I stand by my previous questions then. How do you explain all the thngs I mentioned?
Unrealistic expectations. Do you honestly expect to do be able to tank, heal and dish out unmatched damage all in the same package, while everyone else is limited in their role?
Could you give a few example numbers to support your claim?
So folks have to generate numbers to argue with a completely theoretical idea that you keep changing every time someone offers up a legitimate complaint against your crusade to deify cruisers?
Reading the above, I am quite mystified how one can still misunderstand it in the ways that have been displayed. Can anyone help me word it better so it is actually understood by all regardless of my apparent clumsiness with the English language? Thanks. ^^
There is nothing to misunderstand; your proposal is a bad idea. All one really has to do is diesct one part of it:
Thinking about my original post, and about what some people misundertsood about it, I think I want to modify the concept slightly:
So, all ships do the same damage, as modified by weapon type, energy levels and skills. Now, the captain abilities, bridge officer abilities and consoles of a given area change:
Tactical captain abilities, bridge officer abilities and consoles provide bonuses to accuracy (per weapon type) and Defense.
Science captain abilities, bridge officer abilities and consoles provide bonuses to shield damage resistance, and shield damage resistance penetration
Engineering captain abilities, bridge officer abilities and consoles provide bonuses to hull damage resistance (armor) and hull damage resistance penetration.
I think that is is a better version - as it does not give anyoneone higher base numbers, but achieves what I have in mind. What do you think?
Basically, according the part highlighted in red, Engineering captain will provide a bonus to hull damage resistance. Now, put the captain in a cruiser, not only do you practically double that ability (given that cruiser already have a resistance bonus and the engineering console slots to increase it further), but now there is the second trait that provides a bonus to resistance penetration.
The end result is a "naturally" damage dealing cruiser (that is to say a cruiser that doesn't need much else to be effective at dealing damage staright out of the store). We would have a King Tiger in a galaxy of Shermans (for lack of a better example).
Not to mention the other issues, like putting said engineer in an escort. Now the escort can take damage and deal double the damage (again, probably without additional buffs and consoles).
A language barrier between a few people across a couple of pages is one thing, but when you have 10 pages of more than a few people saying "no" (not including the previous topic that this discussion spwaned from) then it is not the language barrier that is the issue.
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
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.
That's not really true. In the MMORPGs I've seen, people like DPS classes because it makes the level grind faster, especially if there are no real consequences to dying.
When it gets to the team content though, good tanks and healers are highly valued, because there's an overabundance of DPS.
Reading the above, I am quite mystified how one can still misunderstand it in the ways that have been displayed. Can anyone help me word it better so it is actually understood by all regardless of my apparent clumsiness with the English language? Thanks. ^^
No, I do not believe this is being misunderstood. The wording is clear and self-evident and you have demonstrated many times that your use of the English language is not that clumsy that you can't make your point understood. To put a point on it, you can't claim that you're just misunderstood here.
As someone who predominantly plays solo PvE, I can empathize with the desire for cruisers and science vessels to perform better than they do. Cruiser combat, with the ridiculously low turn rates on T5 cruisers, is particularly frustrating. But this is an MMO... this is not about solo play. Pretty much by definition, it needs to be about teamwork and it needs to be flexible enough to accomodate everyone's vision about what their role in that framework should look like.
If you can advance an idea that emphasizes teamwork without putting one or more classes of ships at a severe disadvantage, then some people might be inclined to listen and debate it constructively. The thing is, nobody is interested in shifting the disadvantage from one class to the other. It has to be about balance across all branches in all classes of ship. And obviously, quite a few people feel that your proposal doesn't do that.
I'm not really opposed to giving Tac captains an Accuracy bonus, Eng captains a bonus to Resistance, and Sci captains a bonus to ... technobabble. But applying that same bonus to every Tac BO and every Tac console is too far, and so on. Nor does it really solve the problem you say you'd like to solve, in my opinion. Any way you spin that, it simply can not result in better balance. Every new variable complicates the balance question even more.
In my opinion, all cruisers really need are effective ways to offset that horrible turn rate and something to alter the fact that tanking in STO helps nobody but the tankee. I do NOT believe that cruisers should be the "healing" class -- we need some mechanism that allows them to mitigate ally damage in some other way. What that is, I don't know. All I know is that "space healing" in STO doesn't make much sense and never did. It's worse than the worst technobabble ever spewed in any Trek episode. However, it's what we've got to work with and nobody's proposed a better solution so far.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
The real problem is that when this game had its largest amount of developer attention they tried to get away from the "trinity", and then when (as always happens in any health-based system) it became apparent that the trinity isn't an artificial construct, but a simple logical breakdown of the inevitable consequences of a health-based system, it was when the game was at its maintenance level of development.
As a result, we're left with a system where the only way to effectively mitigate damage for others (i.e. tanking) is to do more damage, so DPS is king of both grouping and soloing.
What's needed is better threat management for Cruisers, not more damage. Stop trying to pretend there's no trinity, and just embrace it. Same for ground; make the Tacticals DPS, make the Engineers Tank, and make the Science Heal. By all means let each do buffs and debuffs for support, but stop pretending the trinity isn't relevant, because every action one takes in a health-based system is either to remove health, to add health, or to mitigate removal of health. You can try to make those functions indirect, but it just makes them confusing; they're still present.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
I can only conclude that you think that somehow my proposal would put one or more classes at a disadvantage vs one or more other classes.
I simply do not see how you can understand it that way. Please explain.
You mean besides putting the biggest guns, best armor and most advanced heals in . the hands of cruiser captains, while relegating everyone else to support roles?
The thing is, nobody is interested in shifting the disadvantage from one class to the other. It has to be about balance across all branches in all classes of ship. And obviously, quite a few people feel that your proposal doesn't do that.
If that is the case, then where is the cognitive dissonance here? Looking at your own recap of my position:
I can only conclude that you think that somehow my proposal would put one or more classes at a disadvantage vs one or more other classes.
I simply do not see how you can understand it that way. Please explain.
I don't know for sure that your proposed solution would cause one class to be at a disadvantage to another... the mechanics are complex enough that a casual player like me would have no clue about the ramifications. I will leave that analysis to other, less casual players who study the math in the combat logs.
What I CAN say, is that your proposal would tend to lend itself to more imbalance, and not less, because you're adding a new factor and/or upsetting whatever the current status quo is without regard for tuning everything that would be affected by it. And more imbalance is more likely to create a situation where the advantage shifts rather than gets distributed.
I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that I suspect it won't play out the way you think it will.
I think the answer most likely lies in tuning the variables that are already in place and not introducing new ones except where absolutely necessary.
I think the problem lies in the fact that it's easy to see the benefits of more damage faster and it's harder to make survivability work in your favor because survivability in and of itself does not complete missions or win scenarios. It has to be survivability plus something else, which must include being able to wear down your attackers somehow. If you can't wear down your attackers, either your defenses will eventually fail or it's a lot harder to change the status quo toward a win.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
That's not really true. In the MMORPGs I've seen, people like DPS classes because it makes the level grind faster, especially if there are no real consequences to dying.
When it gets to the team content though, good tanks and healers are highly valued, because there's an overabundance of DPS.
Which brings up an issue that Cryptic has shown it can deal with; objectives that don't involve "kill this, shoot that." Perhaps when more story content is released (stop snickering, I was being serious/hopeful) entire missions can be a puzzle, involving different objectives that depend on your class (even TACs can have a puzzle that involve advising on suggested ship deployments for the upcoming battle). Cryptic has shown it can do varying objectives and missions that don't involve distintergration. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I95Qgv7tynI
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
It's harder to make survivability work in your favor because survivability in and of itself does not complete missions or win scenarios. It has to be survivability plus something else, which must include being able to wear down your attackers somehow. If you can't wear down your attackers, either your defenses will eventually fail or it's a lot harder to change the status quo toward a win.
After re-reading this, I have an idea about what cruisers could actually use.
One way to make survivability work in a player's favor to complete the combat, is to introduce a time-based benefit that kicks in after a given amount of time or that builds up over time. Maybe something that allows a cruiser to fight better the longer it's engaged in an encounter, or perhaps the ability to summon reinforcements, or increases in power levels to represent the crew responding to the needs of the battle as it unfolds.
That seems to me to be more realistic than "space healing" allies and better suited to the cruiser's role as a damage soaker. The damage soaking buys time that the cruiser needs to prevail. And it would be "easily" countered by fragging the cruiser and resetting the timer. It can't be too much of an advantage, or be able to end the battle quickly, or everyone will be flying nothing but cruisers.
Would this create an imbalance that would break the game? Dunno.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
an encounter, or perhaps the ability to summon reinforcements, or increases in power levels to represent the crew responding to the needs.
Isn't that what Fleet Support and Emergency Power to "X" do?
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
Isn't that what Fleet Support and Emergency Power to "X" do?
Everybody (of the right level) can do those, though, and EPTX isn't really a time-based benefit but a spike in power level. Fleet Support isn't time-based, either... it's more of a distress call when you're already getting your butt kicked, and the reinforcements don't stick around.
The point is, survivability should work in a cruiser's favor to complete the scenario not just drag it out, but just how effective is it really?
Anyway, not terribly invested in that notion... it was just a thought.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Everybody (of the right level) can do those, though, and EPTX isn't really a time-based benefit but a spike in power level. Fleet Support isn't time-based, either... it's more of a distress call when you're already getting your butt kicked, and the reinforcements don't stick around.
The point is, survivability should work in a cruiser's favor to complete the scenario not just drag it out, but just how effective is it really?
Anyway, not terribly invested in that notion... it was just a thought.
You may not be on the wrong track, however. With the advances in post-Dominion War technology, whose to say someone isn't developing a computer that, the longer it is in battle, the more it has time to analyze the enemy, and make microsecond adjustments to weapons and shields thus providing some over time abilities. Kind of like the principle of adaptive shielding, the computer can adapt weapon frequencies and targeting to provide the needed beam weapon burst at the right spot.
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
I don't know for sure that your proposed solution would cause one class to be at a disadvantage to another... the mechanics are complex enough that a casual player like me would have no clue about the ramifications. I will leave that analysis to other, less casual players who study the math in the combat logs.
What I CAN say, is that your proposal would tend to lend itself to more imbalance, and not less, because you're adding a new factor and/or upsetting whatever the current status quo is without regard for tuning everything that would be affected by it. And more imbalance is more likely to create a situation where the advantage shifts rather than gets distributed.
I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that I suspect it won't play out the way you think it will.
I think the answer most likely lies in tuning the variables that are already in place and not introducing new ones except where absolutely necessary.
I think the problem lies in the fact that it's easy to see the benefits of more damage faster and it's harder to make survivability work in your favor because survivability in and of itself does not complete missions or win scenarios. It has to be survivability plus something else, which must include being able to wear down your attackers somehow. If you can't wear down your attackers, either your defenses will eventually fail or it's a lot harder to change the status quo toward a win.
In reference to your quote in your reply. Its obviuos to most but completely missed by one.
You may not be on the wrong track, however. With the advances in post-Dominion War technology, whose to say someone isn't developing a computer that, the longer it is in battle, the more it has time to analyze the enemy, and make microsecond adjustments to weapons and shields thus providing some over time abilities. Kind of like the principle of adaptive shielding, the computer can adapt weapon frequencies and targeting to provide the needed beam weapon burst at the right spot.
This brings the idea up I saw in Nemisis... Why do we not have a tactical analysis general ability?
Simply put the forums only represent a small portion of the playerbase and only a small portion of the forum goers are complaining, hence only small portion of the playerbase is really unhappy....
Possibly the bulk of the playerbase is happier than you know Sophiligimo and you merely are on the ego-centric quest that we all think is the case.
As to why many are not jumping on the bandwagon, simply put I do not have to leap off a cliff to know thr experience would end poorly.
After reading all your post please explain to me how can I as a tac captain can I play in a crusier and a science ship and still do DPS? How can I also survive and use those ships with some degree of skill? Oh I understand how, I'm able to build me ships and skills to maximize my play style. Hmmm I advise you try to do the same. I personaly advise you listen to eulifdavis he seems to know what he's talking about.
a) Sensor Analysis (an innate science ship ability) that is already in the game and
b) material for a completely different thread.
See, this is not about "making cruisers more competitive" or whatever. The pure matter of "balance" in the game as it is now is quite acceptable, in most things including PvP. Sure, there will always be someone who is unhappy with the numbers, but that is not what this thread is about. Cruiser is a tank/healer, science ship is a healer/crowd controller, escort is the damage dealer. That's how the game is currently designed.
The problem that I see is more fundamental, and I had hoped that I had explained that sufficiently in post #1. Apparently I have not. So let me try again.
I am saying the "trinity" is a fundamental design error that we all just follow out of tradition, because a few decades ago, that is how someone decided the division of work in an RPG combat game could be like. I am saying we need to do something else than stick with it just out of tradition and "being used to it".
A new division of work. Hence the subject line of this thread.
And I am saying, if we accept that damage is the one and only thing, and we still want different roles in the game, then a) all roles need to do the same damage to the average of all targets and b) we need something that a given class does better than others.
Maybe I should have just removed all existing classes for the purpose of the debate, and should have established new ones. I don't know.
But anyway, if anyone still disagrees with my observation that I was misunderstood, then that person very likely still misunderstands me. All I can do is ask everybody who cares enough to post here to re-read everything with an open mind.
Translation: instead of the old trinity, you want a new trinity with your preferred ship and captain type coming out on top
In the sort of "new game" gedankenexperiment that I propose, you'd choose a balance of offensive and defensive consoles in each area, and use a good mixture of offensive and defensive boff abilities, too.
*snip*
And we're right back to cruisers running the show.
Comments
Unrealistic expectations. Do you honestly expect to do be able to tank, heal and dish out unmatched damage all in the same package, while everyone else is limited in their role?
So folks have to generate numbers to argue with a completely theoretical idea that you keep changing every time someone offers up a legitimate complaint against your crusade to deify cruisers?
There is nothing to misunderstand; your proposal is a bad idea. All one really has to do is diesct one part of it:
Basically, according the part highlighted in red, Engineering captain will provide a bonus to hull damage resistance. Now, put the captain in a cruiser, not only do you practically double that ability (given that cruiser already have a resistance bonus and the engineering console slots to increase it further), but now there is the second trait that provides a bonus to resistance penetration.
The end result is a "naturally" damage dealing cruiser (that is to say a cruiser that doesn't need much else to be effective at dealing damage staright out of the store). We would have a King Tiger in a galaxy of Shermans (for lack of a better example).
Not to mention the other issues, like putting said engineer in an escort. Now the escort can take damage and deal double the damage (again, probably without additional buffs and consoles).
A language barrier between a few people across a couple of pages is one thing, but when you have 10 pages of more than a few people saying "no" (not including the previous topic that this discussion spwaned from) then it is not the language barrier that is the issue.
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
When it gets to the team content though, good tanks and healers are highly valued, because there's an overabundance of DPS.
No, I do not believe this is being misunderstood. The wording is clear and self-evident and you have demonstrated many times that your use of the English language is not that clumsy that you can't make your point understood. To put a point on it, you can't claim that you're just misunderstood here.
As someone who predominantly plays solo PvE, I can empathize with the desire for cruisers and science vessels to perform better than they do. Cruiser combat, with the ridiculously low turn rates on T5 cruisers, is particularly frustrating. But this is an MMO... this is not about solo play. Pretty much by definition, it needs to be about teamwork and it needs to be flexible enough to accomodate everyone's vision about what their role in that framework should look like.
If you can advance an idea that emphasizes teamwork without putting one or more classes of ships at a severe disadvantage, then some people might be inclined to listen and debate it constructively. The thing is, nobody is interested in shifting the disadvantage from one class to the other. It has to be about balance across all branches in all classes of ship. And obviously, quite a few people feel that your proposal doesn't do that.
I'm not really opposed to giving Tac captains an Accuracy bonus, Eng captains a bonus to Resistance, and Sci captains a bonus to ... technobabble. But applying that same bonus to every Tac BO and every Tac console is too far, and so on. Nor does it really solve the problem you say you'd like to solve, in my opinion. Any way you spin that, it simply can not result in better balance. Every new variable complicates the balance question even more.
In my opinion, all cruisers really need are effective ways to offset that horrible turn rate and something to alter the fact that tanking in STO helps nobody but the tankee. I do NOT believe that cruisers should be the "healing" class -- we need some mechanism that allows them to mitigate ally damage in some other way. What that is, I don't know. All I know is that "space healing" in STO doesn't make much sense and never did. It's worse than the worst technobabble ever spewed in any Trek episode. However, it's what we've got to work with and nobody's proposed a better solution so far.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
As a result, we're left with a system where the only way to effectively mitigate damage for others (i.e. tanking) is to do more damage, so DPS is king of both grouping and soloing.
What's needed is better threat management for Cruisers, not more damage. Stop trying to pretend there's no trinity, and just embrace it. Same for ground; make the Tacticals DPS, make the Engineers Tank, and make the Science Heal. By all means let each do buffs and debuffs for support, but stop pretending the trinity isn't relevant, because every action one takes in a health-based system is either to remove health, to add health, or to mitigate removal of health. You can try to make those functions indirect, but it just makes them confusing; they're still present.
You mean besides putting the biggest guns, best armor and most advanced heals in . the hands of cruiser captains, while relegating everyone else to support roles?
I don't know for sure that your proposed solution would cause one class to be at a disadvantage to another... the mechanics are complex enough that a casual player like me would have no clue about the ramifications. I will leave that analysis to other, less casual players who study the math in the combat logs.
What I CAN say, is that your proposal would tend to lend itself to more imbalance, and not less, because you're adding a new factor and/or upsetting whatever the current status quo is without regard for tuning everything that would be affected by it. And more imbalance is more likely to create a situation where the advantage shifts rather than gets distributed.
I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that I suspect it won't play out the way you think it will.
I think the answer most likely lies in tuning the variables that are already in place and not introducing new ones except where absolutely necessary.
I think the problem lies in the fact that it's easy to see the benefits of more damage faster and it's harder to make survivability work in your favor because survivability in and of itself does not complete missions or win scenarios. It has to be survivability plus something else, which must include being able to wear down your attackers somehow. If you can't wear down your attackers, either your defenses will eventually fail or it's a lot harder to change the status quo toward a win.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Which brings up an issue that Cryptic has shown it can deal with; objectives that don't involve "kill this, shoot that." Perhaps when more story content is released (stop snickering, I was being serious/hopeful) entire missions can be a puzzle, involving different objectives that depend on your class (even TACs can have a puzzle that involve advising on suggested ship deployments for the upcoming battle). Cryptic has shown it can do varying objectives and missions that don't involve distintergration. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I95Qgv7tynI
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
After re-reading this, I have an idea about what cruisers could actually use.
One way to make survivability work in a player's favor to complete the combat, is to introduce a time-based benefit that kicks in after a given amount of time or that builds up over time. Maybe something that allows a cruiser to fight better the longer it's engaged in an encounter, or perhaps the ability to summon reinforcements, or increases in power levels to represent the crew responding to the needs of the battle as it unfolds.
That seems to me to be more realistic than "space healing" allies and better suited to the cruiser's role as a damage soaker. The damage soaking buys time that the cruiser needs to prevail. And it would be "easily" countered by fragging the cruiser and resetting the timer. It can't be too much of an advantage, or be able to end the battle quickly, or everyone will be flying nothing but cruisers.
Would this create an imbalance that would break the game? Dunno.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Isn't that what Fleet Support and Emergency Power to "X" do?
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
Everybody (of the right level) can do those, though, and EPTX isn't really a time-based benefit but a spike in power level. Fleet Support isn't time-based, either... it's more of a distress call when you're already getting your butt kicked, and the reinforcements don't stick around.
The point is, survivability should work in a cruiser's favor to complete the scenario not just drag it out, but just how effective is it really?
Anyway, not terribly invested in that notion... it was just a thought.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
You may not be on the wrong track, however. With the advances in post-Dominion War technology, whose to say someone isn't developing a computer that, the longer it is in battle, the more it has time to analyze the enemy, and make microsecond adjustments to weapons and shields thus providing some over time abilities. Kind of like the principle of adaptive shielding, the computer can adapt weapon frequencies and targeting to provide the needed beam weapon burst at the right spot.
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
In reference to your quote in your reply. Its obviuos to most but completely missed by one.
R.I.P
This brings the idea up I saw in Nemisis... Why do we not have a tactical analysis general ability?
R.I.P
Can we make it that my captain class and my favorite ship class is the best.
k, thx.
If I were to say the OP is an engineering captain in a cruiser, how far am I from the truth?
I can not say. Can you and the truth occipy the same space. If so, you would be very close indeed.
R.I.P
Possibly the bulk of the playerbase is happier than you know Sophiligimo and you merely are on the ego-centric quest that we all think is the case.
As to why many are not jumping on the bandwagon, simply put I do not have to leap off a cliff to know thr experience would end poorly.
R.I.P
Wouldn't that pretty much make the sensor scan ability obsolete?
Translation: instead of the old trinity, you want a new trinity with your preferred ship and captain type coming out on top
Open-mind = Agrees with sophlogimo
R.I.P
And we're right back to cruisers running the show.