test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
A new division of work in space combat
sophlogimo
Member Posts: 6,507 Arc User
This came up in another thread, but I think it deserves a less specialized discussion.
Any class-based MMO seems to have the see the same complaints - the "damage-dealers" or "strikers" or whatever they may be called in a given game get the envy of a large amount of players with main characters of other classes.
As it is here, with STO's space combat. Everybody can pretty much see that there is a lot of frustration about cruiser roles, about the sometimes ridiculous damage potential of the Tactical Captain's Dual-heavy-cannon-escort, and so on.
One reason for this is that it is terribly hard for a game designer to make missions that do not boil down to "kill stuff fast" - which gives the one who is designed to kill stuff fast a serious advantage over those who are not.
And the other reason is, quite simply: Everybody wants to be The Hero. The one who matters. Not some support cast healer, but the one who makes the actual problem go away. And that is what makes the role of a starship captain appealing, after all.
In a game, when you have teamplay content, you want everybody to be The Hero from at least his own point of view. And I think I have an idea how this can be achieved,
In essence, you let the ship (and captain) classes be specialists for fighting a certain class of targets - and that will be their own!
So, a cruiser will be the best counter for a cruiser (skill selection, gameplay tactics and level of equipment being the deciding factors in a 1v1 confrontation). A science ship will be the best counter for another science ship, and an escort will be the best counter for an another escort.
How? Well, what about simply adjusting the bridge officer and captain powers like this:
Most powers would be usable on yourself and on team mates - so an escort and a cruiser might work together to make the science ship a damage-buffed, accuracy-buffed, unhittable shield tanker that has certain immunity powers and can penetrate an opponent's immunities.... but that would obviously not be as optimal as everybody sticking to their roles.
Or any other combination of the three. But the important thing is, everybody would be able to make a difference on their own.
Thus, a confrontation cruisers vs cruiser, sci ship vs sci ship or escort vs escort would be pretty much a balanced thing by itself - you cannot really do anything wrong with balancing a class vs. itself. Of course, there would be interesting combinations like tac captains in cruisers, sci captains in escorts, engineering captains in sci ships, and every ship would have some slots of other areas, just like now. But the general tendency would be that you'll be best at fighting certain targets, and not so good and defeating others... unlike the "Escorts are best at killing everything" that we have now in a game where killing stuff is what matters.
For team endgame content, the designers would now simply have to add opponents of each type to a given mission, so that everybody is needed. For example, in Infected Space Elite, the stationary targets (nanite generators, nanite transformers, and the gate) would be cruiser-type targets, spheres would be escort-type targets, nanite spheres would be science-type targets, cubes would be science-heavy cruisers, and tactical cubes would be tactically oriented cruiser-types. Of course as every type of ship would have some support ability, each of them could heal a nanite transformer, so they would have to be all dealt with quickly when they come through the gate.... some shooting at the transformer, some taking out the nanite spheres, some taking out the other spheres.
I think this could actually be done rather easily within the existing framework of the game- by adjusting boff powers, captain powers, and some consoles.
Opinions?
Any class-based MMO seems to have the see the same complaints - the "damage-dealers" or "strikers" or whatever they may be called in a given game get the envy of a large amount of players with main characters of other classes.
As it is here, with STO's space combat. Everybody can pretty much see that there is a lot of frustration about cruiser roles, about the sometimes ridiculous damage potential of the Tactical Captain's Dual-heavy-cannon-escort, and so on.
One reason for this is that it is terribly hard for a game designer to make missions that do not boil down to "kill stuff fast" - which gives the one who is designed to kill stuff fast a serious advantage over those who are not.
And the other reason is, quite simply: Everybody wants to be The Hero. The one who matters. Not some support cast healer, but the one who makes the actual problem go away. And that is what makes the role of a starship captain appealing, after all.
In a game, when you have teamplay content, you want everybody to be The Hero from at least his own point of view. And I think I have an idea how this can be achieved,
In essence, you let the ship (and captain) classes be specialists for fighting a certain class of targets - and that will be their own!
So, a cruiser will be the best counter for a cruiser (skill selection, gameplay tactics and level of equipment being the deciding factors in a 1v1 confrontation). A science ship will be the best counter for another science ship, and an escort will be the best counter for an another escort.
How? Well, what about simply adjusting the bridge officer and captain powers like this:
- Engineering offers (self-)heals and raw-damage-increasing powers.
You will have pretty low defense, and be hit often, but you could take it, dish out big damage numbers, and your defenses and healing numbers could only be broken by another ship which brings similarly big guns. Those big beams wouldn't be terribly accurate, though. So those big damage numbers would only happen vs. another cruiser, because, well, you just wouldn't hit a Defiant very often. - Science offers (temporary) immunity and (temporary) immunity penetration powers, primarily for themselves.
Weapon damage would not be terribly high, raw shields and armor not especially remarkable, but you could use powers to completely stop incoming damage, unless that damage was buffed by another science power to penetrate such immunities. - Tactical offers higher Accuracy and Defense.
Weapon damage will not be high, and shields will not be strong... but you'll be damn hard to hit and have a very high chance to hit any other target.
Most powers would be usable on yourself and on team mates - so an escort and a cruiser might work together to make the science ship a damage-buffed, accuracy-buffed, unhittable shield tanker that has certain immunity powers and can penetrate an opponent's immunities.... but that would obviously not be as optimal as everybody sticking to their roles.
Or any other combination of the three. But the important thing is, everybody would be able to make a difference on their own.
Thus, a confrontation cruisers vs cruiser, sci ship vs sci ship or escort vs escort would be pretty much a balanced thing by itself - you cannot really do anything wrong with balancing a class vs. itself. Of course, there would be interesting combinations like tac captains in cruisers, sci captains in escorts, engineering captains in sci ships, and every ship would have some slots of other areas, just like now. But the general tendency would be that you'll be best at fighting certain targets, and not so good and defeating others... unlike the "Escorts are best at killing everything" that we have now in a game where killing stuff is what matters.
For team endgame content, the designers would now simply have to add opponents of each type to a given mission, so that everybody is needed. For example, in Infected Space Elite, the stationary targets (nanite generators, nanite transformers, and the gate) would be cruiser-type targets, spheres would be escort-type targets, nanite spheres would be science-type targets, cubes would be science-heavy cruisers, and tactical cubes would be tactically oriented cruiser-types. Of course as every type of ship would have some support ability, each of them could heal a nanite transformer, so they would have to be all dealt with quickly when they come through the gate.... some shooting at the transformer, some taking out the nanite spheres, some taking out the other spheres.
I think this could actually be done rather easily within the existing framework of the game- by adjusting boff powers, captain powers, and some consoles.
Opinions?
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
In addition, having 100% hard counters (as in without which you're completely unable to do something) has never been a good design choice from where I sit.
As I've already written in the other thread: Cruiser captains should stop trying to fill a role which they are not supposed to have in this game. Almost all cruisers I see in this game don't tank and only heal themselves. Many of them even chose threat-reducing consoles from the embassy, further neglecting their role. And then they open threads like this on the forums in which they demand a higher damage output, effectively wanting to be both escort and cruiser. Of course, there are some exceptions. Some cruisers are actually hybrids of both escorts and cruiser classes, but they are more like jack-of-all-trades, neither outhealing normal cruiser nor outdamaging escorts (except if your name is dontdrunkimshot and you inflict infernal plasma fires in PvP with a fleet vor'cha
To put it in general (fantasy) MMO terms: A wizard is supposed to cast spells, not to take up a greataxe and charge into battle. STO in general follows this rule.
R.I.P
And this differs from what we have now, how?
We already have suboptimal teams becuase of how the "individual" has designed thier builds to thier own desires to be the Hero ingame.
R.I.P
I have a Ship, a Ship has Shields, Hull, Phasers, Torpedos and Subsystems.
Work with that!
More strategic combat, less magical spell and buffing and debuffing MMO BS.
More Simulation, less Hotkey smashing.
I agree that there should be more Professions than only the 3 we have.
In fact KDF and Romulans (one day) should have completely different professions (and by that Kits) than the FEDs, if everything is copy & paste then it is a cookie cutter faction with a red or green skin and you are bored so fast with it it's not worth the invested time.
I don't want Romulans because i want a Green UI and a Warbird... or Scimitar... i want Romulans because i want a fresh gameplay perspective.
I want heavy use of the cloaking device, a complete stealth class and missions where the goal is to be not detected, or get in destroy a target and get out without being noticed.
Not the same "every hail and interaction de-cloaks you" nonsense that is going on with the Klinks.
take a look at Champions Online they have so many "archetypes" it is .... confusing!
but in STO?.... 1 2 3 + 5 kits DONE! never to be touched again.
maybe after 10 chars i'm just BORED with the variety STO offers.
I chose this example because STO follows the general MMO structure of damage dealer/tank/healer/controller and the three classes ingame pretty much reflect this. I doubt Cryptic will ever change this, considering they are not even able to offer a complete second faction, even less a third like Romulans. Cryptic even went last year so far to offer crossfaction endgame sets and c-store consoles, effectively making both current factions more alike to each other, so why should they suddenly stop with this course and develop unique classes for each faction?
So instead you'd replace it with cruisers ruling everything, scis being unkillable and escorts exploding the instant someone thinks about sneezing ?
I don't see an improvement.
I'm aware of this and I just wanted to make clear that you are wasting your time and that you are better off adapting to the current system instead of proposing vast changes which will never happen in this game. Most of these complaints are just a result of people don't understanding the game mechanics anyway.
You're ignoring how accuracy and defense work. As it stands right now, most high tier players stack the TRIBBLE out of accuracy. Combine that with the correct traits and skill combos, and you've got an accuracy level which effectively ensure you will hit your target regardless of their defense.
Which means, your glass cannon escorts that rely on defense? Yeah they're going to explode left and right when their avoidance tanking fails utterly.
Add in massed firepower and, per your description, crazy levels of resistances and self heals, and you've got Cruiser ships capable of outlasting anything in sight.
Long and short of this is, you're swapping one system where a specific ship and skill loadout will be more in demand for another where a different ship and skill loadout will be in demand. You'll have accomplished nothing.
Simple solution: ask cryptic to build content that isn't a pure dps race instead of demanding that they re-invent the wheel when it comes to class and ship balance.
There is only one real DPS race in this game and this is the minefield fleet action in which only tac escorts have a real chance to win. All other missions are team efforts in which everybody gets the same rewards.
Honestly I will rue the day in which I get stuck with 5 escorts in an Pug-STF and no science ship to throw GW3 at sphere mobs or a decent engineer cruiser to aggro and tank Donatra and her ridiculous torpedo spreads. This is just as worse as getting stuck with 5 engineer cruisers or 5 science ships. This game is meant to be played with a mix of all classes. You are just blatantly refusing of playing the strengths of your class in this game and want your ship to do things it can't or at least not as good as ships which are specialised in this role, and now you are proposing to change the entire game instead of adjusting your playstyle.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~Bluegeek
Secondly, you're ignoring not only that there is a minimum accuracy hard-cap, but also that accuracy over a certain point gets converted to bonus crit chance and severity. Which leads us right back to mega-hits.
To be fair, with the advent of elite scorpions, projectile doffs and the rommie hyper torp a tac in an atrox can be downright hilarious. Probably useless in PvP, but more than capable of cooking up a crazy artillery boat.
Coming from someone asking for a wholesale re-writing of the entire game's balance and a vast majority of it's ability coding, that's cute.
Also, simplicity and ease of implementation are not related variables.
Any apparent shortcomming comes into the light when you have a PUG in an elite STF. Personnal experience: I was once the only TAC/Escort in group with 4 cruisers. We were fairing well, nobody was dying (I find it shocking that I didn't die since I usually buy it at least three times in that one LOL). Everyone knew what they were doing, but I ended up bouncing back and forth between probes, transformers and gateways because simply put the cruisers weren't doing enough damage by themselves (especially on the gateways) to help facilitate getting the optional objective (this was during the bonus marks event).
Tanks aren't meant to dish it out, but it becomes agrivating when you are the only one that can dish out any type of meaningful damage. Friends or a fleet are no problem, it's PUGs that you role the dice for a decent team with decent builds.
However there shouldn't be a reworking of game mechanics for the sake of PUGs (I say this as a guy who strictly PUGs).
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=7390281&highlight=accuracy#post7390281
Next time at least pretend to do a smidge of research.
And if such adjustments were so easy to make, why is it that we're now several months from the Borg bugging out in stfs with no solution in sight?
Why is it that we're several years out fixing other "easy adjustment" bugs?
Remember what company you're dealing with here.