion, ranging from AoE buffs, AoE debuffs/single force multiplier powers.
Sci Captain:
> Sensor Scan: Self Perception Buff, AoE Target Debuff, force multiplier, benefits the entire team on a single activation
> Subnucleonic Beam: Single Target debuff, benefits the entire team on a single activation
> Photonic Fleet: Summons pets, benefits the entire team on a single activation
> Scattering Field: AoE resistance buff, benefits the entire team on a single activation
> Science Fleet: Group-wide buff, benefits the entire team on a single activation
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~Bluegeek
R.I.P
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~Bluegeek
R.I.P